In 1962, after a period of secret looting, the location of a shrine for the Greek Goddess Eileithyia was discovered by the police in south-central Crete at the modern town of Tsoutsouros, ancient Inatos. The cave dedicated to this ancient goddess of childbirth and motherhood was excavated that year by Nikolaos Platon and Costis Davaras on behalf of the Archaeological Museum in Herakleion. It was filled with remarkable votive gifts including over 100 items of gold along with Egyptian figurines and seal stones, bronze objects, and hundreds of clay figurines. The dates of the shrine's use extended from before 2000 B.C. to the Roman Imperial period. Many of the clay images are especially appropriate for this deity because they include pregnant women, embracing couples, figures in preparation for childbirth, mothers holding babies, and a young child in its crib. A Greek language book highlighting the shrine and its major discoveries is now translated into English. It provides images, catalog entries, and explanatory texts for the most important discoveries from this unique shrine.

On 23rd March, 1900, Sir Arthur Evans started to excavate the Palace at Knossos. Among the first parts to be investigated was the west wing of the Palace, the central part of which forms the Central Palace Sanctuary. This monument is of outstanding importance for our understanding of Minoan civilization. Although remarkable for his time, Evans's reports were not as complete as are required today. This work assembles all the evidence available and presents a close analysis of the history and interpretation of the Central Palace sanctuary. It discusses the architectural history of the area and reassesses its function through a study of its architecture and finds.

Since the summer of 2007, the world scenario has been dominated by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis and its repercussions on global financial markets and economic growth. As banks around the world wrote down their losses and governments intervened to rescue domestic financial institutions, financial distress severely hit the real economy leading to what has been widely defined as the worst recession since the 1930s. Under these conditions, along with the immediate concern for stemming the effects of the crisis, policy-makers around the world have been debating the long-term measures that have to be adopted in order to reduce the likelihood of future crises and to ensure stable economic growth. Although this debate has not yet produced significant transformations, it indicates a renewed concern about the institutional architecture that is meant to govern the global economic and financial system. This book tackles the issue of what the governance of the global economic and financial system looks like and what the prospects for its reform are. Specifically, the book will address the following three main themes: Governance: What is governance in the international economic system? What forms does it take? How did it come about? How can we study it?; Functions of governance: What are the functions of global economic governance? Who performs them? What are the rules and mechanisms that make global governance possible? Problems and prospects of governance: What are the problems in global economic governance? Is there a trade-off between legitimacy and efficiency? What are the prospects for reform of global economic governance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis? This book will: _ Provide a thorough analysis of the issues at stake in designing international rules and institutions able to govern the global economy; _ Illustrate and analyze virtually all the main institutions, rules, and arrangements that make up global economic governance, inscribing them within the function these institutions, rules, and arrangements are meant to perform; _ Discuss the problems that affect today’s global economic governance and assess alternative proposals to reform the international financial architecture.

Using archaeological, epigraphic, and literary sources; and incorporating current scholarly theories, this volume will serve as an excellent companion to any introduction to Greek mythology, showing a side of the Greek gods to which most students are rarely exposed. Detailed enough to be used as a quick reference tool or text, and providing a readable account focusing on the oldest, most widespread, and most interesting religious practices of the ancient Greek world in the Archaic and Classical periods, Ancient Greek Cults surveys ancient Greek religion through the cults of its gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines. Jennifer Larson conveniently summarizes a vast amount of material in many languages, normally inaccessible to undergrad students, and explores, in detail, the variety of cults celebrated by the Greeks, how these cults differed geographically, and how each deity was conceptualized in local cult titles and rituals. Including an introductory chapter on sources and methods, and suggestions for further reading this book will allow readers to gain a fresh perspective on Greek religion.