Aegaean Archaeology

""En Filipo II y el Arte de la Guerra tendremos la oportunidad de conocer en profundidad a uno de los más grandes reyes de la antigua Macedonia. Gracias a su habilidad como estratega, diplomático, político y soldado, heredó un reino pobre, débil y acosado por innumerables enemigos y lo transformó en el más poderoso de toda Grecia.

A lo largo de sus páginas podremos conocer la historia del reino Macedonio, desde sus orígenes míticos hasta la formación de un imperio, de la mano del que, a la postre, se convertiría en el padre del mítico Alejandro Magno y en el forjador de un nuevo ejército que cambiaria el devenir de la guerra en la Antigüedad. Filipo II fue el creador de la falange macedonia, formación que se demostraría como inigualable en el campo de batalla y que reportaría incontables victorias sobre poderosos enemigos, como los ilirios, los tesalios, los tracios, los beocios o los atenienses. Pero no sólo eso, logró integrar en el campo de batalla a la infantería y a la caballería para emplearlos en nuevas formaciones tácticas: armó a sus soldados con las míticas sarissas y apreció como pocos las posibilidades militares que la maquinaria de guerra podía proporcionarle, siendo el mecenas de numerosos avances en este campo. Soñó con conquistar el Imperio persa, cuando ya había logrado lo que nadie antes fue capaz: el control de Grecia.

Sólo la muerte le arrebató esa hazaña, pero sentó las bases de lo que más tarde conseguiría su propio hijo. Su figura levantó tanto odios como pasiones; se le conocía como mujeriego y bebedor, pero también por su habilidad para la oratoria, por sus astucia, determinación y valor. Siempre luchó en primera línea junto a sus soldados y nunca permitió que éstos le llamaran rey, sino solo "General".

From the Early Bronze Age (EBA) Aegean, balance weights are known so far only from two sites in the north-east, from Troy and from Poliochni (Phase Yellow). These weights look very similar to sling-bullets/sling-shots, and they are therefore called sphendonoid weights. Might we not expect to find balance weights also in the southern Aegean, in this age of emerging complexity and the first extensive use of metals, in this so-called “Period of the Corridorhouses” of the later EH II on the mainland?
Typical for Early Bronze Age II on the southern Mainland and the Cyclades are spool-shaped or cylindrical, neatly made objects with polished surfaces. Often they are made from an attractive stone, such as marble, jasper or breccia, but also from spondylus. In this paper I am presenting evidence strongly suggesting that these objects are in fact balance weights: I will therefore refer to them as spool-shaped weights.

The first part of the book presents archaeological evidence from the Prehistoric Aegean and onward, which demonstrates the existence of an enduring, highly valued and advanced prehistoric Aegean apiculture. Some well known ceramic vessels from Knossos "palace" are identified here for the first time with beekeeping paraphernalia thus proving the existence of a systematic Minoan apiculture. In the second part, an alternative view is proposed for some of the most important scenes on Minoan and Mycenaean gold rings, seals, and clay sealings that have led Evans, Nilsson, and many others over the past century to various speculations regarding the nature of the Prehistoric Aegean religion. By applying a naturalistic context of interpretation on the depicted scenes, apiculture paraphernalia and practices are recognized, instead of the religious symbols of the "sacred tree", "flying gods", "baetyls and birds epiphany of deities", "great goddess", "horns of consecration", "altars", "temenos" and "double axes".
The authors conclude that established ideas about the prehistoric Aegean religion should be reconsidered, thus creating significant challenges for future research."

Despite much intensive archaeological fieldwork, several regions of Greece
still have not yielded any evidence for palatial structures. It may be, therefore,
that they never gave rise to full palatial states. Rather, in regions such as
Achaia, local elites may have functioned within less-articulated organizational
orders (perhaps chiefdoms), which did not require the centralization of
economic activities. These polities existed alongside the more complex palatial
states, but it is not necessary to posit that they were subjected to or dependent
on the palaces economically or politically, although their opportunities may
have been constricted by the presence of the larger power. After the collapse
of the palatial system around 1200 b.c., some of these smaller polities seem
to have flourished in the LH IIIC period.

The question of whether the ritual of burnt animal sacrifice (θυσία or ‘Brandopfer’), involving the ritual burning of bare bones wrapped in fat and covered with small pieces of meat representing the god’s portion, was practiced in Mycenaean Greece has been the subject of some discussion. Recently, possible evidence for burnt animal sacrifice was reported for several Mycenaean sites by the means of observation of heavily burnt and carbonized animal bones taken as indication for this kind of offering (as distinguished from unburnt or lightly charred osteological material taken to represent the refuse left from ritual meals). In addition, the entry di-wo-nu-so-jo e-ka-ra, the hearth (ἐσχάρα) of Dionysus, documented on tablet Ea 102+107 from Pylos, seems to provide textual evidence for the existence of a sacrificial hearth or altar serving as a structure where the fire was lit and the offering burnt. As a consequence, I will argue for a Late Bronze Age date of the ritual practice of burning certain parts of the victim. Another kind of ritual involving the use of fire seems to be indicated by the term tu-wo. Of particular interest is tablet Fq 126 from Thebes, which starts with the temporal clause o-te tu-wo-te-to (ὅτε θύος θέτο). It will be suggested that this entry is likely to refer to aromatic substances placed on an altar in order to be burnt as an offering. Thus, there is probable textual evidence for two rituals based on fire. Both rituals may have served as a kind of communication between the human celebrants and divinities by means of the smoke rising above from the fire. This paper seeks to investigate the symbolic meaning of these rituals and tries to provide some insight into underlying belief systems.

This paper is extracted from my 2017 book titled In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great. Please see Press release for my 2019 book titled Unearthing the Family of Alexander the Great for a fuller account of the Vergina tombs.

The ancient city of Aegae in Greece, where the royal tombs are located, dates back to the 7th century BCE; it became Macedonia's first capital after it was conglomerated from a collection of villages into a city in the 5th century BCE. Aegae was eventually supplanted by a new capital at Pella in the 4th century BCE but retained its status as the spiritual home and burial ground of the Macedonian kings. Aegae becomes lost to history Both settlements were partially destroyed by Rome in 168 BCE following the Battle of Pydna when Macedonia was finally defeated, and a landslide buried the older capital in the 1st century, after which it was uninhabited. The name 'Aegae' ceased to be used and its history was grazed over by goats and sheep and survived in oral legend only, while papyri and faded vellums told of a former city of kings. Only a nearby early Christian basilica built from the stones of the ancient ruins marked the forgotten location. In the 1920s, on what had once been the southeast side of the Macedonian royal palace, Greek refugees from the Euxine Pontus region of Asia Minor founded the village of Vergina, and the still unidentified fallen stones were used as masonry in the new houses. Supervised excavations at what turned out to be the founding city of the Argead (otherwise, Temenid) dynasty go back to the 1860s when a dig by French archaeologist, Léon Heuzey, sponsored by Napoleon III, revealed a Macedonian tomb next to the village of Palatitsia, 'the small palaces', a name that hinted tantalisingly at its former significance, though it was erroneously thought to be the site of the ancient city of Valla. In the 1930s, Konstantinos Romaios, a professor of archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, revealed a further tomb, but as Albert Olmstead's above

Weaving in Bronze Age Greece has been acknowledged as highly advanced technology resulting in greatly valued products of supreme quality and high importance to local economies and external trade. Because of the notably time-consuming character of the textile craft and its overall complexity, it is assumed that even slight changes in textile technology (including weaving) must have had a direct impact not only on the properties and presumably the aesthetic qualities of textiles, but also (by affecting the amount of the necessary workload) on economics and social life of past societies.
Traditional and innovative elements in the weaving craft throughout the Bronze Age are not easy to understand based on the archaeological evidence. They may be grasped in presumably progressive changes in the forms of textile tools (namely loom weights) and their distribution which may have reflected the transfer of technical novelties, skills and techniques, and they can be observed in the iconography of fabrics and cloths.
In this paper, diachronic changes and the long-lasting traditionalism of certain types of loom weights are considered and analysed in search of gradual development and ground-breaking novelties of the Aegean Bronze Age weaving technology.

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Αφορμή για το άρθρο αυτό αποτέλεσαν δύο δεδομένα: Το πρώτο, η έλλειψη στις σχετικές με την πειρατεία πηγές, έρευνες και μελέτες, ή και η αδυναμία των συγγραφέων που ασχολήθηκαν με αυτήν, να προσδιορίσουν την καταγωγή της σημαίας-σύμβολο των πειρατών. Το δεύτερο ήταν ένα film ιστορικού περιεχόμενου στην ελληνική TV με τίτλο «Πειρατές από τον Οδυσσέα μέχρι τον Barbarossa » (ΕΤ1, 14-1-2017), στην οποία καθηγητής της Πολεοδομίας του National Technical University of Athens ανέφερε ότι στον ελληνικό χώρο σημαία πειρατείας με νεκροκεφαλή και κάτω από αυτήν χιαστί οστά δεν υπήρχε. Εκείνο που υπήρχε ήταν μόνο λάβαρα των καπεταναίων-ιδιοκτητών των πλοίων.

Despite much intensive archaeological fieldwork, several regions of Greece still have not yielded any evidence for palatial structures. It may be, therefore, that they never gave rise to full palatial states. Rather, in regions such as Achaia, local elites may have functioned within less-articulated organizational orders (perhaps chiefdoms), which did not require the centralization of economic activities. These polities existed alongside the more complex palatial states, but it is not necessary to posit that they were subjected to or dependent on the palaces economically or politically, although their opportunities may have been constricted by the presence of the larger power. After the collapse of the palatial system around 1200 b.c., some of these smaller polities seem to have flourished in the LH IIIC period.

Τμήμα των καταλοίπων ανθρώπινης δραστηριότας από το σπήλαιο Σκοτεινή αποτελεί και το πολυάριθμο σύνολο οστέινων τεχνουργημάτων. Στην συντριπτική πλειονότητά τους  προέρχονται από τις πολιτισμικές επιχώσεις της ΝΝ. Πολύ λίγα είναι τα τεχνουργήματα που μπορούν να αποδοθούν με ασφάλεια στην ΠΕ.
    Τα τεχνουργήματα υπό συζήτηση από την Σκοτεινή είναι κυρίως εργαλεία. Άλλα είναι αντικείμενα ειδικής αξιακής χρήσης, ενώ πολύ λίγς είναι ημίεργα καθώς και απορρίμματα κατεργασίας. 
    Στην εργασία αυτή παρουσιάζονται τα τεχνουργήματα της κατηγορίας των εργαλείων, ειδικότερα εκείνα από κόκκαλο (μακρά οστά και πλευρά) και κέρατο (στέλεχος και διακλαδώσεις), που προέρχονται από τις νεολιθικές επιχώσεις.