Synopses & Reviews
This book shows the reader
how much archaeologists can learn from recent developments in cultural
history.
Cultural historians deal with many of the same issues as
postprocessual archaeologists, but have developed much more
sophisticated methods for thinking about change through time and the
textuality of all forms of evidence. The author uses the particular case
of Iron Age Greece (c. 1100-300 BC), to argue that text-aided
archaeology, far from being merely a testing ground for prehistorians'
models, is in fact in the best position to develop sophisticated models
of the interpretation of material culture.
The book begins by examining the history of the institutions within
which archaeologists of Greece work, of the beliefs which guide them,
and of their expectations about audiences. The second part of the book
traces the history of equality in Iron Age Greece and its relationship
to democracy, focusing on changing ideas about class, gender, ethnicity,
and cosmology, as they were worked out through concerns with
relationships to the past and the Near East.
Ian Morris provides a new
interpretation of the controversial site of Lefkandi, linking it to
Greek mythology, and traces the emergence of radically new ideas of the
free male citizen which made the Greek form of democracy a possibility.
Review
"... [a] new and appealing
addition to the debates about 'what is archaeology'....Morris comes to
interesting conclusions about how the Greeks...controlled their environment and constructed a domestic and political
space requiring slavery and sharp gender distinctions."
CHOICE
Review
"Ian Morris' new book is a blast of fresh air..." Journal of Hellenic Studies
Review
"The way in which [Morris] has integrated the archaeology is masterful..." Antiquity
About the Author
Ian Morris is Willard Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology, and is Associate Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University. He was previously Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge and Associate Professor in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Chicago. His previous books include Burial and Ancient Society (1987), Death Ritual and Social Structure In Classical Antiquity (1992), Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies (ed., 1994), A New Companion to Homer (ed. with Barry Powell, 1997). and Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges (ed. with Barry Powell, 1997). He has carried out extensive excavation in Britain and Greece and is currently publishing Iron Age remains from Lerna, Greece.