Anthony M. Snodgrass

In Arms and Armor of the Greeks, A. M. Snodgrass uses literary, archaeological, and artistic evidence to piece together a picture of ancient Greek armory from the Mycenaean period through the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Ancient Greece was neither populous nor rich in natural resources, Snodgrass explains, so it is remarkable that the Greeks succeeded in battle as often as they did. A new afterword written for this edition comments on recent research and discoveries in the field.

Arms and Armor of the Greeks

Fergus Millar

Michael Crawford

Emilio Gabba

If a scholar wishes to create a picture of a topical society in all its aspects, there is little of what he needs to know that he cannot know, although there may still be much that he cannot understand. For the history of Greece and Rome, there is a great deal that is simply unknowable. From the end of the archaic age of Greece, there is an unbroken sequence of works by Greek and, later, Roman historians down to the end of antiquity. Their vision and range of interest were often limited and much of what they produced has been lost. Some help may be derived from the documentary material supplied in antiquity, material that was the product of officials organising public activities, or heads of families organising their affairs, or individuals leaving their mark on the world. Beyond this, the evidence of archaeology and numismatics may also be helpful. The four essays in this book set out to characterise the nature of the ancient literary tradition, the inscriptional material, the archaeological and numismatic evidence and to explain how and for what purposes they may be used.

Sources for Ancient History

John L. Bintliff

Phil Howard

The Boeotia Survey in Greece is widely recognised as a milestone in Mediterranean landscape archaeology in the sophistication and rigour of its methodologies, and in the scale of the 25-year investigation. This first volume of the project's publication deals with the landscape that formed part of the territory of the ancient city of Thespiai. This landscape acted as the laboratory in which the project refined its methodology: the entire territory was traversed systematically by survey teams, and artefacts were collected not only from every archaeological site located but also as 'off-site' material indicative of land use practices such as manuring. The methodology made possible the construction of detailed period and density maps of rural activity, throwing unprecedented light on the interaction of the city with its hinterland particularly in its period of maximum size between the 5th century BC and the 6th century AD, as well as providing an exemplar for Mediterranean landscape archaeology more generally.

The Work of the Boeotia Survey (1989-1991) in the Southern Approaches to the City of Thespiai

Testing the Hinterland

To be the first full and convincing historian of obscure centuries and the interpreter of a difficult and unpromising material culture is more than falls to most scholars in the course of a lifetime. So wrote the anonymous TLS reviewer in 1972. The Dark Age of Greece is now reissued with an extensive foreword in which the author considers what effect three decades of research and scholarship have had on his original findings and arguments. Professor Snodgrass constructs a narrative of four centuries of Greek history from an exhaustive synthesis of literary and archaeological evidence - pottery, burial-practices, architecture and metalwork, and what can be discovered of religion, commerce, and language. He argues that this was in truth a dark age, from the perspective both of scholarship and, more importantly, of the people who lived through it in poor, isolated communities, conscious of lost skills and departed glories. The recession was caused, he shows, not by external factors but by processes of internal collapse. And yet, although the book reveals material discontinuity, its ultimate conclusion is that at the most fundamental level of culture, human population, a continuity can be discerned, between the greatness of Mycenae and the rebirth of urban civilization, the dawning of the Classical age. The Dark Age of Greece remains the most comprehensive and coherent account of this period in the history of ancient Greece. It is a vital source of ideas and evidence for students, as full of interest as ever for the general reader.

An Archaeological Survey of the Eleventh to the Eighth Centuries BC

The Dark Age of Greece

Classical archaeology probably enjoys a wider appeal than any other branch of classical or archaeological studies. As an intellectual and academic discipline, however, its esteem has not matched its popularity. Here, Anthony Snodgrass argues that classical archaeology has a rare potential in the whole field of the study of the past to make innovative discoveries and apply modern approaches by widening the aims of the discipline.

The Present State and Future Scope of a Discipline

An Archaeology of Greece

Gocha R. Tsetskhladze

A. J. N. W. Prag

The ideas of circumnavigation suggested by the title of this volume of essays, presented to one of the world's leading Classical archaeologists, conjures up the sense of excitement associated with a voyage of discovery. Over 40 friends and former doctoral students whose work was supervised by John Boardman during his time as Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Oxford University (1978-1994) have contributed essays on topics close to his heart. Now holding academic posts worldwide, they all recall with pleasure the enthusiasm and encouragement of their former teacher.

Papers on Classical Art and Archaeology Presented to Sir John Boardman

Periplous

The Age of Experiment

Archaic Greece

"Professor Snodgrass constructs a narrative of four centuries of Greek history from an exhaustive synthesis of literary and archaeological evidence - pottery, burial-practices, architecture and metalwork, and what can be discovered of religion, commerce, and language. He argues that this was in truth a dark age, from the perspective both of scholarship and, more importantly, of the people who lived through it in poor, isolated communities, conscious of lost skills and departed glories. The recession was caused, he shows, not by external factors but by processes of internal collapse. And yet, although the book reveals material discontinuity, its ultimate conclusion is that at the most fundamental level of culture, human population, a continuity can be discerned, between the greatness of Mycenae and the rebirth of urban civilization, the dawning of the Classical age." [Publisher's description].

Anthony M. Snodgrass

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