Nicoletta Momigliano

Yannis Hamilakis

Producing and Consuming the 'Minoans'

Archaeology and European Modernity

In Search of the Labyrinth explores the enduring cultural legacy of Minoan Crete by offering an overview of Minoan archaeology and modern responses to it in literature, the visual and performing arts, and other cultural practices. The focus is on the twentieth century, and on responses that involve a clear engagement with the material culture of Minoan Crete, not just with mythological narratives in Classical sources, as illustrated by the works of novelists, poets, avant-garde artists, couturiers, musicians, philosophers, architects, film directors, and even psychoanalysts – from Sigmund Freud and Marcel Proust to D.H. Lawrence, Cecil Day-Lewis, Oswald Spengler, Nikos Kazantzakis, Robert Graves, André Gide, Mary Renault, Christa Wolf, Don DeLillo, Rhea Galanaki, Léon Bakst, Marc Chagall, Mariano Fortuny, Robert Wise, Martin Heidegger, Karl Lagerfeld, and Harrison Birtwistle, among many others. The volume also explores the fascination with things Minoan in antiquity and in the present millennium: from Minoan-inspired motifs decorating pottery of the Greek Early Iron Age, to uses of the Minoans in twenty-first-century music, poetry, fashion, and other media.

The Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete

In Search of the Labyrinth

Katherine Harloe

Alexandre Farnoux

Hellenomania, the second volume in the MANIA series, presents a wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary exploration of the modern reception of ancient Greek material culture in cultural practices ranging from literature to architecture, stage and costume design, painting, sculpture, cinema, and the performing arts. It examines both canonical and less familiar responses to both real and imagined Greek antiquities from the seventeenth century to the present, across various national contexts. Encompassing examples from Inigo Jones to the contemporary art exhibition documenta 14, and from Thessaloniki and Delphi to Nashville, the contributions examine attempted reconstructions of an ‘authentic’ ancient Greece alongside imaginative and utopian efforts to revive the Greek spirit using modern technologies, new media, and experimental practices of the body. Also explored are the political resonances of Hellenomaniac fascinations, and tensions within them between the ideal and the real, the past, present, and future. Part I examines the sources and derivations of Hellenomania from the Baroque and pre-Romantic periods to the early twentieth century. While covering more canonical material than the following sections, it also casts spotlights on less familiar figures and sets the scene for the illustrations of successive waves of Hellenomania explored in subsequent chapters. Part II focuses on responses, uses, and appropriations of ancient Greek material culture in the built environment—mostly architecture—but also extends to painting and even gymnastics; it examines in particular how a certain idealisation of ancient Greek architecture affected its modern applications. Part III explores challenges to the idealisation of ancient Greece, through the transformative power of colour, movement, and of reliving the past in the present human body, especially female. Part IV looks at how the fascination with the material culture of ancient Greece can move beyond the obsession with Greece and Greekness.

Hellenomania

Zvi Lederman

Duncan MacKenzie

Shlomo Bunimovitz

In 1909 the Scottish archaeologist Duncan Mackenzie, Sir Arthur Evans’s right-hand man on the excavations of the legendary ‘Palace of Minos’ at Knossos since 1900, was appointed ‘Explorer’ of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). From the spring of 1910 until December 1912 he was engaged in archaeological fieldwork in Palestine, especially directing excavation campaigns at Ain Shems (biblical Beth Shemesh) – an important site in the Shephelah of Judah at the crossroads of Canaanite, Philistine, and Israelite cultures. Mackenzie published the results of his work in various issues of the Palestine Exploration Quarterly and Palestine Exploration Fund Annual. Because of a financial dispute with the PEF, however, he never submitted a detailed publication of his very last campaign at Beth Shemesh, conducted in November–December 1912. In 1992 Nicoletta Momigliano rediscovered Mackenzie’s lost manuscript on his latest discoveries at Beth Shemesh, which one of his nephews had kept for nearly 80 years at his old family home in the Scottish Highlands, in the small village of Muir of Ord. At about the same time, Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman initiated new excavations at Beth Shemesh which considerably changed previous interpretations of the site. This volume presents Mackenzie’s detailed discussion of his last excavations at Beth Shemesh in the light of these more recent discoveries. Although written over a century ago, Mackenzie’s manuscript deserves to be better known today; it not only provides significant new information on this important site but also constitutes an intriguing historical document, shedding light on the history of field archaeology and of biblical archaeology. Moreover, Mackenzie’s pioneering approach to archaeological fieldwork and the significance of his finds can often be better appreciated today, from the perspective of more recent developments and discoveries.

The Excavations of Beth Shemesh, November–December 1912

Nicoletta Momigliano

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