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This paper presents evidence for feasting in the late Iron Age I Philistine culture from a circumscribed locale in Area A at the site of Tell es-Safi/Gath. The remains are characterized by architectural features, installations and rubbish dumps containing a rich array of animal bones, symbolic objects, and a series of unique installations all dating to the tenth and eleventh centuries B.C.E. These activities are informed by parallels from Mycenaean Late Bronze Age feasting events, though at Tell es-Safi/Gath they may have served a different purpose, specifically, the maintenance and promotion of Philistine cultural identity through the adoption of behaviors and symbols from the Aegean past by portions of the Philistine population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic or cultural designations of past societies have often been employed uncritically and even casually. This general situation applies specifically to Mycenaean civilization. This article therefore considers a set of interrelated questions: What or who was a Mycenaean? How did the people termed "Mycenaeans" come into existence? What did it mean to be Mycenaean? Could one choose to be, or not to be, Mycenaean? Was there a difference between being Mycenaean and becoming Mycenaean? And finally, how is Mycenaean identity related to culture, class, and social organization? After providing theoretical, methodological, anthropological, and archaeological contexts for these questions, this paper offers some suggestions about how or whether they can be answered, examining issues of ethnicity, cultural identity, and spatial organization. It concludes by considering these areas as they apply to the Aegean Bronze Age.* [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nakassis et al., in their contribution to this Forum, argue that the term "redistribution" has been used with a range of meanings in the context of the Aegean Bronze Age and so obscures rather than illuminates the emergence and functioning of political economies. They call for detailed empirical investigation rather than reliance on ambiguous idealized types. Lupack and Schon concur, arguing respectively that the palace shared control of the Mycenaean economy with sanctuaries and local communities and that centralized production of craft goods (an,d thus elite strategies of wealth finance) developed late at the palace of Pylos. Pullen finds little archaeological support for Renfrew's extrapolation of centralized redistribution to the Early Bronze Age, while Christakis uses evidence of storage to argue the same for Prepalatial Crete and to play down the scale and importance of elite redistribution in the Minoan palaces. The calls for circumspect use of the term "redistribution" and for detailed empirical investigation are applauded, although these five papers arguably do not all attack the same form of redistribution. This response argues that redistribution sensu Polanyi, Finley, and Killen (i.e., centrally administered movements of goods and services without equivalence of value) retains considerable heuristic value in investigation of both textual and archaeological evidence for Bronze Age political economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact between Egypt and the Aegean during the Late Bronze Age, especially the relationship between Minoan Crete and New Kingdom Egypt, has been the subject of much study. The relationship between the Greek (Mycenaean) mainland and Egypt is generally regarded as a more elusive topic, and most scholars seem to consider interaction between the two a matter of irregular exchange via middlemen (e.g., on Cyprus, in the Levant), rather than direct contact. This paper seeks to stimulate new thinking on this subject by positing the possibility that exchange between the two was more than a haphazard phenomenon, arguing that it was, instead, a highly organized system that involved the active engagement of the ruling elite at Mycenae as well as the pharaonic court. Using both archaeological and paleobotanical data and focusing my examination on the import into Egypt of Mycenean pottery, particularly stirrup jars, which are known generally as containers for olive oil, I demonstrate that olives and/or olive oil were a crucial part of this Late Bronze Age interstate connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to show that the interpretation of the complex cultural and political configurations of Iron Age Cyprus rests on a 1,000-year long macrohistoric overview that focuses on continua rather than breaks. It maintains that the first-millennium B.C.E. kingdoms operated on very much the same decentralized politicoeconomic system as Late Cypriot polities in the 13th and 12th centuries. It argues that the long-term dynamics of this Late Cypriot model were actively and successfully promoted in the Archaic and Classical periods by preponderantly Greek central authorities. It is mostly Greek-named basileis (kings) that are found closely associated with the fundamental continua—the Cypriot script, the regional settlement hierarchy pattern, cult practice, and an economy based on trading metals—to the end of the fourth century B.C.E. This article argues that Greek-speaking people had become a constituent part of the sociopolitical structure of the island by the last centuries of the second millennium as a result of a migration episode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of an assemblage of Middle Minoan (MM) IB pottery from a closed deposit known as the "Lakkos" at the Minoan palace of Petras in eastern Crete. The various ware groups are discussed with the aim of improving our understanding of the Protopalatial ceramic sequence in this part of Crete and the function of stylistic variation in a palatial context. Recent studies of the earliest palaces have shifted discussion away from the traditional view of the palace as an economic center by emphasizing evidence for regionally diverse sociopolitical configurations during the period. The MM IB-IIB palace is viewed not as a monolithic institution controlling contiguous territories but as a venue for the articulation of dominant ideologies in contexts suggesting a wide range of sociopolitical interactions within and outside the palace. Current approaches consider various forms of data, including elite or distinctly palatial styles of pottery, which are taken as symbolic referents in public rituals. My analysis of the Petras Lakkos pottery is informed by this paradigm shift: I argue that styles of pottery and stylistic relationships between pottery, seals, hieroglyphic documents, and peak sanctuary figurines are related to the visual expression of the identities of competing corporate groups. Drinking sets in different ware groups identify distinct social units or ritual roles in a phase immediately prior to the foundation of the palace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to compare the empirical results from two alternative representations of a stochastic multi-output technology using trip-level data of the inshore fleet in Greece. The comparisons involve technical efficiency scores, structure of the underlying technology, and technical efficiency determinants. The stochastic multi-output distance function and the stochastic ray production function indicate the same technology structure, which is non-separable in inputs and outputs, non-homothetic in inputs, and exhibits increasing returns to scale. The relative rankings of efficiency scores are very similar. The distributions of efficiency scores, however, are different, and the ray production frontier yields systematically lower technical inefficiency levels than the multi-output distance function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the international conference on the Palaeolithic of Greece and Adjacent Areas, held in Ioannina Island in Greece on September 6-11, 1994 is presented. The conference was purposed to stimulating the involvement in he Palaeolithic archeology of Greece, and improving communication among those working in Greece and adjacent areas. Thirty-nine papers were exhibited on the results of work in Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and the republics of the former Yugoslavia.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Aspects of social organization of domestic space in Classical and Hellenistic Greece.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Importance of social models and analytical methods for the study of ancient Minoan households and evaluation of the alternative interpretations put forward for the Early Minoan community at Fournou Korifi, Myrtos.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Reconstructions of the pediments of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Evidence for the presence of an enclave colony of Canaanite merchants and craftsmen located at Akrotiri on Thera during the Late Bronze Age.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Overview of scientific knowledge about human-plant interaction in the Aegean region, the exploitation of wild plants and the cultivation of domesticated plants.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Comparison of the maidens portrayed on the east frieze of the Parthenon in Greece and the young women found on fourth century B.C. Attic funerary and votive monuments.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Determination of the date of the third period of the Athenian assembly place on the Pnyx.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Argument for the existence of a koine of design for domestic architecture in Classical Greek city-states.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Excavation of a large multiroomed structure during the Late Geometric/Early Orientalizing period on the Kastro, an Iron Age settlement in Crete.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Excavations at Kommos, Crete which yielded ashlar buildings.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Archaeological evidence of Roman ruler Augustus' beneficence toward Athens, Greece as indicated in the reinvigoration of several Athenian sanctuaries.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Vrokastro Archaeological Survey Project located near the Bay of Mirabello in eastern Crete; Reconstruction of the demographic and agricultural patterns of the Turkish and modern periods.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Athenian monuments produced during the decades that witnessed the establishment of democracy.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. How democracy affected Ancient Greek society and economy.

Presents an abstract of a paper presented during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Results of the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Skeletal remains of a corpus of Bronze Age Greek women as indicators of their health status.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Archaeological material from the medieval settlement of Paliochora on the Greek island of Kythera founded in 1180-1190.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Use of evidence from excavated houses in determining the nature of social interaction within the Greek household, focusing in particular on gender relations.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Distinctive architectural features at the `cult' villa at Makrygialos which give the building a palatial character not normally attested at other Minoan villas.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Imperial monuments celebrating Roman military victory portray the `clementia Augusti' extended to conquered barbarians by a merciful emperor; Adoption of the imperial virtue of clemency in private monuments.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Evidence for the continuation throughout the Middle Minoan period of state formation in Protopalatial Crete.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Monuments depicting Decebalus' suicide on Trajan's column and the suicidal barbarian chieftains of several battle sarcophagi.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Results of excavation and survey in east Crete where evidence exists for the early stages of Protopalatial civilization.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Evidence of the narcissistic, heterosexual and homosexual elements in Greek hoplite warfare, particularly in terms of battle wear.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Description of two Archaic statues found in Cyclades identified as a portrayal of an offering-bearer to Apollo.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Evidence for wine-making in Bronze Age Crete.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Pottery as a way for tracing a disruption or change in the palatial organization of south-central Crete during the transition from the Proto- to the Neopalatial period.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Remains of the Temple of Asklepios as evidence of Late Antique pagan cult activity at a temple in Greece.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Byzantine 11th and 12th century stewpots associated with the Frankish occupation of the Peloponnese in Corinth, Greece.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Skeletal and dental evidence of a relationship among diet, nutrition and social status in Late Bronze Age Athens.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Information on subsistence practices in Vronda and Kastro sites in east Crete during the transition from a Minoan postpalatial to an early Iron Age economy.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Argument that the Parthenon frieze in Athens, Greece should be more properly associated with Boedromion, the month in which the Battle of Salamis took place.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Significance of Pheidias' bronze monument called Athena Promachos located on the acropolis in Athens, Greece.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Determination of the identity and significance of the female stool-bearers known as `diphrophoroi' on the east frieze of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Identification of the charioteer portrayed on the metopes along the north side of the Parthenon.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Dedications from more than one individual found on the Athenian acropolis; Effect of joint dedications on scientific understanding of who dedicated statues, reliefs and statuettes to Athena on the acropolis and why.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Reinvestigation of the Julian Basilica at Corinth in light of the identification of new architectural elements.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Actium Project to study the submerged remains at the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf on the western coast of Greece; Evidence from the Battle of Actium.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Reconstruction of the evolving Holocene coastal landscape initiated by the Nikopolis Project in southern Epirus.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Two inscriptions and a grave monument at the gymnasium and stadium at Nikopolis.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Dating of the walls at Asine in the Argolid.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Objects which represented votives in the Temple of Poseidon at Isthmia, Greece.