Aegean art and architecture

The amazing discovery of the "first European civilization" in Crete, Greece and the Aegean islands during the late 19th and early 20th centuries was beyond what anyone had imagined.

Beginning with the Neolithic period, before 3000 BCE, and ending at the close of the Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age of Hellenic Greece (c.1000 BCE), this is a comprehensive era.

This book introduces the reader to the historical and social contexts within which the arts - pottery, gold, silver, and ivory objects, gravestone reliefs, frescoes, and architecture - of the Aegean area developed.

It examines the functions they served, and the ways in which they can be read as evidence for the interactions of many different peoples and societies in the eastern Mediterranean.

It also provides an up-to-date critical historiography of the field in its relationship to the growth of ancient art history, archaeology, and museology in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving a contemporary audience a clear appreciation of what has been at stake in the uncovering and reconstruction.