Irene S. Lemos. The Protogeometric Aegean: the archaeology of the late eleventh and tenth centuries BC.

Irene S. Lemos. The Protogeometric Aegean: the archaeology of the late eleventh and tenth centuries BC. xxiv+319 pages, 26 figures, plates. 2002. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress; 0-19-925344-7 hardback 110 [pounds sterling]. The Early Iron Age of Greece remains something of a minorityinterest within both Greek archaeology and Hellenic studies moregenerally. Archaeology departments in the UK are filled with'Aegean prehistorians' (whose field of interest stops abruptlyaround 1100 BC), and departments of Classics and Ancient History do notlack for specialists in the Archaic and Classical periods. Only threeacademics currently employed in British universities can fairly becalled specialists in this field. Irene Lemos is one of them, and shetakes her chosen subject very seriously indeed. Her purpose in this bookis to provide a new synthesis of the material evidence from the earlier(Protogeometric) phase of what used to be called the 'Greek DarkAge', that is a period of little more than a century from about1025 to 900 BC. Synthesis here means not simply a collation COLLATION, descents. A term used in the laws of Louisiana. Collation -of goods is the supposed or real return to the mass of the succession, which an heir makes of the property he received in advance of his share or otherwise, in order that such property may be divided, together with the of material encounteredin books, but a detailed and comprehensive re-evaluation of the evidencebased in large part upon direct personal observation. The justificationfor a synthesis of this kind is principally that much more materialevidence has turned up since the earlier syntheses by Vincent Desboroughand Anthony Snodgrass Anthony McElrea Snodgrass FBA (July 7, 1934) is an academic and archaeologist noted for his work on Archaic Greece.Born to William McElrea and Kathleen (Owen) Snodgrass, he gained his M.A. and D.Phil in 1963. were published in the early 1970s. Much of thisnew evidence comes from Lefkandi, a site with which the author has beenintimately connected and which has transformed our view not only ofGreece but the whole Mediterranean world in the Early Iron Age. Herapproach is to examine evidence by material and type. So, after a briefintroduction, readers are thrown into the deep end of relative andabsolute chronology, an area where radiocarbon has, unfortunately, nothelped us much in recent years. This is followed by a discussion ofpottery, by far the longest chapter in the book. Pots are discussed byshape, then region, with painted finewares first and other wares second.Chapters on 'metal and other finds', 'settlements andstructures' and 'burial practices' follow. The whole isrounded off by some lengthy conclusions, where the evidence is gonethrough again by region. This book raises, in rather acute form, the question of the valueof archaeological syntheses. What is a synthesis For? If the book is toserve as a work of reference, then how wide should its scope be?Certainly the requirements of autopsy have rather shrunk theProtogeometric Aegean. Western Greece (including the importantsettlement of Nichoria) is only discussed in the conclusions, and thequestion of the late W.D.E. Coulson's proposed alternativeterminology to 'Protogeometric' is thereby sidestepped. Cretehas been entirely omitted. Much of the book is taken up with definingand refining the terms archaeologists use. Reducing the scope forterminological ambiguity is certainly a valuable service which allscholars working in the field will appreciate. The clear principle ofthe book's organization, the quality and quantity of itsillustrations, the provision of useful appendices and of an index allmake the task of finding the information you need that much easier. Ifyou study the Early Iron Age, you will certainly need this book. Archaeological syntheses, however, used not simply to be works ofreference. Childe's in particular, from the Danube in prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to onwards, had a thesis to advance. So did the earlier syntheses of bothDesborough and Snodgrass. Desborough argued, albeit obliquely, that theculture change evident throughout mainland Greece around 1050 BC must inlarge part be due to an influx of newcomers from the North. Snodgrasshad two theses. One was the 'Childean' thesis that theintroduction of ironworking transformed Greece both economically andsocially. The other was that the collapse of the Mycenaean palacesprecipitated a wider economic and political collapse that impoverishedGreece for several centuries, and turned the period into a true'Dark Age'. It is much more difficult to summarise Lemos'thesis, except in negative terms. It is clear at least what she isagainst. One of her aims was to qualify Desborough's andSnodgrass's interpretations, and she has an obvious mission todispose of To determine the fate of; to exercise the power of control over; to fix the condition, application, employment, etc. of; to direct or assign for a use.See also: Dispose the term 'Dark Age' with its negative connotations.But it is not at all clear what general picture of the earlier EarlyIron Age is to take their place. This is not because she ignores othermore explicitly theoretical interpretations that have been put forwardin recent years. She is scrupulous in mentioning (and referencing) everyone of these. Her encyclopaedic Adj. 1. encyclopaedic - broad in scope or content; "encyclopedic knowledge"encyclopediccomprehensive - including all or everything; "comprehensive coverage"; "a comprehensive history of the revolution"; "a comprehensive survey"; "a comprehensive education" referencing, however, has the effect ofreducing everyone else's arguments to a collection of opinions,each one no more valid than the other. But such consistent agnosticism agnosticism(ăgnŏs`tĭsĭzəm), form of skepticism that holds that the existence of God cannot be logically proved or disproved. Among prominent agnostics have been Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and T. H. (or, if you will, dispassionate dis��pas��sion��ate?adj.Devoid of or unaffected by passion, emotion, or bias. See Synonyms at fair1.dis��pas disengagement disengagement/dis��en��gage��ment/ (dis?en-gaj��ment) emergence of the fetus from the vaginal canal. dis��en��gage��mentn. ) prevents her from gettingto grips with the arguments of others. Knowledge is never simply acollection of facts, and evidence is never neutral. It must always bedeployed for or against one interpretation over another. We now have many more facts about this period--not all of them, ofcourse, and not all of the facts that we would like. Dr Lemos has donewonders in presenting scholars with most, if not all, the availablefacts from the Protogeometric Aegean. She is now engaged in recoveringmore information about Early Iron Age settlements, with the renewal ofexcavations at Lefkandi Xeropolis. This is one area where the old adage,familiar from undergraduate essays, 'we need more evidence',really does ring true. But there is an equal need in this period forsomething else: more arguments, and more passion. JAMES WHITLER British School at Athens The British School at Athens (BSA) (Greek: Βρετανική Σχολή Αθηνών) is one of the 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes in Athens, Greece. , 52 Odos Souedias, 106 76 Athens, Greece.