ARTICLES | 2026
Redistribution in Aegean palatial societies. A view from outside the palace: The sanctuary and the Damos in Mycenaean economy and society
American Journal of Archaeology115.2 (2011): 207-217.
The Linear B offering tablets at first seem to indicate that Mycenaean palaces engaged in a form of redistribution with respect to the religious sphere. That the palace sent offerings caused many scholars to assume the religious sector was dependent on the palaces for its daily maintenance.Redistribution in Aegean palatial societies. Redistribution and political economies in Bronze Age Crete
American Journal of Archaeology115.2 (2011): 197-205.
Palatial authorities in Bronze Age Crete traditionally are thought to have functioned as centralized redistributive agents, reallocating wealth to the community as a whole and providing security in times of crisis. These institutions were gradually transformed, however, into mobilizers of wealth, rendering support exclusively to the elite and their associates.Redistribution in Aegean palatial societies. Before the palaces: Redistribution and chiefdoms in mainland Greece
American Journal of Archaeology115.2 (2011): 185-195.
This article examines redistribution as formulated by scholars of the later Mycenaean palatial economies to ascertain its applicability to the Early Bronze Age (EBA) mainland. Lacking textual sources in the EBA, the emphasis is on archaeological correlates of redistribution as both a mode of transaction and as an institution.Redistribution in Aegean palatial societies. Redistributive economies from a theoretical and cross-cultural perspective
American Journal of Archaeology115.2115.2 (2011): 177-184.
In this article, we address the historical question of why Aegean Bronze Age economies are characterized as redistributive systems and whether it is appropriate to continue to describe them as such. We argue that characterizing the political economies of the Aegean as redistributive is inaccurate and misleading.Redistribution in Aegean palatial societies. Introduction: Why redistribution?
American Journal of Archaeology115.2 (2011): 175-176.
This collection of papers explores the role of redistribution in Minoan and Mycenaean economies. The term ‘redistribution’ was coined to describe a particular mode of economic exchange employed in ancient economies, particularly Near Eastern temple economies, and later applied to the Aegean.The shipwreck of Odysseus: Strong and weak imagery in Late Geometric art
American Journal of Archaeology 115.1 (2011): 1-18.
The once-popular interpretation of a well-known scene on a Late Geometric oinochoe in Munich as the shipwreck of Odysseus is now regularly dismissed: like other ambiguous scenes of late eighth-century art, it has been banished from the ranks of early mythological narratives.Le cuivre chypriote et la Crète. Les régions d’importation des lingots peau-de-bœuf
Revue archéologique 2010 (n° 1): 47-65.
Since the so-called “copper oxhide ingots” are considered one of the most common forms of raw copper exchange in the Mediterranean Late Bronze Age, the question of their provenance and function has received the attention of scholars. Cyprus has long been considered to be the centre of this international trade, due to the intense extraction which is attested on the island as early as the Early Bronze Age.Animal bodies and ontological discourse in the Greek Neolithic
In S. Nanoglou & L. Meskell (eds), The Materiality of Representation, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16.3 (September 2009): 184-204.
The present article tries to assess the ways that animal bodies were represented in the Neolithic of Northern Greece. Contending that representations always have a material presence (be they spoken, depicted or anything else), an attempt is made to sort out how the specificity of this presence constitutes a frame of reference for the deployment of social action. Animal representations seem to be particularly related with certain materials, especially clay, and certain objects, mostly clay vessels. It is suggested that these objects allow animals to be incorporated in social action in a very specific manner, one that is further defined by the contexts of their use.Articulate bodies: Forms and figures at Çatalhöyük
In S. Nanoglou & L. Meskell (eds), The Materiality of Representation, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16.3 (September 2009): 205-230.
This paper examines the materializing practices of bodies at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. We focus on the clay and stone figurine corpus (over 1,800 total, with over 1,000 of those being diagnostic), but also consider other media such as wall paintings and sculptured features, as well as the skeletal evidence.The materiality of representation: A preface
In S. Nanoglou & L. Meskell (eds), The Materiality of Representation, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16.3 (September 2009): 157-161.
Issues of materiality are gaining ground in archaeology, although there are still conflicting views over the usefulness of the concept. Despite the controversy over the concept itself, all interlocutors converge in the need to focus on the material aspect of the world, on the material part of material culture. Historically, this could be seen as a counteraction to an overt emphasis upon the cultural as an intellectual construct that has dominated many recent attempts to reconstruct the past, but the move does not restrict itself to that. Accordingly, in this issue our understanding and use of the term is on the broadest level. It pertains to the “thingness” of things, to that aspect of things that gives them a material presence in the world.New evidence on the religious use of Room 67 at Hala Sultan Tekke. A tribute to Paul Åström
Journal of Prehistoric Religion XXII (2010): 57-61.
In 1988, the archaeological team under the direction of Paul Åström unearthed in Area 8 at Hala Sultan Tekke a building complex consisting of five rooms. Room 67 is the main room of this complex. The complex was interpreted as a sanctuary as its plan is considerable to that of sanctuaries at Kition and Enkomi.Trade, politics and religion in the Early Iron Age Aegean: Explaining the sacred island of Delos
Journal of Prehistoric Religion XXII (2010): 39-56.
Delos was a major religious centre in antiquity, yet the origins of this small island’s earliest known cults – those of Apollo, Artemis and Hera – are poorly understood. The author argues that sanctuaries dedicated to these deities developed in the Early Iron Age, mainly in the eighth century BC.Maternity, children, and ‘Mother Goddesses’ in Minoan iconography
Journal of Prehistoric Religion XXII (2010): 7-38.
This article reconsiders both the presence and role of maternal, kourotrophic, and child-oriented iconography in the Minoan repertoire. Contrary to the received wisdom, the only kourotrophic iconography in Minoan Crete is not a Mycenaean-influenced figural group from Mavrospelio cemetery, but a strongly Egyptianizing plaque from Monastiraki.A rare Neolithic find from the Aegean: A fibre from Drakaina Cave, Kephalonia Island, W. Greece
Online article (http://www.drakainacave.gr)
The article publishes a neolithic fibre from Drakaina Cave (Kephalonia, Greece). This uncommon material was found in a rich archaeological unit of the eastern roofed part of the cave, particularly in the southern part of trench Δ5 , excavated in July 2004 and dated most probably to the late 6th millennium BC (radiocarbon dating is pending). Considering the nature of the deposit of this unit, it consisted mainly of ash and charcoal fragments alongside with burnt food remains, i.e. bones, seeds, as well other plant substance. There is little doubt that the unit represents, largely, the in situ remnants of a hearth. From the aforementioned unit/deposit, a soil sample (6 litres in sum) was collected for water flotation, in which the microscopic fibre was discovered.