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Aegeus Society For Aegean Prehistory

BOOKS | 2016

1 May 2018

Prehistoric Thera

Christos Doumas

Prehistoric Thera

City: Athens

Year: 2016

Publisher: John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation

Description: Hardback, 323 p., numerous colour figures, 27×34.5 cm

Abstract

The John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation lavishes particular care and attention on the publication series ‘The Museums Cycle;, which it sponsors annually and which now
numbers eighteen volumes. For our Foundation, every new publication is a cultural message, as with the distilled knowledge and the beauteous art that emerge from its pages, it carries to the ends of the earth the everyday life, the spirit, the mores and the values that were born and developed in this corner of the Mediterranean.

Thera is a place that attracts and will continue to attract the interest of the whole world. The stentorious beauty of its volcanic landscape is the obvious reason. However, its cultural reserves of global ambit will constitute a diachronic pole of attraction for the initiated aficianodo of a civilization that flourished and vanished, remaining silent for centuries, until the excavation that reveals it commenced.

The author of the volume Prehistoric Thera, Professor Emeritus Christos Doumas, a true philosopher of the discipline of Archaeology, which he has been serving loyally for
decades, takes us back to an island society thriving in the Cyclades some four thousand years ago. In an engaging manner, he describes the activities of its inhabitants who, through seafaring and maritime trade, turned the settlement at Akrotiri into an important harbour and prosperous urban centre in the prehistoric Aegean. The mercantile transactions of the Theran seafarers with the Mediterranean and the world of the East brought great wealth, evidenced by the monumental public and private buildings that graced the city, and contributed to the burgeoning of figurative art focused on man and his environment. But what makes Akrotiri unique in the world is its wall-paintings. For this reason, readers of the book Prehistoric Thera will enjoy an exclusive privilege, as presented in its pages, for the first time, are restored mural paintings and pottery which are not exhibited in the Museum of Prehistoric Thera.

Read the whole book online

Contents

Foreword by the Minister of Culture and Sports [11]

Foreword by Marianna J. Latsis [13]

Author’s Preface [15]

PART 1 – THE CITY AT AKROTIRI

Introduction [17]

History of the excavation [18]

The founding of the settlement [21]

From Neolithic village το proto-urban centre (Early Cycladic period: 3rd millennium BC) [25]

The Middle Cycladic town (2000-1650 BC) [26]

The city at Akrotiri in its Heyday (c. 1650-1615 BC) [30]

Xeste 3 [34]

Xeste 4 [42]

West House [43]

House of the Ladies [48]

Building Complex Delta [54]

Building Complex Beta [72]
Building Gamma [79]

Ρithoi Storeroom [80]

Room Delta 16 [85]

PART II – THE MUSEUM OF PREHISTORIC THERA

The building and its history [93]

The philosophy of the exhibition [98]

The Exhibition [100]

The Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age [100]

The Middle Bronze Age [112]

Akrotiri in its cultural heyday [132]

PART III – THE IMAGINARY MUSEUM OF PREHISTORIC THERA

Late Cycladic I period (1650-1600 BC) [232]

Wall-paintings [256]

West House [258]

Xeste 3 [300]

BIBLIOGRAPHY [321]

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS [323]


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