| Figurine Makers of Prehistoric Cyprus: Settlement and Cemeteries at Souskiou Contributor(s): Peltenburg, Edgar (Editor), Bolger, Diane (Editor), Crewe, Lindy (Editor) |
|
 |
ISBN: 1789250196 ISBN-13: 9781789250190 Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited OUR PRICE: $71.25 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: August 2019 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Ancient - General - History | Europe - General |
| LCCN: 2019942980 |
| Physical Information: 1.4" H x 8.3" W x 11.9" (4.65 lbs) 368 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The Chalcolithic period in Cyprus has been known since Porphyrios Dikaios' excavations at Erimi in the 1930s and through the appearance in the antiquities market of illicitly acquired anthropomorphic cruciform figures, often manufactured from picrolite, a soft blue-green stone. The excavations of the settlement and cemetery at Souskiou Laona reported on in this volume paint a very different picture of life on the island during the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. Burial practices at other known sites are generally single inhumations in intramural pit graves, only rarely equipped with artifacts. At Souskiou, multiple inhumations were interred in deep rock-cut tombs clustered in extra-mural cemeteries. Although the sites were also subjected to extensive looting, excavations have revealed complex multi-stage burial practices with arrangements of disarticulated and articulated burials accompanied by a rich variety of grave goods. Chief among these are a multitude of cruciform figurines and pendants. This unusual treatment of the dead, which has not been recorded elsewhere in Cyprus, shifts the focus from the individual to the communal, and provides evidence for significant changes involving kinship group links to common ancestors. Excavations at the Laona settlement have furnished evidence suggesting that it functioned as a specialized center for the procurement and manufacture of picrolite during its early phase. The subsequent decline of picrolite production and the earliest known occurrence of new types of ornaments, such as faience beads and copper spiral pendants, attest to important changes involving the transformation of personal and social identities during the first centuries of the 3rd millennium BC, a topic that forms a central theme of this final report on the site. |
Contributor Bio(s): Peltenburg, Edgar: - Edgar Peltenburg joined the staff of the University of Edinburgh in 1978 and was appointed Professor of Archaeology in 1994. During that time he published nearly 20 books and 150 journal articles, testimony to his distinguished career in archaeology. After his retirement in 2006 he continued to pursue an active program of fieldwork and research devoted to the investigation and interpretation of small-scale societies in Cyprus and the ancient Near East. The excavations at Souskiou Laona, which he directed from 2001-2011, was the final field project he completed prior to his premature death in 2016.Bolger, Diane: - Diane Bolger is a Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh where she has worked since 2002. She specialises in ceramics of early societies of the ancient Near East, with a particular focus on ceramics of the 4th-3rd millennia BC in Cyprus, where she has conducted research annually since the mid-1980s. She is also a specialist in gender archaeology and has written and edited four books and a number of articles on gender in prehistoric Cyprus and the ancient Near East.Crewe, Lindy: - Lindy Crewe has recently been appointed Director of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute in Nicosia. Since completing her job as Field Director of excavations at the Souskiou Laona cemetery (2001-2006), she has been directing excavations annually at the Middle Bronze Age site of Kissonerga Skalia near Paphos. |