Mediterranean Archaeology

The first section of the present course provides a comprehensive overview of the Bronze Age archaeology of the Aegean basin. Through a series of lessons and illustrations, it traces the cultural evolution of human communities during the formative period of Aegean civilizations into the age of the great palatial cultures of Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece and their post-palatial twilight. Students will be updated on the most important debates and discussions currently taking place within the discipline. In accordance with the educational objectives of the CoS, the course aims to deliver knowledges and competencies in the field of Greek Archaeology, so to complete and strengthen the proficiencies that the students acquired within the previous cycle of studies. After the course, students are expected to acquire adequate skills in carrying out original researches pertaining the Greek world, in autonomously analysing and interpreting archaeological spaces, monuments and material culture in their artistic-historical, architectural, socio-economic and political reference contexts. The course proposes an in-depth study of the methodologies, the goals and the contents of the Greek Archaeology; the student will gain a critical knowledge of the cult actions and ritual behaviours, of the development of the architectures and the urban planning, of the artistic and craft production, of the economic and commercial dimension of the Hellenic world, from the Proto-Geometric period until the Hellenistic Age. The lessons will also investigate contexts, monuments and evidences in order to understand the social and anthropological aspects of the polis, as well as the elements connected to the cultural transformations and the relations between the Greeks and the other coeval civilizations