Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:18:28.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Reading the texts’: archaeology and the Homeric question

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

E. S. Sherratt
E. S. Sherratt*
Affiliation:
3 Woodside, Wood Green, Witney, Oxfordshire OX8 6DQ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Specialists in Greek literature have long argued about how Homer's epics were formed and just what they represent. The question is a pressing example of the larger general case – the relationships between archaeology, history and oral literature in many periods and places. E.S. Sherratt, in offering an archaeological perspective on Homer, sets out to establish the stratigraphy of its text and its history

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 64 , Issue 245 , December 1990 , pp. 807 - 824
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahlberg, G. 1971. Fighting on land and sea in Greek Geometric Art. Stockholm: Svenska Inst, I Athen. Skrifter udg, av Svenska Inst, i Athen 16.Google Scholar
Allen, T. 1921. The Homeric catalogue of ships. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
ardener, E. 1988. The construction of history: ‘vestiges of creation’, in Tonkin, E., Mcdonald, M. & Chapman, M. (ED.), history and ethnicity: 22–33. London: Routledge, ASA monograph 27.Google Scholar
Blegen, C. 1962. The Mycenaean age: the Trojan war, the Dorian invasion, and other problems. Cincinnati (OH): University of Cincinnati.Google Scholar
Buchholz, H.-G. & Karageorghis., V. 1973. Prehistoric Greece and Cyprus. London: Phaidon.Google Scholar
Catling, H. 1977. The Knossos area, 1974-76, Archaeological Reports 1976-77: 3–23.Google Scholar
Catling, H. 1985. Archaeology in Greece, 1984-85, Archaeological Reports 1984-85: 3–69.Google Scholar
Catling, H. 1989. Some Problems in Aegean Prehistory 1450-1380 BC Oxford: Leopard’s head.Google Scholar
Chadwick, H.M. 1912. The heroic age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coldstream, J.N. 1977. Geometric Greece. London: Benn.Google Scholar
Crouwel, J. 1981. Chariots and other means of land transport in Bronze Age Greece. Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Series 3.Google Scholar
Dakoronia, F. n.d. Late Mycenaean ships from Kinos in Locris. Mycenaean Seminar, University of London Institute of Classical Studies, 25 April 1990.Google Scholar
Davies, J. 1984. The reliability of the oral tradition, in Foxhall, L. & Davies, J. (ED.), The Trojan War: its historicity and context: 87–110. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.Google Scholar
Desborough, V. 1964. The last Mycenaeans and their successors. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dickinson, O. 1977. The origins of Mycenaean civilization. GÖteborg: Paul Astroms Forlag. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology XLIX.Google Scholar
Dickinson, O. 1986. Homer, the poet of the Dark Age, Greece and Rome 33: 20–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doxey, D. 1987. Causes and effects of the fall of Knossos in 1375 BC, Oxford Journal Of Archaeology 6(3): 301–24.Google Scholar
Elias, N. 1978. The Civilising Process: the history of manners. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Finley, M. 1956. The world of Odysseus. Revised edition. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Finley, M. 1957. Homer and Mycenae: property and tenure, Historia 6: 133–59.Google Scholar
Finnegan, R. 1977. Oral poetry: its nature, significance and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Finnegan, R. 1988. Literacy and oraiity: studies in the technology of communication. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1987. The interface between the written and the oral. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, D. 1947. Homeric epithets for things, Classical Quarterly 61: 109–21.Google Scholar
Gray, D. 1954. Metal-working in Homer, Journal of Hellenic Studies 74: 1–15.Google Scholar
Gray, D. 1955. Houses in the Odyssey, Classical Quarterly (n.s.) 5: 1–12.Google Scholar
Gray, D. 1958. Mycenaean names in Homer, Journal of Hellenic Studies 78: 43–8.Google Scholar
Gray, D. 1968. Homer and the Archaeologists, in Platnauer, M. (ED.), Fifty years (and twelve) of classical scholarship: 24–31. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gray, D. 1974. Seewesen: Archaeologia Homerica: die denkmäler und das frü;hgriechische epos I, Kapitel G. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck.Google Scholar
Householder, F. & G. Nagy. 1972. Greek: a survey of recent work. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Janko, R. 1982. Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns: diachronic development in epic diction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jeffery, L. 1976. Archaic Greece: the city-states c. 700-500 BC. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Karo, G. 1930-33. Die Schachtgrdber von Mykenai. Munich: Verlag F. Bruckmann.Google Scholar
Kilian, K. 1987. Altere Mykenische Residenzen. Schriften Des Deutschen Archaologenverbandes 9: 120–4. Mannheim.Google Scholar
Kilian, K. 1988. The Emergence of Wanax Ideology in the Mycenaean Palaces, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 7(3): 291–302.Google Scholar
Kirk, G. 1960. Objective Dating Criteria in Homer, Museum Helveticum 17: 189–205. Google Scholar
Kilian, K. 1962. The Songs of Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kilian, K. 1976. Homer and the Oral Tradition. CAMBRIDGE: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kilian, K. 1985. The Iliad: A Commentary I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Knox, M. 1973. Megarons and Megara: Homer and Archaeology. Classical Quarterly (n.s.) 23: 1–21.Google Scholar
Kurtz, D. & Boardman, J. 1971. Greek Burial Customs. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Laffinkur, R. 1983. Early Mycenaean Art: Some evidence from the west house in Thera, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 30: 111–22.Google Scholar
Latacz, J. 1977. kampfparänese. Kampfdarstellung und kampfwirklichkeit in der uias, bei kallinos und tyrtaios. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck. Zetemata: Monographien Zur Klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Heft 66.Google Scholar
Lattimore, R. (Trans.) 1951. The Iliad of Homer. CHICAGO (IL): The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Loptson, P. 1986. Argos Achaikon, L’antiquite Classique 55: 42–65.Google Scholar
Lord, A. 1960. The singer of tales. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lord, A. H., Lorimer 1950. Homer and the monuments. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Luce, J. 1975. Homer and the heroic age. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Monro, D.B. (ed.). 1963. Homer: Uiad Books I-XII. 5th revised edition. (First published 1884.) Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Morris, I. 1986. The use and abuse of Homer, Classical Antiquity 5: 81–138.Google Scholar
Morris, I. 1988. Tomb cult and the ‘Greek Renaissance’: the past in the present in the 8th century BC, Antiquity 62: 750–61.Google Scholar
Morrison, J. & Williams., R. 1968. Greek oared ships 900-322 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mosse, C. 1980. Ithaque ou la naissance de la cité, Archeologia e Storia antica 3: 7–19.Google Scholar
Mylonas, G. 1966. Mycenae and the Mycenaean age. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nagy, G. 1979. The best of the Achaeans: concepts of the hero in Archaic Greek poetry. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Negbi, O. 1978. The ‘Miniature Fresco’ from Thera and the emergence of Mycenaean art, in Doumas, C. (ed.), Thera and the Aegean world I: 645–56. London: Thera and the Aegean World.Google Scholar
Nilsson, M. 1933. Homer and Mycenae. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Page, D. 1959. History and the Homeric Iliad. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Parry, A. (ed.) 1971. The making of Homeric verse: the collected papers of Milman Parry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Pleiner, R. 1969. Iron working in ancient Greece. Prague: National Technical Museum. Acta Musei Nationalis Technici Pragae 7.Google Scholar
Popham, M. 1987. An early Euboean ship, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 6: 353–9.Google Scholar
Popham, M., Calligas, P. & Sackett., H. 1989. Further excavation of the Toumba cemetery at Lefkandi, Archaeological Reports 1988-89: 117–29.Google Scholar
Popham, M. & Sackett, H. (ed.) 1968. Excavations at Lefkandi, Euboea 1964-66. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Popham, M., Touloupa, E. & Sackett., H. 1982. The hero of Lefkandi, Antiquity 56: 169–74.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. 1980. Kinship, alliance and exchange in the European Bronze Age, in Barrett, J. & Bradley, R. (ed.), Settlement and society in the British Later Bronze Age: 15–55. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. British series 83.Google Scholar
Rubens, B. & Taplin., O. 1989. An Odyssey round Odysseus. London: BBC Books.Google Scholar
Ruigh, C. 1957. L’élément achéen dans la langue épique. Assen: Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Rutherford, R. 1985. At home and abroad: aspects of the structure of the Odyssey, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (n.s.) 31: 133–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1985. Islands of history. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sakellariou, A. 1974. Un cratère d’argent avec scéne de bataille provenant de la IVe tombe de l’Acropole de Mycènes, Antike Kunst 17: 3ff.Google Scholar
Sandars, N. 1978. The Sea Peoples: warriors of the ancient Mediterranean 1250-1150 BC. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Schefold, K. 1966. Die Grabungen in Eretria im Herbst 1964 und 1965, Antike Kunst 9: 106–24.Google Scholar
Schliemann, H. 1880. Mycenae; a narrative of researches and discoveries at Mycenae and Tiryns. [Reprint. 1976. New York: Arno Press.]Google Scholar
Shipp, G. 1972. Studies in the language of Homer. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. 1964. Early Greek armour and weapons from the end of the Bronze Age to 600 bc. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. 1971. The Dark Age of Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. 1974. An historical Homeric society?, Journal of Hellenic Studies 94: 114–25.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. 1980. Iron and early metallurgy in the Mediterranean, in Wertime, T. & Muhly, J. (ed.), The coming of the age of Iron: 335–74. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. 1987. An archaeology of Greece. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. 1989. The coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe’s earliest bronze/iron transition, in Serensen, M.L. & Thomas, R. (ed.), The Bronze Age-Iron Age transition in Europe: 22–35. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 483(i).Google Scholar
Stoddart, S, & Whitley., J. 1988. The social context of literacy in Archaic Greece and Etruria, Antiquity 62: 761–72.Google Scholar
Taplin, O. 1986. Homer, , in Boardman, J., Griffin, J. & Murray, O. (ed.), The Oxford history of the Classical world: 50–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vansina, J. 1975. Oral tradition as history. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Ventris, M. & Chadwick., J. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vermeule, E. 1964. Greece in the Bronze Age. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Vermeule, E. 1986. Priam’s castle blazing, in Mellink, M. (ed.), Troy and the Trojan war: 77–92. Bryn Mawr: Bryn Mawr College.Google Scholar
Vernant, J.-P. 1982a. The origins of Greek thought. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Vernant, J.-P. 1982b. Myth and society in ancient Greece. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Vestergaard, E. 1987. The perpetual reconstruction of the past, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Archaeology as long term history: 63–7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wace, A. & stubbings, F. (ed.). 1962. A companion to Homer. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Watkins, C. 1987. Linguistic and archaeological light on some Homeric formulas in Skomal, S.N. & Polome, E.C. (ed.), Proto-Indo-European: the archaeology OF A linguistic problem: studies in honor of Marija Gimbutas: 286–98. Washington (DC): Institute for the Study of Man.Google Scholar
West, M. 1988. The rise of the Greek epic, Journal of Hellenic Studies 108: 151–72.Google Scholar
Whitley, J. 1988. Early states and hero cults: a re-appraisal, Journal of Hellenic Studies 108: 173–82.Google Scholar
Wood, M. 1985. In Search of the Trojan War. London: BBC Books.Google Scholar