The Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of the Discipline

211 Pages·1997·6.41 MB·English

by  Michael Shanks

CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF GREECE
EXPERIENCE OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Series Editor: Andrew Wheatcroft
The Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf
Michael Rice
The Near East
Archaeology in the cradle of civilization
Charles Keith Maisels
CLASSICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY OF
GREECE
Experiences of the discipline
Michael Shanks
London and New York
First published 1996
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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First published in paperback 1997
© 1996 Michael Shanks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Shanks, Michael.
Classical archaeology of Greece: experiences of the discipline/Michael Shanks.
p. cm. —(The experience of archaeology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Excavations (Archaeology)—Greece—History. 2. Greece—
Civilization—To 146 BC 3. Greece—Antiquities. 4. Archaeology—
Greece—Methodology. I. Title. II. Series.
DF78.S534 1996
938–dc20 95–9085
ISBN 0-203-17197-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26503-3 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-08521-7 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-17205-5 (pbk)
CONTENTS
List of figures viii
Acknowledgements xi
AN INTRODUCTION 1
1 A SEARCH FOR SOURCES 8
2 CITIES AND SANCTUARIES, ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY: 21
ROOTS IN THE PAST
A history of pottery studies 21
Typology and classification 24
Art and judgements of style 25
Pottery and the connoisseurs 29
Interlude: Sherlock Holmes, the doctor Watson and John Beazley 36
Iconographers and iconologists 40
Imperial collections and the big digs 42
Ancient history, the historical event and descriptive narrative 48
Concluding remarks 51
3 GREEK MYTHS AND METANARRATIVES: FROM 52
WINCKELMANN TO BERNAL
Collectors and antiquarians 52
Travellers 54
Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Greek art 55
Constituting the art object 57
Vickers and Gill and the critique of ceramic art 58
Taste and the Greek 64
German academics and the idealisation of Greece 66
vi
Classicism, Romanticism and neo-Classicism 67
Tourism 73
Modern Greeks into the past 78
Hellenism and cultural politics 80
Anthropology and European origins 80
Orientalism and Bernal’s critique of the constitution of the Greek 85
Concluding points 90
4 SCHOLARSHIP AND DISCOURSE 91
Introduction 91
Types of text 92
Communities and institutions 96
Mavericks 98
Discourse 102
Interlude: Classical rhetoric—a theory of discourse 103
lan Morris and ‘Postmodernist Classical Archaeology’ 106
Technologies of cultural production: rhetoric, winning friends and 110
trust
The writing of history 115
Concluding remarks 116
5 RUDIMENTS OF A SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY 118
The sources 118
Ideologies of archaeology 122
Commentary and critique: objects and the character of archaeological 122
interpretation
The need for a social archaeology of Classical Greece 127
Approaches to social archaeology 127
Pottery and social context 128
The Snodgrass school of Iron Age studies 130
Processual Classical archaeology: some summary points 141
The category of the decorative: on meaning and material culture 143
vii
John Berger, Peter Fuller and lessons of idealist art history 148
Understanding the archaeological and a prehistory of the classical 152
past
6 SOME TOPICS AND ISSUES IN A SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY 154
OF CLASSICAL GREECE
Chronology and time 154
Economic prehistory/archaeology 157
Social connections 157
Understanding style 161
Religion and ritual 163
Space, survey and landscape 163
Concluding remarks 166
7 ARCHAEOLOGY, CLASSICS AND CONTEMPORARY 167
CULTURE
Nietzsche and the Classics 171
Nietzsche and effective history 175
Archaeological roles: vital histories for the present 176
Actuality: the time of archaeology 177
Classical heritage and consuming interests 178
Select bibliography and suggested further reading 181
Index 194
LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 The Potters’ Quarter, Korinth 9
1.2 Korinth from Akrokorinthos. Nineteenth-century engraving. 10
(Courtesy of the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge)
1.3 Temple of Apollo, Korinth, with the North Market in the 12
foreground
1.4 The panoptic gaze and a view from Akrokorinthos. The ancient 17
city is in the middle distance
2.1a Protokorinthian aryballos in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 22
(Source: K.F.Johansen, Les Vases Sicyoniens. Paris: Champion,
1923)
2.1b Detail of Figure 2.1a 22
2.2 The connoisseur’s choice: painters and workshops of 30
Protokorinthian. (Source: based on T.Dunbabin and M. Robertson.
‘Some Protokorinthian vase painters’, Annual of the British School
at Athens 48 (1953):172–81)
2.3 Figures from pots by the so-called ‘Ajax painter’ 32
2.4 Baron von Stackelberg. Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arcadien 43
[The Temple of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia]. Rome and Frankfurt
am Main 1826. Plate 9
2.5 Aegina. Pedimental sculpture. Von Klenze’s Glyptothek, Munich 44
2.6 Korinth in the snow, before the excavations. (Courtesy of the 46
Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge)
2.7 The Stoa of Attalos, Athens. Rebuilt with American money, mid- 48
twentieth century
2.8 Stuart and Revett. The Antiquities of Athensy Volume 3. London 49
1787. Chapter 6, Plate 1. Korinth
3.1 William Blake’s Laocoön 56
3.2 Part of Sir William Hamilton’s second collection, published with 60
Tischbein in Naples, 1791
3.3 Stuart and Revett. The Antiquities of Athens, Volume 2. London 64
1787. Chapter 1, Plate 1. The Parthenon
3.4 Stuart and Revett. The Antiquities of Athens, Volume 2. London 65
1787. Chapter 2, Plate 17. Drawing of Erechtheion, detail
3.5 Plaster casts in the old Museum of Classical Archaeology, 70
Cambridge, 1977. Now the library of Peterhouse
ix
3.6 Raphael’s frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura 1508/9–12. The 70
encompassment of Classicism
3.7 Robert Sayer. Ruins of Athens. London 1759. Plate 10. Temple of 71
the Winds, Athens and the Temple of Korinth
3.8 Baron von Stackelberg. Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arcadien. 71
Rome and Frankfurt am Main 1826. Plate 2. View of the Temple
3.9 The stadium in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis 74
3.10 Sounion, Greece. Nineteenth-century engraving. (Courtesy of the 74
Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge)
3.11 National Museum, Athens 76
3.12 Nineteenth-century Athens. (Courtesy of the Museum of Classical 77
Archaeology, Cambridge)
3.13 Nineteenth-century Athens. (Courtesy of the Museum of Classical 78
Archaeology, Cambridge)
3.14 Library of Hadrian, Athens. (Courtesy of the Museum of Classical 81
Archaeology, Cambridge)
3.15a Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier. Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce. 83
Paris 1782. Frontispiece
3.15b Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier. Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce. 83
Paris 1782. Explanation of Frontispiece
3.16 Bellerophon and Pegasus fight the Chimaira upon a Korinthian 87
aryballos. Orientalising art. (Source: K.F. Johansen. Les Vases
Sicyoniens. Paris: Champion, 1923)
4.1 Lekythoi in the National Museum, Athens 93
4.2 The British School at Athens 99
4.3 Edward Dodwell. Views and Descriptions of Cyclopian, or 101
Pelasgic, Remains in Greece and Italy. London 1834. Plate 11.
Portal of one of the treasures of Mycenae
4.4 Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas 108
4.5 Stuart and Revett. The Antiquities of Athens, Supplement. London 114
1830. Frontispiece: Agrigentum
5.1 Akrokorinthos 119
5.2 Baron von Stackelberg. Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arcadien. 126
Rome and Frankfurt am Main 1826. Plate 3. Temple interior
5.3 A Korinthian vase painter 129
5.4 Total numbers of burials per thirty-year generation for Athens, 132
Attika and Argos, 1050–700 BC. (Source: Anthony Snodgrass.
Archaic Greece: the Age of Experiment. London: Dent, 1980.
Figure 4)
5.5 Relative entropy scores for the Kerameikos adult burials 1125–500 135
BC showing high entropy in egalitarian times. (Source: lan Morris.
Burial and Ancient Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987. Figure 50)