Reciprocity and symbolic exchange are of considerable importance to understanding the Mycenaean political economy at Pylos. Thus, while wealth finance is a useful heuristic concept for making sense of Mycenaean political economy, it does not do an adequate job of describing or explaining that economy, which would be better characterized as a…[Read more]

The Western Argolid Regional Project (WARP) completed three seasons of intensive pedestrian survey from 2014 to 2016. Conducted under the auspices of the Canadian Institute in Greece (CIG) and the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Argolid, WARP is an interdisciplinary project focused around the upper valleys of the Inachos River to the north and west…[Read more]

This collection of papers explores the role of redistribution
in Minoan and Mycenaean economies.

In this article, we address the historical question of why Aegean Bronze Age economies are characterized as redistributive systems and whether it is appropriate to continue to describe them as such. We argue that characterizing the political economies of the Aegean as redistributive is inaccurate and misleading. Instead, we suggest it is more…[Read more]

Past models of Mycenaean political economies have overemphasized the role of redistribution, thereby discouraging research into other modes of exchange. New perspectives have effectively questioned the hypothesis that palatial control over the economy was absolute, however. Consequently, it is now possible to imagine significant economic…[Read more]

This paper examines descriptions of remote places in archaic Greek epic. I argue that Homeric cosmic geography consists of two complementary models, one in which the sun rises and sets at a single locus—the axis mundi—as in the Theogony, and another in which sunrise and sunset take place on the eastern and western horizons respectively. Con…[Read more]

This book revises our understanding of Mycenaean society through a detailed analysis of individuals attested in the administrative texts from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos in southwestern Greece, ca. 1200 BC. It argues that conventional models of Mycenaean society, which focus on administrative titles and terms, can be improved through the study…[Read more]

In this article the author examines the politics of Mycenaean feasting through an analysis of three Linear B texts from the “Palace of Nestor” at Pylos that concern regional landholdings and contributions to a feast. Consideration of scribal practices, the political situation in Late Bronze Age Messenia, and historical parallels suggests that the…[Read more]

Front matter

In this paper we use multidimensional scaling to analyse a corpus of texts and lexical items written in Linear A, an undeciphered script. We argue that more such work is necessary before Linear A can be deciphered (if this is indeed a possibility in the first place).

Shared elements, especially topographical and judicial, in the ritual and myth of the Dipolieia and the narrative of the murder of the Cylonian conspirators imply that the two accounts came to be assimilated in Athenian consciousness.

This paper focuses on potential instances of indirect labor mobilization at Pylos, in which workers are retained for palatial projects, but through the agency of named individuals. I will attempt to show that in some cases the palaces supplemented directly-acquired labor with labor obtained through administrative intermediaries, high-level…[Read more]