Overview

In Late Bronze Age Greece, Mycenaean authorities commissioned impressive funerary monuments, fortifications, and palatial complexes, reflecting their advanced engineering and architectural skills. Yet the degree of connectivity among Mycenaean administrative centers remains contested. In this book, Nicholas Blackwell explores craft relationships by analyzing artisan mobility and technological transfer across certain sites. These labor networks offer an underexplored perspective for interpreting the period's geopolitical dynamics. Focusing on iconic monuments like the Lion Gate relief, the refurbished Grave Circle A, and the Treasury of Atreus, Blackwell reconsiders the topographical and political evolution of Mycenae and the Argolid in the 14th-13th centuries BCE.  Notable stone-working links between the Argolid and northern Boeotia also imply broader state-level relationships.  His analysis contributes fresh ideas to ongoing research into the organization of the Mycenaean world.

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9781009739542

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Reviews

'In this masterly study of elite Mycenaean stoneworking practices, Nicholas Blackwell deftly retraces the mobility patterns of highly skilled construction specialists, drawing on impressive architectural evidence to craft a compelling narrative about the forging of political alliances between Mycenaean palatial states and the role of their monuments as performative displays of status.' Maud Devolder, Full Professor in Archaeology of the Aegean World, Ghent University 'Architecture and Politics in Mycenaean Greece is an outstanding study that skilfully integrates craftsmanship, documentary evidence, and sociopolitical developments into the fabric of Mycenaean archaeology–all from a stonework perspective. It will be highly relevant and valuable to scholars working in the Aegean and the wider Mediterranean. Moving from tools and building techniques to memory, spectacle, and political dynamics, the author succeeds in constructing a much-needed scholarly edifice: a reference work upon which future generations of researchers will rely for further discussion and debate.' Yannis Galankis, Associate Professor in Classics, University of Cambridge

'In this masterly study of elite Mycenaean stoneworking practices, Nicholas Blackwell deftly retraces the mobility patterns of highly skilled construction specialists, drawing on impressive architectural evidence to craft a compelling narrative about the forging of political alliances between Mycenaean palatial states and the role of their monuments as performative displays of status.' Maud Devolder, Full Professor in Archaeology of the Aegean World, Ghent University

Author Information

Nicholas G. Blackwell is Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington and previously served as Assistant Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. An archaeologist, he has worked in Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey. His research explores Bronze Age stone-working, tools, metallurgy, technology, and cross-cultural exchange.

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