Ancient sites are always in peril: Athens

Growing up in Ghana

Read this essay and reflect on the lives of girls growing up in the First Millenium in the towns and cities along the coasts of the Mediterranean. Do tyou think this story is repeated throughout history?

Pompeii in Danger

A short CNN video on dangers to the site.

Italy declares Pompeii a starte of emergency

Leg bone yields DNA secrets of man's Neanderthal 'Eve'

The French National Museum of Natural History and of Man

A useful link for images and information on man and his early environments.
















Which one is the philosopher?

Some images of Jarmo

CC I 2008 3rd Quarter Bibliography

- Civilization -

An Introduction
to Ancient History & Literature

BIBLIOGRAPHY

General

Braudel, F. On History [trans. Sarah Matthews] (London, 1980)
Burkert, W. Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis : eastern contexts of Greek culture
(Cambridge, Mass., 2004)
Childe, V. Gordon What happened in history (Harmondsworth, 1954)
Social evolution (London, 1957)
Finley, M. I. The Ancient Economy (London, 1973)
(ed.) Atlas of classical archaeology (London, 1977)
Fornara, C.W. The nature of history in ancient Greece & Rome (Berkeley, Calif., 1983)
Humphrey, John W. [edd.] Greek & Roman Technology: a sourcebook
(London, 1988)
Momigliano, A. Alien Wisdom: the Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge, 1975)
The classical foundations of modern historiography
(Berkeley, Calif., 1990)
Starr, C. A History of the Ancient World (New York, 1974)

Prehistory

Cauvin, J. The Birth of the Gods & the Origins of Agriculture [trans. Trevor Watkins] (Cambridge, 2000)
Cunliffe, B [ed.] The Oxford illustrated history of prehistoric Europe (Oxford,2001)
Delson, E. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of human evolution & prehistory (New York, 2000)
Megarry, T. Society in prehistory: the origins of human culture (London, 1995)
The Cambridge Ancient History vol. I pts I & 2 (London, 1970)
McKern, S. Living prehistory : an introduction to physical anthropology and archaeology (Menlo Park, Calif., 1974)

Near East

Mesopotamia- Hattusa- Persia

Van de Mieroop, M. A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC (Oxford, 2004)
Von Soden, W. The Ancient Orient [trans. Donald Schley] (Darmstadt, 1985)

Egypt

Bower, J. Ancient Egyptians (London, 2002)
David, R. Handbook to life in Ancient Egypt (New York, 2003)
Hart, G. Ancient Egypt (New York, 2004)
Johnson, P. The civilization of Ancient Egypt (London, 2000) [good for pictures]
Nicholson, P.T. & Shaw,I. [edd.] Ancient Egyptian materials & technology (Cambridge, 2000)
Shaw, I. (ed.) The Oxford history of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000)

Bronze Age Greece: Crete & Mycenae

Evans, A. The palace of Minos : a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustrated by the discoveries at Knossos vol. 1-4 (London, 1921-35)
Finley, M.I. Early Greece : the Bronze and Archaic ages (London, 1970)
Fitton, J. Lesley Minoans (London, 2002)
The discovery of the Greek Bronze Age
(Cambridge, Mass., 1996)
Cycladic Art (Cambridge, Mass., 1989)
Higgins, R. Minoan & Mycenaean Art (London, 1967)
Renfrew, C. The emergence of civilisation : the Cyclades and the Aegean in the third millennium B.C. (London, 1972)
Palmer, L.R. Mycenaeans and Minoans : Aegean prehistory in the light of the linear B tablets (London, 1961)
Van Effenterre, H. La Seconde Fin du Monde (Toulouse, 1974)

Mediterranean Movers
Etruscans- Phoenicians- Celts

Haynes, S. Etruscan Civilization (London, 2000)
Markoe, G. E. Phoenicians (London, 2000)

Pompeii

Coarelli
Cooley, A.
Ling

Writing

Literacy & Power in the Ancient World

Homer

Buxton, R. Imaginary Greece- the contexts of mythology (Cambridge, 1994)
Finley, M. I. The World of Odysseus (New York, 2002) [very important: on short loan]
The ancient Greeks : an introduction to their life and thought (New York, 1963)
Heath, J. The Talking Greeks- speech, animals and the Other in Homer Aeschylus and Plato (Cambridge, 2005)
Latacz, J. Homer: his art & his world (Michigan, 1996) [short loan]
Luce, J.V. Homer and the Heroic Age (London, 1975)
Schein, S.L. (ed.) Reading the Odyssey- selected interpretive essays (New Jersey, 1996) [short loan]
Thalmann, W.G. The Odyssey:L an epic return (New York, 1992)

CC I 2008 3rd Quarter Essay Questions

- Civilisation -

An Introduction to Ancient History &Literature

MMVIII AD

Essays

Choose one of the following topics and write a lucid and well researched reply. Submit your work no later than August 26th, 2008. You will be generously rewarded for clarity of argument and expression, for evidence of real engagement with the ideas and mature use of sources. For sloppiness, for absence of historical insight or of any form of developed understanding of the most important ideas we discuss you will also be appropriately rewarded. For plagiarism you may very well be excluded from the university. Do not use internet encyclopaedias, rely rather on books and readings, the difference will be obvious to your marker, it always is. Please note that you will not be allowed to write on the same topic in your exam as you do for your essay.

1. Discuss the art of the Upper Paleolithic Age. Citing specific examples explain some of the theories of the origins and functions of decoration and artistic representation, explain which theories you find most convincing and why.

2. Discuss the role of the physical environment on early humans and its relation to the various transitions in human culture up to the beginning of the Neolithic period.

3. Explain the conditions, physical, social and economic which made possible the rise of egyptian civilisation.

4. Discuss the social effects of agriculture and writing, citing specific historical examples to substantiate your arguments.

5. Delineate the history of Pompeii as a mediterranean town adducing evidence from its remains to substantiate your points.

6. Survey the history of Crete in its Mediterranean context from Minoan Civilization to the end of the Bronze Age.

7. Discuss some of the values manifested in the Odyssey?

8. Discuss the question of the composition of the Odyssey.