Art and the Early Greek State

Widely known as an innovative figure in contemporary archaeology, Michael Shanks has written a challenging contribution to recent debates on the emergence of the Greek city states in the first millennium BC. He interprets the art and archaeological remains of Korinth to elicit connections between new urban environments, foreign trade, warfare, and the ideology of male sovereignty. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, which draws on an anthropologically informed archaeology, ancient history, art history, material culture studies and structural approaches to the classics, his book raises large questions about the links between design and manufacture, political and social structure, and culture and ideology in the ancient Greek world.

Introduction; 1. The design of archaic Korinth: the question of a beginning and an interpretive archaeology; 2. Craft production in the early city state: some historical and material contexts; 3. Early archaic Korinth: design and style; 4. Consumption: perfume and violence in a Sicilian cemetery; 5. Trade and the consumption of travel; 6. Art, design and the constitutive imagination in the early city state.

Michael Shanks's challenging contribution to recent debates on the emergence of Greek city states in the first millennium BC draws on a range of disciplines. He interprets the art and archaeological remains of Korinth to elicit connections between new urban environments, foreign trade, warfare, and the ideology of male sovereignty.