The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece

This richly illustrated, four-colour textbook introduces the art and archaeology of ancient Greece, from the Bronze Age through to the Roman conquest. Suitable for students with no prior knowledge of ancient art, this textbook reviews the main objects and monuments of the ancient Greek world, emphasizing the context and function of these artefacts in their particular place and time. Students are led to a rich understanding of how objects were meant to be perceived, what 'messages' they transmitted and how the surrounding environment shaped their meaning. The book contains nearly five hundred illustrations (with over four hundred in colour), including specially commissioned photographs, maps, floorplans and reconstructions. Judith M. Barringer examines a variety of media, including marble and bronze sculpture, public and domestic architecture, painted vases, coins, mosaics, terracotta figurines, reliefs, jewellery and wall paintings. Numerous text boxes, chapter summaries and timelines, complemented by a detailed glossary, support student learning.

Introduction; 1. The Bronze Age and early Iron Age in Greece; 2. The Geometric period (c.900–700 BC) and the seventh century BC; 3. The Archaic Mediterranean; 4. The Classical period: the fifth century BC; 5. The late Classical period and Alexander, c.400–323 BC; 6. The legacy of Alexander: the Hellenistic world; 7. Roman conquest and the conquest of Rome; Glossary.

Judith M. Barringer is Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology in Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Her areas of specialization are Greek art and archaeology and Greek history, myth, and religion. Professor Barringer is the author of Art, Myth, and Ritual in Classical Greece (Cambridge University Press, 2008); The Hunt in Ancient Greece (2001); and Divine Escorts: Nereids in Archaic and Classical Greek Art (1995) and co-editor (with Jeffrey M. Hurwit) of Periklean Athens and Its Legacy: Problems and Perspectives (2005). She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and the British Academy, among others. She was a Blegen Research Fellow at Vassar College and a Senior Fellow at the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna, and she currently holds a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Institut für Klassische Archäologie at the Freie Universität Berlin from the M4Human Programme of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.