Irish Insitute of Hellenic Studies Athens: Day School 2021

Seascapes: Island and Coastal Life in the Aegean and Beyond from Prehistory to the Recent Past

April 21-22, 2021 @ 16.00

The ancient Greek world was defined to one extent or another by the seas which surrounded it. Jutting out into the Mediterranean, the expansive coastlines of the Greek peninsula and neighbouring islands made it inevitable that the sea would shape the lives of the peoples it surrounded. From the pioneering colonisation of new lands in the ages of stone through to the participation in vast empires of the Hellenistic and Roman world, the sea not only connected people but shaped their view of the world around them. The good surely came with the bad – while resources could be accessed through expansive trade networks bringing prosperity, they could be taken away by force through piratic raids. Yet even more routinely, the sea shaped leisure, diet and the very nature of communities. The Aegean Sea connected and divided, sustained and challenged, lay beyond places for living but was at the centre of life. In these short papers, we present case studies and theoretical reflections on how island and coastal life was a defining characteristic of Greece from prehistory to more recent times.

Programme

Wednesday, April 21

16:00 - Welcome

16:10 - Joanne Murphy (UNC Greensboro) Joining the Dots: The Kea Archaeological Research Survey.

16:30 - Will Megarry (Queens University Belfast) Insular thinking: A global look at identity, material culture and choice amongst island societies.

16:50 - Marina Milic (University College Dublin) The early history of island hopping: The growth of Aegean’s coastal communities in the 7th millennium BC.

17:10 - Questions

Thursday, April 22

16:00 - Martine Cuypers (Trinity College Dublin) Looking around: Mapping coastal space in Greek ‘circumnavigations’.

16:20 - Barry Molloy (University College Dublin) The ups and downs of living on the Big Island: Maritime perspectives on crises in Crete during the Bronze Age.

16:50 - Christina Haywood (University College Dublin) Is there something special about islands? Some lessons to be learned from the Ionian Sea in the Bronze Age.

17:00 - Questions

For further details about the Day School 2021 event and IIHSA membership, contact barry.molloy@ucd.ie