The Materiality of Ancient Greek Identities, 9th to 2nd Centuries BCE

Emma Gooch, Jerome Ruddick

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781350442832
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Greek Ancient History
• Index: Social Sciences

Material culture is the physical trace of what was used to construct and define identities in the past, and is therefore a key source of evidence for archaeologists and ancient historians investigating ancient identities. The focus of this volume is reflective of broader theoretical and methodological shifts in recent cross-disciplinary explorations of identity. Through the use of case studies, each chapter demonstrates the benefits and crucial need to embrace inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches when investigating life and society in ancient Greece. In particular, this book covers the ever-increasing spectrum of identities across the ancient Greek world, ranging from collective groups, such as women, migrants, children and slaves, to individual figures.

Using archaeological, iconographic and textual material as the basis of each exploration, the contributors seek to understand the intersectional nature of what it meant to be an individual or group within a recognised social identity in ancient Greece. More specifically, this involves the analysis of various types of material culture such as artefacts from burials, excavated settlements, figurines, statuary, painted pottery, small finds and monuments. The contributors study the material using geo-spatial and architectural methods, along with more traditional approaches, such as epigraphy. Among other conclusions, the chapters investigate the experiences of identity – what the experience of having a particular identity was like, as far as we can ascertain – in ancient Greece, as represented by the archaeological material record.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Finding Identities in Materiality
• 1 Identity and Materiality in the Ancient Greek World
• 2 Intersectional Dressing: Materializing Identities in the Ancient Greek World
• Part II Identities in and of the State
• 3 Materiality and Identity in Fifth-Century Athenian Inscribed Accounts
• 4 Identities on the Acropolis of Athens: The Case of Athenian Heroes
• Part III Identities in Houses and Settlements
• 5 A Paradox of Visibility: Identifying Non-Elites in Early Iron Age Cretan Society
• 6 Domestic Space, Behaviour and Identity: A Contextual Approach
• Part IV Identities Beyond Greece
• 7 A Death Out of Place: Identity, Migration and Burial in Ancient Greece
• 8 The Feminine Semiotics of Dedication at Epizephyrian Locri (6th to 3rd Centuries bce): From Pinakes to Votive Epigram
• Index
• Copyright