Discussion and Debate: In Defense of a Contextual Classical Archaeology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.36812Keywords:
archaeological context, archaeological interpretation, Greek sanctuaries, Greek sculpture, museums, symposiaAbstract
In two recent articles in JMA, Robin Osborne (2015) and, in a response, James Whitley (2016) present compelling, if provocative, thoughts on the methodological and intellectual divergence between the study of artifacts derived from contexts produced by archaeological excavation, and those from museum collections often lacking well-documented provenience. While both authors acknowledge the importance of excavation and museum collections, the polarization of perspectives is a thought-provoking reflection on research process and practice in classical archaeology. The thread of discussion, however, focuses on objects as sources, leaving the actual archaeological context in the background, effectively limiting its function to the definition of a spatiotemporal framework or provenience of source material for answering historical questions. Drawing on examples from excavations at classical Vergina and Athens, and recent discussion of archaeological practice and the meaning of archaeological context, this contribution re-explores the intellectual divisions that constitute the field of classical archaeology. It does not take issue with Osborne's or Whitley's case studies in particular-indeed both are interesting and valuable-but seeks rather to recenter the discussion on the implications of archaeological context itself for developing new questions in classical archaeology.References
Alexandridou, A. 2015 Shedding light on mortuary practices in early archaic Attica: the case of the offering trenches. In D.C. Haggis and C.M. Antonaccio (eds.), Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, 121-48. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781934078471
Ault, B.A., and L.C. Nevett 1999 Digging houses: archaeologies of Classical and Hellenistic Greek domestic assemblages. In P.M. Allison (ed.), The Archaeology of Household Activities, 43-56. London and New York: Routledge.
Bailey, G. 2007 Time perspectives, palimpsests and the archaeology of time. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26: 198-223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2006.08.002
Barringer, J.M. 2014 The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Binford, L.R. 1981 Behavioral archaeology and the ‘Pompeii premise’. Journal of Anthropological Research 37: 195-208. https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.37.3.3629723
Bintliff, J. 2012 The Complete Archaeology of Greece: From Hunter-Gatherers to the 20th Century A.D. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118255179
Coulson, W.D.E., D.C. Haggis, M.S. Mook and J.L. Tobin 1997 Excavations on the Kastro at Kavousi: an architectural overview. Hesperia 66: 315-90. https://doi.org/10.2307/148394
Dillon, S. 2010 The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
----- 2017 Approaches to the study of Greek sculpture. In A. Lichtenberger and R. Raja (eds.), The Diversity of Classical Archaeology, 223-34. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
Dillon, S., and E.P. Baltes 2013 Honorific practices and the politics of space on Hellenistic Delos: portrait statue monuments along the dromos. American Journal of Archaeology 117: 207-46. https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.117.2.0207
Dillon, S., and T. Shea 2017 Statues as artefacts: towards an archaeology of Greek sculpture. In D. Rodríguez Pérez (ed.), Greek Art in Context: Archaeological and Art Historical Perspectives, 19-29. London and New York: Routledge.
Erickson, B.L. 2010 Crete in Transition: Pottery Styles and Island History in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Hesperia Supplement 45. Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Foxhall, L. 2007 House clearance: unpacking the ‘kitchen’ in Classical Greece. In R. Westgate, N. Fisher and J. Whitley (eds.), Building Communities: House, Settlement, and Society in the Aegean and Beyond. Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University, 17–21 April 2001. British School at Athens Studies 15: 233-42. London: British School at Athens.
Gesell, G.C., W.D.E. Coulson and L.P. Day 1991 Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, 1988. Hesperia 60: 145-77. https://doi.org/10.2307/148085
Haggis, D.C. 2015 The archaeology of urbanization: research design and the excavation of an archaic Greek city on Crete. In D.C. Haggis and C.M. Antonaccio (eds.), Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, 219-58. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781934078471-012
Haggis, D.C., and C.M. Antonaccio 2015 A contextual archaeology of ancient Greece. In D.C. Haggis and C.M. Antonaccio (eds.), Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, 1-20. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781934078471-004
Haggis, D.C., M.S. Mook, R.D. Fitzsimons, C.M. Scarry and L.M. Snyder 2011 The excavation of archaic houses at Azoria in 2005-2006. Hesperia 80: 431-89. https://doi.org/10.2972/hesperia.80.3.0431
Haggis, D.C., M.S. Mook, C.M. Scarry, L.M. Snyder, R.D. Fitzsimons, M.I. Stefanakis and W.C. West 2007 Excavations at Azoria, 2003-2004: part 1, the Archaic civic complex. Hesperia 76: 243-321. https://doi.org/10.2972/hesp.76.2.243
Hall, J.M. 2014 Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kotsonas, A. 2011 Ceramic variability and drinking habits in Iron Age Crete. In A. Mazarakis-Ainian (ed.), The ‘Dark Ages’ Revisited: An International Conference in Memory of William D.E. Coulson, 847-59. Volos, Greece: University of Thessaly.
Kyriakou, A., and A. Tourtas 2013 After destruction: taking care of remains at the sanctuary of Eukleia at Vergina. In J. Driessen (ed.), Destruction: Archaeological, Philological and Historical Perspectives, 299-318. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.
----- 2015 Detecting patterns through context analysis: a case study of deposits from the sanctuary of Eukleia at Aegae (Vergina). In D.C. Haggis and C.M. Antonaccio (eds.), Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, 357-84. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781934078471-016
Lucas, G. 2012 Understanding the Archaeological Record. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lynch, K.M. 2011 The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora. Hesperia Supplement 46. Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
----- 2015 Drinking cups and the symposium at Athens in the Archaic and Classical Periods. In K.F. Daly and L.A. Riccardi (eds.), Cities called Athens: Studies Honoring John McK. Camp II, 231-271. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press.
McAnany, P.A., and I. Hodder 2009 Thinking about stratigraphic sequence in social terms. Archaeological Dialogues 16: 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203809002797
Mee, C. 2011 Greek Archaeology: A Thematic Approach. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.
1002/9781444395440
Mook, M.S. 1993 The Northwest Building: Houses of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages on the Kastro at Kavousi, East Crete. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Classics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
----- 2004 From foundation to abandonment: new ceramic phasing for the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age on the Kastro at Kavousi. In L. Preston Day, M.S. Mook and J.D. Muhly (eds.), Crete beyond the Palaces: Proceedings of the Crete 2000 Conference. Prehistory Monographs 10: 163-79. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press.
Neer, R.T. 2012 Art and Archaeology of the Greek World: A New History, c. 2500 - c. 150. bce. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Olivier, L. 2011 The Dark Abyss of Time: Archaeology and Memory. Walnut Creek, California: Altamira Press.
Osborne, R. 2015 De-contextualising and re-contextualising: why Mediterranean archaeology needs to get out of the trench and back into the museum. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 28: 241-61. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v28i2.29533
----- 2016 Response to James Whitley. In J. Whitley, Fusing the horizons, or why context matters: the interdependence of fieldwork and museum study in Mediterranean archaeology. A Response to Robin Osborne’s ‘De-contextualising and Re-contextualising: Why Mediterranean archaeology needs to get out of the trench and back into the museum’ (JMA 28.2, December 2015), 262-65. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 29: 247-69. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v29i2.32574
Papaconstantinou, D. 2006 Archaeological context as a unifying process: an introduction. In D. Papaconstantinou (ed.) Deconstructing Context: A Critical Approach to Archaeological Practice, 1-21. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Rabinowitz, A. 2014 Drinkers, hosts, or fighters? Masculine identities in pre-Classical Crete. In O. Pilz and G. Seelentag (eds.), Cultural Practices and Material Culture in Archaic and Classical Crete: Proceedings of the International Conference, Mainz, May 20-21, 2011, 91-119. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110331783.91
Rotroff, S.I., and J.H. Oakley 1992 Debris from a Public Dining Place in the Athenian Agora. Hesperia Supplement 25. Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Saatsoglou-Paliadeli, C. 2000 Queenly appearances at Vergina-Aegae: old and new epigraphic and literary evidence. Archäologischer Anzeiger (2000.3): 387-403.
Schiffer, M.B. 1972 Archaeological context and systemic context. American Antiquity 37: 156-65. https://doi.org/10.2307/278203
----- 1985 Is there a ‘Pompeii premise’ in archaeology? Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 41: 18-41. https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.41.1.3630269
Scott, M. 2010 Delphi and Olympia: The Spatial Politics of Panhellenism in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shea, T. 2016 The dead among the living: mapping Classical Attic tombstones. Paper presented at the 117th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, San Francisco, California.
Snodgrass, A. 2007 What is classical archaeology? Greek archaeology. In S.E. Alcock and R. Osborne (eds.), Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology: Classical Archaeology, 13-29. Malden, Massachusetts and Oxford: Blackwell.
Whitley, J. 1994 Protoattic pottery: a contextual approach. In I. Morris (ed.), Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, 51-70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
----- 2001 The Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
----- 2004 Style wars: towards an explanation of Cretan exceptionalism. In G. Cadogan, E. Hatzaki and A. Vasilakis (eds.), Knossos: Palace, City, State. Proceedings of the Conference in Herakleion in November 2000. British School at Athens Studies 12: 433-42. London: British School at Athens.
----- 2009 Crete. In K.A. Raaflaub and H. van Wees (eds.), A Companion to Archaic Greece, 273-93. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444308761.ch14
----- 2014 Commensality and the ‘citizen state’: the case of Praisos. In F. Gaignerot-Driessen and J. Driessen (eds.), Cretan Cities: Formation and Transformation. Aegis actes de colloque 7: 141-63. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.
----- 2016 Fusing the horizons, or why context matters: the interdependence of fieldwork and museum study in Mediterranean archaeology. A Response to Robin Osborne’s ‘De-contextualising and re-contextualising: why Mediterranean archaeology needs to get out of the trench and back into the museum’ (JMA 28.2, December 2015). Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 29: 247-61. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v29i2.32574
Ault, B.A., and L.C. Nevett 1999 Digging houses: archaeologies of Classical and Hellenistic Greek domestic assemblages. In P.M. Allison (ed.), The Archaeology of Household Activities, 43-56. London and New York: Routledge.
Bailey, G. 2007 Time perspectives, palimpsests and the archaeology of time. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26: 198-223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2006.08.002
Barringer, J.M. 2014 The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Binford, L.R. 1981 Behavioral archaeology and the ‘Pompeii premise’. Journal of Anthropological Research 37: 195-208. https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.37.3.3629723
Bintliff, J. 2012 The Complete Archaeology of Greece: From Hunter-Gatherers to the 20th Century A.D. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118255179
Coulson, W.D.E., D.C. Haggis, M.S. Mook and J.L. Tobin 1997 Excavations on the Kastro at Kavousi: an architectural overview. Hesperia 66: 315-90. https://doi.org/10.2307/148394
Dillon, S. 2010 The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
----- 2017 Approaches to the study of Greek sculpture. In A. Lichtenberger and R. Raja (eds.), The Diversity of Classical Archaeology, 223-34. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
Dillon, S., and E.P. Baltes 2013 Honorific practices and the politics of space on Hellenistic Delos: portrait statue monuments along the dromos. American Journal of Archaeology 117: 207-46. https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.117.2.0207
Dillon, S., and T. Shea 2017 Statues as artefacts: towards an archaeology of Greek sculpture. In D. Rodríguez Pérez (ed.), Greek Art in Context: Archaeological and Art Historical Perspectives, 19-29. London and New York: Routledge.
Erickson, B.L. 2010 Crete in Transition: Pottery Styles and Island History in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Hesperia Supplement 45. Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Foxhall, L. 2007 House clearance: unpacking the ‘kitchen’ in Classical Greece. In R. Westgate, N. Fisher and J. Whitley (eds.), Building Communities: House, Settlement, and Society in the Aegean and Beyond. Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University, 17–21 April 2001. British School at Athens Studies 15: 233-42. London: British School at Athens.
Gesell, G.C., W.D.E. Coulson and L.P. Day 1991 Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, 1988. Hesperia 60: 145-77. https://doi.org/10.2307/148085
Haggis, D.C. 2015 The archaeology of urbanization: research design and the excavation of an archaic Greek city on Crete. In D.C. Haggis and C.M. Antonaccio (eds.), Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, 219-58. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781934078471-012
Haggis, D.C., and C.M. Antonaccio 2015 A contextual archaeology of ancient Greece. In D.C. Haggis and C.M. Antonaccio (eds.), Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, 1-20. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781934078471-004
Haggis, D.C., M.S. Mook, R.D. Fitzsimons, C.M. Scarry and L.M. Snyder 2011 The excavation of archaic houses at Azoria in 2005-2006. Hesperia 80: 431-89. https://doi.org/10.2972/hesperia.80.3.0431
Haggis, D.C., M.S. Mook, C.M. Scarry, L.M. Snyder, R.D. Fitzsimons, M.I. Stefanakis and W.C. West 2007 Excavations at Azoria, 2003-2004: part 1, the Archaic civic complex. Hesperia 76: 243-321. https://doi.org/10.2972/hesp.76.2.243
Hall, J.M. 2014 Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kotsonas, A. 2011 Ceramic variability and drinking habits in Iron Age Crete. In A. Mazarakis-Ainian (ed.), The ‘Dark Ages’ Revisited: An International Conference in Memory of William D.E. Coulson, 847-59. Volos, Greece: University of Thessaly.
Kyriakou, A., and A. Tourtas 2013 After destruction: taking care of remains at the sanctuary of Eukleia at Vergina. In J. Driessen (ed.), Destruction: Archaeological, Philological and Historical Perspectives, 299-318. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.
----- 2015 Detecting patterns through context analysis: a case study of deposits from the sanctuary of Eukleia at Aegae (Vergina). In D.C. Haggis and C.M. Antonaccio (eds.), Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, 357-84. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781934078471-016
Lucas, G. 2012 Understanding the Archaeological Record. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lynch, K.M. 2011 The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora. Hesperia Supplement 46. Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
----- 2015 Drinking cups and the symposium at Athens in the Archaic and Classical Periods. In K.F. Daly and L.A. Riccardi (eds.), Cities called Athens: Studies Honoring John McK. Camp II, 231-271. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press.
McAnany, P.A., and I. Hodder 2009 Thinking about stratigraphic sequence in social terms. Archaeological Dialogues 16: 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203809002797
Mee, C. 2011 Greek Archaeology: A Thematic Approach. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.
1002/9781444395440
Mook, M.S. 1993 The Northwest Building: Houses of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages on the Kastro at Kavousi, East Crete. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Classics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
----- 2004 From foundation to abandonment: new ceramic phasing for the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age on the Kastro at Kavousi. In L. Preston Day, M.S. Mook and J.D. Muhly (eds.), Crete beyond the Palaces: Proceedings of the Crete 2000 Conference. Prehistory Monographs 10: 163-79. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press.
Neer, R.T. 2012 Art and Archaeology of the Greek World: A New History, c. 2500 - c. 150. bce. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Olivier, L. 2011 The Dark Abyss of Time: Archaeology and Memory. Walnut Creek, California: Altamira Press.
Osborne, R. 2015 De-contextualising and re-contextualising: why Mediterranean archaeology needs to get out of the trench and back into the museum. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 28: 241-61. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v28i2.29533
----- 2016 Response to James Whitley. In J. Whitley, Fusing the horizons, or why context matters: the interdependence of fieldwork and museum study in Mediterranean archaeology. A Response to Robin Osborne’s ‘De-contextualising and Re-contextualising: Why Mediterranean archaeology needs to get out of the trench and back into the museum’ (JMA 28.2, December 2015), 262-65. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 29: 247-69. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v29i2.32574
Papaconstantinou, D. 2006 Archaeological context as a unifying process: an introduction. In D. Papaconstantinou (ed.) Deconstructing Context: A Critical Approach to Archaeological Practice, 1-21. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Rabinowitz, A. 2014 Drinkers, hosts, or fighters? Masculine identities in pre-Classical Crete. In O. Pilz and G. Seelentag (eds.), Cultural Practices and Material Culture in Archaic and Classical Crete: Proceedings of the International Conference, Mainz, May 20-21, 2011, 91-119. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110331783.91
Rotroff, S.I., and J.H. Oakley 1992 Debris from a Public Dining Place in the Athenian Agora. Hesperia Supplement 25. Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Saatsoglou-Paliadeli, C. 2000 Queenly appearances at Vergina-Aegae: old and new epigraphic and literary evidence. Archäologischer Anzeiger (2000.3): 387-403.
Schiffer, M.B. 1972 Archaeological context and systemic context. American Antiquity 37: 156-65. https://doi.org/10.2307/278203
----- 1985 Is there a ‘Pompeii premise’ in archaeology? Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 41: 18-41. https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.41.1.3630269
Scott, M. 2010 Delphi and Olympia: The Spatial Politics of Panhellenism in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shea, T. 2016 The dead among the living: mapping Classical Attic tombstones. Paper presented at the 117th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, San Francisco, California.
Snodgrass, A. 2007 What is classical archaeology? Greek archaeology. In S.E. Alcock and R. Osborne (eds.), Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology: Classical Archaeology, 13-29. Malden, Massachusetts and Oxford: Blackwell.
Whitley, J. 1994 Protoattic pottery: a contextual approach. In I. Morris (ed.), Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, 51-70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
----- 2001 The Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
----- 2004 Style wars: towards an explanation of Cretan exceptionalism. In G. Cadogan, E. Hatzaki and A. Vasilakis (eds.), Knossos: Palace, City, State. Proceedings of the Conference in Herakleion in November 2000. British School at Athens Studies 12: 433-42. London: British School at Athens.
----- 2009 Crete. In K.A. Raaflaub and H. van Wees (eds.), A Companion to Archaic Greece, 273-93. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444308761.ch14
----- 2014 Commensality and the ‘citizen state’: the case of Praisos. In F. Gaignerot-Driessen and J. Driessen (eds.), Cretan Cities: Formation and Transformation. Aegis actes de colloque 7: 141-63. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.
----- 2016 Fusing the horizons, or why context matters: the interdependence of fieldwork and museum study in Mediterranean archaeology. A Response to Robin Osborne’s ‘De-contextualising and re-contextualising: why Mediterranean archaeology needs to get out of the trench and back into the museum’ (JMA 28.2, December 2015). Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 29: 247-61. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v29i2.32574
Published
2018-06-24
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Haggis, D. C. (2018). Discussion and Debate: In Defense of a Contextual Classical Archaeology. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 31(1), 101-119. https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.36812
