Greek History

Epameinondas the great Theban general and politician (c. 318/312-362 B.C.) deserves credit for crippling the might of Sparta, founding the independent polis of Messenia and advancing the Boeotian League to the foremost position of power in all of Greece. It is then rather surprising that not a single dedicated monograph has been published in English on the general. With this thesis I hope to remedy the situation by providing a detailed and exhaustive account of Epameinondas' life and career. Such a task is made difficult since the surviving source material for the early to the middle of the fourth century predominantly focuses on the affairs of Athens and Sparta. However, once information on Thebes has been isolated a continuous narrative may be comprehended, which uplifts the veil on an obscure portion of history. As a result it is possible to produce a detailed analysis of Epameinondas' role in the government and his development of a federal league of states led by the Thebans. Along with this his military endeavours are examined in great detail with a close inspection of the relevant topographies of each respective area.

Recently, complex interpretations of socio-cultural change in the ancient Mediterranean world have emerged that challenge earlier models. Influenced by today's hyper-connected age, scholars no longer perceive the Mediterranean as a static place where Graeco-Roman culture was dominant, but rather see it as a dynamic and connected sea where fragmentation and uncertainty, along with mobility and networking, were the norm. Hence, a current theoretical approach to studying ancient culture has been that of globalization. Certain eras of Mediterranean history (e.g., the Bronze Age and Roman empire) known for their increased connectivity have thus been analyzed from a globalized perspective that examines rhizomal networking, cultural diversity, and multiple processes of social change. Archaeology has proven a useful discipline for investigating ancient globalization because of its recent focus on how identity is expressed through material culture negotiated between both local and global influences when levels of connectivity are altered. Insularity, or the socially recognized differences expressed by people living on islands, is a form of self-identification created within a particular space and time. The papers in this volume argue that insularity, as a unique social identity affected by global forces, should be viewed as an important research paradigm for archaeologies concerned with re-examining cultural change.

Community and subjectivity.
Skarlatos Vyzantios’s Konstantinoupolis: Difference and Fusion.
Stephanos Pesmazoglou.
The ‘nation’ of the Rum sings of its Sultan: The many faces of Ottomanism.
Sia Anagnostopoulou.
Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire.
Selim Deringil.
The life in the Anatolian Countryside during the Greek Occupation:.
the example of Foça.
Engin Berber.
Identity in the City: Rum Polites of Istanbul in Athens.
Ilay Romain Ors.
Institutions.
Ecumenical ideology in the Orthodox Millet (19th – 20th c)
Dimitris Stamatopoulos.
Medicine, Philanthropy and the Construction of Poverty in Istanbul in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.
Haris Exertzoglou.
Marching on an Empty Stomach: Practical Aspects of Gendarmerie Reform in Ottoman Macedonia.
İpek K. Yosmaoğlu.
The Problems of Minority Foundations during the Single-Party Era.
Elçin Macar.
Economy and Society.
Creating the pre-industrial Ottoman-Greek Merchant: Sources, Methods and Interpretations.
Maria Christina Chatziioannou.
A Migrant-Merchant Family from Mersin: the Mavromatis.
Meltem Toksöz.
Bridging the gap: Rural Macedonia from Ottoman to Greek Rule (1900-1920).
Socrates D. Petmezas.
Greek-Orthodox Households in Istanbul (19th-20th centuries): Social and Demographic Trends.
Meropi Anastassiadou.
Women's Sounds from Tirebolu : Domains of Existence and Power Networks.
Arzu Öztürkmen.
Urban planning.
Urban Transformations in the European Provinces of the Ottoman Empire at the End of the 19th century.
Alexandra Yerolympos.
Urban Texture and Architectural Styles after the Tanzimat.
Filiz Çalışlar Yenişehirlioğlu.
Epilegomena.
Common Past, Comparative History and Regional Universalism in Greek and Ottoman Historiography.
Christos Hadziiossif.

This article publishes a deposit of ostraka uncovered during excavations in the Athenian Agora in the late 1990s. It includes more than 150 incised sherds, making it the third largest group of ostraka discovered in the history of the site. Five candidates are represented, and the presence of a large number of ballots for Xanthippos, who was ostracized in 484 b.c., fixes their date in the mid-480s, and perhaps in 484 itself. The new finds also shed light on letter shapes, spelling, and other features of Attic writing, providing additional evidence for Athenian literacy in the early 5th century.

I recenti scavi della Missione archeologica a Mozia della Sapienza nella Zona C hanno individuato il primo stanziamento fenicio, con una serie di pozzi e l'Edificio C8, i cui resti fotografano i momenti iniziali di vita della colonia fenicia nel secondo quarto dell'VIII secolo a.C.

The empire that the Athenians established in the years after 478 BC was an entirely new phenomenon in the history of Greece, and the basis of much of the brilliant development of Athenian culture in the fifth century. Its growth and collapse was the key event in the history of the period, after the defeat of the Persian invasion. Yet this important historical phenomenon remains baffling to study. New developments in various fields have made urgent a revision of existing approaches, which largely originated in the first half of the last century. Advances in archaeology have hugely extended the possibilities of writing an archaeology of the empire. The accepted chronology of many key inscriptions has been powerfully challenged, so that new narrative reconstructions become possible. Relevant new documents in languages such as Lycian have become available. Understanding of the Persian empire which was the parallel, and in a sense the model, with which the Athenian empire interacted has been transformed in the last quarter century. Broader developments in historiography (microhistory; history from below; and, post-colonial theory) invite us to pose new questions.The aim of this collection is not to offer a final word on any of the problems, but to give a sense of the possibility of a new generation of studies of the empire.

Middle East in the History in Terms of Geography, Resources and People Geography: Middle East has many deserts, mountains and also fertile  agricultural land.
Resources: Resources are very rich in the Middle East especially when it comes to the oil and nutural gas. Middle East has resources of gold, silver, granite, copper, iron, basalt, marble, cronoum. People: The dominant nations in the Middle East are Arabs, Turks, Persians, Pakistanians and Afgans. The influential ethnic and sectorian (mezhepsel) groups are Barbars in Algaria, the Copts in Egypt, the Black Christians
in Southern Sudan, Shiites in the Gulf Countries including Saudi Arabia and Lebunon, Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria and Lebanon, Snidhs in Pakistan and Ozbeks in Afganistan.

This paper investigates how collaborative translation practices were employed in the Greek translations of theoretical Marxist texts published by the Communist Party of Greece in the 1950s. The party’s efforts to dominate Marxist discourse required the codification of Marxist theory and the creation of accurate translations and retranslations of theoretical Marxist texts. To this end, a specific model of collaboration was developed based on the principles of industrial production, and conceptualised here as “industrialisation of translation” (Mossop 2006). The translation process resembled a production line where, at different stages, each contributor added a part until the completion of a translation. The translation process is analysed by adapting indicators of industrialisation from Mossop (2006), e.g., large quantities of materials to be translated, centralization of translation, intensification of work, division of labor, and quality control and employee discipline, to show how collaboration was central both to the completion of translations and to claims about their accuracy.

Encyclopedia entries:
“Roman Maniple Legion”; “Roman War with Pyrrhus of Epirus”; “Battle of Magnesia”; “Polybius”; “Roman Civil War of 193-197 CE”; “Arch of Septimius Severus”; “Constantius II”; “Julian the Apostate”; “Ammianus Marcellinus”

Sara E. Phang, Douglas Kelly, Peter Londey, and Iain Spence, Editors

Course Description:
This is a student-driven seminar based on readings, presentations, and in-class discussions of military confrontations in the world of the Greeks and the Romans. The Classical world of the Mediterranean was a world of war. Ancient states were locked in a struggle for limited resources and access to power. Warfare was a means to political advancement, economic prosperity, and state security. The military was important to all ancient societies. All ancient peoples were aggressive and warlike. To help understand the Classical world it is important to have an understanding of ancient military history.

From the study of ancient military history, one can address important questions. How were the Greeks able to retain their independence from Persia? How did the Macedonians rise to power under Alexander the Great? How did the Romans establish their hegemony over the Mediterranean? What caused the fall of the mighty Roman Empire? Why were the Arab conquests so swift and successful? Etc. There are various valid approaches to studying the past, and military explanations have academic merit and deserve consideration. This course will investigate these various questions through an examination of tactics, strategy, and policy in antiquity.

This course follows new approaches to military history, investigating the connection of ancient militaries and warfare to social, cultural, ideological, and religious history. It will examine several main themes, including the applicability of the theoretical framework of Realist and International Relations theory to ancient geopolitical history, the concept of imperialism, the relevance of warfare to the study of ancient history, the impact of military reforms, and the militarism of ancient societies. It will consider why ancient warfare was necessary and what ancient states hoped to accomplish.

This will be a seminar course driven by student participation. It will focus on modern studies but also will feature a wide array of literary and archaeological source material. Students will investigate historiographical arguments, lead class discussions, and prepare presentations. This course requires weekly preparation and active participation. There are no exams; however, each student will have to prepare and write two college research papers. This course offers students the opportunity to learn how to analyze source material, weigh historiographical arguments, and write more professionally. These are skills that will be useful in senior level courses, graduate school, and in scores of careers that necessitate writing, research, and the ability to manage individual projects.

My DNA test shows that as an ethnic Macedonian my forebears have been living in the Balkans for many thousands of years and that I am indigenous to the region. So what should I make of claims by the Greek Government and philhellene academics who claim that modern Macedonians are not related to the ancient Macedonians and other ancient peoples but are so called "Slavs" who migrated to the Balkans only 1,300 years ago? This article shows how science is far more knowledgeable, reasonable and trustworthy than politics and how it can help to solve longstanding Balkan political and ethnic issues.

Walther Wrede was a well-known classical archaeologist in prewar Greece. However, he was also an ardent Nazi and, in fact, the clandestine leader of the Greek branch of the NSDAP since his assumption of the directorship of the German Institute of Archaeology in Athens, in 1935. As such he was actively involved in events leading to the German conquest of Greece, after which he served as a high profile tourist guide to German officials visiting the Acropolis (Himmler, marshal von Brauchitsch, et.al.), while also engaging in business with Greek publishers in occupied Athens (published in Greek in the monthly journal Ιστορία Εικονογραφημένη ("History Illustrated"), issue no. 570), December 2015)

Course Description: History 1001 covers the history of Western Civilization (European and related Near Eastern cultures) up to and including the European “Renaissance.” The primary focus of the course is on the social, cultural, religious, military, and political history of the period as revealed by reading primary sources, the textbook, and attending class lectures. The goal of the class is to introduce the student to the study of history, focusing upon the history of Near Eastern, Greek, Roman, and Medieval civilizations. This course can be used to meet three credit hours toward the General Education requirements for the Humanities.

Images of ancient Sparta are irrepressible in Western thought. A powerful model of excellence in the middle ages and Renaissance, in the Enlightenment and French Revolution Sparta was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of an ideal republic. Since the 19th century Sparta has been viewed as the opposite of liberal and industrial democracies: shunned – or hailed – as the model for 20th century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich. Intelligence analysts in the United States used Sparta as an analogy to predict the performance of the Cold War Soviet Union. But positive views of the Spartans flourish in contemporary democratic culture and digital media, most strikingly in popular fiction, graphic novels and film.

This book is the first to focus exclusively on Sparta’s impact in modern times. Eleven international experts take readers across ten centuries from the 12th century Renaissance to 21st century digital culture. Exploiting hitherto untapped sources, from medieval political tracts to declassified CIA documents and YouTube video clips, they reveal many previously unknown aspects of Sparta’s impact on modern politics and culture.

A large-scale critical history of representations of Greeks in the U.S. media that aims to provide a comprehensive overview of mediated stereotypes over the last 60 years. This article also reflects on issues of immigration, diaspora, cultural heritage, and ethnicity in the mediated construction of Hellenic identity.

Each year over seven billion people across the world are drawn to see the latest feature films at the cinema. This episode reveals how the most powerful storytelling medium ever created exploits visual techniques invented by artists in the ancient world.

The investigation starts with the oldest recorded story, that of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. The story tells the tales (and adventures) of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.  One scene from the story, in particular, captured the imagination of Bronze Age people, and that was the slaying of a pride of lions. The story inspired the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal, in around 645BC, to cast himself in the leading role of Gilgamesh in a series of carved friezes for his throne room. The success of these lead Ashurbanipal to depict the battle against the Elamites and in particular visualised the prisoners grinding their ancestors bones to make their bread. Although mankind had discovered the power of the protagonist, in particular that of a hero, Ashurbanipal’s stories lacked emotion and so are hard to engage with.

Jumping forward several hundred years to the Ancient Greeks, we find the next missing element crucial to storing telling. In the grotto of the Villa de Tiberius in Spurlonga, Italy, a collection of sculptures were found that depict Odysseus‘s encounter with the cyclops. The statues show Odysseus getting the cyclops drunk and then tricking him, and driving a stake though his eye. By depicting the emotions in the scene we, as the viewer, get a greater connection with the story. If we care about the characters, we care about what happens next.

The Romans refined this process more when Emperor Trajan, celebrated his conquest of the Dacians, and created Trajan’s column in the heart of Rome. The 35m high marble column has the story of the event, spiraling around the column, from the base, right to the very top. Admired by Napoleon and Mussolini, it depicts an Epic with Trajan as the protagonist hero and the Dacian king Decebalus as the antagonist. The sculptors used many visual techniques still used today such as cut scenes, and birds eye and low views to add drama. The whole story can be summarised by looking up the western axis of the column. Although this captivated viewers there was still something missing.

The final piece in the jigsaw can be found in Australia which has some of oldest known painted images, some known to be over 40k years old. The aborigines still draw gods and spirits the same way their early ancestors did, for example images of barramundi fish. This consistency has lead to these images becoming symbols, triggering the viewer to recall well known stories passed down generation to generation. The real magic happened when the Aborigines came together to celebrate these stories, they recounted them adding drum beats, rhythm and chanting. Now two senses were being stimulated, the eyes and the ears.

When the pioneers of the nineteenth century created the first moving images, they were silent, but as soon as cinematographers added sound, cinema as we know it today took off.

Admiration of Classical Sparta, though prevalent in German nationalist discourse even before the twentieth century, was taken to altogether new heights during the Third Reich. Praised by Hitler himself as ‘the foremost racial state in antiquity’, Sparta was presented in national-socialist thought as the ideal of a totalitarian, Aryan state whose defining characteristics (Gemeinschaftsleben, enslavement of conquered races, and permanent Wehrbereitschaft) mirrored uncannily those of the new Germany.

However, not only did many of the Reich’s leading figures (such as Goering, Goebbels, Rust and Rosenberg) treat Sparta, for educational and propagandist purposes, as the perfect paradigm of a racially-pure warrior-state, which all Germans should unite in recreating – they also claimed that, in a certain sense, the Reich was Sparta reincarnate. They did not see themselves merely as slavish imitators of the Spartans; rather, they felt that the blood of these Dorian-Aryan Greeks was flowing once more in German veins – confirmation that the Third Reich also embodied a glorious ‘Wiedergeburt der Antike’.

This paper explores national-socialist leaders’ and ideologues’ Spartan self-identification in detail – a subject which has thus far received little scholarly attention.

Philippe Charlier and colleagues describe how the Romans wiped their bottoms and speculate about the resulting health problems Philippe Charlier assistant professor in forensic medicine and anthropologist 1 2 , Luc Brun pathologist 3 , Clarisse Prêtre researcher 4 , Isabelle Huynh-Charlier radiologist 5

Heavenly gates existed in 'pagan' times long before Christians appropriated them for their purposes. Literary evidence links Macrobius back to Cicero, and then to Plato, whose Republic gives the earliest account of celestial portals in the Western tradition. Macrobius reveals that these gates stand at the intersections of the Milky Way and the Zodiac, which is composed of the constellations along the path of the Planets. Astronomical photographic evidence proves that Manilius' claim in Astronomica is correct -the intersection in the sky is indeed visible, at certain times of the year. Numismatic evidence corroborates that the celestial crossroads played a crucial role in the cosmology and soteriology of the Hellenistic world -appearing on Roman coins over centuries, from the Republic to the end of the Empire. Connecting these various strands of research together, we can conclude that the heavenly gates found in Plato's Republic correspond to Plato's cosmic X in Timaeus, a symbol of the pagan belief in a heavenly afterlife over hundreds of years.

By investigating the works of Polybius and Livy, we can discuss an important aspect of the impact of Alexander upon the reputation and image of Rome. Because of the subject of their histories and the political atmosphere in which they were writing - these authors, despite their generally positive opinions of Alexander, ultimately created scenarios where they portrayed the Romans as superior to the Macedonian king. This study has five primary goals: to produce a commentary on the various Alexander passages found in Polybius’ and Livy’s histories; to establish the generally positive opinion of Alexander held by these two writers; to illustrate that a noticeable theme of their works is the ongoing comparison between Alexander and Rome; to demonstrate Polybius’ and Livy’s belief in Roman superiority, even over Alexander; and finally to create an understanding of how this motif influences their greater narratives and alters our appreciation of their works.

New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare brings together essays from specialists in ancient history who employ contemporary tools and approaches to reveal new evidence and increase knowledge of ancient militaries and warfare. In-depth yet highly readable, this volume covers the most recent trends for understanding warfare, militaries, soldiers, non-combatants, and their roles in ancient cultures. Chronologically-organized chapters explore new methodologies, evidence, and topics while offering fresh and original perspectives on recent documentary and archaeological discoveries.
Covering the time period from Archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire, the text asks questions of both new and re-examined old evidence and discusses the everyday military life of soldiers and veterans. Chapters address unique topics such as neurophysiological explanations for why some soldiers panic and others do not in the same battle, Greek society’s handling of combat trauma in returning veterans, the moral aspects and human elements of ancient sieges, medical care in the late Roman Empire, and the personal experience of military servicemembers and their families. Each chapter is self-contained to allow readers to explore topics in any order they prefer.
Providing new material and topical focus, New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare is an ideal text for Greek History or Roman History courses, particularly those focusing on ancient warfare, as well as scholars and general readers with interest in the ancient militaries.

İkinci Meşrutiyet’in ilanıyla beraber Osmanlı siyasal alanında boykot ve sokak gösterileri, erken dönem Müslüman/Türk milliyetçiliğinin repertuvarındaki en tipik araçlar olarak temayüz edecekti. Bu tarihten sonra ne zaman bir diplomatik ya da ulusal sorun ortaya çıksa, Müslüman/Türk milliyetçi hareketi protesto gösterileri düzenleyecek ve imparatorluğun düşmanlarına karşı ekonomik boykotlar örgütleyecekti.

Osmanlı’yı Müslümanlaştırmak, kitle siyasetinin bu iki önemli aracının imparatorlukta nasıl ortaya çıktığını ve ne şekilde kullanıldığını gösteriyor. 1909-1914’te milli bayramlar, sivil dernekler, gönüllü cemiyetleri, kitle hareketleri ve günlük basının boykotların etkisini ne derecede pekiştirdiğini tartışıyor. Boykotlar sırasında Müslümanları ve gayrimüslimleri kapsayan bir Osmanlı kimliği tasavvurundan, diğerlerini dışlayan Müslüman/Türk bir milli kimlik inşası sürecine nasıl geçildiğini görüyoruz.

Osmanlı’yı Müslümanlaştırmak, aynı zamanda bir iktisadi silah olarak da kullanılan boykotun, “milli” iktisadın kuruluşundaki rolünü ise karmaşık toplumsal-siyasal süreçlerin arasından çekip çıkararak, net bir biçimde ortaya koyuyor.

Geleneksel tarihyazımının aksine Çetinkaya yükselen Müslüman Türk milliyetçiliğini düşünce tarihi çerçevesinde ele almaktan ziyade işçiler, tüccarlar, eşraf, profesyoneller, memurlar vb.– farklı toplumsal grupların iradesine odaklanıyor. Kitap, 20. yüzyıl başında Anadolu’nun İslâmlaştırılmasının ve Türkleştirilmesinin tarihine önemli bir katkıda bulunuyor.
Fikret Adanır, Ruhr Üniversitesi

Çetinkaya’nın geç Osmanlı tarihinde ortaya çıkan boykot hareketleri üzerine yaptığı önemli ve itinalı analiz, 1908 Devrimi’nden sonra Türkler, Rumlar ve Ermeniler arasında görülen ortak, iyimser coşkunun, nasıl altı sene içinde yerinden etmeler ve katliamlara vardığını açık bir şekilde gösteriyor.
Erik J. Zürcher, Leiden Üniversitesi

Zaretsky sat down at their computers recently to have a conversation about George Steiner's "The Idea of Europe," a lecture delivered in 2003 and published this year by Overlook Press. Although they both teach in Texas, Zaretsky at the University of Houston and Bradatan at Texas Tech University, Bradatan was writing from Shimla, India, while Zaretsky wrote from an undisclosed Starbucks outside Houston.

A Companion that examines together two pivotal periods of Greek archaeology and offers a rich analysis of early Greek culture

A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean offers an original and inclusive review of two key periods of Greek archaeology, which are typically treated separately—the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. It presents an in-depth exploration of the society and material culture of Greece and the Mediterranean, from the 14th to the early 7th centuries BC. The two-volume companion sets Aegean developments within their broader geographic and cultural context, and presents the wide-ranging interactions with the Mediterranean.

The companion bridges the gap that typically exists between Prehistoric and Classical Archaeology and examines material culture and social practice across Greece and the Mediterranean. A number of specialists examine the environment and demography, and analyze a range of textual and archaeological evidence to shed light on socio-political and cultural developments. The companion also emphasizes regionalism in the archaeology of early Greece and examines the responses of different regions to major phenomena such as state formation, literacy, migration and colonization. Comprehensive in scope, this important companion:

Outlines major developments in the two key phases of early Greece, the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age
Includes studies of the geography, chronology and demography of early Greece
Explores the development of early Greek state and society and examines economy, religion, art and material culture
Sets Aegean developments within their Mediterranean context
Written for students, and scholars interested in the material culture of the era, A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean offers a comprehensive and authoritative guide that bridges the gap between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.

Sexuality-the subject matter seems so obvious that it hardly appears to need comment. An immense and ever-increasing number of "discourses" has been devoted to its exploration and control during the last few centuries, and their very production has, as Foucault points out, been a major characteristic of bourgeois society. Yet, ironically, as soon as we attempt to apply the concept to history, apparently insurmountable problems confront us.

Both in antiquity and in modern scholarship, classical Sparta has typically been viewed as an exceptional society, different in many respects from other Greek city-states. This view has recently come under challenge from revisionist historians, led by Stephen Hodkinson. This is the first book devoted explicitly to this lively historical controversy. Historians from Britain, Europe and the USA present different sides of the argument, using a variety of comparative approaches. The focus includes kingship and hegemonic structures, education and commensality, religious institutions and practice, helotage and ethnography. The volume concludes with a wide-ranging debate between Hodkinson and Mogens Herman Hansen (Director of the Copenhagen Polis Centre), on the overall question of whether Sparta was a normal or an exceptional polis.

This book is the first comprehensive examination of the lists of Olympic victors that were assiduously maintained by ancient Greeks for more than a 1,000 years. The origins, development, content, and structure of Olympic victor lists are explored and explained, and a number of important questions, such as the source and reliability of the year of 776 BCE for the first Olympics, are addressed.

The Late Bronze Age ended with a bang in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean: palaces and empires collapsed, from Greece to Egypt; coastal territories were beset by pirates and marauders; migratory peoples were on the move across land and sea; and geopolitical lines were permanently redrawn – conditions reflected, in many ways, by the world portrayed in Homer’s Odyssey. The notorious ‘Sea Peoples,’ mysterious groups of warriors who were credited by the pharaoh Ramesses III with destroying empires across the Near East at this time, fit into this puzzle in some way, although their exact role continues to be hotly debated. In the Odyssey’s various subplots, Odysseus himself carries out activities that are that highly reminiscent of the Sea Peoples, as he engages in raids and skirmishes while circuitously making his way back from Troy. Though it is presented as a falsehood within Homer’s master narrative, one such subplot, the “Second Cretan Lie” (Odyssey xiv 191–359) is striking in its similarity to the experience of one specific Sea Peoples group, whom Egyptian pharaohs referred to as the "Sherden of the Sea", and whose seaborne attacks they claimed that “none could withstand.”
This book marshals documentary, pictorial, and material evidence to examine Odysseus’ Second Cretan Lie in the context of the Late Bronze–Iron Age transition, with particular emphasis on changes in the iconography of warriors and warfare, social and economic upheaval, and remarkable innovation in maritime technology and tactics. Particular focus is given the hero’s description of his frequent raiding activities, including an ill–fated attempt on the Nile Delta, and on his description of seven subsequent years spent in the land of the pharaohs, during which he claims to have gathered great wealth. Setting the evidence for the Sherden of the Sea against this Homeric narrative demonstrates not only that Odysseus’ Second Cretan Lie fits into the temporal framework of the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition, but that there were historical people who actually lived that which Odysseus falsely claims as his own experience.

In this review the oldest known advanced astronomical instrument and dedicated analogue computer is presented, in context. The Antikythera Mechanism a mysterious device, assumed to be ahead of its time, probably made around 150 to 100 BCE, has been found in a 1st century BCE shipwreck near the island of Antikythera in a huge ship full of Greek treasures that were on their way to Rome. The Antikythera Mechanism is a clock-like device made of bronze gears, which looks much more advanced than its contemporary technological achievements. It is based on mathematics attributed to the Hipparchus and possibly carries knowledge and tradition that goes back to Archimedes, who according to ancient texts constructed several automata, including astronomical devices, a mechanical planetarium and a celestial sphere. The Antikythera Mechanism probably had a beautiful and expensive box; looking possibly like a very elaborate miniature Greek Temple, perhaps decorated with golden ornaments, of an elegant Hellenistic style, even perhaps with automatic statuettes, 'daemons', functioning as pointers that performed some of its operations. Made out of appropriately tailored trains of gears that enable to perform specialised calculations, the mechanism carries concentric scales and pointers, in one side showing the position of the Sun in the ecliptic and the sky, possibly giving the time, hour of the day or night, like a clock. The position of the Moon and its phase is also shown during the month. On the other side of the Mechanism, having probably the size of a box (main part 32×20×6 cm), are two large spiral scales with two pointers showing the time in two different very long calendars, the first one concerning the eclipses, and lasting 18 years 11 days and 8 hours, the Saros period, repeating the solar and lunar eclipses, and enabling their prediction, and the 19 year cycle of Meton, that is the period the Moon reappears in the same place of the sky, with the same phase. An additional four-year dial shows the year of all Greek Festivities, the so-called 'games' (Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian etc). Two additional dials give the Exeligmos, the 54 year and 34 day cycle, which provides a more accurate prediction of eclipses. It is possible that the Mechanism was also equipped with a planetary show display, as three of the planets and their motion (stationary points) are mentioned many times in the manual of the instrument, so it was also a planetarium. From the manual we have hints that the mechanism was probably also an observational instrument, as having instructions concerning a viewfinder and possibly how to orient the viewfinder to pass a sunbeam through it, probably measuring the altitude of the Sun. There are fragmented sentences that probably give instructions on how to move the pointers to set the position of the Sun, the Moon and the planets in their initial places in the ecliptic, on a specific day, or how to measure angular distances between two celestial bodies or their coordinates. This mechanism is definitely not the first one of its kind. The fact that it is accompanied with instructions means that the constructor had in its mind to be used by somebody else and one posits that he made at least another similar instrument.