Ancient Greek Colonies

Catalog description

This seminar examines the archaeology of Greek colonization from the Late Bronze Age to ca. 500 B.C. These colonies were highly diverse in their motivations, physical settings, and political and social structures, as well as in their relationships with mother cities and the new worlds they inhabited. Emphasis is placed on the colonial experience as a cross-cultural and negotiated process; several streams of the changing theoretical and conceptual approaches to Greek colonization are explored. In addition to archaeological and epigraphic evidence, literary and historical traditions are examined. Colonies from the southern Balkan peninsula, Black Sea, Ionia, northern Africa, and Magna Graecia will be the focus of reading and reports. Seminar meetings will consist of oral reports and discussion of these reports and other topics. Depending on the number of participants, each person will be responsible for two or three reports of approximately 30-45 minutes length. Accompanying the oral report will be a PowerPoint document (in most cases), a synopsis/summary of one to two pages, and a bibliography. These will all be posted on the course Canvas site. No later than one week before an oral presentation, the presenter will identify one or two key readings for all to read, in consultation with the instructor. These will be posted, in PDF format, on the Canvas site. One or more visits to the Penn Museum may be built into the course.