This volume comprises a collection of seventeen essays plus two introductory chapters in honour of A. Bernard Knapp, a leading figure in Cypriot and Mediterranean archaeology, but also in archaeological theory for about four decades. It is structured in five themed parts: Cypriot Pre- and Proto-history and economy, Cyprus and metallurgy, Cypriot landscapes, the wider Mediterranean and maritime archaeology of Cyprus and the Levant. In the first introductory chapter, Manning traces Knapp's scholarly evolution from Near Eastern texts, to Marxist and post-processual approaches to prehistoric Cypriot metallurgy, economy, society and landscape to wider synthetic approaches to the Mediterranean and, last but not least, maritime archaeology. Manning's second chapter, this time a proper but brief Introduction describes the contents of the volume. Chapter 1 by Cherry outlines the development of the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology by himself and the honoré.
Chapter 2 by Webb stresses the conspicuous funerary consumption of bronze weapons and imported goods at Middle Cypriot Lapithos to argue for the complexity of its social organization. This argument is contrary to the image of a society comprising simple, small-scale communities that has been usually suggested. Further research on the topic would certainly require a fresh approach to the concepts of value and prestige. In Chapter 3, Fisher explores the experiential aspect of the built environment of the Late Cypriot Building X at Kalavassos Ayios Dhimitrios (henceforth KAD). He spends the first part of the chapter underlining the social importance of the materiality of buildings. He then turns to relatively conventional experiential approaches to the built environment and rightly stresses the social importance of proximity and distance during public events at KAD. Chapter 4 by Kearns places the 1st millennium bc town of Amathus in its regional setting. Survey data indicate a patchwork of small settlements, which seem to have partly continued a pre-existing and pre-Iron Age way of life.
Kassianidou in Chapter 5 brings up the importance of Politiko Phorades. This is a Late Cypriot smelting site, small but highly specialized, which probably catered for the needs of a wider clientele during a very short stretch of time, perhaps representing a single smelting event. Politiko Phorades demonstrates the complex organization of Late Bronze societies in Cyprus, which afforded such a high degree of technological specialization and expertise. In Chapter 6, Hadjisavvas outlines the results of the preliminary investigation of Mathiatis Mavrovouni. The combination of slag deposits and limestone and terracotta sculptures suggest an Archaic-Hellenistic sanctuary, perhaps used by the mining community of the time.
Chapter 7 by Andreou shifts attention from copper production to the landscape. Her post-colonial theoretical framework deconstructs the Troodos Mountain of Cyprus as a solid entity and calls for a flexible and nuanced approach that pays attention to the socio-historically contingent relations between lowlands and uplands in Cyprus. It would be interesting to see this call become a comprehensive research agenda in the future. Given, in Chapter 8, notes the lack of organic integration of post-processual and later theory into intensive survey. He proposes increased levels of self-awareness in research and on-going discourses within the archaeological community and between archaeologists and the wider public. Again, it would be interesting to see the published results of such “convivial research” (p. 153).
Chapter 9 by Blake employs a network approach to the circulation of goods in Middle Bronze Age Sicily to argue against its established view as a unified island. Rupp and Tsipopoulou in Chapter 10 demonstrate how Late Minoan III buildings and ritual activities transformed the Early and Middle Minoan cemetery of Petras, Crete into a mnemonic landscape and might have afforded the buttressing of power and authority claims upon understandings of a “Minoan” past. Brysbaert's Chapter 11 examines road networks in prehistoric Argolid, Greece, to argue that mobility patterns varied according to the bulk of the transported goods. Her study allows the appreciation of the variety of understandings that the same landscape may have afforded.
Chapter 12 by Monroe examines the textual evidence to argue about the existence of both royal and private vineyards at Ugarit and Emar in the Late Bronze Age. He concludes that wine was already a commodity rather than a royal luxury in prehistory. Van Dommelen in Chapter 13 focuses on the Iron Age site of S'Uraghi in Sardinia, featuring a nuraghe and surrounding outer small settlements. The local community there was able to adopt imported habits, transform them into culturally hybrid practices, and embed them into their way of life. Manning in Chapter 14 reviews radiocarbon and environmental data for the end of the Bronze Age in the east Mediterranean to argue that any climatic drought shifts were probably episodic. As a result, the key to understanding this period lies more to the socio-cultural reactions rather than the environmental changes themselves.
Artzy and Martín-Garcia's Chapter 15 traces different cooking traditions at the Late Bronze anchorage site of Tell Abu Hawam and argues for the presence of Cypriot mariners. As some of the Cypriot cooking pots may have been manufactured at Ugarit, it is plausible to suggest that Cypriot sailors may have resided for shorter or longer periods at the major Levantine harbours of the time. Chapter 16 by Atkins examines seabed assemblages at the Late Cypriot harbour site of Maroni Tsaroukkas. Imported pottery and stone anchors suggest that Tsaroukkas was a secondary port within the wider, supra-regional network of trade of the time. Finally, Demesticha's Chapter 17 turns to Late Roman Cyprus. A survey of the Cypriot coast for anchorage points allowed the author to argue for at least five different coastscapes which afforded diverse modes of connection with the maritime networks of the period.
The topics and approaches of the chapters of the book demonstrate a significant degree of variability. This is expected for a Festschrift volume, especially when the honoured scholar has accomplished an equally wide gamut of research. A similar variability is noted in the scope and the arguments proposed by the chapters. Part I on Cypriot Pre- and Proto-history and economy (Chapters 2-4) prompt the reader to rethink the socio-economic organization of Cyprus in the Bronze and Iron Age. Part II is even more focused on Cypriot metallurgy and its two chapters have site specific topics, which nonetheless bring up the social dimension and its religious-ideological sanctioning of copper production.
Part III on landscape features two more chapters on Cyprus. Their strength lies in their common call for fresh conceptualizations of the Cypriot landscape. Nonetheless, their detailed theoretical reflection inevitably invites the question of the methods and/or field techniques that will serve the goals of the proposed new concepts. Otherwise, the proposed transformation of landscape archaeology as a distinct field of research runs the risk of remaining a play of words. Admittedly, such questions are beyond the scope of two chapters, even if it is the latter that triggered them.
Part IV is the longest and the most mixed in terms of topics and approaches. On the one hand, this undermines the effort of the editors to compile a volume as research consistent as possible. On the other hand, the reader has the opportunity to appreciate each chapter for its own contribution to the research of the wider Mediterranean. Although all chapters in Part V discuss the common theme of maritime archaeology in Cyprus and the Levant, they all make individual contributions to specific aspects of past maritime activity, with one of them focusing on a much later period than any other chapter in the Festschrift.
In conclusion, Critical Approaches to Cypriot and Wider Mediterranean Archaeology is a collection of interesting essays. Despite any shortcomings, they all allow fresh insights into the prehistoric and protohistoric societies of Cyprus, the Levant, the Aegean, and Sicily and Sardinia. They also feature significant theoretical and methodological reflexivity. For all these reasons, they are useful and should become referenced in related future studies. Such potential is indicative of the quality of the volume.
