Religion and Society in Middle Bronze Age Greece

by Helene Whittaker

The Middle Helladic period has received little attention, partially because of scholars' view of it as merely the prelude to the Mycenaean period and partially because of the dearth of archaeological evidence from the period. In this book, Helène Whittaker demonstrates that Middle Helladic Greece is far more interesting than its material culture might at first suggest. Whittaker comprehensively reviews and discusses the archaeological evidence for religion on the Greek mainland, focusing on the relationship between religious expression and ideology. The book argues that religious beliefs and rituals played a significant role in the social changes that were occurring at the time. The arguments and conclusions of this book will be relevant beyond the Greek Bronze Age and will contribute to the general archaeological debate on prehistoric religion.

300 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 2014

Reviews

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a drinking game here. You drink every time the words "burial", "grave" and "Helladic" are mentioned. The outcome is alcohol poisoning.

So let me save you the trouble of reading a couple hundred pages to find out. There were no religions back in the Bronze Age in Greece. That's before Classical Greece way before ancient Greece. We're talking 3000-1200? Somewhere along there. Anyway, no religions as I said, at least not ones we're 100% sure of.

The book here is going like from place to place here in Greece, lots of places that I don't recognize or are too vague in the name, and when I searched them online there were no mentions of, maybe it was the name back then and through some historical book the author found some name that's not in existence now? Or that name has like 500 places in Greece named like that so it doesn't make sense.

That said, the book follows a certain line, which is Place -> things they've found in that place - > Analysis of those things -> Speculation and theories about them things. Which is ok and all, but if you read what they've found in 2-3-4 places, you pretty much read them all. Simply put, there was no need to go about the whole country if there's pretty much the same results in all of the places you talk about except maybe for Crete.

It was an ok read, but it was for me at least not a must and I think what this was supposed to give you in knowledge of what it was like back then, with so much speculation on something that's not proven it should have been a couple of hundred pages shorter.