Shortlisted for the European Association of Archaeologies 2023 book prize
In Search of the Labyrinth explores the enduring cultural legacy of Minoan Crete by offering an overview of Minoan archaeology and modern responses to it in literature, the visual and performing arts, and other cultural practices. The focus is on the twentieth century, and on responses that involve a clear engagement with the material culture of Minoan Crete, not just with mythological narratives in Classical sources, as illustrated by the works of novelists, poets, avant-garde artists, couturiers, musicians, philosophers, architects, film directors, and even psychoanalysts – from Sigmund Freud and Marcel Proust to D.H. Lawrence, Cecil Day-Lewis, Oswald Spengler, Nikos Kazantzakis, Robert Graves, André Gide, Mary Renault, Christa Wolf, Don DeLillo, Rhea Galanaki, Léon Bakst, Marc Chagall, Mariano Fortuny, Robert Wise, Martin Heidegger, Karl Lagerfeld, and Harrison Birtwistle, among many others. The volume also explores the fascination with things Minoan in antiquity and in the present millennium: from Minoan-inspired motifs decorating pottery of the Greek Early Iron Age, to uses of the Minoans in twenty-first-century music, poetry, fashion, and other media.
By:
Nicoletta Momigliano (University of Bristol UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 708g
ISBN: 9781784538545
ISBN 10: 178453854X
Series: New Directions in Classics
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 03 September 2020
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Further / Higher Education
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of tables and figures Preface and Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Introduction: desperately seeking Ariadne – the cultural legacy of Minoan Crete Chapter 2. Sons of Europa: from medical remedies for constipation to bestiality, sexually transmitted death, and the dawn of the ‘Minoan Age’ (from antiquity to mid-19th c.) Chapter 3. Rediscovering European origins: Ariadne as the Great Mother Goddess (mid-19th century-World War I) Chapter 4. Minoans and World Wars (c. 1915-1949): the Aryan revenge Chapter 5. The Minoans in the Cold War and swinging sixties: from the end of the Greek civil war to the end of the Colonels’ dictatorship (c. 1949-1974) Chapter 6. Minoan paradises lost and regained: from cannibalism to postmodernism (c. 1975-1999) Chapter 7. Minoan cultural legacies – every age has the Minoans it deserves and desires Notes Bibliography Index
Nicoletta Momigliano is Professor of Aegean Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. She specialises in Minoan archaeology and has directed and co-directed several archaeological projects in Crete and Turkey, including excavations at Knossos and Palaikastro, and field surveys in Lycia. Her previous books include Duncan Mackenzie: A Cautious Canny Highlander and the Palace of Minos at Knossos (1999), Archaeology and European Modernity: Producing and Consuming the ‘Minoans’ (edited with Y. Hamilakis, 2006), Knossos Pottery Handbook: Neolithic and Bronze Age (Minoan) (2007), and Cretomania: Modern Desires for the Minoan Past (edited with A. Farnoux, 2017).
Reviews for In Search of the Labyrinth: The Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete
Momigliano offers a remarkably detailed and nuanced overview of archaeological research on Crete and the history of the island in general. Such an attentive introduction and contextualisation ensures that readers unfamiliar with the 'crypto-colonial' roots of Minoan archaeology are given a solid foundation. * The Classical Review * This is an engaging and insightful exploration of the modern fascination with Bronze Age Crete. A complex and glittering cast of modern Minoans steps forward within a historically situated narrative and under the author's thoughtful gaze. -- Christine Morris, Andrew A. David Associate Professor in Greek Archaeology and History, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
