Minoan Architecture and Urbanism New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment

by Letesson, Quentin; Knappett, Carl

• ISBN13: 9780198793625
• ISBN10: 0198793626
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2017-09-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Quentin Letesson, Marie Sklodowska-Curie International Outgoing Fellow, University of Toronto & Universite catholique de Louvain,Carl Knappett, Walter Graham/ Homer Thompson Chair in Aegean Prehistory , Professor, Department of Art, University of Toronto

Quentin Letesson is Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Art, University of Toronto and the Departement d'histoire de l'art et d'archeologie, Universite catholique de Louvain. His work focuses on configurational analyses of the Minoan built environment, on the urbanisation of Crete, and on the emergence of technical innovations in the production of Minoan material culture. He teaches archaeological theory and ethnoarchaeology at the Universite catholique de Louvain. He is involved in several excavations on Crete, most notably at Palaikastro and Sissi.


Carl Knappett teaches in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto, where he holds the Walter Graham/ Homer Thompson Chair in Aegean Prehistory. He is an archaeologist interested in how things generate meaning through their creation and use. While the things of the Aegean Bronze Age are his main focus, particularly the pottery of Minoan Crete, he attempts to integrate insights from the study of things in ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological and sociological contexts with a view to developing a broad-based approach to materiality in society. His publications include Thinking Through Material Culture (Penn Press), An Archaeology of Interaction, and Network Analysis in Archaeology (both with Oxford University Press). He conducts fieldwork at various Bronze Age sites across the Aegean, and directs the new excavations at the Minoan town of Palaikastro in east Crete.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Minoan Built Environment: Past Studies, Recent Perspectives, and Future Challenges, Quentin Letesson and Carl Knappett
Part I
2. Architecture: Building Dynamics at the Micro-Scale, Quentin Letesson and Carl Knappett
3. Best Laid Plans: An Archaeology of Architectural Anomalies in Bronze Age Crete, Tim Cunningham
4. Architectural Energetics and Late Bronze Age Cretan Architecture: Measuring the Scale of Minoan Building Projects, Maud Devolder
5. Understanding Minoan in-House Relationships on Late Bronze Age Crete, Jan Driessen
Part II
6. Urbanism: Built Space and Communities at the Meso-scale, Quentin Letesson and Carl Knappett
7. The Development and Character of Urban Communities in Prehistoric Crete in their Regional Context: A Preliminary Study, Todd Whitelaw
8. Minoan Group Design: The 'View from the Bridge', Clairy Palyvou
9. Community Building/Building Community at Gournia, D. Matthew Buell and John McEnroe
10. The Middle Minoan Slipway for Ships at the Kommos Harbour, and Harbour Development in Prehistoric Crete, Joseph W. Shaw
Part III
11. Processes AndPatterns at the Macro-Scale: Crete and Beyond, Quentin Letesson and Carl Knappett
12. Computational Approaches to Minoan Settlement Interaction and Growth, Eleftheria Paliou and Andrew Bevan
13. Lost in Translation: Settlement Organization in Postpalatial Crete, a View from the East, Louise A. Hitchcock and Aren M. Maeir
14. Dining on the Fringe? A Possible Minoan-Style Banquet Hall at Ayia Irini, Kea and the Minoanisation of the Aegean Islands, Rodney D. Fitzsimons
15. A Comparative Perspective on Minoan Urbanism, Quentin Letesson, Carl Knappett, and Michael E. Smith