This book examines the application of these ideas to Bronze Age burials in east Crete, in order to examine the historical significance of a specific pattern of changes in funerary monumentality. Within the Early Bronze Age landscape, tombs built above the ground were monumental landmarks. Such monumentality was lost during the Middle -Late Bronze Age period, when the dead were usually buried underground or in caves. At the same time, the living made their presence increasingly marked in the landscape, with the erection of 'palaces' and 'villas' and the formation of nucleated settlements....

This volume features a group of select peer-reviewed papers by an international group of authors, both younger and senior academics and researchers. It has its origins in a conference held at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, which aimed to bring up the frequently-neglected popular cult and other ritual practices in prehistoric and ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. The topics covered by the chapters of the volume include the interplay between elite and popular ritual at cemeteries and peak sanctuaries just before and right after the establishment of the first...