Archaeology Paper (compare an ancient greek temple to mosque or church)

Select some aspect of ancient Greek culture during the Archaic through Hellenistic periods (ca. 600-30 BC) for which there is archaeological/historical evidence and compare ancient Greek practices explicitly with modern ones in your experience, with a focus on the material manifestations of these practices. Examples of possible topics include the general spatial arrangement of cities, rooms within private houses, the conduct of legal trials, religious services, weddings, funerals, cooking, medical treatments, personal dress, constructing buildings, education, or particular athletic contests. Keep in mind that some of these practices varied considerably over time or from place to place, and you will want to be sensitive to that. For example, an Athenian grave of any kind of 440 BC would NOT be adorned with an elaborate sculpted gravestone, while one a century before or after that date might well be. Upload a copy of your paper to Turnitin.com & Livetext.

You must locate and use a minimum of three academically respectable sources for the ancient Greek aspect of your paper. You may also use primary sources (translations of ancient Greek authors) where relevant.

Format requirements:

• The paper should be 1200-1500 words; it must not exceed 2000 words.
• Margins are to be 1.5″ on the left margin, 1″ on all other margins. The paper is to be typed and double-spaced.
• Use a standard font such as Arial or Times New Roman and black toner/ink
• Illustrations, where appropriate, are encouraged. These should be numbered sequentially (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, ….) and referred to explicitly in the text.
• Citations and reference lists should follow either the MLA or APA styles. Do not use any other documentation style, or, God forbid, the ever-popular “roll your own” style.
• Staple or clip your paper in the upper left-hand corner. Do not put it into a folder or other cover.

The basic purpose of this assignment is to make you think actively about your own culture in connection with something comparable in ancient Greek culture. Begin by selecting a topic that is of interest to you. Take, for example, the question of the arrangement of rooms in houses. Where and when do we have good evidence for house plans in the Greek world during the assigned periods? You would likely find that the most abundant evidence comes from the 4^th century BC and later, and from some sites such as Olynthus, Halieis, and Pella. Is there a broad range of different plans? As in modern houses, we find rooms dedicated to storage and cooking, but also rooms specifically intended for entertaining guests. What about bathrooms and bedrooms? Textual evidence that you will find cited by your sources suggests that at least in some Greek city houses, certain areas were effectively segregated and intended for usage by men. Do modern houses with which you are familiar have areas that are segregated for usage by particular sexes or age groups?

For a paper of this length, you need to select a topic that is narrow. You also must select one for which we have archaeological evidence available. The topic of the education of Spartan men is a fascinating one, but our knowledge of it is based almost completely on ancient textual sources. No buildings and few artifacts that shed any separate light on Spartan education have been discovered. Likewise, Greek philosophy is an important aspect of their culture, but there are not many obvious physical manifestations of it in the archaeological record that could be dealt with in a short paper.

Checklist to help determine whether a source is acceptable and/or academically respectable:

Is it a book or book chapter with named authors and/or editors published by a university or college press? àYes, acceptable

Is it a book or book chapter with named authors and/or editors published by other major academic presses, such as Blackwell, Routledge, Thames & Hudson, etc.? àYes, acceptable

Is it an article with named authors in a scholarly journal? àYes, acceptable

Is it an article in an encyclopedia, dictionary, or other reference book that is specifically dedicated to Greek civilization, archaeology, or Classical Studies (for example, the Oxford Classical Dictionary or Brill’s New Pauly)? àYes, acceptable

Is it a major academic website dedicated to archaeology, Greek civilization, or Classical Studies, such as Perseus or Stoa.org àYes, acceptable

Does the author indicate qualifications that make him or her likely to be knowledgeable about the topic, such as a graduate degree in archaeology or Classical Studies? àYes, acceptable. If your topic was about something like constructing roofs, a graduate degree in a logically connected area, such as engineering or architecture, would be acceptable as well.

Is it Wikipedia? àNo, not acceptable [this is not because Wikipedia is bad per se, but because the authors/editors are anonymous and the content is very uneven in quality. Some Wikipedia articles do have useful, academically respectable bibliographies that you could follow up on.]

Is it in an encyclopedia or other reference aimed at a secondary or elementary school audience, such as World Book? àNo, not acceptable

Is the author a college undergraduate, high school, or elementary student? àNo, not acceptable

Is it an anonymous page on a website that has no college/university or other academic affiliation? àNo, not acceptable

Is it a set of class notes from a course that you have taken or are taking, including this one? àNo, not acceptable

If you are not sure whether a source is acceptable, please ask.

Good, readily available sources to start with include the Oxford Classical Dictionary, the Cambridge Dictionary of Classical Civilization, and Brill’s New Pauly, which are on reserve in the library.

The full text of Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander, is available on the Perseus website [www.perseus.tufts.edu]. This book has segments on many aspects of Greek institutions, not only history.

The instructor approved the following : Compare an Ancient Greek Temple to Mosque or Church