Contacts between the Aegean and Italy from 1600 to 1000 BC

The aim of the project entitled "Cultural, economic and political contacts between the Aegean and Italy from 1600 to 1000 BC" is to analyse the structure, intensity and extent of continuity of Italo-Aegean relations within a social and historical perspective. The project will proceed by studying periods of economic and social development of the Bronze Age Aegean and Italian societies respectively. The time frame extends from the beginning of the Mycenaean civilisation until the end of the Aegean Bronze Age (roughly from 1600 to 1000 BC). The basis of the project is formed by the results of the applicant`s previous project, which was devoted to establishing a detailed comparative chronological system for the Aegean and Italy from the Middle Bronze Age / early Mycenaean period down to the Final Bronze Age / Submycenaean phase. This project has been carried out by the applicant while holding a Lise Meitner Postdoctoral Research Position at the Mykenische Kommission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. A wide array of questions and problems may now be addressed in a new perspective: - the political and economic factors of goods exchange between pre-state and state societies in the Aegean and pre- state societies in the central Mediterranean - the role of the people involved in the Italo-Aegean interaction, their social position and their mobility between the central Mediterranean and the Aegean world, seen against the background of the historical development of the societies involved - the regionally different character of contacts between Italy and the Aegean in their diachronic perspective - the ideological aspects (i.e. mainly religious aspects) of contact and exchange between the Aegean and the central Mediterranean going beyond the political and economic relationships These aspects will be approached by taking an equal perspective on both regions under consideration - a balanced combination of an Italian and an Aegean viewpoint.

The aim of the project entitled "Cultural, economic and political contacts between the Aegean and Italy from 1600 to 1000 BC" is to analyse the structure, intensity and extent of continuity of Italo-Aegean relations within a social and historical perspective. The project will proceed by studying periods of economic and social development of the Bronze Age Aegean and Italian societies respectively. The time frame extends from the beginning of the Mycenaean civilisation until the end of the Aegean Bronze Age (roughly from 1600 to 1000 BC). The basis of the project is formed by the results of the applicant`s previous project, which was devoted to establishing a detailed comparative chronological system for the Aegean and Italy from the Middle Bronze Age / early Mycenaean period down to the Final Bronze Age / Submycenaean phase. This project has been carried out by the applicant while holding a Lise Meitner Postdoctoral Research Position at the Mykenische Kommission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. A wide array of questions and problems may now be addressed in a new perspective: the political and economic factors of goods exchange between pre-state and state societies in the Aegean and pre-state societies in the central Mediterranean the role of the people involved in the Italo-Aegean interaction, their social position and their mobility between the central Mediterranean and the Aegean world, seen against the background of the historical development of the societies involved the regionally different character of contacts between Italy and the Aegean in their diachronic perspective the ideological aspects (i.e. mainly religious aspects) of contact and exchange between the Aegean and the central Mediterranean going beyond the political and economic relationships. These aspects will be approached by taking an equal perspective on both regions under consideration - a balanced combination of an Italian and an Aegean viewpoint.