Period, with a valuable “Epilogue” describing recent finds and new approaches.

Bruit Zaidman, L. and Schmitt Pantel, P. Religion in the Ancient Greek City, English translation
(Cambridge 1992): less comprehensive than Burkert’s book (see below), but a concise and lively study,
with full bibliography.

Burkert, W. Greek Religion, English translation (Cambridge, MA 1985): the standard work by the leading
authority on the subject.

Burkert, W. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early
Archaic Age, English translation (Cambridge, MA and London 1992): a revolutionary work that reveals
the significant degree to which Greek religion and literature were influenced by eastern models.

Coldstream, J. N. Geometric Greece 900–700 bc, 2nd edition (London and New York 2003): a detailed
treatment of the period from about 900 to about 700 bc, primarily from an archaeological point of view.

Hall, J. M. A History of the Archaic Greek World ca. 1200–479 bce, 2nd edition (Chichester 2014): a
challenging and stimulating – and exceptionally well written – examination of the evidence for early
Greek history and the way in which that evidence is treated; a splendid addition to the Blackwell “History
of the Ancient World” series.

Hampe, R. and Simon, E. The Birth of Greek Art: From the Mycenaean to the Archaic Period (New
York 1981): an authoritative and magnificently illustrated account of the continuity in Greek art from the
Mycenaean Period to the Archaic.

Kyle, D. G. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World (Malden, MA 2007): a thoughtful and up-to-date
account of the Panhellenic games and of the important status of sport in Greek (and Roman) culture.

de Polignac, F. Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-state, English translation (Chicago
1995): an influential study of the role of religious cult as a decisive element in the formation of the Greek
polis.

Powell, B. B. Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (Cambridge 1991): Powell’s controversial
thesis, that the Greek alphabet was invented by a single individual specifically to record the poems of
Homer, need not be accepted in order to appreciate his excellent account of how the Phoenician script
was transformed into the Greek alphabet.

Snodgrass, A. M. The Dark Age of Greece: An Archaeological Survey of the Eleventh to the Eighth
Centuries bc (Edinburgh 1971): still the best survey of the archaeology of the Dark Age.

Suggested Internet Resources

Introduction to Greek Pottery (beazley.ox.ac.uk/tools/pottery, accessed March 29, 2016) is a clear, well-
illustrated introduction to the techniques of Greek ceramic ware, part of the Beazley Archive, the world’s
largest collection of photographs of ancient Greek painted pottery.

Omniglot (omniglot.com, accessed March 29, 2016) is an excellent on-line encyclopedia of writing
systems and languages, with an abundant supply of links to other sites.

Evolution of Alphabets (terpconnect.umd.edu/~rfradkin/alphapage, accessed March 29, 2016) cleverly
uses animation graphics to illustrate the evolution of the Greek, Latin, Russian, and Arabic scripts from