New Light on a Dark Age: Exploring the Culture of Geometric Greece, Susan Langdon, ed. (University of Missouri Press, 1997)

These nine essays were originally presented at a symposium held on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus in conjunction with the exhibition From Pasture to Polis: Art in the Age of Homer. The essays, by some of the most prominent scholars in the field, reflect a diversity of approaches to studying the development of the early Iron Age. They cover four major topics: evidence for the rise of the polis, sources and uses of artistic form and iconography, development in cults around Greece, and issues of poetry and narrative. Linking these topics are the themes of social change; mortuary practices; growth and use of sacred places; social, literary, and artistic applications of style; and Greece and the outside world. 247 pages, 63 b&w illus.