J.M. Cook wrote: “The history of the eastern Greeks still remains to be written.”¹ A complete history of the region would certainly be a large undertaking and this book does not claim be an encyclopedic account of the rise, fall, and eventual excavation of the great cities of Ionia. Rather, it is an exercise in archaeological interpretation that aims to highlight socio-economic themes and questions regarding the local practices and identity of those communities – the prolegomena to a new history of Ionia. It also aims to be an accessible introduction to these themes, and to the region itself, that is not overburdened with lengthy examples, theory, or footnotes. In this sense it has been inspired by Carl Roebuck’s Ionian Trade and Colonization,² which remains one of the most accessible and useful introductions to Ionia. Through its bibliography and textboxes, it is hoped that this book can provide a point of entry into the rich archaeological material that exists for Ionia and thereby allow people to formulate their own interpretations of it.

Ionia, which consisted of the west coast of what is now Turkey and the Greek islands of Chios and Samos, was one of the most important regions of the ancient Mediterranean. It was simultaneously the meeting point and the battleground between East and West, a fertile birthplace of ideas, and an emblem of ancient civilization throughout time. In modern times, images of its monuments are iconic symbols of archaeology, and its leading cities, such as Ephesos, have become household names. Yet Ionia is a strangely unfamiliar friend. The critical reviews of the material available for the study of Ionia that are presented in this book often appear to highlight how little we actually know about the Archaic period in this most iconic region. Despite nearly a century-and-a-half of excavations and a wealth of discoveries, there have been relatively few works that have dealt directly with Ionia and none that have explicitly sought to examine and define the essential identity of the region and its society using archaeology as its primary source. However, this is changing and the exciting discoveries and modern approaches being applied in Ionia today provide a stimulating basis for any archaeological discussion.

Geographically, Ionia cannot easily be defined. Its landscape is large and diverse and the limits of what was called “Ionia” in the ancient world do not appear to follow any clearly demarcated physical boundary. For the purposes of this book, discussion will largely be limited to the cities of the Ionian dodekapolis (league of 12 cities) that are named by Herodotos (1.142) and which he subdivided into four groups by their dialects. Chronologically, this study is limited to the Archaic period of 700 to 494 BC.³ This was a formative period in the history of the Greek world and was also when Ionia was arguably at its peak. During this time a changing image of Ionia can be traced through Greek literature, from Homer’s depiction of the “Carians” of Miletos as allies of Troy (Il. 2.867–75) to Herodotos’ portrayal of it as a cultural extension of Greece. To attempt to map too closely onto the region’s archaeology the apparent spatial and temporal changes in Ionian culture that can be gleaned from Greek literature would be an exercise in literary positivism (i.e. “cherry-picking” archaeological facts to hang off the existing narrative framework established by that literature; see Chapter 2). Although Archaic Ionia was birthplace to the works of great thinkers such as Thales and Anaximander, and although the importance of their work must be recognized, there is a danger of over-prioritizing these individuals when writing a general history of Ionia. Instead, the objective here is to conduct a systematic review of the evidence for different levels of economic and social activity in Ionia and to build on this an interpretation of the region’s history and identity that is largely independent of literary sources. This book is essentially a postmodernist reinterpretation of the socio-economic history of Ionia, which may indeed provide a context in which to understand the production of cultural works such as philosophy, but which does not view them as the end point toward which all study of Ionia should be directed.

This book presents a critical review of the available archaeological information about Archaic Ionia, through an examination of key socio-economic themes that are constructed “from the ground up,” i.e. beginning with landscape and the first principles of the agrarian economy and society, with the aim of identifying characteristics of the region and its people that distinguish it from the standard narratives of the Greek “mainland.”⁴ Several key topics emerge from this analysis: the role of landscape as a determinant of historical development in the region; the socio-economic contexts of Ionian culture; the Anatolian character of elements of the “Greek” communities of Ionia; and various unique elements of Ionian material culture and social practice.

Such a structured critical assessment of the availability and use of archaeological evidence reveals that, despite an apparent abundance of remains, there is often surprisingly little hard archaeology for much of Archaic Ionia and many fundamental questions remain to be answered. In previous studies of Ionia the written sources of history and epigraphy have taken precedence over archaeological evidence, which has often been applied in a seemingly ad hoc way. However, this often belies an underlying set of assumptions about the inherent superiority of Greek culture over Anatolian, the primacy of the historical method over that of archaeology, and the acceptable standards of proof within different communities of practice. This book sets out to reverse such traditional approaches, by taking archaeology as its starting point and principal source material.

Following assessment of the source materials, this book follows a “pyramidal” structure, as laid out in Chapter 2, that builds up from an understanding of the landscape into a discussion of the essential elements of life in Ionia – agriculture and trade, settlement, and warfare – through to the less-urgent social imperatives of religion, art, and ethnic identity. In each of these thematic chapters, discussion of key themes is preceded by a critical review of the available evidence and textboxes provide more detailed explanations of key sites and ideas. Theoretically, the interpretations presented here are framed by the Annaliste and world-systems analysis perspectives. The Annaliste perspective integrates landscape, archaeology, and history and is therefore a useful method for any study of this kind, and world-systems analysis suggests a way to integrate local activity into inter-regional patterns of culture and exchange.

Casual readers might find that individual chapters are able to provide them with an insight into the evidence base and discussions that are of particular interest to them, whereas readers who follow the chapters from beginning to end will trace the development of the new “ground-up” approach propounded above. The overall aim of the book is to present new perspectives and to provoke discussion; if the reader is left with more questions than answers, then perhaps it has served its purpose.

Alan M. Greaves