Description
Thucydides famously commented that if Sparta were to become deserted, its modest surviving material remains would give a very inadequate impression of the city's power. In comparison with other major Greek cities, study of Spartan archaeology was for a long time relatively neglected. Over the last generation that comparative neglect has changed, owing to important new excavations and surveys by Greek and foreign archaeologists and an impressive range of historical and artistic studies of Spartan and Lakonian material culture. In this volume fourteen international scholars examine diverse aspects of settlement in the city of Sparta and elsewhere, ritual and cultural practices within Lakedaimonian territory, and burial customs at Sparta and abroad. This book and its companion volume (Archaeology and Sparta, vol. 2: Territory, Material Culture and Exchange) form the final publications in a Classical Press of Wales series focused on major sources for Sparta, following earlier volumes on Xenophon and Sparta (2020), Thucydides and Sparta (2021), Sparta in Plutarch's Lives (2023) and Herodotus, Sparta and Austerity (2025).