Margaret (Peggy) Mook
Iowa State University

Margaret Mook is a classicist and archaeologist whose research interests are Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, and Archaic Greece. Since 1984, she has conducted archaeological fieldwork on Crete, including the excavation of the Northwest Building complex of the Early Iron Age settlement on the Kastro at Kavousi, in eastern Crete. Her current research involves the analysis of archaeological material, primarily contextual pottery and domestic architecture, from the Kastro (Late Minoan IIIC - Early Orientalizing, ca. 1200-680 BC). Mook is establishing a relative chronology for eastern Crete, based on settlement context pottery from the Kastro and to be published as a book, The Kavousi Project, The Kastro: The Late Minoan IIIC through Orientalizing Pottery. This book will significantly advance our understanding of the Greek Early Iron Age, which is the poorly-understood cultural and chronological interface between the prehistoric Minoan civilization of Bronze Age Crete and the city-states of the Archaic and Classical periods. A component of Prof. Mook’s study is the identification of ceramic workshop traditions and the assessment of changes and developments in production and distribution by local and regional potters. The recognition and analysis of spatial and diachronic patterns of consumption of this utilitarian pottery by the households on the Kastro will explicate modes of behavior and their symbolic meaning. Publication of the Kastro pottery will provide the basis for dating all Early Iron Age archaeological material in eastern Crete and for identifying the cultural trends of the entire region. In addition to the pottery study described above, Prof. Mook is conducting research on the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age house. This work is grounded in the study of the stratigraphy, architecture, and associated pottery and other finds from a cluster of houses on the Kastro, referred to as the Northwest Building. One of the problems in Prehistoric Aegean archaeology is the absence of formal criteria to identify and define houses. This omission is partially addressed by her in several articles, where she discusses architectural details and their placement are also identified and their function and meaning interpreted.

Lecture Abstracts

The Greek Kitchen: Evidence from Azoria on Crete
Excavation at the archaeological site of Azoria in northeastern Crete was conducted during the summers of 2002-2006 and concentrated on the Archaic-period city (ca. 600-475 B.C.). The results of these recent excavations now provide evidence that permits us to assess the Greek kitchen in a more comprehensive way, using the context of the kitchen itself, rather than trying to examine discarded pots, frequently the main source of information on kitchen implements in Archaic and Classical Greece. At Azoria, well-preserved, systemic assemblages of late Archaic kitchens were recovered from both domestic and civic food preparation areas. Not only do these kitchens provide information on food preparation, cooking and storage, but also evidence for textile production. The presence of prestige goods, perhaps with aristocratic associations, such as weapons, vessels, and personal ornaments in bronze and iron, as well as decorated fine pottery imported from Athens and around the Aegean, all serve to distinguish the civic kitchen contexts from the domestic. These elite items surely helped to distinguish the political and social identity of those who had access to the contents and output of these kitchens.

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