Author: Colin Renfrew
With contributions by P. A. Mountjoy, Elizabeth French, John G. Younger, John F. Cherry, Alec Daykin, Jennifer Moody, Lyvia Morgan, Nick Bradford and with the assistance fo Caullum MacFarlane, Robin Torrence, Clive Gamble, Todd Whitelaw.

The interpretation of early religious sites has hitherto been undertaken on a largely subjective basis, without any coherent body of interpretative theory. The opportunity of tackling some of these problems was offered by the excavation of a sanctuary (1360-1100 BC) at Phylakopi on the Aegean island of Melos. This publication includes a full account of the excavation and a detai8led description by leading specialists of the architecture, the pottery, the small terracotta sculptures, the sealstones and other finds. The finds are interpreted in the light of current knowledge of the Minoan and Mycenean religions, casting new light on the cult practiced of the Cycladic islands in the Bronze Age as well as on those of Crete and mainland Greece. The analysis sheds new light on the origins of the religion of Classical Greece, arguing that is should be seen not simply as the product of new impulses in the intervening Dark Age, but as a series of transformations of the Minoan palace cults and other religious practices of the Bronze Age Aegean.