A Post-Colonial View of Thrace: Thracian-Greek Interactions From the Early Iron Age to the Early Hellenistic Period
type: CreativeWork
description: The way we see relations between ‘Greeks’ and ‘Barbarians’ in the 1st millennium BC Mediterranean has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Under the influence of post-colonial theory, the narrative has shifted from colonial conquest to multiple histories of diverse encounters. This thesis examines the case of ancient Thrace: an under-explored region, which offers a unique perspective on Greek-Non-Greek relations. Geography endows Thrace with a long-lived history of interactions with Greece and very different possibilities for connectivity, compared to the Mediterranean. The aim of this thesis is to explore what forms interactions between communities in Thrace and Greece took in different geographical settings, and how they changed over the 1st millennium BC. I trace how indigenous people adopted and used imported objects and technologies in different social contexts in Thrace. This enquiry sheds light on the indigenous perspective, which has been often left off the pages of history. The evidence is synthesised and discussed in three core chapters. Chapter II takes a regional-wide and long-term perspective. I review the settlement dynamics, burial and religious practices across Thrace through the Iron Age, and I examine the place of imports in each of these spheres. Chapters III and IV focus on two contact-zone cities: Apollonia on the Black Sea, and Adzhiiska Vodenitsa on River Hebros, near modern Vetren. At Apollonia – a classic example of a coastal Greek colony, we can follow how a community of diverse origins constructed a unified community identity as a Pontic Ionian city. Apollonia’s trade and diplomatic relations with neighbouring communities started from its establishment and unfolded prosperously. Vetren is also considered a colony – a Thasian emporion – but after re-assessing the epigraphic, historical, and archaeological evidence, I argue that this identification is unconvincing. The site is better understood as a market town with a mixed populatio…
abstract: The way we see relations between ‘Greeks’ and ‘Barbarians’ in the 1st millennium BC Mediterranean has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Under the influence of post-colonial theory, the narrative has shifted from colonial conquest to multiple histories of diverse encounters. This thesis examines the case of ancient Thrace: an under-explored region, which offers a unique perspective on Greek-Non-Greek relations. Geography endows Thrace with a long-lived history of interactions with Greece and very different possibilities for connectivity, compared to the Mediterranean. The aim of this thesis is to explore what forms interactions between communities in Thrace and Greece took in different geographical settings, and how they changed over the 1st millennium BC. I trace how indigenous people adopted and used imported objects and technologies in different social contexts in Thrace. This enquiry sheds light on the indigenous perspective, which has been often left off the pages of history. The evidence is synthesised and discussed in three core chapters. Chapter II takes a regional-wide and long-term perspective. I review the settlement dynamics, burial and religious practices across Thrace through the Iron Age, and I examine the place of imports in each of these spheres. Chapters III and IV focus on two contact-zone cities: Apollonia on the Black Sea, and Adzhiiska Vodenitsa on River Hebros, near modern Vetren. At Apollonia – a classic example of a coastal Greek colony, we can follow how a community of diverse origins constructed a unified community identity as a Pontic Ionian city. Apollonia’s trade and diplomatic relations with neighbouring communities started from its establishment and unfolded prosperously. Vetren is also considered a colony – a Thasian emporion – but after re-assessing the epigraphic, historical, and archaeological evidence, I argue that this identification is unconvincing. The site is better understood as a market town with a mixed populatio…
author: Dimova, Bela
language: en
keywords: iron age, Thrace, Greece
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/5a96ea36-49e0-41a5-8666-2d85ec4c0b21/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2015
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:08Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.60155