Celebrating the ICS Mycenaean seminar
ICS Publications Manager Dr. Liz Potter shares news of recent publications connected to the long-running Mycenaean Seminar.
At the ICS we’ve recently been celebrating the long history of the Mycenaean Seminar. We’ve made a virtual issue of The Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies (BICS) available via our journal homepage: this provides free access to papers on Mycenaean topics which have appeared in the journal from the 1950s to the 2000s. And in a new development, we’ve also rejuvenated the publication of The BICS Mycenaean Seminar, making it a separate annual publication on the Humanities Digital Library. This is an Open Access publishing platform developed by the School of Advanced Study: all material is free to download. Three of the nine Institutes of the School currently have Open Access publications on the platform: ourselves, the Institute of Historical Research and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
The BICS Mycenaean Seminar
The Mycenaean Seminar series has been convened by the Institute of Classical Studies since the 1950s. It’s still going strong: the seminar series for 2017-18 is half way through its cycle, and the next lecture is on 21 February, and is sponsored by the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP).
In its early stages, the seminars focused largely on the exciting new research enabled by the decipherment of Linear B. The series now covers Aegean Prehistory in general, and is well attended by subject specialists from across the world.
The summaries of the seminars have been published as part of BICS since 1963. Put end to end, the summaries provide a rich resource for Aegean Prehistory, and often provide the only citable instance of new research projects, until full archaeological publication becomes possible.
Starting with the 2015-16 series, the Mycenaean summaries are being published separately online. They retain their original character and their close connection with BICS, and become far more widely available as Open Access publications via the Humanities Digital Library. Click these links to read The BICS Mycenaean Seminar 2015-16 and The BICS Mycenaean Seminar 2016-17.
Virtual Issue on Mycenaean Studies
Our Virtual Issue on Mycenaean Studies on the BICS website is introduced by Andrew Shapland, Chair of the Mycenaean Studies Advisory Committee. All items in the virtual issue are free to access for everyone.
Among other things, the issue contains a complete list of all the Mycenaean Seminars which have been run at the ICS since 1954. There are articles by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick from the 1950s, which showcase research on Linear B. There are also more recent papers on a range of themes in Mycenaean and Minoan studies, by J. T. Killen, Nicoletta Momigliano, Peter Warren, Sp. Iakovidis, A. Dakouri-Hild, Susan Sherratt and Cynthia W. Shelmerdine. A final paper by John Bennet provides a useful retrospective, looking back at ‘60+ years of ‘reading’ the Aegean Late Bronze Age’.
There are also links via the virtual issue to all papers given at the Mycenaean Seminar which were subsequently written up in BICS; these are available in their entirety to BICS subscribers.
We hope these publications will prove accessible and useful for all.