The University of Sheffield
Department of Archaeology

Professor John BennetJohn Bennet

Professor of Aegean Archaeology

MA, PhD

Email address d.j.bennet@sheffield.ac.uk

Telephone +44 (0)114 22 25103

Department address Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield S1 4ET

Biography

John Bennet was born in Singapore and grew up in the UK, in Yorkshire. He read Classics at Cambridge, where he also completed his PhD on the administrative organization of Late Minoan II–IIIB Crete based on archaeological and textual (Linear B) evidence and held a Junior Research Fellowship.


From 1986 to 1998 he taught in the Department of Classics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before taking up the Sinclair & Rachel Hood Lecturership in Aegean Prehistory at Oxford.


In 2004 he was appointed to his current chair at the University of Sheffield, where he also directs the Sheffield Centre for Aegean Archaeology.

Research interests

John’s academic interests include:

He has published on Late Bronze Age Crete and mainland Greece, on Linear B, and on historical Greece, often explicitly integrating material and textual evidence, and has carried out fieldwork in Crete (Knossos; Phaistos region; Hania region), mainland Greece (Pylos region) and the islands (Keos; Kythera).

Current research projects / collaborations

John recently completed two seasons of geophysical survey (July 2010; January 2011) on Lower Gypsades Hill, Knossos, Crete in collaboration with Drs Amy Bogaard (Oxford) and Eleni Hatzaki (Cincinnati) to investigate the layout of Bronze Age Knossos' southern suburbs.

Research supervision

Current students

Teaching

Undergraduate

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Postgraduate

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Selected publications

Books

T. Wilkinson, S. Sherratt and J. Bennet (eds) 2011. Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to 1st Millennia BC. Oxford: Oxbow Books. [308 pp.]

J. Baines, J. Bennet and S.D. Houston (eds) 2008. The Disappearance of Writing Systems Perspectives on Literacy and Communication. London: Equinox. [384 pp.]


F. Zarinebaf, J. Bennet and J.L. Davis. 2005. A Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece: The Southwestern Morea in the Early 18th Century. Hesperia Supplement 34. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. [328 pp.]

J. Bennet and J.M. Driessen (eds) 2002. A-NA-QO-TA: Studies Presented to J.T. Killen (= Minos 33–34 [1998-1999]). Salamanca: University of Salamanca Press. [375 pp.]

Chapters

J. Bennet. 2011. The Geography of the Mycenaean Kingdoms. In Y. Duhoux & A. Morpurgo Davies (eds), A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World, vol. 2 (Peeters: Leuven) 137-68.

C.W. Shelmerdine and J. Bennet. 2008. Mycenaean States: A. Economy & Administration. In C.W. Shelmerdine (ed.), Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (New York: Cambridge University Press) 289-309.

J. Bennet. 2008. ‘Now you see it; now you don’t!’: the disappearance of the Linear A script on Crete. In J. Baines, S. Houston, & J. Bennet (eds), The Disappearance of Writing Systems (London: Equinox) 1-29.

J. Bennet. 2007. The Aegean Bronze Age. In I. Morris, R. Saller and W. Scheidel (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 175-210.

J. Bennet. 2007. Representations of Power in Mycenaean Pylos: Script, Orality, Iconography. In F. Lang, C. Reinholdt & J. Weilhartner (eds), ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ ΑΡΙΣΤΕΙΟΣ. Archäologische Forschungen zwischen Nil und Istros. Festschrift für Stefan Hiller zum 65. Geburtstag (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences) 11-22.


J.L. Davis and J. Bennet. 2007. Preface to the Second Edition. In J.L. Davis (ed.), Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino (Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies in Athens) xix-xxxiii.
J. Bennet. 2007d. The Linear B Archives and the Organization of the Kingdom of Nestor. In J.L. Davis (ed.), Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino (Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies in Athens) 111-33

J. Bennet. 2007. Focus—The PRAP Survey’s Contribution. In J.L. Davis (ed.), Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino (Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies in Athens) 134-8.

J. Bennet. 2007. Pylos: the Expansion of a Mycenaean Palatial Center. In M.L. Galaty and W. Parkinson (eds), Rethinking Mycenaean Palaces II: Revised and Expanded Second Edition. Monograph 60. (Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology) 29-39.

Full publications list

Refereed conference papers

J. Bennet. 2008. Palace™: speculations on palatial production in Mycenaean Greece with (some) reference to glass. in C. Jackson and E. Wager (eds), Vitreous Materials and Technology in the Bronze Age Aegean: a window on the East Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxbow Books) 152-73.


J. Bennet, E. Grammatikaki, A. Vasilakis and T. Whitelaw. 2008. The Knossos Urban Landscape Project 2005: Preliminary Results. In A. Sacconi, M. del Freo, L. Godart and M. Negri (eds), Colloquium Romanum: atti del XII colloquio internazionale di micenologia, Roma, 20-25 febbraio 2006 (Pisa / Rome: Fabrizio Serra) 103-9.

J. Bennet. 2007. Fragmentary Geo-metry: Approaching the Early Modern landscapes of the Morea and Cerigo through text, image and archaeology, in S. Davies and J.L. Davis (eds), Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece c.1500-1800 AD (Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies) 197-215.

J. Bennet. 2005. Response to E. Hallager, ‘The uniformity in seal use and sealing practice during the LH/LMIII period’, in A.L. D’Agata and J.A. Moody (eds), Ariadne’s Threads: connections between Crete and the Greek mainland in the post-palatial period (LMIIIA2 to SM) (Rome: Italian School at Athens) 269-74

J. Bennet. 2004. Iconographies of value: words, things and people in the Aegean Late Bronze Age. In J. Barrett and P. Halstead, eds, The Emergence of Civilisation Revisited (Oxford: Oxbow Books), 90-106


J. Bennet. 2001. Agency and Bureaucracy: Thoughts on the Nature & Extent of the Pylos Administration. In S. Voutsaki and J.T. Killen (eds), Economy and Politics in the Mycenaean Palace States. Cambridge Philological Society Suppl. Vol. 27 (Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society) 25–37

Conferences

Key-Note Lecture, ‘Minoan Archaeology: Challenges & Perspectives for the 21st Century’, Heidelberg (23-27 March 2011)

Opening Key-Note Lecture, ‘Mycenaean Wall Paintings in Context: New Discoveries & Old Finds Reconsidered’, National Research Foundation–American School of Classical Studies at Athens (11-13 February 2011)

ESF Exploratory Workshop ‘Palatial Economy in the Ancient Near East and in the Aegean: First Steps Towards a Comprehensive Study and Analysis’, Sèvres (16-19 September 2010)

Invited participant, XIIIème colloque international sur les textes égéens, Sèvres, Nanterre, Paris (20-23 September 2010)

Other professional activities

Editorial / Advisory Boards

Aegean Archaeology; Oxford Journal of Archaeology; Oxford Monographs in Classical Archaeology; Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology.

Broadcast media

2011 ‘In Our Time’, BBC Radio 4, ‘Minoan Crete’ (7 July)

2006 ‘Last Word’, BBC Radio 4 (7 April)

2002 ‘A Very English Genius: How Michael Ventris Cracked Linear B’, BBC TV