A Spartan lifestyle proverbially describes austerity; ancient Greek luxury was associated with Ionia and the oriental world. The contributions to this book, first presented at a conference held by the University of Nottingham's Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies, reverse the stereotype and explore the role of luxury and wealth at Sparta and among its Peloponnesian neighbours from the Iron Age to the Hellenistic period. Using literary, archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic evidence, an international team of specialists investigates the definition and changing meanings of the term luxury and its nearest ancient Greek equivalents, providing new insights into Sparta's supposed abstention from luxury, and the way that this was portrayed by ancient writers. They analyse wealth production and private and public spending, emphasising features that were distinctive to Sparta and the Peloponnese compared with other parts of ancient Greece. Other chapters investigate issues still familiar in the contemporary world: economic crisis and debt, austerity measures, and relief provisions for the poor.

These papers were presented at a session of the EAA in 2006 and examine the interrelations between memory, tradition and identity. Case studies focus primarily on the prehistoric Aegean, although one looks at Norwegian rock art one at early medieval migration in the Baltic and another at modern Scandinavian identity and heritage. Topics include burial in the Middle Bronze Age on mainland Greece; the artistic depiction of the bull-leaping ritual in Neopalatial Crete; Mycenaean elements in the Eastern Aegean and western Anatolia; Arkadian identity; and Spartan education.

Based on the author's PhD thesis, this volume examines the possibility of a cult of the dead among the Mycenaean civilisations. Focusing on the period 1425/1390-1190/1180 BC, and drawing largely on archaeological evidence from tholos and chamber tombs from the regions of the Argolid and Corinthia, Attica and Samalis, Boeotia and Euboea, Gallou puts her theoretical ideas about the recognition of acts of ancestor veneration into action. Highlighting certain diagnostic traits among the evidence, she assesses the presence of notions of an afterlife, respect shown for the deceased, changes to tomb design and the funerary landscape as a whole, and differentiation among the burial facilities, offerings and acts associated with the dead.