I'm currently working on a story inspired by Greek Mythology and big part of it takes place before the Trojan War (usually estimated to happen in 1194–1184 BC), thus during the middle and late Bronze Age. What I want to do is to read a little about this period and get the general feel of the era for better world building. While I do have some knowledge on this topic and have read some things on the Internet, I still would like to deepen it a bit and refresh what I already know. I basically ask if you can recommend me any good books, websides or other sources on religion, military, politics and everyday life for the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. Anything on the Bronze Age Greece would be welcomed.
mary renault's novels are a great resource on ancient greece... damn good reads, too! see list here, for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction_set_in_ancient_Greece#Books
I was actually thinking more about books on archeology or history, but these could help too. And I never say "no" to a good read. Thanks for help.
you can google and/or do an amazon search for the non-fiction books... or browse your neighborhood library's shelves...
I did look for some books already and I even have a list to buy/borrow. I was just curious if someone also interested in a topic could recommend me some books in particular. What I noticed during my Internet reaserch is that many sides mentioning Minoans or Mycenaeans have more to do with spiritualism or pseudo-psychology (mainly when it comes to the religion - "The Great Goddess" and similar) than any actual reliable historical/archeological data. What I fear is that some books I may come aross may be in the same spirit - to have more fantasies than real theories grounded in reliable evidances.
It depends on what exactly your looking for. However be it anthropological, historical, or otherwise I would say your best bet would be your local/school library. Text books are going to give the most informative information, and depending on how big your library is, they might even have specialized books just on those cultures. I would also suggest to look to the history channel and other historical documentation television shows. I'm sure there are several out there (even on youtube) that could help. Finally I would encourage you to dig deep and find some "primary" works about the time period. there were historians even back then, and if they didn't happen to actually write anything down, people after them surely did, and the closer they were to the time period, the more accurate they probably were about their culture.
