Janice L. Crowley, ICON. Art and Meaning in Aegean Seal Images, Heidelberg: Propylaeum, 2024. ISBN: 978-3-96929-286-0 (PDF). ISBN: 978-3-96929-287-7 (Hardcover). https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.1342
The ICON book is a revelation of the lives of the Aegean peoples drawn from the hands of their own artists. ICON presents the images that are carved or chased on Aegean seals and signets and interprets their meaning in the absence of accompanying deciphered texts. Throughout their long floruit, the seals give the most extensive illustrations of life as it was lived and imagined in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece in the Bronze Age.
ICON, with its 1800 illustrations, is the first comprehensive iconographic analysis of the Aegean seal images. ICON describes and interprets the images through a dedicated vocabulary which recognizes their artistic innovations and celebrates the detail of their sophisticated, nuanced and polyvalent iconography.
Dr Janice L Crowley is an internationally recognized authority in the fields of Aegean Bronze Age art and iconography. Her focus is on artistic intercommunications with the east and the images on Aegean seals. Her research has been presented at guest lectures and international conferences in Europe and the USA resulting in the publication of numerous papers and two monographs.
