The book mainly contains papers presented at an international symposium organized by a younger generation of Danish classical archaeologists and held at the University of Copenhagen in May 1994. The articles concentrate on various aspects of the urbanization in the Mediterranean in the period from the 9th to the 6th century BC. Topics such as town planning, political organization, burials as evidence for urban development, architectural and spatial organization are discussed and interpreted here. The publication is the latest volume, no. 7, in the periodical Acta Hyperborea edited by Collegium Hyperboreum.