Janice Crowley - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Janice Crowley

Aegean glyptic, through its images on seals, signet rings and sealings, gives us one of the best ... more Aegean glyptic, through its images on seals, signet rings and sealings, gives us one of the best sources for understanding life and art in bronze-age Crete and Greece from Early Minoan II (c. 2600 BC) to the fall of the Mainland Palaces at the end of Late Helladic IIIB (c. 1200). Only pottery can claim so long and continuous an artistic (and functional) tradition of some 14 centuries. But pottery does not carry the range of subject-matter provided by the seals. This seminar focusses on a closed and dated archive of material from bronze-age Crete at the end of Middle Minoan II (c 1700 BC), the sealings from the First Palace at Phaistos. Sealings are the original impressions of seals or signets, in clay, made on objects or message packets in the palaces or villas. They survive for us only because the buildings were destroyed by fire burnt, baking the clay with the image imprinted on it. The Phaistos sealings provide 322 images which, taken together, open all the fields of enquiry into Aegean art and iconography, allowing us to look back at the early creations and forward to the great efflorescence of Minoan high art.

1976 in which I again visited Greece and consolidated much of the Minoan and Mycenaean material I... more 1976 in which I again visited Greece and consolidated much of the Minoan and Mycenaean material I had been researching, as well as visiting most of the major European museums where much of the material treated in this thesis is displayed. A special tribute must be paid to the British School of Archaeology in Athens for their warm welcome and help on both occasions when I was in Greece. I am sure they do not realize the extent of the debt that scholars from far countries owe to the British School. My appreciation is also due to the many people who have encouraged me, my colleagues at work and my friends at home. I would wish to mention my special thanks to Professor Homer Thompson and Dorothy Burr Thompson for their encouragement to continue with the topic and to visit Greece as soon as possible. There must be a great number of people who, like myself, have come to Greece and benefitted from their welcome, their practical suggestions, and above all from their immense enthusiasm for all scholarship in all fields of ancient studies. I must also express my warmest thanks to my two s4pervisors: to Mr. R. G. Hood for his patient reading of the drafts and for his challenging questions; to Professor P.R.C. Weaver for his comments as the work progressed and for his quiet confidence that the thesis would surely be completed. Finally I must thank my family, without whose support the thesis could not have been written.

As my tribute to Cynthia Shelmerdine for her magnificent contribution to Bronze Age studies, I of... more As my tribute to Cynthia Shelmerdine for her magnificent contribution to Bronze Age studies, I offer an exegesis on a proposal I first made at the Seal Symposium in Marburg in 1999, that cer- tain small shapes and dots in the designs of Late Bronze Age gold signet rings are beehives and bees.* Now, in the study of Aegean glyptic no topic is so hotly debated as the scenes on the gold signet bezels, and this is understandable because, though the scenes are beautifully detailed, their meaning is so hard to discern. In the Aegean, we lack trans- latable texts with content pertaining to the repre- sentations, and, in addition, Aegean aesthetics do not allow the placement of texts beside the pictures as a gloss as is the case in Egyptian and Mesopo- tamian art. Thus we are given no written clues as to the identity of the protagonists in the seal de- signs nor any explanation of their accoutrements. The Aegean iconographer may always have to struggle with these lacunae, but there is one set of barriers to understanding that can be removed. I refer to the misreading of the lines and shapes ac- tually carved in the stone seal face or engraved on the metal ring bezel. Ingo Pini drew attention to the need for scrupulous recording of what is actu- ally there in the design and for the careful use of parallels in his keynote address to the Eikon Con- ference in 1992 in Hobart. His closing admoni- tion is still pertinent: “The two main requisites for iconographical studies are an intimate knowl- edge of all the existing representations, not only those in glyptic art, and long experience in using this material” (Pini 1992, 18). This paper under- takes just such close and careful scrutiny of the details of the designs and the use of relevant parallels in order to eliminate confusion about an oval shape and associated modeled dots in the five extant examples.

American Journal of Archaeology, Apr 1, 1991

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the artistic phenomenon that, in the Bronze Age, many mo... more The aim of this thesis is to investigate the artistic phenomenon that, in the Bronze Age, many motifs were used in common by the arts of the Aegean, Egypt, and the Near East, in order to come to a conclusion as to whether this common usage can be attributed to indigenous creation in each separate area or whether it is due to crossfertilisation of the artistic traditions. The thesis is presented in two volumes, VOLUME I TEXT and VOLUME II PLATES. The text volume contains a list of abbreviations, the text arranged in four sections, Introduction, Part I The Motifs, Pant II The Artistic Issues, and Conclusion, a bibliography and chronological table. The plate volume contains the plates and plate list, a concordance of sites and plates, a concordance of motifs in Aegean glyptic, and a set of maps. The plate volume is considered integral to the thesis as being the true record of the primary source material. In VOLUME I TEXT the Intnoduction states the aim of the thesis, outlines the chronological stand taken, defines the principal artistic terms used, and defends the methodology of iconographical analysis. Part I The Motifs discusses over fifty motifs covering a wide variety of subjects, heraldic and religious symbols, floral and linear designs, the human figure, and general themes like war and the hunt. With the help of a precise terminology these motifs are studied individually having regard to their early traditions, their subsequent modifications, and to the variations acceptable in different areas. Part II The Artistic Issues opens with a discussion of the problems that arise from the above detailed survey of motifs, the most important one being the question of possible transference of motifs from one artistic tradition to another. On the basis of the correspondence of iconographical detail it is argued that twelve motifs transfer from the eastern traditions to Aegean art and that two motifs transfer from the Aegean to the East. The iconography also suggests the likelihood of the transference of smaller motifs and artistic details out of large scale compositions. The result of these transferences is the establishment in the Late Bronze Age of an International Repertoire of motifs drawn upon by the artists of many lands, Aegean and eastern. Part II goes on to assess the extent to which the foreign motif is assimilated into the indigenous tradition. Two levels of penetration are distinguished, an initial level, the Intrusive Element, and a deeper level, the Incorporated Element, where the exotic motif is assimilated into the local style. Part II further argues that some pieces fall into a special category for which the recently coined phrase International Style is accepted, and after classifying some special examples, it examines the means by which the motif transferences may have been effected. Part II concludes with a discussion on the acceptance or rejection of particular motifs by Minoan and Mycenaean art. The Conclusion provides a summary of the results of this investigation of artistic motifs, and assesses the contribution of this thesis to scholarship in the fields of ancient art and art history.

Papers and Summary of the Discussion held at the Summer 2023 MASt Seminar (Friday, June 30, 2023

Aegean seals belong to a 1500 year artistic tradition and they provide the most extensive imaging... more Aegean seals belong to a 1500 year artistic tradition and they provide the most extensive imaging of subject matter in the Bronze Age. The seals are, for the most part, small pieces of beautifully colored stone, great gold signet rings or the original sealings in clay. Each carries an image which is part of an amazingly conceived and nuanced polyvalent iconography. These images and the information they impart are the subject matter of my forthcoming book, ICON Art and Meaning in Aegean Seal Images, and this MASt Seminar outlines how I came to write it and what challenges the seals presented to me on the way.

Introduction The culture of the Mycenaean Greeks can best be accessed through the tangible record... more Introduction The culture of the Mycenaean Greeks can best be accessed through the tangible record they have left of their life and death in the four centuries from their emergence as a power at the end of the Middle Helladic period to the destruction of their palaces at the end of Late Helladic IIIB. Schliemann’s first great archaeological discoveries at Mycenae in 1876 named both the civilization and the age of its supremacy. The great amount of gold in the deeply buried shaft graves immediately captured the world’s attention, particularly the gold face masks. In one of these Schliemann thought he had looked upon the face of Agamemnon. Archaeologists now know that the early date of the graves precludes such an identification and we no longer equate these finds with things mentioned in Greek legends and the epics of Homer. We realize that oral tradition and subsequent literature have many components, only some of which may carry memories or preserve details of the Mycenaean world - after all, the time span between the shaft graves and the Parthenon exceeds a thousand years. The decipherment of the Linear B texts as Greek in 1952 (Ch. 1, pp. 11–12) opened another window into the culture but, because of their limited subject matter, we are left without discussion of some of the most important aspects one would wish to know about a society. So the material remains provided by archaeological endeavors since 1876 are the primary source for our understanding of Mycenaean culture.

KE-RA-ME-JA

The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age

Zoia. Animal-Human Interactions in the Aegean Middle and Late Bronze Age, 2021

The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age, 2008

American Journal of Archaeology, 2013

The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium AEGAEUM 18 , 1998

This paper turns to the cultural interaction between the Aegean, Egypt and the Near East and surv... more This paper turns to the cultural interaction between the Aegean, Egypt and the Near East and surveys the advances in iconographic studies from the publication of Helene Kantor's 1947 monograph, "The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium BC", to the present.

POLITEIA Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age, eds R. Laffineur and W-D. Niemeier, AEGAEUM 12, 475-491, LVI-LVIII, 1995

In the Aegean in the Bronze Age, who are the people who occupy important positions in society and... more In the Aegean in the Bronze Age, who are the people who occupy important positions in society and who exercise authority over the state? Who are the deities wielding power from the other world to control this one? How do we identify such people and such deities? This paper turns to the artistic record, to the images of the human figure, to ask these questions from a particular perspective. Images of power are, of course, not restricted to those incorporating the human form. They may comprise symbols taken from the world around or from the world of the imagination. However this enquiry concentrates on the depictions of the human figure as being the most important evidence for shaping any answer to the three basic questions posed above.

TEXNH Craftsmen, craftswomen and Craftsmanship in the Aegean Bronze Age, eds R. Laffineur and P. Betancourt, AEGAEUM 16, 81-92, XXIV-XXXIII, 1997

Ever since the art of the Aegean world first became accessible, its distinctive ornamental design... more Ever since the art of the Aegean world first became accessible, its distinctive ornamental designs have been much admired. The floral and foliate motifs and the spiral and circular patterns, which seem to be the essence of Minoan and Mycenaean design, have been extensively discussed to bring out an appreciation of the underlying geometry. In this paper I should like to press the enquiry a little further, and, concentrating on the earlier periods, ask: Just how much geometry did the Minoans really know?

EIKON Aegean Bronze Age Iconography: Shaping a Methodology, eds R. Laffineur and J. L. Crowley, AEGAEUM 8, 23-37, V-VII , 1992

This paper is the third in a trilogy of papers on Aegean Bronze Age art. Begun at the TRANSITION ... more This paper is the third in a trilogy of papers on Aegean Bronze Age art. Begun at the TRANSITION Conference in Liege and continued at the THALASSA Conference in Calvi, the trilogy can now find completion at the EIKON Conference in Hobart. This sequence of three discussions allows a detailed investigation of the nature of artistic inspiration in Aegean Bronze Age art. It remains for this paper to explain in detail how the compulsion to create the icon controls composition in Aegean art and to put forward proposals for standard terminology to facilitate precise discussion. As part of this examination and these proposals the relationship between the art of the Aegean Bronze Age and oral poetry, in particular the poems of Homer, is examined. However, before we can begin the third discussion, it is necessary to call readers' attention to the concept of the icon and to the Thalassa Theory of Aegean art treated in the first two papers in the trilogy.

TRANSITION Le Monde Egéen du Bronze Moyen au Bronze Recent, ed. R. Laffineur, AEGAEUM 3, 203-214, LXVII-LXVIII, 1989

The aim of this paper is to identify and to assess the changes in the choice of subject matter in... more The aim of this paper is to identify and to assess the changes in the choice of subject matter in Aegean art in the period under discussion at this Colloquium. The paper first surveys the subject matter in Aegean art to determine the significant changes in the different periods. The particular changes observable in the transition Middle to Late Bronze are identified and a closer analysis is given to those changes involving the human figure as being crucial to the understanding of Aegean art and Aegean society.

THALASSA L'Égée Préhistorique et La Mer, des R. Laffineur and L. Basch, AEGAEUM 7, 220-230, LIX-LX, 1991

In Aegean art of the Bronze Age, depictions of the sea and sea life abound. When comparisons are ... more In Aegean art of the Bronze Age, depictions of the sea and sea life abound. When comparisons are sought in the art of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian traditions to the east, it is striking how few there are. In neither of the two older traditions, nor in those derivative traditions of lands nearby which do have a sea coast, is there any creation to compare with the seascapes of the Aegean. If, then, the depiction of the sea is a characteristically Aegean artistic predilection, is it possible that a careful analysis of the iconography of the sea will bring us closer to an understanding of the peculiar artistic vision of the Aegeans? This paper seeks to analyse the iconography of the sea in Aegean art, to compare and contrast the Aegean creations with those of the older traditions to the east, and, out of these insights to develop a consistent theory of Aegean art.

KOSMOS Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age (eds) M-L. Nosch and R. Laffineur, AEGAEUM 33., 2012

The figurative arts of the Aegean Late Bronze Age provide much evidence of clothing detail. In th... more The figurative arts of the Aegean Late Bronze Age provide much evidence of clothing detail. In the frescoes, relief vases, statuettes and ivories the human figure is covered, draped, enveloped and protected by a wide variety of apparel, the frescoes giving the added information of colour. This paper concentrates on the other major source material, the seals, signets and sealings. We will look at the glyptic evidence from LM I to LH IIIB 1 to guide us to the prestige garments of the Minoans at their neo-palatial apogee and the Mycenaeans as they rise to power.