Painting the wine-dark sea: traveling Aegean fresco artists in the Middle and late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean (original) (raw)
Related papers
1977
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.
2004. Technology and Social Agency in Bronze Age Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Painted Plaster
In the past, Bronze Age painted plaster in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean has been studied from a range of different but isolated viewpoints. One of the current questions about this material is its direction of transfer. Within this current debate, Aegean prehistorians mainly have suggested a transfer from west to east while Knapp, Sherratt and Woolley suggested that a transfer from east to west is also possible. The discussion of transfer has been based mainly on iconographic and a few isolated technological studies. Therefore, I aim, first, to investigate the direction of technological transfer and see how it related to the iconographic transfer. Second, I aim to shed light on the forces behind the technological transfer of this painting tradition. My research has brought both technological and iconographic (and other) approaches closer together: 1) by completing certain gaps in the literature on technology and 2) by investigating how and why technological transfer has developed and what broader impact this had on the wider social dynamics of the late Middle and Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean. I approached the topic of painted plaster by a multidisciplinary methodology. After a thorough macro- and microscopic study, a selection of analytical techniques were employed to a set of carefully selected samples from twelve sites. These combined data provided the mineralogical and chemical characterization of pigments and plaster. Underlying this approach was the attention paid to conservation and preservation issues. This resulted, for instance, in two pilot studies in which the data of two non-destructive techniques were compared to those of the more traditional ones with a view to future sample reduction strategies. Furthermore, the analytical results were enriched by small-scale experiments conducted in order to reveal more about the technologies involved. Moreover, these experiments provided insights in human aspects of the craft, its labour division and complexity. When human actors and their interactions are placed in the centre of the scene, it demonstrates the human forces through which transfer was enabled and how multiple social identities and the inter-relationships of these actors with each other and their material world were expressed through their craft production and organization. The investigated data from sixteen sites has been contextualized within a wider framework of Bronze Age interconnections both in time and space because studying painted plaster in the Aegean cannot be considered separate from similar traditions both in Egypt and in the Near East. This study made clear that it is not possible to deduce a one-way directional transfer of this painting tradition. Furthermore, by integrating both technology and iconography with its hybrid character, a clear „technological style‟ was defined in the al fresco work found on these specific sites. Every aspect of both technology and iconography reinforces each other within this technological style and shows how iconography and technology are inseparable. Based on my own research, I suggest that the technological transfer most likely moved from west to east. This has important implications in the broader politico-economic and social dynamics of the eastern Mediterranean during the LBA. Since this art/craft was very much elite-owned, it shows how the smaller states in the LBA, such as the regions of the Aegean, were capable of staying within the large trade and exchange network that comprised the large powers of the East and Egypt. The Minoan, Cycladic and Mycenaean people had their own resources to offer in LBA trade and exchange networks, and gift-giving and these assets were clearly appreciated at several large centres. The painted plaster reflects a very visible presence in the archaeological record and, because it cannot be transported without its artisans, it suggests specific interactions of royal courts in the East with the Aegean peoples. At all of these places in the East, other material remains of Aegean origin were found. These reinforce the notion of contact but it does not necessarily reflect the physical presence of Aegean people on a permanent or temporary basis. Only the painted plaster required at least temporary presence of a small team of painters and plasterers. Exactly this factor forms an argument in support of travelling artisans, who, in turn, shed light onto broader aspects of contact, trade and exchange mechanisms during the late MBA and LBA.
2016
In the second half of the th Century BCE Yarim-Lim of Alalakh gave instructions to decorate his palace with wall paintings. Instead of following the inner-Syrian or 'Mesopotamian' tradition of al secco painting on dark mud plaster, he decided in favor of a technical and iconographical innovation known from the Aegean, a bright, shiny lime plaster with a griffin as a depiction. Later, similar decorations appeared in palaces and houses in Syria and beyond. My paper analyzes why this technical and social innovation was successful within the local life world. Secondly, it takes a closer look at the impact of the murals by exploring the use and meaning of Aegean-related motifs in the following centuries and the production of a Levantine Aegeanness in different media of expression.
in A. Papadopoulos (ed.), Recent Research and Perspectives on the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, TALANTA XLIV, pp. 92-136, 2012
Aegean and Cypriot wares were the most widely traded ceramics in the Eastern Mediterranean (at least by sea) during the Bronze Age. However, their distribution and typologies are usually considered separately, prohibting meaningful comparisons. This paper attempts a comparative examination of their quantities, repertoires, and contexts of deposition in Egypt and the Levant, as well as the mutual exchanges between the Aegean and Cyprus. In terms of chronology, it is demonstrated that while Cypriot vessels were exported en masse to Egypt and the Levant from the later part of the MBA onwards, Aegean ceramics became common only in the mid-14th century BC. In terms of repertoires, it becomes clear that while Cypriot exports included transport containers already from the 18th or 17th century BC, the few Aegean vessels that found their way to the East prior to 1400 BC were primarily for drinking and pouring. Aegean transport containers were systematically exported only from LH III A2 onwards (i.e. in the Mycenaean palatial period). These findings suggest the existence of two quite independent networks of maritime trade, and raise questions about the degree of integration of Aegean polities into the Eastern Mediterranean trade system. 6 Some scholars identify 'proto-palaces' in that period, but this is largely based on architectural style, layout, or decoration, see Wright 2006. Evidence of complex administrative and economic functions associated with centralized state organization is only available for the architectural complexes (i.e. 'palaces') which were built at Pylos, Mycenae, and Thebes in the following LH IIIA2-B period: Darcque 2005, 336-339, 372-374, 404. 7 For a recent overview of developments in the 2nd millennium BC Aegean, see Shelmerdine 2008. 8 The following chronological abbreviations are used in this table and throughout the paper: Aegean: MM = Middle Minoan; LM = Late Minoan; LH = Late Helladic; Cyprus: MC = Middle Cypriot; LC = Late Cypriot; Levant: MB = Middle Bronze; LB = Late Bronze; Egypt: SIP = Second Intermediate Period.
3 262 GIORGOS VAVOURANAKIS 325 CROSS-CRAFT AND CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONS 14. Cross-craft and cross-cultural interactions during the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age ann BrysBaerT abstract In the context of the Late Bronze Age Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, cross-craft and cross-cultural interactions are discussed in order to understand the concept of 'cross-craft interaction' (CCI). CCI is connected with the chaîne opératoire to demonstrate that it consists of three aspects: production processes, circulation/distribution patterns and consumption of the final product. Only if we consider CCI and thus technologies this way, can we fully comprehend the social relationships and identities that are shaped and negotiated through people's interactions. The case study of painted plaster presents four types of interactions and when contextualised, it becomes clear that CCI contributes to technological changes, innovations and transfer of a craft. Moreover, the appearance of specific technologies, i.e. al fresco, were short-lived and context-specific (elites), from a sociopolitical and ideological perspective, and much was done to keep it there. With the end of the Mycenaean palaces and elite's structure collapse, however, painted plaster disappeared with it.