THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE BARED BREAST IN AEGEAN BRONZE AGE ART, in K. Kopaka ed. Engendering Prehistoric 'Stratigraphies' in the Aegean and Mediterranean, Rethymno, Crete, 2005, Aegaeum. 2009, pp.243-9. (original) (raw)

The representation in art of women of the Aegean Bronze Age with exposed or bared breasts has attracted interest ever since Sir Arthur Evans excavated artefacts such as the faience " Snake Goddesses " or the women gathered in the miniature frescoes at Knossos. These and other similar imagery have been interpreted over the years in many differing ways: as signifying maternity and fertility, as being symptomatic of sexual freedom, or as simply a fashion, which happens to expose the breasts. Given the wide-ranging thoughts on the subject, it is perhaps surprising that there has not been more extended discussion of what is a highly distinctive costume, one which not only exposes, but also sometimes shapes, and always frames and draws attention to the breast area. Of course, in the Bronze Age Aegean we can engage only with the representation of the breast in art; we cannot be sure of how fully such representations reflect real dress, or whether women dressed in this way in contexts other than the ritual or ceremonial ones, which are the focus of so much of the art. We also lack the benefit of texts, which give our colleagues working in the neighbouring cultures of the Near East and Egypt insights into ancient perceptions of the human body — perceptions that could (and often did) differ from our own. It is perhaps in areas such as perceptions and constructions of the body and its attendant sexuality that modern cultural filters can be especially problematic. The familiar Minoan image of the " Snake Goddess " was part of the stunning opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Athens, in 2004 (Pl. XLIIIa). It is unsurprising that this was one of the iconic images chosen to encapsulate the historical past of the Greeks. But of particular interest for the present study are American newspaper reports that the broadcaster NBC had censored the " goddess " by pixellating her breasts, and that complaints were received about the unsuitability of this imagery for mainstream family viewing. While Evans and others have interpreted the exposed breasts of these figures as references to divine maternity, the 21st century viewer immediately interprets this imagery as primarily sexual and erotic. We have here, in a nutshell, the dualism of much Western thought from mind/body, nature/culture, magic/religion, which extends to perceptions and representations of the breast, as either maternal and good or erotic and bad. This division, which separates and creates a border between motherhood and sexuality, has been described as " one of the most overdetermined dichotomies in our culture. " 1 In this paper, I will be pursuing this dichotomy, arguing that it has strongly influenced the way that scholars have thought about bared breasts in ancient art.