Tully, C. J. and S. Crooks. 2020. Enthroned Upon Mountains: Constructions of Power in the Aegean Bronze Age. In The Ancient Throne: The Mediterranean, the Near East, and Beyond, 3rd Millennium BCE – 14th Century CE, edited by Liat Naeh and Dana Brostowsky Gilboa. Vienna: OREA. (original) (raw)

The Ancient Throne: The Mediterranean, Near East, and Beyond, from the 3rd Millennium BCE to the 14th Century CE. Proceedings of the Workshop held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016, eds. L. Naeh and D. Brostowsky Gilboa. International Series OREA. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.

The Ancient Throne: The Mediterranean, Near East, and Beyond, from the 3rd Millennium BCE to the 14th Century CE. Proceedings of the Workshop held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016, eds. L. Naeh and D. Brostowsky Gilboa. International Series OREA. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press., 2020

The Ancient Throne provides readers with a collection of articles that either study specific thrones known from historical texts, artistic depictions or excavations, or offer an overview of the role of thrones from as early as ancient Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BCE to as late as Iran and China in the 14th century CE. The volume thus collates the work of scholars who specialise in diverse cultures and who have all found thrones to be helpful vehicles for promoting unique inquiries into such issues as royalty, society, ritual, and religion within their areas of expertise. The breadth of their collective efforts offers a comparative view through which the dissemination of political and ideological concepts may be better explored. The following collection of articles, however, does not attempt to provide a single answer to the question of what a throne is or is not, but instead presents the authors’ individual – and sometimes conflicting – outlooks. While the volume is far from being a comprehensive survey of thrones in Eurasian cultures across the ages, it nevertheless offers readers a specialised bibliography and draws attention to scholarly trends that will be useful to future studies on thrones in general. Most of all, the volume cohesively suggests that thrones have been a meaningful category of material culture throughout history, one that may inspire both inter-cultural and intra-cultural studies of the ways in which types of chairs can embody, execute or induce notions of kingship and a range of concepts pertaining to the religious, ideological, and social spheres.

Tully, C.J. and S. Crooks. Enthroned Upon Mountains: Iconography and the Construction of Power in the Aegean Bronze Age. 10th ICAANE. Vienna 2016.

The Bronze Age Aegean lacks a clearly discernible iconography of rulership, permitting widely contrasting speculation on the character of Minoan society; that it was egalitarian, heterarchical, gynocratic or a theocracy overseen by priest-kings. That elites did exist is amply attested through mortuary, iconographic and architectural evidence including the Throne Room of the Late Minoan palace at Knossos in which a centrally-oriented throne is incorporated into the architectural fabric of the room. Frescoes adorn the wall into which the throne is set, griffins flanking its large, mountain-shaped seat-back. Iconographic representations of human figures holding sceptres and standing upon mountains, and evidence for the increased palatial control of cultic activity at rural peak sanctuaries during the Neopalatial period (1750–1490 B.C.E.) emphasise an association between rulership and the mountainous landscape. Close analysis of seated figures within Minoan iconography reveals architectonic parallels to the Knossian Throne, stepped structures surmounted by seated female figures functioning as abstract representations of the mountain form. It will be argued that literal and metaphoric representations of a mountain throne function within an ideological program associating rulership with the natural landscape, offering new insights into the construction of power in the Aegean Bronze Age.----------- Paper presented at the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) on 27 April 2016.

"Thrones and Crowns: On the Regalia of the West Semitic Monarchy," in The Ancient Throne The Mediterranean, Near East, and Beyond, from the 3rd Millennium BCE to the 14th Century CE (ed. Liat Naeh and Dana Brostowsky Gilboa; Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2020), 123-134.

2020

Whereas the crown was a central icon of kingship in ancient Mesopotamia, West Semitic conceptions of kingship differed deeply from their Mesopotamian counterparts. In Iron Age Levantine cultures (including Aramean, Phoenician, and Israelite), the throne was a far more potent symbol of the monarchy than was the crown, as is reflected in the iconography, and especially in texts. Phoenician and Aramaic royal inscriptions, as well as biblical texts, show that the preeminent regalia of royalty in the region were not crowns, but thrones and “shoots,” or scepters. This paper draws on epigraphic, visual, and literary materials from the Levant, as well as comparative evidence not only from Mesopotamia, but also from Egypt and the Hittite world to emphasize the significance of the image of the throne in constructing the image of the monarch in the Levant.

Throne Among the Gods: A Short Study of the Throne in Archaic Greek Iconography

In: The Ancient Throne. Liat Naeh – Dana Brostowsky Gilboa (Eds.), 2020

This article focuses on images of thrones depicted in scenes connected to the Greek gods. Most of them decorate Archaic Attic black-figure vases, but two Archaic reliefs are also discussed. The purpose is to examine the function of the throne within a certain scene. What does it signify? Should it always be understood in the same way? The article is divided into three sections: (A) depictions of a single throne in a certain scene, (B) depictions of two thrones in a certain scene, and (C) thrones juxtaposed with other types of seats in a certain scene. In most cases, especially when it appears as the only seating object in the scene, the throne signifies the high, privileged status and power of the figure occupying it, differentiating him or her from the other participants. This is true also for the depiction of two thrones. However, when juxtaposed with other types of seats, the throne’s function as a rigid sign differentiating a certain figure within the image is questioned.

Time past and time present: the emergence of the Minoan palaces as a transformation of temporality

AEGIS Essays in Mediterranean Archaeology Presented to Matti Egon by the scholars of the Greek Archaeological Committee UK, edited by Zetta Theodoropoulou Polychroniadis and Doniert Evely, 2015

ISBN 978 1 78491 200 0 ISBN 978 1 78491 201 7 (e-Pdf) The Founder of GACUK Matti Egon with the 'unusual bouquet' offered by the scholars. i Contents Foreword ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� v The value of digital recordings and reconstructions for the understanding of three-dimensional archaeological features ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 Constantinos Papadopoulos The contribution of systematic zooarchaeological analysis in understanding the complexity of prehistoric societies: The example of late Neolithic Toumba Kremastis-Koiladas in northern Greece �������������������������������������������������������� 17 Vasiliki Tzevelekidi The Heraion of Samos under the microscope: A preliminary technological and provenance assessment of the Early Bronze Age II late to III (c. 2500-2000 BC) pottery ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 25 Sergios Menelaou Time past and time present: the emergence of the Minoan palaces as a transformation of temporality ������������������ 35 Giorgos Vavouranakis Palaepaphos during the Late Bronze Age: characterizing the urban landscape of a late Cypriot polity ���������������������� 45 Artemis Georgiou 'What would the world be to us if the children were no more?': the archaeology of children and death in LH IIIC Greece ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 57 Chrysanthi Gallou-Minopetrou The Late Helladic IIIC period in coastal Thessaly ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 69 Eleni Karouzou The Bronze Age on Karpathos and Kythera �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 85 Mercourios Georgiadis East Phokis revisited: its development in the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age in the light of the latest finds �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 93 Antonia Livieratou Early Iron Age Greece, ancient Pherae and the archaeometallurgy of copper ��������������������������������������������������������� 107 Vana Orfanou Representations of western Phoenician eschatology: funerary art, ritual and the belief in an after-life ������������������ 117 Eleftheria Pappa Piraeus: beyond 'known unknowns' ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 131 Florentia Fragkopoulou The casting technique of the bronze Antikythera ephebe �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 137 Kosmas Dafas A brief, phenomenological reading of the Arkteia �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 147 Chryssanthi Papadopoulou Cylindrical altars and post-funerary ritual in the south-eastern Aegean during the Hellenistic period: 3rd to 2nd centuries BC ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 155 Vasiliki Brouma Lamps, symbolism and ritual in Hellenistic Greece ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 165 Nikolas Dimakis In search of the garden-peristyle in Hellenistic palaces: a reappraisal of the evidence ������������������������������������������� 173 Maria Kopsacheili ii Damophon in Olympia: some remarks on his date ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 185 Eleni Poimenidou Entering the monastic cell in the Byzantine world: archaeology and texts �������������������������������������������������������������� 191 Giorgos Makris Discovering the Byzantine countryside: the evidence from archaeological field survey in the Peloponnese ����������� 201 Maria Papadaki On a Fāṭimid Kursī in the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai ����������������������������������������������������������������� 211 George Manginis The discovery of ancient Cyprus: archaeological sponsorship from the 19th century to the present day ���������������� 221 Anastasia Leriou Showcasing new Trojan wars: archaeological exhibitions and the politics of appropriation of ancient Troy ������������ 235 Antonis Kotsonas 35 Time past and time present: the emergence of the Minoan palaces as a transformation of temporality

The Play with Throne Designs in Third Millennium BCE Mesopotamia

The Ancient Throne: The Mediterranean, the Near East, and Beyond, From the 3rd Millennium BCE to the 14th Century CE. Proceedings of the Workshop held at 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016, edited by Liat Naeh and Dana Brostowsky Gilboa, 2020

The symbolic significance and ceremonial role of the throne are well attested in 3rd millennium BCE Meso- potamia. The throne belonged to the fluid group of accoutrements that Sumerian literary texts associate with kingship. Regalia pertained to both human and divine royalty. While verbal designations for regalia do not distinguish between these spheres, their design in visual imagery could vary with the holder and change over time. Because designs were not rigidly fixed, some archaeologists dismiss the existence of regalia in visual imagery and relegate them to a purely ideo- logical and imaginary sphere. However, visual representations do contain hints that objects associated with kingship in texts were meant to represent regalia in imagery as well. After reviewing textual sources that elucidate the significance of thrones, this contribution outlines the development of specific throne designs for particular throne holders in visual imagery and then goes on to explore some anomalies that can be explained as intentional breaks in norms after these had been established. The play with throne designs in these cases alludes to a certain degree of divinity of mortal royals and would not have been possible had the seats in question not represented insignia of kingship