Exploring Balkan and Italian influences in Bronze Age Greece: Title: Eclectic Encounters and Material Change in the 13th to 11th Centuries BC Aegean (original) (raw)
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The shadowy “proto-Early Bronze Age” in the Aegean
Dietz, Søren, Fanis Mavridis, Žarko Tankosić, and Turan Takaoğlu, eds. (2018) Communities in Transition: The Circum-Aegean Area during the 5th and 4th Millennia BC. Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, Vol. 20, Oxbow, Oxford. Chapter 5, p. 33-66. ISBN: 978-1-7857-7210-9
Times of Change: Greece and the Aegean during the 4th Millennium BC
This paper deals with the cultural development of the Greek mainland and the Aegean from the Chalcolithic (Attica-Kephala Culture, Athens North Slope phase) to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (Pelos Culture). This period is visible in the landscape by an augmentation of sites in areas neither favourable to agriculture nor settled in earlier periods. This augmentation is seen in connection with the adoption of a new agricultural system and as the result of a higher frequency of relocation of settlements. The few architectural remains so far excavated show a delimitation of settlement area by walls and ditches. House plans point to a high variability in house architecture. The Chalcolithic also sees the emergence of new burial customs including extramural cemeteries. Throughout the Aegean, the pottery of this period has a quite homogeneous character from a technological point of view. Already during the Attica-Kephala Culture crusted ware and scoop-shaped vessels are distributed over a wide area. During the Athens North Slope phase so-called Heavy Burnished Ware with its characteristic shapes becomes frequent throughout the Aegean. The highly prestigious eating or drinking bowls of type Bratislava appear from the Balkans to central Greece and so-called ‘cheese pots’ are widespread throughout the Aegean. Such distribution of special purpose vessels points to similar technological developments over a wider geographical area. Concerning metallurgy, lead isotope analysis of copper objects indicates a close relation between Aegean metallurgy and that of the Balkans but also a growing importance of northern Greek sources. Copper is exploited in the central Cyclades on Kythnos and Seriphos as well as in Laurion in Attica; silver from Laurion and Siphnos also gains in importance. An intensification of exploitation of these sources probably led to the emergence of independent Early Bronze Age cultures in the Aegean. Ring pendants as known from the Balkans are produced and distributed as far as the southern Aegean. Axes and daggers are used from the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. Whereas axes lose ground in the central and southern Aegean, daggers soon become part of the attire and function as status symbol in warlike Early Bronze Age society.
Objects of foreign origin found within a certain ‘local’ archaeological context have often been interpreted as objects of high social value (due to their exotic character and origin). However, such interpretations have often dealt with the unusual character of these objects rather than examined the dynamic process through which they have been received into a new cultural context. This paper aims to examine specific objects and their dynamic biographies, while at the same time analysing the oversimplified concept of foreignness. It deals with two specific objects of foreign origin which have been appropriated into new cultural contexts. Rather than being treated as passively received objects of great value, they are interpreted as active creators of their own biographies within the context of the Late Bronze Age Aegean. The first example addressed in this paper is a Mycenaean‑style krater found in the grave on the Ayasoluk hill near Selçuk (Ephesos). The krater was used as an urn for the deposition of cremated remains. As such a burial practice is not known from the Greek mainland at the time, its appearance in the context of West Anatolia directly questions its ‘Mycenaean’ character and shows a more dynamic relationship to the object itself. The second example is a well‑known Egyptian stone vase found in the Neopalatial context at Kato Zakro. In this paper, its complex biography is presented and used to argue for a more dynamic character of personal biographies, which could have significantly influenced their perception in past societies. The paper aims to question the concepts of foreignness, ethnicity and hybridity in the Late Bronze Age Aegean using the aforementioned examples. With its concluding remarks the paper aims to challenge some of the grand narratives of the Aegean prehistory, which are often hard to avoid in the newly proposed interpretations.