Marthari, M. 2019. Raos and Akrotiri: memory and identity in LC I/LM IA Thera as reflected in settlement patterns and ceramic production (original) (raw)

2019, in E. Borgna, I. Caloi, F.M. Carinci & R. Laffineur (eds) 2019, MNHMH/MNEME: Past and Memory in the Aegean Bonze Age, Liége: Peeters Leuven, 135-144

The settlement patterns and ceramic production in LC I/ LM IA Thera are two subjects about which new evidence has emerged during the past twenty years. As a result, we are now in a better position to approach the topic of memory and identity of Theran society in the final phase before the eruption of the volcano. Recent surface surveys added more sites to the already known complex settlement pattern of LC I pre-eruption Thera including individual farms and rural settlements. Among the new sites is Raos, in the South Caldera, where a sophisticated building complex with frescoes was revealed. This brings Thera even closer to Crete than the rest of the Cyclades. On the other hand, most of the LC I sites dispersed in the island’s countryside were founded on earlier sites dating back to the Early Cycladic period, which shows a strong tradition and memory in the occupation processes. The excavations at both Akrotiri and Raos in the 2000s and 2010s increased the ceramic material from the Volcanic Destruction Level by hundreds of complete vases and thousands of sherds. A look at the pottery of the Volcanic Destruction Level based on all the material that has been found to date, old and new, is able to shed plenty of light on the modes and dynamics of both penetration of Minoan elements into Thera and transmission of the Cycladic past In addition to the imports from Crete a good many Minoan shapes, entirely unknown in the Cyclades, were produced locally, meeting the new requirements formed by the embracing of a Minoan way of life. The process of Minoan features penetrating Thera on the cultural and social level is considerably more complex than the penetration of Knossian features, for example, into other Minoan sites. From the moment a Minoan feature penetrated Theran pottery its course was independent of the course it followed in Crete where it originated. The autonomy of the Theran workshops is more noticeable with the creation by the Theran potters of a number of types drawn from the combination of some features of two different Minoan shapes. These improvisations show better than anything else that the Theran artists were not tied to a past that was not their own, such as the Minoan. They had no hesitation whatsoever in redesigning its products. A great many local pottery shapes, however, the main examples being the beaked jugs and nippled ewers, are found in the framework of the tradition that developed in the Cyclades during the EC and MC periods. Both plastic form and painted decoration express the continuation of the sense of sparseness and the disarming simplicity of Cycladic art in great respect. It is also of special importance that the predominant ritual libation sets, judging by their greater numbers, are the local traditional libation sets, the nipple-jug and the cylindrical rhyton. In conclusion, the evidence shows cultural and social transformation in LC I pre-eruption Τhera, which brings it closer than ever to Crete and Knossos without being very far away from its deeply rooted local traditions and memories in site occupation on the one hand and art, religion and cult practices on the other that reflect the deepest foundations of every society.