Sympozjum Egejskie - 8th Conference in Aegean Archaeology (original) (raw)
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Aigeira and the Beginning of the Middle Helladic Period in Achaia
A. Philippa-Touchais et al. (ed.), Mesohelladika. La Grèce continentale au Bronze Moyen
Compte tenu des parallèles céramiques avec Lerne Va et l’HM I de Nichoria, l’habitat mésohelladique de l’« acropole » mycénienne d’Aigeira doit probablement être daté de l’HM I. Les importations témoignent de contacts qui s’étendent jusqu’à l’Attique et la Béotie, tandis que les productions locales suggèrent des interactions avec le Péloponnèse central et occidental. Aigeira faisait donc partie d’une entité culturelle qui reliait le réseau « Nord égéen » au Péloponnèse central et occidental. La situation d’Aigeira, sur une colline dominant le golfe de Corinthe, et ses possibles liens avec le site côtier de Krathion, ont des parallèles dans la répartition spatiale des sites HM de plus ou moins grande importance en Corinthie orientale et dans la plaine de Phénéos. Selon le modèle proposé par G. Nordquist, Aigeira devait donc appartenir à la catégorie des sites de moindre importance vivant surtout de l’élevage et reliés à de petits villages agricoles. En outre, la situation d’Aigeira au-dessus d’une petite vallée qui mène vers l’Arcadie et contrôle ainsi une voie de passage vers l’intérieur du Péloponnèse, montre que le site jouait aussi un certain rôle comme base sur la route reliant le golfe de Corinthe au Péloponnèse central.
The responses of the communities on the island of Naxos to the dynamic processes taking place during the EarlyCycladic (3rd millennium BC) and the Late Mycenaean(1400–1050 BC) periods have been well represented in the scholarly literature. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Middle Cycladic (2000–1600 BC) and the early LateCycladic (1600–1400 BC) periods. Even though it is a period of high archaeological visibility for the Cyclades as a whole, as well as of prosperity and contact with the communities of palatial Crete, on Naxos it is represented patchily to say the least. This paper draws primarily on material evidence of the diachronic development of the coastal settlement at Grotta, as well as of other sites on the island (e.g., Mikri Vigla, Zas Cave, Ailas), and attempts to fill in this lacuna and explain this conundrum by adopting a synthetic approach.
Memory and identity in LC I/LM IA Thera as reflected in settlement patterns and ceramic production 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.
A group of Late Minoan signet rings fashioned in precious metals and engraved with complex and evocative iconographic schemes appears to depict ‘nature’ or ‘rural’ cults enacted at extra-urban sanctuaries, and may have functioned as inalienable possessions implicated in the expression and maintenance of elite identities during the Aegean Bronze Age. The images on the ring bezels depict human figures in association with epiphanic figures situated in settings characterised by the presence of trees and stones, columnar shrines, stepped altars, openwork platforms, tripartite shrines and sanctuary walls, perhaps involving occasional rites and the erection and dismantling of temporary cult structures which can themselves be viewed as architectonic replications of rural cult sites and natural forms. Just as the fabric of these rings and the artistry and technical skill of their production were of restricted accessibility and controlled distribution, we may infer that so, too, the rites, places and activities recorded on these rings were socially restricted. Possession of these distinctive and desirable objects of economic, cultural and symbolic value may have signified access to, involvement in and mastery over such rituals, the special status of the owner delineated and broadcast through the circulating media of clay sealings, advertising their special relationship with forces and places within nature. Over time the personal and cultural memory, knowledge and associations accumulated within these rings may form histories or biographies of the rings themselves, implicating the identities of their past and present owners, and of the wider community. In this way, they can be understood as inalienable possessions, objects invested with authority and authenticity that in turn authenticate the status of their owners. These enduring symbols draw the past into the present, instantiating cultural and cosmological ideals which classify and objectify social relations through referencing the past. Thus these rings function as mnemonic devices, palimpsests of memory, association and affect which store and transmit information about spatially and temporally disbursed places, people and events, memorialising and broadcasting elite association with the (super)natural world and forming part of the material affordances of the world of things which recursively produce, reiterate and transform identities through ecologies of practice: the past mediated in the present through memory materialised in objects.
In Vino Veritas? In search of the evidence for past Minoan wine rituals before the krater.
in E. BORGNA, I. CALOI, F. CARINCI et R. LAFFINEUR (eds), MNEME. Past and Memory in the Aegean Bronze Age Proceeding of the 17th International Aegean Conference held in Venice, 17-21 April 2018 (AEGAEUM 43), 125-132, 2019
The ritual of drinking wine as part of a communal ceremony probably reflecting the horizontal integration of the communities who participated in the large feasts sponsored by the Mycenaean palaces is a well-known practice, embodied in our archaeological record by the ubiquitous kylikes and kraters. The latter is most probably used to mix water and wine, while presenting at the same time a substantial canvas for generous painted decoration, often taking the form of a narrative composition. A recent study has shown that the particular shape of the Mycenaean amphoroid krater – which “was not produced for use within a local Mycenaean context” (Crouwel & Morris 2015: 172) – has its origin in early Late Bronze Age Crete, where it in turn closely refers to contemporary but also earlier Minoan large jars. The study of large storage vessels in Bronze Age Crete has shed important light on different issues, from palatial economy, subsistence strategies to burial practices. However, the particular category of large brightly decorated containers may have had little to do with the other plain or simply decorated pithoi and storage containers, most often considered within the framework of the Minoan palatial or household economies. In this context, the exclusive Palace Style Jars from the Monopalatial period at Knossos essentially, have been interpreted as having a very specific function in a very specific context: portable items in display, referencing and playing with the astonishing wall paintings which adorned the last palace at Knossos. But what about this large elaborately decorated Minoan shape before and after the installation of a Mycenaean administration at Knossos? Which function, use and type(s) of content can we attribute to it? During the Neopalatial period, richly pattern-painted storage jars take the form of piriform and conical or barrel-shaped jars, sometimes exported to Thera or the Mainland. Later, in Late Minoan III, these two types of containers seem to include a new tradition of large coarse vessels, still brightly decorated, which exhibit distinct manufacturing techniques in terms of paste, shaping processes and surface treatment as well as a similar set of decorative styles. This tradition comprises the piriform jars and barrel-shaped jars but also the new amphoroid kraters and the reactivated larnakes. Despite clear connections between and within regional groups of production and manifest evidence for the interregional movement of these items but also of potters and/or painters, the definition of their respective function and contexts of consumption remains unclear, while certainly multi-faceted. In this paper it is argued that distinguishing between potential contexts of consumption of these brightly decorated containers taken as a whole and through a diachronic perspective from the Neopalatial period onwards, can provide a better understanding of the precise activities or rituals associated with these different containers. As such, it is argued that these contexts may particularly point to the special display of the consumption of liquids – especially wine, although maybe under different ‘forms’ –, which reproduced and reactivated in parts earlier, deeply-rooted, Minoan social practices.
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3.4 NIKOLAKOPOULOU_CHROSTIRES.pdf
Nikolakopoulou, I. 2018. The painter’s brush and how to use it: Elementary and advanced lessons from Akrotiri iconography. In A.G. Vlachopoulos (ed.), Chrostires/Paintbrushes, Wall-painting and vase-painting of the 2nd millennium BC in dialogue, 24-26 May 2013, Akrotiri, Thera, Athens, 195-203.
XΡΩΣΤΗΡΕΣ - PAINTBRUSHES. Wall-painting and vase-painting of the second millenium BC in dialogue, edited by Andreas G. Vlachopoulos, 2018