Constructing ‘Traditions’: Aspects of Identity Formation in the Southern Ionian Islands during the Late Helladic Period and the Iron Age (original) (raw)
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in A. Dakouri-Hild & M. Boyd (ed), Staging Death: Funerary Performance, Architecture and Landscape in the Aegean, p. 297-314, 2016
"Keywords: continuity, time/space, abandoned places, architecture and sense of place, theatricity, memoryscapes, Argolid, LBA-Iron Age transition" Landscape and memory are closely interwoven factors that contribute to explaining the spatial and cultural location of funerary places. Along with topographic features, the built environment plays a key role in the establishment of cemeteries. This study examines the reuse of abandoned dwellings as burial sites in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Aegean. While intrusive graves were reported in deserted domestic and artisanal structures, this paper instead focuses on the tombs found among the ruins of palatial centres and residences of the elite. In these monumental places, likely perceived as lieux de mémoire, the intrusion of burials may have been an attempt to appropriate symbols of authority and to legitimize power. This paper thus explores the ties linking monumentality, memory, and authority. Graves placed in the uninhabited walls of rulers’ dwellings were dug with a specific purpose that cannot be explained by practical reasons alone, i.e. incorporating the pre-existing walls into the graves’ construction. The interrelationship between the former residences and later cemeteries was spatially specific, and allowed memory and local identity to interact. To regard the spatial relationship between burials and settlements through the binary opposition ‘intra-’ or ‘extramural’ is thus insufficient. The ruined centres of past potentates were conspicuous landmarks that contributed to the theatricality of graves placed within. In this architectural landscape that was witness to a powerful past, funerals and post-funerary rituals were also dramatized. As Joseph Maran observes for the Argolid, the memory of the Mycenaean Palatial Period was stronger in visible and fortified sites, which became the focus of cultural memory as early as the 12th century BC. In times of social and cultural change, without a strong central power, individuals, kinship, or social groups may have asked for the protection of ancestral leaders whose perceived authority was used to legitimize territorial claims. Furthermore, the transformation of ancient rulers’ residential places into burial areas was considered definitive, which excluded their reuse by the living.
Zero to Hero: Elite Burials and Hero Cults in Early Iron Age Greece and Cyprus
2018
Adulation of heroes, including the flawed, militaristic, authoritative men of Homeric epic, was an important feature of ancient Hellenic culture. This phenomenon is reflected in cults and shrines built in the Archaic period. How did these so-called "hero cults" form, and can Early Iron Age (EIA) elite burials form a connection between the tomb cults of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and the hero cults of the Archaic and later Classical periods? The purpose of this study is to examine EIA burials whose elite goods and archaeologically visible tombs reflect the burial of a "heroic" person. In doing so, I draw connections between the elaborate LBA burials and the less ornate EIA interments of Greece and Cyprus that contain references to the LBA past. To examine this phenomenon, I consult theories of state formation, the cyclical nature of changing levels of social complexity, and cultural memory. In order to draw connections between Archaic hero cults and earlier EIA tombs, the study examines burials at the following sites in Greece and Cyprus: Athens,
International Congress: Tumuli and Megaliths in Eurasia May 25-29. Proença-a-Nova PORTUGAL, 2021
Manipulating the past and creating memory is a usual and well documented method of establishing and legitimizing social and – mostly - political power. The Middle Helladic world undergoes social, economic and political changes, especially during the third phase of the period. These changes will eventually lead to the highly ranked social structure of the Mycenaean world and the appearance of the palaces and state economy. Crucial in this transformation is the emergence and the consolidation of power and social status of a new elite, which is profoundly manifested in the burial architecture and customs of the Shaft Graves Period, marking the transition between Middle Helladic and Late Helladic. During the transitional period of Late Middle Helladic to Early Late Helladic in Western Greece, the Peloponnese and Southern Mainland Greece, appear certain cases of erection of elite tombs (mostly tholoi, but also shaft graves and cists) into Middle Helladic and Early Helladic tumuli. This paper will attempt to explore the reuse of existing tumuli by these emerging elites in order to legitimate their political claims or their social position by claiming roots into the distant local past through the assertion of ancestral links and the creation of social memory. Key element is the appropriation of the collective monumental expression of earlier societies, namely tumulus, by the new occupants of political power.
Mortuary practices in southern Greece undergo a radical transformation at the beginning of the Mycenaean era (or Late Bronze Age, around 1700 BCE). This period sees the introduction of formal cemeteries, larger tombs, richer burials and a more complex ritual sequence involving multiple interments, tomb re-use and the 'secondary treatment' of earlier burials. 'Secondary treatment' is a rather vague, all-inclusive term, which includes various practices, such as disarticulating skeletons, mingling the bones and relocating them in piles or scatters either inside or outside the tomb (completely or selectively). Two questions arise: Why is this practice introduced? Why does it take different forms? The recent excavation of Ayios Vasilios North Cemetery in Laconia was designed on the basis of an integrated bioarchaeological strategy in order to provide the opportunity to fully explore these issues. While our ultimate goal is to understand the causes and consequences of the wider transformations in fu-nerary practices, the focus of this paper is on one aspect: the re-use of graves and the secondary treatment of earlier burials. Through an integrated approach which aims to reconcile archaeological theory with current meth-odological advances in bioarchaeology and funerary taphonomy, we seek to reconstruct the funerary activities in great detail, in order to fully observe variation and change, and, ultimately, understand how this considerable variation may inform us on the re-definition of social relations at death, or shifting notions of the self. Beyond the specifics of the Mycenaean case-study, our aim is also to address broader methodological and theoretical questions, stressing the need for a true integration in the study of mortuary assemblages. To this end, we propose a taphonomy-oriented, methodological approach for the field recording and lab analysis of the human remains, drawing on current advances in archaeothanatology, forensic science, and analysis of commingled remains. This approach works best if placed within a clear theoretical framework, which recognises the manipulation of the dead body as closely associated with notions of personhood, and at the same time respects the historical specificity of the mortuary context and engages with the full complexity of contextual empirical data. Using the case of Ayios Vasilios in order to illustrate this process, our specific questions include: the formation characteristics of funerary assemblages, frequency and sequence of tomb use, diversity of secondary treatment , and age and sex differences in funerary treatment. Our results demonstrate a considerable extent of variation in funerary disposal and secondary treatment during this transitional period. Shifts of emphasis within this diverse treatment, especially regarding bodily fragmentation and modes of dispersal, suggest that, in Ayios Vasilios, a) age, but not sex, differences in funerary treatment were at play, b) mortuary transformation embodies the transformation from narrower (possibly household-based) associations to increasingly wider concepts of lineage and descent, c) tensions between tradition and innovation , as well as integration and differentiation, are evident in the variation of secondary treatment and coexistence of different forms (as already attested in other funerary and daily practices).
Distributed practice and cultural identities in the ‘Mycenaean’ period
Molloy, B. (ed.), Of Odysseys and Oddities: Scales and modes of interaction between prehistoric Aegean societies and their neighbours. , 2016
The first part of this paper reviews recent concepts of Mycenaean identity in the light of the aims of this Aegean Round Table. Although the term ‘Mycenaean’ has been bequeathed to us with a full complement of historical baggage, it has recently been asserted that not only does the term retain its usefulness but that it can be said with confidence to relate to an empirical historical reality: the Mycenaeans are asserted to have been a well-defined ethnic group. Some initial sceptical observations are offered on this assertion. The second part of this paper problematises the term ‘Mycenaean’ in terms of practice. If certain traits can be seen as quintessentially Mycenaean (in itself a questionable assumption), how did those traits come to be part of the routines of life, and how did their adoption and employment differ throughout Mycenaean time-space? Many of the most recognisable aspects of Mycenaean practice – writing, iconography, architectural forms and aspects of cult – are poorly represented in the early Mycenaean period, but the creation and adoption of Mycenaean burial practices can be traced from the later Middle Helladic period in the Peloponnese and have been widely used as a key indicator of Mycenaean culture, eventually to be traced throughout the ‘koine’ of the later Mycenaean period. Indeed the only Mycenaean trait more widely evidenced in practice in the time-space under consideration is Mycenaean pottery. The latter may ultimately be the better evidentiary strand to consider, but in a paper such as this the specificities of mortuary practice may better be tackled. Recent work has shown that Mycenaean burial practices are more diverse than is sometimes appreciated. Nonetheless, certain characteristics are common to most of them. These characteristics may be defined as follows: 1) the development of architectural forms enabling of certain practices; 2) the use of collective burial; 3) a rich variety of practices of secondary treatment of the dead; 4) use of a funerary landscape; and 5) use of material culture in funerary contexts. If Mycenaean burial practices are recognised as a key component of being Mycenaean, given their early appearance they are central to investigating how, where and when the cultural traits we call Mycenaean first appeared. Their subsequent adoption, from site to site or region to region, may give insight into this possible adoption and formation of a Mycenaean identity. The paper will examine data from several regions in order to consider these hypotheses. This examination confirms that trajectories of development differ markedly between distant and even neighbouring regions. In the Peloponnese, the differential adoption of Mycenaean burial practices in Messenia and Elis is striking. In Elis the LHIII phenomenon of chamber tomb cemeteries is arguably evidence of cultural discontinuity with Messenia. The sequence at Mycenae itself shows a late adoption: tholos and chamber tombs and their attendant burial practices are imported from elsewhere, disrupting established practices. Sequences in central Greece, Crete and fringes of the Mycenaean world will also be considered The final part of the paper considers the notion of being Mycenaean in the light of the foregoing discussion. What prompted the widespread but differential adoption of Mycenaean traits? The paper will argue against an ancient concept of Mycenaean ethnicity. But does the widespread adoption of certain traits indicate ongoing cultural construction of identity through an explicit process of assimilation of valued non-local practices? Beyond adoption, what is the nature of the longevity of these practices? Answers will be rooted in local factors, but it will be argued that some aspects of identity were being constructed in reference to factors widely recognised though sometimes differently interpreted.