Seats of Power? Making the most of miniatures – the role of terracotta throne models in disseminating Mycenaean religious ideology (original) (raw)
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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.
TERRACOTTA FIGURINES OF GODDESSES ON THRONES FROM BORYSTHENES
Eminak, 2021
Figurines of goddesses on the throne were the main coroplastic images of ancient centers of the archaic period. They predominate among figurines from Borysthenes as well. The peculiarities of the image of such goddesses are studied on the example of the collection of similar terracotta figurines stored in the Scientific Funds of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Most often, they were so homogenous that it is easy to identify the image from very small fragments. But in Borysthenes, a number of peculiar items were found showing a variety of attributes, as opposed to other centers of the Northern Black Sea region. This is a goddess with a child, with varieties: a child wearing a pillius or in the form of a potbellied God; goddess with animal features: with the head of a bear or in the form of a monkey with a baby; a goddess with a paredros wearing a pillius; with a dove in her hands. In the absence of attributes, the headdresses differ, and among them, the high polós was of a cultic significance. It is concluded that one should not hasten to correlate the image of the goddess on the throne without attributes with the cult of a definite goddess. The figure of the goddess with her hands on her knees with no distinctive features could be intended for use in various cults. Therefore, there is a need to reconsider the tradition of defining such unattributed images as Demeter’s, typical of the written sources devoted to the Northern Black Sea region. In the archaic period, the number of coroplastic workshops was significantly smaller than in subsequent periods, when attributes had become a more frequent addition to the image. Most of the analyzed items are from the Eastern Mediterranean. Therefore, the decrease in the percentage of the number of Demeter and her daughter images in the subsequent periods took place due to the reduction of images common to many goddesses and their diversity. The variety of archaic times images of goddesses on the throne in Borysthenes is an interesting phenomenon, but it should be explained not so much by the exceptional amount of cults but the extensive links with various sanctuaries having their own coroplastic workshops. The cults that used images of the goddess on the throne were associated with the least known Cabeiri (Kabeiroi), as well as Dionysus, Demeter, Artemis, Aphrodite, the Mother of the Gods, and other deities whose attributes remained clear to followers without their image.
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.
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.
The archaic terracotta figurine Budapest 77.104.A, belonging to the well-known class of Tarentine votives representing a reclining banqueter, is taken here as a starting point for a discussion concerning the artistic sources that determined the style and iconography of this class at its beginning. A number of comparisons with a wide range of works of art of the 6 th century BC help to reconsider the assertion, generally accepted up to now, according to which the theme and the scheme of Tarentine banqueters would have been adapted directly from Eastern Greek art. A thorough stylistic analysis of early Tarentine banqueter types shows, in fact, that Eastern Greek models played a role in the formation of local types only as a part of a more complex whole, in which the impact of Laconian models must have been equally important. In fact, it seems more likely that the ultimate origin of the Tarentine banqueter scheme can be traced back to the art of its metropolis, Sparta. On the other hand, in the second half of the 6 th century, an interest for East Greek models can be observed also in Laconian art itself, with strikingly similar results as it is shown by some coroplastic documents in Taras.
THE ANCIENT THRONE The Mediterranean, Near East, and Beyond, from the 3rd Millennium BCE to the 14th Century CE, 2020
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. ------------------------------------------------- In The Throne in Art and Archaeology: From the Dawn of the Ancient Near East Until the Late Medieval Period. Liat Naeh and Dana Brostowsky Gilboa (eds.). International Series (OREA) published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2020).
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