Dance in Bronze Age Greece

Abstract

The identification of images of dance from antiquity is very difficult given the limitations of ancient forms of representation, the remoteness of the action itself, and the obscurity of its cultural contexts. These problems are magnified when one considers images of dance from preliterate cultures or those in which written language offers little insight. The following is an investigation into the representation of dance dating to the latter half of the Aegean Bronze Age, during the second millennium BC, as part of the visual culture of the Minoans and Mycenaeans from the island of Crete and the mainland of Greece respectively.