Status and Prestige in the Dark Age Community at Lefkandi, Euboea

Abstract

The Early Iron Age is one of the most enigmatic periods in Aegean prehistory. The collapse of the Late Bronze Age palatial society and the seeming cultural decline until the Archaic period created the notion of a Dark Age. However, the growing number of archaeological sources as well as the literary tradition of the first Greek authors, Homer and Hesiod, provide numerous information on that time. The present study aims to explore the modes of social distinction in the Early Iron Age community that buried its deceased at several locations near the modem village of Lefkandi on the island of Euboea in Central Greece. The richly equipped burials cover the crucial period from 1050 to ca. 900 BC in which Euboea was already involved in trade activities with the east Mediterranean area. As can be shown on basis of artefact combinations within the burials, there were firm status positions established at that time. The increase of prestige items and lavish grave equipment in the tenth century BC demonstrates the growing inclusion of the community at Lefkandi in the newly emerging network of inter-regional contacts in the eastern Mediterranean.