Aegean Palatial Societies Research Articles

Reciprocity in Aegean Palatial Societies

This collection of papers is the third and final installment in a series meant to update the archaeological study of Aegean Bronze Age economies based on current research in economic anthropology and new archaeological and textual data from Minoan and Mycenaean states. The first collection, titled ‘Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies’, was published in the American Journal of Archaeology in 2011 (volume 115.2). The second, titled ‘Crafts, Specialists, and Markets in Mycenaean Greece,’ was published in the American Journal of Archaeology in 2013 (volume 117.3). In these first two collections, we argued that studies of ‘redistribution’ in Aegean palatial societies, whether archaeological, textual, or both, fail to capture the totality of economic activity that must have occurred in Late Bronze Age states and largely ignore the social implications of such activity. Rather, in order to explain the regional distribution of artifacts, some form of ‘market’-based exchange must have occurred. In this introduction we suggest that systems of ‘reciprocity’ preceded and underpinned modes of redistribution and market exchange, and also served to integrate Bronze Age social structures.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies: Terminology, Scale, and Significance

Nakassis et al., in their contribution to this Forum, argue that the term “redistribution” has been used with a range of meanings in the context of the Aegean Bronze Age and so obscures rather than illuminates the emergence and functioning of political economies. They call for detailed empirical investigation rather than reliance on ambiguous idealized types. Lupack and Schon concur, arguing respectively that the palace shared control of the Mycenaean economy with sanctuaries and local communities and that centralized production of craft goods (and thus elite strategies of wealth finance) developed late at the palace of Pylos. Pullen finds little archaeological support for Renfrew’s extrapolation of centralized redistribution to the Early Bronze Age, while Christakis uses evidence of storage to argue the same for Prepalatial Crete and to play down the scale and importance of elite redistribution in the Minoan palaces. The calls for circumspect use of the term “redistribution” and for detailed empirical investigation are applauded, although these five papers arguably do not all attack the same form of redistribution. This response argues that redistribution sensu Polanyi, Finley, and Killen (i.e., centrally administered movements of goods and services without equivalence of value) retains considerable heuristic value in investigation of both textual and archaeological evidence for Bronze Age political economies. Join the discussion on AJA Online.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. Introduction: Why Redistribution?

This collection of papers explores the role of redistribution in Minoan and Mycenaean economies. The term “redistribution” was coined to describe a particular mode of economic exchange employed in ancient economies, particularly Near Eastern temple economies, and later applied to the Aegean. Recently, the redistributive model has been revised substantially, but these revisions largely have been ignored by Aegean prehistorians. We hope that this Forum will contribute to the ongoing debate about the nature and extent of control exercised by Aegean palatial authorities and to the larger study of ancient economic exchange in archaeology and anthropology.1 The articles in this Forum address the concept of redistribution—as a mode of transaction and as a social institution—in the Aegean. They were presented originally at the 110th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (Philadelphia, 2009) in a colloquium titled “Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies.” Nakassis et al. describe and discuss the historical and theoretical origins and implications of the concept of redistribution. Pullen takes a diachronic approach and traces the deeper origins of redistributive practices in the Aegean Bronze Age. Minoan and Mycenaean redistributive practices are explored by Christakis, Lupack, and Schon. We also solicited two additional papers: from Halstead, who has addressed questions of redistribution in the prehistoric Aegean specifically, and from Earle, whose ideas about redistribution have had a major impact both in general and in the Aegean. Their papers critique our ideas and those of the other contributors and suggest avenues for future research and analysis. Both of them note the Aegean’s great potential to contribute to the ongoing study of ancient economies. The states of the Bronze Age Aegean are excellent case studies for building and testing more general anthropological and archaeological models. The rich archaeological record of the Aegean, combined with our detailed understanding of regional variability and chronology, make it an ideal place not only to test existing models—such as redistribution—that have been developed and applied elsewhere, but also to engineer new, more nuanced versions of those models. This Forum is meant to encourage Aegean archaeologists to frame their research more generally, so that it will contribute more widely to cross-cultural discussions of ancient political economies, but to do so requires the application of contemporary economic-anthropological theory. As reviewed in Nakassis et al., the evaluation and application of the idea of redistribution did not begin with Polanyi in 1957 or end with Earle in 1977. Anthropological archaeologists have been busy over the last few decades expanding and refining our understanding of how budding elites may have deployed various redistributive types in their efforts to create and control nascent political economies. Likewise, during the same period, Aegean archaeologists, such as Halstead, and philologists, such as Killen, operating within the framework of redistribution, have worked out with a great degree of clarity how Aegean political economies functioned. By drawing out the more general theoretical strands from specific Aegean data sets, we will be in a position to weave fresh analytical models. The articles by Pullen, Christakis, Lupack, and Schon show the fruits of such an effort. The articles included in this Forum approach the issue of redistribution within the Aegean Bronze Age from several different perspectives and deal with different temporal and geographic contexts. In inviting Pullen to participate, we sought to address the possible Early Bronze Age origins of later Bronze Age palatial systems of redistribution. Pullen concludes that there

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. Redistributive Economies from a Theoretical and Cross-Cultural Perspective

In this article, we address the historical question of why Aegean Bronze Age economies are characterized as redistributive systems and whether it is appropriate to continue to describe them as such. We argue that characterizing the political economies of the Aegean as redistributive is inaccurate and misleading. Instead, we suggest it is more fruitful to describe how specific prehistoric social institutions were used to organize and allocate goods and services and thereby to study how political and economic systems interacted with one another. By examining how Aegean social institutions were constituted and changed over time, we will be in a position to use the prehistoric Aegean to develop and refine general models of political economy.*

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. By Appointment to His Majesty the Wanax: Value-Added Goods and Redistribution in Mycenaean Palatial Economies

Rather than treating redistribution as an undifferentiated economic function, scholars currently recognize that multiple forms may occur simultaneously. In this Forum Article, I focus on one such form in detail, specifically, the redistributive system that financed the production of prestige goods at the Palace of Nestor at Pylos. I employ the manufacture of chariots, perfumed oils, and textiles as case studies. The three industries had a number of features in common. They required raw materials that were dispersed. Their managers collected dispersed raw materials and allocated them to specialists, who added value to them through skilled labor and who produced composite artifacts that were then redistributed by palatial authorities to an exclusive group of recipients. While similarities in the management of the industries reflect an overall policy of resource mobilization through which palace authorities garnered the loyalty of an emergent class of secondary elites, the inconsistencies in the manner in which the industries were run also suggest that redistribution was not fully standardized.Join the discussion on AJA Online.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. A View from Outside the Palace: The Sanctuary and the Damos in Mycenaean Economy and Society

The Linear B offering tablets at first seem to indicate that Mycenaean palaces engaged in a form of redistribution with respect to the religious sphere. That the palace sent offerings caused many scholars to assume the religious sector was dependent on the palaces for its daily maintenance. The sanctuaries were therefore also thought to have been subject to palatial authority. However, more detailed analysis shows that the offerings could not have fully supported the sanctuaries, which eliminates the main argument used to support the idea that the sanctuaries were subject to palatial authority. This also indicates that the offerings cannot be interpreted as part of a real system of redistribution. Like the religious sphere, the individual communities found within palatial territory, referred to as da-mo, or damos, have been seen as subject to the political and economic control of the palace. However, a closer look at the textual evidence shows that each damos maintained a significant degree of independence from the palace. We may therefore posit (at least) three spheres of economic influence in Mycenaean states: the palace, the sanctuaries, and the damos. Join the discussion on AJA Online.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies: Terminology, Scale, and Significance

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies: Terminology, Scale, and Significance

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. Redistribution and Political Economies in Bronze Age Crete

Palatial authorities in Bronze Age Crete traditionally are thought to have functioned as centralized redistributive agents, reallocating wealth to the community as a whole and providing security in times of crisis. These institutions were gradually transformed, however, into mobilizers of wealth, rendering support exclusively to the elite and their associates. The present article explores this narrative; it reassesses the assumed impact of redistribution on the economy of Cretan states by studying the archaeological correlates of staple storage. It adopts a bottom-up perspective: besides data from palatial contexts, it incorporates evidence from ordinary domestic units. It argues that the impact of redistribution, as envisioned by neo-evolutionists, is highly questionable. Palatial institutions in Crete did not distribute goods to members of all social strata. Nor did they provide social security. Rather, they mobilized wealth meant to serve the exclusive needs of the elite.Join the discussion on AJA Online.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. Before the Palaces: Redistribution and Chiefdoms in Mainland Greece

This article examines redistribution as formulated by scholars of the later Mycenaean palatial economies to ascertain its applicability to the Early Bronze Age (EBA) mainland. Lacking textual sources in the EBA, the emphasis is on archaeological correlates of redistribution as both a mode of transaction and as an institution. Three areas are examined: mobilization of goods as suggested through the evidence for staple vs. wealth finance, scale and control of production on the basis of evidence for household production vs. craft specialization, and centralized control of economic and political transactions using evidence for administration and feasting. While the data leave much to be desired in terms of suitability and completeness, only a limited number of the transaction types and institutional forms of redistribution as posited for the Mycenaean palatial economies are apparent in the EBA mainland. Thus, the political economies of the Mycenaean palaces may well represent transformations not just of scale but also of forms from the political economies of the EBA chiefdoms.Join the discussion on AJA Online.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies. Redistribution and the Political Economy: The Evolution of an Idea

Whether the Bronze Age Aegean economies can be described as “redistributive” depends on how one defines the term. The concept of redistribution itself has undergone several decades of critical archaeological analysis, much of it stemming from my early work in Polynesia. I consider here how Polanyi’s ideas about redistributive economies have been expanded since the 1970s. My review complements the article in this Forum by Nakassis et al. and the contribution by Halstead, who discusses why and how the concept of redistribution still matters in studies of the Minoans and Mycenaeans. To some degree, we all agree: chiefs, and later kings, who sought power in archaic societies did so through many highly variable, contingent, and changing means, all designed to support political-economic strategies based on multiple systems of finance. The Bronze Age Aegean societies provide excellent examples of this process, as demonstrated by the contributors to this Forum.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Before the Palaces: Redistribution and Chiefdoms in Mainland Greece

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Before the Palaces: Redistribution and Chiefdoms in Mainland Greece

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies By Appointment to His Majesty theWanax: Value-Added Goods and Redistribution in Mycenaean Palatial Economies

Rather than treating redistribution as an undifferentiated economic function, scholars currently recognize that multiple forms may occur simultaneously. In this Forum Article, I focus on one such form in detail, specifically, the redistributive system that financed the production of prestige goods at the Palace of Nestor at Pylos. I employ the manufacture of chariots, perfumed oils, and textiles as case studies. The three industries had a number of features in common. They required raw materials that were dispersed. Their managers collected dispersed raw materials and allocated them to specialists, who added value to them through skilled labor and who produced composite artifacts that were then redistributed by palatial authorities to an exclusive group of recipients. While similarities in the management of the industries reflect an overall policy of resource mobilization through which palace authorities garnered the loyalty of an emergent class of secondary elites, the inconsistencies in the manner in which the industries were run also suggest that redistribution was not fully standardized.*

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistribution and Political Economies in Bronze Age Crete

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistribution and Political Economies in Bronze Age Crete

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Introduction: Why Redistribution?

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Introduction: Why Redistribution?

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies A View from Outside the Palace: The Sanctuary and theDamosin Mycenaean Economy and Society

The Linear B offering tablets at first seem to indicate that Mycenaean palaces engaged in a form of redistribution with respect to the religious sphere. That the palace sent offerings caused many scholars to assume the religious sector was dependent on the palaces for its daily maintenance. The sanctuaries were therefore also thought to have been subject to palatial authority. However, more detailed analysis shows that the offerings could not have fully supported the sanctuaries, which eliminates the main argument used to support the idea that the sanctuaries were subject to palatial authority. This also indicates that the offerings cannot be interpreted as part of a real system of redistribution. Like the religious sphere, the individual communities found within palatial territory, referred to as da-mo, or damos, have been seen as subject to the political and economic control of the palace. However, a closer look at the textual evidence shows that each damos maintained a significant degree of independence from the palace. We may therefore posit (at least) three spheres of economic influence in Mycenaean states: the palace, the sanctuaries, and the damos.

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistributive Economies from a Theoretical and Cross-Cultural Perspective

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistributive Economies from a Theoretical and Cross-Cultural Perspective

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistribution and the Political Economy: The Evolution of an Idea

Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies Redistribution and the Political Economy: The Evolution of an Idea