Aegean Bronze Age Research Articles

Widening horizons and close encounters: overseas engagement and economic outcomes in southern Italy

This paper takes the first steps in a new direction on a much-studied theme, exploring how Late Bronze and Iron Age Italic societies in southern Italy, especially their elites, positioned themselves and operated within the wider networks through which they were connected. Here I will consider the economic consequences of engagement with these networks, with particular attention to the economic outcomes of interaction with Aegean visitors and cultures and the extent of their impact. I will argue that while the impact of interaction with Aegean culture was not insignificant, Italic elites may generally have been more concerned with and focused on local and regional interactions than on relationships with incomers from overseas and wider Mediterranean connectivity, even in the areas in which such engagement was most concentrated.

The lion, the weapon and the warlord: historical evaluation of the early Late Bronze Age Aegean iconography

This paper historically examines the depictions of warriors, lion hunters and figures of power and authority dated to the early phases of the Late Bronze Age Aegean. We argue that the depictions of warriors and lion hunters reflect warrior hierarchies of the early Late Bronze Age Aegean. Moreover, we define different types of figures of power and authority and argue that two different and parallel elite iconographies depicting such figures were developed during the Neopalatial period on Crete. We suggest that the antagonism between the two elite groups identifying with two parallel elite iconographies is directly visible in some of the combat scenes. We believe that the two iconographies were also used in the self-representation of different Neopalatial elite groups to negotiate their positions in society. However, we suggest that a new iconographic repertoire emerged from the new social reality with the beginning of the Final Palatial period. Later in the paper we turn to the Greek Mainland to compare warrior hierarchies depicted in representations of combat and lion hunt to the warrior hierarchies attested in the burial record. In our view, originally Cretan themes were actively consumed in the context of the Greek Mainland and used to create new elite identities.

Η Μαγεία του πλοίου και της θάλασσας στη Μινωική Κρήτη: προκαταρκτικές παρατηρήσεις

From the simply designed fish at the stern of Cycladic ships to the majestic “baroque” compositions of the 17th - 18th century and the wood carvings of modern times, the prow is connected, firmly in time, with a multitude of magical religious beliefs. At the same time, the presence of the oculus in the bow does not seem to have a purely decorative character, as the magica and abominable properties of the eye are known. Animal-shaped emblematic bows and sterns as well as written oculi seem to be associated with the supernatural and magical properties of ships over time, echoing beliefs whose origins are lost in the depths of time and are intertwined with the “animation” of the ship as a living organism with its own biography. The article attempts to detect the above parameters in the cultures of the Aegean Bronze Age and especially in Minoan Crete

Orthographic variation as evidence for the development of the Linear B writing system

AbstractThis paper investigates the issue of orthographic variation in the Linear B writing system in order to explore ways in which studying a writing system’s orthographic conventions may shed light on the history of its development. Linear B was used in the palatial/administrative centres of Late Bronze Age Greece and Crete (c.1400–1200 B.C.E.) and records an early Greek dialect known as ‘Mycenaean’. The writing system’s structure and orthographic conventions permit flexibility in the spelling of particular phonological sequences: this paper discusses the varying orthographic representation of such sequences and shows that synchronic variation is common or even the norm in many cases. Investigating the factors which underlie this variation demonstrates the potential for a study of synchronic variation to illuminate a writing system’s diachronic development; it also underlines the importance of analysing the ways in which writers actually choose to use writing systems in order to fully understand their development.

‘Hier wil ik nog niet dood gevonden worden’. Bespiegelingen over de absentie van graven

Dead and gone: On the absence of graves. 
 Every now and then, archaeologists come across periods or regions that seem to lack graves. Instead of addressing these absences, researchers often resort one of several standard explanations, such as “We haven’t found the burial location yet” or “Apparently, these people employed ways of disposal that cannot be traced in the archaeological record”. While such observations are entirely justifiable, they also leave many unaddressed questions. Did this society opt for archaeologically invisible ways of disposal of their loved ones? Why are these graves missing? Case studies from our PhD projects on mortuary archaeology, relating, respectively, to the Bronze Age in Greece and the Iron Age in northwestern Europe, aim to investigate such questions. Whereas archaeologists are generally reluctant to interpret “non-data”, we pose that the absence of graves also provides invaluable clues as to how people perceived life and death in prehistoric societies.

A new identification of the monkeys depicted in a Bronze Age wall painting from Akrotiri, Thera.

Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3500-1100B.C.) wall paintings from the islands of Crete and Thera depict monkeys in a variety of roles such as running wild in nature, possibly following (trained) commands, and participating in sacred activities. These images, while stylistically Aegean, are traditionally considered closely related to-and descendant from-Egyptian, Near Eastern, and Mesopotamian monkey imagery. While monkey depictions in the latter regions may provide species-specific characteristics, Aegean wall paintings typically lack this level of detail. In an attempt to better understand the relationships between the monkeys depicted in Aegean wall paintings and the species that were encountered by the Aegean, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian peoples, a collaborative team of primatologists, a taxonomic illustrator, and an art historian/archaeologist identified species-indicative visual characteristics. This collaborative approach led us to identify a new region that serves as a source for monkey iconography: the Indus River Valley. With an emphasis on the primatological aspect and the growing corpus of possible Indus goods and possible species found in the Aegean, a broader iconographic and socioreligious sphere of interaction emerges. In this expanded system, Mesopotamia functions as an intermediary that enables the movement of goods, raw materials, people, and iconography between the east and west. Mesopotamia may have even afforded an opportunity for Aegean peoples to encounter the creatures themselves, first-hand. Of primary importance to the methodology employed for this project is the cooperation of scholars from disparate disciplines-the stitching together of various projects and experiences in attempt to answer both new and previously unanswerable questions. This type of interdisciplinary approach can be applied to other species, sites, paintings, and objects to hone our understanding of period, place, animal, movement, and trade.

Book Review of Non-scribal Communication Media in the Bronze Age Aegean and Surrounding Areas: The Semantics of A-literate and Proto-literate Media (Seals, Potmarks, Mason’s Marks, Seal-Impressed Pottery, Ideograms and Logograms, and Related Systems), edited by Anna Margherita Jasink, Judith Weingarten, and Silvia Ferrara

Book Review of Non-scribal Communication Media in the Bronze Age Aegean and Surrounding Areas: The Semantics of A-literate and Proto-literate Media (Seals, Potmarks, Mason’s Marks, Seal-Impressed Pottery, Ideograms and Logograms, and Related Systems), edited by Anna Margherita Jasink, Judith Weingarten, and Silvia Ferrara

Power Ranges

During the Aegean Bronze Age, the island of Crete was home to Minoan civilisation (3100–1300 BCE). The Cretan landscape is characterised by prominent mountain ranges. During the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000 BCE) cult sites began to proliferate on mountain peaks in response to climatic changes. Peak sanctuaries were locations of popular religious expression focussed on human, animal, and environmental health and fertility. In the Neopalatial period (1750–1490 BCE) peak sanctuary cults were appropriated by palatial elites and the Minoan cosmological framework, oriented toward mountains, was institutionalised. Analysis of the Minoan landscape, palatial art, architecture, and ritual performance demonstrates a close association between elite figures and real and symbolic mountains. The metaphysical terrain of Crete was politicised as mountain symbolism was used to naturalise Neopalatial elite status and identity. The mountain form signified and symbolised power relations functioning as an instrument of elite ideology.

LIKE A DUCK TO WATER – BIRDS AND LIQUIDS IN THE AEGEAN BRONZE AGE

This study examines the relationships between birds and liquids in the Minoan, Cycladic and Mycenaean cultures. Objects under investigation are bird-shaped vessels, bird figurines attached to vessels, and some special pouring vessels decorated with painted bird motifs, which are listed in an accompanying catalogue. Analysis of this material demonstrates that images of both doves and waterbirds were consistently linked to liquid-containing vessels, but there are significant chronological and regional variations regarding the preference for bird species. Another aspect fluctuating with period and place is the type of contact created between liquid and bird motif. Three categories dividable into three or two subtypes can be recognised, which mainly differ from each other by the degree of proximity that is established between the fluid and bird motif. It is argued that these differences reflect variations in the perception of birds regarding their relationship to liquids. While a direct and active participation of birds in the flow of liquids such as water and milk is observable in many Cretan and Cycladic objects, the artefacts from the Greek Mainland show a different pattern, whereby less direct contact combined with a stylised rendering suggests that the bird motif was accorded a more passive role by symbolising the positive effect of the flow of water. These findings contribute to recent scholarly debates on human–animal relationships and ontologies in the Aegean Bronze Age.

Memories into Images: Aegean and Aegean-like Objects in New Kingdom Egyptian Theban Tombs

Diplomatic relations between the 18th-dynasty Egyptian court and the polities of the Aegean Bronze Age are gaining increasing scholarly attention. The work conducted so far on chronological synchronization has established a relatively firm base for further discussions on social relations. The role of the prestige objects arriving from the Aegean to Egypt has not received the same attention. This is partly because our knowledge of these objects is restricted to Egyptian visual representations in tombs of the officials and not the imported objectsper se. This paper will discuss the transformative capacities of Egyptian decorum in regards to the foreign prestige objects of the Aegean provenance arriving in the Egyptian 18th-dynasty court. We first have to understand the iconographical phenomena of transference, hybridization and creativity in Egyptian visual culture, and only then may we attempt to read any historical reality behind them. These transformative representational processes are crucial for the understanding of the reception and the memory of the Aegean objects.

Lessons from the past: some Greek Bronze Age responses to natural disasters and their modern counterparts

Earthquakes were so well known a phenomenon in antiquity as to inspire myths and require the creation of apotropaic cults. The stories linked to Poseidon, god of the sea, earthquakes and tsunami, had their origins during the Bronze Age, when Poseidon is the most frequently named god. In addition to literary traditions, we are able to recognize quite well in archaeological excavations traces of earthquakes and sometimes also of tsunami. The question we here investigate is how Bronze Age people formulated a practical response to these events in terms of suitably resistant architecture. And what of these techniques still can be used in modern times. In Aegean Bronze Age architecture, a series of anti-seismic practices were early developed during the more than two millennia. In Minoan palaces in particular, lighter walls were superimposed on stone ones built at basement or ground floor levels. Using vertical, horizontal and cross timbers they put up wooden frames into which stone and mudbrick elements were integrated and bonded, and over which clay and plaster were later applied. Recent research has improved our knowledge not only about the buildings and their basic structures, but also about more detailed aspects, such as the expertise of the Minoan masters in developing various types of plasters with different degrees of elasticity. This contribution will investigate how extensively these techniques are spread in the Mediterranean basin and elsewhere, both in ancient and modern times. And how they can be applied to contemporary architecture in a more sustainable way.

Influence of Climate on Stable Nitrogen Isotopic Values of Contemporary Greek Samples: Implications for Isotopic Studies of Human Remains from Neolithic to Late Bronze Age Greece

In this paper, we study δ15N enrichment as an indicator not only of marine protein diet, but also of climate change. The slope of the variation of δ15N with precipitation was calculated equal to 0.38/100 mm of precipitation for Greek plants, 0.38/100 mm of precipitation for herbivores, and 0.32/100 mm of precipitation for the Greek human population (hair samples). As a case study, the slope was used to re-evaluate the published mean δ15N human bone collagen values from the Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age for 22 archaeological sites. The results indicate that climate has a significant impact on the final δ15N values of plant and animal tissues. Furthermore, for the same sites, we investigated the intra-site diet patterns, while taking into account the environmental effect on the observed δ15N human bone collagen values.

5. White Hair and Feeding Bottles: Exploring Interactions Between Children and the Elderly in the Late Bronze Age Aegean

Scholarship on age and gender in prehistoric Greece has taken an adult-centric approach with focus placed mostly on young to middle-aged men and women and, as a result, two significant age groups – children and the elderly – have been widely neglected. Lacking a strong insight into attitudes that were shown towards these two age groups, however means that archaeologists do not really harbour a concept of the whole span of life in the cultures that developed in the Aegean region during the Late Bronze Age. Making children and the elderly visible in the archaeological record and examining their social roles, agency and interactions is vital for a better understanding of the social workings of the prehistoric Aegean world. Integrating an interdisciplinary methodology with a systematic study of the available material remains – ranging from the study of funerary contexts to iconographic sources and textual references, this study seeks to assess the evidence for childhood and old age in the Late Bronze Age Aegean, and to shed light − for the first time − on the interactions between the younger and older segments of the population in both life and death from the mid-seventeenth to the twelfth centuries BC.

The Modern Gaze of Foreign Architects Travelling to Interwar Greece: Urban Planning, Archaeology, Aegean Culture, and Tourism

This paper reflects on the embrace of the Ancient world in modernity and the journey to Greece as a vehicle for their reciprocal reshaping. In the interwar period, new visual narratives emerged in Western accounts, proposing alternative contexts for Greek cultural heritage and associating regional culture with the emergence of modernism. The article investigates the mobility of modern travellers in Greece as an essential factor for the new contextualization of the country’s dominant cultural paradigm -Antiquity- as well as for the emergence of parallel narrations of the Mediterranean genius loci that examine the spatial imprint of heritage and tourism on the Greek urban, archaeological and natural environment. Western intellectuals, engineers, architects and urban planners, supported by a highly mobile network of editors, travel agencies, tourist cruises, architectural or archaeological conferences and congresses, contributed to the promotion of modern architecture and urban infrastructure in Greece. Their yet to become tourist gaze embraced the Aegean tradition, the Greek landscape and the ancient ruins as equal collocutors, initiating at the same time Greece itself into modernity. This paper traces the encounters between foreign travellers and the divergent manifestations of the country’s cultural identity in the pages of printed articles, books, travel accounts, photographic material and films. Following these documentations, the paper argues that tourism mobility gave rise to an alternative, southern modernism, whose emergence and development deviates significantly from mainstream narratives propounded by the continental historiography of modernity. Vice versa, the modern mobility networks of the South promoted the development of urban infrastructure and welfare facilities in Greece, as well as the establishment of early tourism policies, thus articulating the new national narrative of interwar Greece, based equally on classical heritage, regional culture and modern progress. The present paper is part of the research program Voyage to Greece: Mobility and modern architecture in the interwar period, where E. Athanassiou, V. Dima, V.; Karali, K. contribute as post-doctoral researchers, with P. Tournikiotis, Professor NTUA as scientific supervisor. The research is co-financed by the Greek State and the European Union.

Innovative or Traditional? Diachronic Approach to Weaving Technology in Bronze Age Greece

This paper aims at recognising potential innovations in weaving technology that may have occurred in Bronze Age Greece. It discusses whether these assumed developments may be examined diachronically. This discussion is based on archaeological evidence of textile implements, such as loom weights and presumed traces of warp-weighted looms, as well as knowledge of traditional craft and experimental archaeology. After a short introduction discussing how technical innovations could possibly be recognised in weaving, the paper explores possible changes in the construction and functionality of the warp-weighted loom and potential uses of other types of looms in Greece. A distribution pattern of specific forms of a loom weight, e.g. discoid loom weights in particular, is examined as an innovation responding to the demand for fabrics of specific technical qualities and appearance, possibly associated with a spread of new weaving techniques which accompanied the transmission of these tools. Social relations and modes of organisation of textile production are considered factors that must have had a significant impact on creativity and innovativeness in weaving technology. However, the final conclusion is that specific relations between the organisation of weaving and the occurrence of innovative processes cannot be clearly recognised based on the available evidence.

Beyond Textiles: Alternative Uses of Twisted Fibres and Evidence from Akrotiri, Thera

Fibre crafts are among the oldest technological practices of mankind. Although commonly associated with textile manufacture, twisted fibres in the form of threads have always had a wider range of use in everyday life. Strings and ropes constitute a humble but essential category of fibre products deriving from the same technology and organic matter as threads. Due to their organic nature, however, they are rarely preserved in the archaeological record, unless special environmental conditions occur. This paper explores the research potential of the imprints of threads and strings in a study focusing on the alternative uses of fibre-spun artefacts. The focus is on the Bronze Age Aegean imprints of threads and strings preserved on objects made of clay and on wall paintings recovered at Akrotiri on Thera. The technical properties of the original threads and strings are evaluated through observation of their imprints, and the fibre technology used for their production is assessed. The methodologies of spindle whorl metrology and experimental spinning are also integrated in the discussion. Ultimately, the use of threads and strings for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to textile production, is discussed.

Civilization of Bronze Age Crete

Usually, our knowledge of history, society, and culture is based on the written sources. However, the Minoan texts are extremely few. Thus, the Minoan art appears to be almost the only source of our knowledge of the Minoan civilization and culture. This paper attempts to analyze the phenomenon of the Minoan art of Bronze Age Crete. Discovered by A. Evans, the Minoan civilization — an Aegean Bronze Age civilization — flourished on the island of Crete and some other Aegean islands, in particular on Thera/Santorini with its settlement of Akrotiri. For quite a long time, the Minoan civilization had been labeled as peaceful making reference to Minoan Thalassocracy, “Pax Minoica”, and a rather small number of fortifications. The lack of written information has given vent to researchers’ fantasy and the idea of the Minoan culture as the Golden Age of humanity was not accidental: the Minoan artists portrayed life as a continuous flow of beauty, an endless game, in which fleeting emotions and joy become the spring of happiness. Later, the conception of peaceful Minoans was re-evaluated. Evans’s reconstructions were subjected to serious criticism from the standpoint of contemporary archeology. However, we can “throw out the baby with the bath water”. We do not have to accept everything Evans stated about the Minoans, but we should be grateful for his profound inquiry into the unknown world of the human past. The Minoan art is important for contemporary humans because it draws attention to a harmonious life in the world of here and now; it carries an incredible power of inspiration and beauty; it brings a feeling of lightness, joy and a happy flight of a soul into our lives. And that really matters.

The First ‘European’ Writing: Redefining the Archanes Script

SummaryThis paper investigates a series of glyptic inscriptions attested on Crete at the end of the third and beginning of the second millennium BC, collectively referred to as the ‘Archanes Script’. These minute engravings are considered to represent the earliest appearance of writing west of Egypt, and the first ‘true’ writing in the Aegean. Though mentioned in passing in almost every study of Bronze Age Aegean writing, few scholars have ever offered a definition of what exactly they consider the ‘Archanes Script’ to be. No work or scholarly consensus exists delineating which signs constitute its signary, or even which documents comprise its corpus. Study of the seals as objects in their own right, examining script signs alongside associated iconography, material qualities and form, has been rare. This paper offers the first complete overview and redefinition of the Archanes Script since its discovery in the 1960s and initial definition by Paul Yule in 1980.

Two Early Helladic II terracotta rollers from Asine and their glyptic context

Two Early Helladic II terracotta rollers from the Third Terrace at Asine are presented. The objects, used to impress relief decoration on pithoi and hearths, are unique in that no other examples are known from the Early Bronze Age Aegean. Their origin is discussed based on chemical characterization and their depositional contexts are reviewed from an archaeological perspective. Although there are no known impressions from these rollers on pithoi and hearths at Asine, it is shown that their owners surrounded themselves with different objects featuring similar glyptic impressions. Two such impressions find identical parallels at Tiryns and the combined evidence strongly suggest that Asine was the home for one or several potters who produced Early Helladic impressed hearths and pithoi.

The Phaistos Disk: A New Way of Viewing the Language Behind the Script

SummaryThis paper outlines a new linguistics‐based method of investigating the languages behind the undeciphered members of the Bronze Age Aegean family of syllabic scripts. Using this new method to compare the pictographic script on the Phaistos Disk against Linear A, the main script of the Minoans, reveals a statistically significant similarity in the behaviour of the homomorphs in the two scripts, strongly suggesting that both scripts encode the same language.