Metaphysis. Ritual, Myth and Symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age

Edited by Eva Alram-Stern, Fritz Blakolmer, Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy, Robert Laffineur & Jörg Weilhartner

City: Leuven-Liege

Year: 2016

Publisher: Peeters

Series: Aegaeum 39. Annales liégeoises et PASPiennes d’archéologie égénne

Description: Hardback, 600 p., numerous b/w and colour illustrations, 21×30 cm

Proceedings of the 15th International Aegean Conference, Vienna, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Aegean and Anatolia Department, Austrian Academy of Sciences and Institute of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna, 22-25 April 2014

Abstract

The METAPHYSIS conference was organised by the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology (OREA), Aegean and Anatolia Department, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and by the Institute of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna. It took place from 22 to 25 April 2014 and was held at both locations, each for two days. The topic of the 15th International Aegean Conference has been inspired by one of Vienna’s most prominent residents: Sigmund Freud. In Aegean prehistory, questions of ritual behaviour and underlying ‘metaphysical’ beliefs have become a widespread and multifaceted field of research based on a large variety of methodological approaches. At the METAPHYSIS conference a large range of issues of ritual, myth and symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age were addressed, such as ritual places and ritual landscapes, sacral and sepulchral rituals, social and political ceremonies, ritual acts and performances, the supernatural realm, liminality, irrationality and magic, mythology, hybrid creatures, heroes/heroines, divinities, symbols, emblems and iconography, images of power, and cosmology. Thus, META-PHYSIS was dedicated to the complex relationship between humans and ‘the other’ – the broad scholarly interface between a popular ritual belief and the cult of deities, i.e. religion in its proper sense.

Contents

Obituaries [ix-xii]
Preface [xiii]
Abbreviations [xv-xvi]

KEYNOTE LECTURE: Myth, Ritual, Symbolism and the Solar Goddess in Thera [3-11]
Nanno Marinatos

A. FIGURINES

Men with Caps: Chalcolithic Figurines from Aegina-Kolonna and their Ritual Use [15-20]
Eva Alram-Stern

The Lady of the House: Tying to Define the Meaning and Role of Ritual Figures with Upraised Arms in Late Minoan III Crete [21-27]
Florence Gaignerot-Driessen

A Minoan Statuette from Punta di Zambrone in Southern Calabria (Italy) [29-36]
Reinhard Jung & Marco Pacciarelli

All the Same yet not Identical? Mycenaean Terracotta Figurines in Context [37-48]
Melissa Vetters
Read the article

The Symbolic Significance of the Terracottas from the Mycenaean Sanctuary at Ayios Konstantinos, Methana [49-58]
Eleni Konsolaki-Yannopoulou

B. HYBRID AND MYTHICAL CREATURES

Hierarchy and Symbolism of Animals and Mythical Creatures in the Aegean Bronze Age: A Statistical and Contextual Approach [61-68]
Fritz Blakolmer
Read the article

Animal Hybrids, Masks, and Masques in Aegean Ritual [69-76]
Karen Polinger Foster

Wings, Heads, Tails: Small Puzzles at LM I Zakros [77-85]
Maria Anastasiadou

C. SYMBOLISM

In the Air Here or from the World Beyond? Enigmatic Symbols of the Late Bronze Age Aegean [89-96]
Janice L. Crowley

Materialised Myth and Ritualised Realities: Religious Symbolism of Minoan Pottery [97-108]
Marianna Nikolaidou
Read the article

Horns and Axes [109-114]
Helene Whittaker

Warding off Evil: Apotropaic Practice and Imagery in Minoan Crete [115-122]
Olga Krzyszkowska

The Symbolism of the Scorpion in Minoan Religion: A Cosmological Approach on the Basis of Votive Offerings from the Peak Sanctuary at Ayios Yeoryios Sto Vouno, Kythera [123-128]
Emilia Banou & Brent Davis

“Hair Stars” and “Sun Disks” on Bulls and Lions. A Reality Check on Movements of Aegean Symbolic Motifs to Egypt, with Special Reference to the Palace at Malkata [129-137]
Nancy R. Thomas

Aegean Warfare at the Opening of the Late Bronze Age in Image and Reality [139-146]
Malcolm H. Wiener

D. SPACE / LANDSCAPE

The Tomb, the House, and the Double Axes: Late Minoan IIIA2 Hagia Triada as a Ritual and “Mythical” Place [149-156]
Santo Privitera

Numinous Tree and Stone: Re-Animating the Minoan Landscape [157-164]
Sam Crooks, Caroline J. Tully & Louise A. Hitchcock
Read the article

The Labyrinth: Building Myth, and Symbol [165-174]
Barbara Montecchi

Ideology in Space: Mycenaean Symbols in Action [175-185]
Birgitta Eder
Read the article

The Transformative Power of Mural Art: Ritual Space, Symbolism, and the Mythic Imagination [187-197]
Lyvia Morgan

E. FUNERALS

Aspects of Ritual and Changes in Funerary Practices between MM II and LMI on Crete [201-212]
Luca Girella

Funerals of Late Minoan III Crete: Ritual Acts, Special Vessels and Political Affiliations in the 14th and 13th Centuries BC [213-22]
Anna Lucia D’Agata & Sara De Angelis

The Liminal zone – The Evidence from the Late Bronze Age Dendra Cemetery [223-228]
Ann-Louise Schallin

Mycenaean Funerary Processions as Shared Ritual Experiences [229-233]
Mary K. Dabney

Heroes, Ancestors or Just any Old Bones? Contextualizing the Consecration of Human Remains from the Mycenaean Shaft Graves at Lerna in the Argolid [235-243]
Michael Lindblom & Gunnel Ekroth

F. RELIGION / DEITIES

Hero, Goddess, Priestess: New Evidence for Minoan Religion and Social Organization [247-253]
Jeffrey S. Soles

Establishing the Minoan ‘Enthroned Goddess’ in the Neopalatial Period: Images, Architecture, and Elitist Ambition [255-262]
Ute Günkel-Maschek
Read the article

Divine Power from Abroad. Some New Thoughts about the Foreign Influences on the Aegean Bronze Age Religious Iconography [263-274]
Veronika Dubcová
Read the article

Poseidon, pa-ki-ja-na and Horse-Taming Nestor [275-283]
Cynthia W. Shelmerdine

Di-u-ja [285-291]
Irene Serrano Laguna

G. SANCTUARIES

Metaphysical Beliefs and Leska [295-302]
Mercourios Georgiadis
Read the article

Ritual in the Mycenaean Sanctuary at Abai (Kalapodi) [303-310]
Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier

The Mycenaean Sanctuary at Prophitis Ilias on Mount Arachnaio within the Religious Context of the 2nd Millennium B.C. [311-319]
Olga Psychoyos & Yannis Karatzikos

H. RITUALS / OFFERINGS

Hunting the Beast. A Reconstructed Ritual in an EBA Metal Production Centre in Western Anatolia [323-328]
Barbara Horejs & Alfred Galik

Rituals at Pefka [329-333]
Philip P. Betancourt, Thomas M. Brogan & Vili Apostolakou

The Transformation of Tritons: Some Decorated Middle Minoan Triton Shells and an Anatolian Counterpart [335-344]
Alessandro Sanavia & Judith Weingarten
Read the article

On Sacred Vocabulary and Religious Dedications: The Minoan ‘Libation Formula’ [345-355]
Artemis Karnava

Minoan Stairs as Ritual Scenes. The Monumental Staircases of Phaistos “66” and Knossos “Theatral Area” under the Magnifying Glass [357-363]
Monica Nilsson

A New Reading of the Fresco Program and the Ritual in Xeste 3, Thera [365-373]
Bernice R. Jones

Images of Physis or Perceptions o/’Metaphysis? Some Thoughts on the Iconography of the Xeste 3 Building at Akrotiri, Thera [375-385]
Andreas G. Vlachopoulos
Read the article

Sacrifice on Board [387-392]
Fanouria Dakoronia

Textual Evidence for Burnt Animal Sacrifice and Other Rituals Involving the Use of Fire in Mycenaean Greece [393-403]
Jörg Weilhartner
Read the article

Mycenaean Skulls: “ἀμενηνά κάρηνα” or Social Actors in Late Helladic Metaphysics and Society? [405-414]
Chrysanthi Gallou

The Baetyl and the Stele: Contact and Tradition in Levantine and Aegean Cult [415-419]
Assaf Yasur-Landau
Read the article

I. MYTH / HEROES / ANCESTORS

Heroic Past, Memory and Ritual at Troy [423-432]
Magda Pieniążek & Carolyn C. Aslan

Identifying Myth in Minoan Art [433-438]
John G. Younger

The Power of the Ancestors at Pylos [439-445]
Joanne M.A. Murphy
Read the article

Construction of Memory and the Making of a Ritual Landscape: the Role of Gods and Ancestors at the Trapeza of Aigion, Achaea, at the LBA-EIA Transition [447-457]
Elisabetta Borgna & Andreas G. Vordos

Mycenaean Mythologies in the Making: the Frescoes of Pylos Hall 64 and the Mycenae Megaron [459-466]
Anne P. Chapin

J. METAPHYSIS

The Ambiguity of the Minoan Mind [469-478]
Robert B. Koehl
Read the article

The Metaphysical Mind in Mycenaean Times and in Homer [479-484]
Thomas G. Palaima

A Metaphysical History of Minoan Religion [485-494]
Alan Peatfield

POSTERS

A New Mycenaean Female Figure from Kynos, Locris [497-499]
Eva Alram-Stern

Absent Mycenaeans? On Mycenaean Figurines and their Imitations on Crete in LMIIIA-IIIB [501-504]
Katrin Bernhardt

A “Knot”-Bearing (?) Minoan Genius from Pylos. Contribution to the Cloth/Clothing Offering Imagery of the Aegean Late Bronze Age [505-510]
Tina Boloti

Proximity Analysis of Metaphysical Aegean Ritual Spaces during the Bronze Age [511-513]
Dora Constantinidis

The Tree of Life: The Materiality of a Ritual Symbol in Space and Time [515-518]
Stefanos Gimatzidis

Entangling Aegean Ritual in Philistine Culture [519-525]
Louise A. Hitchcock, Aren M. Maeir & Amit Dagan
Read the article

Griffin at Kynos. How, Why, and When? [527-530]
Petros Kounouklas

Symbolic Value and Magical Power: Examples of Prehistoric Objects Reused in Later Contexts in Euboea [531-535]
Tobias Krapf

Pu-ro, pa-ki-ja-ne, and the Worship of an Ancestral Wanax [537-541]
Susan Lupack

The Boat — A Sacred Border-Crosser in Between Land and the Sea [543-546]
Madelaine Miller

Caring for the Dead in Minoan Crete: a Reassessment of the Evidence from Anemospilia [547-556]
Sylvie Müller Celka

Portals to the Other: Stepping through a Botanic Door [557-561]
Marcia Nugent
Read the article

Beyond the Earthly Shell: the Minoan Pitcher Bearers. Anthropomorphic Rhyta of the Pre- and Protopalatial Periods (Differentiating the Sacredfrom the Divine) [563-565]
Marco Pietrovito

Early Helladic Romanos/Messenia: Filling a Well [567-570]
Jorg Rambach

New Approaches to Mycenaean Figurines in LHIIIC [571-574]
Caroline Thurston

Souvenirs from Afar — Star Disk Pendants Reconsidered [575-578]
Michaela Zavadil

ENDNOTE

Towards an Anthropology of Religion in Minoan and Mycenaean Greece [581-591]
Joseph Maran

TO CONCLUDE…

WI Fc 2014: When is an Inscribed Cigar Just a Cigar? [595-600]
Thomas G. Palaima