Out of the Word and Out of the Picture? Keftiu and Materializations of ‘Minoans’

Uroš Matić στο Ing-Marie Back Danielsson, Fredrik Fahlander & Ylva Sjöstrand (eds), Encountering Imagery. Materialities, Perceptions, Relations (Stockholm 2012): 235-253.

Περίληψη (στα Αγγλικά)

‘Minoans’ have been recognised as pre-Hellenic race or closed ethnic group in Egyptian representations of Aegean figures from Eighteenth Dynasty Theban tombs.  Modern construct of ‘Minoans’ thus merged with an ancient Egyptian construct of Aegean foreigners. Previous approaches to Aegean figures in Theban tombs did not  pay attention to decorum, context and restricted knowledge. By examining these concepts it is argued in this paper that decorum can transform restricted knowledge into available knowledge for the tomb visitors. The abducted meanings from these images materialized virtual reality different from reality based on the tomb-owner’s restricted knowledge. However, this abducted virtual reality can actually take the form of reality for those who lack specific restricted knowledge. Based on decorum analysis it can be argued that New Kingdom Egyptians perceived Keftiu and its inhabitants as quite close to their cultural concept of ‘north’ and ‘Asia’, observable both in visual and written evidence.

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