Processions: Studies of Bronze Age Ritual and Ceremony Presented to Robert B. Koehl

Robert Koehl has long considered processions to have played an integral role in Aegean Bronze Age societies. Therefore, when assembling a volume to honor his retirement from Hunter College, contributing authors were asked to focus attention on this subject. Processions are a unique social phenomenon in that they engage large groups with a singular purpose or outcome, acting as a cohesive force in societies. Yet they are elusive both in Aegean art and texts, which has challenged the participants in this volume to approach the subject from various viewpoints, providing evidence of ritual and ceremonial places, pathways and practices, based on archaeological and, in one instance, textual evidence. Artistic depictions in a variety of media provide a means of identifying settings, participants and the possible roles they play, while specific ritual objects are the subject of some contributions, their context and imagery offering another means of enhancing our picture of processions. Papers concentrate mainly on evidence from Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland, with additional perspectives from abroad, these geographic divisions forming the basic outline of the volume.