Representations: Material and Immaterial Modes of Communication in the Bronze Age Aegean

This volume presents a series of reflections on modes of communication in the Bronze Age Aegean, drawing on papers presented at two round table workshops of the Sheffield Centre for Aegean Archaeology on 'Technologies of Representation' and 'Writing and Non-Writing in the Bronze Age Aegean'. Each was designed to capture current developments in these interrelated research areas and also to help elide boundaries between 'science-based' and 'humanities-based' approaches, and between those focused on written communication (especially its content) and those interested in broader modes of communication. Contributions are arranged thematically in three groups: the first concerns primarily non-written communication, the third mainly written communication, while the second blurs this somewhat arbitrary distinction. Topics in the first group include how ritual architecture is represented in the Knossos wall-paintings; a re-interpretation of the 'Harvester Vase' from Ayia Triada; the use of colour in wall-paintings at Late Bronze Age Pylos; the use of painted media to represent depictions in other (lost) media such as cloth; and re-readings of Aegean representations of warfare and of the sequence of grave stelae at Mycenae. In the second group Linear B texts and archaeological data are used to explore further the colour palette used at Pylos, how people were represented diacritically through taste and smell, and how different qualities of time were expressed both textually and materially; the roles of images in Aegean scripts, complemented by a Peircian analysis of early Cretan writing; and a consideration of the complementary role of (non-literate) sealing and (literate) writing practices. Topics in the third group range from defining Aegean writing itself, through the contexts for literacy and how the Linear B script represented language, to a historical exploration of early attempts at deciphering Linear B.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

Introduction
John Bennet

1. Image, Context and Worldview: Peak Sanctuaries, Tripartite Buildings and the Palace at Knossos
Matthew Haysom

2. Representations of Palatial Staple Finance in the Late Bronze Age Southern Aegean: the ‘Harvester Vase’ from Agia Triadha and the Gold Sheet with Relief Procession from Peristeria
Paul Halstead and Valasia Isaakidou

3. Re-presenting in Colours at the ‘Palace of Nestor’: Original Polychromy and Painting Materials
Hariclia Brecoulaki, Andreas G. Karydas, Vassilis Perdikatsis and Maria P. Colombini

4. Representation and Hidden Technologies
Sue Sherratt

5. Materialising Culture: Images of Violence and their Media as Status Symbols in the Late Bronze Age Aegean
Angelos Papadopoulos

6. Resurrection: the Depiction of Martial Culture at LH IIIB Mycenae
Kate Harrell

7. The Colourless Narrative: Some Thoughts on the Mycenaean Colour Palette and the Art of Pylian Diplomacy
Mark S. Peters

8. ‘Representations of Time’ in Linear B Documents from Knossos and Pylos
Angeliki Karagianni

9. Representing People Through Taste and Smell: Social Status and Sensory Experiences in a Mycenaean Palatial Feasting Context
Rachel Fox

10. Icon, Index, Symbol: Language Notation in the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script
Silvia Ferrara

11. ‘Picture-Writing’ and Phoneticism after Scripta Minoa I
Artemis Karnava

12. Minoan Seal-Use and Writing: from a Functionalist to a more Social Approach
Ilse Schoep

13. Redefining Writing in the Bronze Age Aegean
Sarah Finlayson

14. Mycenaean Scribes and Literacy
Cynthia W. Shelmerdine

15. Mycenaean Scribes and Mycenaean Dialect: Interpreting Linguistic Variation in the Linear B Documents
Rupert Thompson

16. Arthur Evans and Linear B: his Efforts towards an Understanding of the Script
Jörg Weilhartner

John Bennet is the Director of the British School at Athens, and Professor of Aegean Archaeology at the University of Sheffield.