Cemetery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age.

MANNING, STURT W.

Cemetery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age. Edited by K. BRANIGAN. Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology, vol. 1. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1998. Pp. 173, maps, illus. $21.50.

This is a mixed bag, typical of an edited conference volume. It is obvious that the conference (a round table with sixteen participants of whom thirteen publish here) was a success, although the "extensive discussion which followed each paper"--referred to by the editor in his preface and the purpose of such a meeting--is not included in the volume for the interest of readers not present at the conference. The present volume is inevitably neither complete in scope, nor unified in focus or period. However, it does admirably capture the freshness of innovative work by a number of younger scholars who one may expect to become significant figures in the future. Unusually for such a volume, there are no bad papers, and several good ones; the future of Aegean prehistory is in safe hands. The title should of course read "some aspects of...," and there is a lack of the significant introductory essay by the editor, as is usual for such a volume, which would have positioned the set of studies, and generally offered di scussion of the relevant theoretical literature, academic context, and historiography. As a result, the volume does not offer a general text on its subject, but rather a set of specialist studies of interest either to Aegean scholars, or those working elsewhere concerned with some current approaches to mortuary evidence in the Aegean. An emphasis on particularist, data-driven, approaches is evident; with some honorable exceptions, theoretical concerns prevalent in general mortuary archaeology are largely left to other scholars (outside Aegean prehistory).

The studies are grouped in three fairly loose divisions. Section one, "Cemeteries and Social and Political Landscapes," contains papers by Keith Branigan and Joanne Murphy. Both deal with the Mesara tholoi of pre-palatial (third millennium B.C.) south central Crete, discussing the role of the tombs in the human landscape and in social practice and ritual. Branigan thus returns to a subject he has written on repeatedly over almost thirty years. Murphy offers an analysis of the Mesara tholoi in which she identifies (as others have) the role of the tombs as markers in the landscape, but, more interestingly, she also discusses the developing exploitation of mortuary ritual at the tombs by emergent elites through the pre-palatial period.

Section two, "Tomb Architecture and Grave Furniture as Social Statements," contains six diverse studies covering parts of the third and second millennia B.C. Sofia Voutsaki compares Mycenean-period tombs in the Argolid and Messenia, and links the material to contemporary social processes. The study is based on material assembled in her 1993 doctoral dissertation, and, like a previous study published in 1995, this leads the reader to hope for a full publication of the thesis. What is here is too summary. Tristan Carter explores Early Cycladic objects and influences in the Mesara of Crete, including his speciality, Melian obsidian, in one of the strongest papers. In particular, Carter considers the socio-political role of such Cycladica and influences in social theory terms. Alexios Karytinos examines the sealstones from tombs of pre-palatial Crete, mainly those from Phourni (Archanes) and the Mesara. He considers these to be, broadly speaking, prestige goods, but delves little further in a largely descriptive paper. Christofilis Maggidis, in a strong paper, concentrates on just one tomb (no. 19) at the remarkable Phourni cemetery and summarizes his previous detailed doctoral studies on the finds and contextual data. He argues persuasively that the tomb and the overall Phourni cemetery provide evidence of developed social stratification shortly before the advent of the first palaces on Crete, in line with previous studies on other Early Minoan tombs in the northeast of Crete by Jeffery Soles. William Cavanagh has previously written several studies on aspects of Mycenean burial, and offers for this volume some thoughts on both innovation and conservatism in Mycenean funerary architecture and grave-goods set in terms of the regularities and differences in ritual practice across sites. An exciting series of recent papers on anthropological approaches to eating and drinking in the Aegean, stemming from a doctoral dissertation of 1995, have brought Yannis Hamilakis to the attention of the wider Aegean field. Hamilakis' paper here considers the role of mortuary feasting and the politics of memory within Minoan society. Although they are not cited, this paper very much borrows its title and logic from Maurice Bloch's seminal studies: with eating and digestion a metaphor for death, their ritualized practice is a form of "gastropolitics." This approach has wide relevance to Aegean prehistory.

Section three, "Cemetery Populations and Living Society," contains three papers. Peter Day, David Wilson, and Evangelia Kiriatzi examine the ceramics at the Early Bronze Age cemetery at Ayia Photia on the northeast coast of Crete. This important cemetery was excavated almost three decades ago, and despite immediate recognition of the striking Early Cycladie component and the questions raised concerning immigrants, ethnicity, etc., has remained largely unpublished. Some 252 graves were excavated out of an estimated original three hundred, and some eighteen hundred ceramic vessels recovered. Almost by definition, this paper is therefore of considerable significance to Aegean EBA studies. The authors examine the material in order to consider what Cycladic-style ceramics tell us about the burying population and the wider demography of EBA Crete. Based on typological and fabric analyses, they argue that the Cycladic-style elements--the majority of the ceramics--are in fact from a Cycladic source, as well as produ ction tradition. Thus, the cemetery is full of imported objects from one or more remote specialist production sites. The authors go on usefully to explore issues of both ethnicity and exotica in early societies, and conclude with a vision of a new structural basis for earlier EBA interaction and power in the southern Aegean. The following paper by Sevi Triantaphyllou reviews skeletal material from four prehistoric sites in Macedonia in terms of its evidence for social structure and behavior. The final paper by Christopher Mee is a brief reflection on the role of women in Mycenean Greece with reference to the problematic mortuary evidence in existing publications--e.g., lack of basic data on sex of skeletons in many cases (but cf. good current work, such as in the previous paper). Based on a less than representative, or random, review, Mee observes an under-representation of females in burials. He concludes that this is a reflection of social role, and goes on to argue that in Mycenean Greece female status was ascribed, rather than achieved, and, with the exception perhaps of the holders of some religious positions, was essentially defined in terms of roles as wives or daughters.