To Interact, Possess and Express: Glass Jewellery and its Social Meaning in the Mid-Late Mycenaean Bronze Age
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Humanities
Abstract
Research Question and Context
The proposed project seeks to provide a detailed reassessment of glass and faience beads, the latter of which began to occupy funerary deposits on the Greek mainland during the 18th-17th centuries BC. Interpreting the distribution, chaine operatoire, and burial context of these small, wearable ornaments will facilitate an improved understanding of the role these artefacts played in the construction of individual and group identities over an extended period. As items which were regularly deposited in both high-status chamber tombs and larger burial areas geographically distinct from urbanised centres, this material offers a novel way to explore the multiple echelons of Mycenaean society. What also makes this corpus of evidence stand out is its almost consistent inclusion in burial deposits from the Middle Helladic until the Late Bronze Age collapse, a period of some c. 800 years. Over this same period, there is remarkable continuity in relief bead typology (see Nightingale, 2018:43), and this raises interesting possibilities as to how predetermined rituals were constructed and passed on to successive generations. In order to access the full potential of this hitherto untapped dataset, this PhD asks: How was the medium of vitreous or glassy substances utilised in the expression of Mycenaean social identity within the north-east Peloponnese region?
The Mid-late Mycenaean Bronze Age (c. 2000-1050 BC) is commonly regarded as a period of dynamic social and cultural change. In the north-east Peloponnese, the pre-Helladic settlements of Mycenae and Tiryns rose to prominence, with economies based on the redistribution of foodstuffs, taxes and services (see Halstead, 1993). With the benefit of regular maritime trade routes (see Knapp & Demessticha, 2017), craftworkers on the Mycaenaean mainland were granted access to regular supplies of raw materials (i.e. gold, silver, semi-precious stones, ivory), manmade ones (i.e. bronze, glass), and the technical knowledge required to produce objects to a fine standard. Of these materials, glass and faience (compositionally related materials both used for personal adornment) have been well-studied archaeometrically (i.e. Polikreti, et al, 2011; Smirniou, et al. 2012; Zacharias, et al, 2018). However, knowledge of their social meaning is more restricted to general typological overviews (i.e. Higgins, 1980; Nightinglae, 2008, 2018 vs. Hughes-Brock, 1999), and work that quantifies the material itself is severely limited (Konstantinidi, 2001). My MA thesis made clear this dearth in essential contextual information, which through literature survey alone found over 3000 glass and faience artefacts across 25 burial locations surrounding Mycenae *Cummings, 2020: 55); a reality that starkly contrasts with the summation of Walton et al (2009: 1496) that 'the material is so scarce'. Despite limited descriptive data, it was possible to define the beads into three groups (simple, composite, and relief), and analyse the artefacts based on type, pattern, size, and distribution. Perhaps most significantly, the material was found to appear in burials of all sexes and ages, including juveniles. The prospect that these near-consistent inclusions are evidence of ritualised breakage or intentional necklace reduction by the griever, raises vital questions as to the perceived importance of the artefacts.
The decision at Mycenae to expend resources to produce specialised tools, allocate craft space, and source raw material is certainly evidence of a shift in perception that identified glass as status-defining. However, in the same way that swords did not simply represent military function (Dirlmeier, 1990), Mycenaean glass jewellery held an array of complex motives ranging from conveyors of religious belief (Schallin, 2016: 176), to identity badges (Nikita, 2003: 29).
The proposed project seeks to provide a detailed reassessment of glass and faience beads, the latter of which began to occupy funerary deposits on the Greek mainland during the 18th-17th centuries BC. Interpreting the distribution, chaine operatoire, and burial context of these small, wearable ornaments will facilitate an improved understanding of the role these artefacts played in the construction of individual and group identities over an extended period. As items which were regularly deposited in both high-status chamber tombs and larger burial areas geographically distinct from urbanised centres, this material offers a novel way to explore the multiple echelons of Mycenaean society. What also makes this corpus of evidence stand out is its almost consistent inclusion in burial deposits from the Middle Helladic until the Late Bronze Age collapse, a period of some c. 800 years. Over this same period, there is remarkable continuity in relief bead typology (see Nightingale, 2018:43), and this raises interesting possibilities as to how predetermined rituals were constructed and passed on to successive generations. In order to access the full potential of this hitherto untapped dataset, this PhD asks: How was the medium of vitreous or glassy substances utilised in the expression of Mycenaean social identity within the north-east Peloponnese region?
The Mid-late Mycenaean Bronze Age (c. 2000-1050 BC) is commonly regarded as a period of dynamic social and cultural change. In the north-east Peloponnese, the pre-Helladic settlements of Mycenae and Tiryns rose to prominence, with economies based on the redistribution of foodstuffs, taxes and services (see Halstead, 1993). With the benefit of regular maritime trade routes (see Knapp & Demessticha, 2017), craftworkers on the Mycaenaean mainland were granted access to regular supplies of raw materials (i.e. gold, silver, semi-precious stones, ivory), manmade ones (i.e. bronze, glass), and the technical knowledge required to produce objects to a fine standard. Of these materials, glass and faience (compositionally related materials both used for personal adornment) have been well-studied archaeometrically (i.e. Polikreti, et al, 2011; Smirniou, et al. 2012; Zacharias, et al, 2018). However, knowledge of their social meaning is more restricted to general typological overviews (i.e. Higgins, 1980; Nightinglae, 2008, 2018 vs. Hughes-Brock, 1999), and work that quantifies the material itself is severely limited (Konstantinidi, 2001). My MA thesis made clear this dearth in essential contextual information, which through literature survey alone found over 3000 glass and faience artefacts across 25 burial locations surrounding Mycenae *Cummings, 2020: 55); a reality that starkly contrasts with the summation of Walton et al (2009: 1496) that 'the material is so scarce'. Despite limited descriptive data, it was possible to define the beads into three groups (simple, composite, and relief), and analyse the artefacts based on type, pattern, size, and distribution. Perhaps most significantly, the material was found to appear in burials of all sexes and ages, including juveniles. The prospect that these near-consistent inclusions are evidence of ritualised breakage or intentional necklace reduction by the griever, raises vital questions as to the perceived importance of the artefacts.
The decision at Mycenae to expend resources to produce specialised tools, allocate craft space, and source raw material is certainly evidence of a shift in perception that identified glass as status-defining. However, in the same way that swords did not simply represent military function (Dirlmeier, 1990), Mycenaean glass jewellery held an array of complex motives ranging from conveyors of religious belief (Schallin, 2016: 176), to identity badges (Nikita, 2003: 29).
