Cult and Death: Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of Postgraduate Researchers, The University of Liverpool, May 2002 9781841716350, 9781407327044

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Abbreviations
PART I: RITUALS AND THE MATERIAL RECORD
The Greek Neolithic Figurines
The Αbodes of the Αncestors: tomb design, ritual and symbolism in Late Helladic IIIA-B Greece
The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period
The ‘hellenisation’ of Isis among the Greek deities
PART II: RITUALS AND TEXTUAL EVIDENCE
Priests and Priestesses in the Mycenaean period
Nostos (= homecoming) and death in Greek tragedy
To kill or not to kill? Human sacrifices in Greece according to the Euripidean thought
Adopted by Persephone. Adoption and initiation ritual in A1-A3 Zuntz and Pelinna 1-2
The death of Daphnis

Citation preview

BAR  S1282  2004   NAOUM, MUSKETT & GEORGIADIS (Eds)   CULT AND DEATH

LISA 2002 Liverpool Interdisciplinary Symposium in Antiquity

Cult and Death Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of Postgraduate Researchers The University of Liverpool, May 2002

Edited by

Danai-Christina Naoum Georgina Muskett Mercourios Georgiadis

BAR International Series 1282 9 781841 716350

B A R

2004

LISA 2002 Liverpool Interdisciplinary Symposium in Antiquity

Cult and Death Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of Postgraduate Researchers The University of Liverpool, May 2002

Edited by

Danai-Christina Naoum Georgina Muskett Mercourios Georgiadis

BAR International Series 1282 2004

ISBN 9781841716350 paperback ISBN 9781407327044 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841716350 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

Contents Acknowledgements

1

Introduction Georgina Muskett, Danai-Christina Naoum and Mercourios Georgiadis

2

Abbreviations

4

Part I: RITUALS AND THE MATERIAL RECORD The Greek Neolithic Figurines Gerasimos Vallerios Stergiopoulos

7

The Abode of the Ancestors: tomb design, ritual and symbolism In Late Helladic IIIA-B Greece Chrysanthi Gallou

17

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period Mercourios Georgiadis

29

The ‘hellenisation’ of Isis among the Greek deities Danai-Christina Naoum

41

Part II: RITUALS AND TEXTUAL EVIDENCE Priests and Priestesses in the Mycenaean period Christina Aamont

49

Nostos (= homecoming) and death in Greek tragedy Marigo Alexopoulou

57

To kill or not to kill? Human sacrifices in Greece according to the Euripidean thought Polytimi Oikonomopoulou

63

Adopted by Persephone. Adoption and initiation ritual in A1-A3 Zuntz and Pelinna 1-2 Georgia Petridou

69

The death of Daphnis Evangelia Anagnostou-Laoutides

77

Acknowledgements The Organising Committee of the Liverpool Interdisciplinary Symposium in Antiquity (LISA) would like to thank the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology (formerly School of Archaeology, Classics and Oriental Studies) of the University of Liverpool for their support, both financial and moral, of LISA 2002. Special thanks are due to Professor Christopher Mee for his assistance and advice in the organization of the symposium, Dr. Alan M. Greaves, who gave a stimulating opening lecture, Dr. Reem al-Khodari, who both chaired a session and contributed to the smooth running of the day, and Ms. Patricia A. Winker for general administrative support during the months preceding LISA 2002. Finally, the Editors would like to thank all those who participated in the symposium, whose contributions made LISA 2002 a success. G.M., D-C.N, M.G.

1

Introduction Georgina Muskett, Danai-Christina Naoum and Mercourios Georgiadis The Liverpool Interdisciplinary Symposium in Antiquity (LISA) was envisaged as a forum for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers to present their research and engage in discussion in an informal manner. The theme for LISA 2002, the potent combination of Cult and Death, attracted delegates from several universities in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. The interdisciplinary nature of the symposium was amply fulfilled by the presentation of papers from the fields of archaeology, ancient history and classics, adopting a wide range of approaches, which are reflected in the articles presented in this volume. As several of the articles deal with work in progress, editing has been kept to a minimum and, accordingly, the editors cannot be held responsible for any omissions or inaccuracies in the articles. The volume is divided into two parts, the first entitled ‘Rituals and the Material Record’, the second ‘Rituals and Textual Evidence’. The section ‘Rituals and the Material Record’, opens with Gerasimos Stergiopoulos’ discussion of figurines dating to the Neolithic period from mainland Greece and the islands. In addition to reviewing the form and distribution of these artifacts, he provides suggestions for their interpretation. Chrysanthi Gallou’s article combines the aspects of cult and death in Mycenaean Greece by examination of the extent to which symbolism was an element of funerary architecture. In particular, through detailed consideration of the form of tholos and chamber tombs, she considers the tombs as areas of contact between the worlds of the living and the dead ancestors. Remaining in the Late Bronze Age, Mercourios Georgiadis’ article draws on archaeological evidence from the south-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean period. By detailed consideration of evidence from cemeteries, he proposes a complex picture of diversity and local practices, enabling examination of issues such as migration, burial customs and the socio-political structure of this region. In the final article in this section, Danai-Christina Naoum discusses evidence for the cult of the goddess Isis in Greece. Using both epigraphic and iconographic evidence, she traces the spread of the cult and the assimilation of Isis with Greek deities such as Artemis and Demeter against a background of Hellenistic ‘internationalism’. In the second section, ‘Rituals and Textual Evidence’, Christina Aamont uses both documentary and archaeological data to consider the existence of priests and priestesses in the Mycenaean period. She also highlights the potential hazards in the study of this aspect of cult. The aim of Marigo Alexopoulou’s article is to demonstrate a link between nostos, the Ancient Greek term meaning ‘homecoming’, and death in Greek tragedy. Starting with the Odyssey, she also considers the treatment of this type of episode by Sophocles, Euripides and, in particular, by Aeschylus in Agamemnon. Staying with the theme of tragedy, Polytimi Oikonomopoulou considers the suggestion that human sacrifice took place in Ancient Greece. Her focus is the work of Euripides, specifically Hecuba, Iphigenia in Tauris and Iphigenia in Aulis. The subject of Georgia Petridou’s paper are the lamellae, inscribed pieces of gold foil from various sites including Pelinna and Thurioi. In particular, she considers whether the inscriptions on these artifacts can shed light on adoption and initiation rituals in mystery cults.

2

In the final paper in this section, Evangelia Anagnostou-Laoutides discusses the death of Daphnis as portrayed by Theocritus. Further, by examination of the differing strands in the traditions of Daphnis’ death, she investigates possible associations with eastern deities. Whilst the interdisciplinary nature of the symposium encourages the adoption of differing topics and methodologies, it is striking that the similarities are frequently as marked as the differences. Through the lively forum of LISA, delegates were able to discuss their research with colleagues working in similar fields and to engage in debate with those whose interests lie in other disciplines. We hope that you will enjoy the variety of methods and ideas stimulated by the themes of cult and death which inspired the articles presented in this volume.

3

Abbreviations In addition to those listed in AJA 95:1, 1991, 4-16 and http://www.ajaonline,org/shared/s_info_contrib_7.html in the case of periodicals, series, books, etc. and in A Greek-English Lexicon (H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, rev. ed. by H. S. Jones), the Oxford Classical Dictionary (19963) and the Oxford Latin Dictionary.

AE

Αρχαιολογική εφηµερίς

AUMLA

Journal of the Australasian Universities Modern Language and Literature Association

MH

Museum Helveticum

PMG

Poetae melici Graeci (Page)

4

PART I: RITUALS AND THE MATERIAL RECORD

6

modelling. It is not exaggerated to say that the anonymous artist captured with sensitivity a moment of affection between the mother and the child, that portray visually the eternal archetype of the lifegiving powers of the woman.

The Greek Neolithic Figurines Gerasimos Vallerios Stergiopoulos Sesklo, Magnesia

Dimini, Magnesia

The Neolithic village of Sesklo lies in a small upland valley north-west of Volos. It was initially excavated by Tsountas in 1901-02 and re-excavated by Theocharis between 1956 and 1977. Sesklo was a small agricultural community founded during the middle of the seventh millennium BC (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 49).

Dimini lays on a low hill above the coast, just a few kilometres away from the older settlement of Sesklo. The Acropolis of Dimini, which was excavated by Christos Tsountas in 1903, is nowadays synonymous with the Late Neolithic in Thessaly because of the rich decoration of its pottery and the completeness of the artefacts recovered. The Acropolis consists of several walls, which are not now seen as defensive (Whittle 1996: 87), that enclosed small houses and workshops. A broad communal space in the centre, a customary feature of almost all Neolithic settlements, is exceptionally large. In the middle of this courtyard is the rectangular “Megaron”.

The finds indicate occupation of the site from the Early Neolithic till the Late Bronze Age. At the beginning of the Middle Neolithic we have the appearance of the “Megaron”, a central large building, measuring 8.25 x 8.50 m. (Wace and Thompson 1912: 65) The acropolis is a naturally defensible location, a fact that explains the existence of the three concentric enclosures around the “Megaron” as a architectural system or standard arrangement (Theocharis 1973: 101). Seated Female with child from (“Kourotrophos”) Late Neolithic II (c. 4800-4500 BC) H 16.5 W 6.5 Archaeological Museum, Athens (Figure 1)

The most characteristic images of the “Dimini Phase” are some very stylised figurines similar to the schematic, “violin-shape” idols of the Bronze Age Cyclades. Theocharis believes that there is no clear evidence of links between the marble images and that “the parallelisms are not explicable in terms of chronological connections, but have deeper causes, one of which is their orientation” (Theocharis 1973: 102).

Sesklo,

From the forty-six terracotta figurines recovered in the Sesklo excavations this is the most remarkable example. It portrays in a woman seated on a fourlegged high stool and nursing a baby. The figures are decorated with parallel series of spiral motifs on the abdomen and their buttocks. (Spirals were probably symbols of life in Neolithic iconography) (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 307). Other zigzag ornaments cover the arms and the legs. The head of this steatopygous figure was set on separately and probably made from a material other than clay. (Wace and Thompson 1912: 69)

Schematic figurine from Dimini (5994) Late Neolithic (c. 4800-4500 BC) H 23.5 W 6.5 National Archaeological Museum, Athens (Figure 2) This is a characteristic example of the production of stylised figurines in Dimini. The simplicity on the depiction of the human body and the economy of artistic means is innovative and almost revolutionary. Notice the flat triangular head supported by the long cylindrical neck and the atrophic arms. Some examples of this category still preserve some painted details and its possible this that piece was originally decorated as well. An identical figurine in almost excellent condition has been found on Kastri Tyrnavos close to Larissa (Volos Museum M4392).

The naturalistic depiction of the maternal embracing of the infant is almost unique in Greek prehistoric art. In comparison with other figurines of the Sesklo culture that are rather crude in their execution this archetype demonstrates freshness and simplicity of

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The Greek Neolithic Figurines

activity in the vicinity of the cave itself, along the modern shoreline, now known as Paralia, which lies within 100m of the cave’s mouth. From those two sites the archaeologists have recovered 24 nearly complete Anthropomorphic and Zoomorphic figurines (Talalay 1993: xvii).

Demakopoulou directly compares this type with the Louros figurines of the Early Cycladic culture (On her contribution on the volume of Papathanasopoulos 1996: 193-7). The stylistic similarities between the two types are more than obvious (triangular neck, small stumps representing the arms, absence of facial or other details and use of marble) but Demakopoulou gives no clear evidence of the type of intercultural communication which existed between the Neolithic mainland and the Bronze Age Aegean. The real contribution of her essay is the establishment of which sites were used both in the Final Neolithic and in the Early Bronze Age (a period that many archaeologists view as a continuity and call Chalcolithic). Unfortunately, there is little architectural evidence preserved from the Neolithic Cyclades, so only a extensive stylistic comparison between the pottery motifs and shapes from both Dimini and Kephala (the Neolithic Settlement in Kea) could prove that there were actually cultural or economical relations between the sites.

The majority of Franchthi figurines are made of clay 22 of the 24 examples are ceramic- (Talalay 1993: 8). Unfortunately the Franchthi collection is composed of fragments and only one example (the sitting female figure FC 118) is nearly complete. Despite this we can identify the sex of most of the pieces. Most are female (12 examples), none are clearly male, and sometimes they are deliberately made to look “genderless” (Talalay 1993: 12). Sitting female figure from Franchthi (FC 118) Final Neolithic (c.4500-3200 BC) H 9.5 W 7 Nauplion Museum (Figure 4)

Schematic figurine from Dimini (BE 7844) Final Neolithic (c. 4500-3200 BC) H 6.8 W 3 Volos Museum (Figure 3)

Found inside the Franchthi cave, this flat seated figure has its arms curled on its breast and its two legs extend outward in parallel. It is preserved in good condition except that the head is missing. What is really interesting about this figure is the painted decoration that covers the entire body of the statuette (except the left leg). The black matte complex designs can be divided to:

This is another version of the stylised marble figurines of the Dimini corpus. The head and part of the neck are missing but the slim waist and corpulent thighs indicate that it is possibly a female representation. The flatness of the surface demonstrates that the Dimini artists paid very little attention to the side view of the figures and emphasised the front and back. Again it can be seen as a Neolithic predecessor of the Early Cycladic schematic idols.

A. The lines of linked “diamond” shapes (lozenge motifs) that cover the front and the back of the torso that probably indicate the dress (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 317). B. The two strand “necklace” (Talalay 1993: 18) that hangs between the breasts and behind the neck. C. A kind of belt that hangs low on the splayed buttocks from which short vertical lines extend. D. The left leg is decorated with wavy lines, probably a sort of drapery.

Franchthi cave, Argolid. The Franchthi cave in the gulf of Koilada of the southern Argolid is an important site for the Greek Neolithic. Twelve years of extensive archaeological excavation has shown the presence of man at the site for more than 2500 years: Palaeolithic to Late Neolithic. The cave housed a small but efficient society of farmers and there is evidence of the cultivation of wheat, lentils and barley as well as domesticated animals (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 77). The excavations exposed a second area of human

Male terracotta statuette, “The Thinker” (5894) Final Neolithic ? (c. 4500-3200 BC) H 47.7 W 19.5 National Archaeological Museum, Athens. (Figure 5)

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The Greek Neolithic Figurines

This seated male figurine is said to have been found in Thessaly either close to the Karditsa area (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 310) or close to Larissa (Wace and Thompson 1912: 56). Made of reddish, well-baked clay, it represents a seated male with his legs wide open to reveal an erect phallus. The head is angled upwards with the mouth, ears and eyes and a more prominent nose indicated. The left arm rests on the knee, while the other touches the right cheek. The vigorous modelling indicates details such as eight radial incisions under a double arch to indicate the pubic hair or the incised lines on the neck, probably a necklace (Wace and Thompson 1912: 56).

Saliagos, Antiparos In recent years much emphasis has been given to Neolithic settlement on the present islet of Saliagos as the origin of what we perceive today as Early Cycladic culture. Saliagos is indeed the earliest Cycladic settlement dated from about 5000 to 4500 BC. It was a village of few families, at most a population of sixty persons according to Renfrew (1991: 41) who were most probably seasonal settlers from the Greek mainland. They were keeping goats and sheep, cultivated wheat and barley and were fishing using spears made of local Melian obsidian. (Renfrew 1991: 39)

The overemphasised genitalia certainly give to the figure a phenomenal phallic character thus it is thought to represent a fertility cult idol or a fecundity agent. (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 310) Thompson adds: “In short this is one of the most remarkable examples of primitive modelling yet found in Greece, for though it possesses no beauty, yet its crudeness and vigour command attention” (Wace and Thompson 1912: 56).

Unlike the Neolithic sites in the mainland, common clay figurines were not recovered in Saliagos except a small torso fragment (Renfrew 1991: 41). Of the stone figurines that were actually found at the site the most famous one is the so called “Fat lady of Saliagos” discussed below. Female Figurine Late Neolithic (c. 5300-4500 BC) H 5.9 Paros Museum

Characterised as a “fortuitous find” (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 310) with uncertain place and circumstances of finding, dating has proved to be very problematic. Personally, I think it rather belongs to the Early Bronze Age, because of its obvious similarities with a figure found in Zarelia, a Prehistoric settlement in the south of Thessaly discussed below.

This marble figurine whose surface is very badly eroded represents a seated woman with crossed legs. Her left arm is bent at the elbow in a quite uncomfortable manner and meets her right hand, of which only the fingertips survive. The most interesting characteristic are the unusually exaggeratedly rounded buttocks, under a rather slim waist. Renfrew pays much importance to this particular figure which he places at the top of the diagram of the Early Cycladic sculpture stylistic evolution. I think this could be wrong for two main reasons.

Male figure From Zarelia Chalcolithic (Figure 6) This figure again represents a seated ithyphallyic man with both his hands resting on his knees. The shape of the head is elongated with the characteristic “coffeebeans” eyes and projecting nose, but extends into an odd peak, quite unique in Greek Neolithic examples (Wace and Thompson 1912: 163). Even if its size (almost 12cm) is relatively small in comparison to the seated male figure from Larissa, their pose, crude realistic technique and their marked phallic character, verify that the two pieces may be products of the same period, but probably of the same culture.

Firstly the “fat lady” is the earliest known example of figurine-making in the island but stylistically it has no obvious connections with the schematic violin-shape type and the Louros type, which are the earliest known types of the Bronze Age production of the islanders. As a type, even headless, it is reminiscent of the bulky female figurines produced in the Neolithic in the Greek mainland, such as the standing female made of clay from Ozaki Magoula (Volos Museum M.5307) or the marble figurine with exaggerated

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The Greek Neolithic Figurines

shoulders onto the chest but do not meet. The standing position with separately modelled legs is also typical of many Thessalian examples. Its distinction lies in the simplicity of perception. The harmony of the high relief is accentuated on the well-polished surface of the almost transparent white marble. Notice the realism is the artist’s depiction of the swellings of the hips and the calf-muscles although reduced to the bare essentials.

buttocks from the Athenian Agora (Ancient Agora Museum, Athens S.1097 ). Most probably its a type the settlers of the island brought with them when they colonised the islet. Secondly, there is no comparable site to Saliagos or settlement that succeeded it. Fitton actually believes that the after Saliagos the habitation on the islands died until the fourth millennium or a little earlier (Fitton 1989: 22).

Function and meaning Schematic figurine from Saliagos (885) Late Neolithic (5300-4500 BC) H 6.6 Paros Museum (Figure 7)

Many diverse interpretations have been proposed about the function and the real use of the Stone Age figurines. In general there are two major groups of thought. The first group of archaeologists (Gimbutas, Mellaart, James) interpret the figurines as religious cult objects that reflect the worship practices of the early societies of the Mediterranean. Those theories are based on comparison with Mesopotamian and Egyptian systems of belief in a “Mother Goddess”, image of earth fertility, even though there is very little evidence that such a system of regenerative, fertility deities ever existed in Neolithic Greece (Talalay 1993: 37).

This schematic figurine as a form is relatively close to the Early Cycladic violin type figurines. Its flat profile, notched waist and the lack of a clearly defined head allow us to make that comparison. It is difficult however to speak about of a “predecessor” of the Early Cycladic abstract, schematic forms. Marble male figurine From Crete (2623) Early Neolithic (c.6500-5800 BC) H 9 Heraklion Museum (Figures 8, 9)

The second school of experts, (Talalay, Ucko, Broman, Meighan), without really rejecting the possible religious character of the figurines, support a wider variety of heterogeneous, sometimes provocative explanations. Talalay (1993: 37-8) lists the possibilities as:

This unique example of sculptural skill came from the Neolithic settlement of Knossos excavated by J.D. Evans in 1957-60. He first characterised it as “exquisitely proportioned” (Evans 1964: 237). Truly the balance of pose, softness of anatomical details and the expertise of the stonework, have parallels only in the finest examples of Early Cycladic sculpture, almost three millennia later. It must be really hard for the visitor to the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion to believe that a Neolithic sculptor had developed such high levels of technical skill. It is generally perceived as a male representation but Ucko argues that the triangular form that protrudes downwards depicts either a penis or sheath (Ucko 1968: 258).

A.Interpretations of the images expressions of personal desires”. B.Items of sympathetic magic. C.Dolls and toys. D.Objects of initiation rites. E. “Rudimentary forms of writing”

as

“tangible

According to Ucko by using the term “MotherGoddess” we refer to the “Great mother Earth” but to accept the presence of this female deity we have to presume that in all primitive societies the powers of political and family authority were in the hands of women. Only this kind of unlimited gynaecocracy would excuse the absolute devotion to a Supreme Goddess and not to a male deity such as the sun (Ucko 1968: 410). The historic evidence for the actuality of such a female deity is positive only in the case of the

Stylistically this type has no parallels in Crete or mainland Greece during this period. Like other Neolithic clay examples the arms bend round from the

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The Greek Neolithic Figurines

safeguard the household and its inhabitants (Figure 10).

Near East (Mesopotamia) but for early prehistoric Greece as well as for Crete there are no substantiating fact (Ucko 1968: 410). Despite this the first archaeologists such as Sotiriades (1905) and Tsountas (1908) interpreted all the Greek Neolithic figurines following the “Mother Goddess” speculation. Similarly in Crete Sir Arthur Evans (1921) considers the female figurines as: “the earliest known examples of this oriental Class …identified with the Babylonian Mother Goddess” (Evans 1921: 51-2) but he ignores the function of the male representations.

It consists of an unroofed single room with basic architectural details such as a door, a rectangular raised platform and an arched opening oven, and contained eight clay anthropomorphic figurines. There are two pairs (of the same size parents and grandparents?) and four smaller schematic figurines in the right corner (perhaps the children?). It seems more likely that the group represents the members of the extended nuclear family that once occupied the building or their ancestors, rather than goddesses and gods (Gallis 1985: 20-4; Whittle 1996: 87). The range in the sizes of the figures can be explained as representing the three different generations of the family. Whittle adds: “An attractive recent suggestion is that the figurines are representations of ancestral figures serving both to affirm descent and ancestral ties and to appease and manage the souls of the departed whose presence might still have been felt among the living. This is the approach favoured here” (Whittle 1996: 67).

Ucko was the first to reject this theory, even to the point of disputing that the anthropomorphic images were of religious nature at all. As he points out, to assume that a specific building had a ritual, temple character has to be proven on the basis of material other than the figurines that possibly were found inside. As he characteristically writes, it is like putting the “cart before the horse” to assume that the figurines were representations of deities because they were recovered from a “temple”. Originally a structure was identified as a temple just because figurines were found inside (Ucko 1968: 419). Furthermore he believes that if those figures really represent an almighty Goddess they would deserve to be manufactured from a more costly material than clay (Ucko 1968: 417).

Interestingly, recent research has suggested that fragments of Neolithic figurines found at various sites, seem to represent possible contractual connections between the individuals that the figurines actually personify. It is logical that in a preliterate society like the Stone Age settlements, those images could be a very effective form of visual communication. Whittle further supports that hypothesis, referring to various identical legs of figurines found in excavations in the Peloponnese, that could be identifying tokens for contracts such as trade deals, alliance treaties or even pre-nuptial agreements (Talalay 1987: 161-9; Whittle 1996: 67).

More recently Whittle rejected the “Mother Goddess” scenario as an anachronistic assumption based on two modern theories; firstly the early influence of psychoanalysis and secondly the nineteenth century views of the matriarchal origins of our social development (Whittle 1996: 66). Such interpretations, he writes, “rest on later historical analogy from very wide areas and there are internal inconsistencies of approach” (Whittle 1996: 66). Furthermore, the “Mother Goddess” theory does not explain the existence of the animal figures at all and oversimplifies the presence of the forms as personifications of a single male god.

On the other hand, Talalay believes that the miniature anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms could possibly have served as dolls or toys. She sustains that argument by using examples recovered during Franchthi cave excavations. The fragmentary but undisturbed artefacts were found close to a variety of household tools such as a hearth, a clay whorl, stone beads, awls and several stone drills. She then indicates that, through the use of ethnographic literature, tools such as grinding stones for preparing the food, needles for sewing and whorls for spinning, have to be associated with tasks more commonly carried out by

An alternative theory suggests that the Neolithic figurines are actually representations of human or animal individuals. An example which can be given to support this theory is a clay model of a house found in the foundations of a domestic building, at Platia Magoula Zarkou, Trikala. It is likely to have been a foundation offering (Papathanasopoulos 1996: 329) placed before the house was built, designed to

11

The Greek Neolithic Figurines

common practice in many primitive societies. The ethnologist Charles Béart describes a child in West Africa that played with a common doll. After a month the same doll had supernatural powers and was placed on a village shrine covered in blood (Béart 1955: 845). Talalay, correctly to my opinion, recognises the complexities of use and context of the Neolithic figurines. She categorically disputes a priori interpretation of the figurines and stresses the point that the pieces of sculpture were designed for many quite different uses (Talalay 1993: 38). If that is the case every different theory could have traces of truth and every single one could be completely wrong. The often simplistic interpretations do not take into account the possibility of the multi-faceted meaning and function of Neolithic figurines.

women than men. The fact that the fragments of the figurines were found close to the female tool kits, leads Talalay to the conclusion that possibly “women were working in these areas of the site while attending their offspring” (Talalay 1993: 48-9). It is thus logical that the figurines were given to the children to keep them busy while the women were grinding, spinning, etc. The definition of this scenario by Talalay does not preclude that the Neolithic figurines possibly served other functions as well. Ethnographic case studies of African, Oceanic and Indonesian figurines, prove that anthropomorphic objects can have multiple uses, shifting in a short period of time from one to another as circumstances demand. (Greub 1988: 72) This is a

Figs. 1 and 2 (drawings: G. V. Stergiopoulos)

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The Greek Neolithic Figurines

Figs. 3-6 (drawings: G. V. Stergiopoulos)

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The Greek Neolithic Figurines

Figs. 7-10 (drawings: G. V. Stergiopoulos)

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The Greek Neolithic Figurines

James E.O. 1959. The Cult of the Mother Goddess, London. James,E.O. 1960. The Ancient Gods, London. Meighan,C.W. 1949. Ancient pottery figures and their significance in the study of Archaeology (Ph.D. Thesis, University of California). Mellaart J. 1967. Catal Hüyük: a Neolithic city in Anatolia, London. Mellaart J., Hirsch U. and Balpinar B. 1989. The Goddess from Anatolia, Milano. Papathanasopoulos A.G. (ed.) 1996. Neolithic Culture in Greece, Athens. Renfrew C. 1972. The Emergence of Civilisation. The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium BC, London. Renfrew C. 1991. “The Cycladic Spirit”, London. Sotiriades G., 1905. “Untersuchungen in Böotien und Phocia”, AM 30. Talalay E.L. 1987. “Rethinking the function of clay figurine legs from Neolithic Greece: an Argument by analogy”, AJA 91: 161-9. Talalay E.L. 1993. Deities, dolls and devices, Neolithic Figurines from the Franchthi cave, Greece, Indiana. Theocharis R.D. 1973. Neolithic Greece, Athens. Tsountas Ch. 1908. Ai proistorikai akropoleis Dimeniou kai Sesklou, Athens. Ucko J.P. 1968. Anthropomorphic Figurines of Predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete, London. Wace A.J.B. and Thompson M.S. 1912. Prehistoric Thessaly, Cambridge. Whittle A. 1996. Europe in the Neolithic, Cambridge.

Bibliography Béart C. 1955. “Jeux et jouets de l ‘quest Africain”, Memoire de l’institute Français d’ Afrique noire, No. 42, Tome 1, Paris. Broman V.L. 1959. Jarmo Figurines (M.A. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Buchholz H.-G. and Karageorgis V. 1971. Prehistoric Greece and Cyprus, an Archaeological Handbook, London. Burkitt M.C. 1926. Our Early Ancestors, Cambridge. Evans J.D. 1964. “Excavations in the Neolithic Settlement of Knossos, 1957-60”, BSA 59: 132240. Evans A. 1921. The Palace of Minos at Knossos , Vol. I, London. Fitton L.J. 1989. Cycladic Art, London. Gallis C. 1985. “A late Neolithic foundation offering from Thessaly”, Antiquity 59: 20-4. Gimbutas M. 1986. “Mythical Imagery of the Sitagroi Society”, Excavations at Sitagroi, a Prehistoric Village in Northeast Greece, Los Angeles. Greub S. (ed.) 1988. Expressions of Belief: Masterpieces of African, Oceanic and Indonesian Art from Museum von Volkenkunde, Rotterdam, New York. Hansen D.H. 1933. Early Civilisation in Thessaly, Baltimore. Hawkes C. F. C. 1940. The Prehistoric Foundations of Europe, London. James, E.O. 1957. Prehistoric Religion. A study on Prehistoric Archaeology, London.

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establishment of official places of worship (Albers 1994; Whittaker 1997), the existence of religious personnel attached to the palace (Lejeune 1960; Hooker 1990; see also Aamont’s paper in this volume), the tenure of sacred lands by religious officials, the possible management of a sacred calendar and the attribution of religious and priestly functions to the Mycenaean wanax, as suggested by the frescoed decoration of the palaces, the material evidence from the megaron (hearth, kylikes, grooves, tripod tables of offerings, libation tables), the Linear B evidence and perhaps the co-depiction of the wanax with fantastic creatures in the minor arts. The architectural organisation of the citadels at Mycenae and Tiryns could speak volumes for the display of political, religious and ancestral power to the benefit of the ruler (Wright 1987: 176-82; Wright 1995: 74; Gallou forthcoming). Large ramps led from the acropolis gate to the palace and a processional way linked the megaron at Mycenae with the Cult Centre. The entrance to the palace courts was definitely emphasised by the presence of grand staircases and elaborate propylaea. Open spaces leading to the megara would have allowed congregational assemblies (Cavanagh 2001: 127-8).

The Αbodes of the Αncestors: tomb design, ritual and symbolism in Late Helladic IIIA-B Greece Chrysanthi Gallou For thousands of years human societies have devoted substantial resources to the procurement of goods and dwellings for their ancestors. Such consumption patterns were recorded in the mortuary agenda of Greek prehistoric mainland and were intensified during the Mycenaean period with the construction and ostentation of elaborate tholos and chamber tombs. However, the value of Mycenaean tombs as enduring signs of the presence of death and as memorials to past lives has often been treated with a certain theoretical simplicity. On the other hand, the appropriation of components from contemporary sacred and secular architecture indicates that for the Mycenaeans the choice and use of specific tomb types as the eternal dwellings of the dead were not determined merely by functional practicality but were rather connected with eschatological tenets, the requirements of post-funerary ritual and the sociopolitical conditions of LH times. Thus, the objective of this paper is to examine the degree to which symbolism was employed in Mycenaean funerary architecture, in particular as it developed in sociopolitical and religious complexity.

The stability of Late Helladic IIIA-B society is reflected in the relative uniformity observed in the burial practices of the period (Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 61). The typical tholos and chamber tombs reached a high level of standardisation, whilst an increase in the number and size of the cemeteries occurred. The use of pit and cist graves declined, although they do appear alongside other tomb types in necropolises such as Deiras, Kokla and Tanagra (Lewartowski 2000: 55). Likewise, tumuli and built graves were restricted to certain areas and denote a sense of continuity from the Middle Helladic period. A certain uniformity is observed in the architectural plan of the tombs and the mode of disposal of the dead, though with indisputably regional variations, whereas it is during this period that a set of eschatological tenets and religious acts led to the establishment of an official cult of the dead. Despite the general scepticism and rejection of a Mycenaean ancestor veneration (see, for example, Mylonas 1948; 1951; 1966; Antonaccio 1995), it is possible to pinpoint religious action-moments in Late Helladic funerary record and to gain access in the identification and understanding of the desire in Mycenaean communities to ascribe sacred status to its ancestors

The élites, the gods and the ancestors in Late Helladic IIIA-B times Following the deep political changes of the Early Mycenaean period, Late Helladic IIIA-B witnessed the emergence and consolidation of a highly hierarchical and centralised political system. Given the similarities observed in the construction and decoration of the palaces, the enclosure of the citadels within Cyclopean walls and the administrative patterns as recorded in Linear B documents, a process of political unification is apparent with, indisputably, regional variations. Despite the sense of regionalism observed, “this is the period of the Mycenaean cultural koine” (Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 77, 134). An increasing religious awareness is also attested during this time. Its components include the

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and to propitiate them with offerings and acts analogous to those addressed to the divine (Gallou 2002).

accepted that the passage of the soul as a homology or model of this event might be an invariable universal, a supposition recently questioned by Parker Pearson (Hertz 1960: 78-9; Parker Pearson 1999: 22).

From tomb as house to tomb as religious statement in Mycenaean times

Van Gennep investigated the ritual activities marking the individual’s life cycle and set a tripartite structure of transition from one social condition to another, viz. preliminal rites (or rites of separation), liminal or threshold rites (or rites of marginality/transition) and post-liminal rites (or rites incorporation/reintegration) (van Gennep 1960: 10-1)

“Tombs may be the houses of the dead and, alternatively, the living may consider themselves to dwell within the houses of ancestors” (Parker Pearson 1999: 21). In modern Greece the tomb is referred to as “the last residence” and the belief is expressed for an immaterial existence therein. Turning to Mycenaean tombs, a great amount of effort was invested in their construction in order to ensure the facilities and the comforts of a “living” house for the dead. At the same time, the tomb was a sacred place where the ancestors were honoured and placated with customary rites and offerings.

Van Gennep emphasised the importance attached to the transformative power in these rites -a power often referred to as liminality- an indication of “the status of the transition stage as outside the normal constraints of human time and space and as a different set of conditions that are both more powerful and dangerous” (Cunningham 1999: 59). Other scholars have defined liminality as “the institutionalised categorisation of certain moments in time and specific locations in the landscape as sacred, both outside of ordinary time and betwixt and between the world of the ‘here and now’ and the other world of the supernatural” (Turner 1967: 94; Leach 1976: 33-36, 77-79,fig. 8; Parker Pearson 1993: 204). Interestingly, the variability of rites surrounding death seems to contrast with the seemingly universality of van Gennep’s tripartite system of rites of passage (van Gennep 1960: 46-65; Branigan 1993: 120-1; Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 105, Murphy 1998: 32-5; Parker Pearson 1999: 22).

In his study of the Archaeology of Cult, Renfrew has underlined the requirement of a sacred liminal zone between the human celebrant and the divine presence for “the performance of expressive actions of worship and propitiation” by the human towards the transcendent being (Renfrew 1985: 18). Therefore, it is essential for the understanding of cultic activity in Mycenaean tombs to examine whether their tripartite division fulfilled the requirements of Renfrew’s cult indicators and the needs of the rites of passage connected with death. Before proceeding to the discussion of this issue, it is useful to provide a brief account of the issues of liminality, rites of passage and their connection to funerary cult.

For Leach, “in the case of mortuary ritual it is often a dogma that death is only a gateway to future life”, whereas according to Murphy, “the basic function of funerary rituals is a rite of passage between life and death” (Leach 1976: 79; Murphy 1998: 32). Tambiah’s remark that “rites…enact and incarnate cosmological perceptions”, led Cavanagh and Mee to state that “the pair mortal/immortal indicate that death is almost in the definition of religion” (Tambiah 1979: 121; Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 106). Their synopsis of prehistoric ritual actions negotiating the relationship between the living and the dead and beliefs concerning the soul and its fate refers to the primary treatment of the corpse and its characterisation through offerings, rites of separation, the negotiation of power and status and the human experience of death (Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 106-107).

Liminality, rites of passage and the sanctity of funerary ritual Van Gennep’s theory of the Rites of Passage and Hertz’s contribution to the collective representation of death, introduced liminality into social anthropology. With emphasis placed on the ritual data of Madagascar, both scholars viewed death rituals as “a symbolic representation of the ambiguous state of the deceased while in passage from life toward some fixed eternal condition” (Metcalf and Huntington 1991: 111). Hertz focused on the parallel transitional stages, transformations, readjustment and redefinition experienced by mourners, corpse and soul, and

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Nevertheless, in a special relation to the sacred rituals of life, stand death and the religious ceremonies, associated with the passage from life to the hereafter.

Post-funerary ritual and the tripartite division of Mycenaean tombs The typical Mycenaean tholos and chamber tombs feature a tripartite plan, which comprises the dromos (passageway) that leads to the stomion (entrance) opening in turn to the thalamos (burial chamber) (figs.1, 2). Apart from its general functional practicality, the dromos, which leads to the darkness of the burial chamber, would have contributed to the creation of contrast images and feelings. Inferences for the performance of ritual acts in honour of the sacred dead in this part of the tomb can be drawn from certain structural elements (pits, cists and niches), the presence of shattered pottery, jewellery, animal bones and the remnants of secondary burial treatment ceremonies as well as the remains of ritual feasting in the fill of the dromoi. Public participation in the ancestral ceremonies would have been possible as suggested by the care taken for the white-stuccoed dromoi of a number of tholos tombs and the presence of an open area before others (e.g. the Atreus Treasury and the Tholos of Clytemnestra). Interesting is the observation that on certain occasions special care was taken for the careful formation of the tomb’s passageway as contrasted to the careless construction of the burial chamber (note the case of the chamber tombs at the Mycenaean necropolis of Tanagra, Spyropoulos 1969: 7; 1970: 31).

Turning to the rites of passage connected with death, the pre-liminal stage entails the detachment of the dead from the settlement and their placement in a formal disposal area that acts as the liminal zone. Purification, banqueting and drinking ceremonies may accompany this act. During the liminal or transitional stage the deceased moves ‘betwixt and between’ the world of the living and the plane of the ancestors, while the mourning period continues in the living community. By the end of this stage and the beginning of the re-aggregation phase, the deceased is fully incorporated into the realm of the ancestors, an event celebrated with the performance of a family or communal feast and by repeated ceremonies in honour of the ancestral spirits. Following a contextual analysis of ritual acts connected with ancestor veneration in LH III times and the criteria of ritual action established by Renfrew, it is plausible to suggest that the first stage of Mycenaean funerary cult might have been the establishment and performance of secondary burial treatment traditionally connected with the post-liminal stage (Gallou 2002). The handling of human bones is generally accepted as the termination of the funerary process incorporated into the re-integration stage and, concurrently, as the period during which the re-consolidation of the bereaved community is processed and communion with the sacred ancestors is achieved. The manipulation of ancestral skeletal remains and the incorporation of the dead into an anonymous mass of bones carefully handled would have aimed at bringing the dead into the orbit of the living in order to familiarise the Mycenaean community with its forebears and, consequently, at effacing the deceased’s individuality and their incorporation into the ancestral collectivity. Thus, the next section will provide examples supporting the thesis that the introduction and consolidation of the tripartite division of Mycenaean collective tombs was inextricably linked with the evolution of a set of ceremonials connected with the custom of secondary burial treatment and the Mycenaean cult of the dead.

Instructive of the repeated use of the dromos for the deposition of offerings in honour of the dead are the instances reported from Berbati tomb XII and Zygouries tomb XXV; in particular, “near the surface, 4.75 and 5.80m from the opening of the chamber on the longitudinal axis of the dromos (of chamber tomb XII at Berbati), were four stones in a row beneath which, under a protective covering of earth, lay vase no. 23 (i.e. a hydria)” (Säflund 1965: 71, 78, figs.49, 59-60). Interestingly, all pottery reported from the tomb is dated to LH IIIA1-IIIA2early apart from the hydria from the dromos, which is datable to LH IIIA2late. Similarly, near the bottom of the dromos of tomb XXV at Zygouries, a sepulchre that featured no burial chamber, no interments and no remains of other artefacts, appeared a large slab of poros laying partly on its side and beneath it an intact jug of LH III date (Blegen 1928: 65). Based on the careful deposition of offerings in the dromos, the care taken for the formation of the walls of the dromoi of a number of tombs –on certain occasions the floor was also

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covered with a layer of whitish clay- and the remarks made by the excavators of Asine chamber tomb I:2 and Dendra tomb 14 (Frödin and Persson 1938: 162, 166, 169-70; Åström 1977: 106), it would be plausible to suggest that the dromoi of a number of tombs, if not all, might have stayed open for some time before and after the burial. Moreover, the presence of two recesses cut into either side of the outer end of one of the two dromoi leading to the frescoed royal tomb at Megalo Kastelli (Thebes), which have been interpreted as guard posts (Spyropoulos 1972: 310; 1973: 255), could also been taken as an indication of the fact that the dromos was left open for some time. However, the lack of a detailed report on the finds and the fact that such recesses are open to various interpretations, it seems wise to leave the issue of these ‘guard posts’ open.

sarcophagus, the long side of a larnax from chamber tomb 51 at Tanagra depicting a sphinx and a priestess on either side of a sacred column and the end panel of another larnax excavated at the same necropolis in 1977, illustrating a winged figure, possibly a soul, before a rectangular structure crowned by two pairs of horns of consecration (Long 1974: 49-50; Spyropoulos 1971: 12; 1977: 19). The frescoed decoration of the tomb illustrated on the Haghia Triadha sarcophagus is reminiscent of a class of decorated tombs, a feature that would have reflected the special status of the tomb’s owner and it would have had a psychological effect on the celebrants attending the ceremonies, acting as focusing-ofattention device and as mnemonic of similar decorative patterns from contemporary secular and sacred contexts.

The use of the inner end of the dromos, close to the entrance, as the focal point of cultic activity is indicated in the case of Aidonia chamber tomb 14, a tomb without a chamber, featuring a carelessly constructed passageway and a false stomion in front of which the skeleton of a horse was found in situ and, at a lower level, the jawbones of fourteen more (Krystalli-Votsi 1998: 25). Similarly, at the inner end of the dromos of the tholos tomb at Kokla, two wellpreserved skeletons of sheep/goats were unearthed (Demakopoulou 1990: 122). The absence of human remains in both instances renders it highly probable that these animal sacrifices were connected with commemorative rites in honour of the ancestral spirits or with the worship of chthonic deities. Post festum remains consisting of animal bones, shattered pottery, cooking ware, ashes and charcoal point to the use of the dromos as a locus of ceremonial acts.

This choice of tholos and chamber tomb types make sense in LH IIIA2-B times when their elaboration reached its peak with the Atreus Treasury and the Tholos of Clytemnestra at Mycenae, the Minyas Treasury at Orchomenos and the royal chamber tomb at Megalo Kastelli, Thebes. These elaborately decorated tholos and chamber tombs must be seen as an advertisement of wealth and social display, whereas, at the same time, the use of decorative elements and architectural features from palatial and religious architecture would have acted as symbolic devices and as the means of advertising the rulers’ authority, by advertising their capacity to employ sacred features in their tombs. The desire to mimic the elaboration of certain tholos and chamber tombs is evident in the existence of a class of similarly decorated, albeit of lesser quality, tombs in Mycenaean necropolises of the Argolid. In the case of Boeotia, the imitation of the originals painted in the royal tomb at Megalo Kastelli is evident in the decoration of larnakes with mourning figures at the cemetery at Tanagra. Another instructive example of the attempt to imitate the monumentality of a tholos tomb by people of lesser status is apparent in the case of chamber tombs 70, 83 and 84 at Mycenae, Palaiokastro (Arkadia) and Volimidhia (Messenia). All the cited examples feature circular chambers hewn into the rock with a slight compression of the sidewalls, a lofty beehive-shaped vault whose top ends in a small assymetrical cavity and relatively large dimensions. It is noteworthy that the recently reported θολοειδής tomb from Pellana, Laconia, which is dated to LH II-IIIA times, is the largest of its type on the

Specific architectural elements and the remains of ritual activity are suggestive of the stomion’s key role in the negotiations between life and death (note also the desire for the formation of entrances in collective tombs of earlier date, Cavanagh 1987: 167). The general symbolic importance of the threshold in Mycenaean religious beliefs and superstitions is most probably reflected on the distributional pattern of terracotta figurines associated with doors and thresholds in the citadels (Kilian 1988: 148). In iconographical terms, the function of the tomb, in particular the stomion, as a symbolic barrier between the living and the dead is supported by the presentation scene on side A of the Haghia Triadha

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accompany the dead to another dimension (Leach 1976; Parker Pearson 1999: 26). Along the same line of argument, the smashing of the drinking vessels would have entailed the pouring of the appropriate liquids to the ancestral spirits and the belief that the dead could acquire the essence of the object offered through breakage. A similar function may have been served by another phenomenon that has been neglected to a certain extent, that is the hiding of precious objects in pits in front or under the stomion of several Mycenaean tombs, e.g. chamber tomb 2 at Dendra (Persson 1931: 75-7).

mainland with a diameter exceeding 10m, whereas the spiral cutting of the roof, as in the neighbouring tombs, is reminiscent of the successive layers of stones forming the cupola of a proper tholos (Spyropoulos 1998: 30-33). Furthermore, its decorated façade, the remains of precious goods and the fact that a palatial centre has recently been uncovered in the area, may be suggestive of the choice of the local ruling group to be buried in this type of tomb as opposed to their rivals at Vapheio; a pattern also observed in Boeotia. In front of the entrance of a typical Mycenaean tomb, the dromos widens to a certain degree, an element that could reveal the desire of the Mycenaeans to create more space for the performance of the customary ancestral rites (Cavanagh 1987: 160, 167). Whole or fragmentary pots, especially kylikes and other drinking vessels, are frequently uncovered before or under the walled entrance or in its packing fill. These finds have been interpreted as potsherds belonging to vases that were either broken and thrown out during cleaning operations in the chamber or as being part of a customary act associated with the rites of separation and a last toast in honour of the dead (inter alios, Papavasileiou 1910: 26-27; Wace 1932: 131; Blegen 1937: 237; Mylonas 1948: 72; Vermeule 1964: 299; Andronikos 1968: 93; Niklasson 1981/2: 14; Laffineur 1986: 82; Kontorli-Papadopoulou 1995: 118; Cavanagh 1998: 106; Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 114115). The deliberate destruction of pottery and grave furnishings in prehistoric funerary contexts has attracted scholarly interest (see, for example, Wiesner 1938: 141, 152, 170, 180; Grinsell 1961; 1973; Andronikos 1968: 100; Fossey 1985; Åström 1987: 213-7; Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 122; Parker Pearson 1999: 26).

Noteworthy is the case of chamber tomb 523 at the Kalkani cemetery, where plain kylix stems were placed en masse in an irregular recess at the top of the right doorjamb, possibly an indication of the continuous and repeated performance of libation rituals after the burial and the post-funerary offerings to the dead (for the tomb, see Wace 1932: 35, 131, fig.18) (fig.3). This is further supported by the fact that the chamber contained exclusively the remains of secondary burials. Instructive is the fact that at the outer end of the dromos of the tholos tomb at Berbati a heap of ashes and charcoal was found over a small pit filled with animal bones, whereas a similar heap was found just in front of the tholos’ stomion (Frizell 1984: 27). Corresponding evidence from Kolonaki/Thebes 4 and 12 (Keramopoullos 1917: 130-1), Faraklas tomb 1 (Faraklas 1967: 218)) and Tanagra 76 (Spyropoulos 1974: 9) suggests that food was, on certain occasions, prepared and consumed at the grave. The function of the dromos and the entrance as foci of repeated ceremonies in the context of funerary cult is also indicated by the presence of a single or pairs of grooves overlapping the stomion or being restricted to its area. Such grooves occur in tholos and chamber tombs in Messenia, the Argolid, Korinthia, Boeotia and Kephallenia (Korres 1982: 91; KontorliPapadopoulou 1987: 151; Kontorli-Papadopoulou 1995: 119; Blegen 1937: 175, 207; Persson 1942: 21, 53; Krystalli-Votsi 1998: 23; Keramopoullos 1917: 159, 194; Marinatos 1933: 71) (fig.4). Dendra tomb 8 and Thebes Kolonaki 4 feature grooves in the side chamber (Persson 1942: 40; Keramopoullos 1917: 130). Valuable comparable material is provided by the libation channel associated with miniature kylikes uncovered next to the throne of the megaron at Ano Englianos and the alabaster slab with a shallow oval

The destruction of goods at the time or after the burial is often associated with rites of reversal whereby “the dead man is given food he cannot eat, objects he cannot use, and rights he cannot exercise” (Goody 1962: 72). For Soles, the ritual killing of a vessel denotes ownership on behalf of the deceased, whereas ritual breakage may be connected with superstition and/or the emotional state of those who perform the rite as well as an expression of surplus wealth and status (Soles 1999: 787). According to Leach, the “killing” of grave artefacts can be linked to concerns about pollution and to the means by which possessions become “dead” so that they may

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Although mycenologists lack written accounts on religious acts connected with the dead, the presence of shattered pottery, animal bones, black earth, ashes and carbon point to the performance of ritual acts addressed to the ancestral spirits. The deposition of valuable items in cists, pits and niches sanctions their characterisation as receptacles of ritualistic nature. Traces of fumigation and the discovery of incense burners, scoops, ladles and lamps may reflect concepts of purification and cleanliness as well as the employment of experience inducing devices in the course of post-funerary rites. The care taken for the formation, and occasionally decoration, of benches as well as their association with offerings and service sets of ritualistic nature are revealing of their ceremonial significance, in particular, of their function as altars, a feature whose counterparts can be sought in analogous installations in Mycenaean sanctuaries.

depression in the floor of the porch of the Mycenae palace (Hägg 1990: 180-1; Rehak 1995: 100). Several scholars have connected the presence of grooves with the need for the smooth running of the funeral cart and the protection of the doorjambs against contact and abrasion by the hearse’s wheels (Keramopoullos 1917: 159, 194; Persson 1942: 155-7; Vermeule 1964: 298; Andronikos 1968: 132-4; Kontorli-Papadopoulou 1987: 151). Pelon has attributed it to the tomb maker’s or the owner’s personal taste for refinement of the tomb construction (Pelon 1976: 326-8), whereas Wells has suggested that grooves might have been of merely constructional significance and they would have been obliterated, had time allowed (Wells 1990: 135). The presence of a single groove in the Kephallenian tomb and the observation that the grooves at Dendra tomb 8 were covered with carefully placed stones, led KontorliPapadopoulou to attribute cultic significance to the feature (Kontorli-Papadopoulou 1987: 151). Åkeström construed grooves as channels intended to facilitate communication –by means of pouring libationsbetween the mourners and the deceased after the stomion had been blocked (Åkeström 1988: 203-5). Cavanagh and Mee, who conceived the stomion of Mycenaean tombs as the focal point for ritual performance, a passage and a barrier literally and spiritually at the same time, suggested that grooves should be interpreted from this perspective (Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 49).

In correspondence to the subsidiary rooms uncovered in connection to the central rooms of several Mycenaean sanctuaries, a number of Late Helladic tombs feature one or more side chambers (fig.4). Although our understanding of their function depends on a handful of examples, the presence of disiecta membra, traces of ashes and charcoal, animal bones and offerings point, at least in the majority of the reported examples, to a nexus of ceremonial acts related to the propitiation of the ancestral spirits. Nevertheless, the introduction and development of Mycenaean custom of secondary burial treatment must have dictated the creation of extra space for the deposition of the ceremoniously handled skeletal remains and the performance of the appropriate rites. The elaborate decoration of the side chamber of the Minyas Treasury, followed possibly by the example of the Atreus Tholos, led Kavvadias and Pelon to propose that the side chambers in these tholoi might have been used for primary burials, while the main chamber was intended as a cult place (Kavvadias 1909: 643; Pelon 1990: 111), a supposition rejected by Tsountas and Wace (Tsountas 1888: 135 note 1; Wace 1932: 351-2).

In ethnographical terms, the passage from the dromos and the stomion –symbolising day and light- to the burial chamber -connected with darkness and night- is often conceived as a metaphor of the transition from life to death. The burial chamber is the last resting place of the deceased and the eternal dwelling of the soul, connected with the final stage of the incorporation of the dead to the realm of the ancestors. The suggestion that the chamber of Mycenaean tombs imitated actual houses is validated in the case of rectangular-shaped chambers, but this could not explain the choice of circular shape commonly attested in Mycenaean typical tombs. The circular shape of Mycenaean tombs has been unconvincingly compared to the Homeric καλύβη (Tsountas 1885: 32) and the female anatomy of the womb (Goodison 1989: 85).

To summarise. Like cult buildings, Mycenaean collective tombs were intended to fulfil two main functions: to shelter the remains of the ancestors and to provide special locus for ritual activity by means of a specialised and purpose-built structure equipped with the necessary facilities for the performance of religious ritual. Accordingly to Renfrew’s second

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the world of the ancestors, and the dromos, symbolic of light and life. It seems highly improbable that the burial chamber entertained large congregations. Restricted participation to the ritual acts performed within the chamber would have been imposed by the controlled access as well as to the limited space available. The interplay of light and darkness created by the architectural plan of the tomb per se as well as the employment of lighting devices would have created a sense of awe and mystery in those attending the ceremonies, feelings fundamental in religious experience.

indicator of ritual, the boundary zone, between the Mycenaean mortal celebrants and the plane of the ancestors would have reflected special aspects of the liminal zone. The introduction and consolidation of collective tombs in Late Helladic III Greece encouraged the evolution and development of a ritual set of ceremonials connected with the custom of secondary burial treatment. The emotional response to direct confrontation with the skeletal remains of earlier interments, which collective burial entails, would have contributed to an interaction between the architectural design of the tombs and development in ritual (Cavanagh and Mee 1998: 116, 118). The care taken for the construction of passageways and entrances in Mycenaean tombs is suggestive of their contribution to the periodical re-opening of the tombs with the aim of coming into contact with the ancestral relics and the offering of the customary rites and “gifts”.

Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the encouragement and support of my research supervisor Dr W.G. Cavanagh who devoted the time to read and comment on this article. Many thanks are also owed to Ioannis Georganas, Merkourios Georgiadis, Eugenia Zouzoula and Christina Aamont for fruitful discussions and comments. I am most indebted to the ‘J.F. Costopoulos Foundation Scholarship’ and the Greek Archaeological Committee (UK) for providing me with the financial means to undertake my PhD research, which also led to the production of this paper. The responsibility for all views and mistakes of fact or judgment in this article remains entirely mine.

Mycenaean tholos and chamber tombs with their typical tripartite plan were also “tombs for the living” creating with the purpose of providing an enclosed environment for the performance of ritual acts reinforced by an element of public display and hidden mystery. The stomion formed the focal point of ritual action, the element of liminality in Mycenaean funerary architecture; it constituted the boundary zone between the burial chamber, a metaphor of death and

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Fig. 1. Plan and section of a typical Mycenaean tholos tomb (redrawn after Mylonas 1966: 119, fig. 24)

Fig. 2. Plan and section of a typical Mycenaean chamber tomb (redrawn after Wace 1932: 87, fig. 36)

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Fig. 3. Chamber tomb 523 at Mycenae (letter c marks the position of the recess in the istomion containing kylix stems) (redrawn after Wace 1932: 35, fig. 18)

Fig. 4. Plan of the chamber tomb 6 at Dendra; note the grooves and the side chamber (redrawn after Persson 1942: 21, fig. 20)

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The Αbodes of the Αncestors

Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 11-13 June, 1988, R. Hägg and G.C. Nordquist (eds.), Stockholm: 113-23. Faraklas, N. 1967. “Mykhnaikoi tafoi eis lofon Megalo Kastelli Boiwtias”, ArchDelt Χρονικά 22: 227-8. Fossey J.M. 1985. “The Ritual Breaking of Objects in Greek Funerary Contexts: A Note”, Folklore 96: 21-3. Frizell B.S. 1984. “The tholos tomb at Berbati”, OpAth 15: 25-44. Frödin O. and Persson A.W. 1938. Asine: Results of the Swedish excavations 1922-1930, Stockholm. Gallou C. forthcoming. “The Power of Ancestors: Defining the sacred and ancestral landscapes of Late Helladic IIIB Mycenae”, Seascapes and Landscapes Conference, organised by the Prehistoric Society and the University of Sheffield Archaeology Society, 8-9 February 2002. Gallou C. 2002. The Cult of the Dead in Central Greece during the Mycenaean Period, (PhD thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham). Goodison L. 1989. Death, Women and the Sun. Symbolism of Regeneration in Early Aegean Religion, [BICS Supplement 53], London. Goody J. 1962. Death, Property and the Ancestors. A study of the mortuary customs of the Lodagaa of West Africa, Stanford. Grinsell L.V. 1961. “The Breaking of Objects as a Funerary Rite”, Folklore 72: 475-91. Grinsell L.V. 1973. “The Breaking of Objects as a Funerary Rite: Supplementary Notes”, Folklore 84: 111-4. Hägg R. 1990. “The role of libations in Mycenaean ceremony and cult”, Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid. Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 11-13 June, 1988, R. Hägg and G.C. Nordquist (eds.), Stockholm: 17784. Hertz R. 1960. Death and the Right Hand, London. Hooker J.T. 1990 “Cult Personnel in the Linear B Texts from Pylos”, Pagan Priests. Religion and Power in the ancient world, M. Beard and J. North (eds.), London: 159-74. Kavvadias P. 1909. Προϊστορική Αρχαιολογία, Athens. Keramopoullos A.D. 1917. “Ανασκαφαί εν Θηβαις”, ArchDelt 3: 2-252. Kilian K. 1988. “Mycenaeans up to Date, Trends and Changes in Recent Research”, Problems in Greek

Bibliography Åkeström Å. 1988. “Cultic installations in Mycenaean rooms and tombs”, Problems in Greek Prehistory. Papers presented at the Centenary Conference of the British School at Athens, Manchester April 1986, E.B. French and K.A. Wardle (eds.), Bristol: 201-10. Albers G. 1994. Spätmykenische Stadtheiligtümer. Systematische Analyse und vergliechende Auswertung des archäologischen Befunde (BARIS 596), Oxford. Andronikos M. 1968. Totenkult, [ArchHom III], Göttingen. Antonaccio C.M. 1995. An Archaeology of Ancestors. Tomb cult and Hero cult in Early Greece, Lanham, Md. Åström P. 1977. The Cuirass Tomb and other finds at Dendra. Part I: the chamber tombs, [SIMA 4], Göteborg. Åström P. 1987 “Intentional destruction of grave goods”, Thanatos- Les coutumes funéraires en Égée à l’Âge du Bronze, [Aegaeum 1], R. Laffineur (ed.), Liège: 213-8. Blegen C.W. 1928. Zygouries: A prehistoric settlement in the valley of Cleonae, Harvard. Blegen C.W. 1937. Prosymna: the Helladic Settlement preceding the Argive Heraeum. Cambridge. Branigan K. 1993. Dancing with Death- Life and Death in Southern Crete c. 3000-2000 BC, Amsterdam. Cavanagh W.G. 1987. “Cluster analysis of Mycenaean chamber tombs”, Thanatos. Les coutumes funéraires en Égée à l’ Âge du Bronze, [Aegaeum 1], R. Laffineur (ed.), Liège: 161-9. Cavanagh W.G. 1998. “Innovation, Conservatism and Variation in Mycenaean funerary ritual”, Cemetery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age, K. Branigan (ed.), Sheffield: 103-14. Cavanagh W.G. 2001. “Empty Space? Courts and Squares in Mycenaean Towns’, Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age, Branigan K. (ed.), Sheffield: 119-34. Cavanagh W.G. and Mee C. 1998. A Private Place: Death in Prehistoric Greece, [SIMA 124], Göteborg. Cunningham G. 1999. Religion and MagicApproaches and Theories. Edinburgh. Demakopoulou K. 1990. “The Burial Ritual in the Tholos tomb at Kokla, Argolis”, Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid.

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The Αbodes of the Αncestors

Murphy J.M. 1998. “Ideology, Rites and Rituals: A view of prepalatial Minoan tholoi”, Cemetery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age, K. Branigan (ed.), Sheffield: 27-40. Mylonas G.E. 1948. “Homeric and Mycenaean burial customs”, AJA 52: 56-81. Mylonas G.E. 1951. “The Cult of the Dead in Helladic times”, Studies presented to David Moore Robinson on his 70th birthday, G.E. Mylonas (ed.), Washington: 64-105. Mylonas G.E. 1966. Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age, Princeton. Niklasson K. 1981/2. “Mycenaean vase forms from Dendra”, Πρακτικά του Β’ Συνεδρίου Πελοποννησιακών Σπουδών, Πάτρα 25-31 Μαΐου 1980, Volume B, Athens: 208-18. Papavasileiou G.A. 1910. Περι των εν Ευβοία αρχαίων τάφων, Athens. Parker Pearson M. 1993. “The Powerful Dead: Archaeological Relationships Between the Living and the Dead”, CAJ 3: 209-29. Parker Pearson M. 1999. The Archaeology of Death and Burial, Somerset. Pelon O. 1976. Tholoi, tumuli et cercles funéraires. Recherches sur les monuments funéraires de plan circulaire dans l’ Égée de l’ Âge du Bronze (IIIe et IIe millénaires av. J.-C.), Paris. Pelon O. 1990 “Les tombes à tholos d’Argolide: architecture et rituel funéraire”, Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid. Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 11-13 June, 1988, R. Hägg and G.C. Nordquist (eds.), Stockholm: 107-12. Persson A.W. 1931. The Royal Tombs at Dendra near Midea, Lund. Persson A.W. 1942. New tombs at Dendra near Midea, Lund. Rehak P. 1995. “Enthroned figures in Aegean art and the function of the Mycenaean megaron”, The Role of the Ruler in the Prehistoric Aegean, [Aegaeum 11], P. Rehak (ed.), Liège: 95-118. Renfrew C. 1985. The Archaeology of Cult. The Sanctuary at Phylakopi, [BSA Supplement 18], London. Säflund G. 1965. Excavations at Berbati 1936-1937, Stockholm. Soles J.S. 1999 “The Ritual ‘Killing’ of Pottery and the Discovery of a Mycenaean Telestas at Mochlos”, Meletemata- Studies in the Aegean Archaeology presented to M.H. Wiener as he

Prehistory- Papers presented at the Centenary Conference of the British School at Athens, Manchester April 1986, F.B. French and K.A. Wardle (eds.), Bristol: 115-52. Kontorli-Papadopoulou L. 1987 “Some aspects concerning local peculiarities of the Mycenaean chamber tombs”, Thanatos. Les coutumes funéraires en Égée à l’ Âge du Bronze, [Aegaeum 1], R. Laffineur (ed.), Liège: 145-160. Kontorli-Papadopoulou L. 1995. “Mycenaean tholos tombs: some thoughts on burial customs and rites”, Klados- Essays in honour of J.N. Coldstream, [BICS Supplement 63], C. Morris (ed.), London: 111-22. Korres G. 1982. “Burial Customs in Tholos Tomb 2 at Routsi/Myrsinochori”, Concilium Eirene XVI. Vol. III: Mycenaeological Colloquiumth Proceedings of the 16 International Eirene Conference, O. Pavel and A. Frolikova (eds.), Prague: 91-7. Krystalli-Votsi K. 1998. “Η ανασκαφή του Μυκηναϊκού νεκροταφείου των Αηδονίων”, in Ο Θησαυρός των Αηδονίων- Σφραγίδες και κοσµήµατα της Ύστερης Εποχής του Χαλκού στο Αιγαίο, K. Demakopoulou (ed.), Athens: 21-31. Laffineur R. 1986. “Fecondité et pratiques funéraires en Égée à l’Âge du Bronze”, Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean. Papers presented at the First International Conference on Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean. The University of Malta, 2-5 September 1985, Malta: 79-95. Leach E. 1976. Culture and Communication: the logic by which symbols are connected. An introduction to the use of structuralistic analysis in social anthropology, Cambridge. Lejeune M. 1960. “Prêtres et prêtresses dans les documents mycéniens”, Hommages à Dumézil, [Collection Latomus, vol. 45], Latomus: 129-39. Lewartowski K 2000. Late Helladic Simple Graves. A Study of Mycenaean Burial Customs, [BAR-IS 878], Oxford. Long C. 1974. The Ayia Triadha Sarcophagus: A study of Late Minoan and Mycenaean funerary practices and beliefs, [SIMA 41], Göteborg. Marinatos S. 1933. “Αι εν Κεφαλληνία ανασκαφαί Goekoop 2”, AE: 68-100. Metcalf P. and Huntington R. 1991. Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (2nd edition), Cambridge.

27

The Αbodes of the Αncestors

enters his 65th year [Aegeaum 20], P.P. Betancourt, V. Karageorghis, R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Liège: 787-92. Spyropoulos T. 1969. “Ανασκαφή Μυκηναϊκού νεκροταφείου Τανάγρας”, Prakt: 5-15. Spyropoulos T. 1970. “Aνασκαφή Μυκηναϊκού νεκροταφείου Τανάγρας”, Prakt: 29-36. Spyropoulos T. 1971. “Ανασκαφή Μυκηναϊκού νεκροταφείου Τανάγρας”, Prakt: 7-14. Spyropoulos T. 1972. “Βοιωτία-Φθιώτις”, ArchDelt Χρονικά 27: 309-13. Spyropoulos T. 1973. “Αρχαιότητες και µνηµεία Βοιωτίας-Φθιώτιδος: Μεγάλο Καστέλλι”, ArchDelt Χρονικά 28: 252-8. Spyropoulos T. 1974. “Ανασκαφή Μυκηναϊκης Τανάγρας”, Prakt: 9-33. Spyropoulos T. 1977. “Τανάγρα”, Ergon: 14-9. Spyropoulos T. 1998 “Pellana, the administrative centre of prehistoric Laconia”, Sparta in Laconia. Proceedings of the 19th British Museum Classical Colloquium held at the British School at Athens and King’s and University Colleges, London 6-8 December 1995, [BSA Studies 4], W.G. Cavanagh and S.E.C. Walker (eds.), London: 2838. Tambiah S.J. 1979. “A performative approach to ritual”, ProcBritAc 65: 113-69. Tsountas C. 1885. “Οι προϊστορικοί τάφοι εν Ελλάδι”, ΑΕ: 30-42. Tsountas C. 1888. “Ανασκαφαί τάφων εν Μυκηναι”, ΑΕ: 119-79. Tsountas C. and Manatt J. 1897. The Mycenaean Age. A Study of the Monuments and Culture of PreHomeric Greece, London.

Turner V.W. 1967. The Forest of Symbols. Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. London. Van Gennep A. 1960. The Rites of Passage, M.B. Vizedom and G.L. Caffee (trns.), London. Vermeule E.T. 1964. Greece in the Bronze Age, Chicago. Wace A.J.B. 1932. Chamber tombs at Mycenae, [Archaeologia 82], Oxford. Wells B. 1990. “Death at Dendra. On mortuary practices in a Mycenaean community”, Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid. Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 11-13 June, 1988, R. Hägg and G.C. Nordquist (eds.), Stockholm: 125-39. Whittaker H. 1997. Mycenaean Cult Buildings. A Study of their Architecture and Function in the Context of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, [Norwegian Institute of Archaeology at Athens, Volume 1], Bergen. Wiesner J. 1938. Grab und Jenseits, Berlin. Wright J. 1987. “Death and Power at Mycenae: changing symbols in mortuary practice”, Thanatos- Les coutumes funéraires en Égée à l’Âge du Bronze, [Aegaeum 1], R. Laffineur (ed.), Liège: 171-84. Wright J. 1995. “From Chief to King in Mycenaean society”, The Role of the Ruler in the Prehistoric Aegean, [Aegaeum 11], P. Rehak (ed.), Liège: 6380.

Death

ONE DISTINCTION

marriage

alive/dead

TWO CATEGORIES

single/married

alive→dying→dead

THREE STAGES

single→engaged→married

Schema of van Gennep’s rites of passage (Metcalf and Huntington 1991: 30, fig. 1)

28

Karpathos

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

The burial evidence from Karpathos is limited since only two tombs have been partially excavated dated LH IIIA1-B at Makelli (3) and Vonies (2). Thus there is no conclusive evidence of entrance rituals since no pottery sherds have been recovered from the dromos so far.

Mercourios Georgiadis Introduction

Each tomb contained two deceased, whilst inside the chamber tombs no primary burial, i.e. in situ corpse, has been recovered. In all cases the bones were mingled suggesting the practice of secondary treatment, i.e. the purposeful disarticulation of bones is thought to be supplemented by appropriate rituals as a continuation of the burial process. More particularly at Tou Stavrou to Kefali (1) the remains of the deceased were placed inside an amphoroid krater, but it is unclear whether the bone remains were cremated or not. Inside the Vonies chambr tomb a larnax contained the inhumed scattered bones of the deceased along with offerings. The presence of a larnax inside a chamber tomb is a characteristic commonly attested during this period on Crete. On the west side of the same tomb a layer of ashes contained bones and sherds, implying the presence of a cremation. However it is uncertain if it was partial or complete. The tomb was used from LH IIIA1 to B, suggesting one of the earliest dates in the Aegean for this practice.

The South-eastern Aegean has produced a large corpus of burial evidence belonging to the Mycenaean period. This area includes all the Dodecanesian islands, the Carian coast and Samos. Plenty of chamber tombs and cemeteries have been recovered that enrich our understing of this area. Many studies have been presented so far regarding the Southeastern Aegean, but they have mainly concentrated on the pottery (Mee 1975; 1982; Benzi 1992; Mountjoy 1999), or on comparisons with other parts of the Mycenaean world (Voutsaki 1993). The main question addressed in these cases is the migration/ethnicity issue for this region, while the South-eastern Aegean has been treated a priori as a political, social and cultural entity. Today it is better appreciated that, in the Mycenaean world, the burial traditions of each region have their own characteristics and idiosyncracies. At the same time there are basic similarities revealing a common belief system that indicate parallel socio-political structures and processes. Therefore we will concentrate on the burial tradition of the South-eastern Aegean and more particularly on the rituals and the internal arrangement of the tombs. Thus the local practices will be highlighted and we will be able to see the character of each area and the common elements that exist. Accordingly we will be able to address the issue of migration, burial traditions and the socio-political structure of the South-eastern Aegean.

Ialysos Ialysos (4) is the largest cemetery in the South-eastern Aegean with 129 tombs, in more than 80 of which we have positive evidence of the internal arrangements. The cemetery had two distinctive burial clusters on two hills, at Makria Vounara and Moschou Vounara, and both were in contant use from the LH IIB to the LH IIIC period.

Each island will be treated separately and, where possible, each site. A major drawback for our research is that although the quantity of tombs is large, systematically excavated ones are few in number. However all the available information will be used in order to highlight the trends and tendencies found in this region and their relations to the Greek mainland will be assessed.

Although the extent to which proper attention was paid to the excavation of the dromoi is questionable, sherds were found in 10 tombs, T.12, T.23, T.36, T.37, T.38, T.40, T.42, T.43, T.53 and T.55 (contra Voutsaki 1993: 136). In particular a whole stirrup jar was recovered in T.12 and in T.44 a stone mortar was attested. Most of these tombs belong to the LH IIIA and B period and only in T.36, T.38 and T.40, all reused in LH IIIC, were sherds found both in the

29

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

Pits are also found inside T.17, T.19, T.20, T.32, T.33, T.34, T.38, T.47, T.51 T.T.80, T.83, T.84 and T.87. They are of various shapes, circular, rectangular or oval, and there is a preference for the right side of the chamber for their construction. Most of the pits contained bones and/or offerings, and they are commoner at Moschou Vounara, rather than Makria Vounara. It is of particular interest that all of these tombs, except for T.19, were used or re-used during the LH IIIC period, indicating that at this late date they became particularly fashionable.

dromos and the chamber. In these tombs it could equally be suggested that they were the result of the chamber-cleaning process or of new rituals that included breaking inside the chamber. However the general picture remains of limited cases of breaking pottery when compared to the Greek mainland, while the question of continuation of this practice during the LH IIIC period is unclear. Three tombs, T.19, T.24 and T.43, possessed a unique structural feature, an antechamber. In the first two complete pots were deposited serving as offerings that could not be placed alongside the rest, perhaps highlighting some ritual aspects connected to the secondary treatment, since no primary burial was recovered in either case. The same picture may have happened in tombs that did not possess an antechamber except that the offerings were placed inside the chamber, but further evidence is needed to confirm this hypothesis.

The paving of the chamber with stone slabs is found only in T.42, while in T.56, T.57, T.69 and T.83 the floor had a layer of pebbles. This practice has parallels in LM I pit and cist burials recovered at Trianda. Perhaps the older custom continued and became part of the chamber tradition and it might have a symbolicmetaphysical meaning connected to the sea and the journey to the afterworld. There are also niches carved in the side of the chamber in T.12, T.56 and T.58, all of which were used in LH IIIA2, while the first was re-used in the LH IIIC period. All the above cases of internal elaboration reveal extra care and preparation for the deceased and underline the importance of the primary burial.

On average, 2.33 people were deposited inside the tombs, but it must be noted that the counting is based on skulls and deposits. Anthropological analyses suggest that in general these kind of calculations should be doubled. At any rate the fact remains that at Ialysos the number of deceased placed in the tombs is considerably smaller than the ones on the Greek mainland. The reasons perhaps are the limited continuity in their use and/or that a restricted number of family members were permitted to use the tomb.

Cremations occur in both burial clusters, inside jugs in T.15, T.17, T.32, T.33, T.71 and T.87, or the ashes were deposited in a pit in T.38 and T.17. All of them were found alongside inhumations and they belong to LH IIIC burials. The picture we have from Ialysos is similar to that found at Perati, apart from the urn type used, as well as the multiple cremations that are not found in Ialysos (Iakovidis 1970b: 40). In T.19 we have partly burnt bones, but this tomb was exclusively used in the LH IIIA period and it remains an arbitrary case.

Definite evidence of children in tombs comes from T.49, T.51 and T.57, where they coexist with adults in the same tomb, all in Makria Vounara. However in T.8, T.18, T.22, T.62, T.72, T.76, T.77 and T.85 only child burials were recovered. Children are equally found as primary and secondary burials, underlining that they were not treated dissimilarly to the adults. Nonetheless overall children are underrepresented, considering the high mortality rate that must have existed, constituting only 16 out of the c.182 burials reported.

Inhumation was the predominant burial rite at Ialysos. One body was placed inside a larnax in shaft grave 81, an unusual combination, but the fragmentary state of the larnax does not allow its identification as a mainland or a Cretan one.

Inside the chambers there are constructions used to accommodate the burials. Low benches, carved in the bedrock, exist in T.28, T.51, T.61 and T.85, placed on the west, south-west and south sides, while in T.33 they are found on three sides of the chamber. They are attested in tombs exclusively used in the LH IIIA2 or in the LH IIIC period.

In situ primary burials were found on their own in 35 tombs; in 14 tombs they coexist with secondary treatment, representing at least 83 individuals. The primary burials are placed almost exclusively in an extended position, having in most cases their heads close to the entrance and their body along the main

30

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

individuals were identified, representing 10 males, 10 females and 10 children (McGeorge 2001: 82-93). The picture we have is balanced in respect to gender and also in terms of the presence of children due to the high mortality rate. Thus no gender bias or exclusion seems to exist in the privilege of being buried in a chamber tomb. Nevertheless only one infant is represented, perhaps indicating that a certain age had to be achieved for burial to be allowed in these tombs (McGeorge 2001: 94). It is also interesting to note that seven of the children come from T.4, which belongs to the LH IIIC period, perhaps reflecting a social stress on the family connected to the local population and the threats that might have been present at that time.

axis of the chambers. At the same time there is a slight preference for the bodies to be deposited on the left side of the chamber, when entering it. In 26 tombs secondary treatment was exclusively practiced, indicating a rather diverse picture of burial deposition in this cemetery. However overall at Ialysos there is a tendency for retaining primary burials in tombs without evidence of secondary treatment, especially when compared to the Argolid (Voutsaki 1993: 81-4, table 9.5), and even more when considering the tombs where more than one in situ burial existed, as in T.7, T.31, T.32, T.52, T.57, T.58, T.62 and T.70. Perhaps the most important thing was for the body of the deceased to be aligned to the main axis and orientation of the tomb. Thus it could be argued that the power of the ancestors was channeled through the dromos to areas where their protection was needed. As for the offerings they were equally placed by the head, body and feet of the primary burials.

In the internal arrangement of the tombs in Rhodes various elements are found. Low carved benches occur only at Aspropilia, in T.2 (central chamber), T.3, T.5 (central chamber) and T.6, with parallels only at Ialysos. All were constructed in the LH IIIA2 period, and the carving must have taken place when the tomb was cut, reinforced by its presence only in the central chamber of the two multi-chamber tombs. Stone slab paving has been found in Passia T.2 and Apsaktiras T.1 with offerings and parts of the deposition. There is a cavity cut at Ayios Minas T.1 probably functioning as a niche, whilst Dietz (1984: 53) reports the existence of niches cut in the side walls of the dromos close to the stomion in Apsaktiras T.11. In Yennadi T.1 a pebble floor was found in the preserved part of the chamber, with pebbles coming from the nearby local stream, rather than from the seashore. Thus in sites on Rhodes, apart from Ialysos, we find the same tendency for internal elaboration that has as its purpose the comfort of the deceased, especially when we consider that it is unclear how many people were allowed to enter the chamber. These installations seem not to have played a vital ritual role, if indeed they had one, since they were not particularly common.

Rhodes From the rest cemeteries on Rhodes the information comes from different areas and is of uneven quality: Kouri T.1, T.2 (5), Asprovilo T.5, T.6 (5), Maritsa T.2 (6), Kalopetra T.2 (7), Kalavarda T.1, T.2, T.3, T.4, and T.5 (8), Kaminaki-Lures T.1 (8), Lelos T.1, T.2, T.6 and T.7 (9), Ayios Minas T.1 (10), Tzigani T.1 (10), Yennadi T.1 (11), Passia T.1, T.2 and T.4 (12), Kalogrios T.1 (13), Apsaktiras T.1, T.2 and T.11 (14), Aspropilia T.1, T.2, T.3, T.4, T.5 and T.6 (15), and Archangelos T.1 (16), a total of 33 tombs. Sherds recovered from dromoi are uncommon, coming from Passia T.1 and T.2. However at the recently excavated Aspropilia cemetery, in all six tombs, sherds were found in the dromoi, corresponding chronologically to the periods of use, including the LH IIIC period in T.5 and T.6. Thus caution should exist in generalizing lack of evidence as ritual traditions are not so well documented in the other cemeteries. Moreover in Aspropilia T.3 animal bones were recovered by the blocking wall, perhaps connected to the funerary meals consumed or offerings to the deceased at the dromos.

The only probable case of cremation is reported at Kaminaki-Lures; a partial cremation, belonging to a LH IIIA2 context. In all cemeteries on Rhodes inhumation predominates, however primary burial has been found only in 7 cases, while there are 21 cases where secondary treatment has been found. In the two chambers of T.2 at Aspropilia, we have the only example of primary burial and secondary treatment coexisting (contra Voutsaki 1993: 134).

On average there are 3.03 burials per tomb, but only in the Aspropilia cemetery has anthropological analysis of the skeletal remains taken place. Thirty

31

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

However it must be noted that at Eleona and Langada the dromoi were not properly excavated.

Most of the inhumations reported in situ, at Kalavarda T.1 and T.3, Kalopetra T.2 and Maritsa T.2, were found in the northern part of the island perhaps influenced by the practices of Ialysos.

The pozzolana consistency of the bedrock does not allow good preservation of bones, thus we have the very low average of 1.88 burials per tomb. Positive evidence of child burial comes from T.59 and T.61, and another was recovered inside a pithos in the dromos of T.58.

The popularity and frequency of secondary treatment must be an indication of continuity in use and care for the deceased through a more frequent re-opening of the tomb and re-arrangement inside with all the appropriate rituals performed. In my opinion this reveals a closer and more frequent interaction of the living and the dead, something that highlights the importance of the deceased in the everyday conduct of life. Perhaps the role of the ancestors was more important or of a different character in the rural areas of Rhodes than in the main settlement of the island.

As for the internal arrangement of the tombs, at Langada T.1 and T.21 a carved pozzolana bench existed. In Mesaria T.1 a shallow pit was recovered inside the chamber and in the Giorgaras tholos tomb a shallow pit extends from the stomion to the centre of the tomb. In the same tomb stone paving was placed in the centre of the tholos. Stones forming shallow benches are found at Langada in T.29, T.37, T.38 and T.53. Additionally in T.17, T.45 and T.60 of the same burial site we have evidence of stones but it is uncertain whether they were part of the stone wall blocking or of a stone bench.

The offerings were mainly deposited next to the head and secondly by the feet and less often close to the body. Evidence of linen on the jaw of a skeleton in Aspropilia T.1 suggests a practice of holding the mouth of that person closed post mortem, indicating an extra care for the presentation of the individual (Karantzali 2001: 15). More linen remains occurred wrapped around the necks of a jug and two piriform jars in Aspropilia T.1 and in the main chamber of T.2. This indicated their use to retain the liquid offerings they contained, reminding us that the pots deposited in tombs were not always an offering in their own right, but containers of the real offerings that were intended to accompany the deceased on his/her journey to the afterworld. Moreover in Passia T.4 charcoal was reported in front of the stomion, perhaps indicating the practice of purification rituals in some cases, probably connected to the secondary treatment of the deceased.

The only case of cremation is reported at Langada T.44, where the ashes and the bones were placed inside a jug, in a tomb belonging to the LH IIIC period. The predominant burial practice on Kos is inhumation inside chamber tombs. However there is a pithos burial in the dromos of Langada T.58, perhaps a continuation of an older burial tradition that is reported on the island since the EBA. Exclusively primary burials are attested in 7 tombs and only secondary treatment is found in 30 tombs, while in 7 tombs primary and secondary burials coexist. The overall picture from Kos indicates a similarity to the Rhodian sites rather than Ialysos.

Kos

With the primary burials there is a tendency to place the deceased along the main axis of the chamber with their head closer to the back of the tomb. The corpses are equally placed in an extended and crouched position. The low coexistence of primary burial with secondary treatment recalls the sites on Rhodes rather than Ialysos.

From Kos our evidence comes primarily from the burial cluster of Eleona and Langada (17) cemetery as well as the tombs at Kastello (18), Giorgaras (19), Mesaria (20) and Ayia Paraskevi (21). From Mesaria T.1 and Langada T.48 sherds were reported in the dromos. In the latter burial area at T.40 and T.60 there were drinking and pouring vessels, while in T.58 a fragmentary female figurine was found most probably smashed against the stone wall.

There seems to be a preference for depositing the offerings close to the head, secondly along the body and less frequently at the feet. There is also a

32

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

Interestingly enough primary burial seems to be favoured, while only in T.22 there is evidence of secondary treatment. In T.15 the scattered bones recovered were carbonized, suggesting a cremation, as is the case in T.39, where primary inhumation and cremation coexist. In both these cases the cremated bones were just placed on the floor of the chamber, in contrast to T.3 where the cremated remains were placed inside a pot. All of the cremations are found in LH IIIA2-B contexts.

tendency to place bronze weapons and items close to the head, perhaps indicating their value or underlining the social status of the particular individual. Furthermore at Langada T.25 and T.57 at the back of the chambers evidence of burning exists on the ground. The position of the burning is incompatible with fumigation, since the specific area is inaccessible. Perhaps there is evidence of ritual activities connected to purification and perhaps to secondary treatment. In Langada T.21 and T.61 clay buttons were found burnt in the chambers reinforcing the hypothesis raised above.

At Miletos (27) the plan provided by Niemeier (1998: photo 11), suggests a practice of secondary treatment and the possibility of cremation in a LH IIIB-C1 context.

Our evidence strongly suggest that at Kos they frequently re-arranged the burials practicing secondary treatment, revealing a closer relationship between the living and deceased. Perhaps these rituals were transforming their deceased into ancestors and integrating the realm of the dead with that of the living.

At Ephesos (28) the few bones recovered probably belong to one person and they were placed inside a krater. However it remains unclear if this was the result of secondary treatment or of cremation. Inside the burial area animal bones were found along with other offerings, a practice rarely attested in the Southeastern Aegean. In this area the local variation of each site can be clearly seen. At Müskebi for example primary burials are favoured and on Astypalaia secondary treatment is more prominent, while on Samos different practices exist in different cemeteries. At any rate in all sites in this region primary and secondary treatment is attested.

South-eastern Aegean On Astypalaia at Armenochori T.1 and T.2 (22) sherds were reported in the dromos. However in both tombs no bones were recovered, in contrast to the two tombs at Syngairos that produced a few scattered burnt bones and ashes. At Armenochori the long use of the tomb may suggest a clearance of bones with the intention of burying new bodies, something that most probably took place in LH IIIC. At Syngairos (23) the bones may represent one or more cremations, but it is not clear whether they represent entirely or partly cremated bones; the fact remains that they belong to the LH IIIA2 and LH IIIA2-B period. In both tombs the burnt bones and ashes were deposited on the floor of the chamber.

Discussion Although the conditions of excavation and recovery are not ideal the picture that we have is that of diverse traditions and local idiosyncracies. The sherds recovered in the dromoi of the chamber tombs were not as common as in mainland Greece. However the cemeteries were not always properly excavated, unlike the one recently found at Aspropilia, where in all tombs sherds were reported. Thus any assessment could be misleading.

The built chamber tomb at the Heraion (24) on Samos has produced bones of an adult and an infant. Both offerings and bones were intentionally scattered, as part of the secondary treatment. In contrast to that, at Myloi (25), the chamber tomb contained most probably two primary burials. It is also interesting to note that at the Heraion the floor of the chamber was paved with stone slabs and pebbles and the whole tomb was covered by a 6m diameter earth mound.

As for the internal arrangement of the chamber, at Ialysos there is a special preference for pits and benches in contrast to the rest of the cemeteries on Rhodes. Only at Aspropilia do we find a similar popularity of benches in tombs. At Langada the most favoured installation was stone benches. It is also

From Müskebi (26) it is reported that T.6, T.15, T.22, T.34 and T.45 contained bones of one burial.

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The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

Cremation seems to appear in the South-eastern Aegean in the LH IIIA2 period, some of the earliest instances in the Mycenaean world. It is attested only sporadically at Karpathos, Rhodes, Astypalaia, Kos and Müskebi, but this new tradition already seems widespread in this region. It can be argued that it was most probably the result of close cultural interaction with north-western and central Anatolia, where cremation was already practiced. During the LH IIIC period there is an important increase in cremations especially at Ialysos, following the trend seen on the Greek mainland.

interesting to note the preservation of older traditions in the chamber tomb context. Thus we have a pithos burial at Langada, whilst pebble floors existed inside the chamber tombs at Yennadi, Ialysos and Heraion. Hence there is an incorporation of older and newer practices indicating continuation of at least some eschatological beliefs into the Mycenaean period. The characteristics attested inside chambers tombs in the South-eastern Aegean are similar to mainland cemeteries, except that some are less commonly found. Nevertheless the diversity that exists and the characteristics that are present highlight a canonical Mycenaean cemetery with some strong local features.

Although our information is limited in the case of both Karpathos and Ialysos, the presence of cremations as well as the larnakes reveals a wide interaction spectrum with Anatolia and Crete. Yet, despite the fact that Karpathos is close geographically to eastern Crete, the tombs used on the island were canonical Mycenaean, already from the LH IIIA1 period, and not cave tombs as in the Palaikastro area (Bosanquet 1901/2; Dawkins 1904/5; 1905/6). Thus the island seems to have close contacts not only with Crete, but also Rhodes where there are many similarities and also with Anatolia and the rest of the South-eastern Aegean.

The number of burials per tomb can be assessed for the whole South-eastern Aegean. At Karpathos, Ialysos, Kos and the other sites two burials are found per tomb, with Rhodes having the largest average at just over three. However it has to be noted that these measurements are not based on anthropological analyses, with the sole exception of Aspropilia. At any rate it is clear that on average the people deposited inside the chamber tombs in the South-eastern Aegean were fewer than in mainland Greece. Poor preservation is another factor that does not allow skeletons to be found, which may be why children are seldom identified.

It has become clear so far that each cemetery had its preferences as regards the internal installations, underlining the importance of local characteristics in the burial context. The same can be argued for the treatment of the body in the cemeteries across this region from the evidence of 162 tombs. Ialysos as a cemetery has a character of its own with a preference for primary burial, sometimes successive, placed in an extended position with the head close to the stomion. In 46.6% of the tombs there are exclusively in situ burials, in 34.6% only secondary burials and in just 18.6% primary and secondary burials are attested. This picture is very close to the situation at Mycenae (Cavanagh 1978: 171). Nonetheless it must be stressed that the statistics for Mycenae count together tombs that have exclusively primary burials, along with ones that have more than one primary burial and secondary ones. Thus at Ialysos there is one of the strongest preferences in the Mycenaean world for exclusively primary deposition of bodies in tombs. In most of the cemeteries on Rhodes, outside of Ialysos, secondary treatment of the deceased was preferred. There are only a few exceptions, located in the northern part of the island and indicating some

Nonetheless children are represented fairly well at Ialysos, but not in the rest of the cemeteries. In this assessement a drawback is the state of preservation of the tombs at Eleona and Langada. The anthropological evidence from Aspropilia reveals a new dimension that allows us to propose that most children, if not all, may have had the right or privilege to be placed alongside adults in the chamber. This point, as well as the widespread use of the chamber tombs, underlines that they were the main, if not the exclusive, burial tradition followed in this period. Nonetheless our evidence is limited as far as ascertaining whether there were gender or age criteria for permitting a burial, although it seems that infants were not as common as one would expect. Moreover it seems that all social groups could have a family or kin shared chamber tomb as the various quantities and qualities of offerings suggest (Mee and Cavanagh 1990: 242-3). The increase in child burials inside tombs during the LH IIIC period at Aspropilia might suggest a social stress related to descent and difficult socio-political conditions, but further evidence is needed to highlight whether this tendency was local or regional.

34

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

protectors of the land and the population, concerned with their fertility and in some cases protection from or of the sea.

influence from Ialysos as far as deposition practices are concerned. Exclusively primary burials are found in 23.3% of the tombs, only secondary treatment is asttested in 70% and both coexist in 3.3%. At Kos secondary treatment was more popular, but primary burials were present and were equally placed in an extended and crouched position. However there was a tendency to place the head at the back of the chamber, unlike Ialysos. Only primary burials were found in 16% of the tombs, exclusively secondary treatment is attested in 68% and both together in 16%. A similar preference for practicing only secondary treatment is seen on both Rhodes and Kos, while no parallels for such a trend can be found in the mainland. At Müskebi, the available evidence suggests that single primary burials were also preferred. For the rest of the sites there are not enough examples, although secondary treatment seems to be preferred.

Nevertheless it remains unclear why secondary treatment was not always practiced even in the same cemetery. It is possible that at Ialysos and Müskebi, where primary burials were favoured, the ancestors were not as important in the everyday conduct of the local group or of the family that owned the tomb. It seems that there was no single picture or explanation for the burial practices in this area or even in the same cemetery. It is highly probable that a number of different treatments were simultaneously performed, the choice between them being local, social or kinbased. In no case does this mean that there was any fundamental horizontal or vertical stratification based on burial deposition alone, as the architecture and offerings of the tombs underline.

The primary burials permit us to visualize the ekphora process, especially at Ialysos and Müskebi. The corpse was carried on his/her bier from the house to the tomb having his/her head at the back and the feet at the front or the head at the front and the feet at the back. Thus the deceased in the first case would appear to participate as a member of the community, but in the second would be its focus. Some rituals must have been performed outside the dromos before entering the tomb. Their exact nature is unclear, but they may have included libations or funerary dirges and a few spoken words. The bier with the deceased would then be taken inside the chamber in the same fashion since it would be impossible to manoeuver in the dromos and just as difficult in the small chamber. Thus, perhaps apart from the practical considerations, we have a different symbolic role for the deceased in each cemetery and different beliefs expressed about the position of the individual in the social group.

The overall picture we have from the South-eastern Aegean is that the basic ideas and practices that are connected with chamber tombs and are attested in mainland Greece were performed to various degrees. These local idiosyncracies derived from the social structure, and the degree of interaction with other and older traditions. The differences in concepts and practices related to the burial context emphasize the fact that this region did not form a unity. Nonetheless there were many common elements in the beliefs connected to burials, and therefore is the social structures in this area. At the same time the similarities between the cemeteries of this region and those of the Greek mainland involve the basic concepts and beliefs rather than the more specific preferences such as the internal installations and the treatment of the dead. In other words in the Southeastern Aegean during the Myceaean period there is diversity and localism, a real mosaic of ideas and practices, as far as the burial tradition is concerned.

Secondary treatment of the corpse is present in all cemeteries of the South-eastern Aegean, however it was practiced differently. Local preferences as regards this treatment are clear at Karpathos, Rhodes (apart from Ialysos), Kos, and Astypalaia. As suggested earlier, in my opinion, the secondary treatment was part of the burial rituals and more specifically facilitated the transformation of the dead to anonymous ancestors. In this process the interaction of living with the dead was closer, by turning the deceased into ancestors, so that they could play an active role in their lives. Hence they were the

Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to all the help my supervisor Prof. C.B. Mee has provided me. I would also like to thank Dr. G. Muskett for corrections in my text and Dr. C. Gallou for our useful discussions.

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The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

Grinsell L.V. 1961. “The breaking of objects as a funerary rite”, Folklore 72: 475-91. Grinsell L.V. 1973. “The breaking of objects as a funerary rite: supplementary notes”, Folklore 72: 111-4. Hope Simpson R. 1965. A Gazetteer and Atlas of Mycenaean Sites [BICS Supplement 16], London. Hope Simpson R. and Lazenby J.F. 1962. “Notes from the Dodecanese”, BSA 57: 154-75. Hope Simpson R. and Lazenby J.F. 1970. “Notes from the Dodecanese ii”, BSA 65: 47-77. Hope Simpson R. and Lazenby J.F. 1973. “Notes from the Dodecanese iii”, BSA 68: 127-79. Iakovidis S. 1969. “Τα Μυκηναϊκά έθιµα ταφής”, ΑΑΑ 2: 120-31. Iakovidis S.E. 1970. Περατή- Το Νεκροταφείον, vols. Α-Γ, Athens. Inglieri R.U. 1936. Carta Archaeologica dell’ Isola di Rodi, 1: 50.000, Firenze. Jacopi G. 1930/1. “Nuovi scavi nella necropoli Micenea di Jalisso”, ASAtene 13-4: 253-345. Jacopi G. 1932. “Sepolcreto Miceneo di Calavarda”, Clara Rhodos 6-7: 133-50. Kantzia C. 1984. “Κως”, ArchDelt 39 Χρονικά: 32931. Karantzali E. 1993. “Πυλώνα (θέση Ασπροπηλιά)”, ArchDelt 48 Χρονικά: 542-3. Karantzali E. 1999. “Νέοι Μυκηναϊκοί τάφοι Ρόδου”, Η Περιφέρεια του Μυκηναϊκού Κόσµου, Lamia: 285-300. Karantzali E. 2001. The Mycenaean Cemetery at Pylona on Rhodes, [BAR-IS 988], Oxford. Kontorli-Papadopoulou L. 1987. “Some aspects concerning local peculiarities of the Mycenaean chamber tombs”, Thanatos- Les Coutumes Funeraires en Egee a l’Age du Bronze [Aegaeum 1], R. Laffineur (ed.), Liège: 145-60. Macdonald C. 1986. “Problems of the twelfth century BC in the Dodecanese”, BSA 81: 125-51. Macdonald C.F. 1988. “Rhodes during the twelfth century B.C. and its role in the Aegean”, Problems in Greek Prehistory, E.B. French and K.A. Wardle (eds.), Bristol: 263. Maiuri A. 1926. “Jalisos scavi della missione archeologica Italiana a Rodi”, ASAtene 6-7: 83256. Maiuri A. 1928. “Jalisos e l’agro Jalisio”, ClRh 1: 5665. McGeorge P.J.P. 2001. “Anthropological approach to the Pylona tombs: the skeletal remains”, The

Bibliography Åkerström Å. 1988. “Cultic installations in Mycenaean rooms and tombs”, Problems in Greek Prehistory, E.B. French and K.A. Wardle (eds.), Bristol: 201-6. Bass G.F. 1963. “Mycenaean and Protogeometric tombs in the Halikarnassos peninsula”, AJA 67: 353-61. Benzi M. 1982. “Tombe Micenee di Rodi riutilizzate nel TE III C”, SMEA 23: 323-35. Benzi M. 1988. “Mycenaean Rhodes: a summary”, Archaeology in the Dodecanese, S. Dietz and I. Papachristodoulou (eds.), Copenhagen: 59-72. Benzi M. 1992. Rodi e la Civiltà Micenea, vol. 1-2, Rome. Bosanquet R.C. 1901/2. “Excavations at Palaikastro. i”, BSA 8: 286-316. Boysal Y. 1967. “New excavations in Caria”, Anadolu (Anatolia) 11: 31-56. Cavanagh W.G. 1978. “A Mycenaean second burial custom?”, BICS 25: 171-2. Cavanagh W. and Mee C. 1978. “The re-use of earlier tombs in the LH IIIC period”, BSA 73: 31-44. Cavanagh W. and Mee C. 1998. A Private Place: Death in Prehistoric Greece, [SIMA 125], Göteborg. Charitonidis S.I. 1961/2. “Θαλαµοειδής τάφος Καρπάθου”, ArchDelt 17 Μελέται: 32-76. Charitonidis S.I. 1963. “Μυκηναϊκά εκ Ρόδου”, ArchDelt 18 Μελέται: 133-40. Davis J.L. 1992. “Review of Aegean prehistory i: the islands of the Aegean”, AJA 96: 699-756. Davis J.L., Tzonou-Herbst I. and Wolpert A.D. 2001. “Addendum: 1992-1999”, Aegean Prehistory- A Review, T. Cullen (ed.), Boston: 77-94. Dawkins R.M. 1904/5. “Excavations at Palaikastro. iv”, BSA 11: 258-92. Dawkins R.M. 1905/6. “Excavations at Palaikastro. v”, BSA 12: 1-8. Dietz S. 1984. Lindos IV, 1. Excavations and Surveys in Southern Rhodes: The Mycenaean Period, Copenhagen. Dickinson O.T.P.K. 1982. “Cist graves and chamber tombs”, BICS 29: 123-5 Dickinson O.T.P.K. 1983. “Cist graves and chamber tombs”, BSA 78: 55-67. Dickinson O.T.P.K. 1996. The Aegean Bronze Age, Cambridge. Doumas C. 1975. “Αστυπάλαια”, ArchDelt 30 Χρονικά: 372.

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Morricone L. 1972/3. “Coo- scavi e scoperte nel ‘Serraglio’ e in località minori (1935-1943)”, ASAtene 50-1: 139-396. Mountjoy P.A. 1999. Regional Mycenaean Decorated Pottery, vol. 1-2, Rahden/Westf. Mylonas G.E. 1948. “Homeric and Mycenaean burial customs”, AJA 52: 56-81. Mylonas G.E. 1966. Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age, Princeton. Niemeier W.-D. 1998. “The Mycenaeans in Western Anatolia and the problem of the origins of the Sea Peoples”, Mediterranean Peoples in TransitionThirteen to Early Tenth Centuries BCE, S. Gitin, A. Mazar and E. Stern (eds.), Jerusalem: 17-65. Papazoglou L. 1981. “Μυκηναϊκός θαλαµωτός τάφος στο Κάστελλο της Κω”, ΑΑΑ 14: 62-75. Tsountas C. and Manatt J.I. 1897. The Mycenaean Age- a Study of the Monuments and Culture of Pre-Homeric Greece, London. Vasilikou N. 1995. Ο Μυκηναϊκός Πολιτισµού, Athens. Voutsaki S. 1993. Society and Culture in the Mycenaean World: An Analysis of Mortuary Practices in the Argolid, Thessaly and the Dodecanese, Unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge. Zachariadou O. 1978. “Θαλαµοειδής τάφος στην Αρκάσα Καρπάθου”, ArchDelt 33 Μελέται: 24995. Zapheiropoulos N. 1960. “Σάµος”, ArchDelt 16 Χρονικά: 249. Zervoudaki I. 1971. “Αρµενοχώρι”, ArchDelt 26 Χρονικά: 550-1.

Mycenaean Cemetery on Rhodes, [BAR-IS 988], E. Karantzali (ed.), Oxford: 82-99. Mee C.B. 1975. The Dodecanese in the Bronze Age, vol. 1-2, Unpublished PhD Thesis, London. Mee C. 1982. Rhodes in the Bronze Age: An Archaeological Survey, Warminster. Mee C. 1998. “Gender bias in Mycenaean mortuary practices”, Cemetery and society in the Aegean Bronze Age, K. Branigan (ed.), Sheffield: 165170. Mee C.B. and Cavanagh W.G. 1984. “Mycenaean tombs as evidence for social and political organisation”, OJA 3: 45-64. Mee C.B. and Cavanagh W.G. 1990. “The spatial distribution of Mycenaean tombs”, BSA 85: 22543. Melas E.M. 1984. “The origins of Aegean cremation”, Ανθρωπολογικά 5: 21-36. Melas E.M. 1985. The Islands of Karpathos, Saros and Kasos in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, [SIMA 68], Göteborg. Melas M. 2001. “Καύσεις νεκρών- προς µιά αρχαιολογία του φόβου”, Καύσεις στην Εποχή του Χαλκού και την Πρώιµη Εποχή του Σιδήρου, N.C. Stampolidis (ed.), Athens: 15-29. Milojcic V. 1961. Samos- Band I- Die Prähistorische Siedlung unter dem Heraion- Grabung 1953 und 1955, Bonn. Morricone L. 1965/6. “Eleona e Langada: sepolcreti della Tarda Età del Bronzo a Coo”, ASAtene 43-4: 5-311.

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The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

Keys to Map 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Tou Stavrou to Kefali Vonies Makelli Ialysos Paradeisi (Kouri, Asprovilo) Maritsa Kalopetra Kalavarda (Kaminaki-Lures) Lelos Kattavia (Ayios Minas, Tzigani) Yennadi Passia Kalogrios Apsaktiras

38

Aspropilia Archangelos Eleona and Langada Kastello Giorgaras Mesaria Ayia Paraskevi Armenochori Syngairos Heraion Myloi Müskebi Miletos Ephesos

The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

Figure 1. Map of the South-eastern Aegean

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The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period

70 60 50

Ialysos

40 30

Rhodes

20

Kos

10 0

Primary

Secondary

Both

Figure 2. Deposition Practice at Ialysos, Rhodes and Kos

40

worshipped alongside the traditional Greek deities. As a result of this situation, an inevitable process of interaction took place and changed the role of the Greek and foreign deities who had already abandoned their original roles in the newly mixed world and were being understood as entities of a common religious system rather than expressions of their local traditional religion (Martin 1987:10). This cultural process is already known as ‘syncretism’ (mixed or joined together) and also defines the main feature of the Hellenistic religion. It derived from the political model of Hellenistic society as the mixture of the people resulting from the conquests of Alexander the Great. The problem of the Greek culture abroad has conventionally been cast in terms of Hellenisation, which seems to imply the deliberate or inevitable imposition of Greek ways over local ones. The referred term is an idea, which reflects modern forms of cultural domination.

The ‘hellenisation’ of Isis among the Greek deities Danai-Christina Naoum Introduction The most important aspect of this paper, which forms the starting point of my PhD thesis, is the identification of the Egyptian goddess Isis in the Hellenistic period. Although the main focus of this research is based on the territory of Greece, questions of different appearances and expectations of double readings, concerning the representation of Isis in iconography, have been raised. It should be noted that this article represents work in progress, and, as such, many of the themes are not fully developed. It is well known that her cult became very popular and widespread in Egypt, especially in Alexandria, where the Ptolemies were ruling. However, the goddess itself progressively assimilated with the Greek deities, such as Demeter and Artemis and cultural influences concerning religious matters started to take place between Egypt and Greece. This paper aims at demonstrating, through the available archaeological material evidence, the overall importance of the goddess Isis. More specifically, it aims at explaining what makes the goddess Isis so special through her arrangement with other deities, her association to the foreign cult places, her superiority among other oriental religions and the possible political aspiration of this situation that was significant for the Hellenistic world. Finally, I need to explain to the reader that such terms as ‘hellenisation’, ‘internationalism’ are used in the text only in their traditional meaning and there is no way of double readings.

The Mysteries Throughout the Hellenistic world practices of mysteries were taking place in terms of this new religious atmosphere and proved to be easily accessible to the society. The term ‘mystery’ in the Hellenistic period defined certain Greek cults being accompanied by the eastern cultic activity that spread rapidly under the favourable conditions of empire generally speaking. These mysteries involved an initiation in which the problematic nature of an existence ruled by Tyche/Fortuna was not denied, escaped or controlled, but rather transformed into an existence ruled by a goddess in her guise of ‘True Fortune’ (Martin 1987: 59). The deities of these mysteries were very well known and popular and were still remembered by the historical origin (either Greek or Egyptian) but this became less important within the Hellenistic internationalism as all of them were now universal deities. Thus, the world was invited to Eleusis to become initiated into the Mysteries of Demeter, and the Egyptian Isis revealed to Lucius, a tragic hero in Apulieus’ Golden Bough, so that her name and divinity was important and adored throughout the world (Martin 1987:59).

The transformation of the socio-political world after Alexander the Great and of the traditional cosmic image was paralleled in Greece and elsewhere by a transformation of religious forms. As a result of this event, the ancient festival of Demeter, for instance, goddess of grain, celebrated at Eleusis, enjoyed renewed popularity in the Hellenistic world and survived well into the period of Roman decline. The Hellenistic internationalism welcomed eastern deities, such as the Egyptian Isis, who found herself as a cultural citizen in Hellenistic society and was

The Greek goddess Demeter was a member of the Olympian family according to Homer and her public ritual was conducted in Athens and Eleusis annually. The meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries had been

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The ‘hellenisation’ of Isis among the Greek deities

know about them? How close were the boundaries between Greek and Egyptian religious practices, in the so-called Hellenistic internationalism?

interpreted as an agricultural ‘practice’ in which the corn goddess revealed and secured the fertility of the earth. Due to Alexander’s expectation of an empire being constructed by strong Greek elements that was realised in the eastern cities, an increased urban resistance towards the Greek culture created the spread of many other native cults that were adapted in a Hellenic form of mystery by the second century BC. The Mysteries of Isis provided the main example for these non-Greek Mysteries.

Moreover, there are also strong similarities between the Homeric Hymn of Demeter and the Hellenistic myth of Isis as narrated by Plutarch and this indicates the shaping of non-Greek myths by religious conventions more familiar to a hellenised cosmopolitanism (Martin 1987: 79). As previously mentioned, the Egyptian cults arrived in Greece long before Isis’ official arrival, with the introduction of the god Ammon. The reason for this arrival was some Egyptian, residents of Athens, tried to receive from the demos a plot of land and permission to establish a temple there for Isis. Already, Athenian generals were conducting sacrifices to Ammon by the fourth century BC at the oracle at Siwa and the cult of Isis was limited to immigrants. Soon, Ammon opened the way for many foreign deities to arrive in Greece, particularly those of Egyptian origin. The Egyptians managed to get the land and finally established a temple of Isis in Attica, near the port of Piraeus, according to the decree dated in 332 BC that has been found. Dedications to Ammon in the Serapeum in Delos had already taken place earlier.

The spread of Isis’cult The Egyptian Isis was already known outside her homeland since the fifth century BC and she had often been identified with the Greek goddess Demeter. By the fourth century, in the port of Piraeus, Athenian citizens and Egyptians who had settled there worshipped her. The discovery of a decree (Vidman 1969: no.1) in Athens shows the request of the Egyptian immigrants to erect a temple in honour of Isis. During the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled in Egypt, Isis became widely worshipped especially by the first ruler Ptolemy Soter. By the second and first centuries BC, Isis along with Sarapis spread rapidly from Alexandria throughout the Hellenistic world and merchants, travellers and military forces carried their worship. Her mysteries became very popular in the Hellenistic world, recognising no racial or geographic distinctions and survived until Christianity. The mysteries of Isis had their public and private practices comparing them with those of Demeter. According to Plutarch’s account, Timotheus, a Greek ritualist of the priestly Eumolpid family of Eleusis, who had been invited to Egypt, assisted Ptolemy of Egypt about his Sarapis project (Martin 1987: 78).

Concerning the archaeological evidence, not much is known so far about the establishment of Isis’ shrine or temple in Piraeus that had been requested by some Egyptians. However, two personalities, an Egyptian and a Greek, had introduced this new cult of Isis. The Egyptian was Manetho, a historian, who was writing in Greek for the Greeks, and the Athenian Timotheos. Soon, both of them became very famous in high intellectual societies. The attitude of the majority of the Athenian citizens towards the Egyptian cults was very close and familiar especially by their continuous contact with Delos after the acquisition of the island by them in 166 BC.

The mixed Greco-Egyptian culture in relation to religion It seems, however that the sanctuaries where Isis was worshipped were not all accessible to many people in the Hellenistic world, considering that the people who came from the eastern countries were not meat-eaters. Did Egyptians separately make rituals in the pure Egyptian manner, and if this is the case, what type of class was participating in those ceremonies? There are clear examples that Greek citizens were attending in private ceremonies that honoured Isis; what do we

Delos had become the major religious centre by that time. Temples and shrines were established very fast and numerous acts of private worships were carried out in the Serapeum, although as yet there is no clear idea how it was arranged. The wealth was increasing in the shrines where Egyptian deities were worshipped. Only the temple of Apollo in Delos surpassed the large number of votive offerings that

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The ‘hellenisation’ of Isis among the Greek deities

were found by archaeologists in the Serapeum (Dow 1937: 202). Although in Athens, the citizens of a few families, possibly noble ones, showed a distinct interest in the cult of Isis and as early as the third century BC, names were given to them such as ‘Isigenes’ or ‘Sarapion’. Delos had become for them the ideal place in practising and understanding more the Egyptian cult of Isis which was becoming Greek in its form, after the conquests of Alexander the Great. By the time of the death of Ptolemy the third, Ptolemy the fourth took over the empire (221-203 BC) and he was markedly partial to the cult but of Dionysos rather than that of Sarapis. If the Ptolemy could himself publicly favour, above all others, the cult of a different god, then whatever backing earlier Ptolemies had given to Sarapis outside Egypt, it was withdrawn (Dow 1937: 229).

In a sacrifice, on the occasion of an annual celebration of a deity, its hierarchical position was really important. The god could have acquired the ability to impose on others, or alternatively, he or she could have underlined the double nature of a particular deity. In some cases, the deity could have shown how a single divine power could combine two statues, passing from one level to the other, either in similar but distinct rituals or within the context of one and the same sacrifice (Sissa and Detienne 2000: 160). Sacrificing to one god on the altar of another could have indicated their respective places in hierarchy, in one particular place or in one particular day. In Magnesia, Apollo the Pythian was offered a sacrifice on the altar of Artemis on the day of the ritual addressed jointly to Zeus Sosipolis, the Zeus who was the Saviour of the city, to Artemis Leukophryene, and to Pythian, while Apollo, the founder of the city of Magnesians, along with Dionysos, dominated a thickly packed pantheon (Sissa and Detienne 2000: 162).

The assimilation of Isis to the Greek pantheon No matter what the future will reveal in terms of the Egyptian cults in Greece, it is very clear to me that Isis proved to be better suited to religious needs than her partner and this can be assured by the numerous dedications to her, both in Delos and in Athens, especially by the second century BC. It was also suggested that she was worshipped in the precincts of the Greek gods. The growing assimilation of Isis with the female Greek deities explains the following assumption that Isis was favoured by the simple people, to the low class (slaves), to the immigrants and gradually she was playing a major role in the religious demands and needs of the aristocratic class.

As a result of this process, Zeus was very familiar with the condition of being honoured on the altars of others, thus he would have been called the Zeus of Hera (Zeus Heraios) or the Zeus of Demeter (Zeus Damatrios). Therefore, I believe that in the same way, Isis was honoured under the name of Demeter, Artemis or Aphrodite. Often, we find in Greece the iconography of Isis’ statues representing her as IsisDemeter, Isis-Artemis, or as an individual with her own qualities without necessarily acquiring attributes from other Greek deities. Conclusively, a developing assimilation was taking place throughout Greece, and most probably in the rest of Hellenistic world.

At this level, I should refer to the Greek pantheon that appears to be increasingly rich in groupings of deities, in explicit hierarchies that are based on antagonisms and affinities and to stress its polytheistic character. It was suggested that in societies where there were hundreds of gods, any definition of a particular god needed to be differentiated and classified. A god could not be defined in static terms, but he had to be identified by the whole collection of positions that he or she occupied at one time or another in the complete series of his or her manifestations (Sissa and Detienne 2000: 160).

Conclusions Concerning the ritual part of a sacrifice, during the festival of a deity, there was a specific procedure that needed to be followed. The offerings made to the gods included meat, which along with cereals, was extremely important to the Greek people. In the view of other people though, such as Egyptians, meat was not ideal. So, there seems to be a problem in the way of sacrificing. If we consider that during the Ptolemaic period, the goddess Isis was assimilated to the Greek pantheon, and was honoured in many precincts and temples, how and what type of arrangement was made for the meat-eaters? After all, the sacrifice was

The twelve gods in Greece for instance, were honoured in various ways, sometimes with altars or sanctuaries-precincts and other times within temples.

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The ‘hellenisation’ of Isis among the Greek deities

between the gods (no matter if these differences concern Isis, Aphrodite or Demeter, or Isis-Demeter), the practice of a sacrifice also helped people acknowledge the existing gap between themselves and the gods. Hellenism is therefore redefined as bridging gods and humans, or as bridging people together, regardless of their race and their origins.

considered to be the basis which maintained the relations between gods and people, allowing the Greeks to think and understand about others and also about themselves. The latter is evident in Herodotus’ testimony, when he concentrates on the peculiarity of the Scythians or the strangeness of the Egyptians (Sissa and Detienne 2000: 172). In addition to preventing people from thinking of the differences

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The ‘hellenisation’ of Isis among the Greek deities

Bibliography Martin L.H. 1987. Hellenistic Religions, New York and Oxford. Sissa G. and Detienne M. 2000. The Daily Life of the Greek Gods, J. Lloyd (trns), California. Vidman L. 1969. Sylloge Inscriptionum Religionis Isiacae et Sarapiacae, Berlin. Wild R.A. 1984. The Known Isis -Sarapis Sanctuaries of the Roman Period. ANRW II 17.4: 1740-851. Witt R.E. 1997. Isis in the Ancient World, Baltimore and London.

Corsu F. 1977. Isis Mythe et Mystères,Collection D’études Mythologiques, Centre de Recherches Mythologiques de l’Université de Paris, Les Belles Lettres (eds.), Paris. Dunand F. 2000. Isis: mere des dieux, Errance, Paris Dow S. 1937. The Egyptian Cults in Athens. HTR 30, 184-232. Long C.R.1987. The twelve gods of Greece and Rome, EPRO 107, Vermaseren M.J.(edr.), Brill, Leiden.

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PART II: RITUALS AND TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

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for men and i-je-re-ja or i-e-re-ja (ιέρεια) for women. However, written evidence concerning Mycenaean priesthood is limited, and does not derive from a source dealing exclusively with religion. Unfortunately, there are no texts recording Mycenaean religious beliefs and cult practices, as in Egypt and the Near East. Linear B tablets are economic and administrative documents and therefore any reference to priests and priestesses is of an administrative nature. Consequently, the entries register them either as recipients of commodities or as cult personnel. Mentions of priests and priestesses are found exclusively on the tablets from Pylos and Knossos, whereas the very few religious tablets record the disbursement of commodities to sanctuaries, deities and individuals certainly of a religious status. PY Tn 316 for example, records a number of valuable offerings, like gold vessels, made to various divinities and sanctuaries. Although the entries are of economic and administrative character and priests are not mentioned, the presence of cult centres is indicative of the existence of specialized staff.

Priests and Priestesses in the Mycenaean period Christina Aamont The aim of this paper is to assess the evidence concerning the existence of specialized personnel in the performance of ritual during the Mycenaean period. The existence of religious and ritual specialists depends on the belief that there are particular persons to whom the supernatural is better understood than to the majority of the people. Spiritual people are charismatic individuals, who possess the ability to understand the divine sphere and interpret its signs, and for that reason they function as intermediates between common people and the divine. Religious specialists are necessary because often the ways of the divine, hidden or obscure to most people, are only revealed and understood by them. Therefore, these people, in addition to the fact that they are considered charismatic, are often believed to have the favour of the deity. Consequently, they possess the knowledge of how to approach the divinity and restore peace and order whenever these are interrupted (Wallace 1966: 56). Moreover, because of the close connection between the divine and the religious specialists, it is only they who know how to perform the rituals that are necessary for the maintenance of the relationship with the supernatural sphere. The existence of an intermediary therefore, reduces the risk of error that is probable when people who do not understand it and do not know how to handle it, approach the divine. The role of cult specialists, thus, is twofold: primarily as intermediaries, between the divine sphere and the earthly place, and as interpreters of the divine signs of the god, but also as performers of rituals, the practice of which cannot be left to the hands of the ignorant.

Priests and priestesses appear in three types of records: those listing land tenure, the disbursement of commodities and lists of personnel. They are defined either only by their office -as i-je-re-u or i-je-re-ja-, (e.g. PY Fn 837.5, KN Am 821.2 and KN C 7048.2 for priests, and PY Ae 303, PY Eo 02 and PY Eb 297.1 for priestesses) or by their personal names, like ne-wo-ki-to, we-te-re-u and sa-ke-re-u (e.g. PY An 29, PY Eo 04 [247.7] and PY Ea 776.1) and e-ri-ta (e.g. PY Ep 704), in terms of priestesses. Occasionally, they are named after the specific sanctuary or cult they serve, as in the case of the a-ne-mo i-je-re-ja (KN Fp 1.10), the priestess of the winds at Knossos. It is not certain whether this differentiation has some particular meaning or is mere coincidence, although it is more likely that those recorded by their personal names -if we accept that these are proper names- for some reason need to be distinguished, either so that they will not be confused with some other religious official, or because they are well-known, i.e. they have a certain status. In the case of the “priestess of the winds” the title seems to designate a priestess of a particular cult that is presumably widely known.

The existence of such specialists during the Mycenaean period is verified both from written documentation, as well as from the archaeological material. This consists mostly of artistic representations but may also include evidence from burial contexts. The existence of people specialized in the performance of ritual cannot be doubted since the priestly office is designated by a special term in the Linear B tablets, namely i-je-re-u or i-e-re-u (ιερεύς)

The most informative records are those connected to land tenure by various individuals, among them priests. An example is PY Eo 224.8, which records the amount of wheat, i.e. land that the priestess of Pa-

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the servants of the god (te-o-jo do-e-ro /do-e-ra), e.g. PY En 609.6 for te-o-jo do-e-ra and similarly En 609.7 for te-o-jo do-e-ra. These appear mostly in the E series from Pylos and are probably referring to persons who were dedicated to the deity. The “slaves of the god” do not seem to be chattel slaves since they own land as free men (Murray 1979: 368). Consequently, the title may have been honorary presumably referring to persons who had some kind of religious tasks. Likewise, religious functions seem to have been connected with certain high officials, like the te-le-ta and the la-wa-ge-ta, although their actual role is ambiguous (Hooker 1989: 169). The lawagetas for example is mentioned both as a donor and as a recipient of cult-offerings (Hooker 1989: 169). This simply indicates that the distinction between secular and sacred in Mycenaean society is often ambiguous, and that political and religious authority seems to have been interrelated in a way we cannot yet fully understand.

ki-ja-na holds from a person called a-ma-ru-ta (Hooker 1980: 141). Members of the priesthood are recorded as holding a particular plot either part of the plots of an individual (ki-ti-me-na), as in the aforementioned example, or from those of the community (pa-ro da-mo or ke-ke-me-na). In some cases, as in the case of priestess e-ri-ta, they hold both communal and individual land. The priesthood is also mentioned in tablets recording the distribution of commodities, which are of a higher value than those given to workers and similar to those offered to deities. The “priestess of the winds”, for example, is receiving oil in KN Fp tablet, a document that also lists divinities as recipients of oil (Ventris and Chadwick 1973: 307). Entries on priests and priestesses are also included in tablets listing secular personnel, e.g. KN Am 821, PY An 29, or the PY Qa series (Murray 1979: 351). An ambiguous record is PY Ae 303 dealing with groups of women, where a priestess is receiving fourteen women on account of the sacred gold. Based on parallels from Classical Greece, this document has been taken as an indication of the existence of a shrine at Pylos that was under the control of a priestess, and in which a quantity of gold was deposited (Hooker 1989: 166). It is interesting to note that the lists do not specifically record cult personnel, but rather secular, which may suggest that there was no need to record the priesthood independently of the rest of the personnel. Finally, evidence of priests and priestesses can be acquired also from references to cult places. One such entry is TH Of 36 distributing wool to various persons –often divine- and places, including the “House of Potnia”, which appears to be a shrine (Hooker 1980: 155).

Priests and priestesses may also be represented in art, particularly in processional frescoes, but also on seals, larnakes and pictorial vases. Processional frescoes depict the ceremonial offering of gifts to the deity and are commonly attested in Mycenaean palaces. The processional frescoes found on the mainland consist exclusively of female figures, except for the Pylos procession, dressed in the Minoan festal dress, with elaborate hairstyle, each bearing an offering and proceeding towards a divine recipient. The deity is depicted enthroned, whereas sometimes she is aniconic or is replaced by a cult structure. The character of the offerings, that is pyxides, flowers, stone vases, necklaces and figurines, also confirms the religious character of these frescoes. Some of these objects have also been associated with deities from other contexts. For example, the figurines found in the Temple Complex at Mycenae holding or wearing necklaces, indicate that ornaments were actually offered to the divinities in shrines (French 1981: 173). The presence of a small two-handled bowl filled with a variety of objects including amber and glass beads in the Room with the Idols at Mycenae and similarly the finds of beads made near the platforms in the West Shrine at Phylakopi further testifies to the offering of necklaces to the deities (Renfrew 1985: 408, 372, 385). The offering of gifts to deities is likewise recorded in the Linear B tablets, specifically in PY Tn 316, which itemizes donations of vessels and human beings to divinities.

The occurrence of some words that seem to be referring to cult attendants but are different from that for the priest and priestess have been interpreted as indicating priestly posts (Vermeule 1964: 297). These are the ka-la-wi-po-ra (the Key-bearer), the i-je-rowo-ko (the Sacrificer), the ki-ri-te-wi-ja (the BarleySprinkler), and the pu-ko-wo (the Fire Tender). The interpretation of some of these words, however, is not certain, though most of them have been paralleled with roles known from Greek religion. In addition, the status of these functionaries, if indeed the interpretation is correct, is not clear, nor is it known with certainty whether these were different roles within the priestly office or different offices altogether. Finally, some tablets include references to

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existence of narrow corridors leading either to the Throne Room or to a shrine as at Mycenae, together with the testimony of Linear B, suggest that ceremonial processions were actually taking place and passed through those rooms and corridors that the processional frescoes decorated. In addition, instead of simply having a decorative role in the room it is possible that processional frescoes directed the actual procession as “sign posts”, as well as perpetuatinf the ritual during the period when none was performed (Niemeier 1992: 98).

The processional frescoes are quite standardized and thus do not present many differences from one palace to the other. However, two unique examples come from the Cult Centre of Mycenae. In the Southwest Building two seated figures were identified. The one consists of a large fragment of the upper part of a lifesize woman, the so-called “Mykenaia”, who holds in her right hand a necklace of beads. Fragments of a flounced skirt have been connected to her, suggesting that the “Mykenaia” is a goddess who just received a necklace as an offering (Immerwahr 1990: 119). Another wall must have been decorated with a second procession, a fragment of which presents a foot resting on a footstool that clearly belongs to a seated figure. Another fragment illustrates a pair of female hands holding a figurine, which however is not one of the usual Mycenaean clay figurines (Immerwahr 1990: 119). It is not certain to whom the pair of hands belongs, but it has been suggested that the fresco depicts the offering of a gift to a goddess (Immerwahr 1990: 119).

Processions are also depicted on the Tanagra larnakes, which suggest that they could also be part of a funerary rite. In this case, however, the female figures dressed in flounced skirts, bodices and plumed caps with arms raised in the mourning gesture, such as on larnax No. 7 seem to represent mourners (Immerwahr 1995: 110). However, some of the figures depicted seem to have a religious role. Very indicative is the larnax from Tomb 36, representing a female holding a kylix, presumably a reference to the pouring of libations at the entrance of the tomb (Immerwahr 1995: 116), a practice that is attested archaeologically by the shattered kylikes found in front of the stomion of LH III chamber tombs (Cavanagh and Mee 1995: 50). The scene depicted on a larnax from Tomb 15, where a procession of mourners approaches a figure – probably a priest- holding on his outstretched arm a large figurine with raised arms (Immerwahr 1995: 116), may perhaps indicate a “theophoria”, a festival recorded also in the Linear B tablets, e.g. in KN Ga 1058 and Od 696. The larnakes have not been fully published, therefore no conclusions can be reached; however, it would be plausible to suggest that they seem to represent funerary rites in which priests and priestesses most certainly took part.

The procession from Room 5 at the Palace at Pylos is an exception among mainland processional scenes, and was influenced most probably from Crete. The painting is fragmentary, therefore not securely restorable, but it seems to include both female and male figures all proceeding left with a possible largescale bull in the middle (Lang 1969: 38). The figures are placed in two bands, and are most probably carrying gifts. At least one woman is also involved, although she does not form the focal point but rather part of the procession, which most likely leads the bull to be sacrificed (Lang 1969: 38). The male figures wear either kilts or long bordered robes, very similar to those represented on the Aghia Triadha sarcophagus and the Procession Fresco of Knossos (Lang 1969: 40). The variety in costume may indicate different roles, with the men in long robes possessing a religious role and those in kilts being the assistants as they seem to be carrying the equipment for the sacrifice (Lang 1969: 193). The only woman depicted is more likely a priestess.

The Aghia Triadha sarcophagus similarly depicts rites performed for the dead and consists of a sacrifice, a libation, and a presentation scene. The identification of the priestess in the sacrifice and the libation scene is not very straightforward, because in both scenes two women, one in a long robe and one in hide skirt are performing similar gestures. Most scholars have identified the woman in front of the altar and the one pouring liquid into a bucket as priestesses due to the hide skirts they are wearing, which is considered to be the hieratic dress (Long 1974: 38; Nilsson 1950: 155). The role of two women in long robes appearing both in the sacrificial and the pouring scene and

The room the processional frescoes decorate is not a common room, but either a narrow corridor, like at Thebes, or a room like the Vestibule at Pylos. At Thebes the corridor must have been a processional way, whereas the Vestibule at Pylos leads towards the Throne Room, suggesting the movement of the figures of the processional fresco towards it. The

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only they would be entitled to perform a sacrifice. A priestess is probably represented on a sealstone from Vapheio (CMS I, 226) depicting a female figure in hide skirt holding something that looks like a stick or perhaps a sceptre, in a possible dancing motion. The equation of the figure with a priestess is actually based on this particular type of garment. It is interesting to note that the figure is bare breasted like most female figures on religious scenes in the minor arts. These are usually depicting processions, where female figures in flounced skirts and bare breast are approaching usually a structure crowned with horns of consecration, and occasionally an enthroned figure. Characteristically, we can refer to the gold ring from the Acropolis of Mycenae (CMS I, 17), where a procession of women, including one young girl, holding flowers, is approaching a seated figure. The scene appears to represent the performance by priestesses of a ritual, most probably the ceremonial veneration of the goddess. This seems to be suggested by the fact that the seated figure is most probably also a priestess impersonating the goddess, since she is interacting with the other priestesses (Hägg 1986: 46). In addition, the religious nature of the scene is supported by the existence of religious symbols, like the double axe and the small figure with the figure-ofeight shield. A more ambiguous scene is depicted on a gold ring from Mycenae (CMS I, 126), where again a ritual is represented, probably what was conventionally named the “shaking of the tree”, with a male figure shaking the tree, a mourning female figure leaning on a structure and another female figure in the middle, perhaps dancing. The scene clearly depicts the performance of a ritual by priests.

performing the same gestures with the priestesses is ambiguous and is further complicated due to their similarity with the goddesses depicted on the short sides of the sarcophagus. The existence of four other figures in presumably long robes at the left side of the sacrifice scene most surely constituted a procession, which perhaps brought the sacrificial victim. The identity of these four figures, but especially of those in long robes that seem to have had some role in the rituals performed cannot be easily defined. Their presence in both scenes surely suggests an important role and their elaborate costume could identify them as priestesses, but the fact that the rituals are actually performed by the figures in hide skirts suggests that the latter were those officiating the rites. It is probable, however, that both the women in hide skirts and those in long robes are priestesses with different roles, indicated by their different costume. This issue though needs further examination and cannot be analyzed in detail at present. Figures in long robes also appear on pictorial vases but only few of them seem to have a religious character suggested by the acts they perform. The most characteristic examples are the Aghia Irini rhyton depicting a processional scene with a bull (Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: IX.16, with previous bibliography), and a small jug from Alike depicting a woman in long robe either sniffing a flower or drinking from a cup (Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: IX.13, with previous bibliography) The latter scene has been interpreted as a priestess holding a chalice, as on the Thera and the “Campstool” frescoes (Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: 92). The figures on a krater from Kopreza in Attica depicting two pairs of figures in long robes facing each other and clasping each other’s hand (Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: 91, no.IX.12, with previous bibliography), may also be priests performing some sort of ritual.

Finally, a dubious representation is a sealstone from Vapheio (CMS I, 223) showing a figure in a long robe with diagonal bands holding a griffin on leashes, and wearing a sealing around his wrist. Many scholars have identified him as a priest because he is wearing a long robe but his actual status is still debated, since he could have been an administrator (Rehak 1994: 83). However, the character of the griffin as an emblematic and protective symbol and its association with rulers and deities may not justify this notion.

Priests and priestesses may also be depicted on seals but due to the absence of distinct iconography for them, it is the religious character of the scene illustrated that could identify them as such. Only few figures can be easily identified as priests. An example is sealing 80 from Mycenae depicting a boar on a table with tied legs and a figure in long robe standing next to it and stabbing it (Sakellariou 1966: 69; CMS I, 80). The figure is certainly a priest or a priestess, because due to the taboos related to blood and killing,

Interestingly, priests may also have been identified in burial contexts, in tombs containing finds of religious nature. These were found at Prosymna and the Athenian Agora. The assemblage of Tomb XLIV at Prosymna, which includes a signet ring, a table of

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either be priestesses or members of the elite, or in some cases even goddesses. The equation with priestesses depends on the assumption that the people performing the ritual must be cult specialists. Especially in the processional frescoes, the fact that the processional corridors are very narrow, suggests that few people took part and, consequently, these must have been religious specialists performing the rites on behalf of the celebrants. In addition, because we are dealing with the expression of Mycenaean state religion, the distinction between elite and priesthood is quite difficult, since either the two were related, and members of the elite also belonged to the priesthood, or both the elite and the priesthood used the same means to state their identity and status.

offerings, a jug decorated with double axes and rhyta and dates in LH II, has been interpreted by Blegen as the equipment of a priest or a priestess (Blegen 1937: 214). Also, the discovery in the upper layer of the tomb of a small triple kernos dated in LH III and its association with a signet ring -a possible token of the priestly office- may indicate the burial of another person with a priestly role, that has been interpreted by Blegen as a succession in the priesthood within the same family (Blegen 1937: 214). Tomb XXVI from the Agora also contains a pierced hydria as well as a vessel in a pomegranate shape, an unusual and presumably ritual form that may be the paraphernalia of a priest (Immerwahr 1971: 228). However, the rhyta found in both tombs may very well have been used as libation vessels in funerary rites (Koehl 1981: 186), rather than being the equipment of a buried priest. It should be noted that such objects and vessels have been found in tombs that have not been associated with priests. Tomb 46 at Mycenae includes a small clay tripod table of offerings (XenakiSakellariou 1985: 119), whereas in Tomb 26 at Megalo Kastelli at Thebes was found a bronze sceptre (Keramopoulos 1917: 197). However, neither of the two burials has been associated with priests. Therefore, the occurrence in tombs of vessels of ritual character is not indicative of the priestly office of the person buried, neither indeed the presence of sealstones. The occurrence of sealstones may be indicative of the status of the dead, but it is not an indication exclusively of the priestly office. Consequently, the evidence concerning the burials of priests should be treated with caution.

Obviously no conclusions can be attempted in the present state of the research, although some remarks may be made. The recording of priests and priestesses in Linear B tablets shows that the religious organization was interwoven with that of the palaces in Mycenaean times (Burkert 1985: 46). Their appearance in tablets listing personnel indicate that they were under the control and in the service of the palace, whereas the fact that they were attributed plots of land, slaves and various commodities was perhaps a payment for their services. These attributes though ascribe a particular status to Mycenaean priesthood and may imply that its members enjoyed specific privileges, even though these privileges may have been given in return to the services they were obliged to provide, as suggested by the case of Ka-pa-ti-ja (PY Eb 704). Her case was mentioned because although she was holding two communal plots and was under the obligation to perform the appropriate rites, she did not. On the other side, the slaves and some of the land were perhaps given to the sanctuaries rather than to the priests, but were under their control and exploitation, as could be suggested by the case of e-ri-ta who is trying to pass her land as the god’s, perhaps to avoid taxation (Murray 1979: 356). Finally, offerings to the priests were perhaps intended for the upkeep of the shrines (Hooker 1989: 163), since food commodities and clothing may very well have been used by the attendants of the deity (Chadwick 1988: 200). Concerning the status of Mycenaean priesthood, the Linear B documents seem to indicate that although the cult personnel frequently received commodities, the relationship in administrative terms was one not of equals but of superior and inferior (Murray 1979: 436).

When dealing with representations of priests and priestesses we are facing a great problem of identification, because there is no distinct iconography for gods, priests or rulers. The costumes of the figures -Minoan court dress for women, long robes for menon frescoes, sealings, pictorial vases and larnakes, are indicative of their high status, but not of their actual identity, and these figures can be related both to the priesthood and to the elite. It is thus not possible to recognize priests and priestesses only from their dress, and we must therefore depend on the context to reveal the identity of the figures. Especially in the case of female figures, it is often difficult to tell whether the woman depicted in flounced skirt and receiving veneration is a goddess or a priestess, perhaps impersonating the goddess. Likewise, the women represented in processional frescoes or sealings can

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Priests and Priestesses in the Mycenaean period

Although there can be no doubt as to the existence of priests and priestesses in the Mycenaean period, their precise organization and status is not possible to be defined in the present state of the research. The evidence especially from the Linear B documents suggests that the work of the priest was an actual post, since there was a distinct name for it. Their presence

in the tablets listing personnel suggests that they were recorded as such, although the fact that they were given commodities of a higher status may indicate that they held a higher position than others, a notion validated also by the fact that some priestesses owned slaves. The role and status of these slaves however may not be that of chattel slaves, but rather of cult assistants. There are, therefore, many issues in the study of the Mycenaean priesthood that further research will hopefully illuminate.

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Keramopoulos G. 1917. “Ανασκαφαί Τάφων εν Θήβαις”, ArchDelt 3: 2-252. Koehl, R.B. 1981. “The Functions of Aegean Bronze Age Rhyta”, Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age, R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds.), Stockholm: 197-88. Lang M.L. 1969. The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia, Vol. II, Princeton. Long C.R. 1974. The Aghia Triadha Sarcophagus, [SΙMA 41], Göteborg. Murray C.M. 1979. Mycenaean Religion: the Evidence of the Linear B Tablets, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Girton College Cambridge. Niemeier W-D. 1992. “Iconography and Context: the Thera Frescoes”, EIΚΩΝ. Aegean Bronze Age Iconography: Shaping a Methodology, [Aegaeum 8], R. Laffineur and J.L. Crowley (eds.), Liège: 165-70. Nilsson M.P. 1950. Minoan-Mycenaean religion and its survival in Greek religion, Lund. Rehak P. 1994. “The Aegean ‘Priest’ on CMS I.223”, Kadmos 33.1: 76-84. Renfrew C. 1985. The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary of Phylakopi, London. Sakellariou A. 1966. Η Μυκηναϊκή Σφραγιδογλυφία, Athens. Ventris M. and Chadwick J. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge. Vermeule E. 1964. Greece in the Bronze Age, Chicago. Vermeule E. and Karageorghis V. 1982. Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting, Cambridge Mass. Wallace A.F.C. 1966. Religion: An Anthropological View, New York. Xenaki-Sakellariou A. 1985. Οι Θαλαµωτοί Τάφοι των Μυκηνών, Paris

Bibliography Blegen C.W. 1937. Prosymna: the Helladic settlement proceeding the Argive Heraeum, Cambridge. Burkert W. 1985. Greek Religion, Oxford. Cavanagh W.G. and Mee C. 1995. “Mourning Before and After the Dark Age”, Klados, Essays in Honour of J. N. Coldstream, [BICS Supplement 63], C. Morris (ed.), London: 45-61. Chadwick J. 1985. “What Do We Know About Mycenaean Religion?”, Linear B: A 1984 Survey, Proceedings of the Mycenaean Colloqium of the VIIIth Congress of the International Federation of the Societies of Classical Studies (Dublin, 27th August-1st September 1984) Bibliothéque des Cahiers de l’ Insitut de Linguistique de Louvain 26, A. Morpurgo Davies and Y. Duhoux (eds.), Cabay Louvain-la-Neuve: 191-202. French E. 1981. “Mycenaean Figures and Figurines, Their Typology and Function”, Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age, R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds.), Stockholm: 41-7. Hägg R. 1986. “Die gottliche Epiphanie im minoischen Ritual”, AA 101: 41-62 Hooker J.T. 1980. Linear B: An Introduction, Bristol. Hooker J.T. 1989. “Cult-Personnel in the Linear B texts from Pylos”, Pagan Priests: religion and power in the ancient world, M. Beard and J. North (eds.), London: 160-74. Immerwahr S. 1971. The Neolithic and Bronze Ages. [Athenian Agora, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens Vol. XIII], Princeton. Immerwahr S. 1990. Aegean Painting in the Bronze Age, Pennsylvania. Immerwahr S. 1995. “Death and the Tanagra Larnakes”, The Ages of Homer, a Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule, J.B. Carter and S.P. Morris (eds.), Austin: 109-21.

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place of oblivion. Some of Odysseus’ companions who consume the lotus forget their homecoming (9.95-7). The same effect is intended by Circe’s magic potion (10.236). In Book 12 the Sirens with their song appear as another temptation to Odysseus’ desire to return home. The hypnotic power of their song (θελγουσιν 12.40, 44) makes the listener forget his thoughts about homecoming. Odysseus manages to free himself from all these temptations that would detain his return to domesticity and ordered life. This evidence actually suggests that there is an intellectual connection between nostos and noos through the verbs λανθάνοµαι (9.97, 9.102 cf. 10.236), µιµνήσκοµαι (3.142, 10.472, 15.3) and µέδοµαι (11.110, 12.137). In terms of etymology nostos is a nominal derivative of νέοµαι, return home. In addition, nostos is associated with noos in certain episodes of the poem. A man should keep his homecoming in mind if he wants to go back home. Nostos resembles death. Death, like marriage, and nostos deal with a transition in human life. In most societies changes of state are marked by ritual. Such rituals, or rites of passage, are, as identified by Van Gennep (1960: 21), tripartite in structure, consisting of rites of separation, rites of exclusion and rites of (re-) incorporation. Both weddings and funerals share a tripartite structure, marking important rites of passage from one social and biological circumstance to another (Van Gennep 1960: 116-65). This division is useful for analysing nostos, since nostos is a journey that follows a similar constant pattern that consists of the stage of going away from home, the stage of wandering and the stage of return. There is a period of time when the absent hero dissociates himself from the social group of which he is a member. This is a period of transition and in a nostos-story it is symbolised by the journey. The phenomenon of transition (passage or change) is a very common fact of human life but very difficult to comprehend. While Odysseus is part of this transition, wandering away from home, he is an ambiguous figure. ‘For the man out of touch with the family and country, cut off from his roots in the known and familiar ties that tell him what he is, nothing is quite ‘real’; there is no firm, clear point of reference either for victory or for defeat’ (Segal 1994: 62). Odysseus’ nostos consists of elements of death. Once he returns he has to leave behind the world of traveling. His homecoming, as for any voyager, is a reclaiming of his entire life in Ithaca. He rediscovers those left behind amid the feeling of change, ageing and death (e.g. the parents of Odysseus: Laertes (Il.187-196) in

Nostos (= homecoming) and death in Greek tragedy Marigo Alexopoulou In Greek tragedy the connection of nostos and death is dramatised in the cases of some male figures (notably Agamemnon, Heracles and Neoptolemus) who came back after a long period and died. Both the story of Agamemnon’s return in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and the story of Heracles in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Euripides’ Heracles are built on a plot pattern familiar from the earliest Greek poetry: a hero long absent returns to his waiting wife at home. Attic dramatists shaped the material of the nostos pattern, well known from Odysseus’ return, into suitable form for the tragic stage. Thus Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Euripides’ Heracles are examples of a form or pattern of plot which might be called nostos-play. Euripides’ creative response to this established story-pattern can be identified in his Andromache, where the much awaited Neoptolemus returns only as a corpse. In what follows I would like to demonstrate that unlike Odysseus’ messy but ultimately happy homecoming the souring of the return is typical of tragic nostoi. This has a further sense in which an understanding of the connection of nostos and death in Greek tragedy can illuminate the nature of nostos in terms of nostalgia. In the transformation of a nostos-story into drama the most influential archetype seems to have been the Odyssey (see Taplin 1977: 124). Thus, before analysing the dramatic possibilities of nostos and death in Greek tragedy I will consider the element of death in the narrative progress of Odysseus’ return. An undercurrent of death permeates the Odyssey especially by the journey of Odysseus to the underworld. Κατάβασις is not essentially associated with nostos but a visit to the underworld is a fit subject for the hero who has been away for a long period and returns. The lower world journey in the Νεκυια suggests the connection of nostos with death. In addition, there is in the Odyssey a constant opposition of oblivion and return. The episode with the Lotus-eaters, who make anyone who eats their blossom forget their desire to return home, brings about the association of nostos with death. The land of the Lotus-eaters suggests a kind of death since it is a

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Odysseus where he had to face obstacles until he was reintegrated into his oikos. The notion of the return to the same, that is not exactly the same, is what makes the nature of the return tragic. This idealistic quality of a return to the same is actually suggested by the plays dealing with a nostos-story where the homecoming of the absent hero is more tragic than it had been anticipated. This is well shown in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon where the homecoming of a victorious king turns into an occasion of a horrible parody of a welcome-scene. Most remarkably, the tragic nostos of Agamemnon is reflected in the imagery of the play. I will refer to the themes that underline the flaw in Agamemnon’s return. This analysis will serve as a template when it comes to the thematic affinities of the tragic return of Heracles and Neoptolemus. The study of the typical elements, that foreshadow and in some measure explain the fate that awaits the returning hero, will next help us to speculate on the philosophical reflection on the essence of nostos.

his old age isolates himself out of longing for his son and Anticleia (Il.11.197) dies out of longing for her son’s homecoming). He comes back from darkness. This association is especially supported by the name of Καλυψώ that derives from the verb καλύπτειν (to cover) and suggests darkness. Living with Calypso will mean Odysseus’ cutting himself off from society, whereas Penelope is part of his family, kin and friends. Circe acts in a similar way in Odysseus’ nostos-story. Even innocent Nausicaa stands for Odysseus as a temptation. All this suggests that Odysseus is the self-controlled survivor who gets his nostos in the end. Before discussing the dramatic possibilities of nostos in Greek tragedy one should bear in mind the association of homecoming with warfare. In the Iliad nostos seems to be understood as part of the mortality of the warrior heroes. The warrior leaves the camp to fight and his return to the camp is described in terms of nostos (Maronitis 1999: 104-20). Most remarkably, the dilemma between a glorious death and inglorious return (Il. 9.415 cf. A. Ch. 345ff.) is well shown in the case of Achilles in the Iliad (see Nagy: 1979). A θάνατος καλός (glorious death) in war excluded the possibility of a homecoming. This further explains the feelings of those waiting at home who were left with the non-return of their beloved ones. The themes that recur in literature are not remote from real life. Warriors had to leave their home very often. Aeschylus, who himself belonged to the Marathongeneration, depicts in the Persians the impact of war in terms of nostos (e.g. 166: emptiness of Asia; see also A. Pers. 8, 118, 548, 718, 730, 761). The Greeks knew that nostos was not a safe and guaranteed passage. The returning hero in a nostos-story does not always manage to return and if he does return he does not always succeed in adjusting to the normal life of the community. Therefore, nostos is a fit subject for literature since it has to do with the presentation of mutability. The staging of a nostos-plot makes a good story for a tragedy, since tragedy provokes fear and pity by presenting a coherent action in which a change (µετάβασις or µεταβολή) occurs (Arist. Po. 52a 1418). The returning hero is an ambiguous figure since he is in a transitional stage. Once he returns he is not the same man as he was when he was first separated from his environment. In the same way, waiting for the absent hero can also bring changes to his household. These changes in both the hero and his environment involve danger as in the case of

A homecoming-scene is normally an occasion of joy. But in tragedy the means that traditionally signify the return are perverted. This is evident in the manner of Agamemnon’s return and the manner of his death that emphasizes the flaw in his nostos. To illustrate this one need examine how Aeschylus dramatises both verbally and visually the transition from the hero’s arrival to his own death. At the very moment when Agamemnon prays that victory may stay with him Clytaemestra enters at 855 or one or two lines before and blocks the door. Agamemnon arrives as a victor but he cannot enter his house when he wants (see Taplin 1977: 306-7). It looks as if νίκη deserts him as soon as he is confronted with his wife. The irony of the situation here is that the woman who feigns devotion will destroy the nostos of Agamemnon. She receives the victorious king. One would expect a man to address the returning βασιλεύς. This γέρας (privilege) does not belong to Clytaemestra as Agamemnon says (915-17). In addition, Clytaemestra’s major challenge to make Agamemnon walk from his chariot to his home over crimson cloth indicates that ‘his homecoming is a harming of his house’ (Jones 1962: 86-7) and an improper use of wealth. The theme of clothing is first presented on this textile that Agamemnon walks upon. Clothes are connected with the tasks of a woman in the oikos through the weaving. Eurynome put a robe around Odysseus after his bath (23.153-5 and see also the

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and a consequent feast marking Agamemnon’s return in Aeschylus’ version of the king’s death. The killing of Cassandra, as of Agamemnon, is presented as a sacrifice (A.A. 1118, 1297-8, 1433, 1504; S. Tr. 756: Heracles’ death as a sacrifice; E. Andr.: Neoptolemus is killed at Delphi) but Aeschylus abandons the Homeric version and introduces two other themes in the manner of Agamemnon’s death: the bath and the cloak thrown over the victim. His choice, whether he invented these details or not, is determined by the kind of story he is writing. The play is based on the traditional nostos-pattern of the hero’s return. The perversion of Agamemnon’s homecoming is constructed in a way that emphasizes the terrible wrongness of the king’s return. A bath marks the homecoming of Odysseus in Ithaca (23.153-5 cf. Scheria 6.216ff.). Odysseus’ bath is followed by the theme of clothing offered by Eurynome to his master. Aeschylus keeps this sequence. Cassandra envisages Clytaemestra washing Agamemnon (1128). But the commonplace and innocent event of the bath is transformed to Agamemnon’s own ritual of death. Clytaemestra ironically resembles a wife washing her husband’s corpse before burial (see Seaford 1984: 248-49). The clothes are once again misused in the play. A net appears to Cassandra in her vision as a ξύνευνος (1116 αλλ’ άρκυς η ξύνευνος, η ξυναιτία φόνου). The association of the net with ευνή brings out the irony of this welcome-scene. On Agamemnon’s homecoming it would have been proper for Clytaemestra to put around Agamemnon a robe as in the Homeric model. But the robe that follows Agamemnon’s bath is an instrument of murder (cf. the same ominous effect in the ceremonial robe that Deianeira sends to Heracles as a gift: S. Tr. 580, 602-3 etc.). The net is the robe itself that traps Agamemnon to his death. The word ξύνευνος that means elsewhere the woman who sleeps with a man (cf. 1442 where Clytaemestra uses it for Cassandra and see Seaford 1984: 251 with his n.34) suggests the role of wife as a ξύνευνος (bedmate). The word ευνή must have evoked to the original audience the connection between the robe (bed-robe) and the wife (bed-fellow) and it alludes to the marriage bed that Agamemnon will never see (S. Tr. where Deianeira dies on the marriage bed) in contrast to a traditional nostos-story where the motif of bed is significant for the reunion of the returning hero and his wife (see Od. 23.254, 300-301). The net that traps Agamemnon symbolically reflects the fact that Agamemnon’s homecoming is not accomplished with his re-

themes of clothes in Scheria 6.228). It is an important element for the reintegration of the returning hero in a traditional nostos-story. The use of this textile in this scene indicates that something horrible is going to happen. Agamemnon steps on the clothes istead of wearing them. From the perspective of the audience’s response the use of this textile would be seen as out of place. By walking upon it Agamemnon participates in the perversion of his own homecoming. The use of a commonplace object transformed into an element of disquiet would have a great emotional effect on the spectators in a theatre space of Greek tragic drama that was starkly bare. Moreover, the material of this textile is a sign of wealth. Agamemnon himself expresses his concern on walking on such a material (αργυρώνητος 949). The value of the cloth is reflected in Clytaemestra’s own use of the word ισάργυρος (959). Agamemnon’s walking upon this precious textile is a waste of wealth. In addition, the rich robes should have served in the worship of the gods (922 cf.923-5, 946). With their ominous sense the rich robes point forward to the garment in which Clytaemestra entangles Agamemnon to his death (Macleod 1975: 202). An image of praise employed by Clytaemestra on Agamemnon’s arrival is appropriate. But the comparison of the beloved one to a tree can be applied not only to the living (e.g. Od. 6.162f.) but also to the beloved dead in a context of lamentation (Il.18.55-7; Alexiou 1974: 198-201). In this fusion of the homecoming-scene to his death Agamemnon has walked into the palace. This is in the mind of the Chorus when they associate the safe return of the Greeks (989-90) with a lyreless (gloomy) song. The king has come and gone to the palace. In the play a piece of cloth has already been ruined (A.A. 948f. δωµατοφθορειν...φθείροντα cf. A.Ch.1013 φθείρουσα) and misused. In Homer Aegisthus killed Agamemnon δειπνίσσας, ώς τίς τε κατέκτανε βουν επί φάτνηι (Od. 11. 411-5 cf. 4.535 also S. El. 203). In Agamemnon the preparations for the festal meal remain in the background but are clearly hinted at 1056f., 1310. Furthermore, the scene of murder in, the Odyssey, when it is mentioned, is in Aegisthus’ house (Od. 3.234 where εφέστιος most probably refers to Agamemnon’s house is an exception). Agamemnon in tragedy returns to his own house and he is killed. This emphasizes more the unrealizable nature of the desire to return to a place of fixity. The audience might have expected a sacrifice

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integration into the oikos but with his own death. The day of his νοστίµωι σωτηρίαι (safe homecoming 1238) will never come.

also bring changes to his household. These changes in both the hero and his environment involve danger. The absent hero returns to the same place from a geographical point of view but his arrival raises the expectation of integration into his oikos. The ritual of his integration to his own house is perverted to its opposite effect. I have suggested that it is the ‘liminal’ character of the absent hero that makes nostos a good story for tragedy since this genre dramatises the effect of mutability. As I have set out to show in the return of Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ text the treatment of nostos in Greek tragedy reflects the fact that return cannot be the same after a long absence. The notion of the return to the same, that is not exactly the same, is what makes the nature of the return tragic. The tragedies that deal with a nostos-story, such as Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, show that the notion a return to the same is an unrealizable, utopian ideal. This notion of nostalgia is embodied in the return of the absent hero in tragic nostoi.

It has been the first task of my analysis to show briefly that the whole conception of Agamemnon’s murder rests on the perversion of the elements that would normally mark the wanderer’s homecoming in the world of epic (e.g. the theme of clothes, bed, bath, sacrifice). Aeschylus’ text serves as an instructive example in our understanding of the treatment of nostos in Greek tragedy. The return of Agamemnon culminates in his own death, which underlines a broadly philosophical reflection on the essence of nostos. The tragic nostos of Agamemnon (cf. Heracles, Neoptolemus) reminds us of the effect of change in both the returning hero and the waiting figures at home. Once the absent hero returns he is not the same man as he was when he was first separated from his environment. Waiting for the absent hero can

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Bibliography Alexiou M. 1974. The ritual lament in the Greek tradition, Cambridge. Jones J. 1962. On Aristotle and Greek tragedy, London. Macleod C. W. 1975. “Clothing in the Oresteia”, Maia 27: 201-3. Maronitis D. 1999. Οµηρικά Μεγαθέµατα, Athens. Nagy G. 1979. The best of the Achaeans: concepts of the hero in Greek poetry, Baltimore and London.

Seaford R. 1984. “The last bath of Agamemnon”, CQ 34: 247-54. Seaford R. 1987. “The tragic wedding”, JHS 107: 106-30. Segal C. 1994. Singers, heroes and gods in the Odyssey, Ithaca and London. Taplin O. 1977. The stagecraft of Aeschylus, Oxford. Van Gennep A. 1960. The rites of passage, M.B. Vizedom and G.L. Caffee (trns), London.

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their territory (local or national), Greek characters overcome their difficulties and become united in order to avoid such pollution. In Euripides’ Andromache for instance, Hermione, one of the most self-centered and arrogant characters in Greek Tragedy, seems to forget her own personal problems for a while when infuriated and in a delirium of ethnicism, makes every effort to prevent the barbarian slave Andromache from introducing incestuous barbarian customs to “us” Ùµ°ς (l. 155-80). The precise reference of this personal pronoun is not immediately obvious; yet, I very much doubt whether Hermione means only the citizens of Sparta and/or Thessaly. Most likely she refers to all the Greeks who become “one” facing the danger of being affected/polluted by any kind of barbarian characteristic. And what are they? Hermione mentions two:

To kill or not to kill? Human sacrifices in Greece according to the Euripidean thought Polytimi Oikonomopoulou The purpose of the present paper is to give a satisfying answer to the question whether human sacrifices ever took place in Greece or not. I am afraid though that before that question it is essential to answer another one: whether it is proper, right or acceptable to use literature and more specifically tragedy to answer a question with strictly historical content. This is exactly what Pelling (1997) wonders in the introduction to the book he edited “Greek Tragedy and the Historian”. Nevertheless, a satisfying answer to this question is given neither by him nor by his contributors, though various approaches are offered: Sommerstein characterizes the tragic texts as “priceless historical documents with problematic historical interpretation” (Sommerstein 1997: 63). Easterling discourages the reader from going further and attempting to read the ‘historical’ signs of drama in detail (Easterling 1997: 21), whereas Bowie draws our attention more to the aspects of polis ideology in tragedy than to specific events (Bowie 1997: 39). For all the above scholars and many others tragedy and comedy seem to be closer to the fiction than to historical reality. There are however voices more friendly to the historical value of tragedy like that of Pierre Vidal-Naquet who discusses the place and status of foreigners in Tragedy. “Every Athenian Tragedy” according to him “is a reflection on the foreigner, on the other, on the double”. Despite the fact that Vidal-Naquet does not really attach more value than the above mentioned scholars to tragedy as a historical source, he mentions the “key” word, the one which to my belief is of crucial significance to the issue of human sacrifices in Greece: foreigner (VidalNaquet 1997: 109-19).

1) Incest 2) The right of a man to have two or more wives something that will be mentioned by Orestes as well later on (l. 909). All these social characteristics can be found even today in places that for the Ancient Greeks were considered as barbarian territories (just bring to mind the geographical position of Ancient Troy). It is worth noting that the practices Hermione is actually describing at that point, especially concerning incestuous relationships, are facts that marked her own family (l. 173-6); yet this has been very conveniently forgotten by the Spartan princess and no attempt is made by anyone to remind her of that. If we seek an answer to this then we need to have a close look at the audience’s psychology concerning their attitude towards the barbarians. In any case, my reason for referring briefly to the Greek abhorrence of foreign characteristics is to outline the fact that the Greeks would hardly accept in their society -at least not for long- a custom (social or religious) which was noticed in what they called the “barbarian” world, since it would not fit their national image.

For a Greek tragic character, the foreigner- the non Greek-is always called a barbarian, a term which stamps him as inferior to Greeks from every point of view. “Barbarians” as characters in Greek tragedy are seen as having their own customs, social or religious, which under no circumstances should be introduced to Greece as they will cause some kind of pollution. Facing the danger of having barbarian customs in

What about human sacrifices though? The origin of the religious custom can be traced to the “barbarian” world and it actually constitutes a central theme in many Euripidean plays (Iphigeneia in Tauris and Aulis, Hecuba, Phoinissai, Heraclidai). I will mention here selectively just a few cases that portray the death of human beings in cult as something barbarian for the

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to achieve the sack of Troy (l. 1395-7) And this is reasonable, as she suggests, because “the Greeks should rule barbarians, but not the other way round. For they are slaves, and we are free”. In a final outburst of patriotism Iphigeneia forgives her father and begs her mother to forgive him as well (l. 14547). In the case of Polyxena, in Euripides’ Hecuba things are very similar. Once more we have a voluntary sacrifice, for the sake of the state, though it was initially presented as an enforced one. Polyxena prefers to die, as her life is meaningless after the sack of Troy (l. 349-66). Her fate was bound up with the fate of her country, and since Troy does not exist any more what is the point in being alive as a slave? Though the departure scene is full of melancholy and pathos as Polyxena says farewell to her mother and the light (l. 453 ff.) there is also an extreme heroism and patriotism (and what an irony on the lips of a barbarian princess). Personally, I do not find myself in broad agreement with views like the one expressed by Schmitt (1921: 49) who claims that “Aller Heroismus ist hier aufgegeben”. Polyxena’s heroism is abandoned, simply because it has to be. Otherwise, it would be extremely unnatural for a young woman to be led to the place where she will be sacrificed or executed, without collapsing. Besides this is a koinos topos in many Greek tragedies. Just see Antigone’s reaction, for instance, in the Sophoclean play of that name when she is about to be executed, though she is absolutely convinced that she did the right thing in performing her duty as a sister.

Greek tragic characters, and consequently totally inappropriate for Greek ideals and beliefs. In the Greek world there is only one context in which we have undoubtedly a significant number of human sacrifices; and that is in myth. O’Connor-Visser (1987) for instance mentions forty cases of human sacrifices in Greek mythology. Whence, as Wilkins (1990: 178) suggests, “it came to tragedy as well”. It is worth noting though that human sacrifices in tragedy usually take the form of self-sacrifice. In other words what we actually have is an enforced sacrifice that turns into a voluntary one (as happens with Iphigeneia or Polyxena). This kind of selfsacrifice is called by Wilkins as “sacrifice for the state” (1990: 181). In both cases mentioned above a favorable wind is needed for the army to sail in the first case to Troy and in the second from Troy. So what actually happens is that an individual (who usually is a noble person, preferably a woman) sacrifices herself for the good of the community. This might seem a bit extreme, of course, but it must not be forgotten that we are in the period of the Peloponnesian war and the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the Athenian state must be enforced somehow. In the conflict between private and communal interest what really matters is the latter; a general spirit that characterizes all Pericles’ speeches in the first and second book of Thucydides but is especially evident in 2. 60.2-3 where the historian puts in the mouth of the Athenian politician the following words:

In cases like these the chances of viewing human sacrifice as an act of barbarity are rather limited, since we are “obliged” to treat them as community-saving patriotic actions and at the same time as something deserving applause and admiration at least as far as the victim is concerned. At this point I would like to focus the reader’s attention on two issues that have not really attracted enough attention from modern scholars.

“I believe it is far more advantageous to its individual members that a whole city should be on the right lines than that the citizens separately should be prosperous but the city as a whole be in trouble. If a man’s own situation is good but his country is destroyed, he still cannot escape the general ruin, but if he suffers bad fortune in a country which enjoys good, he is much more likely to come through safely” (tr. Rhodes 1998).

1) In the first case mentioned above the sacrificing priest is Iphigeneia’s father himself, whereas in the case of Polyxena it is Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus. Both of them are going to experience a few years later the most un-heroic death a man could have. Agamemnon is brutally murdered by Clytemnestra and her lover in part to avenge her daughter’s death, whereas Neoptolemus is ambushed and treacherously slain in Delphi according to Orestes’ plans. Divine or

Even in the case of self-sacrifice though, Euripides does not miss the chance of emphasizing the superiority of Greeks over the barbarians. Iphigeneia for example, whose ritual death mirrors the ritual slaying of an animal, offers her body to Greece. She does that, as she claims, not for the sake of Helen, but in the cause of Panhellenism and in a exhortation she encourages the Greek leaders to sacrifice her in order

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many times in the whole play. Even in the prologue itself she claims that she cannot express her judgment concerning the divine ritual out of fear of the goddess (l. 37), yet there is no doubt that she implies a strong disagreement with the way barbarians worship the goddess. The fact that she herself has been a sacrificial victim makes her judgment even more significant. Her disagreement becomes more apparent further on, in a passage characterized by Wilkins (1990: 178) as “a sophisticated one” (l. 380-91) where Iphigeneia more or less characterizes Artemis as an idiot since she enjoys the offering of human flesh while at the same time she treats certain categories of people as polluted. Soon after that though, most likely out of fear again, she says that such a bloody custom was falsely attributed to the goddess; it must have been the invention of the barbarian mind, she concludes. Besides both Iphigeneia and Hecuba regard human sacrifice as murder and nothing else. Hecuba uses the term φονος (l. 263) to describe her daughter’s sacrifice appealing even to the Athenian law, while Iphigeneia characterizes those who perform human sacrifices as Ðνθρωποκτόνους (l. 389). The question is how we can possibly interpret this. My impression is that what is actually reflected is either Euripides’ personal opinion or that of his public. In any case there is a clear historical inference to be made: either Greeks do not perform human sacrifices as these belong only to the barbarian rituals, or if they do, for the same reason, they ought to abandon the practice. If what we have here is Euripides’ personal opinion, then he was certainly not the only who believed such a thing. Almost three centuries before him Homer also expresses his abhorrence of this practice, making clear that it has no place in the heroic code. He does not mention the sacrifice of Iphigeneia; as Kovacs (1995) suggests it was either unknown or more likely suppressed by him. He comments on two other human sacrifices though in the Iliad, both performed by Achilles, the most heroic character in Ancient Greek literature. Rarely are we given the chance to see Homer’s feelings; yet in the humiliation of Hector’s body (XXII, l. 395) and in the sacrifice of twelve Trojans on Patroclus’ grave (XXIII, l. 175-176) the epic poet does not have the best words for Achilles. He openly portrays him as outrageous and almost evil, while at the same time not even his sorrow can be a valid excuse for his deeds. The clearest reaction against human sacrifices though is given through the interference of the Greek divinities, Aphrodite and

human justice for them? The answer remains open. In any case though there is no sense of patriotism or even pity for the performers of such an action. 2) The victims’ heroic or patriotic feelings are not accepted by their philoi (friends, relatives or even choral members (O’ Connor-Visser 1987: 120). In the cases just discussed neither Clytemnestra nor Hecuba seem to share their daughters’ views or patriotic excitement. The maternal instincts definitely do not follow Pericles’ suggestions in Thucydides (2.60) concerning the communal interest. These two points can be interpreted in many ways, and mainly as a doubt about the value of human sacrifices even if they are performed for the sake of the state. Most likely this spirit of extreme devotion and love towards the community can be found only in Thucydides’ or Pericles’ patriotism. In reality things must have been a bit different. There is a tragedy though that comes to highlight things from a different perspective, in agreement with the Homeric epics, since both texts view human sacrifices as something barbarian, which means inappropriate for the civilized world. None of these texts makes the distinction between enforced and voluntary human sacrifices as for Homer and Iphigeneia it seems that one term contradicts the other: we cannot possibly have voluntary human sacrifice as something condemnable per se. The key play that seems more appropriate to highlight the impact human sacrifices have in the Greek world is “Iphigeneia in Tauris”. We don’t actually have a human sacrifice in this play as it is avoided through the anagnorisis (Aristotelian term for recognition). Through the expression of strong views on the issue though, we are driven to the conclusion that, according to the Greek belief, human sacrifices in general (forced or voluntary) is a practice totally alien to them and to their cult. When Iphigeneia introduces herself in the prologue of the play one of the main thing she emphasizes is that the country she is in is a barbarian one, inhabited by barbarian citizens who have a barbarian king (l. 31-2). The repetition of the adjective seems to have one and only function: to belittle as much as possible the cult of a goddess (even a Greek one) among religious people who are not Greeks. What is more, Iphigeneia goes even further, criticizing Artemis’ ritual in the land of Tauris and more specifically the issue of human sacrifices

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performed in various Greek places, while what they actually try to do is:

Apollo (XXIII, l. 184-91). Unlike the barbarian divinities of Euripides’ play they are disgusted with the sight of a sacrifice of human flesh; hence, they intervene in order to stop or at least to limit this. Besides, the vivid description of a dead man’s body which is decomposing as it is exposed in the sun (XIII, l. 190-1) and the slicing of the Trojans with Achilles’ sword (XXIII, l. 174) would not create a very good impression in the audience and few would take pleasure in listening to such details.

1) To give them historical dimensions or at least to present them as widely believed to be true. 2) To make them seem inevitable, necessary and to some degree morally acceptable at a time of crisis in the 5th or 4th century BC. Whereas what do we have in Euripides? Human sacrifices which either they are never fulfilled (IA) or are condemned by everybody as immoral or pointless (IT), while the sacrificial victim always gets the admiration due to the one who has gained controlkratos (Hec. l.556) over her own death and appears very much superior to her “executioners”.

Moving towards the end of this first attempt to approach the concept of human sacrifices in Euripides’ thought, I ought to answer the question whether human sacrifices in Greece had ever been a historical reality or not. And since I do not feel confident enough to answer this question directly, I will turn it the other way round. If you want to find human sacrifices in Ancient Greek World, the likeliest periods to look at are prehistory and protohistory, while one place where they were undeniably performed is Crete. We can easily infer that bearing in mind:

I would conclude here by saying that the spirit of a human sacrifice in Euripidean plays, even if it is a voluntary one, does not really aim to underline the superiority of the sacrificial victim, but rather the inferiority of the ritual performers. Besides, most of the times the result of the sacrifice is not all that beneficial for the family, the city, or Hellas. In plain English, what we actually have in Euripides is that the whole ritual (barbarian or not) turns out to be in vain. The necessity and the result of human sacrifices, for the sake of a divinity-even under the veil of communal interest-is explicitly doubted. Whether, the gods themselves are doubted too, this is another issue.

1) The result of the excavations in Arkhanes (Ergon 1979-80: 30-2; BCH 1980: 673-5). Hughes (1991: 136-8) raises and leaves open the question concerning allegations of cannibalism at Knossos. 2) The number of myths that deal with human sacrifices in the island (selectively I just remind you of the myth of the Minotaur which takes the form of an annual festival, or the case of the local hero Idomeneus, who was asked to sacrifice his own son). 3) The undeniable impact of Egyptian civilization on that of Crete (Karetsou (ed.) 2000, passim; Karetsou and Andreadake-Vlazake (eds.) 2000, passim;). By the time of Euripides though, to come back to my topic, this practice had either died out altogether or it had been replaced by a ritual mimesis, that is animal sacrifice, which substitutes, in a sense, for that of human beings. It is worth mentioning that Euripides is dealing with the heroic period, a period long before his own times. Nevertheless, we have very frequent references to human sacrifices as very often his characters either condemn them or doubt their necessity. This does not happen with other ancient authors such as Plutarch or Pausanias. Both of them mention a great number of human sacrifices

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O’Connor-Visser, E.A.M.E. 1987. Aspects of human sacrifice in the tragedies of Euripides, Amsterdam. Parker R. 1950. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in early Greek religion, Oxford. Pelling C. (ed.) 1997. Greek Tragedy and the Historian, Oxford. Powell A. 1990. Euripides, Women and Sexuality, London and New York. Rhodes P.J. 1998. Thucydides-History II, London. Schmitt, J. 1921. Freiwilliger Opfertod bei Euripides: ein Beitrag zu seiner dramatischen Technik [Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 17, 2], Giessen. Sommerstein, A.H. 1997. “The Theatre Audience, the Demos and the Suppliants of Aeschylus”, Greek Tragedy and the Historian, C. Pelling (ed.). Oxford: 63-79. Vidal-Naquet, P. 1997. “The Place and Status of Foreigners in Athenian Tragedy”, Greek Tragedy and the Historian, C. Pelling (ed.). Oxford: 10919. Westlake H.D. 1989. Studies in Thucydides and Greek History, Bristol. Wilkins, J. 1990. “The State and the Individual: Euripides’ Plays of Voluntary Self-Sacrifice”, Euripides, Women and Sexuality, A. Powell (ed.). London and New York: 177-94. Willcock M.M. 1984. The Iliad of Homer XIII-XXIV, Basingstoke

Bibliography Baltas H. 1999. `Αγαµέµνων, Athens. Bowie, A.M., 1997. “Tragic Filters for History: Euripides’ Supplices and Sophocles’ Philoctetes”, Greek Tragedy and the Historian, C. Pelling (ed.). Oxford: 39-62. Cavander K. 1973. Iphigeneia at Aulis, New Jersey. Cogan M. 1981. The human thing: the speeches and principles of Thucydides’ History, Chicago. Collard C. 1991. Euripides-Hecuba, London. Easterling, P.E., 1997. “Constructing the Heroic”, Greek Tragedy and the Historian, C. Pelling (ed.). Oxford: 21-37. Ewans M. 1995. Aischylos-The Oresteia, London. Fagles R. 1990. The Iliad, London. Hughes D.D. 1991. Human sacrifice in Ancient Greece, London and New York. Karetsou A. (ed.) 2000. Krete Aigyptos, politismikoi desmoi trion chilieton:meletes, Athens. Karetsou A. and M. Andreadake-Vlazake (eds.). 2000. Krete Aigyptos, politismikoi desmoi trion chilieton: katálagos, Herakleion. Kovacs D. 1995. Euripides II: Children of Heracles, Hiipolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, London. Kovacs D. 1995. Euripides IV: Trojan Women, Iphigeneia among the Taurians, Ion, London. Lloyd M. 1994. Andromache, London.

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“The new text from Pellina overrides the boundaries between the two groups. On the one hand, it is undoubtedly Bacchic, as are all the texts of the B group; on the other hand, it shares two characteristics with A: the enigmatic milk formula and, much more important, the role of Persephone as the key figure for admittance to the netherworld.” (Graf 1993: 250).

Adopted by Persephone. Adoption and initiation ritual in A1-A3 Zuntz and Pelinna 1-2 Georgia Petridou Madre: “… camposanto no, camposanto no: lecho de tierra, cama que los cobija y que los mece por el cielo.” Bodas de Sange F.G. Lorca

Before proceeding with our discussion let us have a look at what actually it is written on the Pelinna Leaves (I quote the text from Riedweg’ s (1998: 392) edition).

Little wast thou, Ashurbanipal, when I delivered thee to the Queen of Nineveh, Weak wast thou…when thou didst sit upon her knees, Four teats were set in your mouth… Assyrian text (Hall and Woolley 1927: 142) More than thirty years ago Günter Zuntz was writing in his admirable edition of the Golden Leaves: “Before applying the methods of literary analysis, one ought to realize the very special, and indeed unique, character of the object” (Zuntz 1971: 278). The next two decades proved him wrong; new texts were to come and with them new interpretations and new problems.

Translation: 1 Now you died and now you were born, you thrice blessed one, on this day. 2 Tell Persephone that Bacchios himself has set you free. 3 Bull, you leapt up into the milk. 4 Quickly, you leapt up into the milk. 5 Ram you fell into the milk. 6 You have wine as your blessed honour. 7 And below the earth, there are ready for you the same rites as for the other blessed ones.

The most fascinating piece of the new discoveries, generally speaking but also concerning the purposes of our discussion, was the so-called Pelinna leaves. They have been found in a grave in the location of ancient Pelinna of Thessalia (the modern Petroporos); two Greek scholars Tsantsanoglou and Parassoglou have published these almost identical lamellae for the first time in 1987. But what is so special about these new golden Leaves and how do they enrich our knowledge of “Orphic” eschatology?

For our purposes the final hexameter is of vital importance. What we read in this ivy-like shaped golden Lamella is a promise, or even something more than that; the deceased, obviously already initiated into the Bacchic Mysteries while still in life, is being reassured that some kind of rites (τέλεα) await for him in the netherworld. The reference is clearly to some kind of ritual, but what kind of ritual? Graf suggests either a funerary or initiatory ritual and after having dismissed the first possibility, he argues in favour of the latter: “So initiatory ritual would be a plausible alternative: one of the ways initiation conquers death and assures eternal life is by ritually performing death and resurrection.” (Graf 1983: 248).

Their most important contribution is, undoubtedly, that they bridge somehow the gap between Zuntz’ s groups A and B. Zuntz’ s classification was based mainly on criteria of content; he distinguished between the A and the B group; in the ‘A group’ of the tablets the key figure is Persephone, and the key argument for admission to the circle of the blessed is the purity of ψυχή; while in ‘B group’ the key figure is the sentries (φύλακες) of the underworld spring, and the deceased has to remember the right way for the journey in the underworld.

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In the present paper I would like to bring forward a new possibility; that of an adoption - initiation ritual, in the form of a mimetic re-birth, especially in regard to the first hexameter, ν³ν ñθανες καà ν³ν Ñγένου, τρισόλβιε, ðµατι τ©δε, “now you have died and now you have been reborn again, you thrice blessed, this same day”, and the abundance of the immersion-in-milk formula in our text.

δικα—þων, “but I have paid my penalty for deeds that were not right”) and now is free to enjoy the privileges of those initiated. But what about the seventh line, how are we suppose to understand and visualize/interpret a statement like that? One century ago, Jane Harrison maintained with confidence: “That this clause is an avowal of an actual rite performed admits no doubt”, but when it comes to the question of the precise nature of the ritual act performed, she seems far more reserved and she attempts to associate the ritualistic formula with the immersion-into-milk one; finally she concludes that unfortunately the question cannot be answered with certainty (Harrison 1903: 596; though on p. 593 she does point to a rebirth ritual direction). In 1985 (English translation) Walter Burkert in his authoritative and heavily influential treatment of Greek religion, was still posing the same question: “Does the lap of the goddess hint at a ritual of rebirth?” but without providing a definite answer (Burkert 1985: 295).

Let us now focus on two other texts, that of the first and the second (which is almost identical with the third) of the three Golden Leaves that were unearthed (by Cavallari) from Timpone Piccolo (= small tomb) in 1879, at the place of ancient Thurioi in South Italy. The first text is dated circa 350 BC and the second one around the middle of the fourth century BC or even a bit later. They appear in Zuntz’s edition as A1 and A2 respectively and I shall refer to them as such from now on (though I follow again Riedweg’s edition (1998: 393), which is the most recent one).

In this paper I would like to argue in favour of this suggestion; that is to say that regardless whether line 7 describes an actual ritual act or simply reflects one, the reference here is to an initiation ritual, to be more specific to an adoption ritual in the form of a mimetic rebirth. In this suggestion of mine I feel supported by a number of Greek passages, where the neophyte has to undergo some kind of adoption ritual, in order to be initiated to the circle (different in each case) of the privileged ones.

[5 I flew out of the circle of heavy grief and suffering; 6 I attained to the desirable crown with swift feet, 7 I sunk under the lap of the chthonian royal mistress.] The speaker (whether male or female, that is a matter under dispute), after having been subdued by death, is confronting an assembly of chthonian deities with Persephone in the presidential seat. This is a moment of crisis for the deceased, who has come as a suppliant

In the first one, Diodorus’s of Sicily (IV. 39. 2-3) narration of how Hera, after having being persuaded by Zeus, adopted Heracles in the following way:

pure/chaste Persephone”) in order to pass successfully the rather peculiar interview with the Queen of Underworld and be sent to the seats of the purified ones, èδρας Ñς εÕαγέων (A2-3, line 7). Among other things, he declares that he flew out of the circle of heavy grief and suffering; he attained to the desirable crown with swift feet; and that he dived under the lap of the chthonian royal mistress. The usual interpretation for ll. 5-6 is either that the speaker has escaped the heavy and grievous circle of life itself, or that he has paid the penalty for his unjust deeds (A23, 4: ποινÀν δ’ Ðνταπέτεισ’ ñργων èνεκα οõτι

[We should add to what has been said about Heracles, that after his apotheosis Zeus persuaded Hera to adopt

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[Hera did not disobey. She anointed the body of Lyaios (Deliverer) with the divine drops of her painhealing teat, and shook away the stains of the wild divine frenzy. When she saw the manhood and radiance of Dionysos and touched mad Bacchos with grudging hands, she felt a double jealousy although her face hid it. She opened her dress on both sides for his lips, and bared her teats full of ambrosia, pressing the jealous breast to let the milk flow, and brought him back to life.]

him as her son and henceforth for all time to cherish him with a mother’s love, and this adoption they say took place in the following manner. Hera lay upon a bed, and drawing Heracles close to her body then let him fall through her garments to the ground, imitating in this way the actual birth; and this what the barbarians do up to now whenever they wish to adopt a son.] In order for Heracles to be accepted properly among the Olympian gods he has to become Hera’ s τέκνον ανδ υÚός and the adoption takes place in a form a mimetic rebirth, where Hera plays the mother and her garment substitutes her body and the grown up Heracles becomes a baby again and falls through her garment, as if he had been born by her.

From that second passage we can infer that suckling, which is what usually follows immediately after having given birth to child, can function in the same way as a surrogate for actual birth and therefore falls into the same schema of initiation/adoption ritual we read in Diodorus. Is it mere coincidence that both of these very powerful mythological figures (one hero and one god), had to be adopted by the Queen of Olympos so they can be incorporated into the Olympic pantheon?

In the second striking passage, from Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, we learn how Hera again, after the plea from Zeus, offered her god-nursing (θεοτρεφέων . . . µαζ´ν) breast to Dionysos, in order to make heaven passable for the earthly Dionysos, and to lead him to Olympos and to heal his wounds:

Kingsley, in his Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, provides a rather illuminating discussion of the theme of Heracles’ initiation to Olympos. He interprets the inscribed gold tablets as describing a process of heroization, and even goes further to suggest that: “The geographical spread of the evidence [Crete, Thessaly, South Italy]― and in particular its concentration at Thurioi, one of the greatest centres for the cult of Heracles in southern Italy― leaves little doubt that this initiatory heroization schema was more or less consciously modelled on the figure of Heracles.” (Kingsley 2000: 257; cf. in addition Detienne 1960: 19-53). As for Dionysos, for this kind of interpretation can hardly account for the god’s adoption-initiation ritual, he only adds that Dionysos had always been a figure that imitated Heracles (both performed a Katabasis into the Underworld, both have been initiated to the Mysteries of Eleusis). In a relevant passage from

[Offer your breast to Bacchos as once did my mother Rheia, so as to draw with his lips older grown your holy drops, and by that draught lead him on the way to Olympos and make heaven passable to earthly Dionysos.] Hera most unwillingly proceeds with the adoption of Dionysos and the healing of his wounds:

According to Plutarch (Moralia, 264-65) there is another instance where the Greeks, this time, and not Barbarians as in the Diodorus’ passage, had to

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swaddling-clothes, and to be suckled; and all other men in such plight do likewise and they are called “Men of Later Fate”. But some will have it that this was done in the case of such persons even before Aristinus, and that the custom is ancient.]

undergo an adoption/initiation ritual in the form of a mimetic rebirth. In the fifth of his Roman Questions we find the story of Aristinus, who like many other fortunate or unfortunate mortals (depending on one’s point of view) came back to life after his funeral had been held and a tomb constructed on the assumption that he was dead. Now, this anomaly, this disruption in the natural order, had been obviously perceived as something awful and uncanny, and that is exactly why people like Aristinus were treated as µιαροί, (polluted) and experienced social racism and religious preclusion:

Aristinus, like all the rest of the Üστερόποτµοοι, had to experience a second mimetic birth and be treated like newborn babes, wrapped in swaddling-clothes and suckled by some women, who would presumably act as τροφόι or foster-mothers, in order to be purified from death and be initiated into the circle of the living ones for a second time. That the whole ritual included sinking beneath the garments of a woman is attested by Hesychius (s.v. δευτερόποτµος), who among other instances says that this how they used to call “someone who had dived through a female lap twice”,

Before we may strive further to exploit how the passages quoted and discussed above contribute decisively to our understanding of A 1-3 and P 1-2, I would like to make clear that the Greek word κόλπος can be translated as either breast/bosom or lap/womb/female genitalia, therefore I do not think that there is much point in completely dismissing, with Zuntz (1971: 319) and Kingsley (2000: 267) translations and interpretations of the kolpos in A1, 7 as lap/womb. As it must have become obvious by now, giving birth and breast-feeding are to be found as alternative, or even combined together in the context of adoption - initiation ritual in the form of a mimetic rebirth.

[But consider if this be not some way similar to Greek customs; for the Greeks did not consider pure, nor admit to familiar intercourse, nor suffer to approach the temples any person for whom a funeral had been held and a tomb constructed on the assumption that they were dead. The tale is told that Aristinus, a victim of this superstition, sent to Delphi and besought the god to release him from the difficulties in which he was involved because of the custom; and the prophetic priestess gave response:

To return to the inscribed gold leaves, I think that we can also imagine Persephone as divine trophos (nurse) partaking in an adoption-initiation ritual in the form of a mimetic rebirth in interpreting both the Thurioi and the Thessaly gold leaves. The initiated was probably expected to be adopted by the goddess, undergo a mimetic rebirth ritual, whether that would involve passing through the garments of the goddess or just suckling her breast, in order to pass from death to rebirth and from there to immortalization (cf. Heracles in Nonnos’ 35th Book, dead-reborn-immortalized and the same sequence in the Thurioi and Pelinna tablets dead-reborn [the same day]-immortalized, A1, 8; A23, 7; A4, 4a; cf. also the famous Platonic passage from Phaedo 69c: “The founders of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning, and were

All that a woman in childbed does at the birth of her baby, When this again thou hast done, to the blessed gods offer sacrifice. Aristinus, accordingly, chose the part of wisdom and delivered himself like a new-born baby into the hands of women to be washed, and to be wrapped in

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He was the one had been killed and dismembered by Titans and born again. Dionysos is a god of multiple births (Bacchae, 88), deaths and rebirths. In the bone tablet from Olbia, his name comes after the following sequence of words: βίος θάνατος βίος Ðλήθεια ∆ιο ’Ορφικ[οι, “life death life truth Dio Orphic”. He is the god who makes his initiates behave and be treated like children, cf. the amazing passage from the Bacchae, 963-76.

not devoid of sense when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified into the world below will die in a slough, but he who arrive there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods.” (my italics). It may be of great importance to mention here that this practice of mimetic rebirth ritual was also attested in modern Greece as a form of symbolic adoption (Will-Mpadieritaki 1980: 131-4), who provides a fascinating discussion of the function of the modern Greek “πουκαµισο” of the adoptive parent as a surrogate for her actual body). To put all the threads together, I suggest that this could be also a possible meaning of the telea, that the initiated would expect to experience below the earth, ÜπÄ γ±ν, in line 7 of the Pelinna tablet.

Birth and adoption have always been at the heart of the Mystery Cults. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, “Demophon has been considered as a form of the divine child whose birth was announced at the climax of the mysteries, and as model for the initiates, who were adopted as children by the divine nurses (κουροτρόφοι) Demeter and Persephone.” (Richardson 1974: 24). But poor Demophon does not make it till the end; due to his mother’s fault, he never gains immortality, he only enjoys the special privilege of being the threptos of the goddess. The promise of immortality is a step that is not taken in classical era within the ritual context of the Mysteries of Eleusis. Adoption does not lead up to rebirth, at least not yet.

But are all the above compatible with the cult of Persephone and the Bacchic background as it has been widely suggested from the beginning of the twentieth century (of these texts)?

On the contrary, in the gold tablets from Thurioi (the earliest of which is dated around the middle of the fourth century BC) things are quite different: death leads to adoption and rebirth and rebirth to immortality. Death is only the descent to earth’s womb, mortals die the same way that crops die and give birth to new seeds, and “the process of birth becomes the prototype for the process of rebirth, of ‘higher’ birth as… an immortal.” (Neumann 1963: 159). Before drawing the final conclusions, I would like to refer briefly to the enigmatic immersion-in-milk formula, that until very recently has been considered as just a “proverb describing the abundance of something one has hoped for. In other words, the imagery of milk and kid has no significance and is simply to be understood metaphorically” (Kingsley 2000: 265-8). He puts the formula into the right context, and maintains that it is “to be understood in terms of immortalisation”, associating the formulaic expression with the Mysteries of Attis, where the initiates were being given milk to drink “as though they were being reborn” (íσπερ Ðναγεννωµένων). In many cultures, female breasts have been conceived as the symbols of the ever-flowing and nourishing life

Dionysos in relation to Demeter and Kore/Persephone is mentioned among many other instances in the Õπόρχηµα (dance-song) of Antigone, 1116-25; in Arrian, Anabasis 2. 16, and elsewhere. The god himself was worshipped as a kid (ñριφος) and in the ‘Orphic’ myth he was considered to be the baby of Persephone and Zeus (see Harpocration, s.v. λεύκη).

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stream, and this I think is how they are also conceived in the ritual context of an adoption rite in the form of mimetic rebirth. Is it mere coincidence that the two tablets from Thessaly were symmetrically arranged on the chest of the dead person’s body, one over each breast; or that within the grave were also found “two small round plated of thick silver (3.5 cm in diameter) each adorned with a female bust with streaming hair and a necklace, in the same position?” (Graf 1993: 255, who quotes and translates the original archaeological report made by Cavallari (1879: 24553).

Conclusions In the present paper I suggested that adoption ritual in the form of a mimetic rebirth is at the heart of the mystery cult of Persephone in South Italy, as we can trace it in the gold leaves from Thurioi, but at the same time can be compatible with the Bacchic context of the lamellae from ancient Pelinna. In addition, I established that the adoption initiation ritual was a prominent feature in many ancient mystery cults like the Mysteries of Eleusis and that of Attis. I shall stop here, having always in mind that the biggest, the most fascinating mysteries are to be savoured, not resolved.

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Harrison, J. E. 1903 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge. Kingsley, P. 2000 Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic. Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition, Oxford. Neumann, E. 1963 The Great Mother, an analysis of the archetype, Manheim R. (trans.), Princeton. Richardson, N.J. 1974 The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Oxford. Riedweg, C. 1998 “Initiation – Tod – Unterwelt. Beobachten zur Kommunikationssituation und narrativen Technik der orphish-bakchischen Goldblättchen”, in Ansichten griechischer Rituale für W. Burkert, Graf, F. (ed.), Stuttgart and Leipzig: 359-398. Tsantsanoglou, K. and Parassoglou, G. 1987 “Two gold Lamellae from Thessaly”, Hellenica 38: 317. Will–Mpadieritaki A. 1980 Το Γυναικείο Παραδοσιακό Πουκάµισο της Ηπειρωτικής Ελλάδας, Athens. Zuntz, G. 1971 Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia, Oxford.

Bibliography Burkert, W. 1977 Griechische Religion der archaischen und Klassischen Epoche, Stuttgart. = 1985 Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, Raffan, J. (trns.), Oxford. Burkert, W. 1987 Ancient Mystery Cults, Harvard. Cavallari, F. S. 1879 “XI. Sibari.” NSc, 245-53. Detienne, M. 1960 “Héraclès, héros pythagoricien, RHR 158: 19-53. Fridh-Haneson, B.M. 1987 “Votive Terracottas from Italy. Types and Problems”, in Gifts to the Gods. Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium, Linders T. and Nordquist G. (eds.), Uppsala: 67-75. Graf, F. 1993 “Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology”, in Masks of Dionysos, Carpenter T.H. and Faraone C.A. (eds.), Ithaca and London: 239-58. Hadzisteliou-Price, T. 1978 Kourotrophos. Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities, Leiden. Hall, H. R. and Woolley, C. L. 1927 Ur Excavations, London.

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brings forth might be used to explain Theocritus’ peculiar phraseology with reference to the death of Daphnis and to an extent the persistence of the ancient sources in the cultic background of the bucolic.

The death of Daphnis Evangelia Anagnostou-Laoutides Theoretical background

Daphnis’ mythological past

Theocritus was the first Greek poet who systematically depicted love in pastoral terms throughout his work (Suda dates Theocritus at about 300-260 BC; Lawall 1967: 120-3; cf. Funaioli 1993: 206-15). However, the understanding of his poetry poses an old and remaining problem in scholarship (Halperin 1983: 7; Rosenmeyer 1969: 6, 17) because, despite all the efforts to define the bucolic genre, none of the theories that emerged throughout the years managed to take into account or even approach the claim of the ancient sources that the origin of the bucolic is to be found in cult (Schol.Theoc.Vet.2-20; Wendel 1914; cf. Hathorn 1961: 228-38; Wojaczek 1963: 135-50; Rosenmeyer 1969: 34-5; Merkelbach 1988: 37-143).

In Sicily, the homeland of the bucolic, pastoral tradition focused on the tragic death of Daphnis, the mythical cowherd, which Theocritus famously treated in his first Idyll (D.S.4.84.2-4; Stesich. apud Ael. VH10.18; cf. Parth. Narrationes Amatoriae 29; Gow 1952: 2n1; Rostagni 1957: 3-17; Halperin 1983: 80). Daphnis was a son or favourite of Hermes and was loved by the nymph Echenais who required of him to be faithful to her alone (Lawall 1967: 2; Rosenmeyer 1969: 33; Snell 1953: 285; PMG F 280 (Davies); Timae. FGrH 566 A 83; Parth.κθ′ Gasel.335). However, Daphnis’ romantic engagement was dramatically interrupted when a (mortal) princess persuaded him to lie with her after getting him drunk. Hence, the nymph blinded Daphnis who would console himself for some time by making pastoral music (Schol.Theocr.8.93). He met his end when he fell off a rock - some say that he fell into the sea in imitation of lovelorn Sappho who had leapt from the Leukadian rock into the sea for the sake of the mythical ferryman, Phaon (Ov.Ep.15; Men.Leuk.1, Arnott; Str.10.2.9; cf. Anacr. PMG 376). Others add that his father, Hermes, took pity on him and transformed him into a stone (Ov.Met.4.277). This stone which was still shown at the time of Theocritus at the city of Cephalenitanum, should be probably associated with an early representation of Hermes as a stone with human head and a phallus (Nilsson 1950: 256-9; Burkert 1979: 39-40). It was also reported that Hermes caused a fountain called Daphnis to gush up at Syracuse, where annual sacrifices were offered in memory of his son (Xanth. FGrH 765 F 29; Anticl. FGrH 140 F 19; Eust.1809.38-40). From the aforementioned clues it follows that the myth of Daphnis was probably woven around a certain cult which lies at the background of Theocritus’ poem (but see Rosenmeyer 1969: 39; Berg 1974: 12; cf. Putnam 1970: 179-84; Alpers 1990: 32-3).

Since the theoretical approaches of modern critics have failed to appreciate the nature of bucolic poetry, it seems that the key to its understanding might be hidden in the adventures of its legendary figures; in the 17th and 18th centuries it was fashionable to ascribe the invention of pastoral to the earliest known shepherds such as Daphnis, the Sicilian initiator of pastoral singing. A common argument of those days was that the Greeks took the pastoral from the East and that Isaiah was a more significant pastoralist than Theocritus (Rosenmeyer 1969: 31; Schol. Theoc.1.141,17.14-5 and 74.10 in Wendel 1914 and Ael. VH10.18; cf. Epicharmus apud Ath.14.619a-c; Dover 1971: 55). Pastoral song accompanied by the flute can be traced in Greece from an early period, however its influence from the East has been fully appreciated only recently (Merchelbach 1956: 97-133; Horowski 1973: 187-212; Pagliaro 1975: 189-93; Walker 1980: 55-7, 125-8; cf. Dover 1971: 60; Halperin 1983: 83). In the following pages the character of Daphnis will be associated with eastern deities of the calibre of Adonis and Dumuzi in an attempt to detach him from the Euripidian model of Hippolytus with whom Daphnis has been traditionally compared; instead, he will be related to eastern fertility gods with tragic fates very similar to his. The clues that this research

The punishments that Daphnis experienced might hold some evidence regarding his mythological persona: blinding was a common punishment for

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offending a goddess (Hdt.2.112-20; Call.h.5). Furthermore, Homeric and Greek Lyric poets, to whom Theocritus constantly referred, had employed similar vocabulary for deathly and erotic blindness (Cyrino 1995: 150, 162 n60; cf. Artem.15-6; West 1966: 409). Therefore, it is not surprising that such a punishment befell Daphnis, a failed lover. The notion of Daphnis as a lover seems to be further sustained by his tragic leap into the sea because the motif of jumping off a rock had connotations of sexual satisfaction and of subconscious desires (Nagy 1990: 223-62, esp. 227-34). Hence, even in his death Daphnis proved to be lustful unlike his traditional conception as a resentful lover.

assumption that Theocritus’ version of the myth was considerably different from the traditional one (Ogilvie 1962: 106-10; Segal 1981: 25-65). Theocritus was obviously aware of the traditional version of the myth because in Idyll 7.73 he described the fatal love of Daphnis for the nymph Xenea; although specific references are avoided in the first Idyll as to which version the poet follows, equally there is no sound evidence to indicate that Theocritus did opt for another version (Lawall 1967: 92-3). Daphnis’ erotic disposition was revealed by the remarks of the deities who ran to his aid while the hero was lying on his deathbed. Hermes was the first of Daphnis’ divine visitors to enter the scene:

Daphnis as lover

‘¶νθ´ ‘Ερµ°ς πράτιστος Ðπ´ öρεος, ε∙πε δÁ “∆çφνι, τίς τυ κατατρύχει; τίνος, Öγαθέ, τόσσον ñρασαι;”.

Daphnis as depicted in Theocritus’ first Idyll was often compared with the character of Hippolytus in Euripidian drama (Lawall 1967: 3; Berg 1974: 13). Hippolytus was a devotee of Artemis and had vowed to remain chaste as the goddess demanded (Gregory 1991: 78; Gould 1990: 179-80; Lombard 1988: 17-27; Taplin 1978: 71-2). He was revered as a wedding deity in Troezen, where ritual lament was established in his honour (Eur.Hipp.1423-30; Paus.2.32.1-4; Seaford 1994: 320; Philippides 1995: 277; cf. Verg.Ecl.5.29-31). Similarly Theocritus’ dying Daphnis was mourned by the whole pastoral world as depicted in prolonged scenes of pathetic fallacy (Theoc.Id.1.71-6, 80-1, 115-36; Verg.Ecl.5.40-44). Moreover, Hippolytus was associated in cult with Aphrodite and in a Euripidian light he was presented as the victim of the goddess who punished him for spurning her power (Eur.Hipp.1-65 esp. 31-3: Aphrodite’s shrine at Athens ‘Ñφ´ ’Ιππολύτz’). Daphnis’ stichomythia with the goddess in Theocritus was subsequently interpreted in the same light (Theoc.Id.1.97-8): Daphnis was seen as an arrogant shepherd who refused to fall in love, and whom Aphrodite punished by infusing into him a desperate passion. Daphnis, like a Hellenistic version of Hippolytus, remained unrepentant to the very end, and he finally died from unsatisfied longing. The conception of Daphnis as Hippolytus was based on the suggestion of Gebauer’s suggestion who had published his dissertation on Bucolic poetry in 1856 (Arnott 1996: 55-70; Dover 1971 ad hoc; Gow 1952: 2; Ogilvie 1962: 107-8, [esp 106 n2]; Segal 1981: 181). However, this theory relied by and large on the

The presence of Hermes, a god always interested in fertility, stressed Daphnis’ relation with the forces of nature (Ov.Met.2.708ff, 4.288; Hyg.Fab.160; schol.Lycophron 1176; Prop.2.2.11-12); Hermes seemed well informed on the nature of Daphnis’ collapse, which he explained as overstated passion. Daphnis was dying because he was too much – ‘τόσσον’- enamoured and such an avowal attests that unlike chaste Hippolytus, he did experience amorous affection. The simile of love with death is very old in Greek literature and it has been argued that “certain elements of the Homeric and Hesiodic conceptions of Eros resonate powerfully in the lyric phase of literary activity: the association of eros and pothos, in actions and characteristics, with the semantic fields covered by limb-relaxing sleep and misty death…” stress the perception of love as a form of death (Cyrino 1995: 74; cf. Sourvinou-Inwood 1995: 248-51, 265-7, 2868; cf. Sapph.31, Campbell). Hence, Daphnis could be perhaps understood as a rather entertaining, farcical version of the passionate lover image often depicted in Hellenistic epigrams (e.g Mel.A.P.12.74.5; cf. Segal 1981: 190; cf. Lawall 1967: 19-22 and Segal 1974b: 17-9; for Idylls that could be read as komoi Cairns 1972: 145-52 and passim). Priapus was the second visitor of Daphnis; he was regarded as the embodiment of lust and his cult originated in the rude wooden phallic images often used in the Dionysiac orgies (Webster 1964: 82-5;

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suggested that during the Hellenistic period the adjective used to implicate

Berg 1974: 11, 118, 125). Certain mythic versions dated from the Hellenistic period onwards testified that his father was Adonis, rather than Dionysos (A.R.4.914-19; D.S.4.83; Schol.Theoc.Id.25.100; Tzetzes on Lycophron 831).

“some suggestion that the love is pathological or unbalanced. That sense is developed in the Hellenistic period so that ‘δβσερως’ is standard in the Anthology for someone who is obsessed with sex, who is ‘in a bad way’…It will be seen that throughout its history [of the adjective] there is a consistent thread of meaning: the love is always in some way improper or abnormal” (Ogilvie 1962: 108; cf. Plu.Cic.32.4; Plu. Dion 16.2; Lucianus Tim.26).

Priapus addressed Daphnis but he did not exactly seek to know the reason of the latter’s torment (cf. MacQueen 1990: 31-51). His speech expressed aporia about Daphnis deathly distress, especially since his love was responsive (Theoc.Id.1.82-93):

Indeed Priapus in his address of Daphnis asserted that Daphnis felt like a shepherd who wished to have been born a ram, an animal that symbolizes lust and sexual hyperactivity. Priapus continued with the sad observation that Daphnis could no more dance with the young maidens who were laughing at him (DuQuesnay 1979: 213; Goldhill 1991: 252-3). Theocritus employed this motif, widely treated in Greek Lyric poetry, also in Idyll 11 where Polyphemus, having recovered from his obsession with the sea-nymph Galatea, declared his potential of responding to the giggling invitation of the girls (Theoc.Id.11.78; cf. Gow ad hoc). Unlike him, Daphnis’ weakness to do the same would apparently underline the frenzy of his passion. Priapus characterised Daphnis as ‘δύσερως’ and ‘еήχανος’, two adjectives which could reveal a lot about the hero’s suffering and its possible reasons (Loraux 1995: 33). It seems that amekhania was a term particularly associated with femininity and therefore Theocritus’ intention must have been to present Daphnis as afflicted by a woman in compliance with the traditional version of the story. The adjective ‘δύσερως’ has been employed in ancient literature to describe any kind of perverse love and the only way in which Daphnis’ passion could be characterised as such is to be found in its excess (Gow 1952: 19; cf. Theoc.Id.6.7 where Galatea called Polyphemus ‘δύσερως’; cf. Mel.A.P.12.23, 79, 81, 125, 137; Strat. A.P.12.13). Ogilvie who argued that Theocritus followed the traditional version of the myth noticed that the epithet is rather rare and that ‘in its earliest occurrences it means loving that which one ought not to love’ (Ogilvie 1962: 107 quoted examples from Eur.Hipp.193-4; Th.6.13.2; X.Oec.12.13; Lys.4.8; Call.Epigr.41.6). It has been

Daphnis’ death Daphnis’ erotic profile could sustain the hypothesis that his death might have been symbolic, especially since he was always depicted as dying young and handsome (Berg 1974: 12 n9; cf. Verg.Ecl.5.42-4; Longus 1.7, 1.15; Rissman 1983: 74-5, discussed the verb ‘πτοιέω’ in Sappho in the sense that the poetess is afraid of undergoing a spiritual death for losing her beloved girl). This assumption seems to comply with Theocritus’ perception of Daphnis’ fate. As mentioned, tradition had it that Daphnis fell off a rock into the sea, a motif with evident erotic connotations (Call.Epigr.22; cf. Ogilvie 1962: 109-10). Surprisingly his death was not at all uncommon for bucolic characters: Hermesianax (c. 330BC) presented Menalcas as suffering with love for Daphnis who scorned him for a nymph (Theoc.Id.8.55schol). Menalcas, in despair for his unresponsive love, drowned after jumping off a rock (cf. Hermesian, Elegiacus.41, Berg: Antimachus also threw himself in

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elucidation, yet they could mean no more than “he went to the river”; that is, Daphnis dies by drowning literally (Ogilvie 1962: 108-9). Two mainstream interpretations in the 1960s claimed to have resolved the issue: ‘the school of thought which believes Daphnis to have faded away takes the words as no more than a poetical periphrasis for died ‘ñβα ·όον’…if that solution fails, the stream must be a real and not an infernal stream. A second approach is to translate ‘ñβα ·όον’ as “he passed away into a stream”, i.e., “he turned into a flood” but here the accusative construction is unendurable’. However, it would not be illogical to assume that Theocritus used the traditional material in a metaphoric manner to state that Daphnis was totally consumed by his love. Anacreon and Sappho were also rumoured to have found similar deaths when fired with erotic passion.

the flow of Pactolus for the sake of Lyde). The motif which was first employed by Anacreon to express the intensive passion (388 Campbell):

Photius (Phot.Bibl.152-3 quoting Ptol.Chenn., 2nd cAD) recorded that the first to dive off the heights of Cape Leukas was Aphrodite out of love for dead Adonis, a reference that stresses the erotic nuances of the motif. In addition, the notion of being intoxicated with lust recalls the tradition about Daphnis’ drunkenness that resulted in adultery on his behalf and is very old in Greek literature (Webster 1964: 156-77; Giangrande 1968; cf. Latin Elegy: Giangrande 1974: 46-98). The ‘bucolic’ value of the motif is attested by a fragment derived from Cyclops (163-8, Kovacs), a satyr drama of Euripides (Cyrino 1995: 110-12 on Anacreon and 93-4 on Alcaios; Nagy 1990: 227-8):

Furthermore, drowning seems to have been used as a symbol of transition in Greek myth and ritual, a variant also supported by the contemporary version of Hermesianax (Gallini 1963: 61-90). In ritual as in myth contact with water sources could constitute a fresh beginning, an allegorical rebirth (Burkert 1983: 209). This notion seems to be sustained by the myth of Rhodope, the devotee of Artemis who was transformed into the spring of Styx, when discovered by the goddess in flagrante (Ach.Tat.8.11-14 Leukippe and Kleitophon). The heroine’s fall is specifically described as a device of Aphrodite who wished to punish her maiden arrogance with an irresistible passion that recalls Daphnis’ encounter with the goddess (cf. Od.11.254; D.S.6.7; Aeschin. Ep.10; Zuntz 1960: 37-40; Ogilvie 1962: 107).

The motif is also employed by Theocritus precisely with reference to Polyphemus and his erotic frenzy for the sea nymph Galatea (Theoc.Id.3.250, cf. Id. 5.15-6, 11.60-2). Theocritus seems to allude to a death by drowning, a death quite suitable apparently for a victim of Love (Cyrino 1995: 64, 92, 116-7, cf. 163 n64; Rissman 1983: 80; cf. Diomedes Il.5.796 and Eurypylos Il.11.811-12). Theocritus’ lines, cited below, have raised many doubts regarding their exact reading (138-41):

The death of Adonis Death by drowning had been a common fate for fertility deities, who originated in the East and with whom Daphnis seems to have shared a close affinity; the idea that ancient Greek culture and literature were extensively influenced from the East has been emphasized in scholarship (West 1966: 16-31; 1978: 26-30; 1997: 59-60; Griffin 1992: 189-211). In addition, the tendency for religious syncretism during the Hellenistic period stresses the suspicion that authors would at that time also allow Oriental material to filter with their work (West 1969: 113-34; 1997: 60; Penglase 1994: 3-8). Especially in his first Idyll Theocritus has often raised suspicions of drawing heavily on Near Eastern tradition. Among the divine

It has been argued that Theocritus followed a tradition according to which the hero was believed to have drowned in real: The words ‘ñβα ·όον’ have defied

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festival had initially an agricultural character which affiliates it with the rustic environment of Daphnis, while the practice of throwing “Adonis” into the sea recalls the death of the Sicilian herdsman (Detienne 1994: 101-22; Burkert 1983: 107; Nagy 1985: 62; Stehle 1990: 92; Murray 1993: 87).

consorts of the Near East that met tragic deaths, Adonis had a pre-eminent position in Greek bucolic poetry and his comparison with Daphnis was clearly intended by Theocritus. When Aphrodite finally visited the dying hero (Theoc.Id.1.97-8), Daphnis angrily reproached her in a scene that has been paralleled with Gilgamesh’s offending speech towards Ishtar when the latter proposed he become her consort (Sandars 1960: 84). In these lines Daphnis, like Gilgamesh, accused the goddess of causing the bad fortune of her previous lovers- Anchises, Diomedes and Adonis- thus relating himself to them. Although the scene was accounted for Daphnis’ rejection of Aphrodite and therefore of love, in her address to Daphnis, the goddess described him as “bent by Love”, a possible hint that she viewed Daphnis as enamoured (cf. Anacr.396.3; Campbell; S.Tr.441-2; cf. Alc.380C, fr.287C; Ar.Ec.963-4; Eur. Hipp.527, 542).

The Greeks adapted the cult of Adonis during the seventh century BC from the annual lamentation for the Mesopotamian god Tammuz or Dumuzi (PseudoApollod.Bibl.3.14.4; Panyas.Bibl.2.85-7). Eusebius explained that Adonis was a divinity of vegetation and fertility and that his death marked the harvesting of the crops (Eus.P.E. 3.11.12; also cf. Ov.Met. 10.298559, 708-39). Aphrodite fell in love with him but he was killed while hunting by a boar or by Hephaestus or Ares disguised as a boar (Anderson 1995: 70 underlined the similarities between Adonis and Dumuzi regarding their Underworld connections). The cult of Dumuzi as well as that of Adonis was always performed by women and the Greek Adoniazousai described by Theocritus had their counterparts in the women of Jerusalem weeping for Tammuz at the north gate of the temple (Ez. 8:14-5, cf. Dumuzi and Old Testament parallels: Beyerlin 1975: 80, 88, 160; Halperin 1983: 99-100; cf. Alster 1972: 14). Even the name of Adonis was an adaptation by the Greeks of the western Semitic adjective Adon (= lord) which was probably used as a divine title during the god’s mourning (Burkert 1979: 192 n3; also Atallah 1966: 310-18; Berg 1974: 18; cf. West 1997: 57, 448). This pastoral religious tenet had a long tradition in the Old Testament and it has been argued that “the religious aura surrounding the figure of the herdsman and his prophetic colleagues …can be traced back from the Daphnis of Greek lyric poetry and cult all the way to the Sumerian shepherd-god Dumuzi” (Halperin 1985: 99; cf. Duchemin 1960: 7084; Berg 1974: 15-22). It seems then that these deities belonged to a wider bucolic tradition that allowed them to be counter-influential to each other’s mythology.

Daphnis’ angry reply is cited below (Theoc.Id.1.1059):

Theocritus described the magnificent festival of Adonis at Alexandria in Idyll 15. The Adonia, also celebrated in Athens, revealed their “…Mesopotamian origins in such features as the summer date and the potted gardens” (Reed 1995: 321-3). Zenobius (1.49) reported that the pots were carried out with the dead god and were thrown to the sea, while Reed suggested that this custom was probably a ‘fossilisation of some Near Eastern agricultural magic’ (Reed 1995: 320). Eustathius (Od.1701.45-50) reported that the gardens were thrown into the sea, while according to the Alexandrian practice an effigy of the god was committed to the sea; perhaps Osirian influence should be suspected here (Theoc.15.133 with schol.; Diosc.A.P.5.53, 193; cf. Plut.De Is. et Os.13). The

The death of Dumuzi The parallels between Adonis and Daphnis make the comparison of the latter with Dumuzi more plausible. Hence, Daphnis was unfaithful to his beloved and equally Dumuzi, indifferent to the death of his spouse Inanna, had broken his marital vows: “on their own

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merits the resemblance between the Theocritean and Vergilian Daphnis and the Sumerian Dumuzi have much to commend them: in both cases the arch-patron of the pastoral world dies after breaking his fidelity to the sex-goddess or a nymph; a renewal is arranged and some kind of resurrection takes place” (Anderson 1993: 67). Certain correspondences between Daphnis and Tammuz/Dumuzi underline the possibility that these deities belong to the same literary tradition and therefore they might have experienced similar mythological deaths (Trescsényi-Waldapfel 1966: 131 for the derivation of Daphnis’ name from Tammuz; Anderson 1993: 65-79 for Daphnis and Sumerian shepherd-god Dumuzi; Rosenmeyer 1969: 31; Berg 1974: 14-15; Halperin 1983: 83-117;).

Cult and Bucolic The bucolic character of the eastern divine consorts is attested in the pathetic fallacy which is extensively employed in their mourning and is similar to the Theocritean mourning of Daphnis. Furthermore, it seems that at literary level pathetic fallacy could indicate the ritual lamentation that had been established for each of these unfortunate lovers. Theocritus described the ritual lamentation for Adonis in Idyll 15 (Burkert 1979: 105-108); his followers, Bion and Pseudo-Moschus, seem to put even more emphasis on the mourning of the natural world for Adonis’ death (Bion 32-34; Ps.-Mosch.23-4). Moshcus, in his lament for the death of Bion, fashioned after the latter’s lament for Adonis, insisted in fancifully presenting the bucolic poet as an actual cowherd such as Daphnis. He even addressed the dead poet as ‘º βούτα’ in the way Priapus addressed Daphnis (Mosch.65; cf. Theocr.86; Halperin 1982: 253).

According to some versions Dumuzi was depicted as being carried away by the stream of the Underworld (Anderson 1993: 74 ns27, 28). In one of the versions Dumuzi was depicted as swimming for his life while Inanna watched him. The goddess in agony for his fate was encouraging him from the bank. Anderson argued that this version might be also implied in Dumuzi’s dream in which pirates were reported to have come by water. They kidnapped and murdered Dumuzi like the pirates that abducted Chloe in Longus’ novel or Daphnis’ beloved in Sositheus’ version of the tale. (Dionysos also had adventures with pirates. For Dionysos see OCD 1999 s.v. Dionysos; Plut.De Is.et Os.35.364f).

The Sumerian god Dumuzi is also mourned in totally bucolic terms (Brown 1995: 244-6). The sheep and goats of the ill-fated Dumuzi who descended to Hades as a substitute for his spouse, Inanna, wept for the loss of their shepherd in the same way that the flocks of Daphnis mourned the death of their master. The Sumerian text is cited below (Penglase 1994: 178; cf. West 1997: 57):

Since Daphnis was destined to perish by drowning, according to the connotations that water had in association with female eros, Theocritus must have intended to emphasise that the hero was in love cf. (Carson 1990: 138; Arch.fr.184 W; Eur.Hipp.525-9.; Onians 1954: 102-3; Kenney 1959: 145-7). Stesichorus and Timaeus (VH10.18) had named Daphnis’ beloved Echenais, a story Theocritus was apparently aware of (Theoc.Id.8.1-4; cf. Gow 1952: 171). The name means the one who holds back ships and is translated in Latin as ‘remora’. Both Aristotle and the Elder Pliny confirmed that ‘echenais’ or ‘remora’ is a kind of fish, very small, ‘which some people call the ship-brake: some use it as a charm for lawsuits and love affairs’ (Arist. HA.2.24.20-4; Plin.Nat.9.79; Opp.H.212; A.A.149).

‘your small kids weep bitterly in the feeding-pen, your motherless lambs [utter] bitter cries at the wall’s encompassing base’. By comparison Theocritus wrote (Id.1.74-5):

Furthermore, Gilgamesh, in his aforementioned speech, testified that ritual lamentation had been decreed in honour of Tammuz (Sandars 1960: 84) and was still enacted in the age of Theocritus in Seleucia (Anderson 1993: 75-6). After all, Theocritus’ song for Daphnis was a dirge in which pathetic fallacy was extensively employed. Moreover, Bion had Aphrodite to wander distraught in every slope and glade calling Adonis’ name (19-

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sun or the hero. A Babylonian prayer for the exorcism of a malevolent ghost contained the wish: ‘Let it go to the sunset, /let it be entrusted [to Nedu], the chief [gate] keeper of the earth’. A Hittite ritual designed to appease the god Telepinu said: ‘let it go to the road of the Sun-god of the earth. The doorkeeper has opened the seven doors, drawn back the seven bolts. Down in the dark earth bronze cauldrons stand…what goes in does not come out again, it perishes therein’. In the Ugaritic Keret epic, the hero’s wife foresees his death: ‘Keret will certainly come to the goin-in of the sun/ your lord and mine to the hiding of the sun’.

24). Bion apparently acknowledged Adonis’ eastern origin since he described him as the ‘Assyrian husband’ of Aphrodite (for Assyrian influence on the cult of Aphrodite see Paus.1.14.7; Hdt.1.105; 1.131; Penglase 1994: 161-4; cf. Gow 1952: 62). It would not be irrational to compare Bion’s scene to Theocritus’ depiction of the unnamed beloved of Daphnis who according to Priapus was also looking for him in every fount and glade (Theoc.Id.182-5; cf. A.R. 4.445-47). Ritual search was often associated with the cult of Adonis and similar deities such as the Sumerian Dumuzi or the Babylonian Tammuz and it might be argued that in his song for Daphnis Theocritus was drawing on the cult of these deities. However, these mythological possibilities still do not explain the verses of Theocritus referring to Daphnis’ drowning.

The idea that the sun would set and die in the west before rising the following morning was later passed in the mysteries of late antiquity. The candidate for initiation should take a dangerous journey through the Underworld in order to achieve rebirth and to this purpose he had to follow the path of the Sun. In the religion of Osiris rebirth is promised to everyone although initially it was confined to the Pharaoh. This can also be explained by the solar course: as the Sun re-emerges from the realm of the dead every day so the faithful will be resurrected. Thus, in Apuleius the initiate into the mysteries of Isis had to pass through the twelve hours of the night corresponding to the Egyptian conception of the Underworld journey of the sun bark. The Babylonian Ishtar also had to pass through seven or sometimes fourteen gates on her journey to hell (Speiser 1950: 106-9). In later sources there was evidence for the celebration of Adonis’ resurrection and although it was regarded as an addition due to his comparison with the cult of the Egyptian Osiris (Penglase 1994: 179; cf. Apollod.3.183-5; Plu.Dio52.372c), Osiris’ rites (Firm.De err.prof.relig.2.3) have similarities with the early cult of Adonis as featured by Sappho (fr.140; especially the beating of the breasts). The notion of resurrection fits with the possibility of a symbolic death and “as a being who dies and finds new life, Daphnis reflects the dying and rising divinities popular among the Greeks, like Adonis, the Thracian Dionysos, and Osiris, not to mention such heroes as Heracles, the Dioscuri and Romulus, who found their way after death into the company of the gods” (Berg 1965: 13-4; Verg.Ecl.5). It would be interesting to allow the possibility that Theocritus drew for his phraseology regarding the death of Daphnis on a wellestablished tradition referring to the sea as the realm of the dead.

Theocritus’ metaphor It might be suggested that with the expression ‘ñκλυσε δίνα’ (Theoc.Id.1.140) Theocritus simply wished to render poetically a phrase on the lines of “and then he just died” or “then he left his last breath”. Hence, Theocritus employed a metaphor which he expected the audience to recognise because not much was said to their elucidation. However, the key to the interpretation of the metaphor lays possibly a few lines above in Daphnis’ anxious address of Aphrodite. In anger he said (102):

In translation this question would be: ‘do you think that all my suns have already set?’ The expression, still powerful in Modern Greek for things that decline, is a loan from the actual daily solar course. The journey had a central role in the worship of Osiris whose funeral ship was believed to follow the course of the sun and Osiris was often compared with Adonis and Tammuz as the divine consort of Isis. Furthermore, Daphnis and Dumuzi seemed to have had similar Sun associations: ‘…Dumuzi is brother in law of Utu, the sun-god, and at one point reminds the latter that he supplies milk and cream to Utu’s mother Ningal’s house. According to Aelian again, Daphnis looked after the cattle of the Apollo’ Anderson 1993: 72; cf. Kramer 1981: 164-7). According to the religion of Osiris, the experience of the Underworld was symbolised by the nocturnal sea voyage of the

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From Homer onwards we find the motif that it is necessary to cross a river or some other body of water in order to reach the land of the dead (West 1997: 155; Od.10.508, 11.13-22; Sapph..95.11-13, Alc.38a.2-3, 8; A.Sept.856). In the Frogs of Aristophanes it was a bottomless lake that the dead had to cross. A river crossed by the dead also appears sporadically in Babylonian literature, named Hubur. Sometimes it stands for death, or the metaphorical condition of death experienced by the anguished. In the Old Testament the infernal river is to be found only in the book of Job which contains many remarkable mythical motifs. (see 33.18.28 (MSS.), Job 36.12). A clue towards this belief is also indicated by the fact that in early times people would place the Elysium, a type of ancient paradise, somewhere under the sea. This belief survives in the story of Enalos as rendered by Plutarch (Plu.Conv.sept.sap.20.163; Anticl. FGrH 140 F4, Athen.Deipn.11.15.466c). The idea of a primitive, marine paradise was very popular in antiquity and several myths confirm the association of the sea with renewed hope (cf. Gerner 1981).

sometimes associated dying with ‘going to the sunset’ (West 1997: 153-6), and from the Semitic point of view that meant crossing the western sea), a version which Theocritus seems to follow (‘ñκλυσε δίνα). Moribund Daphnis compared his situation with the sunset. A learned reader would understand that like the sun in his daily trip, Daphnis has ‘set sails’ for the Underworld (for parallels of funeral ships Goodison 1989: 92). The metaphor becomes more plausible since the Sun as well as Osiris was venerated like a vegetation god. Hence, Theocritus seems to have applied to Daphnis elements of a tradition which affiliated him with deities such as Osiris, who has long ago been recognised as the Egyptian version of Adonis. Since in his last journey Daphnis was thought to be on a barge, the phrase ‘Daphnis went to the stream’ sounds rather odd. It seems that the intended metaphor was that of life with the journey of the sun over the sea. Therefore, a sensible way of rendering the phrase ‘ñβα ·όον’ would be to maintain that Daphnis ‘crossed the stream’, in the sense that he reached the end of the journey of life.

Furthermore, the notion of placing the Underworld in the West was quite popular in Greek and Eastern mythology. It has long ago been suspected that Hercules’ adventure in the Garden of the Hesperides is an allegory for the hero’s journey to the land of the dead (Neumann 1963: 85, 138). The western location of the Garden implies an association with the Underworld, which is always located in the West (Apollod.1.219-21, 1.223, 1.231; Paus.5.10.9, 5.11.5, 5.18.4; 2.13.8, 6.19.8; S.Tr.1090-1, 1099-1100; Eur.Heracl.394-407; A.R.4.1396-1407; Luc.9.360-7; Sen.HF530-2). The sea sank down to the west where it would die before entering into the womb of the Underworld that was reported to devour it cf. (Od.20.356; S.OT.175-8). Hesiod mentioned that the Hesperides were the daughters of night and Erebos (Hes.Th.215-6) and a possible etymology of Erebos from Hebrew with the meaning sunset /evening which corresponds to the Ugaritic and Akkadian words translated as the going-in of the sunset has been suggested. The Hebrew word ăharôn -almost identical in sound with Acheron- means among other things ‘western’, and is applied in this sense to the western sea. We have seen that both Greeks and Semites

In this article a detailed analysis of the first Idyll of Theocritus seems to encourage the possibility that the Bucolic genre was a not the invention of a poet (Theocritus), but rather the literary development of long-standing ideas and motifs derived from the Near East. The association of Daphnis, the legendary bucolic singer, with Adonis places him in the pantheon of divine consorts such as Tammuz or Dumuzi. Theocritus who was probably aware of their common background did not hesitate to take interest in eastern cults and literature. Furthermore, light is cast on the tradition of Daphnis whose obscure death in the first Idyll had led many scholars to compare him with Hippolytus. Unlike chaste Hippolytus, our evidence shows that Daphnis died because of his exaggerated passion and that Theocritus wished to allude precisely to this version of the myth. The poet used figurative speech to convey his ideas and it is suggested that by the expression ‘Daphnis went [to the] river’ he just meant that the hero had passed away.

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