KNOSSIAN GIFTS? TWO LATE MINOAN IIIA1 CUPS FROM TEL BETH-SHEMESH, ISRAEL

2013 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shlomo Bunimovitz ◽  
Zvi Lederman ◽  
Eleni Hatzaki
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Gift Exchange ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Viable Option ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Close Affinity ◽  
New Evidence

Two Late Minoan IIIA1 cups were recently found in the excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel. They were part of a larger assemblage of local Late Bronze IIA (first half of the fourteenth century bc) drinking and eating vessels sealed under a destruction layer in one room of a large edifice, presumably a ‘palace’. A commemorative scarab bearing the name of Amenhotep III and related to the first Jubilee (Sed festival) in his thirtieth regnal year was found alongside the cups, providing further chronological evidence. This article examines the Late Minoan IIIA1 cups from Beth-Shemesh within their Aegean context and emphasises their close affinity with comparable cups from the palace of Knossos, catalogued and republished here. The Tel Beth-Shemesh cups are the second occurrence – after Sellopoulo Tomb 4 – of Knossian Late Minoan IIIA1 pottery found together with Amenhotep III's scarab. This new evidence strengthens the likelihood of some chronological overlap between Late Minoan IIIA1 and the reign of this Pharaoh. The article also considers the biography of the two Minoan cups, as social agents within the intricate network of the Late Bronze Age palatial gift exchange in the eastern Mediterranean. While it is possible that the cups came to Beth-Shemesh directly from Knossos, another viable option is that they arrived as a gift from the Egyptian court. The two rare Late Minoan IIIA1 Knossian cups could have reached Egypt on the occasion of Amenhotep III's much-discussed official embassy to the Aegean – including Knossos – and then been sent as royal gifts to the ruler of Beth-Shemesh.

3.2 ka BP Megadrought and the Late Bronze Age Collapse

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kaniewski ◽  
Elise Van Campo
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Prime Factor ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Southwest Asia ◽  
Aegean Region ◽  
Climate Shift ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
Political Unrest ◽  
Mediterranean Archaeology

The collapse of Bronze Age civilizations in the Aegean, southwest Asia, and the eastern Mediterranean 3200 years ago remains a persistent riddle in Eastern Mediterranean archaeology, as both archaeologists and historians believe the event was violent, sudden, and culturally disruptive. In the first phase of this period, many cities between Pylos and Gaza were destroyed violently and often left unoccupied thereafter. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterized the Late Bronze Age was replaced by the isolated village cultures of the Dark Ages. Earthquakes, attacks of the Sea Peoples, and socio-political unrest are among the most frequently suggested causes for this phenomenon. However, while climate change has long been considered a potential prime factor in this crisis, only recent studies have pinpointed the megadrought behind the collapse. An abrupt climate shift seems to have caused, or hastened, the fall of the Late Bronze Age world by sparking political and economic turmoil, migrations, and famines. The entirety of the megadrought’s effects terminated the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean.

scholarly journals Mortuary Landscapes Revisited: Dynamics of Insularity and Connectivity in Mortuary Ritual, Feasting, and Commemoration in Late Bronze Age Cyprus

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 877
Author(s):  
Teresa Bürge
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
External Objects

The aim of the paper is to discuss mortuary contexts and possible related ritual features as parts of sacred landscapes in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Since the island was an important node in the Eastern Mediterranean economic network, it will be explored whether and how connectivity and insularity may be reflected in ritual and mortuary practices. The article concentrates on the extra-urban cemetery of Area A at the harbour city of Hala Sultan Tekke, where numerous pits and other shafts with peculiar deposits of complete and broken objects as well as faunal remains have been found. These will be evaluated and set in relation to the contexts of the nearby tombs to reconstruct ritual activities in connection with funerals and possible rituals of commemoration or ancestral rites. The evidence from Hala Sultan Tekke and other selected Late Cypriot sites demonstrates that these practices were highly dynamic in integrating and adopting external objects, symbols, and concepts, while, nevertheless, definite island-specific characteristics remain visible.

scholarly journals The Social Role of Non-metal ‘Valuables’ in Late Bronze Age Britain

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brück ◽  
Alex Davies
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
The Social

Bronze Age metal objects are widely viewed as markers of wealth and status. Items of other materials, such as jet, amber and glass, tend either to be framed in similar terms as ‘prestige goods’, or to be viewed as decorative trifles of limited research value. In this paper, we argue that such simplistic models dramatically underplay the social role and ‘agentive’ capacities of objects. The occurrence of non-metal ‘valuables’ in British Early Bronze Age graves is well-documented, but their use during the later part of the period remains poorly understood. We will examine the deposition of objects of amber, jet and jet-like materials in Late Bronze Age Britain, addressing in particular their contexts and associations as well as patterns of breakage to consider the cultural meanings and values ascribed to such items and to explore how human and object biographies were intertwined. These materials are rarely found in burials during this period but occur instead on settlements, in hoards and caves. In many cases, these finds appear to have been deliberately deposited in the context of ritual acts relating to rites of passage. In this way, the role of such objects as social agents will be explored, illuminating their changing significance in the creation of social identities and systems of value.

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