New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture in the Greek & Roman World: 21st-Century Methods and Classical Antiquity 9004440755, 9789004440753

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New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture in the Greek & Roman World

Monumenta Graeca et Romana Editor-in-Chief John M. Fossey FRSC (McGill University & Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal) Senior Editor Troels Myrup Kristensen (Aarhus University) Associate Editor Beaudoin Caron (Université de Montréal) Assistant Editors Laure Sarah Éthier & Marilie Jacob (Université de Montréal) Advisory Board Christina Avronidaki (National Archaeological Museum, Athens) Anna Collar (University of Southampton) Andreas Konecny (University of Graz) Massimo Osanna (Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”) Duane W. Roller (The Ohio State University)

volume 27

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mgr

New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture in the Greek & Roman World 21st-Century Methods and Classical Antiquity Edited by

C.L. Cooper PhD Royal Ontario Museum

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustrations: (front) Contemporary graphic based on an ancient statue of Aphrodite (istock.com/bashta); (back) Modern bronze sculpture of Icarus by Igor Mitoraj in front of the ancient Temple of Concordia, Agrigento, Sicily (photo, 2013: C.L. Cooper). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cooper, C. L. (Catherine L.), editor, author. Title: New approaches to ancient material culture in the Greek & Roman  world : 21st-century methods and Classical antiquity / edited by C.L. Cooper. Other titles: New approaches to ancient material culture in the Greek and  Roman world Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2021] | Series: Monumenta Graeca et  Romana, 0169-8850 ; volume 27 | Includes bibliographical references and  index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020040649 (print) | LCCN 2020040650 (ebook) |  ISBN 9789004440692 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004440753 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Classical antiquities. | Classical antiquities—Study and  teaching—History—21st century. Classification: LCC DE59 .N49 2021 (print) | LCC DE59 (ebook) |  DDC 938—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020040649 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020040650

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0169-8850 ISBN 978-90-04-44069-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-44075-3 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by C.L. Cooper. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements vii A Note to the Reader viii List of Figures and Tables ix Notes on the Contributors xii Introduction: Old and New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture 1 C.L. Cooper (Kate Cooper)

Part 1 Adopting Approaches 1 Networks, Connectivity, and Material Culture 47 Anna Collar 2 Big Data and Greek Archaeology: Potential, Hazards, and a Case Study from Early Greece 63 Sarah Murray 3 Biography of the Bull-Leaper: A ‘Minoan’ Ivory Figurine and Collecting Antiquity 79 C.L. Cooper (Kate Cooper)

Part 2 Material Approaches 4 Labour Organisation and Energetics of Early Archaic Architecture in Korinthos 103 Philip Sapirstein 5 Collaborative Investigations into the Production of Athenian Pottery 124 David Saunders, Karen Trentelman, and Jeffrey Maish 6 “Everything impossible”: Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome 136 Nicola Barham

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Part 3 ‘Reading’ Material 7 The Pylos Tablets Digital Project: Prehistoric Scripts in the 21st Century 161 Dimitri Nakassis, Kevin Pluta, and Julie Hruby 8 Objects and Things in Classical Literature 172 Sarah Blake and Jennifer Dyer 9 The Soundscape of Textile Work in the Roman World: Old Sources & New Methods 183 Magdalena Öhrman Index of Ancient Sources Cited or Mentioned 201 General Index 205

Contents

Acknowledgements First and foremost, my thanks go to Dr Allison Surtees, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Winnipeg, without whom this project would never have happened. She and I co-organised the two conference panels about ancient material culture at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of Canada (in Winnipeg, 2013 and Montreal, 2014), which planted the seed of the idea for this book. She co-organised and hosted the dedicated conference at the University of Winnipeg in 2015, and was a driving force in the early stages of organising this volume. Thanks also to all the contributors in this volume for their ideas, cheerful support, and unfailing patience, particularly during the slow final stages of review. I was warned that editing a collected volume would be frustrating, but I have genuinely enjoyed working with you all, despite more than our fair share of challenges! I would also like to thank all the scholars who took part in the conference and panels from which this volume arose and those who submitted work which was not selected for inclusion. Their lively discussion and many stimulating ideas have served as an inspiration, showing that the new approaches to the subject are even more wide-ranging than can be represented by the selection in the current volume. I am grateful to my friends and colleagues in the Royal Ontario Museum, the University of Toronto, and the international Classics community for their generous help and encouragement throughout this process. Particular thanks go to Cillian O’Hogan and Matt Gibbs for advice on their areas of expertise. Most importantly, I thank Ben Akrigg for everything he does for me, every day. Finally, I would like to thank my parents who have constantly encouraged and supported me, and diligently read early versions of manuscripts despite no Classical knowledge. Sadly, my father, Colin Paul Cooper, died in March 2019 before this book was published. I would like to dedicate this volume to his memory. C.L. Cooper, June 2020

A Note to the Reader In accordance with MGR house-style ancient place names, the names and works of ancient authors, and ancient personalities have been transliterated using their Hellenic, rather than Latinate, forms. My thanks to John Fossey, the current series editor, for his guidance on this. In order to help the reader navigate this unusual presentation, the indices at the end of the volume include both versions of the names. Abbreviations adhere to the following conventions: – Bibliographic abbreviations of Journal titles and Reference works follow the conventions used by the American Journal of Archaeology (available at https://www.ajaonline .org/submissions/abbreviations) and the Oxford Classical Dictionary 4th Edition (available at https://oxfordre.com/classics/page/abbreviation-list/). – Epigraphic abbreviations follow the conventions of the Oxford Classical Dictionary. – Abbreviations for papyri and tablets follow the Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets (available at https://papyri.info/docs/ checklist). A bibliography is listed at the end of each chapter and is divided, where necessary, into lists of Ancient Works and Modern Works.

Figures and Tables Figures 2.1

A page from Syriopoulos’ massive, yet relatively unappreciated, site catalogue data (Syriopoulos, 1995: Vol. II 783). Courtesy of the Archaeological Society at Athens 69 3.1 The ROM chryselephantine Bull-Leaper (registration number 931.21.1), front and back in 2017 Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM. Photo: Brian Boyle, MPA, FPPO 84 3.2 Photograph showing the ROM Bull-Leaper before it was restored to be sent to the ROM in 1931. This photograph accompanied the description by Seltman, received Jan 16th 1931 and quoted on pages 85–86 Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum, © ROM 85 3.3 An X-ray taken in 2013 of the ROM Bull-Leaper Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM. Photo: Heidi Sobol 93 4.1 Schematic reconstruction of the Protokorinthian roof at Korinthos © the author, 2020 109 4.2 Surface markings common on the undersurface of roof tiles: (a) gravel parting agent, (b) marks from trimming leather-hard clay, (c) chiselling after firing © the author, 2020 110 4.3 Tile replications: (a) hypothetical tile-forming apparatus versus (b) the experimental implementation. A wooden board was used to strike the upper surface of both (c) the base mould, and (d) the replica tile © the author, 2020 114 4.4 Estimated timings for workers to produce a regular tile alone or in pairs © the author, 2020 116 4.5 Daily work schedule for producing ca. 25 tiles (D indicates assistance by a donkey) © the author, 2020 117 5.1 Athenian red-figure skyphos fragment, attributed to the Kleophrades Painter, 490–470 BCE. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 95.AE.31.2. Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum 128 5.2 Athenian black-gloss cup with a sketch of an Amazon on Horseback, ca. 450–430 BCE. The Art Museum, Princeton University, Museum Purchase, Classical Purchase Fund, y1987_70. Photo: Princeton University Art Museum 129 5.3 Athenian red-figure kalpis (detail), attributed to the Kleophrades Painter, 490–470 BCE. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 82.AE.7. White arrows point to starts and stops in the relief lines; numbers give the length of lines in cm. Photo: Jeffrey Maish, J. Paul Getty Museum 130 5.4 TEM images of samples taken from the skyphos fragment 95.AE.31.2 (fig. 5.1) left: relief line right: the background gloss Detail of fig. 2 from Walton et al., 2013 131 5.5 Athenian red-figure hydria fragment, attributed to the Berlin Painter, 490–470 BCE. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 81.AE.206.D.2005: top: underside of mouth. Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum. bottom: cross-section of removed sample. Fig. 1b from Cianchetta, et al., 2015 132 6.1 Millefiori dish. Mid-2nd/early 1st Century BCE. Hellenistic or early Roman, Eastern Mediterranean. The Art Institute of Chicago, Katherine K. Adler Memorial Fund, 2004.722. Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago 137

x 6.2 Glass beaker. 2nd half of 1st Century CE. Roman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.194.232 Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0) 150 6.3 Glass jug. 1st half of 1st Century CE. Roman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.194.226 Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0) 151 6.4 Left to right: mosaic glass ribbed bowl (millefiori bowl) (17.194.561); bluish green ribbed glass bowl (81.10.33); dark blue ribbed glass bowl (81.10.38). Late 1st Century BCE to 1st half of 1st Century CE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0) 151 6.5 Millefiori dish lit from above. Mid-2nd/early 1st Century BCE. Hellenistic or early Roman, Eastern Mediterranean. The Art Institute of Chicago, Katherine K. Adler Memorial Fund, 2004.722. Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago 152 6.6 Millefiori dish lit from below at table height. Mid-2nd/early 1st century BCE. Hellenistic or early Roman, eastern Mediterranean. The Art Institute of Chicago, Katherine K. Adler Memorial Fund, 2004.722 Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago 152 7.1 Pylos tablet Cn 655. Black and white photograph, line drawing, and transcription. Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati and the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory 163 7.2 Pylos tablet Cn 655, with various RTI visualisations: (a) default colour, (b) specular enhancement, (c) Overlay of default colour and specular enhancement (d) normals visualisation. Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati 165 7.3 Pylos tablet Cn 45, showing a standard colour photograph (left) and specular enhancement (right). Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati 166 7.4 Pylos tablet An 35. Still image of the three-dimensional model. Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati 167 7.5 Colour photograph of Pylos tablet Ad 295. Note the enlarged size of the left side of the tablet due to firing variation. Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati 168 9.1 The warp-weighted loom with a tabby weave, using one heddle rod and two rows of loom weights. Drawing: Annika Jeppsson, created for academic purposes for the Centre for Textile Research. © The Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen 184 9.2 The two-beam loom with a tabby weave, using one heddle rod. Note that some Roman representations of this type of loom are narrower. Drawing: Annika Jeppsson, created for academic purposes for the Centre for Textile Research. © The Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen 185 9.3 Detail of the starting border for a weave on the warp-weighted loom, showing the border sewn onto the cloth beam. Drawing: Annika Jeppsson, created for academic purposes for the Centre for Textile Research. © The Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen 185 9.4 Detail of the heddling process: Heddle leashes are looped around individual warp threads and attached to the heddle rod. Drawing: Gerassimos Bissas for the author. © the author 186 9.5 Weaving Sequence 1. Acoustic spectrogram of experimental weaving of a wool tabby using 26 loom weights, conducted by Anna Rosa Tricomi and Ida Demant. Audio recorded by the author. Sound frequency (kHz) is indicated on the vertical axis, whereas sound intensity (dB) is expressed

Figures and Tables

Figures and Tables through a colour scale, with bright green and bright turquoise indicating sounds of 70 dB and 80 dB respectively. Time is indicated on the horizontal axis. © the author 188 9.6 Weaving Sequence 2. Acoustic spectrogram of experimental weaving of a wool tabby using 12 loom weights, conducted by Anna Rosa Tricomi and Ida Demant. Audio recorded by Marie Louise Nosch. The spectrogram shows one repetition from shed change to shed change. Sound frequency (kHz) is indicated on the vertical axis, whereas sound intensity (dB) is expressed through a colour scale, with bright green and bright turquoise indicating sounds of 70 dB and 80 dB respectively. Time is indicated on the horizontal axis. © the author 188

Tables 2.1 2.2

Explanation of fields in Site Database 69 Results of a Nearest Neighbour Analysis for excavated sites in the IIIB, IIIC, PG, and G periods on the Greek mainland and on Krete 72 2.3 Consistency in site locations over the LBA-EIA transition 73 4.1 A hypothetical forming and finishing sequence for regular Protokorinthian tiles at Korinthos inferred from surface markings 111 4.2 Individual time cost (minutes) for preparing paste and shaping one tile 115 4.3 Minimum times to manufacture up to 2,000 tiles for the Old Temple roof 115

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Notes on the Contributors Nicola Barham is Assistant Professor and Assistant Curator in Ancient Art at the University of Michigan. She has held research fellowships at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the American University of Beirut. She was previously Chester Dale Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Her research reconstructs aesthetic categories that are emic to the ancient Roman world and applies these categories to the interrogation of Roman visual works in a wide range of media. Dr Barham holds an MA from the University of Oxford and received her PhD from the University of Chicago. Sarah H. Blake is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and the Program in Classical Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research focuses on representations of material culture in ancient literature, and particularly in Roman literature of the Imperial Period. Anna Collar is Lecturer in Roman Archaeology at the University of Southampton. She received her PhD from the University of Exeter in 2009, and is a founder of The Connected Past research network and conference series. Her research interests include epigraphy and material culture of religious practice; pilgrimage, sacred landscapes and the natural world; mobility and migration; emotion and experience; and interconnectivity, social networks and network analysis. She is co-director of the Taşeli ve Karaman Archaeological Project, an extensive survey of Rough Cilicia, Turkey. Her first book, Religious Networks in the Roman Empire: The Spread of New Ideas (CUP 2013), was a finalist in the American Academy of Religion’s Best New Book in the History of Religions 2014 award, and she is the co-editor of The Connected Past. Challenges to network studies in archaeology and history (OUP 2016), Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean (Brill, 2020), and Pilgrims in Place, Pilgrims in Motion (Aarhus University Press, 2021). C.L. Cooper (Kate Cooper) is a Classical archaeologist and museum curator with a background in Classical literature and history (BA Oxon, MA London, PhD London). Her research and publications focus on early Greek archaeology and pottery and on issues of museum collection and display. She is currently Greek & Roman Research Associate at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, where she co-curated the exhibition Pompeii: in the shadow of the Volcano (2015–2016). Previously, she worked at the British Museum, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, curating Greek and Roman collections and displays. She has lectured in Classical history and archaeology at Birkbeck, London, the University of Cambridge, the University of Toronto, and York University, Toronto. Jennifer Dyer is an interdisciplinary scholar who studies philosophical aesthetics, cultural analysis, gender studies, and feminist and queer art history at Memorial University. She has worked closely with the interdisciplinary Humanities graduate programs at Memorial and is currently Head of the Department of Gender Studies. Her most recent research projects include a study of parent advocacy of gender diverse children in Canada, a study

Notes on the Contributors

of light in Newfoundland painting as a metaphor of eco-ethics, and a co-edited volume on gender diversity in the ancient world. Jennifer Dyer lives in Newfoundland, Canada. Julie Hruby is Assistant Professor of Classics at Dartmouth College. She graduated from Duke University in 1996 and received her PhD in 2006 at the University of Cincinnati. Prior to her appointment at Dartmouth College, she taught at the University of Cincinnati, Wright State University, Antioch College, Grand Valley State University, and Berea College. She has published on Minoan seals, the materials from the pantries at the Palace of Nestor, Mycenaean culinary culture, emic ceramic typologies, the relationship between gender and labor among Mycenaean ceramicists, and on the use of ancient fingerprint impressions to address archaeological questions. Jeff Maish is Conservator of antiquities at the Getty Villa. He began at the Getty shortly after receiving his Master of Arts degree in conservation (1987) from the State University College at Buffalo. His current work includes the radiographic study of objects in the collection and monitoring and maintenance of museum microclimates. He has conducted technical research on a range of objects in the collection to better understand ancient production technologies as well as address questions of provenance and authenticity. His most recent ceramic research includes the microscopic imaging and identification of characteristic features of Attic line work. Sarah Murray is currently Assistant Professor of Classics (Greek History and Material Culture) at the University of Toronto. She received her BA in Classical Archaeology from Dartmouth College in 2004 and her PhD in Classics from Stanford University in 2013. Her research is primarily concerned with the history of society and institutions in Bronze and Early Iron Age Greece. She is currently the co-director of an archaeological project in eastern Attica (The Bays of East Attica Regional Survey). Her academic publications have appeared in the American Journal of Archaeology, Hesperia, and the Journal of Field Archaeology, and she is the author of a monograph, The Collapse of the Mycenaean Economy: Imports, Trade, and Institutions 1300–700 BCE, published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. Dimitri Nakassis is Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1997, and received his PhD in 2006 at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to his appointment at Colorado, he taught at Trinity University, the Florida State University, and the University of Toronto. He is co-director of the Western Argolid Regional Project, a diachronic archaeological survey in southern Greece, and author of Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos (Brill, 2013). In 2015, he was named a fellow of the MacArthur Foundation. Magdalena Öhrman (MA Gothenburg, PhD Lund) is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UK). In 2016–2018, she was a Marie Sklodowska Curie research fellow at the Centre for Textile Research in Copenhagen, where her project Textile Reflections examined multi-sensory representations of textile crafts in Roman literary sources, especially poetry. She has published on various aspects of Latin poetry, including on elegy, particularly Ovid and epigram, but her most recent work is concerned with literary

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xiv representations of the sensory landscape of textile production, their relationship to domestic space use and developments in textile technology. Kevin Pluta received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2011. His research interests include Mycenaean administration, literacy, and seal and sealing usage. He has taught at the College of Charleston, and most recently has served as Research Director of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP) at the University of Texas at Austin from 2013–2018. Philip Sapirstein is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto. An art historian and archaeologist, his research interests are Greek architecture, ceramics, and the ancient Mediterranean economy. From his backgrounds in art studio and computer analysis, another significant aspect of Sapirstein’s research is the exploration of advanced digital technologies for the recording, reconstruction, and visualization of antiquity. Recent field projects include the 3D recording and architectural restudy of the Temple of Hera at Olympia, and the Heraion at Mon Repos, Corfu. He has published on topics including Archaic architecture, pottery production, and digital methodologies. David Saunders is Associate Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Since joining the museum in 2008, he has curated eight exhibitions, most recently Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife (October 31, 2018–March 18, 2019). He obtained his doctorate in Classical Archaeology from Oxford University, and his research interests include Greek and South Italian vase-painting, ancient bronzes and the history of collecting and restoring antiquities. He is co-editor of The Restoration of Ancient Bronzes: Naples and Beyond (2013); Dangerous Perfection: Ancient Funerary Vases from Southern Italy (2016); and the conference volume Collecting and Collectors from Antiquity to Modernity (2018). Karen Trentelman is Senior Scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute where she leads the Technical Studies research group. Current areas of research include the application of non-invasive spectroscopic and imaging technologies to the study of paintings and illuminated manuscripts, reverse engineering ancient and historic artistic technologies, and the elucidation of pigment degradation pathways. She is also active in the education and training of scientists and conservators in the application of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to the study of works of art. She received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Cornell University and carried out postdoctoral research at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, Chicago. Before joining the GCI in 2004 she was a research scientist at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Notes on the Contributors

Introduction: Old and New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture C.L. Cooper (Kate Cooper) This book is about Classical Archaeology in its broadest definition.1 The field of scholarship is exceptionally rich and varied, encompassing subjects ranging from art history and visual analysis to anthropological and social studies, from field archaeology to literary approaches, from historical perspectives to scientific analysis of the Classical world, a culture that itself spans a huge geographical and chronological spread. Such diversity appears to encourage complex and interdisciplinary approaches to the field, but it also results in misconceptions and misunderstandings, while the daunting multiplicity of approaches to many different types of material discourages efforts to engage properly with the full array of current academic research. As a result, Classical Archaeology is still often treated as little more than a source of visual aids or ‘window dressing’ for the more mainstream Classical subjects of ancient history and literature. The continuing relevance of this issue is demonstrated by the regular concerns raised about a lack of informed engagement with Classical material culture by many Classicists (Allison, 2001; Laurence, 2004; Martin, 2008; Coleman, 2015: xiii; Bassi, 2016: 7–11; Morley, 2018: 68–74). This is the issue that the current volume seeks to address. Based on the Methodologies in Ancient Material Culture conference held at the University of Winnipeg in 2015, select conference contributions have been supplemented by further commissioned papers. The collection – comprising articles by art historians, archaeologists, classicists, and theoreticians, and ranging from the Late Bronze Age to the Late Antique period – is designed to illustrate the wide variety of approaches available in studying the material culture of the Classical world. It introduces innovative ways of examining the evidence, while showing the unity of questions and approaches across the subspecialisms which focus on ancient material culture. The aim is to make new ideas accessible to specialists, but also to familiarise Classicists working outside material culture studies with the variety of directions taken in this area of scholarship, and to inspire further engagement with this diverse field. By demonstrating different ways of using the 1  The initial draft of this paper was written with input from Dr Allison Surtees, and I owe her a debt of thanks. I would also like to thank Robin Osborne and Ben Akrigg for their insightful comments on the chapter, and Judith Schutz, Christine Caroppo, and Christine Hall for their editorial assistance.

© c.L. Cooper, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_002

material evidence to address current debates or to pose new questions, the papers collected in this volume reach beyond individual case studies and are broadly relevant to anyone engaging with the Classical world. This introduction provides a context for the papers which follow. It first examines the historical development of the study of Classical Archaeology chronologically, noting both the interdisciplinary nature of the field from its inception and its increased segregation into subspecialisms. It then considers the current state of the field and contextualises the papers in this volume while paying particular attention to the continued interdisciplinarity and common avenues of investigation of the Greek and Roman material evidence. 1

A History of Approaches to Classical Archaeology

From the beginning Classical Archaeology has been an interdisciplinary endeavour, emerging from literary, scientific, artistic, and historical enquiry. The divisions into isolated branches of archaeology, classics, and art history that are often lamented today were not apparent until the early 20th century, as will be seen in the following brief overview.2 Historical surveys of scholarship are now common, but they rarely encompass both art-historical and archaeological developments, or consider both Greek and Roman material. I attempt to be broadly inclusive, while restricting my focus to the study of antiquities coming from Mediterranean countries (rather than those from the rest of the Roman Empire: Britain for instance). However, this survey is unavoidably indebted to Anglophone traditions of scholarship, and a similar review written in France, Italy, or Russia would look rather different. To attempt an overview of such a broad scope may seem foolhardy, but such a consideration of the dominant strands of enquiry throughout the history of the discipline highlights both the diversity of approaches inherent to the subject, and the common ideological development shared by the various branches of Classical Archaeology.

2  In addition to the in-text references, Further Reading on selected topics about this historical development is provided at the end of the chapter (pages 21–25).

2 Interest in the material culture of the ancient past is not a recent phenomenon, but reaches back to Antiquity. Archaic Greeks venerated Late Bronze Age tombs; Greek cities and sanctuaries preserved symbols of their past; both Hellenistic kings and Roman aristocrats and emperors admired, looted, and collected Greek sculpture; the Byzantine emperors imported antiquities to adorn their cities (Whitley, 1995; Bowkett et al., 2001: 11–14; Millett, 2012: 31; Bahn, 2013: 3; Schnapp, 2013b; Thompson, 2016: 5–15; Kousser, 2017: 223–229, Vout, 2018: 1–88). With the rise of Christianity and Islam many ancient pagan monuments were converted, mutilated, or neglected, but the Crusaders of the 10th to 13th centuries once again valued ancient material remains from the Byzantine empire as war booty, while Medieval European towns preserved and reused their antiquities (Morris, 1994a: 16; Bowkett et al., 2001: 14–16; Stenhouse, 2014: 137–138, Vout, 2018: 88–96). The dawning of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th to 15th centuries saw a revival of interest in all aspects of Classical Antiquity, both literary and material, as laying claim to a Classical heritage became a means of legitimisation (Schnapp, 1996: 121–138; Stenhouse, 2014: 134–135, 138; Thompson, 2016: 23–26). Florentine nobles and Roman popes and cardinals amassed vast private collections of ancient coins, gems, and sculpture, often quarried from ancient monuments on their own land, such as the Roman Baths of Caracalla and the Villa Adriana in Tivoli (Haskell & Penny, 1981: 7–15; Stiebing, 1993: 145; Bowkett et al., 2001: 17–18; MacGregor, 2007: 75; Marvin, 2008: 68–86). Throughout the rest of Europe, kings and nobles also displayed their culture, taste, and power by their appreciation and appropriation of Antiquity. In the 16th and 17th centuries the French kings sought to create a ‘New Rome’ in part through amassing Roman antiquities (Haskell & Penny, 1981: 1–6, 37–42; Macgregor, 2007: 76). In early 17th-century Britain, important men such as King Charles I and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, began collecting Italian antiquities (Vickers, 1985 and 2006; Scott, 2003: 9–30; Angelicoussis, 2004; MacGregor, 2007: 77–79; Thompson, 2016: 27–35), and the popularity of the aristocratic ‘Grand Tour’ was gradually established (Bowkett et al., 2001: 18–19). During the Renaissance, interest in collecting antiquities proceeded hand-in-hand with enquiries into natural history. The earliest collections of small-scale antiquities were cabinets of curiosities (Wunderkammern) popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, containing thematic collections of natural history specimens, prints, antiquities, and other oddities (MacGregor, 2007: 11–69; Marvin, 2008: 56– 58; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 83–84). The same thematic

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approach that epitomised Wunderkammern was the guiding principle behind the popular publication of antiquities by Bernard de Montfaucon, a Benedictine monk and important palaeographer. Published in fifteen volumes between 1719 and 1724 and quickly translated into English and German, L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures combined texts by ancient authors with illustrations of over 30,000 ancient artefacts, and was extremely significant in making antiquities widely accessible. Montfaucon, however, treated these examples as textual illustrations arranged by subject matter, rather than as chronologically ordered or critically assessed objects in their own right (Haskell & Penny, 1981: 43–44; Haskell, 1993: 131–133; Poulouin, 1995; Jenkins, 2003: 170–171; Syson, 2003: 116; Marvin, 2008: 59–63). By the time Montfaucon’s last volumes were published, the western European relationship with Classical Antiquity had begun to change as the 18th-century Enlightenment introduced a new spirit of intellectual enquiry (see Sloan, 2003: 12–13 on the complex definitions of the ‘Enlightenment’). Collections of natural history, ethnographic material, and antiquities were accumulated, systematised, and investigated in order to construct large-scale narratives and philosophical truths about humanity and the earth based on empirical observation (Syson, 2003). Antiquarianism was given a scientific and philosophical grounding (Schnapp, 1996: 238–257). During the Enlightenment the symbolic use of Classical Antiquity became important in justifying the creation of empires, as longestablished nations conquered new territories, and in legitimising new social orders, after revolutions overthrew older constitutions (Sloan & Burnett, 2003; Sloan, 2003). It was during the Enlightenment that the systematic study of ancient material culture as an academic discipline began. From the outset Classical Archaeology and Classical Art History were synonymous, and were intertwined with the study of Classical literature, history, and culture. An early example of this was the aristocratic antiquarian the Comte de Caylus, whose chronologically and geographically organised study, Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques, romaines et gauloises (1752–1767), was based on his own collection, and focussed on the artefacts themselves to discern a cultural history of Antiquity (Haskell, 1993: 180–186; Jenkins, 2003: 171; Syson, 2003: 116–117; Boch, 2004; Marvin, 2008: 63–67; Queyrel, 2012; on Caylus’ collection see Aghion, 2002). However, the formal discipline is generally considered to have started with Johann Joachim Winckelmann and his seminal work Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764), an overarching narrative of the historical development of

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

the ancient art of Egypt, the Ancient Near East, Etruria, Greece, and Rome (Whitley, 2001: 20–21; Trigger, 2006: 58; Preziosi, 2009: 13; Harloe, 2013: 1–25). Winckelmann’s account, based on the writings of Classical authors and on his detailed study of Roman sculpture in the papal collections with which he worked, combined connoisseurship and art criticism with knowledge of Classical literature. It was influenced by traditions of Renaissance art history, particularly the 16th-century work of Giorgio Vasari, but also incorporated strands of contemporary thought – such as an interest in classification, taxonomy, and chronology. Winckelmann traced an evolutionary trajectory of artistic development in order to produce a grand narrative of ancient art as a sequence of growth, maturity, and decline. Unlike his Renaissance predecessors, and despite basing his own observations on Roman sculpture, Winckelmann argued that Classical Greece was the pinnacle of artistic development, while the Hellenistic and Roman periods exhibited a decline. As befitted an Enlightenment scholar, he related artistic achievement to wider social and cultural issues, believing that the artistic superiority of the Classical Greeks reflected their spiritual and political freedom (Haskell & Penny, 1981: 99–107; Marchand, 1996: 7–10; Whitley, 2001: 20–23; Potts, 2006; Marvin, 2008: 103–120; Preziosi, 2009: 13–21; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 21–23). Winckelmann’s opinion was extremely influential, but even at the time it attracted criticism (Schnapp, 1996: 258–266; Harloe, 2013). Important alternative approaches to artistic appreciation were also being formulated, such as Immanuel Kant’s work on aesthetics (Preziosi, 2009: 55–57). Nevertheless, Winckelmann’s attitudes have remained powerful in shaping aspects of art-historical discourse about ancient art ever since (Dyson, 2006: 2–3; A. Smith, 2017; for modern examples of this approach see e.g., Pollitt, 1972; Spivey, 1996; Stewart, 2008). While Winckelmann’s work was fundamental to the academic study of antiquities, changing attitudes to collecting and recording artefacts during the Enlighten­ ment had a more wide-ranging effect on the popularity of and perceptions of the Greek and Roman world in the 18th century. The Wunderkammern of the Renaissance were now re-evaluated for their scientific and ethnographic potential. They were systematised, their contents divided into different classifications – most broadly those of natural history versus artificially manufactured artefacts – and they were investigated with increased specialisation (Sloan & Burnett, 2003). The scientific classification and taxonomy of material in all areas of natural history and archaeology became important for establishing a chronological progression. Many collectors

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continued to study both natural history and the ancient world: for example Sir William Hamilton, who was a keen volcanologist as well as a collector of antiquities during his posting as British ambassador to Naples from 1764 (Jenkins & Sloan, 1996; MacGregor, 2007: 157–158). These collectors were gentleman-scholars who pursued their interest in archaeology as amateurs, and were responsible for the creation of learned societies as venues for meetings and discussion, such as the Society of Dilettanti (founded in 1732) and the Society of Antiquaries (founded in 1707). In the 19th century these societies became more numerous and were important sources of funding for archaeological expeditions and investigations (Jenkins, 2003: 173; Scott, 2003:87–91; Sloan, 2003: 21; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 53–54; Pearce, 2007; Kelly, 2009). Collecting the sculpture of Classical Antiquity was no longer restricted to kings and popes. The ‘Grand Tour’ gained momentum in the 18th century, encouraging European, and particularly British, aristocrats to visit the lands of the Classical authors they had studied (Scott, 2003: 53–84). By the mid-18th century Rome and Naples had become well established in the ‘Grand Tour’ itinerary, and visitors were given access to the antiquities in royal and papal collections, as well as to the new excavations begun at Herculaneum in 1738 and at Pompeii in 1748 (Stiebing, 1993: 145–153; Dyson, 2006: 4–19; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 43–47; Schnapp, 2013a). Ancient statues and copies of famous antiquities were collected to adorn English houses and estates, fuelling a lucrative industry in Rome in the procurement and restoration of ancient sculpture (Kurtz, 2000; Scott, 2003: 96–109; Dyson, 2006: 9–10; Bignamini & Hornsby, 2010; Thompson, 2016: 36–62). The engravings of the ancient ruins of Rome by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) also helped to establish Italy and its Roman remains as the popular vision of Antiquity (Bevilacqua, 2006; Dyson, 2006: 11–12; Wilton-Ely, 2006; Pinto, 2012: 99–214). Roman Antiquity had been the focus of interest primarily because Renaissance and Enlightenment Italy was more accessible to western travellers than most of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, which had been under Ottoman control since the mid-15th century. In the 18th century, however, the Ottomans began to encourage western contact, which allowed European diplomats, scholars, and travellers to experience the remains of the ancient Greek world at first-hand (Mallouchou-Tufano, 1994: 165–170; Whitley, 2001: 25–26; Watkin, 2007a: 25; Pinto, 2012: 219; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 87). The architectural remains of Greece and Asia Minor were recorded in popular publications by Julien-David Le Roy (1758), James

4 Stuart and Nicholas Revett (1762), and Richard Chandler (1769), inspiring the Greek Revival style in contemporary architecture (Stiebing, 1993: 121; Mallouchou-Tufano, 1994: 170–175; Shanks, 1996: 66, 73–74; Bowkett et al., 2001: 20; Watkin, 2007a and 2007b; Pinto, 2012: 247–257; Schnapp, 2013a: 26–27). In South Italy some cities had already recognised their Greek origins and celebrated their status as part of ancient Magna Graecia (Lyons, 1997), but it was in the 18th century that Greek vases discovered in the region became widely sought after. An important figure in their popularisation was Sir William Hamilton, who, during his diplomatic posting in Naples, collected the red-figure decorated vases found in ancient Etruscan tombs and correctly recognised them as Greek workmanship, although they were commonly considered ‘Etruscan’ (Shanks, 1996: 114; Sparkes, 1996: 46–55; Burn, 1997; MacGregor, 2007: 190–192; but cf. von Bothmer, 1987: 185, 188; Morris, 1994a: 24). Part of the Hamilton collection was lavishly published by connoisseur and art dealer Baron D’Hancarville in 1766, before being transported to England, where it was sold to the recently-established British Museum (von Bothmer, 1987: 186–187; Jenkins, 1997 and 2003: 174; Whitley, 2001: 23–25; Burn, 2003; 142–144; Scott, 2003: 172–185; Dyson, 2006: 160–162; Schnapp, 2013a: 23–28). The Greek vase designs inspired contemporary imitations produced by Josiah Wedgwood (Shanks, 1996: 60; Sparkes, 1996: 50; Rouet, 2001: 21–24; Burn, 2003: 144–145; Dyson, 2006: 159–160). Such freshly discovered archaeological remains, as well as the Renaissance and Enlightenment revival of Antiquity, resulted in the popular Neoclassical movement in 18th- and 19th-century art and architecture (Coltman, 2006; Dyson, 2006: 65–72). The collection, preservation, and presentation of Antiquity continued to be a political tool in the 18th and 19th centuries. As well as a generalised means of appropriating the cultural legacy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the pursuit of Classical Archaeology became an overt statement of national identity (Dyson, 1998 and 2006; Millett, 2012: 32–35). This can be seen in academic rivalries where distinct, often competing, styles of scholarship developed along national lines (Dyson, 2006).3 For instance, the 18th-century German scholarly interest in 3  Religious as well as political agendas have also motivated research into Classical Archaeology. For instance, the quest to prove the literal historicity of the Bible prompted late-17th-century clerics to identify fossils as proof of Noah’s Flood, and led to the emergence of Biblical archaeological investigation of the Ancient Near East in the 19th century (Stiebing, 1993: 32–33, 85–92; J. Cook, 2003; Trigger, 2006: 49–52, 156–158; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 131–166; Bahn, 2013: 4). The differences of religious background among scholars have also

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ancient Greece was, in part, driven by competition with the French and their long-standing interest in ancient Rome (Morris, 1994a: 16; Trigger, 2006: 61). The Classical past was also used to establish the credentials of recentlycreated nations, as revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the United States, looked to democratic Athenai and Republican Rome to furnish a cultural framework for their new systems of government (Dyson, 2006: 20–23, 26, 71; Richard, 2006; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 67–69; Rowell, 2012). For the ‘source countries’, reclaiming symbolic and actual control of their antiquities was also a decisive step in nation-building in the 19th century. Following the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832), renewed pride and investment in the ancient Greek past united the new Greek state under a Bavarian monarch. A state-controlled archaeological body was formed to excavate and restore ancient sites, and national ownership laws were enacted to protect Greek archaeological heritage. Bavarian architects used Neoclassical architecture to enhance Athens, the new capital, and to make connections to the Classical past (Travlos, 1981; Mallouchou-Tufano, 1994: 185–186; Shanks, 1996: 79–81; Whitley, 2001: 29–32; Dyson, 2006: 72–78; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 106; Hamilakis, 2007; Petrakos, 2007). In Italy too, the Risorgimento and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 encouraged interest in Roman archaeology as a means of constructing an Italian past that was no longer tied to the authority of the Catholic Church (Dyson, 2006: 95–110; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 105). Appeals to the ancient Roman annexation of territory was also a common way for European nations, claiming to be successors to the Romans, to justify colonial domination as they engaged in empire-building. This was particularly marked in North Africa, both during the 19th century with the French in Algeria (Bénabou, 1980; Lorcin, 2002; Oulebsir, 2004; Greenhalgh, 2014; Effros, 2018; McCarty, 2018; but see Greenhalgh, 2014 and Effros, 2016 and on the French destruction of Roman archaeology), and in the early 20th century with the Italians in Libya. Later in the 20th century, Mussolini’s restoration and display of ancient Roman monuments again aimed to promote a sense of Italian nationalism by linking the conquests of the Fascist regime with those of the ancient Romans (Stone, 1999; Painter, 2005; Dyson, 2006: 175–186; Arthurs, 2007; Baxa, 2010; Roche, 2018). The foundation of public museums in the 18th and 19th centuries was another important part of the articulation of cultural dominance by the old European powers, and of the statements of national identity made by affected their academic approach (Morris 1994a: 16–17; Squire, 2009: 15–89; Elsner, 2020).

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

emerging nations such as Greece, Italy, and America (Dyson, 1998; Nørskov, 2002: 64–65; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 61–62; Preziosi, 2009: 489; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 86–92). Long-established private and royal collections gradually became public institutions, but foundations such as the British Museum and the Louvre had greater ambitions as universal museums that defined powerful nations as cultural guardians, displaying their imperial control (Whitley, 2001: 26–28; Trigger, 2006: 254). The Louvre was opened to the public in 1793 as a symbol of the democratisation of Revolutionary France before becoming a short-lived showcase of Napoleon’s imperial ambitions, receiving prize antiquities from conquered territories (Haskell & Penny, 1981: 108–116; Dyson, 2006: 21–22, 142; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 69–77; MacGregor, 2007: 82–86, 105–112, 238; Miles, 2008: 319–329). The Classical antiquities in the British Museum were often acquired as a result of political circumstances and imperial diplomacy rather than outright conquest; for instance, British diplomats posted abroad frequently collected local antiquities. The acquisition of the Athenian ‘Parthenon Marbles’ was enabled in part by fear of Napoleon’s territorial ambitions at the end of the 18th century as the Turkish Sultan sought British support in defending his lands from Napoleonic expansion (Stiebing, 1993: 121; Morris, 1994a: 24; Bowkett et al., 2001: 20; Nørskov, 2002: 101). The favour enjoyed by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador, notoriously allowed him to remove parts of the Parthenon sculpture, shipping them to England in 1801 and selling them to the British Museum (St. Clair, 1998 and 1999; Hamilakis, 1999 and 2007: 243–286; Jenkins, 2001; T. Webb, 2002; Scott, 2003: 219–230; Dyson, 2006: 134–137; King, 2006; Williams, 2009). Although Elgin’s actions were, and continue to be, extremely controversial, the popularity of the ‘Elgin Marbles’ in the British Museum was crucial to the development of British Hellenism and the Romantic intellectual and artistic movement of the early 19th century, which in turn gave rise to popular support in Britain for the cause of Greek Independence (Morris, 1994a: 24; Whitley, 2001: 27–29; Dyson, 2006: 65–66, 72; MacGregor, 2007: 241–244; Miles, 2008: 307–316). In the 19th century powerful foreign nations began ‘Big Digs’ in Greece as another means of ideologically laying claim to the intellectual legacy of Antiquity, and continuing their academic rivalries (Dyson, 2006: 79–85; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 107–108). They established archaeological institutions and competed for permission to run large-scale, long-running archaeological projects, with the Germans excavating at Olympia, the French at Delphoi, the British at Sparta, and the Americans at Korinthos and the Athenian Agora (Donohue, 1985; Morris, 1994a: 31–36; Marchand, 1996: 75–91; Shanks, 1996: 46–49; Whitley, 2001:

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33–36; Dyson, 2006: 86–132, 188–190; Díaz-Andreu, 2007: 107–109; Kyrieleis, 2007; Mulliez, 2007; Petrakos, 2007; Davis & Vogeikoff-Brogan, 2013; on the establishment of foreign schools of archaeological research in Athens and Rome: Whitling, 2019). Italy did not see the same foreign archaeological involvement at this time because excavation was restricted to Italian teams (Dyson, 2006: 98–99; Trigger, 2006: 64). The new-found impetus and investment resulted in a greater professionalisation of archaeological work from the mid-19th century (but cf. Dyson, 2006: 20–64). Earlier digs could be best characterised as treasure hunting for portable antiquities to enhance private collections, but these were replaced with large-scale, systematic excavations in Greece, Turkey, and Italy. Stratigraphic excavation methods, originally developed by geologists, together with a concern for contextualisation were first introduced in the Mediterranean in the excavations at Pompeii by Guiseppe Fiorelli in 1860 (Stiebing, 1993: 159–162; Trigger, 2006: 63). Ernst Curtius’ meticulously recorded excavations at Olympia from 1875 to 1881 also provided stratigraphic training for other influential archaeologists such as Wilhelm Dörpfeld, who would go on to decipher the remains at Troia (Stiebing, 1993: 138–139; Trigger, 2006: 290–291). The chronological and physical contexts of artefacts were better understood and recorded, while the artefacts themselves were also more completely published, aided by the introduction of photography in the 1830s and 1840s (Morris, 1994a: 28; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 16–17). Ironically, the vast scientific publications of these excavations served to play down the archaeological context, since the finds were usually presented as well-illustrated artworks, classified by material rather than by findspot. While the technological innovation of photography was quickly used to record archaeological sites and monuments (Lyons, 2005; Papadopoulos, 2005), it was also popular with a new type of visitor to the excavations – the tourist. The second half of the 19th century saw the start of mass tourism with the introduction of Thomas Cook’s tours from England, which made parts of the Mediterranean more accessible to the middle classes (Hom, 2015: 83–104). Instead of collecting antiquities as the aristocrats of the ‘Grand Tour’ had done, these tourists collected souvenir photographs, which presented archaeological views to even wider audiences (Dyson, 2006: 25, 30, 45–48; Gardner Coates, 2012: 46). Throughout these adventures in ancient material culture a solid grounding in Classical literature was considered essential, and the evidence from ancient testimonia held pride of place. The revival of certain ancient texts for education during the Renaissance had developed in

6 the 18th century into a more comprehensive and rigorous study, particularly within the German system with the development of Altertumswissenschaft (Marchand, 1996: 16–24; Hunt et al., 2017: 193–204, 207–213). During the 19th century Altertumswissenschaft, although still based on philology, became increasingly holistic, incorporating art and archaeological remains (Shanks, 1996: 95; Dyson, 2006: 31; Martin, 2008: 317; Marvin, 2008: 137–139). This was championed by August Boeckh, who was particularly concerned with Greek epigraphy (Marchand, 1996: 42–43; Martin, 2008: 317–318). Greek and Latin inscriptions had long been collected, but the focus had been on the text, not the artefact (Keppie, 1991: 20–37; Buoncore, 2015; Hunt et al., 2017: 203–204). Boeckh sought to unite textual and archaeological evidence, and in 1825 established the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (succeeded by Inscriptiones Graecae) to collect information on both the content and the context of the inscriptions. The Inscriptiones Graecae inspired the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, conceived in 1847 by Theodor Mommsen (Bruun, 2014; Hunt et al., 2017: 20–21, 222–225). However, these publications soon began to prioritise the text of the inscription over information about the artefact (Whitley, 2001: 32–33; cf. Osborne, 2017: 115). Despite such 19th-century advances in some areas, the dominant impetus, and one which continues to haunt the discipline, was to use ancient remains primarily to illustrate and validate the ancient literary texts, and the surviving works of Greek and Roman authors set the agenda for research in Classical Archaeology (Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 16; Morley, 2018: 68–70). For instance, Heinrich Schliemann famously claimed that the Homeric works led him to Troia in 1870, although in fact it was an archaeologist, Frank Calvert, who actually discovered the site (Stiebing, 1993, 125–134; Allen, 1999; Haubold, 2017, 2–25). Descriptions in Pausanias and Strabon were used to identify ancient sites, Vitruvius was considered a guide to ancient architectural development, and the descriptions by Plinius the elder of the work of renowned named ancient artists were used to identify surviving artworks (Marchand, 1996: 149; Marvin, 2008: 16–17; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 16; Overbeck, 1868 is an important early compilation of ancient literary sources). While systematic archaeological excavations had advanced the discovery of stratified and contextualised artefacts, the famous ancient artworks already in museums often lacked contextual information and alternative methods were needed for their investigation. At the end of the 19th century, scientific method was combined with aesthetic appreciation to develop ‘connoisseurship’ techniques for studying these artworks. Detailed comparison

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of stylistic traits allowed works to be authenticated and attributed to a particular artist. This technique had been pioneered in the field of Italian Renaissance painting, where the anatomist-turned-art-historian Giovanni Morelli developed a system which employed the rigorous study of anatomical features to identify individual artists and expose forgeries (Rouet, 2001: 59–67; Marvin, 2008: 141–142). The system was applied to Attic vase-painting in the late 19th century by Paul Hartwig and Adolph Furtwängler (von Bothmer, 1987: 197; Rouet, 2001: 30–40; Whitley, 2001: 36–37; Oakley, 2009: 605–606). In the early 20th century John Beazley perfected the technique, combining it with the signatures on the pots, to illuminate the network of Archaic and Classical Athenian craftsmen (e.g., Beazley, 1922, 1956, 1963, and 1971; Kurtz, 1985a and 1985b; Robertson, 1991; Sparkes, 1996: 93–102; Rouet, 2001; Whitley, 2001: 36–41; Dyson, 2006: 164–167). For ancient sculpture the notions of Kopienkritik and Meisterforschungen were advanced by Adolph Furtwängler as a means of revealing the ‘original’ styles of Greek sculptors from extant Roman versions (Furtwängler, 1893 and 1896; Marvin, 2008: 144– 150; later followers included Lippold, 1923; Richter, 1929; Picard, 1935–1966; Stewart, 1990). This technique was indebted to the philological process of recovering the ‘original’ text from the surviving variant manuscripts (Perry, 2005: 79; Marvin, 2008: 142–4; Hunt et al., 2017: 198–199). Photography was also important for allowing art historians such as Furtwängler to identify and illustrate stylistic detail (Dyson, 2006: 157–8; Marvin, 2008: 140–141). Although these connoisseurial methods have since been criticised and revised, the identification of the work of ancient artists through stylistic progression and, crucially, the chronological framework that this revealed, continues to be fundamental to the discipline. Before the 19th century the study of archaeology and art history had been united by the common goal of collecting, classifying, and studying Classical artworks. But by the end of the century the two lines of enquiry were diverging and evolving into separate specialisations, often practised by the same people but with different, although complementary, aims (cf. Morris, 1994a: 27–29). Professionalised field archaeology was a means of gathering contextual and functional information, rather than simply collecting works of art. Art history, on the other hand, developed formal stylistic typologies. Although the two fields were progressing along different trajectories, they continued to hold similar basic attitudes to ancient material. Both held a positivist view that the accumulation and ordering of ancient artefacts would yield information about the development, particularly the historical development, of people – whether as a result of art-historical

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

connoisseurship, or archaeological stratigraphic investigation. Within each discipline the overarching concerns for future study were also similar, reflecting contemporary social and scientific developments. For example, there was a growing interest in exploring the neglected and marginalised areas of the discipline. In art history, Late Roman ‘abstract’ art, which had previously been considered inferior and derivative, was recognised as worthy of study in its own right (Riegl, 1901; Podro, 1982: 1–2, 71–97; Preziosi, 2009: 151–152; Elsner, 2010a: 295; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 29). In archaeology, the spectacular prehistoric discoveries at Mykenai, Troia, and Knossos made the previously under-rated Bronze Age a rival to the Classical Greek period (Stiebing, 1993: 139; Fitton, 1995). 2

The State of the Discipline in the 20th Century

With the beginning of the 20th century there was an increased availability of ancient material and a refinement of the framework within which it was understood. While archaeological excavations and publication of their finds became more numerous, there was also increased investment in large-scale recording of scattered antiquities. In 1919 Edmond Pottier initiated the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum project to catalogue vases in museums throughout the world (von Bothmer, 1987: 198–201; Rouet, 2001; Dyson, 2006: 163–164; Oakley, 2009: 602–603). In the anglophone world this period also saw the flourishing of the formalist impetus to organise and synthesise ancient material both to establish and refine typologies, and to develop a more nuanced understanding of social organisation. Beazley’s use of stylistic analysis in the attribution of Athenian vases was one manifestation of this impetus. Gordon Childe’s Marxist-influenced development of the concept of culture-history, using the material remains of prehistoric peoples to describe their culture and its development, was another (Stiebing, 1993: 252–3; Trigger, 2006: 243–248; cf. Whitley, 2001: 12–14). In the period encompassing two World Wars, Continental scholars fleeing war-torn countries and moving to Britain and the United States disseminated new ideas that challenged established traditions. These new perspectives slowly moved the study of the ancient world from a basically descriptive approach to a variety of explanatory models. Marxist political theory introduced a concern with understanding the economic and social impact of ancient material in both archaeology and art history. For example, the Russian academic Michael Rostovetzeff incorporated material culture into his works on ancient history (­Rostovetzeff, 1926a, 1926b, 1927, and 1941; de Grummond,

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1996: 985–986), as well as exploring the art and archaeology of the fringes of the Greek and Roman worlds, the Black Sea and Dura Europos (Rostovetzeff, 1922 and 1938). Classical archaeologists escaping from Nazi Germany introduced new ideas about Greek and Roman material culture. For instance, Otto Brendel and Margarete Bieber revised contemporary thinking about Roman art in different ways (e.g., Brendel, 1953; Bieber, 1977; de Grummond, 1996: 191 & 159–160; Vout, 2018: 232), while Brendel and Paul Jacobsthal broadened investigation to include the neighbouring ancient cultures of the Etruscans and Celts (e.g., Jacobsthal, 1944; Brendel, 1978). Anthropological structuralism was developed from linguistics by Levi-Strauss, and psychoanalytic theory arising from the work of Sigmund Freud influenced further new approaches. Art-historical studies were profoundly shaped by the German humanist tradition, where the influences of Winckelmann, Hegel, and Kant had already produced art historians such as Alois Riegl and Heinrich Wölfflin. Their ideas were further pursued by war-time émigrés such as Ernst Gombrich, whose work on representation and perception, and Erwin Panovsky, whose study of iconology, represented new ways of thinking about ancient visual analysis (Panovsky, 1939; Gombrich, 1950 and 1960; Elsner, 2010a: 294–301; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 31–33). In field archaeology, technological advances revolutionised the discipline. Aerial surveying, originally developed for military reconnaissance, revealed previously undetected archaeological sites, and scientific methods such as radiocarbon dating refined the chronological framework (Stiebing, 1993: 258–263; Dyson, 2006: 174–176; Trigger, 2006: 23; Barber, 2011; see Bradford, 1957 on early aerial survey in the Mediterranean). The result was far greater interdisciplinarity from the middle of the 20th century on, as methods adopted from the social sciences gradually directed the investigation of Antiquity towards a more socio-cultural understanding of the remains, incorporating anthropological, political, economic, environmental, and technological issues. Key to many of these movements was an increased awareness of methodological and theoretical frameworks for interpreting the evidence. Archaeologists and historians working with prehistoric Greece and the Aigaian – who lacked ancient literary evidence – led the way in developing theoretical models. As a result, archaeologists moved further away from the interests of art historians, who looked to different aspects of social sciences, such as visual theory and phenomenology to develop their approaches. Yet even as the fields forged separate methodological paths, the broad attitudes to enquiry were similarly influenced by contemporary academic trends and political events.

8 In archaeology an increasing dissatisfaction with earlier historical models, which considered the movements of people as the primary reason for the development of cultures and the diffusion of ideas (Trigger, 2006: 294–319), resulted in the Processual (New) Archaeological movement of the 1960s. Rather than simply identifying changes in the material record, this movement aimed to explain those changes in social terms (Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 17– 18). Prehistoric archaeologists such as Lewis Binford and Colin Renfrew drew on anthropological work to propose functionalist explanations using theoretical models based on social and environmental factors (e.g., Binford, 1962 and 1965; Binford & Binford, 1968; Clarke, 1968; Renfrew, 1973, 1979, and 1984; Renfrew & Shennan, 1982). A hallmark of this approach was to introduce scientific rigour to archaeological investigations in an attempt to arrive at ‘objective’ explanations of the evidence. Investigations were driven by the formulation and testing of research questions, and quantitative data analysis was employed to propose models which could then be applied universally (Stiebing, 1993: 265–266; Morris, 1994a: 42–43; Whitley, 2001: 42–43; Trigger, 2006: 386–480). A decade later, in the 1970s, these ideas were already being deconstructed and refined, criticised for being overly generalised and positivist. One result was the emergence of the multi-faceted Postprocessual Archaeological movement of the 1980s and 1990s, which recognised that any interpretation of the past was subjective, and that material evidence was itself culturally constructed (Stiebing, 1993: 266–8; Morris, 1994a: 43–46; Shanks, 1996: 108–111, 129–144; Trigger, 2006: 386–480; important figures include: Hodder, 1982a, 1982b, 1982c, and 1982d; Shanks & Tilley, 1987a and 1987b). At the same time, in the field of art history a new wave of postmodern approaches, which were also more reflexive and shaped by social history and critical theory, was grouped under the term ‘New Art History’ (fundamental in establishing the term was Rees & Borzello, 1988). In the context of Classical Antiquity, postmodern approaches focussed on the ideas and beliefs of ancient societies, and how they shaped, and were reflected, in Greek and Roman material and artistic production. Inherent in this set of ideas was the understanding that culture was deliberately constructed, and therefore the material remains were a record of the beliefs and aspirations of individuals within a society (Morris, 1994a: 40–42; Elsner, 2010a: 302). These ideas were part of the larger postmodern movement in philosophical and critical theory and in anthropology (Wilson, 2006; M. Smith, 2009: especially 460–461; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 33–35). The avenues of investigation pursued in the late 20th century were a result of these disciplinary evolutions.

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The earlier processual aspiration to demonstrate the empirical grounding of new approaches through complete enumeration and quantification, for instance in the early work of Anthony Snodgrass (Morris, 1994a: 39–40), developed to recognise the scarcity and incompleteness of the surviving ancient evidence. As a result the study of the mass of banal archaeological evidence, using quantitative analysis, rather than individual masterpieces, evolved to answer more nuanced interdisciplinary questions about the way ancient societies worked (on using the mass of pottery evidence see e.g., Arafat & Morgan, 1989 and 1994; Whitley, 1994; Morris, 1987). At the same time international collaborations to gather large collections of ancient material evidence were formed. One of the most successful was the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), an encyclopaedic project begun in 1972 to collect representations of mythical characters in ancient artworks, published in nine volumes between 1981 and 2009 (now partially available online). The postprocessual focus on ancient society and beliefs led to a surge in the study of the archaeology of religious and funerary evidence as a reflection of social practices, particularly in the Greek Iron Age and Archaic period (e.g., on sanctuaries: Morgan, 1990; de Polignac, 1984; on burials: Kurtz & Boardman, 1971; Morris, 1987 and 1992; Whitley, 1991 and 1994). This interest, combined with Marxist, neo-Marxist, and political science perspectives, developed into an in-depth examination of state formation which considered the archaeological evidence for the rise of Greek city states and their control of territories in the Archaic and Classical periods (Osborne, 2004a: 91–2; e.g., Snodgrass, 1977 and 1980; Morgan & Whitelaw, 1991; de Polignac, 1984; Osborne, 1996). At the domestic level, the way in which the architecture and decoration of Greek and Roman houses could express social articulation became another avenue of research (Osborne, 2004a: 92–3; e.g., J. Clarke, 1991; Gazda & Haeckl, 1991; Nevett, 1999; Wallace-Hadrill, 1994). The symbolic significance and cultural understanding of ancient artefacts was another area of focus, prompted by structuralist ideas and the application of semiotics, a system drawn from linguistics (Whitley, 2001: 52–55; Stansbury-O’Donnell, 2011: 72–88; e.g., Hodder, 1982b, 1982c, 1982d, and 1989; Robb, 1998; Tilley, 1990 and 1999; Stansbury-O’Donnell, 1999; Wilkins & Herring, 2003). Critics of structuralist approaches emphasised the importance of recognising the ancient context as key to understanding the significance of decoration (Stansbury-O’Donnell, 2011: 93–107; Lissarague, 2009). Athenian vase-painting in particular benefitted from these approaches, as studies of the iconography, understood

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

within its particular cultural setting, revealed the social institutions and beliefs of Athenian society. One example was the study of depictions of the Athenian symposium as vase decoration (e.g., Bérard, 1984; Lissarague, 1987); another was the use of scenes of pursuit on Athenian vases (e.g., Hoffmann, 1977; Sourvinou-Inwood, 1991; Barringer, 1995; Stewart, 1995; Schnapp, 1997; Stansbury O’Donnell, 2009). In the Imperial Roman world, the decoration of monuments demonstrated how art functioned as an instrument of power and control (e.g., Hölscher, 1987; Zanker, 1987; Rose, 1997). The ancient craftsmen and artists were still a subject of interest, but there were some differences from earlier approaches. Beazley’s system of artistic attributions for Athenian vase-painting persisted, most notably with the work of John Boardman (e.g., 1974, 1975, 1989, and 1998; but also: Bakır, 1981; Kurtz, 1983; Amasis Painter, 1987; Burn, 1987; Oakley, 1990; Buitron-Oliver, 1995; Matheson, 1995). There was also a reaction to the Beazley approach, which was criticised for treating functional pots as if they were ancient artworks, and for attributing personalities to their anonymous creators (e.g., Robertson, 1985; Elsner, 1990; Vickers & Gill, 1994; Shanks, 1996: 59–65; Whitley, 1997). In sculptural studies individual artistic attributions continued to be a focus, as seen in numerous handbooks and volumes dedicated to the corpora of famous sculptors (e.g., Stewart, 1977; Todisco, 1993; Rolley, 1994; Moon, 1995; Corso, 1996; Palagia & Pollitt, 1996). But there was a reaction here as well, as scholars increasingly argued against the identification of Greek ‘originals’ from Roman sculpture, instead understanding them as Roman creations (e.g., Wünsche, 1972; Trillmich, 1973; Zanker, 1974; Bieber, 1977; Ridgway, 1984 and 1989; Marvin, 1989; Bartman, 1992; Havelock, 1995). In a move beyond these traditional approaches and away from the focus on the artist, the technological processes of manufacture began to be investigated and replicated. Excavated pottery kiln sites and the application of petrological and chemical analysis of the clay, together with practical analysis of potters’ techniques, illuminated the world of vase painting (Cook, 1997: 231–240; Whitley, 2001: 50–52; Osborne, 2004a: 93; e.g., Noble, 1966; Boardman & Schweizer, 1973; Winter, 1978; Brijder, 1984; Jones, 1986; Blondé & Perreault, 1992; Biers, 1994; Schreiber, 1999). The chemical analysis of stone sculpture identified the quarries which provided the raw material (e.g., Renfrew & Peacey, 1968; Herz & Waelkens, 1988; Marble, 1990; Schilardi & Katsonopoulou, 2000), and the ancient techniques of bronze-casting were determined (e.g., Rolley, 1986; Mattusch, 1988 and 1996). The impulse to decentralise and the move away from the focus on major centres was characteristic of this

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period. Well-known historical moments, important individuals, and famous artistic works and monuments were side-lined in favour of broader perspectives. This was reflected in studies of both vase-painting, where the identification of non-Athenian vase painters became a priority (Whitley, 2001: 15; Osborne, 2004a: 90; on regional pottery studies see e.g., Cambitoglou & Trendall, 1961; Trendall, 1966 and 1987; Stibbe, 1972; Pipili, 1987; Amyx, 1988; Cook & Dupont, 1998), and sculpture where there was an greater focus on regional styles (e.g., Palagia & Coulson, 1993 and 1998). Archaeological fieldwork also moved from traditional excavations of prominent centres, cities, or sanctuaries to examine extra-urban sites or even consider whole regions through intensive surface-surveying, rather than fullscale excavation (Alcock et al., 1994; Whitley, 2001: 47–50; Osborne, 2004a: 88–90; Millett, 2012: 45; Snodgrass, 2012: 25–26). Large-scale regional surveys, a hallmark of English and American archaeologists working in Greece, at first focussed on particular historical periods – for instance the 1960s survey by Minnesota University of Bronze Age Messenia (McDonald & Rapp, 1972) – but by the 1980s they had assumed a diachronic perspective encompassing the whole of Classical Antiquity, as seen with the Pylos Regional Archaeological project begun in the 1990s (Davis, 1998; Davis & Bennet, 2017). These have become long-running multi-disciplinary projects using ‘landscape archaeology’ to understand both the environmental and human impact on the surviving terrain, such as the ongoing surveys of Boiotia begun in 1978 (Bintliff & Snodgrass, 1985; Bintliff, 1989; Bintliff et al., 2007 with bibliography, and 2017; on the Boiotian landscape see also Fossey, 2019; on ‘landscape archaeology’ and it development see Turner, 2013; Athanassopoulos & Wandsnider, 2004; Bintliff, 2014). The development of landscape archaeology was aided by the adoption of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to record, integrate, and understand the relationships between features of the terrain (Conolly & Lake, 2006: 7–10; Turner, 2013: 134–135). At the same time, the increased pace of modern building work, road, and railway construction uncovered more archaeological material than ever before. (Bowkett et al., 2001: 24; Woolf, 2004: 417–8). A striking example were the ancient remains revealed by construction on the Athenian metro from 1992 to 1997 (Parlama & Stampolidis, 2000, with updates by Kaza-Papageorgiou, 2016). The decline of Soviet power at the end of the Cold War also opened up Eastern European countries for investigation, making the archaeology at the periphery of both the Greek and Roman worlds better known (Woolf, 2004: 423–424; e.g., on Greeks in the Black Sea region: Boardman, 1980; Tsetskhladze et al., 1994; more recently

10 Gabrielsen & Lund, 2007; Tsetskhladze, 2011; Tsetskhladze et al., 2012). Studies concerning the limits of the Greek and Roman world had begun to push at chronological boundaries too, and to move beyond a single period or even beyond Antiquity itself, showing the influence of the Annales school of historical thought, which examined social history over the ‘longue durée’ (Bintliff, 1991 and 2004). The desire to question the traditional disciplinary limits of Classical Antiquity was also encouraged by a growing interest in postcolonialist readings of Antiquity, influenced by the adoption of approaches from critical theory. In studying the Archaic Greek world, the traditional view of early Greek colonisation was revised to highlight the many settlement models and varied interactions between incomers and natives (Osborne, 2004a: 92; e.g., Dougherty, 1993; Shepherd, 1999 and 2005; Hurst & Owen, 2005; and more recently Adam-Veleni & Tsangari, 2015). The visibility of ethnic minorities in Greece, and the hybridity resulting from cultural exchange, particularly with the east, were also explored (Osborne, 2004a: 92; e.g., Burkert, 1992; Miller, 1997). More generally, this resulted in investigations about constructions of identity and ethnicity based on social aspirations and cultural statements rather than on racial groups (e.g., Hall, 1997; D’Ambra, 1998; Cohen, 2000). While these examples demonstrate how contemporary social concerns stimulated new ways of examining the ancient evidence (Whitley, 2001: 55–57), there was a more general move to incorporate critical theory into the study of archaeology and art history of the Classical world using other modern ideological lenses. Feminist readings (e.g., Keuls, 1985; Cameron & Kurt, 1993; Fantham et al., 1994; Reeder, 1995; Stears, 1995; Kampen, 1996; Kleiner & Matheson, 1996; Koloski-Ostrow & Lyons, 1997), and psychoanalysis (e.g., Vernant, 1989; Frontisi-Ducroux, 1995; Frontisi-Ducroux & Vernant, 1997) were applied to the Classical material. The self-conscious theorisation of the subject gradually became an important area of interest. The postprocessualist understanding that the study of the ancient world was necessarily subjective also led to the realisation that every study was a product of its own time rather than an objective truth. Each interpretation was influenced by the history of previous work in the field, but also was shaped by the author’s personal background and by the contemporary political and academic context in which it was written. This acknowledgment of the multiple factors at play in any modern understanding of the ancient past spawned a growing interest in reception studies, which considered how modern societies used the ancient past to reinforce their own ideals and messages

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(J. Morgan, 2004: 89–93; e.g., Stiebing, 1993; Morris, 1994a; Shanks, 1996: 53–91; Dyson, 1998). The technological advances of the late 20th century also enhanced the interdisciplinarity of the field with the advent of Digital Humanities. While the earliest use of computing in the humanities was the creation of a concordance of the Latin works of St Thomas of Aquinas in 1949 (Hockey, 2004: 4; Terras, 2010: 172), by the 1950s archaeologists were beginning to digitally record site data. The increase in quantitative analysis as a research method from the 1960s drove demand for computational tools in all areas of Classical studies (Stiebing, 1993: 268–272; Eiteljorg, 2004: 21), and by the time personal computers were introduced in the 1980s, digital technology in Classics was well established. The development of digital database projects made museum material accessible to scholars, for example the Beazley archive pottery database which was made public in 1998, although its records were being digitised from 1979 (http://www.beazley.ox.ac .uk/archive/history.htm) Ancient texts became available and easily searchable through online library projects such as ‘Perseus’, which was conceived in 1985 (http://www .perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/about; on the development of other digital resources in Classics: Terras, 2010: 172–173). The move from simply creating digital collections of material, to understanding how these functioned and could be applied to ancient material resulted in the emergence of Digital Humanities as a field in its own right (Hockey, 2004: 15; Mahony & Bodard, 2010: 3–5). The collaborative approach that was central to this discipline intensified with the advent of the internet in the 1990s (Hockey, 2004: 13; Mahony & Bodard, 2010; on current initiatives and directions on Digital Humanities see L. Hughes et al., 2015; for a critique and justification of Digital Classics see Barker, 2013). The rapid expansion of many divergent approaches to ancient material culture within just a few decades, only some of which have I mentioned here, resulted in a growing unease about the lack of coherence within the field in the late 20th century. In particular, the recognition of, and reaction against, perceived separations between the different fields of study of the ancient world (ancient history, literature, archaeology, and art history) raised concerns about the future of each area of ancient material culture studies (Dyson, 1993; Morris, 1994a; Whitley, 2001: 41–47, 56–57). These disciplinary silos were further exaggerated by fragmentation into different chronological periods – Bronze Age, Greek, or Roman – and geographic regions. However, such divisions are less entrenched and clearly defined than they might seem (Spencer, 1995; Snodgrass,

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

2012: 11–19, 28–29). These distinct, sometimes competing, strands have their roots in the historical development of the discipline, but they have become accentuated within the artificial bureaucratic divisions of academic administration in higher education. Universities frequently split the study of the ancient world between several departments (Classics, History, Art, Archaeology & Anthropology), while academic funding bodies separate sciences (including archaeology) from social science and humanities (Laurence, 2004; J. Morgan, 2004: 93–94; Morley, 2018: 17).4 Therefore the disparity has tended to become exaggerated for rhetorical effect, as scholars position themselves within a particular division and argue for the importance of their chosen stance. The concern about such disciplinary divisions continues to be felt and discussed, whether it focusses on the separation of ancient history from the archaeological evidence (Morris, 1994a: 15; Allison, 2001; Laurence, 2004; Isayev, 2006; Sauer, 2017; cf. Haggis, 2018 on how historians and archaeologists are asking different questions), the lack of dialogue between philologists and archaeologists (Martin, 2008; Bassi, 2016: 7–11), or the estrangement of ancient art history, concentrating on visual culture, from archaeology, dealing with material culture in a more anthropological manner (Snodgrass, 1994: 198; Donohue, 2003: 2–5; J. Morgan, 2004; Whitley, 2009: 722–723). There is also an undeniable increase in the quantity of ever more specialised research being produced each year. The field has become so vast that some specialisation is unavoidable, and it is no longer practical to expect an in-depth and holistic understanding of the whole of the field of Classical Archaeology (Bahn, 1996: 13; Osborne, 2004a: 95–6; Woolf, 2004: 418–423; Sauer, 2017: 91, 94). While the increased tendency towards specialised research and the analysis of detailed data is necessary to refine established ideas, it also risks losing sight of the bigger picture and marginalising sub-specialisms. At the end of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century the rise in the quantity of handbooks about individual sub-specialisms has indicated the need to summarise increasingly large bodies of material within these restricted fields, but it also had the effect of further separating the strands of scholarship rather than treating them together (e.g., Oleson, 2012; Smith & Plantzos, 2012; Bruun & Edmondson, 2014; Marconi, 2014; Borg, 2015; Friedland et al., 2015; on valid criticisms of overly reductive summaries see Haggis & Antonaccio, 2014: 3). At the same time, non-Classical 4  This is generally true in anglophone countries, although it is differently manifested on either side of the Atlantic.

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handbooks featuring entries about the Classical world demonstrate the importance of interdisciplinarity for a diverse range of subjects (e.g., Smith & Wilde, 2002; Hicks & Beaudry, 2010; Cunliffe et al., 2012; Hunt, 2017). However, there is now also a clear movement towards reunifying the sub-disciplines and recreating an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to ancient material and visual culture with a conscious attempt to bring the diverse research threads back together. Susan Alcock and Robin Osborne’s Classical Archaeology (2012) is perhaps the best example of this, providing an overview of Classical Archaeology in much of its diversity (see also Lichtenberger & Raja, 2017). Others have attempted to bridge the divides which have arisen between subdisciplines. For example, John Bintliff consciously includes art-historical chapters in his treatment of Greek archaeology (Bintliff, 2012), while Richard Neer, Verity Platt, Michael Squire, and Jeremy Tanner demonstrate the continued relevance of traditional art-historical methods within Classical Archaeology (e.g., Neer, 2005 and 2012; Platt & Squire, 2010; Squire, 2009; Tanner, 2010; Gaifman et al., 2018). Jas Elsner examines the intersection between rhetoric and ancient art (e.g., Elsner, 1995 and 2007; Elsner & Meyer, 2014), while Ian Morris, James Whitley, Susan Alcock, Bert Smith, Robin Osborne, Ray Laurence, and Jonathan Hall demonstrate the fundamental importance of material culture to ancient history (e.g., Morris, 1994b and 2000; Whitley, 2001; Alcock, 2002; R. Smith, 2002; Osborne, 1996; Laurence, 2012; Hall, 2014). It is within this movement to encourage interdisciplinarity and to reunite the separate strands of the discipline that the current volume is situated. 3 21st-Century Approaches to Classical Archaeology One of the consequences of the long history of the discipline is that even the earliest academic approaches have a continuing legacy. Indeed, the postmodern impetus has prompted some scholars to explicitly revisit 18thand 19th-century views with fresh eyes. Long-established methods, such as the use of connoisseurship to identify ancient sculptors or vase painters, continue to be applied, (e.g., on Praxiteles: Corso, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2014; on Attic vase-painters: Mannack, 2001; Hatzivassiliou, 2010; Avramidou, 2011), and have been further developed (for instance, papers in Padgett, 2017 and Seaman & Schultz, 2017 which exemplify a more rounded approach to connoisseurship).

12 At the same time they have also prompted alternative avenues of investigation. Many scholars are looking outside these older traditions to explore new avenues of study encompassing a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, often borrowed from other disciplines within the humanities, the social sciences, and the hard sciences. Critical theory, for example, continues to be a major field of investigation. Interdisciplinarity has become ever more marked, encompassing such subjects as political theory, philosophy, physics, and economic analysis. While the sheer quantity of recent research is too great to consider in detail, these investigative avenues can be broadly grouped around a few common concerns that have roots in past scholarship but are seeking to understand ancient material culture in new ways. In this section I identify the following six broad avenues of investigation, illustrated with a few examples of research produced within each, as a framework within which to consider current work about ancient material culture: 1. Contextual: Traditional contextualisation places artefacts within a geographical environment, a chronological framework, or a stylistic development. Recent work widens our understanding of both physical and cultural contexts. 2. Interconnected: Relational studies move from thinking about contextualisation in isolation to investigating the relationships between cultures and materials. The intertwined media of text and artefact are also examined in a more nuanced manner, treating textual evidence as complementary to the ancient material. 3. Experiential: Understanding the way in which ancient material was, and still is, experienced involves a variety of considerations, including ancient understanding of the senses, the science of cognition and sensory cues, and modern experiences of ancient art and craft. This also encompasses consideration of how the material past was used in Antiquity in processes of commemoration and obliteration. 4. Technological: The examination of how artefacts were made and used is enhanced by modern scientific analysis and reconstruction techniques, while the latest technology is also being used in excavations. Technological advances have allowed information and research about Antiquity to be disseminated and made widely accessible, both for scholars and for a general public. 5. Multi-Scalar: It is important to adopt various scales of analysis of ancient evidence to address research questions, whether in terms of the scope

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of archaeological investigations, or in terms of the amount of evidence examined. 6. Revisionist: Such approaches re-examine or challenge prevailing narratives and conventions, often prompted by postmodern ideas. It is striking how each of these common concerns shows a continuity which crosses the intellectual boundaries between sub-disciplines. Such a re-framing highlights the primary aim of the current volume: to illustrate the basic unity between sub-fields within ancient material culture studies and to de-emphasise traditional divisions. The selection of papers included in this volume all fit into several of these current avenues of investigation, as highlighted in the discussion below. 3.1 Contextual Approaches The different contexts of antiquities have always been important in giving them meaning, whether this is historical, cultural, or typological. Physical excavation context has also been prized, particularly in archaeology, and the reconstruction of previously lost findspots through the reexamination of old excavation records has proved fruitful, for instance in the case of the information in Evans’ notebooks from the Knossos excavations (Panagiotaki, 1993a, 1993b, and 1998). However, now work is focussing on combining these various types of context in new ways. The importance of a specific archaeological findspot is receiving increased attention, as researchers ask new questions about what can be learned from objects which have a precise physical context, and what can be done about those which do not (e.g., Rodríguez Pérez, 2014). For contextualised objects, some studies use knowledge of the archaeological context to probe more deeply into the cultural role of these artefacts. For instance, Attic pottery excavated from a well in the Athenian Agora has been used to examine its role in the Classical symposium (Lynch, 2011; but cf. Haggis, 2018: 109–114), while the complication of the same types of pottery being found in Etruscan graves is now being explored (Bundrick, 2014 and 2015; Trahey, 2016). Consideration of the Roman pottery assemblage from the insula of Menander at Pompeii has also allowed a re-evaluation of the function and articulation of the Pompeiian houses themselves (Allison, 2004 and 2006). Where objects have no preserved excavation context, new studies are focussing on wider social and historical issues to place these artefacts within their cultural milieu. In pottery studies, the function may be determined by the shape of a vase, but the significance of pots as an indicator of identity and a cultural symbol is also explored (e.g., Stissi, 2009; Tsingarida & Bavay, 2009; Vlachou, 2015). Another

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

example of recent work which considers artefacts both with and without archaeological findspots is the role of Classical and Hellenistic Greek portraiture in manufacturing expressions of identity and social status (Dillon, 2006; Schultz & von den Hoff, 2007; Ma, 2013; von den Hoff et al., 2016; Keesling, 2017). At the same time, scholars are increasingly aware of the difficulties and limitations of studying objects without an unambiguous excavation context. This is most clearly manifest in the chronological and stylistic frameworks of art history, which have largely been created using artefacts which lack securely recorded archaeological findspots. In Greek art this paradox has resulted in an attempt by some standard textbooks to discuss only Greek originals – architectural sculpture, vases, and archaeologically excavated examples – (e.g., Osborne, 1998; Whitley, 2001; Neer, 2012; this was occasionally a concern for earlier authors e.g., Lullies & Hirmer, 1957: 9–10), but in the long-studied field of Roman sculpture the issue has only recently been explicitly highlighted as problematic (Marlowe, 2013). The loss or destruction of archaeological contexts is also of importance to the global community, academics and nonacademics alike. This is currently reflected in a number of concerns: increased pressure to repatriate artefacts taken from their country of origin; the publicity surrounding the looting and trade in illegal antiquities; and the lack of preservation, or outright destruction, of archaeological sites (see e.g., Brodie & Tubb, 2002; Brodie et al., 2006; Watson & Todeschini, 2006; Nafziger & Nicgorski, 2010; Felch & Frammolino, 2011; Manacorda & Chappell, 2011; Lazrus & Barker, 2012; Ulph & Smith, 2012; Thompson, 2016: 140–182; Greenland, 2019; and page 18 below). In Chapter 3, Cooper touches on these issues in the discussion of an artefact without an archaeological context, but with a rich collection context. Moving in a different direction, a focus on the importance of the materiality of the artefact itself provides another type of context. Studies of object agency re-evaluate the role of the object within a cultural setting to reveal it as more than merely a passive product of society, but as an active agent which shapes human social practice (e.g., Appadurai, 1988; Gell, 1998; summaries in Hoskins, 2006 and Jones & Boivin, 2010; on Antiquity specifically: Osborne & Tanner, 2007; Knappett & Malafouris, 2008; Knappett, 2011). Blake and Dyer introduce the theoretical ‘tools’ of this object-oriented perspective in Chapter 8. This focus on the artefact and its context has developed into studies of the evolving history of an object and how it changes over time. There is a growing understanding that many different contexts are created for, and by, ancient

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artefacts throughout their creation and use in Antiquity, their deposition and preservation, and our current experience of them in archaeological excavations, publications, and museum collections (see Osborne, 2015; Whitley, 2016, and Haggis, 2018 for a discussion which debates this idea from different perspectives). Cooper, in Chapter 3, considers this avenue by using a biographical approach to demonstrate how an artefact constructs a compelling historical and cultural narrative. 3.2 Interconnected Approaches The focus on networks of contact between cultures has revealed how interconnected the Mediterranean world was in Antiquity, with associations that reached across vast geographic areas and chronological periods (e.g., Horden & Purcell, 2000; Malkin et al., 2009; Knappett, 2011 and 2013; Malkin, 2011; Bintliff, 2012; Broodbank, 2013; Brughmans et al., 2016; Kiriatzi & Knappett, 2016). The movement of goods, people, and ideas across the Mediterranean has been intensively studied (e.g. recently, Leidwanger & Knappett, 2018). The Mediterranean trade in Greek pottery of the Archaic and Classical periods is one example of this focus, identifying the patterns of distribution and influence of particular producers (e.g., Stissi, 1999; Rouillard & Verbanck-Piérard, 2003; Osborne, 2004b; de la Genière, 2006; Sapirstein, 2013; Tsingarida & Viviers, 2013; Williams, 2013; Lynch & Matter, 2014; Saunders, 2017). But there is also a growing acknowledgement of the importance of this movement beyond the Mediterranean region. For instance, recent research examines connections and trade beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire far to the East, along the Silk Route and across the Indian Ocean (e.g., Tomber, 2008; Liu, 2010; McLaughlin, 2010; Hansen, 2012; Gurukkal, 2016; Evers, 2017; Hildebrandt, 2017; Elsner, 2018: 221–241). In another area, the introduction of digital models and network theory has intensified investigations of the interdependence and ‘connectivity’ of communities from the Late Bronze Age onwards (e.g., Alberti & Sabatini, 2013; Rivers et al., 2013; Tartaron, 2013; Blake, 2014; Brughmans & Poblome, 2016; Foxhall & Rebay-Salisbury, 2016). To open this volume, Collar’s Chapter examines various examples of recent research into the ancient world using these ‘network’ approaches, exploring their complexity as well as their limitations. The continuing desire to understand the material means by which identities were socially constructed in Antiquity, revisiting and revising earlier postcolonialist ideas about ethnicity, now has a broader dimension which recognises interconnected local and wider-scale identities. Recent research demonstrates that multiple

14 constructions of ancient identity, as articulated through material expression, were simultaneously possible (good introductions are Antonaccio, 2010; Hodos, 2010; see also Dougherty & Kurke, 2003; Knapp & van Dommelen, 2014). For instance, studies of globalisation and acculturation within the Roman Empire demonstrate local diversity coexisting with Roman identity in the provinces (e.g., Revell, 2009; Pitts & Versluys, 2015; de Hass & Tol, 2017). Other investigations of the construction of identity through material culture include: the societies of prehistoric Anatolia (e.g., Mac Sweeney, 2011); the vase-painting and temple sculpture of the early Greek world (e.g., Marconi, 2007; Langdon, 2008); and markers of Roman identity within the Roman Empire (e.g., Roth & Keller, 2007; Millett, 2012: 41–2; Gardner et al., 2013; Alcock et al., 2016). Other work concentrates on the interrelations between the artist or craftsman, the consumer or patron, and the object itself. In the study of Greek pottery, the connections between pottery workshops and craftsmen have been explored (e.g., Sapirstein, 2014; Williams, 2017). Another avenue which illuminates the interplay between Greek and Roman artistic culture builds on earlier scholarship about Roman ‘copies’ of Greek originals to reveal that some Roman statuary, wall paintings, and mosaics indebted to Greek models were emulations, adaptations, or wholly Roman creations (see above page 9 and e.g., Gazda, 2002; Hallett, 2005; Perry, 2005; Kousser, 2008; Marvin, 2008; Squire, 2012; Trimble, 2016b). The complex connection between text and artefact has been important since the discipline began, when literary evidence was often prioritised to explain images or to identify ancient artists or sites. However, recent studies reveal a far subtler relationship between text and object that emphasises, for instance, the creativity and independence of ancient craftsmen (e.g., Goldhill & Osborne, 1994; Elsner, 1995 and 1996; D. Small, 1995; Giuliani, 2003; J. Small, 2003). Current research shows how images could rework stories to move beyond the recognised literary versions and create independent traditions (e.g., Woodford, 2003; Squire, 2011; early proponents were Shapiro, 1994 and Snodgrass, 1998). As a different example of the connection between text and artefact, the rhetorical notion of ekphrasis and the way that authors used descriptions, particularly of art works, as symbolically significant carriers of meaning, is still a fertile area of investigation (e.g., Elsner, 2002, 2007, and 2010b; Bartsch & Elsner, 2007; Squire, 2009, 2013, and 2015; Webb, 2009; building on earlier work e.g., Krieger, 1992; Heffernan, 1993; Boehm & Pfotenhauer, 1995; Webb, 1999). Three chapters in this volume explicitly deal with relationships between text and artefact, though in different ways. In Chapter 8 Blake and Dyer move beyond considering notions of ekphrasis

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to show how certain artefacts in ancient literature were not merely symbols but had the power to guide events and characters. In Chapters 6 and 9 Barham and Öhrman both show that careful use of the textual evidence can enhance, rather than over-shadow, our understanding of material culture. Barham considers how the material properties of glass affect, and are understood through, descriptions by ancient authors, while Öhrman demonstrates that the physical processes of craft production can be heard in Latin verse with her consideration of weaving. Artefacts themselves are now also recognised as a distinct rhetorical tool, which can engage in forms of dialogue with the viewer and with ancient texts. Increasingly, material culture is being considered alongside ancient texts as an equally valid, rather than subordinate, source of evidence (highlighted in Rutter & Sparkes, 2000; Squire, 2009: 11; Elsner & Meyer, 2014; Hall, 2014). This collaborative, rather than competitive, relationship between artefact and text has also resulted in a more nuanced understanding of the use of artefacts featuring texts (e.g., Newby & Leader-Newby, 2007). Researchers have used the inscriptions and dipinti on Attic pottery to explore iconographic meaning, the social practice and potential literacy of customers, the identity and structure of workshops, and the social standing of the potters and painters (see above on this page and e.g., Boardman, 2003; Osborne, 2010; Hurwit, 2015; Osborne, 2017: 116–118), as well as the mechanisms of trade (e.g., Johnston, 1979, 1991, and 2006). Recent epigraphic work considers inscriptions as artefacts whose meaning is connected to their physical setting, rather than as purely textual sources (e.g., Cooley, 2012b; Ma, 2012; Osborne, 2017). Nakassis et al. explore this type of multifaceted evidence in their consideration of Linear B tablets as both material and written sources in Chapter 7. 3.3 Experiential Approaches One aspect of the experiential approach is a recent focus on the examination of the senses in Antiquity. Ancient literary sources and artefacts are considered in order to understand the way that the ancient world was appreciated through the five senses (e.g., Bradley, 2015; Day, 2015; Squire, 2016; Ashbrook Harvey & Mullett, 2017; Betts, 2017; Purves, 2017; Rudolph, 2017; Butler & Nooter, 2018). The language of visual appreciation is also being explored to examine the way ancient authors explained the art historical concept of aesthetics (e.g., Porter, 2010; Squire, 2010; Tanner, 2010; Konstan, 2014; Destrée & Murray, 2015; Mason, 2016). Physiology provides another avenue of investigation, with advances in understanding neurology and sensory perception elucidating how the material world is discerned by the brain. Uniting this modern

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

scientific research with philosophical enquiry has resulted in explorations of perception in art, and the role of artefacts in cognition and memory process (e.g., de Beaune et al., 2009; Johannsen et al., 2012; Hamilakis, 2014; Stock et al., 2016), and even the development of the concept of ‘neuroarthistory’ (Onians, 2007; Renfrew et al., 2009). In Chapters 6 and 9 Barham and Öhrman explore different aspects of sensory appreciation in the ancient world through both the visual and the aural experience of ancient material and craft practices. Examples of the ancients’ preservation and commemoration of the past have long been studied (see above page 2 and the Further Reading on Greek and Roman collecting on pages 21–22; Boardman, 2002). However, this study has recently transformed into a discussion about socially-constructed experience of memory in Antiquity (e.g., Alcock, 2002; Van Dyke & Alcock, 2003; Galinsky & Lapatin, 2015), particularly with regard to Roman honorific and funerary monuments (e.g., Hope, 2003; Hope & Huskinson, 2011; Favro, 2014; J. Hughes, 2014; Hölkeskamp, 2016; Borg, 2019; Mayorgas, 2019; but cf. Ng, 2016 on the use of terminology). A connected, though contrasting, issue is the physical reuse and re-purposing of ancient objects within the ancient world, particularly in studies about Greek and Roman sculpture (e.g., Kristensen & Stirling, 2016; Kousser, 2017; Ng & Swetnam-Burland, 2018). As well as being part of an experiential approach to the ancient world, these studies focus heavily on contextualisation. The now familiar idea of the ancient ‘viewer’ concentrates on how ancient material was understood, implicitly or explicitly, by those who created and used it (e.g., Elsner, 1995 and 2007; Osborne, 2000; Zanker & Ewald, 2004; Birk & Poulsen, 2012; Rutledge, 2012: 79–121; Trimble, 2015; Hölscher, 2018). This has allowed the role of artefacts to be considered through multiple theoretical models. For instance, the application of cognitive theory has enhanced our understanding of the symbolic meaning of objects (e.g., Malafouris & Renfrew, 2010; Malafouris, 2013; on artefacts as symbols in art-historical terms see Tanner, 2010: 270), while visual theory, such as iconology and semiotics, has revealed new ways of reading Greek vase iconography (e.g., Steiner, 2007; Stansbury-O’Donnell, 2011; Lorenz, 2016). Another way of exploring the world of the ancient ‘viewer’ is to consider the phenomenology of their surroundings. Studies of the built environment and the experience of ancient architecture are illuminating (e.g., Tilley, 2004: 1–30; Thomas, 2006; Haug & Kreuz, 2017), for example investigations into the use of spaces in Late Bronze Age monumental buildings (Letesson & Vansteenhuyse, 2006; Adams, 2007; Fisher, 2009; Driessen, 2017). Closely related are studies of urban planning that consider the ancient

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built environment on a larger-scale. Studies in Archaic Sicily, Classical Greece, and the Roman world examine how ancient towns developed in response to the needs of the inhabitants (e.g., Osborne & Cunliffe, 2005; Bintliff, 2006; Scott, 2013; Russell, 2016; Nevett et al., 2017; on ancient urbanism in general: Marcus & Sabloff, 2008; Owen & Preston, 2009; Creekmore & Fisher, 2014; Letesson & Knappett, 2017). Attempts to reconstruct this experience are now also enhanced by 3-dimensional modelling using digital technology (see page 16 on digital visualisation). From landscape archaeology, with its holistic and diachronic perspective on both the countryside and urban areas (Kluiving & Guttmann-Bond, 2012; Turner, 2013), a ‘geo-archaeological’ dimension has evolved with greater emphasis on the interaction between humans and their natural environment. For example, historical, geomorphological, and archaeological evidence has been used to understand the environment of the Nile Delta region of Roman Egypt (Blouin, 2014). Contemporary concerns about the impact of climate change on the modern world have also led to historical and scientific investigations into its effects on ancient societies, which are now beginning to incorporate archaeological evidence (e.g., Büntgen et al., 2011; McCormick et al., 2012; Harris, 2013; Harper & McCormick, 2018). As a counterpart to the ancient ‘viewer’, an emerging avenue of scholarship focusses on the modern ‘viewer’ and their response to ancient art. This approach, drawing on a postmodern appreciation of the intrinsic link between contemporary attitudes and modern interpretations of ancient material, considers the value of subjective, self-consciously modern responses in understanding the material of the ancient world and seeks a timeless and visceral appreciation of the ancient material as artwork (Prettejohn, 2006 is a particularly lucid example; e.g. also, Vout, 2006: 34–39 and 2018: 220–242; Prettejohn, 2012). Within archaeology, experiential investigation is also evident in the use of experimental archaeology to understand the technological properties of ancient material in both its construction and use. A popular application of this approach has been in nautical archaeology when, since the 1980s, reconstructions based on archaeological and ethnographical evidence have illuminated manufacturing techniques and crewing requirements for various boat-types (Bennett, 2009). The building and sailing of the replica Athenian trireme Olympias provided information about its construction and the operation of the ancient Athenian navy (Morrison et al., 2000; Rankov, 2012), while the examination of the Kyrenia shipwreck, and subsequent construction of multiple replicas, continues to provide information about a 4th-century BCE merchant ship (Katzev, 2007 and 2008). On a less ambitious scale, recent

16 experiments using the Nashville Parthenon, a scale replica of the Greek temple built in 1897, have clarified issues about viewing the Parthenon frieze (Wescoat & Levitan, 2017). Another facet of experimental archaeology is its application in studying ‘energetics’, an approach adapted from a thermodynamics principle to quantify the labour force necessary to create ancient buildings which has implications for understanding the ancient economy (e.g., DeLaine, 1997; Cavanaugh & Mee, 1999; Devolder, 2015 and 2017; Fitzsimons, 2017; but cf. Fotou, 2016). Sapirstein in Chapter 4 explores the potential of experimental archaeology to quantify the labour required to construct the earliest tiled roofs on Greek temples. Experiments in replication are also used to study Attic vase painting by Saunders et al. in Chapter 5, and in the examination of ancient weaving by Öhrman in Chapter 9. 3.4 Technological Approaches Harnessing modern technological advances to investigate and record surviving ancient remains has a long tradition in Classical Archaeology, as already seen with the early adoption of photography. However, the increased speed of innovation and range of technological capabilities have made a significant impact on both the investigation of Antiquity and the dissemination of research. Recent studies of the technology employed in the manufacture of ancient artefacts cover multiple branches of investigation: from the polychromy on sculpture (e.g., Brinkmann & Primavesi, 2003; Brinkmann et al., 2004; Panzanelli et al., 2008; Blume, 2015; Blume-Jung, 2017), to ancient bronze-working methods (e.g., Stibbe, 2000; Giumlia-Mair, 2002; Mattusch, 2006; Daehner & Lapatin, 2015); from the analysis of pigments on Greek pottery (e.g., Cohen, 2006; Lapatin, 2008), to the carving techniques for Greek and Roman sculpture (e.g., Palagia, 2006; Wootton et al., 2013; Russell & Wootton, 2017). Increasingly sophisticated scientific analysis has yielded better information about the ancient objects themselves. Developments in microscopic and photographic investigation have been applied to a diverse array of materials to reveal traces no longer visible, such as the fugitive traces of paint on ancient architectural stonework (e.g., Tiverios & Tsiafakis, 2002; Papakonstantinou-Ziotis, 2012: 63–64), or the ancient writing on carbonised papyrus rolls surviving from Herculaneum (e.g., Chabries et al., 2003; Mocella et al., 2015; Brun et al., 2016; Bukreeva et al., 2016). Elemental analysis is being used to identify the chemical properties of the materials used for ancient artefacts. The scientific investigations conducted on Attic red-figure pottery by Saunders et al. in Chapter 5 reveal new information about a well-studied class of ancient material.

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New techniques have become standard in archaeological fieldwork, as can be seen in the botanical, zoological, and osteological examination of excavated remains (Whitley, 2001: 52, 57–59), or in underwater investigation (Catsambis et al., 2013; Demesticha et al., 2014; Carlson et al., 2015). In recording fieldwork digital tools, GIS and photogrammetry, for example, are also now considered fundamental for the precise mapping and visualisation of archaeological sites (e.g., Bradley, 2006; Conolly & Lake, 2006; Fulford et al., 2010; Vermeulen et al., 2012; Johnson & Millett, 2013; Demesticha et al., 2014; Gabellone, 2014; Haggis & Antonaccio, 2015; Olson & Caraher, 2015. Sapirstein & Murray, 2017), and for the processing and analysis of the collected data (Wescott & Brandon, 2000; Backhouse, 2006; Verhagen, 2012). Digital reconstruction, visualisation and Augmented Reality also help scholars obtain a more experiential understanding of the ancient environment and the interactions between spatial organisation and human activity (e.g., Earl, 2006; Sirbu, 2010; Eve, 2012 and 2014; Earl et al., 2013; Favro, 2013; Miles et al., 2013; Liestøl, 2014; Counts et al., 2016; Dufton et al., 2017: 77; Liestøl & Hadjidaki, 2019). The digital age and the global reach of the internet have made blogs, social media, and multi-sourced collections of knowledge everyday places to exchange and to engage with a wide range of information and ideas. These new and varied venues of communication and knowledgetransfer encourage the postmodern impetus in academia to move away from the single authoritative voice towards more multi-vocal narratives. This is becoming a common concept within museums in particular (see below page 18–19), as is the increasing use of digital methods of engagement with museum visitors both inside the museum and beyond (e.g., Jeater, 2012; Pett, 2012). Within academia, Digital Humanities are vital for encouraging international collaborations and community participation to build and disseminate digital projects (Bodard & Mahony, 2010; Barker, 2013). Early text-based databases such as EpiDoc (begun in the late 1990s for digital publication of ancient inscriptions) have been expanded to include wider classes of material (Cooley, 2012a: 332–336). For example, the EAGLE network provides a platform for European projects about all types of ancient inscriptions (https://www.eagle-network.eu/). Researchers are now initiating ever more ambitious projects, such as the Pleiades mapping project, a communitybuilt online gazetteer of the ancient world created using freely available open data, and part of an international collaboration between New York University, the STOA consortium, and the Ancient World Mapping Centre (Bagnall & Heath, 2018; on the capabilities and limitations of such

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

digital mapping see Dunn, 2010). Using the capabilities of the Semantic Web, Linked Open Data projects can combine this geographical system with other online databases of artefacts to allow searches by archaeological site (e.g., Isaksen et al., 2010; Dufton et al., 2017: 80–81). Beyond these specialist projects, a vast array of other online facilities is available to both scholars and the public, such as the professional and amateur digital resources in the fields of numismatics and Roman ceramics (Heath, 2010; Burnett & Oldman, 2015; Bagnall & Heath, 2018). These are in addition to institutional collections of material, for example, the online Beazley archive (which also hosts the online publications of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum) and online databases of museum collections. Finally, the electronic publications of journals, books, and catalogues of material are all designed to make information available more widely. The project Nakassis et al. discuss in Chapter 7 is explicitly designed to use digital resources to make Linear B tablets more widely, accurately, and usefully available than ever before. 3.5 Multi-Scalar Approaches Universal notions of artistic development have long been formulated using the detailed study of individual antiquities (Elsner, 2010a: 294). Current research, however, focusses instead on these objects as case studies to elucidate or problematise paradigms already attested through a larger body of evidence. In this manner, artefacts exemplify wider debates, rather than functioning as the sole evidence for those debates. Such a micro-historical impetus – the use of an object or group of objects to tell larger stories about material, society, culture, and history – has been well demonstrated in the British Museum initiative A History of the World in 100 Objects (N. MacGregor, 2010). Cooper’s account in Chapter 3 similarly employs a single antiquity to raise broader issues. At the other end of the spectrum is the increased use of large-scale assemblages and mass data to inform investigations about the ancient world. The impulse to create a complete catalogue of surviving examples of a particular artist is a common art-historical practice, seen recently for instance with the works of Praxiteles (Corso, 2004; 2007; 2010; 2013, and 2014). Archaeological quantitative analysis, however, differs from these catalogues in that it is supported by the mass of undistinguished evidence and seeks to reach some sort of empirical overview. The importance lies not so much in individual artefacts, as in the patterns created by large groups of material. The fractured nature of the evidence, much of which has not survived or been recorded, means that the original data sets cannot be complete, but when carefully evaluated they still

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prove valuable. Some recent projects reunite scattered material to allow quantitative research into assemblages from single excavation contexts (e.g., the British Museum Naukratis research project: Villing et al., 2013–15). In Chapter 1 Collar suggests that large-scale ‘coarse-grained’ data can compensate for gaps in the surviving archaeological evidence. Murray’s collation of large quantities of data from Greek excavations, in Chapter 2, also demonstrates how this broad perspective may allow for a better overview when using fragmentary archaeological evidence. As well as highlighting the benefits of this type of data and the questions it can answer, her work assesses the problems with the indiscriminate use of such huge data-sets. The collection of archaeological evidence through fieldwork is also multi-scalar, creating a holistic picture at several levels. The long-running ‘Big Dig’ model of the 19th century is becoming less viable due to time and money constraints, and new models are being adopted. Keyhole archaeology is becoming popular for detailed examination particularly in an urban environment, such as investigations beneath the 79 CE ruins at Pompeii (Ball & Dobbins, 2017). On a larger scale, archaeological survey has grown more sophisticated since the late 20th century (Cherry, 2003; Davis, 2004; Mattingly & Witcher, 2004; Osborne, 2004a: 87–90; Caraher et al., 2006; Millett, 2012: 45–46; Attema, 2017). Some surveys, for example the Tiber Valley project, encompass large areas to understand the relationship between settlements (Millett, 2007; Keay & Millett, 2016), while others take a diachronic view of data collection, concentrating on the changes within a region rather than focussing on a single period, as is the case with the Western Argolid Project (Gallimore et al., 2017; http:// westernargolid.org). Survey techniques also encourage a move away from established and well-known ancient centres, and instead focus on the hinterland to examine relationships on the periphery. In keeping with the broadening of investigation beyond historically recorded people or sites, this shift in focus allows a ‘bottom-up’ approach that highlights numerically significant but traditionally under-represented people, for instance in the Roman Peasants Project (Ghisleni et al., 2011; Vaccaro et al., 2013; http://www.sas.upenn.edu/romanpeasants/index.html). Digital collection of information into searchable databases has provided the raw material for synthesis and analysis on a completely new scale. Collections of archaeological material are becoming common, for instance Roman amphorae: a digital resource, compiled by the University of Southampton in 2005 and 2014 (University of Southampton, 2014), and the British Museum’s Naukratis project (Villing et al., 2013–15). However, the digital repositories of Greek and Roman literature are also

18 proving to be valuable for material culture studies, as both Barham (Chapter 6) and Öhrman (Chapter 9) show in their multi-scalar approaches, which interrogate vast corpora of ancient literature while focussing in detail on a few examples. 3.6 Revisionist Approaches Each generation of scholarship both builds on and revises the work that has been done before. It is unsurprising, therefore, that current debates are related to ideas that stem from the processualist and postprocessualist thinking of the 1970s to early 2000s, but are also informed by advances in critical theory made in other disciplines. Feminist theory has led the way in breaking down traditional modes of research and expanding the study of minority groups and their experiences in the Classical world. Feminist and gender studies have become mainstream in Classical scholarship, shaping both art-historical and archaeological discourse (e.g., the Feminism in Classics symposium series begun in 1994, see Gold, 1997; Hamilton et al., 2007; Milledge Nelson, 2007; Parca & Tzanetou, 2007; Masterson et al., 2015). One area of study concerns the way gendered identities were constructed through ancient material culture (e.g., Ferrari, 2002; Blundell & Rabinowitz, 2008; Petersen, 2009; Lee, 2015). Another is the growing awareness of systemic gender biases in research agendas, both in the historic study of Antiquity and in the modern workplace (see Wylie, 2006 on this issue in archaeology, Spencer-Wood, 2007 on Classical Archaeology). Moving beyond specifically gender-based issues, feminist approaches have also promoted the visibility of other marginalised or forgotten groups of ancient society, such as slaves and prostitutes (e.g., Morris, 1998; McGinn, 2002 and 2013; Bradley & Cartledge, 2011; Glazebrook & Henry, 2011; George, 2013; Joshel & Petersen, 2014; Trimble, 2016a; Levin-Richardson, 2019). Postcolonial and post-imperial perspectives are influencing scholarship about the ancient Mediterranean with the development of a less Eurocentric and Westernising attitude (e.g., Lyons & Papadopoulos, 2002; van Dommelen, 2006; Delgado & Ferrer, 2007). One well-established example is the recent re-evaluation of the ‘Orientalising’ phenomenon identified in Greek and Roman material culture at several periods, which has revealed a more complex interplay of interests and influences than had been recognised previously (e.g., Riva & Vella, 2006; Gunter, 2009; S. Morris, 2012; Martin, 2017; expanding on earlier work e.g., Said, 1978; Bernal, 1987; Burkert, 1992; Morris, 1994a: 20–23; Shanks, 1996: 86–91; Marchand & Grafton, 1997). Another is the reaction against the traditional understanding of ‘Romanisation’ of territories encompassed by, and on the fringes of, the Roman Empire – a process

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now sometimes referred to as ‘glocalisation’ (see above page 14 and e.g., Webster, 2001; Goodman, 2007; Hingley, 2008; Gardner, 2015 and 2013; Van Oyen, 2017). Perhaps less well-known is the growing recognition that the material effects of the Classical world persisted long after the Late Antique period, for instance with a continuing Classical heritage discernible in local Islamic traditions (e.g., Caron & Lavoie, 2003; H. Evans, 2012; Ali, 2017). An aspect of decolonisation is the growing concern in the 21st century about issues of national ownership of cultural heritage and the restitution of antiquities by Western collectors to ‘source countries’ (see above page 13 and e.g., Hamilakis, 1999 and 2008; Barkan, 2002; Lyons, 2002; Nørskov, 2002; Shelton, 2006; Cuno, 2008; Nostoi, 2008; Gill, 2010; Tythacott & Arvanitis, 2014; Kersel, 2017). As repositories of collections acquired through cultural imperialism over ‘source countries’, western European and North American museums are a particular source of contention and are being urged to address and openly discuss their problematic collecting history (Marlowe, 2013:119–129 and 2016). Cooper’s paper (Chapter 3) is part of a recent movement towards greater transparency about these issues. Postmodern attitudes have inspired a recent interest in reception studies throughout Classics. In Classical Archaeology this has been particularly fruitful in work on the history of the discipline which acknowledges that the modern understanding of Antiquity and its material culture is constructed and shaped by a long history of contemporary personal, national, and political preoccupations (e.g., Donohue & Fullerton, 2003; Dyson, 2006; Trigger, 2006; Díaz-Andreu, 2007; Güthenke, 2009; Uslu, 2017; Riva, 2018; Vout, 2018; Elsner, 2020). A sobering aspect of this construction of the Classical past is the recognition that it has long been appropriated and manipulated to support racism, oppression, exploitation, and notions of elite or Western superiority (Morley, 2018; Richardson, 2019). In reception studies there has also been an attempt to define and deconstruct the very terminology of the discipline (e.g., Porter, 2006). In Chapter 2 Murray explicitly considers the way in which debates within Classical Archaeology have been constructed when she assesses the use of the labels ‘Dark Age’ versus ‘Early Iron Age’. The revision of traditional narratives in the 21st century has revolved around the disruption and ‘democratisation’ of traditional knowledge-bases (e.g., Dufton et al., 2017). A particularly clear example can be seen in the development of history museums and their role in society (e.g., Shelton, 2006; Ellis, 2004). While in the late 19th and early 20th century museums were expected to provide an authoritative voice on historical issues, as a result of the ‘New Museology’ of the 1980s postmodern museums instead seek to encompass multiple stories and identities

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

(Hooper-Greenhill, 2000: 124–150 and 2007). Engagement strategies focus on subjective, experiential, and individualised ways of constructing knowledge for a range of visitors (Lindauer, 2007; Simon, 2010; Latham, 2013; Wood & Latham, 2014). The academic message is now only part of the experience as antiquities exhibitions increasingly combine scholarly information (e.g., Cohen, 2006; Lapatin, 2008; Lyons et al., 2013; Daehner & Lapatin, 2015 on new research underlying popular exhibitions) with provocative questions for a range of audiences (Cooper, 2013) and crowd-pleasing approaches. Chapter 3, with Cooper’s multiple and unresolved narratives about a museum object, exemplifies this challenge to a single dominant narrative. The study of the development of the discipline and the understanding of how contemporary concerns have manipulated historical scholarship highlights the fact that there are few truly new ideas, as opposed to reformulations from different perspectives which cast new light on ancient evidence. However, challenging the established narratives continues to be intellectually important and stimulating. Nakassis et al. and Cooper (Chapters 7 and 3) both reconsider traditional means of knowledge dissemination. The results of Saunders et al.’s investigations (Chapter 5) may well revolutionise the current understanding of Attic vase-production, while Sapirstein’s conclusion that early Archaic temple-building was not particularly labour-intensive (Chapter 4) overturns our understanding of early Greek statements of conspicuous consumption. Barham and Öhrman (Chapters 6 and 9) both re-focus attention on little-considered ancient crafts. 4

Approaching This Volume

As will have become clear, the papers within this volume engage with ancient material culture using many current avenues of enquiry. Some draw directly and specifically from one approach, while others incorporate multiple applications. All are multi-disciplinary; the authors blur the boundaries between archaeology, art history, cultural history, and literary studies, and borrow from disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, humanities, and the hard sciences. Taken together, this collection encapsulates many of the wide variety of methodological enquiries currently being pursued in ancient material culture studies. The volume has been loosely divided into three sections to address different aspects of the current state of the field: Adopting Approaches; Material Approaches; ‘Reading’ Material. However, these divisions should not be seen as restrictive; the boundaries between the sections are porous. Rather than segregating the contributions into separate specialist strands, the groupings highlight the unity of

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the discipline, since many of the papers are interrelated. To emphasise this unity, each section includes examples from a chronological range, from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman period and even the modern era. While each paper is designed to stand alone, introducing key methodological and theoretical concepts applied to a specific set of objects, together they give a rounded and varied introduction to contemporary approaches, all of which have more general applicability. 4.1 Part 1: Adopting Approaches The papers in this section highlight both the potential and the pitfalls of some recent methodological avenues of study. Encompassing a wide chronological range, they explore current ways of investigating ancient archaeological remains as a result of advancing technologies, of new types and scales of data assembly, and of new ideas about the modern appreciation of Antiquity. All these assessments consider the methodological issues of dealing with incomplete archaeological information. The first two papers, which combine multi-scalar, interconnected, and technological approaches, highlight the fine line between an objective picture based on archaeological evidence and a subjective interpretation, albeit informed by copious data. In ‘Networks, Connectivity, and Material Culture’, Collar reviews the use of network theory and analysis in understanding the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to Late Roman periods. Through a selection of examples which examine literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence, her paper demonstrates how the various manifestations of this approach, originally formulated in mathematics and the social sciences, explore the connections and relationships between communities, people, and objects. In doing so, she reveals both the advantages and the limitations of this line of enquiry, showing that network models are as fallible as the humans who create them. Murray makes use of a digital perspective in ‘Big Data and Greek Archaeology: Potential, Hazards, and a Case Study from Early Greece’ to revisit a long-standing and unresolved debate about interpretations of the archaeological record of Early Greece (1200–900 BCE). Labelled ‘Dark Age’ Greece, this period has been traditionally seen as one of isolation and limited production. More recent scholarship suggests that the Greek ‘Dark Age’ was not as backward as first believed and suggests the ‘Early Iron Age’ as a more fitting label. Through quantitative analyses of the mass of archaeological data, Murray considers whether the two labels reflect an ancient reality or are the result of modern priorities, practices, and attitudes. Her consideration of the process of creating large data sets also examines the unconscious biases inherent in the exercise.

20 In the final paper of this section, ‘Biography of the Bull-Leaper: A “Minoan” Ivory Figurine and Collecting Antiquity’, Cooper considers how far our understanding of the ancient world is embedded in modern experiences and what sort of information is actually used to construct contextual and cultural histories of Antiquity. She examines the ‘biography’ of an object without ancient contextual information – a museum piece which may be an early forgery of a Minoan artefact – whose significance lies in its complex modern history and the identities created during its life in the museum. Using contextual, multiscalar, and revisionist approaches, this addresses increasingly topical issues about Classical Archaeology, revealing changing attitudes to Minoan antiquity and to the collection of Antiquity in general since the beginning of the 20th century. 4.2 Part 2: Material Approaches Section two moves the focus from general themes to specific artefacts. In the individual case studies, which range from the Archaic Greek to the Byzantine period, well-known objects are examined using, on the one hand, methods with a long history within the discipline, and, on the other, fresh information and new perspectives that demonstrate how current research methods can enhance or revise earlier understanding. The first two papers engage with traditional types of evidence – architecture and vase painting – to consider old archaeological questions in a new light, while the third paper applies a traditional technique of examining artefacts through the writings of ancient authors, but in an up-to-date manner. Although each paper in this section examines a single artefact or group of artefacts, the methods employed in each case have a wider applicability and are of relevance to ancient material culture from a range of geographical and chronological contexts. The first two papers are grounded in experiential and technological approaches that lead to larger questions of cultural contextualisation. In ‘Labour Organisation and Energetics of Early Archaic Architecture in Korinthos’, Sapirstein applies traditional techniques of experimental archaeology – artefact analysis, reverse engineering, anthropological comparison, and replication exercises – to a new subject when he considers the labour taken to build the early monumental temple at Korinthos in the 7th century BCE. His conclusions illuminate the organisational, economic, and social implications of temple-building in Archaic Greece, and more widely address the scale of ideological and physical investment in constructing monumental architecture in the ancient world.

Cooper

By contrast, Saunders, Trentelman, and Maish use cutting-edge technological analysis to revolutionise our understanding of the production of Classical Greek painted pottery. In a collaboration between Classicists, conservators, and scientists, ‘Collaborative Investigations into the Production of Athenian Pottery’ re-examines examples of Attic red-figured pottery to challenge the traditional assumption that the decoration of this pottery was created in a three-stage firing process. Through scientific analysis of the pottery, paired with replication studies, the authors reveal a more complex firing sequence and explore the possible significance of these findings for understanding the broader context of pottery production. Concluding the section, with ‘“Everything impossible”: Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome’, Barham advances the long tradition of studying ancient artefacts through textual evidence by engaging with the ancient sources in a new way, which addresses an experiential art-historical interest in the aesthetic appreciation of antiquities. Drawing on the capabilities of digital technology, Barham gathers a comprehensive and diverse array of Roman texts to identify terminology associated with the ancient aesthetic experience and visual appreciation of Roman glass. Both the focus on the minor arts and the attempt to identify an emic, sensory, and universal experience are unusual. In this way she determines the ancient appeal of Roman glass, revealing not just how a Roman viewer experienced the medium, but also how the engagement between the glass and its environment creates a timeless aesthetic encounter, thus revealing the complexity of the sensory experience. 4.3 Part 3: ‘Reading’ Material The final section of the volume reconsiders one of the original tensions of this discipline – the relationship between ancient text and material culture. The three papers in this section re-evaluate the interplay between the two, prioritising the material aspects of ancient texts to reveal new avenues of research and seek to understand better the place of both object and text against the backdrop of the ancient world. These approaches demonstrate how the careful use of material culture investigations can be of relevance to literature specialists. This section begins in the Late Bronze Age with Nakassis, Pluta, and Hruby’s collaborative and interdisciplinary project to study and digitise Linear B tablets in ‘The Pylos Tablets Digital Project: Prehistoric Scripts in the 21st Century’. The tablets epitomise the cross-over between the textual and the material. Although not works of literature, the texts are significant in understanding the

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE

Late Bronze Age world, while as artefacts their physical and material properties illuminate aspects of administrative structure and history. The authors move beyond traditional linguistic and philological interpretations to treat the text as material culture. Using new imaging technology the authors have produced three-dimensional digital models to allow virtual autopsy, making the tablets more accessible and less reliant on editorial filters found in traditional print-based publications. This project uses interconnected, technological, and revisionist approaches to unite archaeology, digital science, history, palaeography, and linguistics. Blake and Dyer’s paper ‘Objects and Things in Classical Literature’ uses contextual and interconnected approaches in combining material culture theory with literary appreciation. This collaboration between a philologist and a philosopher examines a selection of artefacts portrayed in some of the best-known works of Classical literature, the epic poems of the Ilias and the Aeneis. The rigorous application of theoretical approaches first developed in philosophy demonstrates that these literary artefacts are powerful as more than simply functional objects. They have independent agency which prompts and enables action within the texts, as well as ‘signifying’ and even shaping the human characters. Through this approach Blake and Dyer reveal a deeper understanding of how the ancient authors made use of the material world in different ways to explore the limits of being human. To conclude the volume, Öhrman’s paper combines interconnected and experiential approaches, seeking to recreate ancient sensory experiences through a novel approach to ancient textual evidence. In ‘The Soundscape of Textile Work in the Roman World: Old Sources & New Methods’, Öhrman employs both textual analysis and the results of experimental archaeology to shed light on another aspect of sensory appreciation in the Roman world. After recreating the sounds of the ancient textile manufacturing process using replica weaving equipment, she returns to the descriptions of such processes by Roman authors. Her analysis demonstrates that the rhythms and sounds produced by ancient weaving pervade particular texts. The ancient authors appreciated, and were concerned with subtly conveying, the sensory experience. The papers presented here cross traditional disciplinary divides and exemplify the wide range of approaches and methods applied to the study of Greek and Roman material culture today. They highlight the great potential these methods hold for application in other areas of research. While some contributions work with well-established traditional methods, which are here applied in innovative

21

ways, several papers advocate a re-thinking of traditional approaches to archaeology and art history. Together, they demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary approaches which move beyond the traditional academic boundaries. By borrowing ideas and technologies, both from different branches of Classics and from other disciplines, they make these approaches accessible to everyone interested in the Classical world. 5

Further Reading on the Historical Development of Classical Archaeology: Selected Topics

5.1

The Collection and Use of ‘Antiquities’ in the Ancient World

See the Introduction, page 2.

5.1.1 Greek

Antonaccio, Carla M., 1995: An archaeology of ancestors: tomb cult and hero cult in early Greece (Lanham, MD). Boehringer, David, 2001: Heroenkulte in Griechenland von der geometrischen bis zur klassischen Zeit: Attika, Argolis, Messenien. KLIO n.F. 3 (Berlin). Higbie, Carolyn, 2017: Collectors, Scholars, and Forgers in the Ancient World. Object Lessons (Oxford). Kousser, Rachel, 2017: The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture. Interaction, Transformation, and Destruction (New York).

5.1.2

Roman & Late Antique

Adornato, Gianfranco, Bald Romano, Irene, Cirucci, Gabriella & Poggio, Alessandro (edd.), 2018: Restaging Greek Artworks in Roman Times. Archaeologia e Arte antica. (Milan). Especially: Cirucci, Gabriella, “The ‘Greek Originals’ in Rome: An Overview” 107–122, and Hallett, Christopher H., “Afterword: The Function of Greek Artworks within Roman Visual Culture” 275–287. Bassett, Sarah, 2004: The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge). Bounia, Alexandra, 2004: The nature of Classical Collecting. Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE (Aldershot, Hampshire). Chevallier, Raymond, 1991: L’Artiste, Le Collectioneur & Le Faussaire, pour une Sociologie de L’Art Romain (Paris). Higbie, Carolyn, 2017: Collectors, Scholars, and Forgers in the Ancient World. Object Lessons (Oxford). Kristensen, Troels Myrup & Stirling, Lea (edd.), 2016: The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture. Late Antique Responses and Practices (Ann Arbor). Loar, Matthew, MacDonald, Carolyn & Padilla Peralta, Dan-el (edd.), 2018: Rome, Empire of Plunder: The Dynamics of Cultural Appropriation (Cambridge).

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Cooper

Mango, Cyril, Vickers, Michael & Francis, E.D., 1992: “The Palace of Lausus at Constantinople and its Collection of Ancient Statues” JHC 4.1: 89–98. doi: 10.1093/jhc/4.1.89. Miles, Margaret, 2008: Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property (New York). Rojas, Felipe, 2013: “Antiquarianism in Roman Sardis”, in Schnapp, Alain (ed.), World Antiquarianism Comparative Perspectives (Los Angeles) 67–87. Rutledge, Steven H., 2012: Ancient Rome as a Museum. Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting. Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation (Oxford). Strong, D.E., 1973: “Roman Museums”, in Strong, D.E. (ed.), Archaeological Theory and Practice (London & New York) 247–264. Turcan, Robert, 2014: L’archéologie dans l’Antiquité: tourisme, lucre et découvertes (Paris). Wellington Gahtan, Maria & Pegazzano, Donatella (edd.), 2015: Museum archetypes and collecting in the ancient world. Monumenta Graeca et Romana 21 (Leiden).

5.2 5.2.1

The Collection and Use of Antiquities in the ‘Modern’ World Medieval Period

See the Introduction, page 2. Cavallaro, Anna (ed.), 2007: Collezioni di antichità a Roma fra ‘400 e ‘500. Studi sulla Cultura Dell’Antico VI (Rome). Reynolds, L.D. & Wilson, N.G., 2013: Scribes and scholars: a guide to the transmission of Greek and Latin literature. 4th Edition (Oxford). Schnapp, Alain, 1996: The discovery of the past: the origins of archaeology (London) 80–119. Thompson, Erin L., 2016: Possession: the curious history of private collectors from antiquity to the present (New Haven & London) 15–19.

5.2.2

The Renaissance

See the Introduction, page 2. Barkan, Leonard, 1999: Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture (New Haven). Bignamini, Ilaria (ed.), 2004: Archives & excavations: essays on the history of archaeological excavations in Rome and southern Italy from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome 14 (London) 13–53. Bober, Phyllis Pray & Rubenstein, Ruth, 2010: Renaissance Artists & Antique Sculpture. A Handbook of Sources. 2nd Edition (London & Turnhout). Christian, Kathleen Wren, 2010: Empire Without End. Antiquities Collections in Renaissance Rome, c. 1350–1527 (New Haven & London). Electronic Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance. Online Resource http://www.cen sus.de/census/ (accessed 13/04/2020).

Haskell, Francis & Penny, Nicholas, 1981: Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900 (New Haven) 7–61. MacGregor, Arthur, 2007: Curiosity and Enlightenment. Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (New Haven & London) 2–80. Marvin, Miranda, 2008: The language of the muses: the dialogue between Roman and Greek sculpture (Los Angeles) 68–93. Miller, Peter N., 2013: “A Tentative Morphology of European Antiquarianism, 1500–2000”, in Schnapp, Alain (ed.), World Antiquarianism Comparative Perspectives (Los Angeles) 67– 87. Pomian, Krzystof, 1990: Collectors and Curiosities. Paris and Venice 1500–1800. Translated by Elizabeth Wiles-Portier (Cambridge) 65–105. Schnapp, Alain, 1996: The Discovery of the past: the origins of archaeology (London) 167–177. Stenhouse, William, 2014: “Roman antiquities and the emergence of Renaissance civic collections”, JHC 26.2: 131–144. doi: 10.1093/jhc/fht033. Vout, Caroline, 2018: Classical Art: a life history from antiquity to the present (Princeton) 95–149.

5.2.3

The Enlightenment

See the Introduction, pages 2–4. Bignamini, Ilaria (ed.), 2004: Archives & excavations: essays on the history of archaeological excavations in Rome and southern Italy from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome 14 (London) 55–162. Bignamini, Ilaria, & Hornsby, Clare, 2010: Digging and dealing in eighteenth-century Rome (London). Ceserani, Giovanna, 2012: Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Graecia and the Making of Modern Archaeology (Oxford & New York). Haskell, Francis & Penny, Nicholas, 1981: Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900 (New Haven) 62–116. Hornsby, Claire, 2000: The Impact of Italy: the Grand Tour and Beyond (Rome). Kelly, Jason M., 2017: “Reading the Grand Tour at a Distance: Archives and Datasets in Digital History”, American Historical Review 122.2: 451–463. doi: 10.1093/ahr/122.2.451. MacGregor, Arthur, 2007: Curiosity and Enlightenment. Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (New Haven & London) 2–80. Marvin, Miranda, 2008: The language of the muses: the dialogue between Roman and Greek sculpture (Los Angeles) 59–67. Miller, Peter N., 2013: “A Tentative Morphology of European Antiquarianism, 1500–2000”, in Schnapp, Alain (ed.) World Antiquarianism Comparative Perspectives (Los Angeles) 67–87. Sloan, Kim & Burnett, Andrew (edd.), 2003: Enlightenment. Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century (Washington D.C.).

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE Especially: Jenkins, Ian, “Ideas of antiquity: classical and other ancient civilizations in the age of Enlightenment” 168–177. Wilton, Andrew & Bignamini, Ilaria (edd.), 1996: Grand tour: the lure of Italy in the eighteenth century (London). Wilton-Ely, John, 2004: “ ‘Classic Ground’: Britain, Italy and the Grand Tour”, Eighteenth-Century Life 28.1: 136–165. doi: 10.1215/00982601-28-1-136. Withey, Lynne, 1997: Grand Tours and Cook’s Tours. A History of Leisure Travel, 1750 to 1915 (New York).

5.2.4

The 19th Century

See the Introduction, pages 4–7. Bignamini, Ilaria (ed.), 2004: Archives & excavations: essays on the history of archaeological excavations in Rome and southern Italy from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome 14 (London) 165–280. Brendon, Piers, 1991: Thomas Cook, 150 years of Popular Tourism (London) 57–120. Díaz-Andreu, Margarita, 2007: A World History of NineteenthCentury Archaeology, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past (New York). Dyson, Stephen L., 1998: Ancient marbles to American shores: classical archaeology in the United States (Philadelphia). Dyson, Stephen L., 2006: In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries (New Haven & London). Hornsby, Claire, 2000: The Impact of Italy: the Grand Tour and Beyond (Rome). Marchand, Suzanne L., 1996: Down from Olympus. Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970 (Princeton). Swinglehurst, Edmund, 1982: Cook’s Tours: The Story of Popular Travel (Poole, Dorset) 34–52. Vout, Caroline, 2018: Classical Art: a life history from antiquity to the present (Princeton) 95–149. Withey, Lynne, 1997: Grand Tours and Cook’s Tours. A History of Leisure Travel, 1750 to 1915 (New York).

5.3

‘Modern’ Travellers, Collectors, and Archaeologists in Greece and the Ottoman Empire

See the Introduction, page 3–4.

5.3.1

The Early Periods

Constantine, David, 1984: Early Greek travellers and the Hellenic ideal (Cambridge). Cook, B.F., 1998: “British Archaeologists in the Aegean”, in Brand, Vanessa (ed.), The Study of the Past in the Victorian Age. Oxbow Monograph 73 (Oxford) 139–154. Eisner, Robert, 1991: Travelers to an antique land: the history and literature of travel to Greece (Ann Arbor). Pollard, Lucy, 2015: The Quest for Classical Greece: Early Modern Travel to the Greek World (London & New York).

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Tounikiotis, Panayotis (ed.), The Parthenon and its Impact in Modern Times (Athens).

5.3.2

The 19th Century

Challis, Debbie, 2008: From the Harpy Tomb to the wonders of Ephesus: British archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire 1840– 1880 (London). Greenhalgh, Michael, 2019: Plundered Empire: Acquiring Antiquities from Ottoman Lands. Heritage and Identity Issues in Cultural Heritage Protection Volume 6 (Leiden). Shanks, Michael, 1996: Classical archaeology of Greece: experiences of the discipline. (New York) 43–46.

5.4 5.4.1

The Collection and Study of Ancient Athenian Vases 18th Century Discovery in Italy and Its Impact

See the Introduction, page 4. Burn, Lucilla, 1997: “Sir William Hamilton and the Greekness of Greek Vases”, JHC 9.2: 241–252. doi: 10.1093/jhc/9.2.241. Burn, Lucilla, 2003: “Words and pictures: Greek vases and their classification”, in Sloan, Kim & Burnett, Andrew (edd.), Enlightenment: discovering the world in the eighteenth century (Washington D.C.) 140–149. Coltman, Viccy, 2006: Fabricating the Antique. Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago & London) 65–96. Jenkins, Ian, 1997: “Seeking the Bubble Reputation”, JHC 9.2: 191–203. doi: 10.1093/jhc/9.2.191. Jenkins, Ian & Sloan, Kim (edd.), 1996: Vases & volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and his collection (London). Lissarrague, François & Reeder, Marcia, 1997: “The Collector’s Book”, JHC 9.2: 275–294. Lyons, Claire L., 1997: “The Neapolitan Context of Hamilton’s Antiquities Collection”, JHC 9.2: 229–239. doi: 10.1093/ jhc/9.2.229. Lyons, Claire L., 2007: “Nola and the historiography of Greek vases”, JHC 19.2: 239–247. doi: 10.1093/jhc/fhm028. Ramage, Nancy H., 1992: “Goods, Graves, and Scholars:  18thCentury Archaeologists in Britain and Italy”, AJA 96: 653–661. doi: 10.2307/505190. Schnapp, Alain., 2013: “The Antiquarian Culture of EighteenthCentury Naples as a Laboratory of New Ideas”, in Mattusch, Carol C. (ed.), Rediscovering the Ancient World on the Bay of Naples, 1710–1890 (Washington D.C.) 11–34. Vickers, Michael, 1997: “Hamilton, Geology, Stone Vases and Taste”, JHC 9.2: 263–274. doi: 10.1093/jhc/9.2.263.

5.4.2

Collecting and Connoisseurship in the 19th and 20th Centuries

See the Introduction, pages 6–7 & 9–10. von Bothmer, Dietrich, 1987: “Greek vase painting: 200 years of connoisseurship”, in Papers on the Amasis Painter and his world (Malibu) 184–204.

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Cooper

Maginnis, Hayden B.J., 1990: “The role of perceptual learning in connoisseurship: Morelli, Berenson, and beyond”, Art History 13: 104–17. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8365.1990.tb00381.x. Neer, Richard, 1997: “Beazley & the Language of Connoisseurship”, Hephaistos 15: 7–30. Neer, Richard, 2005: “Connoisseurship and the Stakes of Style”, Critical Inquiry 32.1: 1–26. doi: 10.1086/498001. Neer, Richard, 2009: “Connoisseurship: From Ethics to Evidence”, in Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios (ed.), An archaeology of representations: ancient Greek vase-painting and contemporary methodologies (Athens) 25–49. Nørskov, Vinnie, 2002: Greek vases in new contexts: the collecting and trading of Greek vases: an aspect of the modern reception of antiquity (Aarhus). Rouet, Philippe, 2001: Approaches to the study of Attic vases: Beazley and Pottier. Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology (Oxford) 7–24.

5.5

The Collection and Display of Antiquities in Britain (17th to 19th Centuries)

See the Introduction, pages 2–5. Angelicoussis, Elizabeth, 2017: Reconstructing the Lansdowne Collection of Classical Marbles. 2 Volumes (Munich). Bignamini, Ilaria, & Hornsby, Clare, 2010: Digging and dealing in eighteenth-century Rome (London). Black, Jeremy, 1999: The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (London). Coltman, Viccy, 2006: Fabricating the Antique. Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago & London) 65–96. Coltman, Viccy, 2009: Classical sculpture and the culture of collecting in Britain since 1760 (Oxford). Cook, B.F., 1985: The Townley Marbles (London). Guilding, Ruth, 2014: Owning the Past. Why the English Collected Antique Sculpture 1640–1840 (New Haven & London). Jenkins, Ian, 1992: Archaeologists & Aesthetes in the Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum 1800–1939 (London). Kurtz, Donna, 2000: Reception of Classical Art in Britain, an Oxford story of plaster casts from the antique. British Archae­ ological Series 308 (Oxford). MacGregor, Arthur, 2007: Curiosity and Enlightenment. Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (New Haven & London) 2–80. Michaelis, Adolph, 1882: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (Cambridge). Nichols, Kate, 2015: Greece and Rome at the Crystal Palace. Classical Sculpture and Modern Britain, 1854–1936 (Oxford). Scott, Jonathan, 2003: The pleasures of antiquity: British collectors of Greece and Rome (New Haven). Vout, Caroline, 2018: Classical Art: a life history from antiquity to the present (Princeton) 151–219.

5.6

The Production and Collection of Copies and Casts (18th & 19th Centuries)

See the Introduction, page 3. Coltman, Viccy, 2006: Fabricating the Antique. Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago & London) 123–163. Frederiksen, Rune, & Marchand, Eckart (edd.), 2010: Plaster Casts. Making, Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present. Transformationen der Antike 18 (Berlin). Gazi, Andromache, 1998: “The Museum of Casts in Athens (1846–1874)”, JHC 10.1: 87–91. doi: 10.1093/jhc/10.1.87. Haskell, Francis & Penny, Nicholas, 1981: Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900 (New Haven) 79–98. Kurtz, Donna, 2000: Reception of Classical Art in Britain, an Oxford story of plaster casts from the antique. British Archaeological Series 308 (Oxford). MacGregor, Arthur, 2007: Curiosity and Enlightenment. Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (New Haven & London) 88–92, 242–246.

5.7 5.7.1

The Excavation and Influence of Particular Archaeological Sites Pompeii and Herculaneum

See the Introduction, pages 3 & 5. Amery, Colin & Curran, Brian, Jnr., 2002: The Lost World of Pompeii (London). Coltman, Viccy, 2006: Fabricating the Antique. Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago & London) 97–121. Cooley, Alison E., 2003: Pompeii (London). Foss, Pedar W., 2007: “Rediscovery and resurrection”, in Dobbins, John J. & Foss, Pedar W. (edd.), The World of Pompeii (New York) 28–42. Hornsby, Claire, 2000: The Impact of Italy: the Grand Tour and Beyond (Rome). Mattusch, Carol C. (ed.), 2013: Rediscovering the Ancient World on the Bay of Naples, 1710–1890 (Washington D.C.). Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, 2011: Herculaneum Past and Future (London).

5.7.2 Troia

See the Introduction, pages 5 & 6. Allen, Susan Heuck, 1999: Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik (Berkeley). Calder, W.M. III & Trail, D.A., 1986: Myth, Scandal and History: the Heinrich Schliemann Controversy and a First Edition of the Mycenaean Diary (Detroit). Mac Sweeney, Naoíse, 2018: Troy: Myth, City, Icon. Archaeological Histories (London). Rose, Charles Brian, 2014: The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy (New York).

INTRODUCTION: OLD and NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE Sherratt, Susan & Bennet, John (eds.), 2017: Archaeology and Homeric Epic. Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology (Oxford & Philadelphia). Trail, D.A., 1995: Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit (New York). Uslu, Günay, 2017: Homer, Troy and the Turks. Heritage and Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1870–1915. Heritage and Memory Studies (Amsterdam).

Bibliography of Modern Works Adam-Veleni, Polyxeni, & Tsangari, Dimitra (edd.), 2015: Greek colonisation: new data, current approaches: proceedings of the Scientific Meeting held in Thessaloniki, 6 February 2015 (Athens). Adams, Ellen, 2007: “Approaching Monuments in the Prehistoric Built Environment: New Light on the Minoan Palaces”, OJA 26.4: 359–394. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0092.2007.00289.x. Aghion, Irène (ed.), 2002: Caylus, mécène du roi: collectionner les antiquités au XVIIIe siècle (Paris). Alberti, Maria Emanuela & Sabatini, Serena (edd.), 2013: Exchange networks and local transformations: interaction and local change in Europe and the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (Oxford). Alcock, S.E., 2002: Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscapes, Monuments and Memories. (Cambridge). Alcock, Susan E., Cherry, John F. & Davis, Jack L., 1994: “Intensive survey, agricultural practice and the classical landscape of Greece”, in Morris, Ian (ed.), 1994b: 137–170. Alcock, Susan E., Egri, Mariana & Frakes, James F.D. (edd.), 2016: Beyond Boundaries. Connecting Visual Cultures in the Provinces of ancient Rome (Los Angeles). Alcock, Susan E. & Osborne, Robin (edd.), 2012: Classical archaeology. 2nd Edition (Chichester). Ali, Nadia, 2017: “Qusayr ‘Amra and the Continuity of PostClassical Art in Early Islam: Towards and Iconology of Forms”, in Lichtenberger & Raja (edd.), 2017: 161–197. Allen, Susan Heuck, 1999: Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik (Berkeley). Allison, Penelope M., 2001: “Using the material and written sources: turn of the millennium approaches to Roman domestic space”, AJA 105: 181–208. doi: 10.2307/507270. Allison, Penelope M., 2004: Pompeian households: an analysis of the material culture (Los Angeles). Allison, Penelope M., 2006: The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii. Volume III: The Finds, a Contextual Study (New York). Amasis Painter, 1987: Papers on the Amasis Painter and his world (Malibu). Amyx, D.A., 1988: Corinthian vase-painting of the Archaic period (Berkeley).

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part 1 Adopting Approaches

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chapter 1

Networks, Connectivity, and Material Culture Anna Collar Abstract ‘Networks’ and ‘interconnectivity’ have changed 21st-century society, from the invention of the internet and international networks of corporate power, to global transport and infrastructure that enable human mobility on an unprecedented scale. People are increasingly aware of how commerce, power, and production connect the globe, and of the global implications of local events, decisions, or industries. Concurrently, ways of thinking about patterns of human behaviour and the spread of information, diseases, and fashions, are increasingly understood to result from interconnections – from networks. Studies of the ancient Graeco-Roman Mediterranean are also beginning to acknowledge the influence of these developments, with a new wave of scholarship arguing for focus on the interconnections and relationships that form, or undermine, identities, social structures, and the spread of ideas. These studies make clear that relationships matter. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first explores the ‘network paradigm’: different network methods and theories that have been used to study the material of the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean, drawing out the innovative results achieved, and the new questions raised. The second examines issues that arise when using network approaches, including the handicap of a patchy data record, and problems of categorisation and technical expertise. By exploring different ways that networks can be used to interpret material I show the enormous potential it holds for the study of Graeco-Roman material culture.

Keywords network analysis – network theory – material culture – connectivity – Actor-Network theory – ancient Mediterranean

Introduction1 ‘Networks’ and ‘interconnectivity’ have changed the way 21st-century society operates: from the use of the internet 1  I would like to thank Kate Cooper for the opportunity to contribute to this volume, and also for her diligent editorial work in improving this chapter.

© Anna Collar, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_003

and social networking websites in the everyday lives of billions of people, or the ways that international networks of political resistance or corporate power are formed and understood, to the global transport and infrastructure connections that enable human mobility on an unprecedented scale. People are increasingly aware of the long chains of commerce, power, and production that connect disparate parts of the globe, and the implications that local events, political decisions, or industries have for the global environment. Concurrently, ways of thinking about the spread of information, diseases, fashions, and so on have changed, and increasingly patterns of human behaviour are understood to result from interconnections – from networks. Study of the ancient Graeco-Roman Mediterranean region has also begun to be influenced by these developments with a new focus on the interconnections and relationships that help to form or undermine identities, social structures, the spread of ideas, and the material manifestations of these. The last 15 years have seen a growing interest in using ‘network approaches’ to material culture as a lens through which to study the role of interconnectivity on the ebbs and flows of information and power. This type of social network methodology allows for a ‘bottomup’ re-assessment which prioritises the material evidence. In particular, Carl Knappett (2005 and 2011) has explored the semiotic networks of material culture in the Aigaian Bronze Age, and Irad Malkin’s arguments (2003 and 2011) for metaphorical networks underpinning the process of constructing Archaic Greek identity through landscape and material means have been highly influential. In addition, there has been a range of other network approaches applied to Graeco-Roman material, including close formal analyses of the social network dynamics upon which the Roman brick industry was based (Graham, 2006), social networks explored through papyrological and ostraka evidence from Byzantine Egypt (Ruffini, 2008), the use of computer modelling to analyse networks of intervisibility between sites in Iron Age and Roman Baetica (Brughmans et al., 2015), and the application of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to reappraise the categorisation of the Roman ceramic terra sigillata (Van Oyen, 2016). What is fundamental to all these studies is the understanding that relationships matter.

48 This chapter is divided into two parts. The first explores the multiple ways that relationships have been understood by outlining how the ‘network paradigm’ (Mills, 2017) – that is, different types of network methods and theories – has been used in the study of the material culture of the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean, drawing out the innovative nature of results and the new questions raised by such approaches. The second examines some of the issues, problems, and pitfalls that arise from using network approaches to think about ancient material culture, including the drawbacks of a patchy data record, problems of categorisation, and issues of technical expertise. This is not a networks ‘how-to’ guide, since there are many excellent introductions to the processes of doing network analysis with archaeological or historical datasets (e.g., Lemercier, 2010; Östborn & Gerding, 2014; Collar et al., 2015; Mills, 2017; and the practical tutorials that can be accessed at https://archaeologicalnetworks .wordpress.com/resources/). But by exploring a number of different ways that the network paradigm can be used to interpret different types of material, I hope to show that both formal and heuristic network approaches have enormous potential for the innovative study of Graeco-Roman material culture and the societies that made them. 1 Part I: Connectivity & Networks: Changing How We Think about Material Connectivity has become widely used as a term to think about the ancient world, with a mainstay in this development being Horden and Purcell’s The Corrupting Sea (2000). There, connectivity was seen as constitutive for the towns and cities of the Mediterranean, providing links of communication, navigation, trade, and identity that supported and created those places (2000: 123). This conception of connectivity is closely tied to the physical landscape and a holistic ecological framework, but nevertheless depends on perception and knowledge, rather than on physical peculiarities (Horden & Purcell, 2000: 130). Although Horden and Purcell sometimes used the language of networks in The Corrupting Sea, taking an explicitly relational network approach goes even further and has the effect of changing the way material is perceived. By this, I mean that instead of looking at objects, individuals, sites, etc. in isolation, taking a network perspective encourages the consideration of how objects, sites, or individuals are connected. Connection can encompass all manner of things: material similarity to other material from other places; physical connections such as roads or

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rivers; trade routes; social relationships; symbolic connections; affiliation or association with groups, organisations, or institutions. The application of network approaches to ancient material draws on diverse disciplinary sources in mathematics, physics, and sociology, with correspondingly different emphases, but as a framework, the network paradigm offers an extremely powerful method of rethinking and reframing data. 1.1 Networks and Archaeology ‘Networks’ have recently become something of a buzzword in the study of the past, with a significant increase in the numbers of publications either using a version of network analysis or referring to networks as part of the methodological framework (see Brughmans, 2014; Collar et al., 2015). This is, in part, thanks to the publication in the early 2000s of a number of popular science books (e.g. Gladwell, 2000; Barabási, 2003; Watts, 2003; Ball, 2004) which connected the general public with some of the ideas that had been explored in sociophysics and mathematics to think about contagion, power failures, and the spread of fashions or fads over the previous half century. One sociological experiment which achieved widespread popular renown is the ‘six degrees of separation’ phenomenon observed by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s (Milgram, 1967), where only six social ties will allegedly bring any individual into contact with anyone else in the world (with the actor Kevin Bacon proving an amusing and particularly sought-after contact: Bacon has now started a charity with the title, SixDegrees.org). But despite the common acknowledgement of this social maxim, as Brughmans (2013a) has outlined, the recent adoption of some of the ideas from the popular literature within archaeology reflects only a few of the models and techniques available. Although the proliferation of modern computing has meant that the capacity to do technical network analysis has grown exponentially, network methods have actually been in use in archaeology since the 1970s (for example, the network model for the analysis of prehistoric trade by Cynthia Irwin-Williams in 1977, and the use of Proximal Point Analysis to explore island interactions by John Terrell, 1977). What is more, the use of the blanket term ‘network’ masks the fact that what is meant often differs widely between scholars, which has led Barbara Mills to adopt the umbrella term ‘network paradigm’ to describe the diversity of approaches (Mills, 2017). At one end of the spectrum are those who use networks as a metaphor to think about connectivity, while at the other end are those who engage in highly formalised technical network analyses, and there are many other methods in between (see Isaksen, 2013).

Networks, Connectivity, and Material Culture

What is meant by the term ‘network’? Many, perhaps, now think first of the way social media makes up an individual’s online social network through a jumble of interconnected friends, colleagues, or acquaintances, and the ways that information is received and transmitted via those social links. Some might think of transport networks, such as the physical connections of roads, bridges, train lines, and the more ephemeral sea and air lanes. Or perhaps some think of electronic power supplies, or of neurons in the brain, of networking events or business meetings, or of telecommunications. There is a myriad of situations in which the term ‘network’ is used to describe or analyse connectivity. Beyond the descriptive use of ‘network’, in basic formal terms a network is comprised of nodes and ties: nodes are entities and ties are what link those entities. These terms can be replaced with others, in part dependent on discipline: for example, ties are also called links and arcs. If a tie is directed – that is, if it has information travelling through it one way but not the other (a one-way road system, or an unequal relationship between master and servant, for example) – it is called an ‘edge’ (a summary of key terms is provided below on page 50, but for a comprehensive glossary of network terms see Collar et al., 2015, 25–37). There are thus two elements, and the network is comprised of the relationships between them. These relationships can be assessed as to the structure that they generate in the network more broadly. The identity of the nodes can also be assessed based on their placement within that structure, using terms such as ‘centrality’ or ‘betweenness’ to describe nodes which have particular forms of connectedness. Some network structures have been found to be particularly good as models for how society seems to operate and have become widespread in archaeological interpretations. A good example is the ‘small-world’ model (Watts & Strogatz, 1998). In this a number of separate network clusters, each comprising nodes connected to each other by ‘strong ties’ (a sociological term referring to a close relationship, e.g. of family or friends, and characterised by the amount of time, emotional intensity, mutual confiding, and reciprocity that exists) are joined together by a few ‘weak ties’ (Granovetter, 1973). These ‘weak ties’ are long-distance links in the network, equivalent to ‘travelling salesmen’: they act as bridging links between separate groups, that enable the spread of new information or transfer of material between clusters. Such a small-world network structure is particularly good at facilitating the transfer of certain kinds of information which do not require a high degree of trust, such as some kinds of viral diseases, or fashions. But there are problems with this abstraction, and I will return to weak ties

49 below when discussed the issues raised in using network analysis methods. The ‘scale-free’ model is also popular, in which the network structure is dominated by a few highly connected nodes, called ‘hubs’, which are equivalent to super-cities, major airports, or maven individuals, whereas the majority are poorly connected nodes. The scale-free network structure is powerful in terms of the transfer of information from the hub to the rest of the network, but is vulnerable to attack: if a hub is removed from a scale-free network, the network connectivity collapses (Watts, 2003; Brughmans, 2013a: 642–650). Whether these two popular network structures are in fact the most appropriate or useful to describe the scenarios of the past has been called in to question (see Brughmans’ review of Malkin, 2011: Brughmans, 2013b). More needs to be done to understand the implications of the discovery of different types of network structures within archaeological and historical evidence, as well as to ensure that the identification of these kinds of network structures in the archaeological record are correctly interpreted and methodologically robust. What is clear is that relational concepts form the basis of network thinking, analysis, and methods in archaeology. Those relations have been understood to comprise almost anything: scholars have used a huge array of different things as the entities (nodes) in their networks, ranging from individuals, to objects, to sites, to regions and countries (for an analysis and overview of methods see Knappett, 2011; Brughmans, 2013a). The same is true of the second element of networks, the links (ties) between nodes, which can be hypothesised as trade connections, family relationships, shared religious practice, material similarities, physical infrastructures such as roads, and so on. The common thread in these diverse approaches is the emphasis on the importance of the relationships. By untangling their patterns, structures, and dynamics, it is possible to understand more about the way the world may have worked in the past. Although scholars have long been interested in understanding the changing relationships and interconnections of the past, doing so through application of network theories and analyses represents a significant new step. Looking at ancient material from a network perspective can help to join up scales of analysis. For example, this perspective can help to understand “how individual behaviour aggregates to collective behaviour” (Watts, 2003: 24), so revealing the proliferation of social trends across broader regions, their connection to the social actions and social structures that underlie the patterns observed in the material, and also how the networks themselves may have structured interactions (Mills, 2017). The power of using networks as part of the

50 archaeological toolbox is perhaps best captured in the fact that it is the dynamics of the network – the changing relationships – that help to build and dissolve the nodes and the network structure itself: for instance, urban centres may expand due to the strength of their trade links, but a shift or change in these links can cause the centres to shrink and even collapse. Thinking in terms of relationships between entities and the way these relationships structure the broader network, rather than thinking solely about the entities, is methodologically exciting. These relationships can be analysed in a number of ways: to think about interactions that are located spatially and those that are social or relational; to consider different kinds of entities within the same network (for example, people and objects, people and places); to cross scales of analysis (see Knappett, 2011: 10; Brughmans, 2013a). But there is a need also for caution. Scholars must be aware that a representation of a network drawn from selected data does not necessarily represent a past network; far from it. Care must be taken not to confuse perceptions of patterns in the data with reality, not least because archaeologists are rarely in possession of complete data. One must be aware of the categorisation of nodes and links, and of the judgements that have been made about the data prior to analysis. And it is also important to be aware of how the network has been created and what the network means; is the network derived from the actual archaeological data, or from assumptions about the data and about the social structures that underpin it, that we, as scholars, have made? All these issues, and more, are examined in the second part of this paper, but let me begin positively. In the following sections, I will explore four different ways that scholars of Graeco-Roman material culture, broadly defined, have used diverse network thinking, methods, and models to approach their diverse sets of data. I start with the metaphorical or heuristic use of networks to ‘think with’, then move on to the use of terms and methods – from Social Network Analysis, to formal network analysis techniques – that have been used to think specifically about space (an area in which archaeology is helping to push social network analysis in new directions), and finally, I consider how networks have resonated within the study of material culture. This is by no means an exhaustive discussion of the network paradigm in Graeco-Roman scholarship; rather, it is intended to illustrate some key arguments and areas of interest. For the sake of convenience, I summarise here the key network terminology used in this chapter (for further terms see Collar et al., 2015, 25–37):

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Network: Systems of connections consisting of entities (nodes) and the links between them which can be particularly close (strong ties), or less so (weak ties). Multiple strong ties between the same entities can form ‘wide bridges’. Non-reciprocal links between nodes are ‘edges’. Social Network Analysis (SNA): A sociological method used to investigate social structures created by the patterns of relationships (ties or links) between actors (nodes). Scale-free Network: A network characterised by a disparity of connectivity, featuring a small number of extremely well connected nodes (hubs), and a large number of very poorly connected nodes. Proximal Point Analysis (PPA): A predictive network model based on the assumption that entities have the strongest ties with their geographically closest neighbours. Actor-Network Theory (ANT): A theory incorporating symmetry of agency between human and non-human participants, based on the premise that inanimate objects, buildings, ideologies, and institutions can be active agents in shaping society. Identity, Interconnections, and Networks as Heuristic Metaphor Let us start with the ways that networks have been used as a tool to think with. Irad Malkin’s pioneering work on networks and the creation of Greek identity (2003) has been extremely influential in this area. His work has been influenced by French postmodern, deconstructionist philosophical literature, in particular Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion of the rhizome, as explored in A Thousand Plateaus, first published in French in 1980 (Deleuze & Guttari, 1987). The rhizome, as a biological structure and as a concept, works in opposition to the totalising view of culture as ‘arboreal’, marked by binary categories with ‘roots’ in the past and a unidirectional future outcome. By contrast, the rhizomatic view presents a decentralised vision of the world based around the way fungi operate: endless, non-hierarchical, and non-linear, with multiple interconnections that transcend hierarchical or dualist categories. The rhizome is in a continual process of becoming. Malkin applied his thoughts about rhizomes to the formation of Archaic Greek identity. Standing in opposition to the idea that there were ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ in the period of Greek ‘colonisation’, he observed instead that a mutual conception of ‘Greek identity’ was an emergent, non-linear process, one that only formed as a result of encounters with others: “Awareness of ‘sameness’ occurs not when people are close to each other  … but when they are far apart. It is distance that creates the virtual centre. The more

1.2

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the connecting cables are stretched, the stronger they become.” (Malkin, 2003: 59). Malkin argued that this intense mesh quality that he sees as representative of the world of the rhizome is captured better by the French term réseau – a word derived from lacemaking – than by the word that it is usually translated with, ‘network’. A similar objection to the term ‘network’, but one that runs deeper into the conception of the world itself, has also been voiced by anthropologist Tim Ingold, who borrows the term ‘meshwork’ (perhaps a better translation of réseau) from Henri Lefebvre, using it to describe the intense intertwining of lines of life, experience, and memory that characterise the Aboriginal Australian ideas of space that were presented by Bruce Chatwin in Songlines (Ingold, 2007: 80). For Ingold, the term ‘meshwork’ requires the prioritisation of the interwoven quality of the lines, and the surface they create: a vision of the world consisting of lived lines of experience that is fundamentally tied to place. This characterisation of existence captures the multiplicity of associations and connections of lived experience, whereas the term ‘network’ emphasises the interconnectedness of points and the structures that they create (and the capacity for information to flow through and across these structures in different ways). The network method is analytical, Ingold’s ‘meshwork’, to which I will return below, is experiential (Knappett, 2011: 40). More recently, networks have been used at a heuristic level in a volume edited by Taylor and Vlassopoulos (2015), which brought together scholars using networks and communities to rethink structural models of ancient Greek society based on the polis as a given entity, and polis citizenship as the standard. The work is underpinned by a strong postmodern need to problematise the binary conceptions of ‘self’ and ‘other’, notions that have dominated Greek historiography since the structuralism of the 1960s, in order to make way for a more multifaceted conceptualisation of the Classical Greek world. The editors focus on the ‘communities’ and ‘networks’ to explore how the social networks of the marginalised – such as slaves and metics – extended through different social groups and between social hierarchies. In this case, the network is used to undermine the stability of the polis model and to demonstrate how looking at social connections can return something of the agencies of those people long considered excluded and voiceless. Esther Eidinow (2015) explores the generation of communal religious identity through the frame of networks of narratives about society. What is important about taking such an approach, particularly to religious ideas, is that it

51 locates the religious within its specific context of social relationships. For Eidinow, religious ideas and narratives are embodied in the social networks that comprised Greek ritual practice (2015: 63). This builds on an earlier paper (2011) in which she combines Social Network Analysis terminology with the different ideas about the continual creation of identities and stories about the self and society through social networks, as articulated by sociologist Harrison White (2008). Eidinow explores how story creation, as a process that is “embedded in a network between its members” (2011: 17), helps people to make sense of the world. These stories contribute to the generation of shared identities, and underpin social institutions and social values, since they represent the cognitive networks that create communal religious ideas. Understanding more about the generation and proliferation of religious or ideological changes in society forms an important aspect of how networks have been used to think about the Ancient world. My own work has sought to blend sociological observations of the ways people adopt new religious beliefs (such as those explored by Stark and Bainbridge, 1980, Stark, 1992, and Rogers, 1995) with both heuristic and modelling techniques from network analysis to examine the spread of new religious ideas within particular contexts of the Roman Empire (Collar, 2013). Changes in individual identity, such as converting to a new religion, require a level of personal or social commitment that the adoption of a new technology or fashion, for example, does not. Conversion or adoption of a new cult or belief also must be grounded within appropriate physical and social contexts. It is social trust that is essential for making a commitment to new beliefs or ideas, and in sociological terms the person bringing new religious ideas must be a trusted ‘strong tie’. This stands in opposition to the key tenet of the frequently-used model of the smallworld network outlined above, in which chance acquaintances or ‘weak ties’ in a social network are considered the most effective links through which new information is spread. Social networks of strong ties (friends, family, colleagues) have been shown to be almost as powerful at spreading new ideas where trust is an important factor in the adoption of the idea (Krackhardt, 1992; Shi et al., 2006). Using the rich epigraphic records of the Roman Empire, I was able to demonstrate that strong-tie social networks, such as those which were embedded in the context of the Roman military, were a major factor in the spread of the cult of the Syrian deity Jupiter Dolichenus in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE and in the adoption of new ideas about ethnicity among the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean diaspora after the destruction

52 of the Temple and the Bar Kochba revolt (Collar, 2013). Epigraphic data, combining as it can the names, occupations, and religious affiliations of individuals with contextualised geographical distribution information, was shown to be effective within a network model at bringing together spatial and social elements. The rich onomastic and relationship information contained in epigraphic documents is also a powerful resource for social network analysis, to which we shall now turn. 1.3 Social Network Analysis Connected to studies exploring the role of social and cognitive networks in the generation of societal norms and values, a number of scholars have used more formal Social Network Analysis (SNA) methods and models in their work. Some material culture of the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean lends itself extremely well to the reconstruction of past social networks. Adam Schor (2011) examined the social networks constructed by, and surrounding, the bishop of Kyrrhos, Theodoretos, in Late Roman Syria. In line with Eidinow’s thoughts on the structuring of community through shared narratives, his work stresses the cognitive aspect of social network configurations which “give context to people’s performances, shape the models by which people reason metaphorically, and provide a basis for storytelling that builds community” (2011: 13). He used the rich lexical data from Theodoretos’ letters and ecclesiastical history to build a SNA. He interpreted his data as forming a modular ‘scale-free’ network topology around Theodoretos in Antiokheia in the 5th century CE. As discussed above, a scale-free network topology features some highly connected individuals with ‘hub’ status, whereas much of the rest of the network is poorly connected; powerful for the control of information transfer, but vulnerable to collapse if deliberate attacks are made on the hubs. Schor showed that the five hub individuals at the core of the densely connected network of the ‘Antiokhian School’ shaped and maintained their doctrine. Doctrinal differences were tearing the Late Antique church apart, and Schor’s analysis demonstrates how the vulnerability inherent in the scale-free network structure is crucial to understanding the collapse of the Antiokhian School itself. Doctrinal confrontation with Kyrilos of Alexandria led to schism that ended in violence during the ecumenical council at Ephesos in 431 CE (2011: 104). Although this initially boosted the solidarity of the Syrian network and Antiokhian School, over the following years internal leadership disputes, and the defection of key figures to Kyrilos of Alexandria’s version of orthodoxy, led to the destabilisation of the scale-free structure (2011: 87–89). Theodoretos did much to attempt to maintain and

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renew the Antiokhian network in the intervening years, but between 448 and 450 CE Kyrilos’ successor Dioskoros mounted a final attack on the Antiokhians, excommunicating and condemning allies of Theodoretos. The removal of these core hub figures in the Antiokhian network effectively neutralised it through guilt by association (2011: 118), resulting in the complete unravelling of the social network itself. Similarly, onomastic data is also highly suited to this type of network analysis. Such an approach was pursued by Giovanni Ruffini (2008), who detailed the social networks in operation in Byzantine Egypt. His quantitative approach mined the rich sources of the papyrological corpora, which contain enormous amounts of data about individuals, institutions, and their social lives in the 6th century CE. He used prosopographic data from Oxyrrhynkhos and Aphrodito to reconstruct and infer social connections between members of these town and village communities. Such an approach, where it is possible, is extremely valuable, as it enables the examination of individual lives in the past and their social groupings, rivalries, social centrality or isolation, and the long-term effects that such social networks have on, for example, doctrinal legacies. As we have seen, epigraphic data also offers a good deal of potential for such approaches. An early adopter in this area was Shawn Graham (2006 and 2014), who used SNA to explore the rich data contained in stamps on Roman bricks in the Tiber valley – including indications of the names of the brick maker and the land owner, the estate, and the year of production – as well as the analytical potential of brick shapes and other physical factors, such as find spot or clay source. Working with all these elements Graham examined networks across different dimensions: “networks of exploitation, of production, of power, of construction” (Graham, 2014: 39). His combination of SNA and complex network modelling allowed him to switch between local and global scales of analysis to identify people who acted as hubs and bridging nodes in his social networks within the brick industry, demonstrating in particular the centrality of Domitia Lucilla, mother of Marcus Aurelius. Sandra Blakely (2016) has also taken an explicitly SNA approach to epigraphic data. She has explored the social networks that could be discerned from inscriptions recording the official visits of city representatives (theoroi or proxenoi) to the main festival of the Great Gods on Samothrake in the northern Aigaian in the Hellenistic period. Instead of using the 950 or so named individuals as the nodes in the network (as Schor, Ruffini, and Graham chose to do), Blakely used these individuals as proxies for

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the cities from which they had come. This enabled her to analyse the relationships between the cities, rather than those between individuals. The edges connecting the network were understood as the interaction between two individual city-representatives, if they appeared on the same inscription. This makes the assumption that, since they were recorded on the same stone, the individuals would have met in person to discuss and share information. In this way, instead of analysing recorded interactions, she used the data to hypothesise on the processes of information transfer. She demonstrated how participation in the festival on Samothrake created and maintained social networks of trust between cities. Representatives met, celebrated together, and exchanged relevant information about maritime activities, meaning that participation in the festival of the Great Gods provided a literal web of cooperation and mutual support across the Aigaian (Blakely, 2016: 29). The social networks in operation here, through which relevant information was shared, fulfilled the function of reducing the risks involved in sea travel. In a departure from written and epigraphic evidence, Emma Blake (2013) makes use of material culture to model social networks in Bronze Age Italy. She assumes that communication across social networks offers a better way to identify regional groupings (understood to reveal incipient notions of ethnicity) than clumsy modern allocations of ‘identity’ according to material cultural distributions or assemblages. Thus, traces of communications networks could be discerned from more exchanges of objects between members of the same group, and fewer between members of different groups (Blake, 2013: 206). She used variations in the density of distributions of particular types of ‘foreign’ material culture (imported Mykenaian ceramics, amber beads, certain bronze objects, and donkey remains) as a means of identifying regional groupings. Her argument rests on two assumptions: first, that foreign traders would have kept to the Italian coastal regions, so if these ‘foreign’ items are found in the interior, they reached it by local hands; and second, that sites with shared objects can be understood to have been mutually aware and probably were in direct contact if they were less than a day’s travel apart from each other, defined as 50 Km (Blake, 2013: 211). Although her data are geographically located, she also analysed them relationally, thereby creating a tie between two nodes (findspots) only if they were less than 50 Km apart and shared the same type of material. Her relational analysis showed that her data fell into two clusters with no ties between them, and that these corresponded geographically with what later became distinct social areas of Etruria and Latium. Using formalised methods to calculate the density of

these clusters (i.e., how many ties were present out of the total possible) she found that in the case of the protoLatium cluster, density was at 100%, because all ties that were possible were present. She understood this as implying a high level of intra-group communication. For the proto-Etruscan cluster, 40% of possible ties were present but the data demonstrated a high clustering coefficient, implying that although regional interactions were still fairly strong, localised sub-clusters within this network were also important (Blake, 2013: 212–215). She argues that these clusters should be read as groups of people “interacting closely enough that they would eventually come to share a common identity” (Blake, 2013: 217). Networks in Space: Geographical Modelling of Connectivity Mapping ancient material data and the connections between them onto real, geographical space has formed one of the largest areas of interest for archaeologists of the Mediterranean using network approaches. Spatial relationships are, of course, a fundamental feature of archaeological interpretation, and spatial patterns have long been understood as indicating broader regional groupings, such as those centred on ethnicity, political allegiance, and religious affiliation. Nevertheless, using spatial relationships to build a network model represents a new direction, and applying network methods offers new avenues of interpretation. However, it is not necessarily a simple procedure to transfer network methods designed for analysing social relations to a spatial context. Until recently, there has been little in the way of ready-made tools for modelling geographical space, although this has begun to change with GIS-integrated network analysis packages now available (Brughmans et al., 2016: 11). As discussed above, any kind of material can be interpreted as the nodes in a network and situated geographically, depending on the relations under study, but because ‘sites’ are generally considered as physically-situated bounded entities, this is perhaps the most common representation of nodes in geographical networks. Modelling sites in their spatial context, and using these geographical limitations to consider how the sites might have been interacting, usually draws on certain assumptions, such as the idea that sites which are geographically close are more likely to have been interacting regularly than those which are far apart. Although this is not unreasonable, there are important exceptions to such an assumption: for example, when neighbouring sites were in conflict and so did not interact except in aggressive terms; or in the case of the Roman Empire where, despite Rome’s distance from many parts of the Empire, 1.4

54 certain cities were interacting with Rome in regular and complex terms which might be more akin to the behaviour between geographically close neighbours. In other words, it is essential to be aware of the possibilities of different qualities of social interaction that link the nodes under study. What is perceived as the links that connect the nodes depends on what questions are being investigated. For example, known physical infrastructure, such as roads between sites, can be used to create the links in a network in order to analyse flows of trade and exchange, or communications systems. Other data can indicate different kinds of social links. Similarities in, or co-presence of, material have been a popular choice in archaeological applications of network methods, and can be used to draw hypothetical links between sites, perhaps indicating the sharing of cultural values or nascent ethnic identities (as in Blake, 2013), or religious practices (Collar, 2013), or political hegemony (Knappett, 2018). Visual links can be drawn between sites to explore landscape dominance and power (Brughmans et al., 2015). Rihll and Wilson’s work (1991) represents one of the earlier explorations of network methods to think about site interactions and settlement structures across geographical space. Contemporary approaches to modelling spatial interactions in archaeology had concentrated on issues such as dominance, power, and territory that were central to processual archaeological thinking. These models generally focused on the ‘push’ of zones of influence rather than the attractive ‘pull’ of sites (Rivers & Evans, 2014). Rihll and Wilson, by contrast, explored the attraction process in their approach to the emergence of the polis in Archaic Greece, one that posited that it was the communication between sites that led to urbanisation and to synoikismos – the coming together of a group of people to share a common identity. In other words, interaction networks, and connectivity were interpreted as having contributed to the broader structure of the settlement patterns observed. Another relatively simple method of modelling geographical networks is Proximal Point Analysis (PPA). PPA predicts interactions between points distributed in space, working from the assumption that communities interact most intensely with their three closest geographical neighbours. These connections ignore topography and landscape, and because the distribution of points in the real world is uneven, some points collect more than three links and so become network centres. PPA has been used to explore centrality and isolation (i.e., the degree of influence a site exerts on regional interactions) by observing which points are best connected and where most

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communication routes appear to be. Drawing on models of island interactions in Oceania developed by John Terrell (1977), Cyprian Broodbank (2000) used PPA to model connections between islands in the Early Bronze Age Cyclades. As Broodbank pointed out, a particular strength is the inbuilt egalitarianism, because “all points can be evenly weighted and initially treated without assumptions about hierarchy” (Broodbank, 2000: 181). Guided by real-world archaeological knowledge of the Early Bronze Age Cyclades, he allocated points according to size of island, a method which simultaneously enabled him to sidestep issues of data incompleteness and to engage in predicting future areas of interest through simulation. Broodbank modelled the interactions between his points and the associated growth of settlement centrality, and then compared his simulated networks to the archaeological material. He observed that it was unhelpful to treat islands as individual entities at this stage in history: arguing instead that their populations were better understood as dispersed, but mutually sustaining, networks of communities that transcended insular boundaries (Broodbank, 2000: 187). He used PPA to model a gradual increase in population over time, showing that as population increased maritime links became less important for larger islands but increasingly important for smaller ones. This phenomenon suggested two kinds of geographical isolation: remoteness (i.e., having relative difficulty in making and maintaining contact with others), and parochiality, (i.e., having a self-sufficiency associated with dense occupation). Broodbank noted that traditional environmentally determinist explanations for settlement growth, such as access to minerals, agricultural land, or harbours were irrelevant at this point; the islands were all agriculturally poor, none were close to minerals, and the use of canoes precluded the need for ‘good’ harbours. Rather, his use of a network approach allowed him to conclude that it was the interactions between land and sea, and island and settlement groups, which should be considered the driving force of settlement ‘centrality’. Broodbank’s PPA, then, simulated and predicted a network of sites and attachments which was relatively close to the real-world data. As a combined predictive-explanatory model, PPA can help to fill in data gaps and highlights potential areas of interest for future archaeological work. In recent years, more advanced spatial interaction models have been developed within archaeology, partly as a response to the perceived geographical determinism of these earlier models. Some of these models have been formulated in collaboration with scholars from other disciplines; for example, the partnership between the archaeologist Carl Knappett and physicists Ray Rivers

Networks, Connectivity, and Material Culture

and Tim Evans. In their first joint contribution (Knappett et al., 2008), they took a regional approach to thinking about Aigaian maritime interactions in the Bronze Age. This work focussed specifically on trying to understand how Knossos on Krete came to occupy such a central position in the Aigaian networks, how other sites interacted with Krete, what the structure of the network as a whole might have been and what it might have enabled. The cost-benefit network model they created allowed them to weight nodes – which they defined as known sites – and the links between them, in order to demonstrate the differential costs of certain interactions, for example, the costs of land and sea transport. The connections that were drawn between the sites were based on geographical distance (they drew upper thresholds as to how far it was possible to travel by sea in a day), and assumptions about gravity (i.e., the larger the site size, the more attractive it is within the network). The gravity model aggregates smaller sites and larger sites into one, effectively ‘coarse-graining’ the data and minimising the effects of data uncertainty due to the patchy archaeological record (Knappett et al., 2008: 1018). Starting from a theoretical model allowed them to experiment with parameters, such as costs of transport, or the maximum daily travel distance. It also allowed for speculation and hypothesis testing, for example, considering how the removal of the node at Akrotiri on Thera (abandoned and subsequently destroyed by a volcanic eruption in the 1600s BCE) changed the network interactions more broadly (Knappett et al., 2011). Material Culture, Agency, and Actor-Network Theory Up to this point, we have been looking at network applications that explore material culture remains as proxies for past cultural interactions. However, the way material culture itself is understood has undergone an important transition over the last twenty years, moving from ‘backdrop’ to active ‘agent’ in the construction of human social life. Within archaeology a key tenet of this development has been the consideration of material culture relationally; as the cognitive, social, and material interconnections that join human and nonhuman into webs of meaning, and Carl Knappett (2005 and 2011) has been a key thinker in enabling this transition. Material culture is part of human beings’ extended mind (for example, the stick used by a blind person to feel their way), and it is active in the effects it has on human social life. Material culture forms “key props through which sociocultural practices are enacted” (Knappett, 2011: 6). Material culture is thus ascribed agency and is in possession of a ‘social life’, to borrow from Arjun Appadurai (1986). An obvious example of 1.5

55 the active agency of material culture is the speed bump in a road, which exerts an active physical and moral pressure on drivers to slow down (though what this moral pressure translates to is up for discussion, see Malafouris, 2013: 124). But material culture exerts agency in more subtle ways too: for example, the ways human beings are physically directed by architectural design; how children now side-swipe at the pages of books to try to turn the pages as one would on a computer touchscreen; how an object has the ability to prompt memories and influence emotions. The interface between material culture and mind has thus been broken down. “While agency and intentionality may not be properties of things, they are not properties of humans either; they are the properties of material engagement” (Malafouris, 2013: 119). Similarly, the network framework collapses the dichotomy between human and nonhuman and helps to demonstrate how both agency and cognition are distributed across, and through, networks of meaning that encompass the human body, mind, material, and environment (Knappett, 2005: 83). The breaking down of the Cartesian cognitive boundaries between human and material is important. It opens the door to understanding the semiotics of material culture that goes beyond that which the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s symbolic relationship between signifier and signified allowed for, and casts fresh light on mundane and everyday material culture as they become meaningful. Knappett draws on C.S. Peirce’s semiotics to move beyond symbolism alone, enabling a better understanding of material meanings and the ways in which these form networks of interrelations. He explores Peirce’s categories of the icon, the index, and the symbol as different ways for material to be related to something else (Knappett, 2005: 87–106). The icon describes similarity between things (whether visual, aural, or sensory). The index indicates a relationship of causality between sign and referent (e.g. footprints or weathervanes). The symbol refers to a formal but arbitrary link between the sign and the referent (for example, ‘dog’ symbolises a canine – see Knappett, 2005: 89–90). Knappett goes on to problematise these categories, but ultimately demonstrates how, by formulating a more subtle set of semiotics for material culture, it is possible to understand better the relationships that material culture creates and maintains – that is, how material culture can be situated within different kinds of networks of association. Knappett explores these networks of association in the Aigaian Bronze Age, looking at the sociotechnical networks that operated through Minoan ceramics with the aim of discovering some of the meanings of material culture that are otherwise hidden from us. He emphasises the inseparability of mind, action, and matter which means

56 people ‘think through’ material culture, and assesses the ‘horizontal’ networks between objects, “based on the semiotic relationships of similarity, contiguity, causality, factorality, and convention” (2005: 133). He points out that ‘meaning’ is usually not part of material culture studies in Prehistory, because the focus of such studies is usually not on ‘art’ objects, which are deemed by scholars to be inherently meaningful. He argues that taking a network perspective on material culture allows us to access the meanings inherent in ordinary objects too, and not just those that arise from a ‘meaningful’ context – ­although we should acknowledge that “the mundane and the magical do not occupy fundamentally different ontological categories, but rather represent points on a continuum” (2005: 139). Knappett’s study of Minoan drinking vessels starts from the observation that, at the same time that ‘significant social hierarchies’ were being formalised with the building of the first palaces on Krete (in the period classified as Middle Minoan IB, c. 1900 BCE), drinking cups of highly divergent quality proliferated; drinking cups “are emblematic of a much broader and more far-reaching set of socio-political developments” (2005: 140). These Minoan cups (broadly similar to modern coffee cups), were for the consumption of liquid by one person, a semantic constraint that precludes its use by a group. The networks of associations that Minoan drinking cups have is then explored through the Peircean semiotic categories of icon and index: the former being a discussion of similarity, and the latter comprising contiguity (what objects are found together), factorality (how they relate to a broader whole), and causality (what causal relationship exists between sign and referent). The iconic relationships that a cup has to other material culture include the visual similarity between the carinated cup and metal cups of the same period – indicated by shape, thin walls, and ribbon handle, and the dark, lustrous slip designed to imitate oxidised silver. Through this visual similarity Knappett argues that the carinated cup both apes the more valuable gold or silver items, and also ‘borrows’ some of that value (2005: 145). Indexical relationships are divided into contiguity, factorality, and causality. Contexts allow for a good exploration of contiguity and range from spatial and temporal considerations – for example, where an assemblage was found in relation to other buildings and settlements – to discussion of the components of the assemblage itself. An assemblage of around 200 vessels comprising extremely crude cups as well as the finest wares encourages assumptions about the different social statuses of the individuals who were drinking from these cups. These are

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not cups alone, but a hybrid human-non-human network, individual-with-cup (2005: 147–148). Factorality relates the material to broader social phenomena. In this case, the shift from communal to individual drinking practice represented by the Middle Minoan IB cups can be seen as indicating a focus on the status of the individual within the community, echoed in the iconic relationship the carinated ceramic cup had to more expensive metal versions – it functions as an index of aspiration (2005: 155). Causality is important in thinking about the manufacturing processes: both technological developments, such as the potter’s wheel, which enabled the creation of shapes such as the carinated cup, and also the artisans involved. At this time wheel technology was not fully adopted, so the carinated cup may have been socially indexical of the skilled people able to make them. Equally, because the first wheel-made items were ‘elite’ wares, the technology may be understood not as a development of economic efficiency, but rather, as implicated in the sociopolitical changes that Minoan society went through as it became stratified into palaces and states (2005: 156–157). In other words, the decision to switch ceramic technique from coil-building to wheel-forming was likely to be heavily culturally loaded. The indexical approach to understanding connections between material culture draws on Actor-Network Theory (ANT), developed in sociology as a non-anthropocentric “semiotics of materiality” (Malafouris, 2013: 123), which incorporates the active role of non-human aspects of society – objects, institutions, ideas, places, etc. – into relational networks of human and non-human participants. Within an ANT framework, humans and non-humans are locked into a hybrid, dispersed network through whose relations action emerges. However, ANT has come under heavy criticism for many reasons. These include the symmetry it demands between people and things, which blurs conventionally understood boundaries; an unwillingness among critics to forego human intentionality as the ‘prime mover’; and accusations of ludicrousness for attributing agency to objects that are not alive (see discussions in Knappett, 2005: 74–79; Ingold, 2011: 89–94; Malafouris, 2013: 123–149). For Tim Ingold, ANT relies too heavily on viewing the world as composed of relations that enable things to happen, while not engaging with the fact that things themselves, and their relationships with each other, are not fixed or stable; materials change and decay, and do so within the medium of the world around us. Instead, his vision of the world is as a ‘meshwork’ of experience (as discussed in Ingold, 2007: 80; 2011: 91), where everything is in a continual state of becoming, entangled with the

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environment and the material media through which life is lived (Ingold, 2011: 92). Astrid Van Oyen (2015 and 2016) has worked to show how ‘second generation’ ANT can be usefully employed to bypass assumptions of binary categorisation in archaeology, that is, the assumption of fixed and stable things, with fixed and stable meanings and relationships. When ordinary network analysis is conducted in archaeology, she argues, scholars rarely question the categories that are assigned to material culture prior to analysis (for example, a ceramic is either ‘fine ware’, or is not). With such etic binarisation of material data, assumptions are made about that material as belonging to pre-existing and stable categories. There is no room for ‘in-betweenness’ or for processes of becoming; there is no room for uncertainty or multiplicity. Instead, Van Oyen argues that relationality should be a way of “clearing our analytical toolbox of a priori tags”, rather than being the addition of connections to a set of fixed attributes by which the material is categorised (2016: 37). Van Oyen’s pioneering application of a modified ANT approach to the production of the well-known red-slip Roman tableware (terra sigillata) emphasises instead the need to understand these categories assigned to material as emergent – categories that are in the process of creation and maintenance, rather than stable from the outset. SNA would identify terra sigillata as a given category of Roman ceramic, and then search the known findspots and workshops for patterns that might indicate stylistic connections, transfer of ideas or influence, or even the physical movement of potters themselves: “such an approach would freeze individual instances of shared potters’ stamps or forms and extrapolate from these to a shared topology of sigillata as a well-defined category” (2016: 42). Instead, Van Oyen combines the relational theory of ANT with the archaeologically established method of the chaîne opératoire to explore relations of similarity and difference in the production sequence of terra sigillata. An example is the switch from non-calcareous to calcareous clays for the production of terra sigillata at the site of Lezoux in Gaul. This entailed new elements in the ‘taskscape’ (i.e., the socially-constructed space of related human activities: Ingold, 1993) for making the ceramics, both at the level of clay sourcing, fetching, and preparation, but also in the firing process, since these new calcareous clay pots could not be fired at the same temperatures or in the same batch as those made using non-calcareous clays (2016: 44–45). Van Oyen is able thus to look at what she terms the ‘work-nets’ behind the production of terra sigillata, the different production groups, clay sources, production techniques, and the social processes that enabled the category sigillata to be constructed and stabilised over

some 150 years (2016: 47). Only once these work-nets have been identified, and the creation and stabilisation of the categories has been traced, she maintains, might it be possible to explore how those categories can be linked through a more conventional network analysis. 2 Part II: Issues Having already noted a number of problems with applying the network paradigm to archaeological material, the second part of this chapter explores some of the major issues that arise when using network analysis in the study of ancient material culture. These are broadly connected to the method, the data, space and time, and interpretation (Brughmans et al., 2016: 10). Some excellent overviews of the challenges faced when doing network analysis are available, which discuss details and ways forward more fully (e.g., Brughmans, 2013a; Isaksen, 2013; Brughmans et al., 2016; Knappett, 2016). What follows is intended as a brief summation of the methodological issues, data and temporal uncertainties, problems with categorisation, scalar issues, and interpretive issues. 2.1 Methodological Problems The technical methods of applying, and the actual means of calculating, formal network analyses are often beyond the areas of expertise of archaeologists and historians. It is possible to get around this problem by using networks as a tool to think with, but to go beyond this, the would-be network analyst needs to be aware that uncritically adopting methods, techniques, and concepts from sociological or mathematical network analysis generally means moving beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries (Isaksen, 2013: 43). This is a problem because network analysis software is now relatively easy to access and use, but without being able to critique the method or properly understand the algorithms used to generate the networks, there remains the risk of mechanised application and the production of meaningless results. A related issue is that it can be tempting to use networkanalytical techniques without a clear idea of why it is being done, either applying the methods to inappropriate data, or failing to determine a specific research question. It is essential that the ‘building blocks’ in the network are fully articulated, and that the archaeological framework is properly defined before the network analysis is used to discuss past social processes (Brughmans, 2013a: 655). These problems can be compounded when reaching the visualisation stage of network analysis, since this can result in the unthinking application of the algorithms, limiting

58 the analysis to particular structural features and getting in the way of meaningful results (Brughmans et al., 2016: 10–11). Network visualisation is attractive as a way to reveal and discover patterns in the data, but the hypotheses drawn from this process must be supported statistically or by data analysis (Isaksen, 2013: 44). Awareness that ‘one size does not fit all’ is crucial in addressing methodological challenges such as this, and in assessing the kind of research question being asked, the limits of the material under study, and the appropriateness of the model chosen. Cross-disciplinary collaboration, where possible, is a fruitful way to address such problems. Reaching beyond the boundaries of archaeology offers better opportunities to render network analyses robust, sensitive to input and output, and relevant to the archaeological question under consideration (see Rivers, 2016: 124). 2.2 Uncertainty Archaeology is rife with uncertainties and gaps in the data. The data may have been collected in a haphazard fashion and as a result of many different types of investigation; results may be based on particular kinds of surviving evidence but may omit swathes of other forms of data; or results may be contingent in that they are from places where a) it is possible to do archaeological work, and b) the environment has facilitated the survival of material (Bevan & Wilson, 2013). As such, when relying on necessarily fragmentary datasets, the networks that are generated from them can be heavily biased, and small changes in the data can have profound changes on the network itself. This has led some to argue that it is not possible to achieve proper network analysis, only network synthesis (Sindbæk, 2013). Bevan and Wilson (2013) proposed coarse graining the analyses as a way around data incompleteness in their exploration of settlement patterns on Krete. Since full settlement records are not possible, they built a model based on the uneven data about settlements, in combination with the uneven distribution of agricultural land, to propose likely locations of missing sites. Coarse-grained analysis means that the detailed, smaller-scale information is not absolutely necessary in order to produce a network pattern at a larger scale (Knappett, 2016: 28–29). The resilience of the network – whether it can withstand failures or changes in the data input – is also important in understanding and interpreting the results. The models explored above have generally been theoretical models, based on assumptions made about how sites and material will interact. However, where a good quantity of high definition data exists, it is possible to look at what the data actually says. For example, the team working on the US Southwest Social Networks Project have created a

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database comprising ceramic, lithic, and architectural information from over 1000 Chaco sites (Mills et al., 2013). The project quantifies the similarities of these assemblages of material to identify connections between sites. The team has processed over 5 million pieces of ceramic, but such an abundance of data is rare. When relying on theory to examine the more common, fragmentary data, it is essential that there is control of the questions, inputs, outputs, and process of refining the model, or there is the risk of constructing models that simply show us what we want to see (see discussion by Rivers, 2016). Modelling the temporal uncertainties of data is also problematic, since much archaeological material suffers from poor chronological control. As such, there is the risk of lumping large bodies of data together and carrying out network analyses without accounting for this temporal uncertainty. The resulting analyses suffer from being atemporal, static, and at worst, meaningless (Isaksen, 2013: 47). The chronological dynamics of interconnections are an essential part of network analysis. Some have attempted to deal with this by presenting ‘snapshots’ or time-slices at different points (e.g., Blake, 2013; Collar, 2013), but more needs to be done in this area. 2.3 Categorisation A major and connected issue that emerges is the way that categories are created for data, as discussed above in relation to the work of Astrid Van Oyen. In order to perform network analysis, it is necessary first to categorise the material by carrying out what Isaksen has called “semantic bootstrapping” (2013: 45–46). Although network analysis stands in opposition to the assumption that atomistic “categorical variables”, such as gender or class, can explain human action and behaviour and instead emphasises the interconnections between entities that influence action (Van Oyen, 2016: 36), nevertheless, network analysis, as with other types of archaeological analysis, still relies on mapping the connections between previously defined categories, such as ‘terra sigillata’ or ‘Minoan architecture’. Such judgements about the material determine the results of the network analyses, and, as discussed above, this is a problem because it takes for granted the assigned labels for the data rather than seeing these categories as emergent. As a result, there is a risk of creating generic, reified stories in which, for example, “sigillata is sigillata is sigillata” (Van Oyen, 2016: 50). As Van Oyen has argued, because Actor-Network Theory dissolves assumptions about “networks as constellations of stable entities – (people of a certain gender, pots of a certain form) connected by variable social ties” (Van Oyen, 2016: 37), it is fundamentally different from standard archaeological

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network approaches. More needs to be done in the future to incorporate the processes by which categories become meaningful into the ways that network analysis is done in archaeology. 2.4 Scales of Analysis Using networks enables scales of analysis to be transcended. Archaeologists think across and between micro-, meso-, and macro-scales all the time, moving from individual features, houses, graves, and assemblages, out to the broader site, village, or area, and beyond, to think about regional practices and trends. Generally, however, the focus of network analysis in archaeology has been on macro-scale network dynamics – the interpretation of phenomena at the regional or inter-regional level. This is partly because, as already discussed, the nature of archaeological data is often at too poor a resolution to look at anything except broader scales of regional interactions or global ties, and the same is true of the chronological control over the data (Brughmans et al., 2016: 11). Studies which have historical data at their disposal (such as bodies of letters, papyri, or solid epigraphic corpora) have prioritised the micro-scales of individuals; as, for example, in Ruffini’s work, discussed above (Ruffini, 2008), which examines the interactions between people in the past at a highly localised level. Yet network analysis is also able to offer the possibility of crossing scales, thus connecting localised interactions with broader scale social phenomena, as shown in the work of Adam Schor, who used microscale data relating to personal interactions to illuminate broader historical events (Schor, 2011). Articulation of some practical ways forward here requires a return to the sociological literature. As discussed above, recent work on social contagion has demonstrated that ‘strong ties’, that is, meaningful and reciprocal interactions with trusted people, are more important for thinking through the processes of ‘complex contagion’ than the ‘weak ties’ given priority in much network analysis. This is especially the case when they come together to form ‘wide bridges’, i.e., multiple strong ties between places (Centola & Macy, 2007). Knappett (2018) has recently taken up Centola and Macy’s concept of ‘wide bridges’, in order to begin the important work of crossing scales of analysis. He argues that while much time has been devoted to study of ‘communities of practice’ at a local level in the Aigaian Bronze Age, these communities have not been connected up with broader scale phenomena, such as that of ‘Minoanisation’. ‘Minoanisation’ is the term used to describe the widespread adoption across the Late Bronze Age Aigaian of numerous cultural traits of Minoan Krete, including the use of the Linear A script, the potter’s

wheel, and the warp-weft loom. Knappett argues that the successful transmission of these complex cultural traits requires ‘wide bridges’ across which to travel (Knappett, 2018). Bringing the disparate, local level data from excavations across the Aigaian world together, into a format that will allow quantitative analysis and comparison with network models, will help to begin articulating the connections between the different scales at play here. This will effectively join the material of local communities with regional network analyses, thus moving “towards a position wherein networks are not artificially designated as a regional phenomenon, and communities of practice as solely local” (Knappett, 2018: 989). In this case, it is also important to look beyond the Mediterranean, for example, to the work of Barbara Mills within the context of the US Southwest, where she uses the term “constellations of practice” (Mills, 2016), or that of Mol and Mans (2013) in the Caribbean, who argued for the connecting up of intracommunity dynamics with inter-community patterns, advancing a nested scalar approach. 2.5 Interpretation Finally, there remain issues of how network analyses are interpreted and related to the data. For example, it can be tempting to equate the networks that are created in analyses with actual networks that existed in the past, rather than viewing them as reflective of the decisions taken about the data analysed and the methods used to create the network. Equally, there may well be different social processes and different models that could result in the same patterning in each network analysis, meaning that care must be taken in making decisions about which kind of model to use (see Brughmans et al., 2016; Knappett, 2016). And the actual network visualisations, which are so useful at representing data patterns and highlighting interesting points of connection, disconnection, and clustering, are also problematic. As Isaksen points out (2013: 44), the human brain is strongly inclined to recognise patterns, but these can sometimes be false. Therefore it is important to support the visualisation process in network analysis with robust and reliable data and statistical analysis. 3 Conclusions This discussion has surveyed a fraction of the research being done on material culture from the ancient Mediterranean that uses the network paradigm, and many more examples can also be found beyond the Graeco-Roman world. Important work on networks and interconnectivity

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is being done in global contexts: the Mayan world (Munson & Macri, 2009), the Caribbean (Mol & Mans, 2013; Mol, 2014), Japan (Mizoguchi, 2009; Gjesfjeld, 2015), the Viking world (Sindbæk, 2007 and 2013), the US Southwest (Mills et al., 2013). But even a cursory survey such as this, I hope makes clear that this is an area which has already borne, and will continue to bear, considerable fruit for thinking about ancient Graeco-Roman material from new angles. There are plenty of issues which must be explored and resolved if network analysis is to be done optimally and sensibly. The archaeological research questions must be clear from the outset, scholars must be aware of the range of network methods and options available, and care must be taken not to fit data into any model that seems to give the answers that are sought after. There must be comprehension of the consequences of incomplete data for the results of modelling, clarity about temporality, and clarity about the separation of reality from a modelled illustration. There must be awareness of how data are interpreted through network models. Many scholars have cautioned against being too uncritical in the interpretation of network analyses, since network models do not show the reality of the world. Rather, they show a world-view (Isaksen, 2013: 47). Finally, there must be awareness of the possibility of different social processes that may have given rise to the network seen in the model (Brughmans et al., 2016: 12). Nevertheless, bearing these caveats in mind, it is clear that there is much that the study and analysis of interconnectivity and the process of doing network analysis can offer. Explorations of material culture theory, Actor-Network Theory, and the meshwork of lived experience as proposed by Tim Ingold, all suggest ways to continue to develop network analysis in archaeology in order to be more responsive to the issues discussed above and to engage more deeply with the material data of the Graeco-Roman world. Bibliography of Modern Works Appadurai, Arjun (ed.), 1986: The Social Life of Things. Commodities in cultural perspective (Cambridge). Ball, Philip, 2004: Critical Mass (London). Barabási, Albert-Lazlo, 2003: Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life (New York). Bevan, Andrew & Wilson, Alan, 2013: “Models of settlement hierarchy based on partial evidence”, JAS 40.5: 159–193. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2012.12.025.

Blake, Emma, 2013: “Social Networks, Path Dependence and the Rise of Ethnic Groups in pre-Roman Italy”, in Knappett, Carl (ed.), Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction (Oxford) 203–222. doi: 10.1093/acprof: oso/9780199697090.003.0009. Blakely, Sandra, 2016: “Beyond Braudel: Network Models and a Samothracian Seascape”, in Concannon, Cavan & Mazurek, Lindsey A. (edd.), Across the Corrupting Sea. Post-Braudelian Approaches to the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (Oxford) 17–38. Broodbank, Cyprian, 2000: An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades (Cambridge). Brughmans, Tom, 2013a: “Thinking Through Networks: A Review of Formal Network Methods in Archaeology”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20: 623–662. doi: 10.1007/ s10816-012-9133-8. Brughmans, Tom, 2013b: “Review of I. Malkin 2011. A Small Greek World. Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean”, CR 63.1: 146–148. Brughmans, Tom, 2014: “The roots and shoots of archaeological network analysis: A citation analysis and review of the archaeological use of formal network methods”, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 29.1: 18–41. Brughmans, Tom, Collar, Anna & Coward, Fiona, 2016: “Network Perspectives on the Past: Tackling the Challenges”, in Brughmans, Tom, Collar, Anna & Coward, Fiona (edd.), The Connected Past: Challenges to Network Studies in Archaeology and History (Oxford) 3–19. Brughmans, Tom, Keay, Simon & Earl, Graeme, 2015: “Understanding inter-settlement visibility in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain with exponential random graph models for visibility networks”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22: 58–143. doi: 10.1007/s10816-014-9231-x. Centola, Damon & Macy, Michael, 2007: “Complex contagions and the Weakness of Long Ties”, American Journal of Sociology 113.3: 702–734. doi: 10.1086/521848. Collar, Anna, 2013: Religious Networks in the Roman Empire: The Spread of New Ideas (Cambridge). Collar, Anna, Coward, Fiona, Brughmans, Tom & Mills, Barbara, 2015: “Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22.1: 1–32. doi: 10.1007/s10816-014-9235-6. Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix, 1987: A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (Minnesota). First published as: Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix, 1980: Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2: Mille plateaux (Paris). Eidinow, Esther, 2011: “Networks and Narratives: A Model for Ancient Greek Religion”, Kernos 24: 9–38. doi: 10.4000/ kernos.1925. Eidinow, Esther, 2015: “Ancient Greek Religion: ‘Embedded’ … and Embodied”, in Taylor & Vlassopoulos (edd.), 2015: 54–79.

Networks, Connectivity, and Material Culture Gjesfjeld, Erik, 2015: “Social Network Analysis of Archaeological Data from Hunter-Gatherers: Methodological Problems and Potential Solutions”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22.1:182–205. doi: 10.1007/s10816-014-9232-9. Gladwell, Malcolm, 2000: The Tipping Point (London). Graham, Shawn, 2006: EX FIGLINIS, the network dynamics of the Tiber valley brick industry in the hinterland of Rome (Oxford). Graham, Shawn, 2014: “On Connecting Stamps – Network Analysis and Epigraphy”, Les Nouvelles de l’archéologie 135: 39–44. doi: 10.4000/nda.2353. Granovetter, Mark, 1973: “The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal of Sociology 78.6: 1360–1380. Hodder, Ian, 2012: Entangled. An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (Chichester). Horden, Peregrine & Purcell, Nicholas, 2000: The Corrupting Sea (Oxford). Ingold, Tim, 1993: “The Temporality of the Landscape”, World Archaeology 25.2: 152–174. doi: 10.1080/00438243.1993.9980235. Ingold, Tim, 2007: Lines. A Brief History (London). Ingold, Tim, 2011: Being Alive (Oxford). Irwin-Williams, Cynthia, 1977: “A network model for the analysis of Prehistoric trade”, in Earle, Timothy K. & Ericson, Jonathan (edd.), Exchange systems in Prehistory (New York) 141–151. Isaksen, Leif, 2013: “ ‘O what a tangled web we weave’ – towards a practice that does not deceive”, in Knappett, Carl (ed.), Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction (Oxford) 43–67. doi: 10.1093/acprof: oso/9780199697090.003.0003. Knappett, Carl, 2005: Thinking Through Material Culture (Philadelphia). Knappett, Carl, 2011: An Archaeology of Interaction: Network Perspectives on Material Culture and Society (New York). Knappett, Carl, 2016: “Networks in Archaeology: Between Scientific Method and Humanistic Metaphor”, in Brughmans, Tom, Collar, Anna & Coward, Fiona (edd.), The Connected Past: Challenges to Network Studies in Archaeology and History (Oxford) 21–33. Knappett, Carl, 2018: “The weakness of strong ties? Communities of practice and network dynamics in the Bronze Age Aegean”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 25.4: 974–995. doi: 10.1007/s10816-018-9396-9. Knappett, Carl, Rivers, Ray & Evans, Tim, 2008: “Modelling maritime interaction in the Aegean Bronze Age”, Antiquity 82.318: 1009–1024. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X0009774X. Knappett, Carl, Rivers, Ray & Evans, Tim, 2011: “The Theran eruption and Minoan palatial collapse: new interpretations gained from modelling the maritime network”, Antiquity 85.329: 1008–1023. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00068459. Krackhardt, David, 1992: “The Strength of Strong Ties: The Importance of Philos in Organizations”, in Nohria, Nitin &

61 Eccles, Robert (edd.), Networks and Organizations: Structure, Form, and Action (Boston) 216–239. Lemercier, Claire, 2010: “Formal network methods in history: why and how?”, in Fertig, Georg (ed.), Social Networks, Political Institutions, and Rural Societies. Rural history in Europe 11 (Turnhout) 281–310. doi: 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.4.00198. Malafouris, Lambros, 2013: How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement (Cambridge, MA). Malkin, Irad, 2003: “Networks and the Emergence of Greek Identity”, Mediterranean Historical Review 18.2: 56–74. doi: 10.1080/0951896032000230480. Malkin, Irad, 2011: A Small Greek World (Oxford). Milgram, Stanley, 1967: “The Small World Problem”, Psychology Today 2: 60–67. Mills, Barbara J., 2016: “Communities of consumption: cuisines as networks of situated practice”, in Roddick, Andrew P. & Stahl, Ann B. (edd.), Knowledge in Motion, Constellations of Learning Across Time and Place. Amerind Studies in Anthropology (Tucson) 248–70. Mills, Barbara J., 2017: “Social Network Analysis in Archaeology”, Annual Review of Anthropology 46: 379–397. doi: 10.1146/ annurev-anthro-102116-041423. Mills, Barbara J., Clark, Jeffery J., Peeples, Matthew A., Haas, W.R., Roberts, John M., Hill, J. Brett, Huntley, Deborah L., Borck, Lewis, Breiger, Ronald L., Clauset, Aaron & Shackley, M.S., 2013: “Transformation of social networks in the late preHispanic Southwest”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110.15: 5785–5790. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1219966110. Mizoguchi, Koji, 2009: “Nodes and edges: A network approach to hierarchisation and state formation in Japan”, JAnthArch 28.1: 14–26. doi: 10.1016/j.jaa.2008.12.001. Mol, Angus A., 2014: The Connected Caribbean. A socio-material network approach to patterns of homogeneity and diversity in the pre-colonial period (Leiden). Mol, Angus A. & Mans, Jimmy, 2013: “Old-Boy Networks in the Indigenous Caribbean”, in Knappett, Carl (ed.), Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction (Oxford) 307–332. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/ 9780199697090.003.0013. Munson, Jessica & Macri, Martha, 2009: “Sociopolitical network interactions: A case study of the Classic Maya”, JAnthArch 28: 424–438. doi: 10.1016/j.jaa.2009.08.002. Östborn, Per & Gerding, Henrik, 2014: “Network analysis of archaeological data: a systematic approach”, JAS 46: 75–88. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2014.03.015. Rihll, T.E. & Wilson, A.G., 1991: “Modelling settlement structures in ancient Greece: new approaches to the polis,” in Rich, John & Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew (edd.), City and Country in the Ancient World (London) 59–96. Rivers, Ray, 2016: “Can Archaeological Models Always Fulfil our Prejudices?”, in Brughmans, Tom, Collar, Anna & Coward,

62 Fiona (edd.), The Connected Past: Challenges to Network Studies in Archaeology and History (Oxford) 123–147. Rivers, Ray & Evans, Tim, 2014: “New approaches to Archaic Greek settlement structure”, Les Nouvelles de l’archéologie 135: 21–27. doi: 10.4000/nda.2316. Rogers, Everett, 1995: Diffusion of Innovations. 4th Edition (New York). Ruffini, Giovanni, 2008: Social networks in Byzantine Egypt (Cambridge). Schor, Adam, 2011: Theodoret’s People. Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Roman Syria (Berkeley). Shi, Xiaolin, Adamic, Lada A. & Strauss, Martin J., 2006: “Networks of Strong Ties”, arXiv:arch-ive.condmat/0605279v1, [condmat.stat-mech]. Online http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/ 0605279. doi: 10.1016/j.physa.2006.11.072. Sindbæk, Søren, 2007: “Networks and nodal points: the emergence of towns in Early Viking Age Scandinavia”, Antiquity 81.311: 119–132. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00094886. Sindbæk, Søren, 2013: “Broken Links and Black Boxes: Material Affiliations and Contextual Network Synthesis in the Viking World”, in Knappett, Carl (ed.), Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction (Oxford) 71–94. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697090.003.0004. Stark, Rodney, 1992: “Epidemics, Networks and the Rise of Christianity”, in White, Michael (ed.), Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment: Issues and Methods for Social History = Semeia 56: 159–175.

Collar Stark, Rodney & Bainbridge, William, 1980: “Networks of Faith: Interpersonal Bonds and Recruitment to Cults and Sects”, American Journal of Sociology 85.6: 1376–1395. doi: 10.1086/227169. Taylor, Claire & Vlassopoulos, Kostas (edd.), 2015: Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World (Oxford). Terrell, John, 1977: “Human biogeography in the Solomon Islands”, Fieldiana Anthropology 68.1: 1–47. Van Oyen, Astrid, 2015: “Actor-Network Theory’s Take on Archaeological Types: Becoming, Material Agency, and Historical Explanation”, CAJ 25.11: 63–78. doi: 10.1017/ S0959774314000705. Van Oyen, Astrid, 2016: “Networks or Work-nets? Actor-Network Theory and Multiple Social Topologies in the production of Roman Terra Sigillata”, in Brughmans, Tom, Collar, Anna & Coward, Fiona (edd.), The Connected Past: Challenges to Network Studies in Archaeology and History (Oxford) 35–57. Watts, Duncan J., 2003: Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (New York). Watts, Duncan J. & Strogatz, Steven H., 1998: “Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks”, Nature 393: 440–442. doi: 10.1038/30918. White, Harrison, 2008: Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge (Princeton).

chapter 2

Big Data and Greek Archaeology: Potential, Hazards, and a Case Study from Early Greece Sarah Murray Abstract This paper considers the potential and the limitations of using approaches drawn from data science (often now associated with the term “big data”) in archaeological research. Following a brief review of data in archaeological research and the sociology of quantification, I examine whether using approaches drawn from big data might affect our understanding of the degree of change or continuity across the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age in Greece. The paper demonstrates that sorting a large amount of archaeological data does reveal apparently dramatic changes in the archaeological record across the Bronze to Iron Age transition, but many of these changes seem more attributable to the way that archaeological data are recorded and encoded than to change in past societies. I conclude that quantification and systematic analysis of archaeological evidence are most often useful because they can help researchers understand the structure and history of, and therefore some of the gaps and biases in, the archaeological record. Taken at face value, however, archaeological big data have as much potential to mislead as to enlighten if it is not wielded critically and with a strong sense of the human element involved in constructing datasets.

Keywords quantification – data science – GIS – Greek prehistory – historiography – settlement patterns – the archaeological record

1 Introduction Archaeological work has always required a sophisticated grasp of data analysis. The basic tasks of archaeology revolve around gathering data about excavation materials or surface finds, organising the data in databases or notebooks, and synthesising the overall patterns in the data to build a narrative account of the past. Computational advances in recent years have, however, made it increasingly feasible to access and analyse large quantities of archaeological data in ways that are both newly efficient and, advocates claim, unprecedentedly capable of

© Sarah Murray, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_004

generating revelatory insights. This is not quite equivalent to claiming that archaeologists are in a position to ‘do big data’ at the current juncture. Although there is no clear definition of what makes data ‘big’, most archaeological data do not begin to approach the scale of what corporate analysts would term ‘big data’, which are usually so large that they cannot be analysed without advanced computational assistance (VanValkenburgh & Dufton, 2020a: S2–S3). Companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google conduct business by culling billions of data points about personal preferences, the timing of purchases, and the habits of internet users, then using these data to sell advertisements. Their datasets are so massive that they present new challenges for data storage and require new tools even for basic searches and visualisation. Archaeological data remain ‘small’ in comparison, but archaeologists have nonetheless begun to draw on the approaches and tenets of big data analysis in research, analysis, and information visualisation. The most easily transferrable principle of big data analysis is that large datasets, when arrayed correctly, can reveal patterns and insights that are impossible to arrive at when assessing information on a granular scale or in an unsystematic fashion (Bryson et al., 1999). While the notional power of data analytics, scaled up, has swept the popular imagination and is evident in the rapid adoption of big data analytics by leading firms across the globe (Diaz-Bone, 2016: 61–64), it is not yet clear how, or whether, a move toward big data will shape the future of Greek archaeology, although archaeologists have clearly begun to interrogate its potential (Onsrud & Campbell, 2007; Fowles, 2017: 686; VanValkenburgh & Dufton, 2020b). In this paper, I consider both the general promise of big data analytics and potential limitations of work in this methodological genre. I present one case study from my work on the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age in the Greek world, and consider whether looking at data from a distance, rather than close-up, can reveal compelling trends or problems with the archaeological record that would be difficult to grasp without adopting some general principles borrowed from data analytics. The Early Iron Age of Greece, especially the period spanning the years from 1200

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to 900 BCE, has traditionally been thought of as a time of isolation, when Greek society faded into poverty and simplicity after a period of richness and complexity in the preceding Late Bronze Age. However, some scholars argue that this supposed Greek ‘Dark Age’ was not actually very ‘dark’, but that we have simply been misreading the evidence. I describe my attempts to build a ‘big’ dataset from scratch and to investigate how this debate might benefit from the application of a big data approach. This case study demonstrates that adopting ideas from big data might be fruitful in helping to solve old questions in archaeology and history. However, the case study also raises questions about the suitability of using large-scale, big data-inspired, analysis for much of the evidence from Greek archaeology. My analysis, which provides a few relatively clear responses about the nature of the early Greek archaeological and historiographical record based on data, demonstrates that looking at the bigger picture can often aid us in assessing whether the patterns we perceive in our (human-generated) material assemblage are likely to adhere to some underlying ancient reality or whether they are reflective of modern priorities, practices, and attitudes instead (Lucas, 2012: 217–28). At the same time, however, the nature of the archaeological record, and its inherent complexities, should make us sceptical of the certainty or validity of such data-centric arguments. The paper therefore closes with a warning against uncritical acceptance of data as proof in the ever-ambiguous world of archaeological reasoning. 2

Data and Big Data in Archaeological Research: Promise or Problem?

The era of ‘big data’ is marked by an abundance of data of all kinds, which has ushered in a cultural and epistemological paradigm in which decisions and discoveries alike are mediated through the analysis of massive datasets. Andrew Bevan has articulated the presence of this “data deluge” in archaeology (Bevan, 2015), while a recent special issue of the Journal of Field Archaeology explores the impact that large datasets have had on archaeological theory and practice (VanValkenburgh & Dufton, 2020b). Major advances in remote sensing, data mining, digitisation, and crowdsourcing techniques have allowed archaeologists to assemble and review data on a scale that would previously have been financially or logistically prohibitive. This data deluge has already had a visible impact on several areas of archaeological research (see developing databases such as the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) an online repository for excavation data: www.tdar.org; Open

Context, a free, open access, online, linked data warehouse for researchers: https://opencontext.org; and The Archaeology Data service (TAG), a UK-based online repository for heritage data: https://archaeologydataservice .ac.uk/). Some big data projects have attracted attention from funding and media organisations: witness Sarah Parcak’s GlobalXplorer©, a big data project designed to leverage high resolution satellite imagery and crowdsourced user input to identify looting and find new sites to protect them in the future (https://www.globalxplorer .org; see Parcak, 2019). Other big data projects rest on the shoulders of archaeologists and interested amateurs toiling in the trenches to make digitally and publicly available results from old excavations or rescue digs in a format that allows them to be integrated into research agendas (Haselgrove & Moore, 2007; Fulford & Holbrook, 2011; Vlachidis & Tudhope, 2011). Genetic and radiocarbon databases are likewise fruitful territory for big data analysis, and will no doubt have major impacts on work across the field going forward (e.g., Shennan et al., 2013). In short, if recent trends continue, it is apparent that in the future a growing segment of work in archaeology, sensu lato, is likely to be devoted to creating, integrating, and interpreting digital data (Huggett, 2020: S8–S9). Classical archaeologists have not yet made particularly innovative strides in the realm of big data analysis. Although the quantification and the concatenation of datasets across multiple periods or from different projects has been a regular feature of research in Classical archaeology for decades (e.g., Alcock, 1993; van Wiijngaarten, 2002; Fletcher, 2007; Jongman, 2007), projects defining themselves as drawing inspiration from other work on big data are relatively limited. The example of a large dataset of names on Roman sigillata represents one promising move in this direction (Dannell & Mees, 2013). The increasing use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as containers for large bodies of spatially-referenced archaeological information has allowed research projects to visualise spatial data in increasingly comprehensive and sophisticated ways (Farinetti, 2011; McCoy, 2017). Thanks to the efforts of its organisers, generous funding, and thousands of hours of volunteer crowdsourced labour, the Pleiades project has mapped and databased 35,385 “places and spaces” from the ancient world (https://pleiades.stoa .org/). These data have been put to use by researchers: for example Stanford’s ORBIS project, a geospatial model of the Roman world aimed at economic historians (http://orbis .stanford.edu/). As the discipline steps into the world of big data analysis, it is worth situating the potential role of big data in the field, and considering how it is likely to interact with other trends in archaeological method and theory.

Big Data and Greek Archaeology

2.1 Big Data: Timing and Rationale Why big data, and why big data now? The data deluge Bevan describes is an inevitable outcome of technological strides being made by society overall (Diaz-Bone & Didier, 2016: 8), and the eagerness of archaeologists to move the field forward by adopting and adapting methods and techniques developed outside the discipline. This process of technology transfer has been a part of archaeological research since the birth of the field. Just as cameras radically transformed archaeological workflows in the early 20th century (Bohrer, 2011), or the adoption of tabletbased field recording and photogrammetric modelling has done more recently (Averett et al., 2017; Sapirstein & Murray, 2017), big data-thinking, though not developed for archaeology, is rapidly being digested and reformulated by practitioners of the discipline. Though the adoption of big data analytics is perhaps inevitable, it nonetheless comes as something of a surprise in the context of trends in archaeology as a whole, given that much archaeological writing now falls into the category of ‘new materialism’, a rejection of the idea that humans are the masters of the world and mould things to their purposes, with the concomitant embrasure of a multivocal approach to the relationships between space, humans, and objects (Wolfendale, 2014: 165). These relationships can be approached analytically, but there are obvious barriers to certainty or quantification in these analyses, and a descriptive approach is favoured (Olsen, 2012). As has often been the case in the history of archaeological thought, and in the humanities more generally, it appears that multiple schools of thought (in the Kuhnian sense: Kuhn, 1962: 162–5) currently coexist in the field. Many archaeologists believe that the future of the field lies in moving the discipline away from a human-centred social science, which includes impersonal statistical approaches to the past, and towards an object-centred philosophy of coexistence (Thomas, 2015a). Their approaches assert that human experience of the world is inherently ambiguous, and that multiple contradictory experiences and voices can coexist, complicating any attempt to present objective truths based on numerical analysis. Such arguments, emphasising the diversity and contingency of human experience are seemingly at odds with approaches which posit, instead, that the future of archaeology lies in embracing digital technologies in order to improve the way that we explore, analyse, publish, and publicise data about the past. In many cases, the desire for data analysis stems from impulses that are explicitly opposed to theoretical advances that seek to embrace ambiguity and multivocality. We live in an era that increasingly elides

65 the difference between data and proof, and in which any statement must be backed up with data showing its veracity before it is accepted. But many archaeologists are manifestly aware, and have long professed, that data, especially the gappy and complex data we work with in archaeology, can be completely unreliable. The unreliability of archaeological data as an ‘accurate’ representation of life in the past is amplified by the manipulability of data. As recent scandals in scientific fields have underlined, data are subject to gross manipulation and can be massaged to provide support for desired outcomes (Fanelli, 2009). 2.2 Big Data in the Big Picture As computational tools become more sophisticated, and society becomes more obsessed with data analysis as a tool for diagnosing reality, it is important to keep in mind that quantification and data themselves are socially constructed and historically contingent. Historians and sociologists of classification and quantification have shown that the urge towards data collection, data analysis, and the definition of products, services, objects, and persons is deeply implicated in the history of oppression and of institutional control over the individual. As Balzac already realized in the nineteenth century, “Society isolates everyone, the better to dominate them, divides everything to weaken it. It reigns over the units, over numerical figures piled up like grains of wheat in the heap” (Balzac, 1841: 131). The purpose of these practices is largely bound up in facilitating comparisons between points or entities across time and space with an eye to assigning worth to groups or individuals (Thévenot, 1984; Desrosières, 1993, 2008, and 2014; Porter, 1995; Espeland & Stevens, 1998 and 2008). Just as states and governments need to see constituents through the lens of data to properly account for, tax, and patrol assets and activities (Scott, 1998), archaeologists overlay material culture with discrete classificatory schemes in order to aggregate and compare, to communicate apparently ‘impersonal’ results to colleagues, and to add order to the chaotic and problematic reality that they confront in the archaeological record. These are necessary processes, but we must keep in mind that each data point represents a series of individual decisions, not objective reality (a longstanding tenet of archaeological theory: Clarke, 1968; Wylie, 1985; Hodder, 1986). These data points, taken collectively, resolve into a ‘big’ archaeological dataset that is the outcome of millions of human choices and should be understood as ‘noisy’ and potentially flawed, if not entirely unreliable, in the aggregate. In effect, the process of quantification, of labelling and counting, always represents something of a paradox. To paraphrase

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Desrosières (1993: 12), it represents, first, the specification of a measurement based on conventions about the definition of an object, filtered through the relevant encoding procedures. From this follows the insistence that this measurement is reality. These two statements do not make sense taken together, but there is no way out of them within the system of encoding, either. In short, then, big data analysis in archaeology holds much promise, but must be approached critically. In this paper, I use a case study to think through the issues at stake in big data analysis in archaeological argumentation and reasoning. I am especially interested in demonstrating the utility of data analysis for answering questions not only about the ancient past, but also about the way that archaeologists work, and the character of the data that we generate. As I hope this case study will show, a major area of promise in the use of comprehensive or big archaeological datasets lies in understanding how we as archaeologists have built archaeological infrastructures, and in revealing important flaws and historical features of the material record that we have created (Kintigh, 2006: 570; Snow et al., 2006: 958; Dam et al., 2010). That is, data are not only a tool for seeing the past clearly. Studying data can also clarify systems of knowledge accumulation, enabling researchers to analyse the archaeological record in a reflexive way that takes account of these flaws and histories. 3

Data and the Dark Age: a Distant Reading of Continuity and Change

I confront the utility and flaws of a big data approach to the archaeological record by way of a case study from early Greek archaeology, specifically the debate pertaining to the era traditionally known as the Dark Age, but now more regularly referred to as the Early Iron Age (Kotsonas, 2016). The question at stake centres around determining what happened to Greece after the apparent demise of the Mykenaian world-system around 1200 BCE. The usual, textbook narrative (e.g., Budin, 2004; Rhodes, 2005; Demand, 2011; Martin, 2013; Pomeroy et al., 2017) goes something like the following: around 1200 BCE the socio-political and economic world of the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean fell apart in a systems collapse of dramatic scope. The ensuing centuries of aftermath, known as a Dark Age, saw the once cosmopolitan and complex world of Mykenaian palatial society smoulder in ruins, as the trade networks that had buoyed up the local administration, and brought wealth and international sparkle to reigning elites, disappeared. For several hundred years,

life in Greece was marked by a decrease in population levels, low standards of living, a general devolution of power to local chieftains or warlords, the disappearance of written texts, and a diminished material repertoire, limited to ceramics and metal objects. After this period of apparent economic, cultural, and demographic stagnation, recovery in the 9th and 8th centuries eventually led to sustained growth, the beginnings of the Greek colonisation of the Mediterranean, and the rise of Greek city-states. The Dark Age therefore marked a gap in the sequence of civilizational progress conveniently dividing the prehistoric from the historic periods. Despite its continuing appearance in history textbooks, this ‘Dark Age’ narrative has been continually reevaluated since the 1960s. Scholars have often had cause to wonder whether the so-called Dark Age was as ‘dark’ as it has often been conceived. Much of the critique of the notion of the Dark Age has centred on the value-laden nomenclature, and has suggested replacing the label ‘Dark Age’ with a better term. The notion of a Dark Age carries with it a great deal of interpretive baggage. By analogy to the Medieval Dark Ages, it implies that the period was particularly poor from the point of view of human knowledge, well-being, and enlightenment (Botsford, 1922: 31; Snodgrass, 1971: 22, n. 2). From another point of view, it implies that we are dealing with a period from which there is little evidence remaining that might preoccupy a scholar, let alone serve as the basis for a healthy academic field. Both implications seem to have been at work in early conceptions of the period under study here. Later calls to adopt the supposedly more neutral term of ‘Early Iron Age’ suggest a reaction against the notion that the early 1st millennium was a time of ceaseless toil, low population, and rampant disease in Greece, something historians of Greece in the early 20th century certainly believed (e.g., Botsford, 1922: 54; Nilsson, 1933: 246; Burn, 1936: 1). Some archaeologists even went so far as to rearrange the chronology in a rather drastic attempt to eliminate the period entirely, because of the relatively scarce archaeological remains across much of the Mediterranean that dated to this period (James, 1991). This demonstrated that some scholars really believed that the period could not be considered for meaningful historical analysis. Most Greek archaeologists now agree that Early Iron Age is a better term. The term Dark Age, traditionally applied to the 400-year period between the Late Bronze Age collapse of the 12th century BCE and the apparent economic and demographic recovery in the 8th century BCE, has largely been set aside (Antonaccio, 1995: 5; Papadopoulos, 1996: 253 and 2014: 181; Dickinson, 2006: 7; Whitley, 2006: 597;

Big Data and Greek Archaeology

I. Morris, 2007: 211; Mee, 2011: 4; Broodbank, 2013: 775; Hall, 2014: 60). In addition to the name ‘Dark Age’, the general disciplinary practice of placing a dividing line between the Bronze Age and Iron Age in Greece has likewise been criticised as flawed, and more emphasis has been placed on continuities and similarities across the Bronze to Iron Age barrier (Papadopoulos, 1993: 195, 1996: 255 and 2014: 181). The push to tie together the study of late 2nd- and early 1st-millennium Greece gained momentum as studies by scholars including Catherine Morgan (1996 and 2003), Sarah Morris (1992), and Robin Osborne (1996) showed the important links between prehistoric and historical Greece, and the utility of approaching these historiographically-constructed separate phases together. Following both lines of thinking, recent finds have rightly led to the reconceptualization of periodisation for early Greek history (Coulson, 1990: 9; S. Morris, 1992: 140; Antonaccio, 1995: 5; Papadopoulos, 1997: 192; I. Morris, 2000: 221; Lemos, 2002: 215; Dickinson, 2006: 6–8; Lemos & Mitchell, 2011: 635). Yet, even if scholars of early Greece can agree that politics and periodisation have impacted the conceptual frameworks through which the field has contorted itself for so long, there is not yet a consensus about the best way to tell the story of early Greek history. When we look at the archaeological record for the Bronze and Iron Ages together, continuities appear, but so do ruptures. Which should we emphasise in the way that we explain the early Greek past? Did “the societies of the Early Iron Age [retain] most of what had been significant in Mycenaean culture – including its political structures and especially the links of Mycenaean culture with the Eastern Mediterranean” (Snodgrass, 2006: 170)? Or can we interpret a major political, social, and institutional rupture in the “massive change in the archaeological record at the start of [the] Protogeometric period” (Snodgrass, 2006: 170)? We do not necessarily all need to agree to operate within one unified intellectual paradigm to begin to answer these questions (Purvis & Hunt, 1993: 485; Thomas, 2015b; Lucas, 2016). However, in general it seems that the field would benefit from gaining some clarity on the basic cadence of civilization in an era during which many important historical institutions seem to have developed. One approach that might help in reaching a consensus about the questions raised above would be to adopt the tenets of big data. Perhaps we might be able to use aggregated data to “reassess early Greek history on the merits of concrete archaeological facts”, as Calligas (1988: 229) advised several decades ago. The problem lies with deciding what facts to focus on, and how to evaluate claims about the representative or

67 unrepresentative nature of the archaeological record that we (the archaeologists) have gradually built up over the years. While some archaeologists point to Lefkandi, on Euboioa, and other exceptional sites as proof that the period was not ‘dark’ at all (e.g., Calligas, 1988: 229; S. Morris, 1992: 140; Papadopoulos, 1993: 195; Kotsonas, 2016: 263– 264), others focus instead on the vast quantity of other sites where evidence for complexity, wealth, or prosperity is not at all forthcoming (e.g., I. Morris, 2007; Muhly, 2011). Considering that the two sides of this debate simply leverage different sets of evidence to support opposing arguments rather than engaging each other in competitive interpretations of the same evidence, is not surprising that scholars have failed to come to any agreement regarding how to conceptualise this period. While there are good reasons to be sceptical about the utility or even existence of hard facts in archaeological interpretation, in a case like the debate over the Bronze to Iron Age transition, it does seem that we might be able to answer some questions relevant to the scholarly consensus, and challenges to it, by looking at data. These are questions such as: 1. Did archaeologists ignore Early Iron Age material during the early decades of the 20th century, before it became a popular area of research? 2. Are there quantitative indications that, overall, material possessions were few or the population was particularly low during the Early Iron Age? 3. Are there measurable differences between the settlement patterns from transitional Late Bronze to Early Iron Age phases that might indicate a change in lifestyle or economic strategies in ways that pertain to the debate about continuity or discontinuity? 4. Has anxiety about the periodisation of early Greece and its nomenclature coincided most clearly with changes in the archaeological record, disciplinary forces, or academic schools of thought? I emphasise that these questions are a combination of archaeological questions about the patterns that the material record seems to show and historiographical questions that seek to use the archaeological record as evidence of its own contingent origins, and as a ‘characterful’ dataset that cannot be understood outside of its own process of generation. Without understanding, for example, the motives which led archaeologists to excavate, catalogue (or fail to catalogue), synthesise, and share information about the past, we can hardly begin to understand why, and how, archaeologists have written about the past in certain ways. Data on the history of our data and the way we talk about information can, in other words, serve as something like taking a temperature or conducting a survey. It shows us

68 what our field has been doing over the decades, and how we have written about those activities. This is not necessarily more objective than less quantitative approaches to these questions, but it provides another lens through which to understand our ideas. 3.1 Methodology To move towards the development of data-based answers to questions like the ones listed above, I assembled relevant data. First, I generated a geodatabase of known sites with material dating to the final periods of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and the earliest periods of the Early Iron Age (EIA). The data include sites documented with remains from the Late Bronze (LB) IIIB (1325–1200 BCE), Late Bronze (LB) IIIC (1200–1050 BCE), the Protogeometric (PG) (1050–900 BCE), and Geometric (G) (900–700 BCE) periods.1 These chronological indicators refer to ceramic designations. Remains from most sites in the archaeological record from early Greece are assigned to a chronological period based on affiliated ceramic assemblages, and so sorting sites based on the date of associated ceramics is logical. Nonetheless, it is not without hazard. The relationship between periodisation, the appearance of ceramic styles, and absolute chronology is complex and has been extensively debated (e.g., Wardle et al., 2014; Knapp & Manning, 2016: 113–118), so the dates given above are meant to provide only a rough idea of the time ranges in question. Likewise, the synchronization of ceramic styles across regions is problematic (e.g., Hallager, 2007). An issue I return to below is the scale of the obstacle that necessarily imprecise knowledge of ceramic synchronization and absolute chronologies, to say nothing of decisions by ceramicists about where to draw the line between, for example, LB IIIB and LB IIIC ceramic styles, poses for meaningful big data analysis in archaeology (e.g., Vitale, 2006; Mountjoy, 1999: 36–38). I drew upon several different sources to compile the data. The most important data source was the two-volume set Ἡ Προïστορικὴ Κατοίκησις τῆς ῾Ελλάδος καὶ ἡ Γένεσις τοῦ ῾Ελληνικοῦ Ἔθνους, published by K. Syriopoulos in 1995. This is a massive compendium of prehistoric sites in the Greek world published in or before 1990. Syriopoulos was not an academic, but rather an accountant with a strong amateur interest in the origins and background of the Greek people. His book contains little in the way of compelling argumentation, but it is an incredibly rich source of data for those that can manage the katharévousa Greek 1  Strictly speaking, ‘Late Helladic’ (LH) is the term used for Late Bronze Age sites on the Greek mainland, while ‘Late Minoan’ (LM) is applied to material from Krete.

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in which it is written (see fig. 2.1 for an image of a page from this book). I used Syriopoulos’ data to populate a geodatabase of sites from the LB IIIB, LB IIIC, PG, and G periods from most regions of the Aigaian in the Late Bronze Age (I excluded Makedonia, Epirus, and Kerkyra, since these regions are considered to have been culturally and politically distinct from southern Greece during the LBA: Feuer, 1983; Parkinson & Galaty, 2007: 8–9; Tartaron, 2004: 165–167). Many scholars still use Hope-Simpson and Dickinson’s topographical researches (1979) when compiling gazetteers, but Syriopoulos’ catalogue is preferable because it sums up the results published by Hope-Simpson and Dickinson but updates the details and bibliographies where necessary. Since Syriopoulos’ catalogue only covers work published until 1990, I updated his dataset with discoveries published up to 2015 in the Archaiologikon Deltion, an annual review of the work of the Greek Archaeological Service, the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, published by the French School of Archaeology at Athens, and Archaeological Reports published by the British Journal of Hellenic Studies. I also used updated data from several regional reports: Akhaia (Giannopoulos, 2008); Lokris (Kramer-Hajos, 2008); Boiotia (Farinetti, 2011); Krete (Ksipharas, 2004). I plotted each site’s location in a GIS, with as much accuracy as could be determined based on the amount of locational description given in the reports (Syriopoulos provides a helpful map in each section, but in some cases research into local toponyms and rough guesses based on topography or the description of a site’s location in the Deltion, etc. was necessary). Attributes currently attached to each site are laid out in table 2.1. The dataset thus compiled comprises around 4,000 data points, each representing a chronological component of a site (i.e., if a site was occupied in the LB IIIB and LB IIIC periods, that site is represented by two data points). I chose to structure the dataset this way so that the different components of each site could have a discrete discovery date, thus allowing for a reconstruction of the history of exploration of sites for each period. 4,000 data points is not a particularly big dataset, of course. In general, it is worth emphasising that archaeological data in the disciplinary context of the ancient Greek world might be more accurately termed ‘medium data’ than ‘big data’, in the sense that we are currently unable to assemble datasets that begin to approach the massive scale of the information gathered by companies like Amazon or Facebook, or by big financial firms. We are doing something between the micro-histories or localised studies of individuals, advocated by some processual archaeologists and social theorists, and the global studies of billions of data points available to modern social

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figure 2.1

table 2.1

A page from Syriopoulos’ massive, yet relatively unappreciated, site catalogue data (Syriopoulos, 1995: Vol. II 783) Courtesy of the Archaeological Society at Athens Explanation of fields in Site Database

scientists. While the data I use in this case study would not count as ‘big’ by the proper definition of the term, it is big in the sense that it is relatively comprehensive – for the problem I examine in this paper, it represents most of the published data available as of the mid-2010s. In addition, using medium data in a case study of this nature helps to demonstrate the kinds of problems that should be associated with analysis of these types of cumulative datasets. Since the dataset is relatively large but is also built by hand, I am familiar with its flaws and strengths and therefore can assess outcomes of analysis with a sure eye. In addition to the site database, I built a bibliographical resource, so that the history of archaeological research could be read alongside the history of the way scholars had discussed the archaeological record, especially the words that scholars have used to describe the periodisation of early Greece. I gathered digital versions of 800 pieces of scholarly work pertaining to the period between the fall of the Mykenaian palaces and the 8th century BCE (for a full description of this resource see Murray, 2018). I also sampled 40 general textbooks on Greek history that deal with the same period, ranging in date from 1900 (Bury’s History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great) to 2014 (the second edition of Hall’s History of the Archaic Greek World) to get a sense of the way that scholarly trends beyond the subdisciplines of prehistory and early Greek history have filtered into university teaching and public knowledge. In some cases, these works already existed in accessible digital formats, available through open or limited-access platforms such as JSTOR, Google Books, the Hestia project, and EBSCOhost. However, given that the aim of the bibliographical research was diachronic,

Field

Content

Explanation

Category ID Site Microregion Macroregion Period Type

IIIB, IIIC, PG, or G – Name of Site Attike, Boiotia, Rethymnon, etc. Central Greece, Peloponnesos, etc. I, III, IIIA, IIIB, EPG, LPG, etc. Selection: Artefacts, Cemetery, Settlement, Isolated Tomb, Settle/Cem

Exploration Discovery

Survey, Unsystematic, Excavated Year

Source ChrCert Agent

Bibliographical reference C(ertain), P(robable), U(ncertain), N(ot likely) Ephoreia, Foreign School, Non-specialist

The general period, for overall sorting and filtering of the entry A unique identifier – Modern nome where the site is found A bigger regional grouping Field containing all periods represented at the site Characteristic of the site. Topographically distinct elements of single sites (e.g. the Areopagos and Kerameikos of Athens) are given separate entries. Method of exploration Year the chronological element (IIIB or PG) was discovered at the site A reference to information regarding the discovery of each site. How well-attested is the chronological element at the site? What archaeological body has been primarily responsible for the original discovery and publication of the site

70 and since many scholarly works on EIA Greece are relatively obscure, many of the texts in the bibliography were not available in a digital and computer-readable format as of the summer of 2014, so many texts were digitised manually using a copy stand. Finally, I manually searched each digitised work for the phrases “Dark Age” and “Early Iron Age”, and counted patterns in the use of these terms. Manual searches were necessary in this case because the phrase Dark Age is now often introduced in texts only to describe how problematic it is, and, since many book titles include terminological phraseology (e.g. Dark Age Greece), these words are therefore repeated many times in ways that are not representative of an author’s purpose. I describe the details of the process of gathering the data above not to be tedious, but to make clear to anyone hoping to work with big data that the process of identifying data pertaining to work on specific research questions requires careful thought, and will be influenced by the training, background, and capabilities of the researcher. In general, minimal technical training is required to query the small- to medium-scale datasets that most archaeologists will encounter, provided that the researcher has some experience manipulating data in spreadsheets and GIS platforms and has a basic grasp of statistics. Given the current technological ecosystem, in which a great deal of information is born digital, we may presume that most archaeological information already exists in a format suitable for analysis at scale. However, archaeologists dealing with archival sources or legacy data will need to consider the reality that much time-consuming work will be involved in assembling datasets before analysis can begin. In the case of my project, the most labour-intensive aspect of assembling the data involved mining archaeological reports for information about Late Bronze to Early Iron Age site discoveries and entering that information into a geodatabase. Overall, I spent approximately five hundred hours assembling the site geodatabase. Another two hundred hours of digitizing and analysing texts was required to assemble the diachronic terminological dataset that I queried in tandem with the site data. This is the kind of aggregative research project that is possible for a well-funded PhD student with time to spend toiling in the archives, but would overwhelm researchers with teaching obligations and writing deadlines in the absence of a large team of research assistants to put in most of the leg-work. However, in my view assembling data manually is preferable to harvesting ready-made data from thirdparty sources because the process of gathering data often sparks insights that will then direct analysis, and represents time well spent in bringing the researcher into intimate contact with many sources they might otherwise not

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have encountered. Existing datasets are more convenient to work with, but they may not be designed to facilitate the kind of analysis required by a third-party researcher, who may also lack detailed insight into the motivations or methods behind the accumulation of the data. In the case of my research on early Greece, I designed each dataset to facilitate the sorts of investigation I aimed to conduct for my specific project, and made decisions when categorising and entering data that would allow for certain types of queries that might not have been prioritised by others. For example, the year that a site was first discovered is rarely a question that archaeologists ask during research, but these data were central to my historiographical research agenda. 3.2 Results Using the data I assembled, I have attempted to answer some of the questions posed above. Since I have described a few of my attempts to answer questions about the historiography of early Greece elsewhere, I will quickly review the results of those analyses before focussing here on the geographical distribution of sites in successive periods, and what these distributions might tell us about continuity or discontinuity over the passage from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. In Murray 2015, I investigated whether the rate of discovery of sites from the Greek LBA/EIA transition suggested that archaeologists might have ignored those sites during the early part of the 20th century, before the publication of the astonishing EIA discoveries at Lefkandi, beginning in the 1960s (Popham & Sackett, 1968) but accelerating throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Popham, Sackett, & Themelis, 1980; Popham, Touloupa, & Sackett, 1982; Themelis, 1983; Catling, 1985; Popham, Calligas, & Sackett, 1990; Popham, Calligas, & Sackett, 1993; Popham & Lemos, 1996), ignited new excitement about, and presumably active research agendas pertaining to, the EIA (question 1, above). If this were the case, we might expect that the rate of discovery of sites from the PG period, for instance, would be low compared to the rate of discovery of sites from the IIIB period (as a percentage of the total number of such sites ever discovered) during the early decades of the century, but comparatively high during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. However, this is not the case, suggesting both that archaeologists have been diligent about recording sites, and that extra efforts to find more PG sites after Lefkandi was discovered were not unusually fruitful (Murray, 2015). In response to my research question 2, I have also argued that the dataset shows that there are no compelling reasons to expect that the small number of known EIA sites, compared to LBA or Geometric sites, is related to anything other than the

Big Data and Greek Archaeology

fact that there was a smaller population living in Greece during this period (Murray, 2017: 137–142). Finally, to address question 4, on terminology and anxiety over periodisation, I showed that the use of the phrase ‘Early Iron Age’ gained ground at the expense of the phrase ‘Dark Age’ during the mid-1990s, and does not seem to coincide with a major change in the archaeological record, at least in quantitative terms. (Murray, 2018). We can also try to use the archaeological dataset to answer basic questions about the level of continuity or discontinuity apparent in the archaeological record between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (question 3). In the following example, I use the site database that I have created to query the locations of sites and settlements from the final phases of the Late Bronze Age and the earliest phases of the Early Iron Age in order to determine whether these settlement patterns can shed light on questions of continuity or discontinuity of land use over the period from 1300 to 700 BCE. Since settlement location often hinges on economic considerations, including agricultural regimes or dependence on marine resources, military concerns (such as fear of attack by neighbours), and cultural or social factors (such as the connections individuals or communities feel to their ancestors), we might expect that settlement locations and the relationships between settlements, both synchronically and diachronically, might indicate something about society’s development over time. While archaeologists have developed sophisticated statistical methods for comparing settlement locations across periods (e.g., Weber et al., 2016), in what follows I will use relatively simple comparative strategies. There is little space in the current context to explain a complicated statistical method, and a straightforward application will be easier to digest as a case study. One question we can ask of the data in a comprehensive geodatabase that relates to ancient settlement patterns and how they change over time would be: what was the normal distance from the coastline for the settlements of each period? The results might indicate either an economic dependence upon the sea, or a concern with defensibility from seaborne threats. Across the dataset of known findspots for the LB IIIB period on the Greek mainland south of Makedonia, fewer than half (43%: 352/828) of sites were located within 10 Km of the coast. In the Early Iron Age, after the Late Bronze Age collapse, the same is true for a significantly greater percentage of Protogeometric (62%: 127/335) and Geometric sites (65%: 199/584). This suggests, as scholars had long intuited, that people living closer to the sea during the EIA tended to prosper (Dickinson, 2006: 88; Knodell, 2013: 178–180), while prominent Bronze Age sites were often

71 located farther inland (Kramer-Hajos, 2016: 126, 184–185). Projected against debates about economic continuity or discontinuity, this very simple example of large-scale data analysis suggests, at the very least, that settlement patterns may have undergone significant adjustments between the LBA collapse of ca. 1200 BCE and the 8th century BCE that involved a higher concentration of settlement near the sea. A similar analysis of site distributions on Krete reveals different patterns entirely, and ones that do not necessarily conform to prevailing notions about the way that the spatial organisation of society progressed between the LBA and the EIA. While the Late Bronze Age data accord relatively well with what is observable on the mainland, with 50% of sites quite close to the sea (137/272 sites less than 5 Km from the coast), the idea that after 1200 BCE the Late Minoan IIIC Kretan settlements were characterised by an extraordinary retreat into highland refuge sites (see e.g., Wallace, 2010: 55–59), does not appear to be in harmony with the observable facts. While 55% (109/197) of LMIIIC sites are more than 5 Km from the sea, the remaining sites, which total almost half of those known at this period, are close to the coast (less than 5 Km). However, it is worth noting that many IIIC sites on Krete are highly defensible while also being near to the sea, so further nuanced examination of the topography of the sites would be a natural next step to take in the analysis of these data. A more significant change occurs only during the subsequent Protogeometric and Geometric periods, during which 64% (PG: 127/199; G: 114/179) of all known Kretan sites are located significantly inland (more than 5 Km). Thus, the data from Krete and the mainland demonstrate roughly opposite trends between the LBA and the EIA, with the mainland seeing a movement toward the coast in the Protogeometric period, and Krete seeing a movement inland. Another question we could ask of our ‘big’ archaeological data might involve considering how densely inhabited Greece may have been at different periods of prehistory. Using GIS, and given a large geodatabase such as the one under consideration in this study, it is possible to calculate the density of sites in Greece overall during each of the periods represented. A ‘nearest neighbour analysis’ (which measures the average distance from each site to its nearest contemporary neighbour) of the data for the IIIB, IIIC, PG, and G periods for the Greek mainland confirms the notion that there was EIA depopulation, since known PG sites are about 30% more sparsely distributed in space, in addition to being less numerous, than sites from the LH IIIB period (table 2.2). The data for Krete are far more consistent over time, with a nearly continuous pattern of

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table 2.2 Results of a Nearest Neighbour Analysis for excavated sites in the IIIB, IIIC, PG, and G periods on the Greek mainland and on Krete

Nearest (synchronous) neighbour (mean distance) Mainland IIIB IIIC PG G Krete IIIB IIIC PG G

4.3 km 5.7 km 6.2 km 4.7 km 2.4 km 2.2 km 2.6 km 2.6 km

settlement density from the end of the Late Bronze Age through to the Geometric period. Finally, the sum of the data can be used to distinguish between continuity and discontinuity of site distribution patterns over time. Given the question of whether palatial and postpalatial sites were characterised by continuity into the EIA period, we can again query the GIS data to generate some statistically robust answers. Table 2.3 shows the percentage of sites from the IIIC, PG, and Geometric periods that lie within 1 and 5 Km buffer zones around LB IIIB sites and G sites. These scores suggest that while LB IIIC sites tend, in most cases, to lie within 1–5 Km of a LB IIIB site, PG and Geometric sites are significantly less likely to be close to an LBA site. On the other hand, on Krete the numbers imply greater consistency in the settlement system from IIIC to G after some minor movement in site locations directly after the end of the LB IIIB period. In general, then, we might take these numerical proxies of settlement patterns – location near or far from the coast, density of habitation, and consistency of habitation locale from period to period – to constitute significant bases on which to argue that, despite recent discoveries, a traditional model whereby the LBA collapse led to significant social and economic change in the Greek mainland, with more continuity but also meaningful change on Krete, still fits the evidence best. Read from a distance, this is the story that the archaeological record seems to be telling. From the point of view of ‘goodness of fit’, this reading might lead scholars of the LBA/EIA transition to lean towards a reading favouring discontinuity and disruption after Mykenaian cultural indicators disappear from the material record.

Then again, machines can only see so far into the archaeological record. A big data analysis through GIS or any other computational platform of interrogation is only as good as the data that humans load into it. In the case of archaeological databases, we continue to struggle with the barrier that stands between the archaeological object in its systemic context and the archaeological object as recovered through the process of archaeological fieldwork, recording, and taxonomy. The data that I have compiled and analysed above owe their characteristics, above all, to decisions made by archaeologists. For example, the impact of decisions made about the periodisation of ceramic typologies on such calculations is immense. If the formal differences between LB IIIB and LB IIIC pottery had not been determined to be significant enough to require a distinction between the two in the ceramic nomenclature, the trends in the data would look vastly different. The same applies for the Protogeometric and Geometric styles. While substyles have been categorised for most of the ceramics of Protogeometric and Geometric Greece, many scholars do not wade into the overlapping regional styles and substyles, and the chronological and historical distinctions that they represent, when generalizing about the Early Iron Age in Greece. An additional problem with the EIA material represented in the data is the fact that EIA pottery is hardly ever identified in surface surveys, and there is a likelihood that ceramics from this period were poorly fired or so undistinctive that they often do not survive in the archaeological record or cannot be identified by specialists. This makes it almost certain that the quantity and spatial distribution of EIA sites is not reliably indexed to identifiable archaeological assemblages as recorded by archaeologists (I. Morris, 2007: 218). Moreover, the perfunctory excavation reports that underpin much of the data represented in the database I use here rarely specify ceramic subphases, simply stating that material discovered was Protogeometric or Geometric. If the source material were more forthcoming about such distinctions, and if these distinctions could be systematically encoded into the data, it is almost certain that the data would change dramatically, and the edges and distinctions the data currently show would become less sharp. The data are, then, not reality itself, but a model of reality constituted by archaeological information as it has been encoded at a variety of stages. The first stage of encoding occurs at the hands of archaeologists who determine the taxonomies within which the discipline places material; the second occurs when archaeologists discover material and assign it attributes; a third stage happens when those tasked with writing up and publishing the results of excavations and surveys choose how to present

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Big Data and Greek Archaeology table 2.3 Consistency in site locations over the LBA-EIA transition

Mainland IIIC PG G Krete IIIC PG G

Mainland IIIB IIIC PG Krete IIIB IIIC PG

Percentage of excavated sites lying within 1 km of a IIIB site

Percentage of excavated sites lying within 5 km of a IIIB site

73% (276/379) 50% (167/335) 44% (256/584)

89% (336/379) 77% (259/335) 74% (433/584)

60% (117/197) 52% (104/199) 58% (104/179)

94% (185/197) 92% (183/199) 92% (164/179)

Percentage of excavated sites lying within 1 km of a Geometric site

Percentage of excavated sites lying within 5 km of a Geometric site

31% (246/828) 40% (153/379) 60% (202/335)

64% (534/828) 70% (153/379) 79% (263/335)

43% (116/272) 54% (107/197) 58% (116/199)

80% (218/272) 89% (176/197) 92% (183/199)

the information. In the case of my data, there has been a final stage of encoding as I, the researcher, collected data from many sources and added yet another layer of nonarbitrary, but self-defined, codification. When we accept the results as meaningful, we (tacitly or explicitly) accept the decisions of the parties behind each of these steps. We should be wary of assigning too much value to trends in data simply because of the apparent authority that the format lends to what we know to be a large constellation of human decisions about how to enter ceramic sherds into a database. That said, it would be overstating matters to say that quantitative approaches are without merit. An optimistic viewer of the data might draw attention to the immense amount of work that has gone into creating ceramic typologies. While, as discussed above, humanities research can generally proceed with the work of scholarship even when it encompasses researchers operating under very different and often-shifting assumptions about the ideal framework through which to approach material, ceramic typology is one area in which scientific paradigms do seem to apply (Lucas, 2016: 266). If Greek archaeologists

are to write any kind of synthetic accounts of the prehistoric world, we must agree that our ceramic taxonomies are reasonably stable and reasonably correct, within a margin of error and with some small adjustments. If we accept this, then the data presented above provide, in the aggregate, compelling evidence for major changes in settlement patterns after the Bronze Age collapse, especially on the Greek mainland. This information could, in turn, drive new research designed to examine potential nuances within pattern and to dive into regional datasets in order to seek underlying causes or explanations that inform the larger picture. 4

Data as a Solution and a Problem: Certainty and the Sociology of Humanistic Discourse

Many humanities scholars may be sceptical of such distant readings of the archaeological record. As will be clear from the discussion above, I agree that this scepticism is well-founded. Nevertheless, studies of big datasets, such as the one I constructed to illuminate the Late Bronze to

74 Early Iron Age transition in Greece, do have some fundamental value, if only because they allow scholars to get a view of the total shape of the evidence as it is currently understood, taxonomised, and categorised. Among other things, this kind of overview brings into clear focus the challenge of putting together stories about the past based on archaeological remains. When archaeologists of the ancient Greek and Roman past do this, we must construct narratives that unify often-unrelated pieces of information into a coherent whole. Since only a very small, often randomly preserved, percentage of written sources and material evidence from the ancient world survives, the evidence that archaeologists possess is fundamentally partial and contingent, and it is important that we have access to all possible material available when trying to understand the past. Due largely to issues of access to resources, many archaeologists and historians working on the Greek past rely on a subset of well-published excavated materials to build narratives. This is the result of the way in which Greek archaeological research is conducted and of the history and nature of research and publication. On the one hand, well-funded foreign researchers obtain permits to conduct major excavation and survey projects, which they then publish in full, lavish volumes that take years to produce. These detailed publications are read and circulated widely in university libraries. On the other hand, archaeologists employed by the Greek Archaeological Service excavate constantly throughout the year to save sites from destruction by looters, construction, or environmental encroachment, collectively generating massive amounts of material evidence. However, these archaeologists usually do not have the funding or the time to undertake major publications. Their work, if published at all, appears in the form of perfunctory reports with limited circulation that are often not available digitally. Due to disciplinary factors, many students of Greek archaeology do not learn Modern Greek sufficiently well to read the most important of these publications. The outcome is that narratives about ancient history are often built around a scaffolding of information from well-funded and well-published ‘big digs’. Meanwhile, the evidence of minor archaeological sites discovered each year during rescue excavations is often left unconsidered, because it is poorly published and difficult to access. Since the surviving archaeological record itself is already a small percentage of the total material world of Antiquity, it is not ideal to leave aside large amounts of information. Looking at large amounts of data in cumulative datasets can be an antidote to this problem. It provides a lens through which to see the material record as

Murray

a body of evidence, and encourages and incentivises us to build comprehensive datasets that digest not only wellpublished and often-discussed sites, but also the totality of smaller and less-explored sites that we usually struggle to bring to bear on our analyses. Furthermore, gathering cumulative datasets, and thinking about data as a tool for understanding the history of the accumulation of the archaeological record, allows us to see behind that body of evidence, to understand the shape of the evidence as a product of thousands of individual projects, identifications of material, or accidental discoveries, each with its own agenda. In other words, the point of big data analysis in archaeology need not be incompatible with a critique of data. Numbers contain plenty of rhetoric of their own, and ought not be relied upon to show us the whole story of historical development. When querying the data about diachronic patterns for the presence of sites, we have difficulty controlling for negative data in any systematic way. There are many ways we could imagine negative data being misleading as a source of historical inference from patterns in data. For example, regions might be devoid of habitation evidence from the past, not because they were uninhabited in the past, but because of disruptions in the archaeological record, intensive modern overbuilding, or sea level changes. We cannot distinguish between evidence of sites that have been excavated, or locations that have been surveyed, but produced no LBA or EIA material, and places that have simply never been explored. Perhaps the regions that were densely inhabited by Protogeometric Greeks simply have not been surveyed or excavated as intensively as regions that were densely inhabited by Late Bronze Age Greeks. In short, archaeologists face the constant challenge of struggling to distinguish between trends in data that may relate to the past, and trends that are the result of exploration biases or simple random chance. The data points rehearsed above do not represent the end of analysis – a final answer, as it were, to questions about continuity and discontinuity in Greek archaeology – but instead might offer scholars a new way in to the process of interpretation and a catalyst for new questions. Moreover, understanding our data as historically and disciplinarily contingent should remain a paramount concern in the process of interpretation. In the end, the benefit of humanistic study is its very resistance to simplistic solutions to complicated problems. Another benefit is the understanding that multiple interpretations of a single body of material enrich, rather than hinder, intellectual life and disciplinary discourse. These ends are both, I would argue, becoming even more important as the world turns to data as a platform of knowledge from which

Big Data and Greek Archaeology

public, social, and economic policies are built. Data surely have a useful role to play in helping humanities and social science researchers to frame questions and formulate new ideas. Yet the challenges ahead for researchers using ‘big data’ approaches will include not only mastering technical or logistical obstacles, but also learning to weigh the benefits of data analysis with the advances in contextual and theoretically-informed treatments that have helped propel archaeology into the 21st century. The results of big data analysis in archaeology should, then, be a springboard for further questions we might not have considered without the benefit of a distant reading of the archaeological record, and not conclusions that close the book on vibrant debate. Crucially, these questions will entail continued efforts to reveal the practices, cultures, and ontologies that impact the shape of the data that we possess. Bibliography of Modern Works Alcock, Susan E., 1993: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge). Antonaccio, Carla M., 1995: “Lefkandi and Homer”, in Andersen, Øivind & Dickie, Matthew (edd.), Homer’s World: fiction, tradition, reality (Bergen) 5–27. Averett, Erin Walcek, Gordon, Jody Michael & Counts, Derek B. (edd.), 2017: Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology (Grand Forks, ND). de Balzac, Honoré, 1841: Le curé de village (Paris). Bevan, Andrew, 2015: “The Data Deluge”, Antiquity 89.348: 1473– 1484. doi: 10.15184/aqy.2015.102. Bohrer, Frederick N., 2011: Photography and Archaeology (Chicago). Botsford, George Willis, 1922: Hellenic History (New York). Broodbank, Cyprian, 2013: The Making of the Middle Sea: A history of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World (Oxford). Bryson, Steve, Kenwright, David, Cox, Michael, Ellsworth, David & Haimes, Robert, 1999: “Visually Exploring Gigabyte Data Sets in Real Time”, Communications of the ACM 42.8: 83–90. doi: 10.1145/310930.310977. Budin, Stephanie Lynn, 2004: The Ancient Greeks: New Perspectives (Santa Barbara). Burn, Andrew Robert, 1936: The World of Hesiod: a study of the Greek Middle Ages c. 900–700 B.C. (New York). Bury, John, 1900: A History of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great (London). Calligas, Peter G., 1988: “Hero-Cult in Early Iron Age Greece”, in Hägg, Robert, Marinatos, Nanno & Nordquist, Gullög C. (edd.), Early Greek Cult Practice. Proceedings of the Fifth International

75 Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 26–29 June 1986 (Stockholm) 229–234. Catling, Hector W., 1985: “The Arrangement of Some Grave Goods in the Dark Age Cemeteries of Lefkandi”, BSA 80: 19– 23. doi: 10.1017/S0068245400007474. Clarke, David L., 1968: Analytical Archaeology (London). Coulson, William D.E., 1990: The Greek Dark Ages: A Review of the Evidence and Suggestions for Future Research (Athens). Dam, C., Austin, T. & Kenny, J., 2010: “Breaking down national barriers: ARENA – a portal to European heritage information”, in Niccolucci, Franco & Sorin, Hermon (edd.), Beyond the artefact. Digital interpretation of the past. Proceedings of CAA 2004 (Budapest) 94–98. doi: 10.15496/publikation-2793. Dannell, Geoffrey & Mees, Allard, 2013: “The Mainz Internet Database of Names on Terra Sigillata”, in Fulford, Michael & Durham, Emma (edd.), Seeing Red: New Economic and Social Perspectives of Terra Sigillata (London) 28–35. Demand, Nancy H., 2011: The Mediterranean Context of Early Greek History (Malden, MA). Desrosières, Alain, 1993: La Politique des grands nombres. Une histoire de la raison statistique (Paris). Desrosières, Alain, 2008: Pour une sociologie historique de la quantification (Paris). Desrosières, Alain, 2014: Prouver et gouverner, une analyse politique des statistiques publiques (Paris). Diaz-Bone, Rainer, 2016: “Convention Theory, Classification and Quantification”, Historical Social Research 41.2: 48–71. doi: 10.12759/hsr.41.2016.2.48-71. Diaz-Bone, Rainer & Didier, Emmanuel, 2016: “The Sociology of Quantification – Perspectives on an Emerging Field in the Social Sciences”, Historical Social Research 41.2: 7–26. doi: 10.12759/hsr.41.2016.2.7-26. Dickinson, Oliver, 2006: The Aegean from Bronze Age to Iron Age: Continuity and Change between the Twelfth and Eighth Centuries BC (London). Espeland, Wendy Nelson & Stevens, Mitchell L., 1998: “Commensuration as a Social Process”, Annual Review of Sociology 24.3: 13–43. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.24.1.313. Espeland, Wendy Nelson & Stevens, Mitchell L., 2008: “A sociology of quantification”, European Journal of Sociology 49.3: 401–436. doi: 10.1017/S0003975609000150. Fanelli, Daniele, 2009: “How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Results? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data”, PLOS ONE 4.5: e5738. doi: 10.1371/journal .pone.0005738. Farinetti, Emeri, 2011: Boeotian Landscapes: A GIS-based study of the reconstruction and interpretation of the archaeological datasets of ancient Boeotia (Oxford). Feuer, Bryan, 1983: The northern Mycenaean border in Thessaly (Oxford).

76 Fletcher, R.N., 2007: Patterns of Imports in Iron Age Italy (Oxford). Fowles, Severin, 2017: “Absorption, Theatricality, and the Image in Deep Time”, CAJ 27.4: 679–689. doi: 10.1017/ S0959774317000701. Fulford, Michael & Holbrook, Neil, 2011: “Assessing the Contribution of Commercial Archaeology to the Study of the Roman Period in England, 1990–2004”, The Antiquaries Journal 91: 323–345. doi: 10.1017/S0003581511000138. Giannopoulos, Theodoros, 2008: Die letzte Elite der mykenischen Welt: Achaia in mykenischer Zeit und das Phänomen der Kriegerbestattungen im 12.–11. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Bonn). Hall, Jonathan M., 2014: A History of the Archaic Greek World, Ca. 1200–479 BCE. 2nd Edition (Chichester). Hallager, B.P., 2007: “Problems with LM/LHIIIB/C Synchronisms”, in Deger-Jalkotzy, Sigrid & Zavadil, Michaela (edd.), LH III C chronology and synchronisms II, LH III C Middle. Proceedings of the international workshop held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences at Vienna, October 29th and 30th, 2004 (Vienna) 189–202. Haselgrove, Colin & Moore, Tom (edd.), 2007: The Later Iron Age in Britain and Beyond (Oxford). Hodder, Ian, 1986: Reading the past: current approaches to interpretation in archaeology (Cambridge). Hope-Simpson, R. & Dickinson, O.T.P.K., 1979: A Gazetteer of Aegean Civilization in the Bronze Age (Göteborg). Huggett, Jeremy, 2020: “Is Big Digital Data Different? Towards a New Archaeological Paradigm”, in VanValkenburgh & Dufton (edd.), 2020b: S8–S17. doi: 10.1080/00934690.2020.1713281. James, Peter, 1991: Centuries of Darkness: a challenge to the conventional chronology (London). Jongman, Willem M., 2007: “Gibbon was right: the decline and fall of the Roman economy”, in Hekster, Olivier, Kleijn, Gerda & Slootjes, Daniëlle (edd.), Crises and the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Leiden) 183–200. Kintigh, Keith, 2006: “The Promise and Challenge of Archaeological Data Integration”, AmerAnt 71.3: 567–578. doi: 10.1017/ S0002731600039810. Knapp, A. Bernard & Manning, Sturt W., 2016: “Crisis in Context: The End of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean”, AJA 120.1: 99–149. doi: 10.3764/aja.120.1.0099. Knodell, Alex R., 2013: Small-World Networks and Mediterranean Dynamics in the Euboean Gulf: An Archaeology of Complexity in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece (diss., Brown University). Kotsonas, Antonis, 2016: “Politics of Periodisation and the Archaeology of Early Greece”, AJA 120.2: 239–270. doi: 10.3764/aja.120.2.0239. Kramer-Hajos, Margaretha, 2008: Beyond the Palace: Mycenaean East Lokris (Oxford).

Murray Kramer-Hajos, Margaretha, 2016: Mycenaean Greece and the Aegean World (Cambridge). Ksifaras, Napoleon, 2004: Οικιστική της Πρωτογεωμετρικής και Γεωμετρικής Κρήτης. Η μετάβαση από τη μινωική στην ελληνική κοινωνία (Athens). Kuhn, Thomas S., 1962: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago). Lemos, Irene S., 2002: The Protogeometric Aegean: the archaeology of the late eleventh and tenth centuries BC (Cambridge). Lemos, Irene S. & Mitchell, David, 2011: “Elite Burials in Early Iron Age Aegean. Some Preliminary Observations Considering the Spatial Organization of the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi”, in Mazarakis Ainian, Alexander (ed.), The “Dark Ages” Revisited: Acts of an International Symposium in Memory of William D.E. Coulson, University of Thessaly, Volos, 1–17 June 2007 (Volos) 635–644. Lucas, Gavin, 2012: Understanding the Archaeological Record (Cambridge). Lucas, Gavin, 2016: “The paradigm concept in archaeology”, JFA 49.2: 260–270. doi: 10.1080/00438243.2016.1252688. Martin, Thomas R., 2013: Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (New Haven). McCoy, M., 2017: “Geospatial Big Data and archaeology: Prospects and problems too great to ignore”, JAS 84: 74–94. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2017.06.003. Mee, Christopher, 2011: Greek Archaeology: A Thematic Approach (Chichester). Morgan, Catherine, 1996: “From Palace to Polis? Religious Developments on the Greek Mainland during the Bronze Age/Iron Age Transition”, in Hellström, Pontus & Alroth, Brita (edd.), Religion and Power in the Ancient Greek World: Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium 1993 (Uppsala) 41–58. Morgan, Catherine, 2003: Early Greek States beyond the Polis (London). Morris, Ian, 2000: Archaeology as Cultural History: Words and Things in Iron Age Greece (Malden, MA). Morris, Ian, 2007: “Early Iron Age Greece”, in Saller, Richard P., Scheidel, Walter & Morris, Ian (edd.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge) 211–241. Morris, Sarah P., 1992: Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art (Princeton). Mountjoy, P.A., 1999: Regional Mycenaean Decorated Pottery (Radhen). Muhly, James, 2011: “Archaic and Classical Greece Would Not Have Been the Same without the Dark Ages,” in Mazarakis Ainian, Alexander (ed.), The “Dark Ages” Revisited. Acts of an International Symposium in Memory of William D.E. Coulson, University of Thessaly, Volos, 1–17 June 2007 (Volos) 45–53. Murray, Sarah C., 2015: “Quantitative Data, Hypothesis Testing, and the Construction of Archaeological Narratives: Was

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chapter 3

Biography of the Bull-Leaper: A ‘Minoan’ Ivory Figurine and Collecting Antiquity C.L. Cooper (Kate Cooper) Abstract Tracing the manufacture and use of artefacts illuminates aspects of the society by which, and for which, they are made. The account of the different stages of this process, and the identities which the objects assume, has sometimes been called the ‘object biography’. This type of narrative has been used to consider antiquities and what they can reveal about the ancient world, but it often stops short of exploring how antiquities are understood in the modern world. This chapter explores the collection history and life while in the museum of a chryselephantine figurine, bought as a genuine Minoan antiquity by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, in 1931. The authenticity of the artefact has since been questioned, because of its unique appearance and lack of recorded excavation context, leading to the figurine being regarded by many as a fake manufactured in the early 20th century. However, the unresolved status of the artefact makes it ideal for exploring issues such as the practice of collecting and authenticating antiquities, and the creation of a demand for fake Minoan objects as a result of the excavations conducted by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos at the beginning of the 20th century.

Keywords chryselephantine figurine – Minoan Bronze Age – Our Lady of Sports – Sir Arthur Evans – Royal Ontario Museum – fake antiquities – object biography – looting antiquities – reception of Antiquity

figurine was moved from the public galleries to the museum storerooms. For many people the figurine had lost its value since it was no longer considered to be ancient, but it was far from worthless. Using an object biography methodology, I will argue that the afterlife of the figurine – its collection history since it came to light in 1930 – is more interesting than the information which this particular artefact could have yielded when considered simply as a Minoan antiquity.1 2

Object Biography: Anthropology, Archaeology, and Museums

In recent decades there has been a shift in the way that material culture is envisaged and discussed. The idea that objects are passive, functional possessions has been replaced by an understanding that they are part of a complex relationship with people which renders them active indicators, and even enablers, of social transformation. This impetus has been embraced in various social sciences from critical theory, to art history, to archaeology (e.g., Gell, 1998; Knappett, 2005; Hoskins, 2006; Osborne & Tanner, 2007; Malafouris & Renfrew, 2010; Malafouris, 2013). One aspect of this approach is that of ‘object biography’, which examines how the social meaning and function of an object is transformed by the processes of creation, use, and disposal. It explores the various ways in which artefacts change over time and can shape the society in which they are used, showing them to be dynamic agents rather than purely functional or static items.

1 Introduction This is the story of a chryselephantine female figurine bought in 1931 by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (henceforth, the ROM) as a Minoan artefact which had been authenticated by experts but had no known excavation history (registration number 1931.21.1). For decades the figurine was displayed as the star of the Bronze Age Aigaian collection, but in 2001 growing convictions that it was a fake were made public, and shortly afterwards the

© C.L. COOPER, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_005

1  I would like to thank Paul Denis, Chen Shen, Kay Sunahara, Julia Fenn, Nur Bahal, Heidi Sobol, Laura Lipscei, Mark Engstrom, and Nicola Woods of the Royal Ontario Museum for their help in working with the artefact and for permission to publish. Thanks to Kenneth Lapatin for his generosity in sharing information and ideas, and for many fruitful discussions. Thanks also to Sarah Berman of the Seattle Art Museum for her assistance with archival documents. I began this project and wrote the online posts on which it is based, while holding a Rebanks Postdoctoral Fellowship at the ROM, and am extremely grateful to Mrs Rebanks for her generous support.

80 The anthropologist Igor Kopytoff (1986) first used the term ‘object biography’ in an economic context to consider how objects could be transformed from generic ‘commodities’ into ‘singularised objects’ of individual significance and enhanced value. He focussed on the moments of exchange which effected this transformation, particularly when objects did not ‘behave’ as expected. This was illustrated by the example of slaves – people whose sale originally turned them into objectified commodities, but who were then ‘singularised’ with each subsequent transaction as they were assigned specialised roles, from mine-workers to imperial advisers. The importance of Kopytoff’s approach was the recognition that beyond their simple economic exchange value, objects (or objectified slaves in his example) also acquired value through cultural and cognitive processes which were socially constructed. Objects were transformed through social interaction (moments of exchange) and could themselves construct social identity. He termed these various processes as the ‘object biography’, using the analogy of the human life-story to explain how social interaction shaped the meaning of objects: how they changed over time, and in different cultural and spatial contexts. This influential approach moved discussion of the functional ‘use-life’ or ‘life-stages’ of objects, which had been part of the anthropological and archaeological ‘processualist’ vocabulary of the 1960s and 1970s, into a postprocessualist phase. Artefacts were understood as being socially encoded: both shaped by their physical and cultural context, and also part of the process of constructing identity and defining the societies in which they existed. This point was reiterated in another influential anthropological study by Janet Hoskins (1998), who showed that the stories people told about artefacts demonstrated how the biography of prestigious objects physically reflected the actions and aspirations of their owners. The ‘object biography’ metaphor was quickly adopted by archaeologists in discussing the social aspect of material culture more broadly. In a seminal article Gosden and Marshall (1999) used the term while assessing a range of ways in which archaeological objects changed their meaning and accumulated value – real or symbolic – at different stages of their ‘lives’. The authors examined the cultural importance of several artefacts – particularly as revealed by their physical appearance – to explore how they were shaped by, and revealed the construction of identities within, the cultures in which they were used. One example was that of a Fijian necklace made of sawn sperm-whale teeth. This prestige item, darkened by constant handling, was made using a non-traditional technique as a gift to a European missionary, whose descendants donated it (now

Cooper

a family heirloom) to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. The appearance of the necklace and its ownership history revealed the different symbolic values which it embodied before becoming an ethnographic curiosity in a museum collection, where it continued to be re-imagined by modern museum visitors. Throughout their article Gosden and Marshall highlighted the multiple stages in the lives of objects, from their initial production to their final place in an anthropological collection or museum. Gosden and Marshall’s archaeological approach extracted information from the appearance of the object, but their studies still dealt with observable and recorded social interactions in the relatively recent and well-documented past. Just as with the purely anthropological studies discussed above, they were attempting to reach an essentially emic understanding of an object, as recalled by the people who used the object itself. In Antiquity, however, we only have access to this kind of emic understanding through ancient texts which are literary constructs, often fictionalised. Prime examples are Homeric descriptions of significant artefacts, such as the Shield of Akhilleus (Ilias 18). Here it is the personal and social reasons behind the commissioning, making, and gifting of the shield that imbue it with much of its importance (Langdon, 2008: 12–14). However, when applying the same approach to older archaeological material, without the benefit of a literary setting, the evidence is limited and the social context is a matter of deduction rather than of memory or documented record. This is a more etic investigation (Hoskins, 2006: 78–81, considers this a distinction between anthropologists and archaeologists), and the focus of the ‘biography’ is different. Interactions, and particularly their motivations, can only be guessed at, and instead the object itself must provide the evidence of processes of manufacture and use, while the reasons for its deposition may be deduced from the archaeological findspot. Such was the case with Jody Joy’s work in which he carefully disentangled the multiple stages in the life of a British Iron Age mirror from Portisham, Dorset (2009). His focus was on the many moments of human interaction, particularly in the manufacture and ceremonial use of the object, but with less emphasis on discernible intentions. He called this a ‘relational biography’, which focussed on the social relationships of the object, as shown through the processes of formation and use. It emphasised the complexity of the multiple stages involved in a life-cycle, a far more fine-grained study than those of the previous works discussed. By charting all traceable human interaction with the object, Joy implicitly illustrated the anthropocentricity embedded in the object biography approach,

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which is less concerned with the agency of objects per se, than with the agency of objects as they relate to humans in a social context. Humans and objects were both part of this story; in fact the object was only transformed through its interactions with humans. Joy’s discussion of the ‘Portisham mirror’ highlighted two aspects of the ‘object biography’ approach which have recently been criticised. Firstly, this method has been considered overly anthropocentric, concentrating on social interactions, and treating objects as significant and mutable only because of human action (Joyce & Gillespie, 2013; Joy, 2015: 130–131; Joyce, 2015). This emphasis is seen as inadequate at a time when material culture studies are attempting to move away from the human focus, instead prioritising the artefact by exploring the various manifestations of object agency. While Joy’s 2009 article highlighted this human interaction, he later formulated a more neutral application of his relational biography in his 2015 study of the uses of Iron Age storage pits which charted all discernible processes, both human and also natural. Such a balanced approach acknowledges a more nuanced and complex ‘entanglement’ (as expressed by Hodder, 2011 and 2012) of humans and things, emphasising objects, their properties, and the multiple processes of which they are a part (see e.g., Appadurai, 1986; Gell, 1998; Ingold, 2007; Knappett & Malafouris, 2008; Olsen, 2010; Knappett, 2012; Joyce & Gillespie, 2015: 5–9). However, as Kopytoff’s initial coining of the term showed, many of the most prominent and interesting interactions which shape the ‘biographies’ of objects are caused by their relationships with humans. In seeking to diminish the human element of the interaction we risk discarding an important aspect of the metaphor. It is a valuable framework for considering how objects work in human societies precisely because the human aspect makes the artefacts relatable and comprehensible. The second, related, criticism of ‘object biography’ is more specifically structural. Since the biography of an object was constructed by analogy with human lives, the term has become understood as a progression from the creation of an object – its birth – to its metaphorical death when it was put out of use through burial or destruction. Such a linear progression fails to take account of the multiple concurrent life-stages which may be enjoyed as an object is interpreted by different people in different situations, nicely illustrated by the Roman metal surgical probe (specillum), which could also be used as a stylus for writing on wax tablets (e.g., Milne, 1907: 72–73; Fossey, 2018: 89). Nor, according to the critics, does the biography analogy allow for the durability and re-use inherent in most objects, which results in them ‘coming back to life’ after

‘dying’ in a particular context (Hahn & Weiss, 2013: 2–4, 7; Joyce & Gillespie, 2015: 11). Joy’s relational approach was far from linear, and in his 2015 article he particularly emphasised the cycles of use and dormancy as well as the alternative uses of the Iron Age pits. Nevertheless, in both his studies his artefacts ‘die’ when they are put out of use in the ancient world. Thus, the ‘Portisham mirror’ died when it was placed in an Iron Age burial. Its subsequent re-discovery and current place in the Dorset County Museum is unremarked (Joy, 2009). In fact, this literal and anthropomorphising interpretation of the ‘object biography’ metaphor misconstrues the initial conception and is far more narrowly defined than was originally intended. Kopytoff did describe the approach by analogy with human biography: What has been its career so far …? What are the recognized “ages” or periods in the thing’s “life”, and what are the cultural markers for them? How does the thing’s use change with its age, and what happens to it when it reaches the end of its usefulness? Kopytoff, 1986: 66–67

However, within his article Kopytoff actually used the approach in a very broad sense to encompass the range of possible moments of the object life, and the possibility of multiple sequential and entangled ‘lives’. Kopytoff did not deal with the death of an object, instead questioning this stage of the analogy. Gosden and Marshall (1999) also employed a broad and inclusive approach rather than a strictly literal analogy with a human biography and they too did not see their examples as ‘dying’. The criticisms levelled against ‘object biography’ suggest that much of the unease with this theoretical approach has stemmed from a lack of clear definition of the terminology and a misunderstanding of the limits of the approach. This has been exacerbated by the use of ‘object biography’ as a catch-all for any stories about objects (Fontijn, 2013: 192). Alternative terms have been suggested to counteract these perceived problems, attempting to prioritise the agency of the object itself, rather than the human and show the multiple, sometimes simultaneous, ‘lives’. ‘Object itinerary’ has been suggested as a means of interrogating the entanglement of objects and society while reversing the perspective to reveal the object as the dynamic character through examining its ‘travels’ – both the physical and metaphorical journeys by which the object is actually or conceptually transformed – as well as including the implication that the process is not complete but continuing (Hahn & Weiss, 2013; Joy, 2015; Joyce, 2015; Joyce & Gillespie, 2015; Bauer, 2019). ‘Life paths’ of an

82 object is another alternative, designed to encapsulate the concept of travel, but also incorporating the idea of moments of non-movement. It adds a dimension, notable in Kopytoff’s work, of divergence from the ideal or intended ‘path’ (Fontijn, 2013). Despite these alternative suggestions it is striking that ‘object biography’ continues to be a fundamental frame of reference in this sort of investigation. Even those who criticise the deficiencies of the term nevertheless often revert to the language of object biography in their own case-studies (e.g., Joyce, 2012: 58; Fontijn, 2013: 191–2), and I believe that it continues to be the most suitable terminology when correctly and broadly defined. One area which rarely appears in discussions of this theoretical framework is the world of museum collections and displays. It is in museums that the use of the object biography approach, broadly defined, takes on its most practical manifestation, although it is rarely framed in those terms or formally identified as such (Harris & Cipolla, 2017: 71–85 is an exception). Museums are concerned with telling stories and constructing understanding using the objects in their collections, but there are challenges in relating the decontextualised artefacts on display back to the societies in which they were created and used (Chan, 2011). Object biography strategies help connect visitors to the artefacts, using the physical appearance of the objects themselves to illuminate aspects of the cultures and societies which valued them, and, when well executed, moving beyond the merely descriptive to the analytical. These strategies also engage the visitor through highlighting the human interaction with the artefact, thus making it more comprehensible (Alberti, 2005). Some museums also employ this strategy beyond the gallery displays, for instance the Pitt Rivers Museum website and the ambitious History of the World in 100 Objects launched on the radio and online by the British Museum.2 Of particular relevance in a museum setting is a consideration of the ‘afterlife’ of an object, moving beyond the object’s use-life to its collection story and thus bringing the biography up to date. It is striking that Joy, himself a museum curator, chose to end his biography when the mirror was deposited in an Iron Age burial, rather than considering any afterlife (Joy, 2009: 551). The re-use of antiquities has become increasingly studied – for instance Eckardt and Williams (2003) and Swift (2012) both examined the initial stage of the ‘afterlife’ of antiquities with discussions of Roman material recycled and reinterpreted in the Middle Ages. Kristensen and Stirling (2016), Kousser (2017), and Ng 2  See: http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/rpr/index.php/objectbiographies/ index.html (accessed 26/08/2020) and https://www.bbc.co.uk/pro grammes/b00nrtf5 (accessed 26/08/2020).

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and Swetnam-Burland (2018) did the same for a range of Greek and Roman sculpture re-used in the Roman and Late Antique period. But going further and examining the postantique context of the object biography adds yet another important dimension to the story. Gosden and Marshall’s analysis of the Fijian necklace considered the afterlife as part of Pitt River Museum’s collection to be an important part of the biography (1999: 172). Hamilakis (1999) used the language of object biography to highlight how the ‘modern’ collection history and political manoeuvring attached to the ‘Elgin’ Marbles is as important to their modern identity as their ancient biography on the Parthenon in the 5th century BCE. The present-day place of an object as part of a collection and contemporary museum display is also part of the object’s biography, and the choices made in collecting the material, or arranging the museum displays itself transforms the object, adding another stage to its life-story. Within museum displays, the curatorial decisions behind the selection and arrangement of antiquities are only occasionally published (e.g., Cooper, 2013), but as Osborne (2015) has shown in his discussion of the Cast Gallery in Cambridge, this modern context and the modern juxtapositions in the display allow for a new perspective on the object. Museum displays which explain the processes by which an artefact ended up in the museum help to interest the visitor and give them a connection to the material (Chan, 2011). Furthermore, the interpretations and connections made by each visitor encountering the museum display again re-define the object, creating new meanings and relevance and thus adding to its biography (Alberti, 2005; Knell, 2012). Outside the museum and away from the realms of Antiquity, the evocative power of objects and the tales and relationships built up around them, as well as the personal creation of new meanings, has also been eloquently demonstrated by recent literary memoirs (e.g., de Waal, 2010; Raffel, 2012). In the following case study, which examines an ivoryand-gold (chryselephantine) figurine commonly identified as a Minoan Bull-Leaper in the Greek and Roman collection of the ROM, it is the biography of the postantique afterlife of the object that gives it meaning. Using unpublished archival material, I trace the story of the acquisition of the ROM figurine, and attitudes within the museum towards the object, while also considering published work. The complex biographical afterlife these sources reveal shows how the figurine has been repeatedly reinterpreted by scholars to suit their own agendas – its meaning changing although its physical form remained the same. Each interpretation of the figurine has, in turn, shaped popular understanding of, and engagement with, Antiquity. The entanglement of human and object creates

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these transformations. While the object has remained in one place, physically practically unchanged, its symbolic identity and influence have been changed through the intellectual and cultural demands made by people. This example moves beyond a mere catalogue of the provenance – the collection record – of the object. It offers a far more nuanced exploration of the way in which modern concerns have shaped the object itself, conceptually if not physically. Through this exploration, I suggest how those museum objects which have no information about their archaeological context and findspot – their provenience (on these definitions see Joyce, 2012) – can still be of value. Such objects are common in most major museum collections outside source countries and were mainly acquired in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but they are increasingly considered to be problematic today. In part this is due to an increasing awareness of the damaging effects of the cultural imperialism practiced by powerful colonising nations, with these museum collections considered embarrassing examples of an overbearing and aggressively acquisitive policy by such nations (see the Introduction to this volume: 18). A second important reason, which particularly applies to antiquities, is that much historical collecting was little more than treasurehunting that ignored and damaged the archaeological context, a practice that also continues today (see the Introduction to this volume, especially: 4–5 and 13). As a result, antiquities historically bought on the art market or from undocumented excavations, which lack provenience information but were collected legally, are now treated as outcasts (see e.g., Marlowe, 2016a and response by Lyons, 2016; on the legal issues of historic and modern collecting by museum see e.g., Barkan, 2002; Gerstenblith, 2019). Robin Osborne (2015) has highlighted this attitude, which sidelines many antiquities in museums today, and argues for a re-valuation of such objects by considering their contexts in a modern museum displays (c.f. Haggis, 2018 for an archaeologist’s response). In this case study I pursue a different avenue in using the post-antique collection history to evaluate and revive an artefact which has no certain information about its original use. This very uncertainty allows a consideration of the several possible, although contradictory, scenarios about the original creation and use-life of the object. In exploring these alternative narratives, I use the possible biographies of the object to explore some of the most problematic topics which beset the collecting of antiquities in the modern world: the loss of archaeological context, the looting, and the faking of antiquities. This examination reveals the ways in which the identity and meaning of an artefact has been changed, and has helped to transform opinions, while also

showing how it has been valued by its various audience – all key issues in the discussion of object biographies. 3 The Afterlife of the ROM Bull-Leaper3 In a letter of November 1930 Charles Seltman, antiquities dealer and Professor of Greek Art at the University of Cambridge, offered the ROM in Toronto something spectacular. I have a Cretan piece, seen so far by Evans and one other, which puts even the Boston snake-goddess in the shade, and which Evans regards as the finest Cretan work-of-art extant. Letter: Seltman to J.H. Illiffe, 16th November 1930, ROM G&R

This was an ivory female figurine with arms raised, wearing a gold diadem and unusual gold costume of a corset which exposed the breasts, a wide belt, and a codpiece (fig. 3.1). The costume was very similar to those worn by bull-leaping acrobats depicted on wall-paintings that had been found in the ruins of the Minoan ‘palace’ at Knossos on Krete only a few decades earlier and were dated to around 1600 BCE. As will be discussed, the style of the figurine, and this costume in particular, was one of the main reasons for identifying the figurine as a Minoan bull-leaper. Seltman was charging the high price of £2,750 (nearly £200,000 today), but the figurine was presented as an ancient artefact which had already been authenticated and admired by the renowned archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, whose excavations at Knossos had ‘rediscovered’ the Minoan civilisation. The ROM had only recently been founded, thanks to the dynamic and ambitious director Charles Trick Currelly (Falconer, 1933: 182; Edgar, 1948: 177–8), and money was scarce – the Great Depression was beginning, and available funds were committed to extending the museum buildings. Nevertheless, the ROM eagerly accepted, agreeing to pay by instalments. How Seltman acquired the Bull-Leaper figurine remains unknown. No archaeological findspot was provided and the whole collection history of the figurine is tantalisingly (perhaps deliberately) vague. In subsequent publications there are scattered allusions to it coming from an old private collection on Krete (Evans, 1931: 150 and 1935: 28); 3  This is based on online articles which appeared as ROM blog posts as part of a research project about the figurine (Cooper, 2013–2014).

The source of unpublished archival material from the Museum will be indicated by the abbreviations: ‘ROM G&R’ for the Greek and Roman department; ‘ROM Reg.’ for the Registration department.

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figure 3.1 The ROM chryselephantine Bull-Leaper (registration number 931.21.1), front and back in 2017 Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM. Photo: Brian Boyle, MPA, FPPO

coming from Knossos (Wason, 1932: 2; Heinrich, 1963: 90; Lapatin, 2002: 110); being smuggled out of Krete and sold in Athens (letter: Currelly to Simpson, 6th November 1935, ROM G&R); and appearing on the Paris art market with dealers Feuerdent Frères (Lapatin, 2002: 110, 141). But no good archival evidence has come to light in support of any one of these claims and some of these stories were probably invented to create a credible archaeological provenience for an important artefact, as happened with other unprovenienced objects at the time (Butcher & Gill, 1993: 390–392; Lapatin, 2002: 21, 107). The earliest attested appearance was with Seltman in late 1930, by which time he had already shown the figurine to Evans, and it had been slightly and skilfully restored from the ‘original’ state in which it had allegedly been found, with a missing right arm and separate right hand, part of the corset detached, and the upper legs a crudely amalgamated mess of fragments (fig. 3.2). Seltman was prone to acquiring dubious Minoan antiquities. He had already supplied the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, with a stone ‘Minoan Snake Goddess’ which is now believed to be fake (Butcher & Gill, 1993; Lapatin,

2002: 106–8). However, he seems to have been genuinely convinced of the ROM figure’s antiquity and to have remained so despite subsequent bad publicity, since it featured more than twenty years later in his publication Women in Antiquity, illustrated as a “Minoan Torera” (Seltman, 1956: 7, pl. 4). For Seltman this figurine represented more than simply a commercial transaction: it was important for his academic reputation as an expert in ancient art. An astute salesman, Seltman knew what would appeal to his intended customers at the ROM. His comparison of the Bull-Leaper figurine to another ‘Minoan’ chryselephantine figurine in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1870, implied that the ROM was an equal to other well-established major museums in North America. The suggestion that the MFA was a peer and rival institution appealed to the ROM, which was a museum located away from the intellectual heart of things in a corner of the British Empire and “a new mushroom institution”, as Currelly wrote to Evans (letter: June 15th 1931, ROM G&R). The acquisition of the figurine would make the ROM one of a handful of museums to own a spectacular piece of

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figure 3.2

Photograph showing the ROM Bull-Leaper before it was restored to be sent to the ROM in 1931. This photograph accompanied the description by Seltman, received Jan 16th 1931 and quoted on pages 85–86. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum, © ROM

a recently rediscovered ancient civilisation. This tactic was successful, helping Currelly and J.H. Illiffe, Keeper of Classical Collection, to establish the ROM’s archaeological credentials. I would like her to be here as I think that her acquisition by Toronto would do as much as anything could to make people realize that Canada was taking a hand in matters archaeological. Letter: Illife to Seltman, January 17th 1931, ROM G&R

Seltman also emphasised the lack of restoration made to the figurine. This would have been particularly important to Currelly, himself an archaeologist who had worked with Flinders Petrie in Egypt and had also participated in excavations in eastern Krete of the Minoan peak sanctuary of Petsophás (Currelly, 1956: 60, 77–78). The sole additions made are the following: (i) a little plaster at the bottom of the thighs to attach the fragments; (ii) a right arm carved in ivory coloured

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wood; this had to be made in order to attach the delicate right hand; (iii) one modern gold nail to hold right corner of diadem to head. Description by Seltman, Jan 16th 1931, ROM Reg.

Most important, however, was the fact that this was a stunning artefact from a recently uncovered Bronze Age civilisation, vouched for and then published by Sir Arthur Evans himself. The international reputation of the ROM Bull-Leaper was first established by its introduction in an article by Evans for the Illustrated London News, and then four years later by its inclusion in his comprehensive publication of Minoan archaeology The Palace of Minos, where it was illustrated as the frontispiece of volume 4 (Evans, 1931 and 1935: 28–40). As far as contemporary archaeologists and scholars were concerned, publication by Evans was the seal of authenticity, and it is clear from correspondence that approval from Evans also carried most weight with the ROM. At this point in its ‘life’ the ROM Bull-Leaper was of significant monetary value, but also held value as a means of enhancing academic standing. For Seltman, this was through his reputation as a dealer and his publications, while for Currelly and his curators the figurine augmented the archaeological reputation of the Museum internationally. The value of the figurine lay in its status as an ancient archaeological object, enhanced by its fragmentary physical state as well as by its rarity. However, for Evans the figurine was more than simply a piece of the Minoan past. It was a vindication of his long-held and carefully developed theories about the Minoans and their religious system. 3.1 The Minoan ‘Goddess of the Bull-Leapers’ Evans’ opinions carried such weight both with the ROM and with the international academic community because of his reputation as the most experienced authority on Bronze Age Krete. Currelly was not exaggerating when he wrote: I suppose over 90 per cent of all objects found in Crete have been in his hands for examination, and the then Director of the National Museum of France said to me two years ago, ‘When Evans says a thing, I accept it without question’.

Letter to Dr L.J. Simpson, Ontario Minister of Education, November 6th 1935, ROM G&R

In 1900 Evans had begun excavation of the huge ‘palace’ complex at Knossos on Krete, inspired in part by the sensational discoveries of Schliemann at Mykenai and Troia

in the 1870s, which had captured the public imagination and created a fascination with prehistoric Greece. Evans was determined to discover his own prehistoric civilisation, and although he was not the first to uncover traces of the Minoans on Krete, it was his work which impressed the world. Evans devoted decades and much of his own wealth to the excavations. His colourful identifications and imposing reconstructions of the ancient remains created the image of the Minoans in the eyes of the public and academics, while his tireless publicising, through lectures and academic and popular publications, ensured the wide reach of the new discoveries (Fitton, 1995:120– 139; Lapatin, 2002: 45–61 and 2017). Before Evans’ excavations began, the ancient civilisation on Krete had been known only through the myths told by Greek and Roman authors, and these inspired Evans to name this Bronze Age culture ‘Minoan’ after the legendary King Minos. The central role played by the Kretan bull in these myths (which carried Europa, enamoured Pasiphae, and fathered the Minotaur, before being captured by Herakles), led Evans to conclude that the bull held an important place in Minoan culture (Fitton, 1995: 131; Lapatin, 2017: 59–3). His theory seemed to be abundantly confirmed by his early archaeological discoveries, many of which involved bulls. In 1901 he excavated the first fragments of many frescoes depicting ‘bull-grappling’ in the east wing of the ‘palace’ (Evans, 1900/1901: 94 and 1930: 209–233). When restored these frescoes showed bullleaping acrobats clothed in loin cloths or codpieces, some white-skinned and others brown (see Shapland, 2013 for a summary of Minoan bull-leaping iconography). The white-skinned figures, though flat-chested, were identified as female, in contrast to the brown-skinned male acrobats, following conventions established in ancient Egyptian art (Evans, 1930: 211–212). But the most interesting feature in this wall painting is the appearance, beside the male performer in this dangerous sport, of female toreadors, distinguished by their white skin, the more varied hues of their costume, the blue and red diadems round their brows, and their somewhat curlier coiffures, but otherwise attired in precisely the same way as the “cow-boys”, with a loin-cloth and very narrow metallic girdle and striped socks and slippers … … the lords of … Knossos glutted their eyes with shows in which maidens as well as youths were trained to grapple with what was then regarded as the king of the animals. Evans, 1900/1901: 94–95

BIOGRAPHY OF THE BULL-LEAPER: A ‘ MINOAN ’ IVORY FIGURINE

Evans was convinced, although the white skin of some figures is now often believed to indicate a difference in status or chronology, rather than in sex (Damiani Indelicato, 1988; Marinatos, 1989: 24, 29–32 and 1993: 219–220). The following year, 1902, several ivory limbs and heads of figurines were excavated at Knossos in the ‘Ivory Deposit’ (Evans, 1901/2: 67–75 and 1930: 401–404; Hemingway, 2000: 117–118 and fig 9.2 a-c; Lapatin, 2001b: cat no. 4, 138–140. Now in Herakleion Archaeological Museum.). The poses and muscular definition of these finely carved ivory limbs suggested they were acrobat figurines, and since they were found together with the head of a faience bull and fragments of a miniature fresco showing ‘bull-grappling’, Evans interpreted the group as a miniature model of a bull-leaping performance (Evans, 1901/1902: 72–74 and 1930: 428–435). It was his belief that this bull-leaping was actually a Minoan religious ritual, an idea which was reinforced by the frequent coupling of bull-leaping imagery with other representations of ritual elements such as pillar shrines or double axes in the archaeological remains. In the light of these archaeological discoveries at Knossos, it is not surprising that Evans immediately identified the ROM figurine with the Minoan bull-leapers. The ‘Libyan sheath’ (codpiece) she wore matched the bullleaping costume found on the frescoes, but her matronly figure encouraged Evans to see her, not as a mere (flatchested) female acrobat, but as the goddess presiding over the bull-leaping ceremonies, and he named her ‘Our Lady of Sports’. This identification fitted perfectly with his concept of the Minoan Great Goddess, published around the time the ROM Bull-Leaper figurine was offered for sale. It is evident that the great Minoan Goddess herself, as the impersonation of the spirit of the race, shared the delight of her worshippers in these sensational Corridas. Evans, 1930: 207

Evans hypothesised that bull-leaping performances in honour of the Minoan Great Goddess in the guise of a bull-leaper, were enacted in the theatral area to the east of the ‘Palace’ at Knossos (Evans, 1930: 203–209, 227, 232; Nilsson, 1971: 374). The existence of a Great Goddess, who had many different manifestations, was fundamental to Evans’ conception of Minoan religion. This theory was based on interpreting the Minoan remains in the light of the ideas of Evans’ contemporaries about the development of ancient societies out of an originally matriarchal hierarchy. This resulting model of Minoan religion continues to exert a lasting influence on the study of ancient

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religion (Nilsson, 1971: 392–412; Baring & Cashford, 1991: 106–144; Marinatos, 1993: 147–166 and 2015: 10–73; Lapatin, 2002: 66–76, 87–90; Morris, 2006; Gere, 2009: 775–91; Eller, 2012). For Evans the ROM Bull-Leaper was also important because it joined a larger group of chryselephantine figurines, two ‘goddesses’ and two ‘boy-gods’, which he believed to be Minoan and from Krete. All four had surfaced on the art market years after the comparable material had been excavated at Knossos, all without any proven excavation provenience. All but one of these figurines had been admired, authenticated, and published by Evans; indeed two were once part of his private collection. The earliest of these was acquired in 1914 by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: a fragmentary female figure wearing the traditional Minoan costume of long flounced skirt with bared breasts and holding gold foil snakes coiled around her outstretched arms (museum number 14.863). She was identified as a snake goddess because of her likeness to the faience ‘Snake Goddess’ and ‘Votary’ figurines which Evans had excavated from the Temple Repositories of the Palace at Knossos in 1903, now in Heraklion Archaeological Museum (Caskey, 1915; Evans, 1930: 438; Hemingway, 2000: 120, pl. L; Lapatin, 2002: 4–29, 194). Although the story of how this figurine travelled from Krete to America has been proved to be false (Lapatin, 2002: 10–29, 140–152), Evans believed in its authenticity and even suggested that it originally came from the ‘Ivory Deposit’ at Knossos where he had excavated the fragments of ivory acrobats in 1902 (Evans, 1930: 438–443). The comparison drawn between this figurine and the ROM Bull-Leaper by Seltman and others encouraged the ROM to make their purchase. In the 1920s two more chryselephantine figurines were sold by the Parisian art dealers Feuardant Frères. First was another fragmentary ‘Snake Goddess’ sold to Henry Walters in Baltimore. On his death in 1931, it was found in his desk as a jumble of ivory fragments wrapped in the gold wire and foil, together with a receipt from the dealer declaring it to have come from Knossos. It became part of the collection of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (museum number 71.1090) (Hemingway, 2000: 120, pl. 31c; Lapatin, 2002: 92–96, 194). Evans did not publish, and does not seem to have known about, this figurine. The second figurine from the Parisian art market was first presented by Evans in a Royal Institution lecture in February 1924, by which time it was probably in his private collection (Hemingway, 2000: 120, pl. 30a; Lapatin, 2002: 96–104, 194 and 2006: 99–100). Although nothing is known about its earlier provenance, Evans mentioned that it “had passed into the hands of a private possessor beyond the

88 Atlantic” (RA-BSA exhibition, 1936: 9). This figurine stands on tiptoe with arms raised, wearing a tall tiara carved in ivory and no other clothing (although Evans later added a gold belt and kilt), and Evans identified it as a ‘Minoan Boy-God’ despite the lack of male genitals. Based on the similarity of the proportions to the Boston Snake Goddess, he surmised that the two figurines were originally a pair, a divine son adoring his mother the Great Goddess (Evans, 1930: 443–458). He also suggested (without evidence) that the two figures may have been found together in the Ivory Deposit, thus connecting both unprovenienced objects with his excavations at Knossos (Evans, 1930: 455). This ‘Boy-God’ was a favourite of Evans and remained with him until his death in 1941. It was bought from the estate of Jacob Hirsch, a Swiss collector, for the Seattle Art Museum in 1957 (museum number 57.56). The final member of this group of unprovenienced chryselephantine figurines was another ‘Boy-God’, also owned by Evans, which was first mentioned in Volume IV.2 of Palace of Minos (Evans, 1935: 466–483; Hemingway, 2000: 120, pl. 30b; Lapatin, 2002: 108–110, 194). He claimed that the figurine originally came from southern Krete and was also previously in a collection across the Atlantic (Evans, 1935: 468; RA-BSA exhibition, 1936: 9). This youth, complete with genitals under a gold loincloth, also stands with arms raised, but his hair is shorter than that of the ‘Boy-God’ now in Seattle. Evans concluded that this was another version of the son of the Kretan Great Goddess, a slightly older boy-god whose youthful locks had been cut off and dedicated as a coming of age ritual. In 1938 Evans donated this ‘Boy-God’ to the Ashmolean Museum (museum number AN 1938.692). To Evans these figurines were all support for his welldeveloped ideas about the Minoan religious system, and proved the existence of both a supreme Mother Goddess and youthful male god, her subordinate son-consort (Nilsson, 1971: 400–408; Marinatos, 2007 and 2015: 64– 66). Evans considered each newly-appearing figurine to strengthen the case for the authenticity of the others, despite their lack of provenience, so that together they formed a significant group of evidence. The similarities between several of the figures convinced him that they were all the product of the same workshop, and could only have been made at the palatial centre of Knossos. Thus, although they had no provenience, he was convinced that they originally came from his excavations. However, the collection of figurines and parallels between them, real or imagined, soon became a damning association rather than an argument for their authenticity. Many people came to believe that the chryselephantine

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figures were indeed a coherent group, but a group of fakes (Hemingway, 2000: 119–121). In 1936, at the age of eighty-five, Evans curated an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts to commemorate the jubilee of the British School at Athens through a display of its archaeological achievements (RA-BSA exhibition, 1936: 8–9, 16–18; Butcher & Gill, 1993: 398–399, fig 10; MacGillivray, 2000: 301–303; Marinatos, 2015: 175). He devoted one room of the exhibition to the art and archaeology of the Minoans more broadly, including artefacts from his own collection and the Ashmolean Museum, as well as replicas and illustrations of material from museums in Krete, Greece, and North America, to introduce British academics and public to antiquities from far-flung and generally inaccessible collections. The ROM Bull-Leaper ‘goddess’ appeared as an illustration in a display about Minoan religion, which also featured replicas of the faience Snake Goddess and Votary excavated at Knossos, a replica of the chryselephantine Snake Goddess from Boston, the stone Fitzwilliam Snake Goddess, and both chryselephantine Boy-Gods then in Evans’ private collection. Figurines of bull-leapers were also included, emphasising the religious nature of the bull-leaping. Once again, Evans presented the ROM figurine as an aspect of the Minoan Great Goddess, publicly affirming its authenticity and importance in supporting his conception of the Minoans. During this period the ROM had been delighted by the Bull-Leaper figurine, putting it on display as soon as it arrived in the museum, and publishing it in the Museum Bulletin in line with Evans’ ideas (Wason, 1932). However, the authenticity of the figurine was soon questioned. David M. Robinson, Professor of Archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, had raised private suspicions while reviewing Wason’s publication, although he had not actually seen the figurine (letter: Currelly to Avinoff, November 13th 1935, ROM G&R). These doubts were publicised when international newspaper reports sensationally claimed that Robinson had condemned the figurine as fake in a public lecture delivered in November 1935. The statement was vigorously refuted by Currelly and the Museum and turned out to have been misreported. Robinson had said that he was convinced that the figurine was in fact genuine, despite his earlier doubts, when it was published by Evans in Palace of Minos (letter: Robinson to Thompson, November 11th 1935, ROM G&R). However, the episode prompted the ROM curators to re-examine the art-historical parallels and to correspond with experts in other museums. Once again they were satisfied about the authenticity of the figurine, which Currelly later described

BIOGRAPHY OF THE BULL-LEAPER: A ‘ MINOAN ’ IVORY FIGURINE

as “our most important Classical acquisition” (1956: 230). The Bull-Leaper remained on display in pride of place as one of the treasures of the collection. Yet behind the scenes in the Museum doubts about the authenticity of the figurine soon re-surfaced. In the 1960s Neda Leipen, then Curator of Antiquities, turned down requests for publication on the grounds that the authenticity of the figurine was being investigated. Since Evans’ work, further fragments of Minoan ivory figurines had been discovered both at Knossos, in Sinclair Hood’s excavations of the Royal Road, and at the Minoan centre at Arkhánes, excavated by Yannis and Efi Sallerakis (Hood, 1957: 22, 1958 and 1961/1962: 25–27; Sakellerakis & Sapouna-Sakelleraki, 1997; Hemingway, 2000: 115–117 fig. 9.3 a–b, 118 fig. 9.2 d–e; Lapatin, 2001b: 140–142 no. 6, 143 no. 14). In the 1970s and 1980s Leipen consulted these excavators, as well as the ROM conservator Julia Fenn, and seemed to have been reassured as to the figurine’s antiquity after a visit to the ROM by Sinclair Hood (letter: Leipen to Sposato, January 7th 1980, ROM G&R). The ROM Bull-Leaper’s identity as a Minoan bull-leaper and goddess had been formed by experts, but this identity was also affecting aspects of contemporary society. Its very existence as an authenticated Minoan artefact was actively shaping scholarship about the Late Bronze Age. In addition to the discussions of Minoan religion and bullleaping which followed the influential opinions of Evans, the figurine itself featured in publications as evidence about Minoan female costume, and the role of women in Minoan society (e.g., Seltman, 1956: 7; Kunzle, 1982: 42–43; Baring & Cashford, 1991: 140–142; Hayden, 1993: 5; Wilde, 1999: 31–32). In the last decades of the 20th century attitudes towards Evans himself and his status as expert in all things Minoan were undergoing revision. Almost one hundred years after Evans started excavations at Knossos, a reaction set in against his previously unquestioned opinions and the model of Minoan society and religious belief that he had been so fundamental in creating. In part this was the result of a wider academic drive to critically assess the historical development of archaeological work throughout the ancient Mediterranean as part of the postprocessual movement (see the Introduction to this volume; Trigger, 1989; Stiebing, 1993; Shanks, 1996; Thomas, 2004; Dyson, 2006). Evans made for an excellent case study demonstrating how contemporary political and academic thinking could affect archaeological interpretation, both because he had been so influential in shaping all ideas about the Minoans, and because of his eccentric and well-recorded biography (documented in J. Evans, 1943).

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Evans’ conception of the Minoans, and his search for, and reconstruction of, the palace at Knossos, were shown to have been strongly influenced by his personal background and academic pre-occupations (Fitton, 1995: 115– 139; MacGillivray, 2000; Hamilakis, 2002; Papadopoulos, 2005). Before excavations began Evans already held ideas about the type of matriarchal, peace-loving Bronze Age civilisation he hoped to discover, and these preconceptions can be seen to have shaped his interpretations of the archaeology (Bintliff, 1984: 35–36; Lapatin, 2002: 66–76, 87–90; Morris, 2006; Schoep, 2018). Evans’ archaeological practice was good by the standards of his time (Osborne, 2001); nevertheless the thorough publication of his version of Minoan society, and his ‘reconstitution’ in concrete of the ruins of Knossos, created a personal vision of the Minoans that was impossible to ignore (Hitchcock & Koudounaris, 2002; Papadopoulos, 2005: 87–94, 110–122; Gere, 2009: 106–111; Marinatos, 2015:112–126). His preconceptions also made him particularly prone to authenticating artefacts which confirmed his beliefs, and several of these may have been fakes manufactured to accord with his well-publicised ideas. The gold ‘Ring of Nestor’ and ‘Ring of Minos’, which both surfaced in the 1920s, are famous examples, generally believed to be fake (Marinatos, 2015: 74–106, but see below on a recent re-evaluation). The chryselephantine figurines already discussed, which appeared on the European art market in the 1910s to 1930s, also fell into this category. 3.2 “Snake Goddesses, Fake Goddesses” 4 At the very end of the 20th century the authenticity of the ROM Bull-Leaper was finally publicly questioned. Kenneth Lapatin, whose work on chryselephantine statuary of the ancient world had led to an exposé of the industry in Minoan fakes which had resulted from Evans’ discoveries at Knossos, published his opinions about the unprovenienced figurines first in Archaeology magazine (2001a), and then in more detail as a book (2002: especially 110–118, 194 on the ROM figurine). Lapatin’s study concentrated on the ‘Snake Goddess’ in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the first chryselephantine figurine to appear on the art market. His investigation uncovered conflicting accounts, each full of circumstantial detail, about how that figurine travelled from Krete to Boston, which suggested that these tales were fabricated to provide a believable collection history (2002: 429, 140–152). Studying the figurine itself, Lapatin noted that the face was suspiciously well-preserved; it presented 4  Title of Lapatin, 2001a.

90 complete and symmetrical facial features, despite damage to the left side of the face. The carved features were centred on the surviving ivory, not the original dimensions of the ivory, indicating that they had been carved after the ivory was damaged and not before (2002: 179–180). Finally, radiocarbon dating suggested that the ivory was around 500 years old, although admittedly it was ivory fragments associated with the figurine that were tested, rather than the figurine itself (2002: 185, 196–204). By investigating the collection history, and using art-historical and scientific methods, Lapatin had demonstrated that the Boston Snake Goddess was unlikely to be the Minoan figurine it was claimed to be. Lapatin also suggested that the Kretan forgers who produced the figurine may have been the very men working on Evans’ excavations and restoring his finds. Allusions by contemporary archaeologists implied that the authorities in Krete knew of the existence and identity of the forgers (Butcher & Gill, 1993: 393, 400–401; MacGillivray, 2000: 282–284; Lapatin, 2001a; 2002: 168–172 and 2006: 93, 97, 102; Marinatos, 2015: 77, 90–92). In his biography Leonard Wooley describes visiting a forgery workshop, together with Evans and the police, where the Knossos excavation workmen were making fake ivory and gold figurines that were artificially aged by being dipped in acid (Lapatin, 2002: 168–170 and 2006: 96). It is likely that these workmen were being controlled and directed by none other than the Swiss father and son, Émile and Émile Gilliérons, who were the artists working with Evans at Knossos to restore his discoveries. The Gilliérons also ran a successful business based in Athens creating replicas of Minoan and Mycenaean artefacts, often using ancient techniques (R. Hood, 1998: 22–25; Lapatin, 2002: 120–139; Gere, 2009: 111–112; Hemingway, 2011; Marinatos, 2015: 75, 96). These men were privy to Evans’ interpretations and desires before they were published, and thus had both the knowledge and the skill to produce exactly the faked antiquities that would best coincide with Evans’ own theories (Lapatin, 2006 and 2017: 74–85; Marinatos, 2015: 105–6). Although the Boston Snake Goddess was Lapatin’s primary target, he further asserted that the whole group of chryselephantine figurines discussed above – the Boston Goddess, Baltimore Goddess, ROM Bull-Leaper, Seattle Boy-God, and Ashmolean Boy-God – were fakes. They could all be considered suspicious for the same reasons: they were made of precious materials, with well-preserved facial features that were stylistically similar; and they lacked any archaeological provenience but often had a contradictory collection history. Most damning was the timing of their appearance on the art market, which coincided suspiciously well with the development of Evans’

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ideas about the Minoans (Lapatin, 2002: 153–159, 172–175). Indeed, Lapatin believed that the ROM Bull-Leaper had been created as a second attempt to produce something Evans hoped to see. The first attempt was the Seattle ‘Boy-God’, which the forgers intended to be identified as a flat-chested female bull-leaper, feeding Evans’ current fascination. However, Evans failed to recognise the effort and so the next forgery attempt, Lapatin suggested, was made more obviously female by its large breasts (Lapatin, 2002: 173–174, 2006: 100–101 and 2017: 85; Gere, 2009: 128– 9). In addition to the circumstantial evidence, Lapatin also attempted radiocarbon dating for the Seattle and Ashmolean Boy-Gods. The ivory of the Seattle Boy-God yielded another date of around 500 years old, while the Ashmolean Boy-God was around 250 years old. Both these results were surprising since they suggested modern 20thcentury carving of older ivory, and the figurines may well have been contaminated by later conservation treatments (Lapatin, 2002: 184–5). Having concluded that the whole group of chryselephantine figurines were forgeries of the early decades of the 20th century, Lapatin has focussed on how these forgeries were used to construct ideas about the Minoan past in areas ranging from art-works to detective novels (Lapatin, 2001a, 2002: 82–87, 119, 175, 2006: 97–99 and 2017: 85–87). In part inspired by Lapatin’s work, the influence of Evans’ conception of the Minoans on modern art, literature, and thought more broadly has become increasingly studied (e.g., Hamilakis & Momigliano, 2006; Ziolkowski, 2008; Gere, 2009; Momigliano & Farnoux, 2016). For Lapatin, the ROM Bull-Leaper and the other chryselephantine figurines were forgeries, created by the men working with Evans on his excavations in Krete. The interest of these figurines lay in the evidence they provided about the 20th-century industry in fakes that was prompted by the publicity surrounding Evans’ discoveries and his desire to prove his own preconceived notions about the Minoans. Evans himself was unwittingly furnishing the forgers with their ideas and techniques, and creating a demand for the products through his efforts to attract attention to this Bronze Age civilisation. Lapatin exposed this story to great academic acclaim, and since then the whole group of chryselephantine figurines has generally been accepted as fakes (e.g., Papadopoulos, 2005: 122, 124, 134; Gere, 2009; Fitton, 2013: 80–1; Chi, 2017). At this stage of its ‘life’ the ROM Bull-Leaper was devalued in monetary terms, considered an ivory and gold objet d’art rather than a Minoan artefact, and lost its rarity value as a well-preserved antiquity. Yet its intellectual value had been enhanced as a result of Lapatin’s work. At a time when Evans’ opinions were being criticised and

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his authentications doubted, the ‘Bull-Leaper as Minoan figurine’, without information about its archaeological findspot or Bronze Age function, could only really be admired for its appearance and remarkable preservation. However, Lapatin’s work furnished the Bull-Leaper with another dimension (as well as far-reaching publicity). It was now seen as an example of early 20th-century taste, attractive and intriguing as a fake. Yet again, the ROM Bull-Leaper’s identity had been shaped by scholarly opinion, and again it was instrumental in changing aspects of contemporary scholarship. This time the eye-catching figurine was considered to be so implausible as a genuine antiquity that it was particularly damning to Evans and his judgement. Gere labelled the ROM Bull-Leaper “an outrageous lesbian cabaret goddess” (2009: 106), and it was chosen as the prime example of a forgery authenticated by Evans in a recent exhibition in New York (Restoring the Minoans: Sir Arthur Evans and Elizabeth Price, ISAW, 5th October 2017–7th January 2018; Chi, 2017). Following Lapatin’s publications, the Bull-Leaper remained on display at the ROM. Its label gave a 1600 BCE date, but a supplementary label and a copy of Lapatin’s article (2001a) was also provided to allow museum visitors to read about the controversy for themselves. While the ROM display did acknowledge the debate, it did not take advantage of this perceived change in the status of the Bull-Leaper to engage in detailed discussion about the artefact. In 2005 when the ‘Bronze Age Aegean’ gallery was refurbished, it was decided that there was not enough room to consider the complex issue properly and the figurine was consigned to the museum storerooms. 3.3 Minoan Mystery or Modern Masterpiece?5 However, the story was not over. While Lapatin had convincingly demonstrated that the Boston Snake Goddess was an early 20th-century creation, and the two Boy-Gods were probably also modern, the ROM Bull-Leaper was condemned only by association, and because of its lack of provenience. It had not been intensively studied or scientifically tested, leaving room for further investigation. The latest episode in the ROM Bull-Leaper’s life was my own project, while working at the ROM, to re-examine the figurine in the public eye, presenting the puzzle and revealing the investigation to a general audience through online publications and a temporary museum display (Cooper, 2013–2014). Working together with the ROM

5  Title of the temporary ROM display I created in 2014–2015 – https:// www.rom.on.ca/en/exhibitions-galleries/exhibitions/minoan -mystery-or-modern-masterpiece (accessed 26/08/2020).

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senior conservator in Ethnography, Julia Fenn, who was responsible for care of the figurine for thirty-eight years until her retirement in 2014, I combined art-historical investigation and archival research with conservation and materials analysis to reconsider the ROM figurine. Most appealing from my point of view was the opportunity to revivify a ROM icon – whether fake or not – while allowing the public to glimpse the methods which could be used to study the figurine and resolve the issue of authenticity. By exposing the problems in the evidence and the gaps in ‘expert knowledge’, I aimed to challenge the traditional stereotype of the museum and academic community as a definitive authority about Antiquity, instead encouraging people to judge for themselves while introducing them to the complexities of academic research. The ROM Bull-Leaper had been most often denounced on stylistic grounds, from claims that the facial features were too ‘modern’ or suspiciously similar to those of the ‘Boston Goddess’, to criticisms of the gold costume, which had been fundamental to Evans’ identification of the figurine. Lapatin also condemned the manufacturing technique of the ROM figurine and the other unprovenienced chryselephantine figurines, seeing the jointing of the body and the carving of the hands and arms as too crude (Lapatin, 2002: 154–55, 172–3, 178–182 and 2006: 100–101; Gere, 2009: 106). He particularly emphasised the contrast with the fine detailing and complex assembly of a more recently discovered kouros figurine of hippopotamus ivory, excavated at the Minoan settlement at Palaíkastro in east Krete between 1987 and 1990, now in the Archaeological Museum of Siteia (MacGillivray et al., 2000; Lapatin, 2001b: 142 no. 10). However, when considered in detail the stylistic arguments against the ROM Bull-Leaper are not conclusive. Although there are few certainly genuine Minoan artefacts to provide comparison, the characteristics of the ROM figurine can all be paralleled in examples of Minoan antiquities with secure excavation spots (as noted by Evely, 1993: 227–228). Many of these were excavated after 1930, and so could not have been used as models for forgers to imitate. The stern facial features appear on terracotta figures from the Late Bronze Age open-air sanctuary at Pisokèphalo near Siteía, and on bone figurines excavated at the Minoan centre at Arkhánes in the 1970s and 1980s, all now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum (Sakellarakis & Sapouna-Sakellaraki, 1997: 707–710; Lapatin, 2001b: 142 no. 14.2; Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki, 2005: 98–99, 337). The rather crude carving of the hands also appears on bone figurines from Arkhánes (Lapatin, 2001b: 143 nos. 14.3 & 14.4), suggesting that the quality of carving may have varied between Minoan centres. Even the detachable arms attached to a single-piece body, a

92 technique common to all the suspect chryselephantine figurines and criticised for its simplicity, are paralleled in a figurine excavated at Palaíkastro by Evans in 1904 (Evans, 1930: 446, fig. 310b, plate XXXVIIb; Hemingway, 2000: 119, fig. 9.3e). Only the style of hair, carved onto wavy strands flowing over the shoulders, has not been found on provenienced Minoan artefacts. However, the range of different methods for representing Minoan hairstyles, whether the stippled bone on an Arkhánes figurine (Lapatin, 2001b: 143 no. 14.2), the added metal locks on ivory acrobats from Knossos (Lapatin, 2001b: 139 no. 4.3), or the moulded flowing locks on clay, bronze, and faience figurines (Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki, 2005: 99, 106–110), shows that this is not a definitive argument against the authenticity of the figure. Based on art-historical analysis, the figurine cannot be positively shown to be fake, primarily because of the relative scarcity and varied style of the genuinely Minoan artefacts which have been discovered to date. The new discovery of a single Minoan artefact with a secure provenience would be sufficient to change the current understanding of Minoan art history completely, particularly in relation to artefacts judged to be fake based on iconographic or stylistic grounds. This has been the case with the rings of ‘Nestor’ and ‘Minos’ (Marinatos, 2015: 74–106). The discovery of Ring 2 in the 2015 excavation of the Bronze Age ‘grave of the Griffin Warrior’ at Pylos has shown that the iconographic details and construction of those rings, previously considered suspicious, are present in a genuine Minoan ring (Davis & Stocker, 2016: 637–648, n. 77). The ivory of the ROM Bull-Leaper was intensively studied by Fenn and yielded new information. Prior to its arrival at the ROM in 1931, the figurine had been skilfully restored. Metal tubes to accommodate a mount had been inserted into the thighs, which had been reconstructed with plaster, and the missing right arm had been replaced with a wooden replica. The whole figurine had also been consolidated with gelatin and cracks had been further consolidated with shellac, both standard materials in conserving archaeological finds or museum objects at that time. During the decades when it was on display in the gallery, the figurine had undergone relatively little work except for minor cosmetic repairs and cleaning (Cooper & Fenn, 2014: 8–9). In the most recent examination Fenn determined for the first time that the figurine was made of elephant ivory, proved by the distinctive schreger patterning (see e.g., Craddock, 2009: 422–426; Virág, 2012), and X-raying revealed that the body and head were made from a single piece of ivory from the tip of the tusk, while the arms were originally separately attached into square sockets (fig. 3.3). Close examination also raised discrepancies between the ROM figurine and the other suspect

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chryselephantine figurines. During earlier conservation campaigns to clean the figurine and repair a disfiguring crack across the right eye, Fenn had concluded that the ivory had to have been carved while the ivory was still ‘fresh’ and springy. Therefore, the carving was not carried out on old ivory, as has been suggested to explain the radiocarbon dating for the Boston, Ashmolean, and Seattle figurines. The chalky white to grey colour and general condition of the ivory also suggested that the aging, whether genuine or artificial, was due to exposure to extreme heat, which was not the case with the other figurines. There is no indication of acid-induced aging, the attested method of the Kretan workmen-forgers who worked for Evans, although parts of the figure have suffered erosion (Cooper & Fenn, 2014: 9). The heating seems to have effectively destroyed the protein-content of the ivory, thereby stabilising the figurine against changes in humidity. Unfortunately, this also rules out radiocarbon dating the organic content of the ivory, even if a sample uncontaminated by subsequent conservation processes could be found. Recent advances in the scientific analysis of ivory, particularly in the wake of ivory-trade restrictions to stop illegal elephant poaching, have refined tests to determine the species or habitat of the elephant and the age of ivory (Craddock, 2009: 426–427. See e.g., Collins et al., 2017 on legal regulations; Schmeid et al., 2012 on dating; Ziegler et al., 2016 on source of elephant). However, these tests all rely on comparison with known reference samples, and while data sets for modern ivory are being compiled, there is as yet little useful comparative data for the early 20th century, let alone for Bronze Age material. Although the absolute age of the ivory probably cannot be determined, future research could compare the individual pieces of ivory which make up the figurine – the body, right hand and left arm – to determine whether the whole figurine was originally carved out of ivory from the same source and at the same time. The controversial and stylistically unique gold costume may well be a more modern addition – at least in part. While X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) examination of the gold can determine the elemental composition, there are still no good data collected for the composition of Minoan gold against which to compare the results, and no scientific tests to determine the absolute date of gold (Craddock, 2009: 371–383). However, microscopic examination of some of the tiny nails which secure the costume reveal that they seem to have traces of gelatin at their tips (Fenn pers. com. 2014), suggesting that they were added after the ivory had been stabilised and conserved. Therefore, at least part of the gold costume did not originally belong on the figurine. Future tests could study the elemental analysis of the individual components of the costume to ascertain whether they too were all created together.

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figure 3.3 An X-ray taken in 2013 of the ROM Bull-Leaper Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM. Photo: Heidi Sobol

What the investigation has demonstrated, just as Lapatin concluded (2002:184–187), is that science has not yet been definitively able to resolve the issue of the authenticity of the ROM Bull-Leaper or the other chryselephantine figurines. Indeed, within museum collections the authentication of objects relies on stylistic connoisseurship and archival evidence grounds rather than on empirical scientific tests far more often than is usually acknowledged (Spier, 1990; Hoving, 1996; Craddock, 2009: 2–5; Thompson, 2016: 63–64). The result, at least for the moment, is that

the ROM owns an ivory figurine, of uncertain date, which may not originally have been clothed in its gold costume. The story of the ROM goddess is little further forward than it was decades ago. However, this inconclusive statement masks the true potential of the figurine. The absence of a definitive determination about the age of the ROM Bull-Leaper allows the different possible narratives about the creation-biography of the object to be explored. These alternative suggested biographies of the object’s life each address important issues about the

94 collection of Antiquity. For my purposes the unresolved status of the Bull-Leaper has made it particularly ‘good to think with’ and a valuable means of raising questions for the museum visitor to consider themselves, rather than presenting a single authoritative and misleadingly clearcut narrative. 4 Alternative Life-Biographies In terms of the ROM Bull-Leaper’s creation and use-life (as opposed to its afterlife as an artefact in a museum collection), there are broadly speaking two possible scenarios: 4.1 Scenario 1 This whole figurine is a genuine Bronze Age antiquity probably created by Minoan craftsmen in the Neopalatial period on Krete ca. 1600 BCE, although it may have been restored and enhanced by the addition of an unusual costume in the modern era. Alternatively, only a part of the Bull-Leaper may be genuinely ancient – perhaps the isolated right hand, or burnt left arm and hand, which were apparently, and implausibly, found together with the figurine, despite being detached. However, the rest of the figurine – quite possibly the larger piece of ivory comprising the body and head – would have been created and then artificially aged in the early decades of the 20th century to enhance the ancient fragment, making the figure a pastiche of ancient and modern craftsmanship and materials. The manufacture of such pastiches, as well as the excessive ‘restoration’ of antiquities, has a long history, most famously in ancient Roman sculpture (e.g., Craddock, 2009; Thompson, 2016: 38–62). According to either variant of this scenario, the ancient ivory piece(s) were found by chance or excavated on Krete, perhaps even before Evans began his excavations at Knossos, as is suggested by the story that the figurine came from an ‘old Kretan private collection’. In the early decades of the 20th century it was probably smuggled out of Krete, since there are no details of legal export documents, and Kretan cultural ownership laws were already in place. The relevant law – Law 24, enacted in 1899 soon after Krete had achieved independence from the Ottomans, and repeated in 1901 legislation – originally stated that all antiquities belonged to the Kretan State. In 1904, revisions to this law allowed for the export of items, primarily archaeological finds, which were not of “scientific value or utility to the Cretan museums”, as adjudicated by a government committee (Panagiotaki, 2004: 565, n. 2; Galanakis, 2015: 20). It is unlikely that a finely carved Minoan ivory limb,

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let alone a whole figurine (even if it did at that time lack the unique gold costume), would be judged superfluous and allowed to be exported. Because of these restrictions, smuggling was fairly common. There are even tales of Evans attempting to smuggle antiquities past the authorities (MacGillivray, 2000: 225–6, 239–40; Lapatin, 2002: 19–20), in addition to his legal share of excavated material granted by the Kretan authorities (Panagiotaki, 2004; Galanakis, 2012). Therefore, if any part of the ROM Bull-Leaper is genuinely Minoan then any meaningful information it might provide about the Minoan Bronze Age has also been lost with the loss of its provenience. No clue survives as to where it was found, and how or where the figurine was used, and so its function in Minoan society is uncertain. Since the place of manufacture is also unknown, the figurine cannot add anything to current knowledge of regional Minoan craft production, or access to raw materials through trading relationships. While the figurine remains an intriguing artefact, which has attracted attention and inspired theories about the Minoan religion and the character of a ‘Great Goddess’, or the status of Minoan women, or the performance of Minoan bull-leaping, these are all unprovable suppositions. Indeed, these theories may need revision if the appearance of the figurine has been substantially altered through the addition of a gold costume (it may once have been dressed in a more typical Minoan costume), or indeed with the manufacture of a completely modern body and head. In essence, the ROM Bull-Leaper joins the ranks of antiquities admired for their appearance, without providing any useful information about the ancient world. The amount of information which was irretrievably lost when the details of the excavation context disappeared demonstrates the importance of archaeological provenience in studying antiquities. If it is ancient, this figurine is now an ‘ungrounded object’, to use the terminology developed by Elizabeth Marlowe to describe Roman sculpture – often famous examples – which lack confirmed archaeological contexts (Marlowe, 2013, 2016a, and 2016b). The ROM Bull-Leaper has become the victim of a collector’s enthusiasm, at the expense of its archaeological provenience. This type of collecting was once the foundation of private and museum collections of Mediterranean archaeology throughout the world (Dyson, 2006: 133–171; Lyons, 2016; Introduction to this volume: 2–6). Yet it is this demand from collectors which has always been, and continues to be, one of the greatest causes of the destruction of archaeological sites and loss of archaeological information, whether that demand came from European dignitaries, diplomats, and Grand Tourists of the 18th

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and 19th centuries (see e.g., Rammage, 1992; Dyson, 2006: 5, 8–10; Nørskov, 2009; Bignamini & Hornsby, 2010; Thompson, 2016: 148–156), or the fashion for collecting Bronze Age Cycladic figurines in the early 20th century (Gill & Chippindale, 1993; Chippindale et al., 2001), or indeed the continuing demand for antiquities which results in illegal looting today (Renfrew, 2000; Brodie et al., 2006; Gerstenblith, 2009; Brodie, 2015; Kersel, 2015; Yates, 2016; Mackenzie et al., 2019). As has become clear from the case of the ROM Bull-Leaper, as well as losing important information about the ancient world, lack of provenience also lays genuine antiquities open to accusations of being forgeries (Marlowe, 2013: 100–105). 4.2 Scenario 2 No part of the ROM Bull-Leaper is genuinely ancient, and it was manufactured, probably on Krete, in the early decades of the 20th century, to satisfy a demand for Minoan material fuelled by Evans’ excavations. The date of its manufacture falls within a relatively short time-period, somewhere after the early years of the excavation at Knossos and the discovery of comparable artefacts in 1901 and 1902, but before 1930 when it was offered for sale. This is the most widely held view and, as Lapatin has highlighted, the value of acknowledging such a scenario lies in what it reveals about contemporary attitudes towards Antiquity and the creation of an industry in Minoan fakes. The production of replica antiquities had always been a thriving business. For instance, in the 17th century Louis XIV commissioned marble copies of the ancient sculptures in Italian collections to demonstrate his cultural credentials. Plaster casts of renowned ancient sculptures also began to be produced to be sent around Europe, and by the early 19th century casts and copies of ancient sculpture decorated the homes of noblemen, prestigious academies of art, and museums (Haskell & Penny, 1981: 79–98, 117–124; Dyson, 2006: 168–170; Marvin, 2008: 35–40; Siapkas & Sjögren, 2014: 95–101). In the 19th century smaller-scale replicas of archaeological artefacts also became popular, such as reproductions of the bronze implements from the excavations at Pompeii made by several Neapolitan foundries, which were acquired in sets by many museums (Jones, 1990: 46–47; Mattusch, 2005: 342–351; Craddock, 2009: 9). Such acknowledged replicas were not designed to deceive, but were intended to stand in for antiquities, whether as a statement of taste, or as an educational tool. In the same period forgeries were also being produced and acquired by unsuspecting collectors and museums (Craddock, 2009: 1–10). These ranged from the heavily restored examples or pastiches of Roman sculpture which

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supplied the demand amongst Grand Tourists of the 18th and 19th centuries (Jones, 1990: 132–134; Thompson, 2016: 38–62), to complete fabrications such as the fake Egyptian antiquities, or terracotta ‘Tanagran’ figurines which flooded the art market in the late 19th century (Jones, 1990: 161–172; Hoving, 1996: 68–9, 72–74; Lapatin, 2002: 40–3; Dyson, 2006: 118–9). The demand for these faked antiquities was fuelled by sensational archaeological discoveries, together with increasingly strict export controls from source countries, and the lure of acquiring a seeming bargain (Jones, 1990). Prestigious museums bought high-profile antiquities before realising they were fakes, for instance the Saitaphernes tiara in the Louvre, and the Etruscan Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (von Bothmer & Noble, 1961; Jones, 1990: 33; Hoving, 1996: 88–100, 180–188; Dyson, 2006: 156). However, as Marlowe cautions (2013: 100–5), the problem may be far more widespread than is acknowledged, since most of the canon of Graeco-Roman sculpture is unprovenienced. Specifically Minoan forgeries did not begin to be produced until the early 20th century, as a result of the particular circumstances created by Evans, discussed above. The publicity surrounding the Knossos excavations, generated by Evans himself, stimulated an interest in the Minoans in fashionable and academic circles in Edwardian England and North America. As a result, collecting the Minoan past became a profitable business, and there was demand for genuine antiquities, however obtained, despite legal restrictions imposed by the Kretan government. The antiquities themselves were supplemented by a lively market in high-quality replicas – many produced by the Gilliérons père et fils – which were ordered by international museums and collectors (Hemingway, 2011). Evans himself believed that replicas were important for educational purposes and included them in his exhibitions of Aigaian art (Galanakis, 2015: 20–23). In such a climate it is hardly surprising that fakes passed off as authentic artefacts should appear. Evans’ desire to believe in these forgeries helped legitimise them, and his reputation granted them acceptance. At the same time, the people in authority who knew or suspected that forgeries were being sold, particularly archaeologists in Krete and England, were reluctant to speak out publicly for fear of insulting Evans (Marinatos, 2015: 90–92). 5 Conclusion By examining its alternative possible biographies, both ancient and modern, the ROM Bull-Leaper has become a museum artefact with the potential to illustrate many

96 issues. Although there is practically no information about its origins or archaeological provenience, the collecting and museum context provides it with meaning, allowing it to be revived and animated, and demonstrating the sort of approach advocated by Osborne (2015). The very ambiguity of the status of the artefact now allows it to enact multiple stories, challenging a single, linear, and restricted narrative. Though the physical form of the ROM Bull-Leaper has remained relatively unchanged since 1931, it has nonetheless shifted through many different identities as it has served the social and cultural needs of different people. For Seltman the figurine was primarily an object of commerce, while Currelly and the early ROM curators saw the Bull-Leaper as a symbolic collecting coup which secured the archaeological reputation of a museum that was still becoming established. To Evans, the figurine was a Minoan goddess which helped vindicate the whole of his system of ideas about the Minoans and particularly about their religion. Lapatin identified the ROM figurine as a fake with which to discuss the incestuous industry in forging Minoan artefacts, arising at the beginning of the 20th century and practised by those people who worked closely with Evans. I have treated the Bull-Leaper as an ambiguous figure, precisely in order to exploit the contradictory opinions and unresolved status of the artefact, and to present topics of significance for ancient material culture to a wide audience. Considered as a genuine antiquity, it is a vehicle for exploring issues about ancient material culture, from the practice of authentication, to concerns about the collecting of Antiquity, but considered as a fake it reveals attitudes to Antiquity in the early 20th century. As an active agent, the ROM Bull-Leaper has also changed the way people understand the ancient Minoans. For those who believe in its authenticity, Evans included, it has shaped modern perceptions of the Minoans and their beliefs, society, art, and craft work. Those who consider it to be a flamboyant and unlikely fake, have become convinced of the fallibility of the expert judgement of Sir Arthur Evans. This has led to more rigorous questioning of our understanding of the Bronze Age Minoan culture, as constructed by Evans, and his overly-imaginative interpretation and restoration practices at Knossos. In addition to discussion by academics, this re-assessment has recently been brought before the public gaze with museum exhibitions focussing on an artistic evaluation by Elizabeth Price (A Restoration, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 18th March–15th May 2016; Restoring the Minoans: Sir Arthur Evans and Elizabeth Price, ISAW, New York 5th October 2017–7th January 2018).

Cooper

Whether a fake or a genuine antiquity, the ROM BullLeaper has fascinated visitors to the Museum, as well as those who discover her illustration in the Palace of Minos or Mysteries of the Snake Goddess, and her story continues to be re-created, re-imagined, and re-written. The biography of her life is yet to be resolved and her afterlife is far from over. By using an object biography framework in this case study I have elucidated the tale of this contentious object, exploring the various questions surrounding its collection. Such discussion has become seen as a social duty for postmodern museums (Were, 2012), but it also adds to a growing intellectual movement seeking to understand the reception of Classical Antiquity through examining material culture. Bibliography of Modern Sources Alberti, Samuel, J.M.M., 2005: “Objects and the Museum”, Isis (History of Science Society) 96.4: 559–571. doi: 10.1086/498593. Appadurai, Arjun (ed.), 1986: The Social Life of Things: commodities in cultural perspective (Cambridge). Baring, Anne & Cashford, Jules, 1991: The Myth of the Goddess, Evolution of an Image (London). Barkan, Elazar, 2002: “Amending Historical Injustices: The Restitution of Cultural Propert – An Overview”, in Barkan, Elazar & Bush, Ronald (edd.), Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity. Issues & Debates (Los Angeles) 16–46. Bauer, Alexander A., 2019: “Itinerant Objects”, Annual Review of Anthropology 48: 335–352. doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro -102218-011111. Bignamini, Ilaria & Hornsby, Clare, 2010: Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-century Rome. 2 volumes (New Haven & London). Bintliff, John L., 1984: “Structuralism and myth in Minoan studies”, Antiquity 58: 33–38. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00055952. von Bothmer, Dietrich & Noble, Joseph V., 1961: An Inquiry into the Forgery of the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors. Metropolitan Museum of Art Papers 11. Brodie, Neil, 2015: “The Internet Market in Antiquities”, in Desmarais, France (ed.), Countering Illicit Traffic in Cultural Goods: The Global Challenge of Protecting the World’s Heritage (Paris) 11–20. Brodie, Neil, Kersel, Morag M., Luke, Christina & Tubb, Kathryn Walker (edd.), 2006: Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and the Antiquities Trade (Gainesville, FLA.). Butcher, Kevin & Gill, David W.J., 1993: “The Director, The Dealer, the Goddess and Her Champions: The Acquisition of the Fitzwilliam Goddess”, AJA 97.3: 383–401. doi: 10.2307/506362. Caskey, L.D., 1915: “A Chryselephantine Statuette of the Cretan Snake Goddess”, AJA 19.3: 237–249. doi: 10.2307/497384.

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part 2 Material Approaches

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chapter 4

Labour Organisation and Energetics of Early Archaic Architecture in Korinthos Philip Sapirstein Abstract In this chapter, I examine the organisation of ancient labour and the energetics represented by architectural projects. The first section articulates a tripartite approach to restoring lost ancient manufacturing techniques. First, a close analysis of the ancient specimens is aimed at ‘reverse engineering’ the original production sequence. Second, a search for analogues in the ethnographic record provides a more complete sense of potential techniques and the structure of the workshop. Third, properly designed archaeological experiments not only clarify many uncertainties, but also raise new questions not previously considered by the researcher. Each approach provides complementary insights into the ancient chaîne opératoire and labour organisation. The second section applies these methods to the terracotta Protokorinthian roof of an early Archaic temple from Korinthos. A general model for ancient tile and brick production drawn from ethnographic sources is enhanced by experimental replications of the tiles. After considering the acquisition of raw materials and the timing of production, I estimate the labour and crew responsible for the roof and consider the full ‘cost’ for the rest of the building. Although an important early foray into monumental architecture, the temple might have been completed in as little as a year and, in the end, represents a relatively modest investment.

Keywords Architectural energetics – chaîne opératoire – craft production – ethnographic analogy – experimental archaeology – Old Temple – Korinthos – Protokorinthian roofing system

1 Introduction1 How much effort went into the construction of ancient monuments? The scholarship concerning Classical 1  In this article I describe results from replication experiments conducted at Korinthos in the summers of 2004, 2006, and 2007. For a

© Philip Sapirstein, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_006

Antiquity has yet to develop a definitive framework for approaching the problem. An important beginning was made by Alison Burford (1965, 1969, and 1972), who compiled the ancient literary and epigraphic evidence for building contracts and the social status of craftspeople. Since then scholars of the Classical world examining ancient labour and economics have attempted to fill gaps in the epigraphic record through other methods (Mattingly & Salmon, 2001). A notable example was the quantification by Janet DeLaine (1997: 103–224 and 2001) of the organisation of the large crews who built the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, in part using estimates derived from 19th-century construction manuals. Restoring any ancient craft system is no simple task. The picture painted by the surviving ancient literary sources, most of which were written by, or for, the elite, is that any person who made a living by building, manufacturing, or sales was somehow debased (Aristoteles, Politika: 1337b; Cicero, de Officiis: 150–151; Platon, Politeia: 6.495d–e; Ploutarkhos, Perikles: 1.4–2.2). This might be attributed to a physically harmful occupation, such as the fumes inhaled by a metal forger, but more generally labourers were portrayed as mentally and morally inferior due to their slavish dependence on others for a living. While the actual condition and status of workers may not have been as bad as the literary sources imply, the aristocratic bias has meant that very little was written in Antiquity about the daily lives of workers or the methods by which they manufactured goods.

full account of the research and acknowledgments, see Sapirstein (2008: iv–ix). I would like to thank my collaborators in this project, Guy Sanders (former director of the Corinth Excavations of the American School of Classical Studies), John Lambert (formerly a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned an MFA in Ceramics), and Robin Rhodes (University of Notre Dame, and director of the Corinth Architecture Project). I am also grateful to Betsey Robinson, Ruth Siddall, and Allison Trdan for volunteering their time and energy to the replication experiments. Sanders not only made the project possible by providing a workplace, tools, and transportation, but also generously shared his time and immense knowledge of the local geology, clay deposits, and techniques for mixing and firing clays.

104 By contrast, epigraphic sources are invaluable. We may extract a good deal of information from contracts at Athenai, Delphoi, Delos, Eleusis, Epidauros, and elsewhere recording the names, wages, and management of builders, especially those active at Greek sanctuaries (Feyel, 2006). Due to the later Hellenistic and Roman practice of stamping a significant percentage of products with individualized makers’ marks, we can also extrapolate some aspects of the organisation of large collective industries, such as those producing bricks and sigillata (Wilson, 1979; Füller, 1997; Oxé & Comfort, 2000; Bardill, 2004). We may similarly reconstruct a good deal about the lives of potters and vase-painters in Archaic and early Classical Athenai (Stissi, 2002; Sapirstein, 2013; Williams, 2016). However, the great majority of ancient production systems left behind little written or epigraphic evidence. A variety of methods are suited to studying ancient Greek or Roman craftspeople in less well-documented contexts. In this paper, I focus on architectural material that exemplifies several common approaches to ancient labour and manufacturing. Architecture is an excellent vehicle for approaching these questions, since the relatively high skill of builders and the substantial amount of time needed to erect a whole structure makes architecture collaborative by its nature. Any large public building project is likely to involve architects and other managers overseeing highly skilled craftspeople and unskilled support crews. Buildings are also multimedia creations, the sum of contributions by many different ancient craft pro­ducers. I concentrate on one component of buildings which considerably overlaps both pottery and brick production: terracotta tiles. Roof tiles are exceptionally well represented in the archaeological record, yet they have received comparatively little attention within the scholarship on architecture or pottery. Like bricks, tiles with figural and textual stamps shed valuable light on workshop systems (Felsch, 1979 and 1990; De Domenico, 2015), and Archaic Greek decorated tiles have been studied in considerable detail (C. Wikander, 1986; Winter, 1993 and 2009), though we are still lacking definitive reference works for the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The literature has been primarily concerned with cataloguing known examples of roofs rather than with questions of their manufacture, although there are some notable exceptions (Rook, 1979: 298–301; Rostoker & Gebhard, 1981; Warry, 2006; Sapirstein, 2009: 198 n. 15; Winter, 2009: 505–538; Hemans, 2015). As almost indestructible fired clay objects, tiles preserve surface treatments indicating the processes behind their manufacture, which makes them an important source of evidence to supplement the

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scarce epigraphic and textual attestations of builders and clay-workers. The focus on the manufactured product can uncover new insights into the daily routine, organisation, and motivation of ancient labourers. 2

Experimental Archaeology and Ethnographic Analysis

The investigation of ancient tiles as manufactured objects is enriched by three methods that provide complementary information: reconstructing the manufacturing system from an analysis of tooling and other surface markings on ancient objects; inference by ethnographic analogy; and testing the resulting hypotheses through experimental replications. Although the discussion here is aimed at ceramics and building, the approach is wellestablished in processual archaeology (also known as the ‘New Archaeology’), whose general aim is to improve our interpretation of the past through cross-cultural human behavioural models (Yellen, 1977; Gould, 1980 and 1990; Binford, 2001). Processual approaches have been particularly fruitful in the study of ancient technologies, especially those whose production stages, or ‘forming and finishing sequence’, can be distinguished and analysed individually (van der Leeuw, 1976; Rye, 1981: 58–96; Cotterell & Kamminga, 1990; Livingstone Smith, 2001). The fundamental work on technology and its definition by Pierre Lemonnier (1992) stresses not only the importance of determining the chaîne opératoire – the series of operations that brings raw materials into a manufactured state – but also the technological choices of an individual or group to select, arbitrarily, between alternative methods, with the result that actual practices are variable and culturally contingent. These developments in anthropological archaeology have had an impact in Classical archaeology (Snodgrass, 2006: 63–77), reflected for example in the detailed studies of Early Iron Age potters by John Papadopoulos (e.g., 1994, 2003, 2009 and 2014). Ceramics offer specific advantages and challenges to the student of ancient technology and production. On the one hand, fired bricks, pots, or roof tiles are readily classified into discrete standardised types and rely on a set of specialized technologies that promise us the potential to develop relatively precise hypotheses about ancient manufacturing and artisans. On the other hand, pottery and tiles cannot be created by the short, repetitive operations seen in smaller-scale activities like flint-knapping or working bone tools (Coles, 1979: 162–177; David & Kramer, 2001: 151–157), and thus they present an opportunity to engage with many different aspects of ancient production. We

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might begin with ecological questions of where and how potters obtained clay and other materials (Arnold, 1985 and 1993), or technical analysis of the material properties of the clays they exploited (Rice, 2015). Other key issues are the preliminary preparation of the clay, the stages of manufacture and their timing relative to the clay’s drying cycle, and the firing process (Rye, 1981). A careful study of ceramic production will stimulate broader social observations, such as how potters marketed and sold their wares, learned and maintained their skills, and contributed changes to the technological or stylistic system in which they participated as individuals. Reverse Engineering of Ancient Production Techniques A first step in a research agenda focussed on the chaîne opératoire might be characterized as reverse engineering, or an extrapolation of the ancient production sequence through close examination of the surviving material. Before attempting such research, most of the classifying, cataloguing, and other basic quantitative assessment of artefacts and assemblages should have already been completed (Sanders et al., 2017: 99–129). After the corpus has been reasonably well defined, one should return to the material and examine it with the specific purpose of identifying and explaining surface treatments. Ceramics are a particularly fruitful subject for this kind of analysis, since each specimen typically preserves a range of surfaces affected over the course of its full life-cycle, through production, modification, use, discard, and burial (Rye, 1981). For instance, many markings on roof tiles are attributable to specific stages of their manufacturing, installation, weathering on the roof, or burial accretions. The character and location of such marks will suggest a sequence of hypothetical production stages: the forming and finishing sequence. A study involving reverse-engineering is unlikely to succeed without a significant corpus of either many fragments of a type from related contexts, or a well-preserved specimen that has relevant comparanda known from elsewhere. Whenever available, the study should include laboratory work on specimens, especially those analytical methods that might shed light on the manufacturing process. For example, the terracotta tiles whose reverse engineering is discussed in the case study below were examined using thin-section and compositional analysis, which helped identify the sources of raw materials. However, materials analyses conducted in the laboratory will provide only a partial understanding of the gestures and interactions of ancient artisans during a whole production sequence. In fact, a good deal can be established 2.1

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by an archaeologist examining specimens at a macroscopic scale (Rye, 1981; Noble, 1988; Papadopoulos, 1994; Schreiber, 1999). One should also develop an understanding of the performance characteristics of the media being studied, ideally through witnessing the execution of analogous production methods by experienced living artisans, and through first-hand experience manipulating the materials (Ingold, 2013). The personal exposure will instil a more intuitive, tactile knowledge of the material and process which is essential to any comprehensive study of ancient production methods. While examining the specimens in the museum or excavation site, one must identify and carefully record surfaces which differ from the patterns observed among most of the material, or whose origins cannot be readily explained. Although one will become familiar with the material through documenting and querying the surface markings, the initial stage of examination may well be insufficient to arrive at a reliable interpretation of the chaîne opératoire. Archaeological Explanation through Ethnographic Analogy Ethnographers who documented traditional production methods offer an alternative source to help us understand how ceramics were manufactured. Pottery, in particular, attracted the attention of many ethnographers in the later 19th through to the mid-20th centuries, before modern mechanisation radically transformed commercial production. Pottery centres such as those at Fez and Guellala, in North Africa, that retained traditional production techniques – some of which must have survived from Antiquity – were studied by 20th-century ethnographers (Joly, 1906: 264–329; Bel, 1918; Lisse & Louis, 1956; Balfet, 1965; Combès & Louis, 1967). The travelogues published by archaeologists Roland Hampe and Adam Winter (1962 and 1965) describing a variety of pottery and tile production centres they encountered in Greece, Cyprus, and South Italy in the late 1950s became particularly important in Mediterranean archaeology with advent of the ‘New Archaeology’. The explicitly archaeological motivations of their research put the books by Hampe and Winter at the vanguard of the emerging field of ethnoarchaeology, where the archaeologists themselves conduct ethnographic research in order to improve or critique their interpretations of archaeological assemblages (Hodder, 1982; David & Kramer, 2001). Researchers since have collected data more systematically, though for ceramics after the 1970s ethnoarchaeologists were obliged to study increasingly marginal and abandoned pottery production centres, or partially modernised workshops catering to 2.2

106 tourists (Blitzer, 1984 and 1990; Voyatzoglou, 1984; Vallianos & Padouvas, 1986; Nicholson & Patterson, 1992; Powell, 1995; Ionas, 2000; Hasaki, 2011). Archaeologists mining these ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological studies have developed cross-cultural processual models of ancient production environments (Peacock, 1982; Arnold, 1985 and 1993). Valuable insight can also be gleaned from modern artists specialising in ceramics, especially those who have kept alive or revived ancient techniques which they value for their aesthetic qualities or out of respect for tradition (Ingold, 2013). Ceramicists themselves are neither ethnographers nor ethnographic sources, nor should they be assumed to be primarily concerned with achieving an ‘authentic’ replication of an ancient practice, but their interpretations of surface treatments on clay and potential production methods can be indispensable to archaeologists (Schreiber, 1999), and their expertise should be sought in any attempt to replicate a poorly understood ancient technology. Experimental Archaeology and Hypothesis Testing Experimental archaeology also rose to prominence along with ethnoarchaeology as part of the ‘New Archaeology’ movement (Ascher, 1961; Ingersoll et al., 1977; Tringham, 1978; Coles, 1979; Mathieu, 2002). Experimental attempts to replicate an artefact, or some aspect of behaviour, in order to gain insight into an ancient process centre on hypothesis-testing rather than modelling patterns from ethnographic observations. Such an approach has the potential to fill the many voids in the ethnographic record. Experiments might range from an archaeologist requesting that a potter attempt to replicate one surface treatment of an object using a variety of different possible techniques, to problems as ambitious as testing the seaworthiness of a Viking ship for transatlantic voyages (Coles, 1979: 25–27). James Mathieu (2002: 1–11) identifies four scales of experiment: “object replication”, where the primary goal is understanding the manufacturing techniques of a particular type of artefact; “behavioural replication”, which examines the performance characteristics of the artefact during its later use, and can be tested through simulations in the real world or with virtual reality; “process replication”, aimed at more complex technologies and phenomena, such as the formation processes of the archaeological record; and “system replication”, or the simulation of an entire system. In the presence of strict controls designed to increase confidence in the final interpretations, the experiments should result in a stronger analogy for the interpretation of the archaeo2.3

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logical record than could be deduced from ethnographic sources alone. As with any experiment, no replication study will ever provide final, definitive answers to the initial research questions. An archaeological experimenter is theoretically confronted with an unlimited array of potential forming and finishing steps for an artefact, only some of which may be tested. A well-designed experiment begins by applying reasonable constraints in order to narrow the range of possibilities (Wylie, 1985: 85–88; Trigger, 1998; Binford, 2001: 32–42; Bleed, 2001). Constraints are suggested by the artefacts themselves, by the possible ethnographic parallels, and by working in person with replicas during the experiments. They may be selected from the array of possibilities based on the following: (a) fidelity of the replicas to observations in the ancient material (b) the logic of each step within the proposed replication sequence (c) the performance characteristics of the materials available to the ancient artisans (d) conformance with available ethnographic and archaeological comparanda (e) conformance with the relevant cross-cultural models proposed by archaeologists Physical experiments are particularly effective at identifying pathways that respond to the properties of the material and to the mechanics of the human body, and rejecting methods that are difficult or impossible to enact. We should think of this work as an extended exercise in developing analogies to account for how the observed material traces might be left behind by particular gestures and processes (Wylie, 1985; Stahl, 1993; Binford, 2001; David & Kramer, 2001: 43–54; Yalman, 2005). The hypothetical production sequence one proposes early in the research may later be refined by ethnographic analogies or re-enactments. The hypothesis, expressed as a set of necessary production steps and possible alternatives, suggests no more than a minimum sequence, remaining open to an infinite variety of other technical choices made by the ancient producers, including those now invisible to us because they left no material traces in the archaeological record. In effect, this ethno-experimental approach is reflexive, cyclical, and, like any scientific investigation, never fully concludes. Each of these three approaches is complementary, and while I describe them in a particular order for the initial stages of research, it is important to return to the ethnographic sources and the original material frequently throughout any such investigation. As archaeologists with, at best, a limited capacity to imagine the possible

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manufacturing techniques known to an ancient craftsperson, we are likely to notice new things about the material after reading ethnographies or conducting experiments. 2.4 Experimental Archaeology and Energetics Carefully implemented archaeological experiments generate quantitative and temporal data that lead to new avenues of economic analysis. Replications cast light on how long it takes to produce an object, often with much more fine-grained detail than can be collected by ethnographers. An analysis involving energetics aims to convert this kind of data into a set of temporal metrics which are easily comparable in order to examine such factors as daily scheduling, annual cycles in production, or the organisation of multiple artisans working collaboratively or with the assistance of machinery, pack animals, and other external agents. This architectural method has a long history of development outside the Classical world. The basic energetic unit is the craftsperson-hour, which can be broken down by production step and conceptualised as a temporal “cost” for an individual to produce the artefact in question (Erasmus, 1965; Feinman et al., 1981). Recent theoretical and applied work by Elliot Abrams and other New World archaeologists has focussed on construction in pre-Hispanic Copán, Honduras (Abrams, 1989; Webster & Kirker, 1995; Abrams & Bolland, 1999: 269–272; Arco & Abrams, 2006; Pickett et al., 2016). In the Mediterranean, two prehistorians have recently made notable additions to the study of architectural energetics. A dissertation by Charles Harper (2016) examines architecture and economy at Mykenai and Kalamianos on the Greek mainland, and the publications about Krete by Maud Devolder (e.g., 2012 and 2013) assess the labour invested in numerous Neopalatial Minoan constructions. In the historical Greek and Roman world, temporal metrics are particularly effective for assessing the construction of parts of buildings, since epigraphic records of construction contracts stipulating the daily wages paid for certain skilled and unskilled jobs can be converted to craftsperson-hours for direct comparison between activities (DeLaine, 1997: 104–117 and 2001; Adams, 2001). An ideal analysis of energetics will utilise metrics attested in ethnographic sources whenever possible, preferring them to experimental results especially if there is a substantial corpus of analogous and cross-culturally attested behavioural records. However, there are times when one must turn to experimental measurements for the stages of manufacture which are not well attested in the ethnographic sources. The quality of the estimate depends on the accuracy of the experimental measurements. One must first be confident that the forming and finishing sequence results in a product which closely

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resembles the ancient artefact, or else the estimates from the re-enactments cannot be considered analogous to the original manufacturing times. The most poorly understood stages should be repeated frequently in order to ensure that the experimenter becomes practiced enough to acquire a sense of the minimum production times which might be attained by an experienced artisan. Because a craftsperson will execute a chaîne opératoire according to individual preference, the temporal data acquired during an archaeological experiment will not correspond exactly to the actual time invested in the production of a particular artefact. For example, a ritual incantation believed necessary for the successful firing of a pot might substantially delay the production cycle of a potter, yet be completely invisible to the process of reverse engineering. Despite the unknown factors, a useful, albeit problematic, assumption for economic analysis is the principle of least effort: the expectation that craftspeople using a particular production technique will gradually move toward an efficient minimum of energy expenditure. There are two assumptions embedded in this principle which apply to some, though certainly not all, ancient production systems. Firstly, there is a general principle of risk minimisation which exerts a pressure toward standardised behaviour – because generally artisans will avoid methods that routinely fail in favour of those that succeed (Shawcross, 1972: 589–592; Saraydar & Shimada, 1973; Foley, 1985: 226; Bleed, 1986: 738–739). Secondly, once a craftsperson has established a production routine with a reasonably high success rate, one could imagine various external pressures to minimise the time taken (Roux & Corbetta, 1989; Costin, 1991: 16–18, 37–39; Rice, 1991; Eerkens & Bettinger, 2001). For example, a potter working among what must have been hundreds of individuals creating Arretine sigilatta vessels would have been motivated to complete as many of these standard vessel shapes as possible within a working day, as long as the products met some minimum standards of quality (Füller, 1997). An artisan paid by the piece might work faster to earn more, whereas a slave expected to meet a certain production quota might throw vessels more quickly so as to earn more free time. Likewise, architectural construction involves substantial outlays of human capital on highly standardised and repetitive tasks, and both patrons and builders would usually have had multiple motivations to complete the project as quickly as possible (Abrams, 1989: 63–68). As is the case with many ancient technologies, tile production is likely to have been a cooperative effort, which somewhat complicates the simple craftspersonhour metric. For example, workers with different levels of

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skill might need to be evaluated differently in the model. When a time-minimising strategy is applied to the entire production sequence, the analysis predicts a minimum effective crew – i.e. the number of craftspeople working together which would minimise energy expenditure over the course of the job – while acknowledging that in actuality more individuals might have been considered part of the team or made sporadic contributions to the final results. 3

Case Study: the Old Temple at Korinthos and the First Archaic Roof Tiles

I applied the methods discussed here in my examination of the origins of an early roof-tiling system. An important and populous centre of Archaic and Classical Greece, Korinthos had developed an extensive trade network by the 8th century BCE, as indicated by the excavation of its distinctive style of painted pottery at sites throughout the Mediterranean. No doubt related to its early mercantile success, the city also distinguished itself as an innovator in the arena of architecture. The ‘Old Temple’ of Korinthos preceded the better-known 6th-century BCE temple probably dedicated to Apollon, and its demolished remains were buried in several areas beneath the platform of the 6th-century temple (Weinberg, 1939; Roebuck, 1955; Robinson, 1976 and 1984; Bookidis & Stroud, 2004). By its style and context, the excavated remains can be dated approximately to the second quarter of the 7th century BCE, placing it among the earliest monumental construction projects not only in Korinthos, but in the Greek world (Rhodes, 1984: 104–108 and 2003; Salmon, 1984: 59–62). The fragments indicate a transitional style of architecture that established a new standard for substantial, highly crafted sacred architecture in its time. The half-timbered walls of the Old Temple were built partly of ashlar masonry and partly of mud-brick, and they were roofed by one of the earliest tiling systems attested in the Iron Age Mediterranean, known as the Protokorinthian system (Winter, 1993: 12–18; Rhodes, 2003; n.b. that it is written “Protocorinthian” throughout the anglophone literature). The Protokorinthian tiling system is one of the most impressive ever created (Le Roy, 1967: 21–28). The regular tiles are unusually large, measuring about 0.65 m in both width and length and weighing 30–35 Kg apiece (fig. 4.1: (a)). Each was formed in combination, so that a slightly concave pan and a convex cover were formed together as the basic tile unit (fig. 4.1: (b)). Incised setting lines and weathered zones along the back edges and the side of the pan indicate how the tiles overlapped on the roof. The overlapping would have kept the joints waterproof, but a complicated set of cuttings became necessary to facilitate

interlocking: a notch was cut from the back of the cover to accommodate the front of the cover above it; the opposite corners were bevelled to avoid contact with diagonally adjacent tiles; and a pair of shelves, or ‘rabbets’, were cut into the bottom (fig. 4.1: (a)). Besides the regular tiles, a small number of specialised types was necessary to complete the roof, including tiles for the eaves and ridge (fig. 4.1: E, R). The roof was hipped at both ends (meaning that it omitted a pediment and instead sloped on all four sides), and a special ‘hip tile’ was designed to bridge the transition over the line of the hip (fig. 4.1: Nh). In spite of this geometric complexity, the decoration was minimal. The ‘eaves tiles’ lacked the elaborate painted and moulded decoration found on the eaves of roofs of the later 7th century BCE (Sapirstein, 2016a). Instead they were only slightly modified from the regular tiles, so that along the front face, where the eaves tiles would be visible around the perimeter of the roof, the cover was articulated with a peak instead of its normal rounded profile. Most tiles were the pale buff colour natural to the Korinthian clay, but about one in five was painted black, suggesting a pattern with intermittent vertical or diagonal lines of dark among pale tiles (Sapirstein, 2009: 201). The Korinthians developed this impressive but austere roofing system during the first half of the 7th century BCE, and the evidence suggests that Protokorinthian tiles were in fact invented specifically for the Old Temple (Ö. Wikander, 1992: 152–153; Sapirstein, 2009). In light of its complexity, the system was probably inspired by an older prototype elsewhere (Sapirstein, 2016a: 49–50) rather than invented ex nihilo, but regardless of its exact origins the Old Temple roof is a key example of an emerging building technology. The type was repeated on several later buildings: probably on all temples or treasuries at the sanctuaries of Demeter and Kore on the flanks of Akrokorinthos, Isthmia, Perakhora, and Delphoi – all sites controlled or at least heavily influenced by Korinthos (Sapirstein, 2008: 29–36). Inspired by the importance of these early tiles for our understanding of the origins of monumental Greek architecture, I began an investigation of their manufacturing methods as part of my dissertation research (Sapirstein, 2008). Eventually this developed into the tripartite investigative approach described above. While inspecting surface markings on Protokorinthian tiles at Korinthos, I amassed a large number of useful observations, but I was still unable to explain many patterns and aberrations simply by looking at the fragments. A broader investigation of tile and brick production in the ethnographic record, and several replication experiments conducted at Korinthos and the USA in 2004–2007 substantially improved the hypothetical production sequence. Going through the

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figure 4.1

Schematic reconstruction of the Protokorinthian roof at Korinthos © the author, 2020

process of replication also yielded essential data for an approximate reconstruction of the economics and labour organisation at the Old Temple. Close Inspection and Reverse Engineering Protokorinthian Tiles The fieldwork built upon previous research into the early tiles of Korinthos. The very similar roof at Isthmia had been studied by others who also produced a number of replica tiles (Rostoker & Gebhard, 1981; Hemans, 1989 and 2015). However, the basic evidence for production techniques preserved on the tiles themselves had yet to be the subject of a methodical study. My investigation entailed the examination, measurement, drawing, and photographing of many hundreds of fragments of Protokorinthian tiles excavated from Korinthos, Isthmia, Delphoi, and Perakhora (Sapirstein, 2008: 265–282 and 2009: 203–215). The final inspection of the tiles revealed common types of surface markings, ten of which I could associate with a particular kind of modification to the clay during production. Other markings, like weathering stains, were not the 3.1

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result of an action by an artisan but still supplied useful information, such as how the tiles had been installed on the roof relative to one another. The break patterns also indicated that the tiles from the Old Temple had been deliberately crushed for burial under the temenos in order to make way for the replacement temple in the 6th century BCE. Finally, the imprints from several different types of tools such as scrapers, knives, and chisels were frequently preserved. An observation surprising to me was that Protokorinthian tiles were heavily retooled using small flat chisels, ca. 1.0–2.5 cm wide, after their firing (Sapirstein, 2008: 277–278 and 2009: 213–214). Later, I observed very similar chiselling on roof tiles throughout the Greek world, indicating that they were often trimmed during installation to ensure a tight fit with their neighbours. A key observation for developing a hypothesis about the production sequence was a layer of small stones adhering to the bottom of almost every well-preserved tile (fig. 4.2 a). Formed of small chips of the same sort of mudstones used to temper the fabric, the layer could be identified as a gravel parting agent, defined in the literature

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figure 4.2

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Surface markings common on the undersurface of roof tiles: (a) gravel parting agent, (b) marks from trimming leather-hard clay, (c) chiselling after firing © the author, 2020

concerning ceramics as any intervening material used to prevent clay from sticking to a working surface such as a table or a mould (Rye, 1981: 81, 146). The curved profile of the Protokorinthian tiles shows that they must have been moulded (Rostoker & Gebhard, 1981), but the gravel revealed that the tile must also have been formed right side up, with the undersurface prevented from sticking to the curved mould by the gravel. A three-step sequence could be deduced, beginning with the clay being packed into a mould, framed by boards around its four sides, and this wood frame being used to guide a straight edge drawn over the top in order to trim the profile of the tile (table 4.1: steps 1–3). The later stages of production could be surmised from the patterns in the surface markings observed in the various cuttings on the tiles (fig. 4.2 b–c), and their relative order determined by logical necessity. The minimum set of operations to produce a tile is distilled into the 10 steps presented in table 4.1. The primary forming of tile (steps 1–3) comprises the building up of its mass, after which secondary forming operations (steps 4–7) remove material, interspersed with surface finishing operations (steps 5, 8–9) aimed at decorative effect or as setting guidelines. Post-firing modifications (step 10) include the aforementioned chiselling during installation.

An Ethnographic Model for an Emerging Tile Production System Although the production sequence deduced from the surface markings and shown in table 4.1 may, at first glance, seem relatively complete, it omits many stages including the gathering of materials, the preparation of a workspace, the construction of a kiln and firing, and the installation on the roof. Furthermore, as became vividly clear to me after I had initiated replication experiments, it leaves many questions unanswered about how each stage would actually have been carried out. Before conducting any experiments, however, the next step was to develop a model informed by ethnographic observation and consultation with potters. Despite being widespread from Antiquity through to the Early Modern period, tile production has not been surveyed at the level of detail suitable for archaeological interpretation. Furthermore, exact parallels for every aspect of the production sequence of ancient Mediterranean tiles cannot be expected, because the types produced in Classical Greece are very different from those of the Roman and Byzantine eras. These problems are compounded by the peculiar technology of Protokorinthian tiles and their chronological distance from systems observed by ethnographers. 3.2

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table 4.1 A hypothetical forming and finishing sequence for regular Protokorinthian tiles at Korinthos inferred from surface markings

Primary Forming (also see below, figure 4.3) 1. Each tile is formed right side up on a base mould. In preparation for packing with clay, a parting agent composed of the same mudstone used to temper the clay is sprinkled over the mould. 2. The upper surface of a tile is shaped in an open-topped form with templates at its sides. After clay is packed into this frame, the top profile of the tile is trimmed down with a straight edge between the pair of profile templates at the front and the back. 3. The template frame is removed after the top surface has been formed. The sides of the tile could first have been cut free from the frame by running a blade across the edges, or else the tile could be trimmed to the desired overall length and depth after the frames are removed. Secondary Forming and Surface Finishing 4. A notch is cut into one end of the cover soon after the primary formation has been completed. Its location determines the handedness and orientation of the tile, because it always appears on the back side of the finished tile. 5. All surfaces of the tile visible on the assembled roof are slipped and smoothed: the top, the front, and both sides of the cover. 6. A pair of corner bevels is cut into the clay by the time it has turned leather hard. 7. After the tile has dried sufficiently to be removed from the base mould intact, it is lifted off the mould, and rabbets are cut in the underside. 8. Some tiles are coated with a dark paint. 9. Setting guidelines are incised along the back and sides of the upper surface once the clay has dried leather hard and after any paint has been applied. Post-Firing Modifications 10. All tiles are heavily retooled along their overlapping edges in order to create a tight joint with neighbouring tiles.

A further difficulty in terms of ethnographic study was the change in method that occurred before the pre-modern producers were visited by ethnographers. Hampe and Winter (1965: 87, 95, 104–108, 116–124, 133, 154–164) witnessed traditional methods for shaping cover tiles at many sites in Sicily and Krete, and other ethnographers visited workshops in Greece, Sicily, South Italy, and Cyprus (Matson, 1973: 121–125; Psaropoulou, 1984: 113, 263–264; Blitzer, 1990: 677–678; Ionas, 2000: 133–134). All of these sites were studied after the Second World War, when traditional potters were rapidly losing out to economic competition from modern factories and cheaper alternative materials, especially plastics. Furthermore, the ethnographers who describe the process were interested primarily in pottery, spending little time – usually less than a day – observing any particular tile-making procedure. Nonetheless, these many brief reports reveal that a very similar system had been employed throughout the Mediterranean, with cover tiles produced by packing clay into a trapezoidal form, and then draping the slab over

a semi-cylindrical base-mould to give the tile its curved profile. The tiles would be set out in a drying field soon afterwards so that the mould could be reused. Work was almost always done by pairs of workers, though the ethnographers do not stipulate whether any other workers were involved in the mining and preparing of what must have been a considerable volume of clay. Also often unclear are issues such as the seasonality, how firing was conducted, and the productivity of the artisans over the course of the year. The brick industry is a somewhat better attested proxy from which more information about the economics of production may be extracted. The system for forming bricks in pre-industrial settings is very uniform and has changed little since the appearance of unfired brick by the 8th millennium BCE. Hampe and Winter (1965: 49) observed bricks in the Mediterranean being produced alongside tiles using closely analogous techniques and tools, such as wooden rectangular frames much like the trapezoidal frames used to shape cover tiles. Working in pairs, the

112 brick makers applied a dusting of dry clay powder over the frame as a separator (not unlike the gravel parting agent observed on many Protokorinthian tiles) and packed the same mixture of paste used for tiles into the brick forms. They smoothed the exposed upper surfaces of the pair of bricks by hand or with a board. In England, Dobson described this traditional method as the current practice at brickworks in 1850 (Celoria, 1971: 27–29, 70), and it remained in occasional use more recently in Southwest Asia (Matson, 1985). David Peacock (1979: 6–7) summarized the processes in a set of cross-cultural models, identifying the most common ethnographically-documented production as the “small rural brickyard”. A crew of about six men worked year-round at a site near a good clay deposit, distributing bricks locally. Due to the enormous bulk required for architectural brick, they were primarily constrained by transportation costs. Brick makers relocated frequently because it was easier for them to transport their equipment and build temporary kilns near a new construction site than to ship materials overland beyond 10 miles. The same tendency for workshops to be located within a few miles of their clay deposits is also well attested with pottery workshops (Arnold, 1985: 32–57). Small rural brickyards could attain high productivity. For example, in 1693, John Houghton described a brickyard in Surrey where a ‘former’ could create 1,000 bricks a day on his own, and 2,000–3,000 when teamed with a ‘temperer’ and an apprentice (Mountford & Celoria, 1968). Houghton’s interviews with craftsmen indicated a wellstructured economy with standardised production rates, prices, and equipment across the industry. A specialised team, known as the ‘stool’, comprised four men and two boys: two men preparing clay and transporting it to the worksite, two forming and arranging bricks in the drying area, and the two boys assisting as porters. The team produced 8,000–9,000 bricks a day, approaching one million bricks over a full summer, and other brick makers claimed even higher outputs. Because we know the dimensions of the bricks, we can estimate the volume of material processed in Surrey. When this volume is converted into a measurement of output per worker it appears to be fairly consistent with the productivity in other cultures (Sapirstein, 2008: 87–91). Many of these general patterns in the traditional brickand tile-making industries seem to have changed little since Antiquity. Long, narrow covers were produced from as early the late 7th century BCE at Acquarossa and Poggio Civitate (Murlo) in more or less the same sequence as those of the 20th century CE (Ö. Wikander, 1993: 104–109; Winter, 2009: 507–513). The same approach has been assumed for tiles in Archaic and Hellenistic Gordion, and

Sapirstein

Roman Britain (Henrickson & Blackman, 1999: 311–312; Warry, 2006: 36–37). In recent Mediterranean vernacular architecture, the entire roof is laid with just vaulted cover tiles set in the ‘monk-and-nun’ order, which is a simpler procedure than the ancient roofs that used both cover and pan tiles, but has left no opportunity to examine traditional techniques for forming pan tiles. Although ethnographic sources are lacking, flat pan tiles are similar enough to bricks that we may extrapolate their forming techniques and economics by analogy to bricks and cover tiles (Warry, 2006: 28–34). In review, the comparison of ethnographic observations with ancient analogues indicates a general model of tile and brick production that probably extended back, largely unchanged, to Antiquity. The team of labourers is led by the ‘former’, with the most efficient arrangement involving five or six craftsmen working full-time throughout the productive season. If local demand for tiles and bricks exceeds the maximum productivity of a team of six, the tendency is for separate teams to arrive at the area rather than for one team to take on additional members. Assistants mine and prepare paste as rapidly as possible by mixing dry clay with water and treading it in a pit. The ‘former’ produces tiles or bricks in open-topped, foursided wooden frames on a surface coated with a parting agent. The ‘moulder’ trims the upper face of the tile in the mould using a wooden board or a tensioned wire and polishes it by hand. The tiles are then laid on the ground in direct sunlight for a number of hours before being removed to a shady but well-ventilated area to finish drying at a slower pace. Due to the dependency on the weather, the production takes place outdoors and runs only during the warm, dry months from late spring through to early autumn. Korinthos cannot have possessed an established industry of such a nature in the early 7th century BCE because tiled roofs were just being developed during the era of the Old Temple. To produce the Protokorinthian roof, the Korinthians must have recruited artisans with expertise in related fields. Korinthos was already the home of an innovative pottery industry, whose potters presumably would also have been familiar with the techniques for shaping mud bricks. By the time of the Protokorinthian tiles at least a few workshops would have resembled the pattern in later Archaic and Classical Greek pottery production: small, independent associations organised under a master supported by a small staff, usually no greater than five, and almost never more than ten workers (Scheibler, 1983: 110–112; Noble, 1988: 12–14; Arafat & Morgan, 1989; Stissi, 2002: 170–179). We may conclude that skilled individuals accustomed to working in similar arrangements to teams

LABOUR ORGANISATION & ENERGETICS OF ARCHITECTURE IN KORINTHOS

of brick- and tile-makers were present in Korinthos at the time of the creation of the Old Temple, even if the tiles themselves were a new creation. The production steps inferred by close inspection of the Protokorinthian tiles also indicate that these artisans adopted an approach quite like that later standardised in tile making. 3.3 Archaeological Experiments at Korinthos A series of archaeological experiments performed at Korinthos and in the USA at various times during 2004, 2006, and 2007 aimed to flesh out this model. This collaborative work benefitted from consultation with an experienced potter, John Lambert, and a team of other specialists and volunteers (see the acknowledgements for details). The experiments addressed several different questions. The initial motivation was to work through the production hypothesis presented in table 4.1, and determine whether it was feasible at all, and what forming techniques – including those that had not occurred to me during the initial study of the fragmentary material – would best account for the surface markings on the tiles. Undertaking the experiments, however, forced me to consider other problems which had not been integral to my initial theoretical sequence, especially more practical matters such as where to acquire raw materials, what were the material properties of the clay, and how to fire the replicas. Ultimately this grew into a more holistic economic study that included the careful recording of the timing for each production step (Sapirstein, 2008: 114–171). The first problem was where to procure clay and tempering materials. The Protokorinthian tile fabric is a distinctive mixture of relatively fine pale clay mixed with a high fraction of tempering material – inclusions deliberately added to alter the physical characteristics of the paste. The temper, which occupies about 15–25% of the section, was primarily small fragments, up to 4 mm across, of mudstone breccias, a common material added to strengthen Korinthian coarseware pottery and Archaic through to Hellenistic-period tile (Whitbread, 1995: 256– 258, 268–278, 294–300, 305–307). Mudstone deposits are common throughout southern Greece, and outcrops on Akrokorinthos and Penteskoúphia have been identified as the most likely local source (Farnsworth, 1964: 224; Whitbread, 1995: 334–335). Although the source of the temper can be narrowed to one small region, clay deposits are abundant in the northern Peloponnese, and a definitive location for yellow-firing clay that matches the compositional profile of the ancient pottery has so far eluded archaeologists (Farnsworth, 1970: 19–20; Jones, 1986: 50; Whitbread, 1995: 308–346). Clays gathered from near the ancient Korinthian Potters’ Quarter did not survive

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test firings (Whitbread, 1995: 339–341), although many other sites in the Korinthia have usable clays. For example, the researchers at Isthmia fired replica tiles made of clay mined at a traditional brickmaking quarry near Solomós, though its composition was distinct from the tested Archaic specimens, suggesting a different source (Rostoker & Gebhard, 1981: 226–227; Whitbread, 1995: 312; Hemans, 2015). Although the exact composition of the clay was not the initial objective of the replication experiments, locating a viable source of raw materials became a major concern during the early stages of the work for two reasons. First, the experimental paste needed to resemble the material properties of the ancient tiles sufficiently well that the experimental conditions would be analogous to the ancient production. Second, the location of the clays has a major bearing on the transportation costs in the economic calculation. Under the guidance of Guy Sanders, the experiments began with four different sources of clay which quickly form a clean, workable paste. The ancient tile-makers may well have used different clay sources, and there is also a good chance they mixed different clays, which would further obscure the actual source, but at least the replication experiments could proceed. After examining the material properties of the four mined clays, through producing and firing several dozen test bricks, the strongest and most workable clay was selected for producing the tile replicas. The preferred clays were extracted from Penteskoúphia, near the findspot of the Archaic clay plaques well known for their paintings of kilns, potting, and clay mining (Hasaki, 2002: 37–44; Papadopoulos, 2003: 6–20; Williams, 2009: 306–310). Just as the clay sources could not be identified with much certainty, the experiments did not attempt full replications of every aspect of the ancient environment. For example, I mixed the paste by hand in two limestone basins that happened to be available in the workspace, though the ethnographic model makes clear that tilemakers who were processing much larger volumes almost certainly would have instead used a shallow, excavated pit to tread their clay. Likewise, I employed modern materials, such as plastic buckets, whenever they would have no significant impact on the results. I was more careful to imitate ethnographically-documented tools in labourintensive phases of the production, for instance breaking up nodules of freshly mined clay and mudstone using a large pestle similar to the kópanos, a thickened branch used for this purpose which appears in many ethnographic accounts (Hampe & Winter, 1962: 27, 62; Psaropoulou, 1984: 13; Blitzer, 1990: 680). After days of practice preparing test bricks and, later, the replica tiles themselves,

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figure 4.3

Sapirstein

Tile replications: (a) hypothetical tile-forming apparatus versus (b) the experimental implementation. A wooden board was used to strike the upper surface of both (c) the base mould, and (d) the replica tile. © the author, 2020

I amassed enough measurements to determine recipes and preparation times for a specified volume of clay, and observations over time established the shrinkage rates from wet paste to the fired terracotta of the various recipes (Sapirstein, 2008: 158–165). Altogether six replica tiles were completed with the aim of clarifying different aspects of the manufacturing hypothesis (Sapirstein, 2008: 130–145). Four tiles were fully completed, and two fired, along with numerous test bricks from Korinthian clays. The experiments shed light on many aspects of the production about which I had either been uncertain or had not considered. For example, the base mould for shaping traditional cover tiles in the ethnographic models is made of wood, but the hypothesised Protokorinthian combination tile mould (fig. 4.3 a–b)

is much larger and would be difficult to fabricate from wood. In ethnographic cases, the wooden mould is useful because it allows the covers to be moved on the mould to the drying area, but because Protokorinthian tiles are much heavier, they must have been removed from the mould before being transported. The experiments demonstrated that a clay base mould was more practical, which had the added benefit of being generated in the same fashion as the top surface of the tile – in a wooden frame, and smoothed with a board (Sapirstein, 2008: 295– 299). Additionally, since a wire or any other flexible tool easily damaged the upper surface, the experiments also demonstrated that the upper surfaces of the clay base mould, and later the tile itself, must have been struck with a wooden board and not cut with a wire – which is

LABOUR ORGANISATION & ENERGETICS OF ARCHITECTURE IN KORINTHOS

an option attested only when producing much smaller bricks (above, table 4.1: step 2; fig. 4.3 c–d). Furthermore, I discovered that the surface markings from secondary formation processes could be simulated with simple tools. The brushy texture of the slipped exterior faces of the tiles was not reproducible with a brush, but rather most resembled the texture achieved by smoothing the soft clay with one’s fingertips. The experiments also stressed the importance of working clay at the right consistency for each production step, and its malleability dictated at least two pauses to allow the tile to stiffen before continuing. The time required during, and between, each step of the experimental production highlighted the natural rhythms and scheduling to be expected in a larger-scale tile production. Tables 4.2

and 4.3 break down the procedure into distinct stages of active labour: mining and kneading paste; primary and early secondary formation of the tile; lifting and cutting out the underside shelves; and firing – with intervening pauses waiting for the clay to dry. 3.4 Energetics and the Old Temple Roof The replication experiments documented the materials and timings required for the production of Protokorinthian tiles, inviting further analysis of the economics behind the creation of the whole temple roof. While the overall dimensions of the early temples at Korinthos and Isthmia are lost, a statistical analysis of the surviving tiles from each structure indicates that each building would need close to 1,500 tiles (Sapirstein, 2008: 68–78). At Isthmia,

table 4.2 Individual time cost (minutes) for preparing paste and shaping one tile [necessary waiting periods between steps are in brackets]

Tested

115

Production step

Ideal

Notes

Paste preparation Mining clay, temper Mixing clay with water [Leave clay to stiffen] Wedge slabs  Total (paste preparation)

9–14 12–26 8–11 14–42 [40–120] 18–36 11–48 35–61 37–116

Faster in an established quarry Slow in early tests; faster in larger batches Depends on weather conditions Some replica slabs were inadequately wedged

Tile forming and finishing Primary forming, steps 1–3 Secondary steps 4–7 [Leave clay to stiffen] Secondary steps 7–9  Total (tile forming)

18–25 23–52 8–12 8–24 [360–600] 8–17 8–22 34–54 39–98

Speed increases with skill Depends on weather conditions

table 4.3 Minimum times to manufacture up to 2,000 tiles for the Old Temple roof

Task

Material

Labour (hours)

Shape base moulds Build kiln Gather raw materials Collect water Beat and mix paste Tread paste Shape 1,491 tiles Gather fuel (10 loads) Fire kiln (10 loads) Deliver tiles (54 loads)  Total

— — 60,000 Kg clay/temper 17,200 L 50,000 L (dry ingredients) 40,800 L (wet ingredients) — 16,300 Kg wood — — 71,000 Kg (terracotta)

30 200 570 (105 Kg/hr) 100 300 (170 L/hr) 550 (75 L/hr) 1,500 250 (65 Kg/hr) 400 350 (cart) 4,250

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Sapirstein

Soft leather hard

replication experiments with the early tiles suggested a team of seven workers might have fabricated the whole temple roof in less than a year (Rostoker & Gebhard, 1981: 224–226). A general study of Hellenistic tile production at Gordion also suggested relatively fast production times might be attainable (Henrickson & Blackman, 1999). According to Roman graffiti, a ‘former’ making pan tiles was expected to produce the equivalent of 220 tegulae per day, though he would require assistants to maintain such a rate of production (DeLaine, 1997: 114–118 and 2001: 261–263; Warry, 2006: 119–122). On this basis, Peter Warry developed a labour model with a team of about five tile workmen employed year-round, stockpiling clay and fuel during cooler months in preparation for a short but highly productive season shaping and firing tiles during the best weather in late spring and summer. How would an early experimental system, such as that represented by the Old Temple roof at Korinthos, compare to later standardised production? The early tile manufacturers must have devised a production sequence that kept losses to an acceptable minimum. They would also have struck a balance between efficiency and quality, investing additional time to reach a high standard in craft, particularly since the purpose of the temple was to honour the gods with a lavish votive, not to be expedient. Nevertheless, the tile makers were tasked with producing more than 1,000 units and would have commanded finite resources. After experiments with possibilities for

Move to drying area Incise setting lines

the forming and finishing sequence, the ancient artisans must have arrived at a standardised method for producing Protokorinthian tiles. Their product was ‘inefficient’ compared to later Greek tiling systems, as assessed by various measures including complexity and weight per unit area roofed (Ö. Wikander, 1988: 205–207 and 1992: 151–156). Elements of the Protokorinthian system that were difficult to create – like combining the pans and covers into one unit, and the subtle curved profiles (above, fig. 4. 1 b) – were dropped from Greek tiled roofs by the end of the Archaic period (Winter, 1993: 18–20). The experimental replications revealed other inefficiencies, such as the time-consuming cutting of the rabbeted shelves underneath the tile (above, table 4.1: step 7), which might have been eliminated had these shelves been moulded into the tile instead. Not only was the approach laborious, but hand-cutting the rabbets introduced irregularities that required extensive chiselling after firing to achieve a tight join with neighbouring pieces. The economic analysis of the process consists of several components which can only be summarised here: manufacture, acquisition, and transportation of materials to and from the site, and firing. To begin with the manufacturing process, the forming and finishing sequence has been modelled most completely (Sapirstein, 2008: 237–247). The estimated production of one tile, presented in fig. 4.4, adds up to about 35 minutes of actual labour, though the tile must also be left to stiffen before step 7

8 mins

7 mins

Cut rabbet

Cut rabbet

Lift tile

10

0

(with assistant)

(Dry leather hard 6+ hrs) 26 mins Cut notch Trim tile edges Remove templates Release edges

Apply slip 20 minutes

Optimal plasticity

Cut bevels

15 mins Strike top

Apply slip 10 Strike top

Pack mold Pack mold

Install templates

One worker alone figure 4.4

Two workers

Estimated timings for workers to produce a regular tile alone or in pairs © the author, 2020

0

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LABOUR ORGANISATION & ENERGETICS OF ARCHITECTURE IN KORINTHOS

of the sequence (table 4.1, above). The primary forming would be quicker with a pair of workers – a ‘former’ and an assistant (by analogy to the ethnographic model of brickand tile-makers) – which would lower production times to about 20–25 minutes per tile. In a roughly 10-hour work day (a relatively low estimate for potters in the summer season), the tile makers would be able to produce about 25 units per day, and perhaps more as they became more proficient and learned to work more quickly than I could during the replication experiments. Whatever the exact daily rhythm of production, the tiles would need to dry in the sun for a few hours before they were stiff enough to lift from the moulds. For serial production, the work site would require a significant number of identically-profiled base moulds: perhaps 20–30 so as to avoid interruptions when waiting for tiles to dry slowly on an overcast day. If two tile-workers were forming 25 tiles each day, they would need a formidable quantity of raw materials: about 650 Kg of clay, 150 Kg of mudstone, and 250 L of water (Sapirstein, 2008: 247–252). Previous studies indicate that mining this daily volume would require less than three hours of labour for a pair of low-skilled workers, but transporting the material over long distances poses a more daunting challenge (Erasmus, 1965: 285; Cotterell & Kamminga, 1990: 193–194; Sapirstein, 2008: 249–250). Although the Protokorinthian tile work-site has not been located, the general region can be identified through an ecological approach which assumes a minimal distance from the work-site to the required resources (Sapirstein, 2008: 231–236). The mudstone tempering for the tile fabric must have originated between Akrokorinthos and the Penteskoúphia ridge. However, mudstone represents less than one fifth of the total weight of the raw materials and

may have been transported for a few kilometres. More important would be a site near good clay deposits – the heaviest ingredient – and a supply of water, which was also not far from sources of fuel for the kilns. Numerous locations around Korinthos might satisfy these conditions, such as the Potters’ Quarter (Stillwell, 1948), the later Tile Works (Merker, 2006), or east of the ancient city toward Penteskoúphia village. Assisted by a donkey, one worker could keep up with the demand of the tile-formers as long as the clays were within 1 Km, though two workers can probably be assumed, so as to afford the pair more time to rest during a day of heavy labour mining the clay. Figure 4.5 presents an efficient daily routine for two tileformers to finish 25 tiles with two less-skilled assistants preparing the required clay, and a donkey, working during a 10-hour cycle. The work has been distributed so that heavy labour would be spread out among the workers with resting periods in between. Following the ethnographic models for brick workers and potters, an apprentice working as a fifth team member might assume some of the load. The whole job of producing about 2,000 tiles – which would allow for all the pieces needed on the roof, 15% losses during production (Hasaki, 2002: 111), and a stockpile of additional pieces for later repairs to the roof – would require altogether about 80 working days (above, table 4.3). The craftspeople would be obliged to pause this routine periodically so that they could move dry tiles out of the production area and fire a kiln, both of which would make room for new pieces. Because wood-fired updraft kilns typically consume 200–300 Kg of wood per cubic metre of capacity for the sort of low-temperature firings expected with tiles (Psaropoulou, 1984: 114–123, 148–155, 184–191; DeLaine, 2001: 113–118; Hasaki, 2002: 277–284;

Task Time Mine Fetch water Gather fuel Beat/mix clay Tread paste Prepare slip Shape tiles Lift/cut tiles

7 0/1 3 3 8 2 14 6

Total

44 h

8 pm

Lift/cut (3h x2)

Fuel (3h)

Beat/mix (3h) D

4 pm

Afternoon break (2h) Water (1h) D Shape (7h x2)

Mine (3.5h) D

12 pm

Slip (2h) Tread (2.5h)

8 am

Strain

Light Moderate

Tread (3.5h)

Mine (3.5h) D

Tread (1h x2)

4 am Heavy

figure 4.5

Tile formers (x2)

Clay worker A

Clay worker B

Daily work schedule for producing ca. 25 tiles (D indicates assistance by a donkey) © the author, 2020

118 Sapirstein, 2008: 252–258; Rice, 2015: 174), we may estimate at least 1,500 Kg of wood to fire a kiln large enough for 200 tiles. Kilns of such a capacity are attested in early Greece (Hasaki, 2002: 221–229, 277–284, 334), and the proposed kiln would require just 10 firings for the whole job.2 As a result, we might reconstruct a two-week manufacturing cycle – with eight or nine days fabricating tiles, two acquiring fuel and preparing the kiln, and another three days firing and unloading – though the actual rhythm might vary if the kiln were much smaller or larger. After the firing, the 2,000 tiles, weighing more than 50 metric tonnes, would need to be delivered to the building site on Temple Hill. A workshop positioned near good clays would probably be a substantial distance, perhaps 2–4 Km, outside the centre of Korinthos. The job would be most manageable with short-term access to oxen, leaving most of the manual labour for the loading and unloading of the carts. The final model estimates the production of up to 2,000 tiles at a minimum of about 4,250 craftspersonhours, equivalent to a little more than two hours per tile (table 4.3, above; Sapirstein, 2008: 259–264). Technically, the whole roof might be completed in less than four months working nonstop, though an early experimental system like this surely required more time for planning and would have encountered some setbacks during the project. Assuming the team was supervised by an individual with some knowledge of tile-making, we might hypothesise a month taken in planning as well as constructing moulds, the kiln, and other tools. The two ‘formers’ and clay-processers would probably complete their work, including periodic firings, in less than four months, even allowing for some breaks. Transportation to the building site would occupy less than two weeks. The reconstruction suggests that a team of four or five artisans aided by one or two pack animals would have completed and delivered the roof tiles in less than half a year. 3.5 Energetics and Workers for the Old Temple While I have not produced an estimate for the hourly ‘cost’ of the whole Old Temple, this extended study of the fabrication of the roof tiles outlines a methodology that could readily be applied to the other components of the building. The tiles are also a significant enough component of 2  During the course of our experiments we realized that the tile replicas were too large to fire in a conventional kiln. In 2006, Sanders and Rhodes commissioned the construction of a brick kiln used to fire the replicas. Because the experimental kiln was probably smaller than those used to fire ancient Protokorinthian tiles, the estimates for the firing cycle and fuel consumption discussed in this chapter are based primarily on ethnographic evidence.

Sapirstein

the building to allow some comment on the level of social organisation behind a building project of this nature and scale. A substantial financial outlay would have been necessary for the large timbers in the roof and reinforcing the walls. We do not know the species or the source, but they would have been brought from a greater distance than any other part of the building due to the lack of forest cover in the immediate area of Korinthos. The walls themselves were made of a mixture of mud-brick and ashlar limestone masonry (Rhodes, 2003: 91). Suitable limestone might have been extracted near Temple Hill, but the blocks are comparatively heavy to transport and would have taken longer to shape than the tiles. A fine mortar adhering to some of the blocks attests to a stucco finish that would have required additional materials and processing. We know little of the other labour that might have gone into adorning the structure, such as wall paintings or sculpture, and, because the overall dimensions of the building may only be approximated, we are on shakier grounds than with the roof. Nevertheless, a man-hour cost is conceivable in the neighbourhood of 25–50,000 hours, perhaps closer to the lower figure if the temple had not been lavishly decorated.3 Theoretically, five tile-producers might have managed every other aspect of the construction. Had they quarried stone, cut timbers, transported materials with pack animals, and built the whole structure themselves, they could have finished the whole building after a concerted effort of a few years. It is more likely, however, that other teams were employed on the project, such as groups responsible for carpentry/masonry and quarrying/transport, which might reduce the whole construction period to a year of continuous effort, or two to three years if avoiding any construction labour during the agricultural season. We may be able to refine these estimates by developing models for the other components of the temple with equivalent detail to that for the tiles, but we can already conclude that the Old Temple was a relatively 3  An approximate calculation begins with the standardised estimates by DeLaine (2001) and Devolder (2013: 14–47) for ancient construction and transportation costs. We may deduce from the tiles that the Old Temple was probably less than 11 × 38 m in plan, and the structure would have been primarily crafted from stone, mud-brick, timber, and terracotta. The walls would comprise close to 100 m3 of dressed masonry, supplemented by 150 m3 of mud bricks and large timbers in the roof and a half-timbering system. The acquisition, shaping, and installation of these three materials each might have added up, very roughly, to 5,000 hours, comparable to the effort expended on fabricating the tiles. Another 5,000 hours might be added for other activities such as preparing the site or fixing errors during construction.

LABOUR ORGANISATION & ENERGETICS OF ARCHITECTURE IN KORINTHOS

small project. Any model involving more than 20 continuously occupied workers seems superfluous, because adding extra people would shave just months or weeks off what is already a relatively short construction period. About a dozen individuals might have carried out the majority of the work. 4

Labour Organisation in Early Archaic Greece

Analyses of the Precolumbian New World have concluded that monumental architecture required surprisingly little labour compared to what might at first be expected. For example, one 100-day dry season would be sufficient for up to a few hundred workers to complete a large Mayan pyramid, and this represents a small fraction of the available labour at the sites in question (Abrams, 1989: 69–75; Webster & Kirker, 1995; Abrams & Bolland, 1999: 282–288). Vastly more effort appears to have gone into agricultural works, for example the creation by the Aztecs of the artificial chinampas fields from the lakebed south of Tenochtitlan (Arco & Abrams, 2006). Though the Baths of Caracalla dwarfed the Mayan pyramids, with a crew of more than 7,000 working several years to complete it (DeLaine, 1997: 193), this behemoth from the apogee of Roman imperial power probably did not exceed the scale of contemporary engineering projects such as aqueducts or military architecture. In contrast, the early Archaic Korinthians have not left us much evidence for social hierarchy as seen through large-scale construction projects. On the one hand, a temple built by a dozen or so artisans was a bigger endeavour than was typical for other industries, such as potting, where workshop staffs of no greater than five would have been normal. On the other hand, the Old Temple was a comparatively ‘inexpensive’ project, and should be understood as ‘monumentally scaled’ primarily in comparison with the smaller temples built of perishable materials in previous generations, such as the early Daphnephorion in Eretria (Wilson Jones, 2014: 37–43). The Korinthian sponsor would have been obliged to recruit several skilled artisans – familiar with carpentry, stone-cutting, and the new technology of tile roofing – and to ensure that up to ten less-skilled assistants were available to keep the project moving along. Although we can do no more than speculate about patronage, it is tempting to identify the dominant family of Korinthos, the Bakkhiadai, or else the tyrant Kypselos, as the sponsor, depending on the exact dating of the project. Yet, the Old Temple was sufficiently small in scale that oligarchic or tyrannical patronage would not be essential. Such a structure may have been

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within the reach of a consortium of pious Korinthians who donated their skills and labour during free time over the course of a few years. Elite patronage of the temple might have been more overtly signalled through costly components such as bronze doors or other metal fittings, of which no evidence happens to have survived. The economic approach to architecture invites chronological comparisons, such as considering how the Old Temple compares to large building projects initiated later in Greece. A major change had taken place by the following century, when the mid-6th-century successor to the Old Temple at Korinthos represents a comparatively massive expenditure. Its stone peristyle required the quarrying, transportation, and lifting of more than forty huge monolithic shafts, a practice only in vogue during the 6th century BCE (Pfaff, 2003: 112–115; Sapirstein, 2016b: 594–597). The expansion of temple architecture also approximately coincided with the appearance of huge stone votive statues at sanctuaries in the decades around 600 BCE (Coulton, 1974), and both may be signs of a new level of sponsorship by elite families competing for prestige. John Salmon (2001) has estimated the amount of labour invested in all architecture surviving from Korinthos and Athenai between 650 and the end of the 5th century BCE. Although the figures are very approximate, Korinthian building seems to have peaked during the first half of the 6th century, but it was dwarfed by a perhaps tenfold increase in construction investment in early Classical Athenai – at least when expenditure on defensive monuments and the embellishment of the Akropolis is also taken into account. Refined models would be required to develop a more nuanced view of the economic and social changes reflected by building at Korinthos, Athenai, and elsewhere during the Archaic and Classical periods. For example, tile production methods changed substantially by the late Archaic period, moving towards more efficient systems, and stone-working and installation techniques were similarly improved and standardised. At the same time, temples and other monuments increasingly exploited elaborate and exotic materials, with major costs represented by the increased use of metals and imported marble in various Archaic and Classical buildings. Although these complexities present new challenges to the researcher, our knowledge of these periods is substantially improved by the epigraphic records of building costs and the organisation of labour for numerous projects of the Classical and Hellenistic periods (Burford, 1969; Feyel, 2006). As I hope to have demonstrated, architecture is an excellent vehicle for the economic analysis of Antiquity.

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The extensive use of cut-stone masonry spread throughout the Mediterranean by the Greeks, and of fired brick in the Roman west, has left behind an enormous corpus of evidence. The structures, which were built to last, are well represented in the archaeological record, and as a result their original appearance may often be restored with some confidence. Architectural remains preserve a great deal of information about ancient construction techniques and manual labour, which allow us to determine with relatively high precision the day-to-day work that went into the creation of certain components of buildings, such as the early terracotta roofs examined here. Detailed analysis of this nature can be readily extended to generalisations about building activity over time that reflect broader social changes. Bibliography of Modern Works Abrams, Elliot M., 1989: “Architecture and Energy: An Evolutionary Perspective”, Archaeological Method and Theory 1: 47–87. Abrams, Elliot M. & Bolland, Thomas W., 1999: “Architectural Energetics, Ancient Monuments, and Operations Management”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 6: 263– 291. doi: 10.1023/A:1021921513937. Adams, Colin E.P., 2001: “Who Bore the Burden? The Organization of Stone Transport in Roman Egypt”, in Mattingly & Salmon (edd.), 2001: 171–192. Arafat, Karim & Morgan, Catherine, 1989: “Pots and Potters in Athens and Corinth: A Review”, OJA 8: 311–346. doi: 10.1111/ j.1468-0092.1989.tb00208.x. Arco, Lee J. & Abrams, Elliot M., 2006: “An essay on energetics: the construction of the Aztec chinampa system”, Antiquity 80: 906–918. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00094503. Arnold, Dean E., 1985: Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (Cambridge). Arnold, Dean E., 1993: Ecology and Ceramic Production in an Andean Community (Cambridge). Ascher, Robert, 1961: “Experimental Archaeology”, American Anthropologist 63: 793–816. Balfet, H., 1965: “Ethnographical Observations in North Africa and Archaeological Interpretations: The Pottery of the Maghreb”, in Matson, Frederick R. (ed.), Ceramics and Man (New York) 161–177. Bardill, Jonathan, 2004: Brickstamps of Constantinople (Oxford). Bel, Alfred, 1918: Les industries de la céramique à Fés (Paris). Binford, Lewis R., 2001: Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter-Gatherer and Environmental Data Sets (Berkeley).

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chapter 5

Collaborative Investigations into the Production of Athenian Pottery David Saunders, Karen Trentelman, and Jeffrey Maish Abstract The processes by which Athenian black- and red-figure vases were produced appear to be well understood, with text-books regularly offering succinct descriptions of levigation, the application of relief line, and the three-stage firing process. A number of aspects, however, remain hypothetical, and new analytical techniques can inform old questions. In 2011, with funding from the National Science Foundation, the Getty Conservation Institute and J. Paul Getty Museum undertook a project to characterize Athenian black gloss. By partnering with The Aerospace Corporation, the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), and The Northwestern University/Art Institute of Chicago Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts (NU-ACCESS), we created a team which had a diverse range of interests and equipment, with a view to obtaining new and rigorously-tested data. Combining these analyses with replication studies, we documented the ways in which black gloss responded during firing. Some of the results have been published in scientific journals, but in order to share them more broadly, we present here a summary of three case-studies. Taken together, they indicate that the production of the vases may be more complex than the conventional notion of a single three-stage firing process (oxidation-reduction-oxidation) suggests.

Keywords Athenian pottery – red-figure vase-painting – replication – firing process – iron – clay – slip – oxidation – reduction – contour line – relief line – Berlin Painter – Kleophrades Painter – zinc – Kerameikos

1 Introduction1 Athenian black- and red-figure pottery, produced between around 625 and 325 BCE, is one of the most enduring 1  The project was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DMR-1041808). We take pleasure in acknowledging all those who helped develop and carry out this research: Marc Walton (formerly of the GCI, currently at Northwestern University), Brendan Foran (The Aerospace Corporation), Apurva Mehta (SSRL), Piero Pianetta (SSRL), GCI post-doctoral researchers

legacies of the art and culture of ancient Greece. Made of terracotta, vessels and fragments fill museum galleries around the world, and the scenes depicted on vases are ubiquitous in undergraduate textbooks and on social media. Scholars continue to take diverse approaches to the material, be it through studies of attribution, iconography, use, or trade (summarised in Oakley, 2009), while discrete categories such as Panathenaic prize amphorae or vase-inscriptions are fields for research in their own right. Recent years have seen important work on the contexts and mechanics of ancient Greek vase production (Schreiber, 1999; Monaco, 2000; Papadopoulos, 2003; Stissi, 2003; Cohen, 2006; Lapatin, 2008; Bentz et al., 2010; Sanidas, 2013; Cuomo di Caprio, 2017), and to judge by most standard handbooks, the process of vase manufacture can be considered well understood: iron-rich clays in the body and the slip were transformed through firing in a single process that involved three steps: oxidation, reduction, and re-oxidation. Yet, on closer scrutiny, many questions remain. Did the same clay serve for both potting the vase and decorating it, or was the slip derived from a distinct source? How long did the firing – and subsequent cooling – take, and what effects might these times have had on the appearance of the black gloss? What temperatures were reached in the kiln? And is the production of figure-decorated pottery only explicable with a single three-stage firing process? Between 2011 and 2015, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) spearheaded an interdisciplinary project supported by the National Science Foundation to learn more about the production of Athenian pottery, and in particular to characterise its distinctive black gloss (see http://www .getty.edu/conservation/our_projects/science/athenian/). Collaborating with curatorial and conservation staff Ilaria Cianchetta, Marvin Cummings, and Getty graduate interns Giulia Poretti and Elisa Maupas. This article originated in a talk at the Tampa Museum of Art, and David Saunders is grateful to Seth Pevnick for the invitation. The home of the collection of Joseph Veach Noble, whose research into the production of Greek vases has shaped the discipline (Noble, 1988), was a welcome venue for sharing these ideas, and we are grateful to the audience for their questions. Finally, we are indebted to the editor of this volume for the invitation to contribute, and for her substantial help in preparing this text for publication.

© David Saunders, Karen Trentelman, and Jeffrey Maish, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_007

INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE PRODUCTION OF ATHENIAN POTTERY

at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and researchers from the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and The Aerospace Corporation, the team developed a crossdisciplinary and wide-ranging research methodology – from macro-scale observations down to micro- and even nano-level analysis of the ceramic components and structure. Results from this research have been published in a number of scientific journals (most of which will be cited with the case studies below; see also Swaminathan, 2013; Trentelman, 2017: 257–262). The specialist vocabulary and lengthy accounts of technical method in these papers were necessary to provide the analytical grounding for our observations, but do make the work less accessible to a readership we have been keen to reach: interested archaeologists, art historians, and classicists. Our purpose here, therefore, is to present a summary of our findings through three case studies that highlight what we believe are the broader ramifications of our research. We begin, however, with a brief overview of previous scholarship, for ideas that have long been discounted have proven to be worth revisiting. 2

History of Research

Ever since Athenian pottery began to be excavated from ancient graves in Italy during the 18th and 19th centuries, connoisseurs and collectors have sought to understand how the shiny black gloss was produced (see Bourgeois, 2013). Inspired by the glazes used in the manufacture of Italian Renaissance maiolica, antiquarians proposed that lead or manganese was used to achieve the black colour. Such thinking should be read within a wider debate in Italy at that time regarding the origins of the ancient pots (Nørskov, 2002: 35–42; Masci, 2014: 28–31). For those who sought to claim them as Etruscan rather than Greek, invoking techniques used for producing Italian maiolica provided valuable support for continuity of practice. These ideas spread to France in the second half of the 18th century, prompting further investigations and experiment. Jean-Antoine Chaptal (1756–1832) and Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin (1763–1829) proved the Italian hypothesis of added lead or manganese to be off the mark, but they too failed to understand the ancient technology; Vauquelin, for example, proposed that the black was formed from a carbon-rich material, such as graphite or anthracite. Such theorising went beyond mere antiquarian fancy or scholarship for scholarship’s sake. For Chaptal, to discover how ancient vases were produced promised lessons that could be applied in modern industry. In addition, such knowledge could also be employed by restorers. Recent

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studies have demonstrated that graphite featured in the black paint used in repainting two large Apulian volutekraters now in the Louvre (Bourgeois, 2013: 163). It is likely that the restorer, Luigi Brocchi (1770–1837), was familiar with Vauquelin’s hypothesis about graphite, and applied it as he repaired these grand vases. Instructive too is the case of Raffaele Gargiulo, a Neapolitan potter, dealer, scholar, restorer, and producer of pastiches and replicas (Saunders et al., 2016). Gargiulo worked with Nicola Covelli, a Neapolitan scientist, and in 1831 published an account of how he believed ancient vases were produced (Observations on How Italo-Greek Ceramic Vases are Found, on Their Manufacture, on the Most Distinguished Workshops, and on the Development and Decline of the Art of Vase Making; see translation of the second edition (1843) in Kästner & Saunders, 2016: 167–194). Trained in the Royal Porcelain workshop at Naples, Gargiulo drew from his own experience to propose that the ancients used a palette of four different colours to decorate their pots. Again, this is far removed from what we understand today about the methods of producing black- and red-figure pottery, but such thinking shaped Gargiulo’s approach to restoring vases, and analysis of vessels that he repainted has revealed the use of four different pigments: lead white (for white), vermilion (for red), carbon black (for black) and lead chromate (developed in the 19th century for yellow) (Saunders et al., 2016: 61). Gargiulo’s account of how ancient vases were made is especially interesting for our purposes because he proposed that they were fired more than once. In his scheme, the first firing hardened the as-yet-undecorated vessel, which was then painted and fired again. If white or red were added, a third firing, at a lower temperature, was necessary. This conception of ‘multiple firings’ continued to circulate until the early 20th century, when, through close study of the pottery together with practical experience with ceramicists, Gisela Richter concluded that a single firing – involving a carefully controlled sequence of three different temperatures and atmospheres – was all that was necessary. Following the publication of Richter’s The Craft of Athenian Pottery (1923), the scholarly consensus has been that Athenian black- and red-figure vases were fired just once. This three-stage single-firing hypothesis went hand in hand with the realisation that, contrary to the thinking of antiquarians in the 18th and 19th centuries, nothing needed to be added to the clay slip to obtain the black gloss. Rather, black could be achieved through careful manipulation of the firing, mimicking the processes by which naturally occurring iron minerals – which can be black as well as red – are formed. During the first decades of the

126 20th century, scholars embraced this idea, and the successful reproduction of black gloss by Theodore Schumann in 1942 using a single three-stage firing provided additional support (Schumann, 1942). It seemed everything could be explained in terms of how the vases were fired and, more specifically, how the firing process affected the iron minerals in the clay and the slip. The slip, which was used for decorating the vases, was obtained by refining the clay – probably by mixing it with water and leaving it to stand, allowing the heavier particles to sink (levigation). The upper portion of this levigated mixture, containing the smaller clay particles, could then be siphoned off and used as a slip to decorate the vases. The distinction in particle sizes is critical, for it explains why the iron minerals in the clay used for potting, and those in the slip used for decorating, react differently during firing. The clay used for potting a vase is a mixture of different minerals with a range of particle sizes. These include larger particles (usually carbonates) that help the clay remain porous during firing, allowing the iron-containing minerals to react with oxygen as it circulates in the kiln. The more refined slip, on the other hand, contains fewer impurities and only smaller particles. These allow it to form a compact, impermeable layer during the firing that renders it sealed (for this we use the term ‘vitrification’, which refers specifically to the transformation of a substance into a glass, rather than the related ‘sintering’ which is applied more generally when components coalesce into a solid without liquification). The decorated vases are placed in a kiln and in the first of the three proposed firing stages they are heated while air is allowed to circulate. There is a surplus of oxygen, so the iron minerals in the clay – and the slip – oxidise and turn a reddish colour (as the mineral forms hematite and maghemite). Next, the vents in the kiln are closed so that all the oxygen is used up, and if no more can enter, this creates what is called a reducing environment. The iron minerals react by turning into forms that are black (magnetite and hercynite). As discussed above, the areas decorated with the slip (i.e., smaller particles) vitrify, forming an impenetrable glassy layer, while the undecorated areas of the body (larger particles) remain porous. This difference in porosity is important, as, in the third and final stage, the vents of the kiln are re-opened so that air can circulate again. The porous, undecorated areas of the vase can receive the oxygen that is newly available. The iron minerals oxidise once more, turning back from black to red. However, the decorated areas are not porous – ­because they have vitrified and are thus sealed – and so oxygen is unable to diffuse into them. Accordingly, no further chemical exchanges take place, and the areas decorated with

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slip remain black. The result is the distinctive combination of red and black that characterises Athenian vases, achieved not through the addition of any special pigment, but purely through the careful calibration of the firing process (on added white and purple-red, see Maish et al., 2006: 13–14). Thus runs the account of the production process that is generally accepted and described as such in textbooks (e.g., Noble, 1988: 79–81; Cook, 1997: 231–233; Boardman, 2001: 282–283). Yet much is still reliant on hypothesis, and merits rigorous testing and documentation (notably through attempts at replication; see Aloupi-Siotis, 2008 and Kahn & Wissinger, 2008). Indeed, with new technologies and analytical tools, we are able to scrutinise ancient ceramics in ways that were simply not feasible decades ago. Through collaboration with colleagues outside the discipline of Classical Archaeology, we have sought to obtain a more concrete understanding of the materials in question. In particular, we have focussed on the chemistry and microstructure of the clay, in order to better understand how the black was produced and the firing temperatures that were required. These enquiries have, in turn, led us to revisit the notion of the single three-stage firing process. 3

The Athenian Pottery Project: Techniques and Resources

Given the interdisciplinary nature of our study, it is worthwhile documenting the tools and techniques that were employed in the course of our project. The starting point was the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection of ancient vases and fragments, which is particularly rich in Athenian material from the early 5th century BCE, when the craft of red-figure pottery was arguably at its most refined. Regular access allowed all members of the team – some of whom began the project with no prior knowledge of ancient pottery – to look closely at individual vessels and fragments, and familiarise themselves with, for example, the qualities of the ancient black gloss or the form of ‘relief’ lines. We began our analytical studies with two techniques available in-house at the Getty Conservation Institute: X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy and Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). Both techniques provide information about the chemical elements present in a material. With XRF an object is bombarded with a beam of X-rays, which in turn produce fluorescent X-rays. Every chemical element produces a unique series of these fluorescent X-rays, and thus

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the presence of individual elements can be identified. The advantage of the technique is that there is no need to remove samples, but in this configuration the X-ray beam simultaneously probes surface and sub-surface layers, and because it is operating in air, not every element present can be detected. As such, the information obtained can provide only a general picture. To gain a more detailed insight we also undertook LA-ICPMS analysis. In this technique, a laser is used to evaporate a small amount of material from the surface of a sample, which is then ionised (given an electric charge) by the plasma and finally directed into a mass spectrometer, which allows the identity and quantity of the chemical elements present in the sample to be measured precisely. Compared to XRF, LA-ICPMS can detect more of the elements that are present, and is much more sensitive, able to record quantities down to parts per billion. Its substantial drawback, however, is that it requires the removal (and consumption) of small amounts of material from the vases. Therefore this technique was only employed on a limited number of selected fragments. In identifying samples for LA-ICPMS (and other analytical methods described below), we focussed as much as possible on fragments without figural decoration; minuscule samples were taken from alreadybroken areas, such as the edges, in order to minimise any loss. These two methods produced valuable information about the elements present in the ceramic body and the gloss, and results from these studies will feature in the first of the three case-studies presented below. But to learn why the red and black areas are the colour they are, we had to utilise specialised techniques not available in most museum laboratories to analyse our samples. In doing so we brought in collaborators with specialised knowledge of the chemistry of materials (although not necessarily ancient ones). One of the main techniques we employed was X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), which uses synchrotron-generated X-rays to study, at the micro-scale, precisely what form of iron-containing minerals are present in a sample, and how they are distributed. Synchrotron radiation is produced at dedicated research facilities (operated in the U.S. by the Department of Energy) which are available for use by researchers on a competitive basis, and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) was one of our major partners in this project. In addition, we performed experiments at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, which has capabilities for producing highly detailed chemical maps at the micro-scale. We also sought to understand the ways in which the different iron minerals, and other materials that may be

present in the gloss and ceramic body, are bound to one another to form a solid. During firing, the iron-containing minerals may undergo transformation, and upon cooling, will form crystals. Closely examining the size, shape, and composition of these crystals can inform us about the firing conditions under which they were formed, i.e., what sorts of temperatures were reached, and how long the cooling might have lasted. For this, our colleagues at The Aerospace Corporation employed high-resolution imaging by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), which can provide images of features down to a few hundred nanometers across (about 1000 times smaller than a human hair). And just as in the 18th century, when investigations into the production of ancient pottery were conducted with a view to benefitting modern industry, so too today: our partners at the Aerospace Corporation were already investigating the properties of iron chemistry in order to gauge the efficacy of ceramic components in aerospace applications (see http://blogs .getty.edu/iris/ancient-greek-pottery-lends-its-secrets-to -future-space-travel/). Concurrent with these various analytical techniques, we sought to verify our findings through the production of replicates. Using a commercially available clay with a chemical composition that best approximated the type of clay available to the ancient Athenian potters (Redart, available from Resco Products Inc., Pittsburgh PA), the team fashioned over fifty samples in the form of small ceramic tiles on which slip was applied. By firing these in a ‘kiln’ of our own design (not a traditional wood-fired kiln, but rather a tube furnace to which gases could be introduced using a series of tubes and valves) we could exercise complete control over the temperature, duration, and environment of the firing process. The analysis of these replicates – the production process of which was fully documented – provided a benchmark and a body of reference data that could be called upon when studying the ancient pottery. 4

Case Study 1: Clay for the Body and Slip

One of our early goals was to identify whether there were any differences between the clay used for the body and that used for the slip, and what this might mean (Walton et al., 2015). Was the same clay employed for both potting and painting? Was the clay that was used for painting somehow altered? Or did it come from an altogether different source? Nineteen different ceramic vessels – including non-Attic examples – were studied, with samples taken from both the body of the pot and the gloss. ICPMS

128 and XANES (X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure, a specific form of X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy) were used to measure the chemical composition and identify the forms of the minerals present respectively. The results were similar across all nineteen samples, but with one notable difference: the clay used for the slip consistently showed a greater amount of zinc when compared to the equivalent sample from the body. Further, the amount of zinc in the slip was above a level that would be considered natural. In other words, it appeared that the same clay was used for the body and the slip, but that additional zinc was somehow incorporated into the clay slip intended for painting the vases. After examining a number of possible scenarios, we hypothesised that the most likely source of zinc was vitriol (contrast Aloupi-Siotis, 2008; Chaviara & Aloupi-Siotis, 2016). A by-product from metal mining in the form of run-off water and typically rich in zinc, vitriol was an acid used in ancient industry (Plinius, Naturalis historiae 34.32). Adding vitriol to the fine-grained portion of the clay mixture obtained during levigation would have encouraged the clumping-together of the fine particles in the liquid clay, so less time would have to be spent waiting for the heavier particles to sink (compare the suggestion that a peptizing or deflocculating agent was added, e.g., Noble, 1988: 204; Cook, 1997: 233; Schreiber, 1999: 53).

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Additionally, because of its acidic properties, vitriol would have dissolved any remaining crystals of calcite that would prevent a glassy slip from forming during firing. This more highly refined portion – now with an elevated quantity of zinc – would have been siphoned off to be used as slip for decorating the vases. Two of our samples came from Korinthian and Faliscan vases and presented the same pattern found with the Athenian examples, i.e., the same clay for potting and painting, but with an elevated quantity of zinc in the slip. It is tempting to suggest that these findings point to a shared manufacturing process across the Mediterranean, but of course these are only two samples, and the results need to be confirmed through the analysis of larger study sets. 5

Case Study 2: Background Black, Contour Line, and Relief Line

The second case study focusses on a single fragment, from a skyphos attributed to the Kleophrades Painter (Walton et al., 2013) (fig. 5.1). This sherd provides a clear instance of the different applications of black that were employed by red-figure painters in the early 5th century BCE: besides the black gloss that was applied as the background, there

figure 5.1 Athenian red-figure skyphos fragment, attributed to the Kleophrades Painter, 490–470 BCE. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 95.AE.31.2 Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum

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figure 5.2

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Athenian black-gloss cup with a sketch of an Amazon on Horseback, ca. 450–430 BCE. The Art Museum, Princeton University, Museum Purchase, Classical Purchase Fund, y1987_70 Photo: Princeton University Art Museum

is a distinct outline that surrounds the shape of the hand. This is the so-called ‘contour line’, which presumably served to guard against any gloss spilling over as the background was being painted. A later black-gloss cup in the Princeton University Art Museum (inv. y1987_70) (fig. 5.2) with a partially completed Amazon warrior on horseback on its underside provides an excellent insight into the process of decoration. The painter has completed the head and surrounded it with the contour line, but the body of the figure and her horse remain unfinished. Besides traces of a preliminary sketch (made with charcoal, which burnt away during firing), outlines were rendered in relief, that is, slightly elevated on the surface (Padgett, 2017: 215). This technique was used to fashion a wide spectrum of fine details and outlines and, returning to our fragment by the Kleophrades Painter (fig. 5.1), we can see that ‘relief lines’ were used to delineate the fingers and details of the hand. How these relief lines were produced has been another field of enquiry. A reed-pen, quill, or even a syringe-like device have been proposed (e.g., Noble, 1988: 118–121; Boardman, 2001: 286), but the consensus today is that a brush that had one, or a few, very fine animal hairs would

have been used to produce lines that average from 150 to 250 microns in width. Paula Artal-Isbrand and Philip Klausmeyer (2013) have convincingly demonstrated that lines could either be “laid” upon the surface or “pulled” to create slightly longer ones. Jeffrey Maish has also observed that long lines, e.g. those used for drapery, are sometimes made up of a series of shorter lines overlaid with clear stops and starts, as shown on another vase attributed to the Kleophrades Painter (fig. 5.3). We might actually see a depiction of the tool in use on an early 5th-century BCE cup in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. 01.8073), where a vase painter is shown at work. Under raking light, a thin relief line is visible extending from the tip – perhaps the hairs of the brush – onto the exterior of the cup (Artal-Isbrand & Klausemyer, 2013: 346, fig. 15). Beyond thinking about the tool, however, we were also interested to learn whether there was anything specific about the slip that gave the relief lines their distinctively thick and elevated appearance. We measured the elemental composition of the three types of black slip evident on the Kleophrades Painter fragment – relief line, contour line, and background – with XRF and LA-ICPMS. Although

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figure 5.3 Athenian red-figure kalpis (detail), attributed to the Kleophrades Painter, 490–470 BCE. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 82.AE.7. White arrows point to starts and stops in the relief lines; numbers give the length of lines in cm. Photo: Jeffrey Maish, J. Paul Getty Museum

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figure 5.4

TEM images of samples taken from the skyphos fragment 95.AE.31.2 (fig. 5.1) left: relief line right: the background gloss Detail of fig. 2 from Walton et al., 2013

not exactly identical, the results for all three were sufficiently similar to suggest that there had not been any manipulation of the slip used for the relief line – e.g. through the addition of other substances. We then turned to Transmission Electron Microscopy to study the morphology of the particles within the three types of black slip. The resulting images (fig. 5.4) revealed that in the relief line, the slip had undergone significant melting, as evidenced by the presence of well-faceted particles surrounded by a silicate-rich glass matrix. By contrast, the contour line and background gloss both contained elongated structures – remnants of the original clay – indicating that they had not melted as much as the relief line. These results suggest that the relief line experienced a greater thermal dose during firing than the contour and background regions. Since we had identified that all three shared a similar composition and, further, because the samples had been taken within a few millimetres of each other on a single vessel,

it is hard to imagine how this could have been achieved in a single firing. Accordingly, we proposed that the vessel had been subjected to two firings: one following the application of the relief line to sketch the initial details of the hand, and a second following the application of the so-called contour line and background. 6

Case Study 3: Evidence for Multiple Firing?

The idea of firing an Athenian red-figure vase more than once runs at odds with what has been the scholarly consensus since the 1920s. Yet persuasive arguments have been made for a second firing in the production of the short-lived ‘coral-red’ vase-painting technique (Maish, 2008; Walton et al., 2008) and we were alert to the possibility of other examples. On studying a cross-section of a red-figure hydria fragment attributed to one of the

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figure 5.5 Athenian red-figure hydria fragment, attributed to the Berlin Painter, 490–470 BCE. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 81.AE.206.D.2005 top: underside of mouth. Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum. bottom: cross-section of removed sample. Fig 1b from Cianchetta, et al., 2015.

Kleophrades Painter’s contemporaries, the Berlin Painter (inv. 81.AE.206.D.2005) (fig. 5.5), we noted a curious feature. Between the black gloss and the ceramic body of this vase was a layer of red gloss, around 10–20 microns in thickness. Similar underlying red layers are often referred to as “miltos” (e.g., Noble, 1985: 125–127; Schreiber, 1994: 48), but

whether this term also implies the use of a specific material is still the subject of debate. Regardless of what it is called, red is produced by oxidised forms of iron minerals in the clay (hematite, maghemite), while black is obtained by reduced forms (magnetite, hercynite). Oxidation and reduction cannot occur together simultaneously, so what

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sequence of painting and firing could have produced such a stratigraphy? With Raman spectroscopy, a technique that uses a laser to characterise the composition of materials, we identified the mineral hematite in the red gloss layer. By comparing data collected on the Berlin Painter fragment with that from replicate samples, we concluded that the red gloss layer must have been fired at a high temperature (>950 °C) under oxidising conditions. Raman spectroscopy, however, is not equally sensitive to all forms of iron oxides, and could not be used to study the black or other forms of red that might be present in the samples. Therefore we turned once again to XANES, and in particular to the capabilities of the ESRF synchrotron in Grenoble. The results of these studies showed that the black gloss layer consisted predominantly of the aluminium- and iron-containing mineral hercynite and the red gloss layer consisted of hematite. These results were not surprising. More noteworthy was the finding that the body clay contained two different red iron minerals – maghemite and hematite. These minerals have the same chemical composition (Fe2O3) but differ in their crystal structure, which is determined by the temperature under which they form: maghemite forms at lower temperatures than hematite. Images obtained from the XANES study also demonstrated that the red gloss layer was slightly more dense, i.e., more vitrified, than the black gloss layer. Comparing these results from the ancient fragment with those from a series of replicates fired at different temperatures led us to conclude that the red gloss layer was fired at a higher temperature than the black gloss, and an even lower temperature was used for the final oxidation of the clay body. Taken together, these data formed the basis of a hypothesis that this particular vase had been subjected to two separate painting/firing campaigns. Specifically, we postulate that an initial overall layer of slip was applied, and fired at a high temperature (above 950 °C) under oxidising conditions, thereby producing the thin layer of red gloss (hematite) over the entire surface. The vessel was removed from the kiln, cooled, and decorated. It was then fired in a three-stage process (oxidising-reducingoxidising), with the temperature at each step lower than the previous to avoid altering materials formed in earlier stages. Specifically, the temperature of the first oxidation stage of this second firing had to be low enough to avoid the formation of red hematite or the re-melting of the underlying red gloss layer – so less than 950 °C. The reduction stage that followed (in which black hercynite was formed) would have been slightly cooler, and the final oxidation stage cooler still, to account for the presence of red

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maghemite (the lower temperature form of the iron oxide mineral) in the body. 7 Conclusions It bears stressing that this red under-layer on the Berlin Painter hydria fragment is, among all of the samples we studied, a unicum. Much more evidence is needed, but taken together with case study 2, our findings at the very least resurrect the possibility of multiple firings. There are certainly some advantages to doing what might be called a bisque firing, for it would have made the vases harder, and thus easier to handle when it came to painting them. Furthermore, working with a fired surface may have ensured that the decoration was successful. In experimenting with the application of relief lines, Jeffrey Maish has found that the best results are obtained not with unfired clay that has been left to dry, but with clay that has already been in the kiln. Nonetheless, it would be unduly simplistic to reduce the entire Athenian pottery industry to a single production model, and we should anticipate that a variety of methods were used, depending on practical circumstances and personal (or workshop) preferences. In order to progress further and validate our hypotheses, we need to build up a much larger study set. In particular, we need to extend the findings from micro- and nano-scale techniques to those obtainable at the macro scale, and more importantly, non-invasively, so that greater numbers of objects may be studied. Ultimately, these are questions that a single team of researchers cannot solve alone, and we look forward to developing ways in which multiple teams can share their study sets and data. Furthermore, if the shiny black gloss of Athenian pottery has consistently caught the eye of researchers, this should not be to the exclusion of other fabrics. Our project focussed on Athenian red-figure vases of the early 5th century BCE in large part because such material is well represented in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Further work is needed to see whether similar phenomena can be found in Athenian black-figure, and even earlier in Korinthian, vase-painting. We also made only occasional reference to red-figure pottery made in Southern Italy, but there is ample material to explore here. Ancient pottery workshops have been excavated and well documented, and scientific analyses have been used to help in provenancing the clay (Thorn, 2009; Thorn & Glascock, 2010; Robinson, 2014; Gianoncelli et al., 2020). Understanding methods of firing and decorating could shed further light on links with Athenian potters and painters in the earliest

134 years of Apulian and Lucanian production, and on the transmission of technical expertise throughout the region during the 4th century BCE. These investigations also permit a deeper appreciation of the production process, acknowledging the multiple steps and resources necessary to the manufacture of figure-decorated vessels. In doing so, it may also be possible to recognise more fully the contributions of participants other than the potter and painter in the chaîne opératoire, such as those preparing the clay or overseeing the kiln. No less important is the incorporation of these studies into the classroom experience. Particularly inspiring has been the work of Sanchita Balachandran at Johns Hopkins University Archaeological Museum. During a 14-week series of classes in 2015, students engaged with the latest hypotheses from a number of guest lecturers and had the opportunity to work with a local potter to build a kiln and decorate and fire their own vases. Results were posted in a weekly blog, and the whole process documented in a short film (http://archaeologicalmuseum .jhu.edu/the-collection/object-stories/recreating-ancient -greek-ceramics/). This brought to light numerous practical observations that have often been overlooked or underplayed, and in turn forms the basis for further experiments and research (see further, Balachandran, 2019). Finally, as with any sort of investigation or experimentation, ‘negative’ results and blind alleys are to be expected. We had thought that in looking at a variety of vases by different painters, we might encounter differences in the composition of the black gloss that could prove distinctive, perhaps even offering a means of assigning unattributed vases. Attributions to painters or workshops are primarily achieved through close study of figure drawing and details, but distinguishing different hands can be extremely difficult and is somewhat subjective. To find a reliable and objective method that rests on quantifiable and verifiable data could, therefore, offer a great advance for the subject. It would, accordingly, have been instructive to find that the black gloss used by the Kleophrades Painter, for example, was distinguishable from that used by the contemporary Berlin Painter, but thus far, this has not been the case. Yet even this negative conclusion raises interesting avenues for future research. If there really is nothing to distinguish the black gloss used by the various painters in the Athenian potters’ quarter, was there a commonly shared method of production, or were they all using a shared supply of slip? If the latter, how would this have been organised and distributed among the different workshops? These questions are still to be answered, and there remains great potential for art historians, archaeologists, conservators, and materials scientists to continue

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working together to learn more about the ways in which these vases were produced. Bibliography of Modern Works Aloupi-Siotis, Eleni, 2008: “Recovery and Revival of Attic-Vase Decoration Techniques: What can they offer archaeological research?”, in Lapatin (ed.), 2008: 113–128. Artal-Isbrand, Paula & Klausmeyer, Philip, 2013: “Evaluation of the relief line and the contour line on Greek red-figure vases using reflectance transformation imaging and threedimensional laser scanning confocal microscopy”, Studies in Conservation 58.4: 338–359. doi: 10.1179/2047058412Y .0000000077. Balachandran, Sanchita, 2019: “Bringing Back the (Ancient) Bodies: The Potters’ Sensory Experiences and the Firing of Red, Black and Purple Greek Vases”, Arts 8.2: 70. doi: 10.3390/ arts8020070. Bentz, Martin, Geominy, Wilfred & Müller, Jan Marius (edd.), 2010: TonArt. Virtuosität antiker Töpfertechnik (Petersburg). Boardman, John, 2001: The History of Greek Vases (London). Bourgeois, Brigitte, 2013: “La fabrique du vase. Antiquaires, chimistes et restaurateurs au temps du Lagrenée (1780–1820)”, in Bourgeois, Brigitte & Denoyelle, Martine (edd.), L’Europe du Vase Antique. Collectionneurs, Savants, Restaurateurs aux XVIIIe et XIXe Siècles (Rennes) 151–167. Chaviara, Artemi & Aloupi-Siotis, Eleni, 2016: “The story of a soil that became a glaze: Chemical and microscopic fingerprints on the Attic vases”, JAS Reports 7: 510–518. doi: 10.1016/ j.jasrep.2015.08.016. Cianchetta, Ilaria, Trentelman, Karen, Maish, Jeffrey, Saunders, David, Foran, Bredan, Walton, Marc, Sciau, Philippe, Wang, Tian, Pouyet, Emeline, Cotte, Marine, Meirer, F., Liu, Yijin, Pianetta, Piero & Mehta, Apurva, 2015: “Evidence for an Unorthodox Firing Sequence Employed by the Berlin Painter: Deciphering Ancient Ceramic Firing Conditions through High-Resolution Material Characterization and Replication”, Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy 30: 666–676. doi: 10.1039/C4JA00376D. Cohen, Beth (ed.), 2006: Colors of Clay. Special Techniques in Athenian Vases (Los Angeles). Cook, Robert M., 1997: Greek Painted Pottery. 3rd Edition (London & New York). Cuomo di Caprio, Ninina, 2017: Ceramics in Archaeology: From Prehistoric to Medieval Times in Europe and the Mediterranean: Ancient Craftsmanship and Modern Laboratory Techniques (Rome). Gianoncelli, A., Raneri, S., Schoeder, S., Okbinoglu, T., Barone, G., Santostefano, A. and Mazzoleni, P, 2020: “Synchrotron µ-XRF imaging and µ-XANES of black-glazed wares at the

INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE PRODUCTION OF ATHENIAN POTTERY PUMA beamline: Insights on technological markers for colonial productions.” Microchemical Journal 154: 104629. doi: 10.1016/j.microc.2020.104629. Kahn, Lisa C. & Wissinger, John C., 2008: “Re-creating and Firing a Greek Kiln”, in Lapatin (ed.), 2008: 129–138. Kästner, Ursula & Saunders, David, (edd.), 2016: Dangerous Perfection: Ancient Funerary Vases from Southern Italy (Los Angeles). Lapatin, Kenneth (ed.), 2008: Papers on Special Techniques in Athenian Vases (Los Angeles). Maish, Jeffrey P., 2008: “Observations and Theories on the Technical Development of Coral-red Gloss”, in Lapatin (ed.), 2008: 85–94. Maish, Jeffrey, Svoboda, Marie & Lansing-Maish, Susan, 2006: “Technical Studies of Some Attic Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum”, in Cohen (ed.), 2006: 8–16. Masci, Maria Emilia, 2014: “A History of the Various Approaches to Vases from the End of the XVII Century until the Beginning of the XIX Century”, in Schmidt, Stefan & Steinhart, Matthias (edd.), Sammeln und Erforschen – Griechische Vasen in neuzeitlichen Sammlungen (Munich) 27–40. Monaco, Maria Chiara, 2000: Ergasteria. Impianti Artigianali Ceramici ad Atene ed in Attica dal Protogeometrico alle soglie dell’Elenismo (Rome). Noble, Joseph Veach, 1988: The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery. Revised Edition (London). Nørskov, Vinnie, 2002: Greek Vases in New Contexts: the collecting and trading of Greek vases: an aspect of the modern reception of antiquity (Aarhus). Oakley, John H., 2009: “State of the Discipline. Greek Vase Painting”, AJA 113: 599–627. doi: 10.3764/aja.113.4.599. Padgett, J. Michael (ed.), 2017: The Berlin Painter and his World. Athenian Vase-Painting in the Early Fifth Century B.C. (Yale). Papadopoulos, John K., 2003: Ceramicus Redivivus. The Early Iron Age Potters’ Field in the Area of the Classical Athenian Agora (Princeton). Richter, Gisela M.A., 1923: The Craft of Athenian Pottery (New Haven). Robinson, Edward G.D., 2014: “Archaeometric Analysis of Apulian and Lucanian Red-Figure Pottery”, in Carpenter, Thomas H., Lynch, Kathleen M. & Robinson, Edward G.D. (edd.), The Italic People of Ancient Apulia (Cambridge) 243–264.

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Sanidas, Giorgos M., 2013: La production artisanale en Grèce (Paris). Saunders, David, Svoboda, Marie & Milanese, Andrea, 2016: “‘exactitude and mastery …’: The work of Raffaele Gargiulo”, in Kästner & Saunders (edd.), 2016: 43–66. Schreiber, Toby, 1999: Athenian Vase Construction. A Potter’s Analysis (Los Angeles). Schumann, Th., 1942: “Oberflächenverzierung in der antiken Töpferkunst. Terra sigillata und griechische Schwarzrotmalerei”, Berichte der deutschen keramischen Gesellschaft 32: 408–426. Stissi, Vladimir N., 2003: Pottery to the people. The production, distribution and consumption of decorated pottery in the Greek world in the Archaic period (650–480 BC) (diss., University of Amsterdam). Swaminathan, Nikhil, 2013: “A Future for Icons of the Past”, Archaeology 66.4 (July–August): 48–52. Thorn, Jed M., 2009: “The invention of ‘Tarentine’ red-figure”, Antiquity 83: 174–183. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00098173. Thorn, Jed M. & Glascock, Michael D., 2010: “New Evidence for Apulian Red-Figure Production Centres”, Archaeometry 52.5: 777–796. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2009.00511.x. Trentelman, Karen, 2017: “Analyzing the Heterogenous Hierarchy of Cultural Heritage Materials: Analytical Imaging”, Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry 10: 247–270. doi: 10.1146/annurev-anchem-071015-041500. Walton, Marc, Doehne, Eric, Trentelman, Karen & Chiari, Giacomo, 2008: “A Preliminary Investigation of Coral-red Glosses Found on Attic Greek Pottery”, in Lapatin (ed.), 2008: 95–104. Walton, Marc, Trentelman, Karen, Cummings, Marvin, Poretti, Giulia, Maish, Jeff, Saunders, David, Foran, Brendan, Brodie, Miles, Mehta, Apurva, 2013: “Material Evidence for Multiple Firings of Ancient Athenian Red-Figure Pottery”, Journal of the American Ceramic Society 96.7: 2031–2035. doi: 10.1111/ jace.12395. Walton, Marc, Trentelman, Karen, Cianchetta, Ilaria, Maish, Jeffrey, Saunders, David, Foran, Brendan, Mehta, Apurva, 2015: “Zn in Athenian Black Gloss Ceramic Slips: A Trace Element Marker for Fabrication Technology”, Journal of the American Ceramic Society 98.2: 430–436. doi: 10.1111/ jace.13337.

chapter 6

“Everything impossible”: Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome Nicola Barham Abstract This paper argues that fine glass dining vessels were prized aesthetic objects in the ancient Roman world. Where a postEnlightenment bias against applied visual media has allowed these glass works to go under-treated, this paper re-examines this medium through a combined methodological approach of close visual and textual analysis. Drawing upon the possibilities afforded by the development of searchable online databases of Roman texts, the paper analyses not only surviving explicit discussions of glass works (which are few), but also foregrounds references to the medium that are made in passing. It thereby identifies aesthetic emphases that only appear in brief mentions of this material, but which transpire to focus very consistently upon the same visual values. As a result, the paper proposes that works of Roman glassware were explicitly appreciated for the aesthetic effects of light mediated by their surface, both within the compass of the glass, and in the wider space around it. This conclusion is then practically applied to surviving examples of Roman glass objects to explore the visual effects that ancient lighting would have produced. Arguing that the Roman world was highly sensitive to this material’s visual allure, the paper presents a new perspective on the medium, grounded in a distinctively Roman mode of aesthetic attentiveness to this art.

Keywords Roman glass – Millefiori glass – Roman tableware – ancient Roman aesthetics – Roman domestic interior design – light – shine – colour – Kant

1

Introduction

A translucent dish of perfectly smooth surface, formed of melded glass disks in bright red and blue, stands alone in a pedestal case at the Art Institute of Chicago, in the galleries of Ancient and Byzantine Art (inv. no. 2004.722; see bibliography in Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a: para. 56–62).1 1  This paper is written with gratitude for the life and friendship of Mary Greuel, and with appreciative memories of the kind welcome she gave me upon my arrival at the Art Institute of Chicago. I would

© Nicola Barham, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_008

(fig. 6.1) Lit with spotlights from multiple directions, the detailed multi-coloured surface of the dish comes alive, leading the viewer to move in a full arc around the object. The object invites the viewer to marvel at the deep, resonant glow of coloured light from which the work appears to be formed. Light makes this glass dish a wonder. Millefiori glass dishes such as these are known from the Hellenistic world, and continued to be used in the Roman period (Oliver, 1968: 65–68; Grose, 1989: 191–192, 200–201; Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a: para. 11–12). Such vessels were painstakingly pieced together from coloured disk sections that were cut from stretched glass canes and subsequently heated around (or first heated and then slumped over) a solid core (Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a: para. 3–4, 36–37). The Chicago dish has most recently been dated to the mid2nd/early 1st century BCE (Manchester, 2012: 66–67, 111; Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a). There are no direct parallels found in a secure excavation context, making these dishes difficult to date (Oliver, 1968: 68; Grose, 1989: 192), but millefiori glass works excavated from secure archaeological contexts have long been known, with dates ranging from 225–200 BCE to 1–50 CE (e.g., British Museum 1871,0518.3 and 1922,0517.1; on vessels of this type see Oliver, 1968: 64; Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a: para. 11–12). An exceptional discovery from a secure context excavated in 2009 in London has since confirmed a much longer date range for the use, and potential manufacture, of millefiori glass vessels made with glass canes, stretching the appreciation of this technique down to the 3rd century CE (Museum of London object number PCO06[1802], dated to 200–300 CE).2 like to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Chicago Object Study Initiative at the Art Institute of Chicago for their generous support of this research. Special thanks also are due to Karen Manchester and the Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art at the Art Institute for their warm collegiate support, as well as to Christine Mehring, Jill Bugajski, and Elizabeth Benge, for their help in the procurement of photographs, and to Chris Gallagher for his innovative photography. I thank Jaś Elsner for his comments on an earlier version of this paper. 2  https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/ 773067.html. On the archaeological context and dating see: https:// www.lparchaeology.com/prescot/ark/micro_view.php?item_key= cxt_cd&cxt_cd=PCO06_1802 and https://www.lparchaeology.com/ prescot/about/assessment-glass-vessels-from-burial-sgr73 (accessed 16/05/2020).

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figure 6.1

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Millefiori dish. Mid-2nd/early 1st Century BCE. Hellenistic or early Roman, Eastern Mediterranean. The Art Institute of Chicago, Katherine K Adler Memorial Fund, 2004.722 Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago

Millefiori dishes evidently continued to be made in the Greek world when it came under Roman dominion from the mid-2nd century BCE, with variants also being produced in Italian workshops, and possibly even further west, as the London dish suggests. Since the taste for this aesthetic effect in glass persisted, still more works of this quality undoubtedly enjoyed a long nachleben in Roman contexts (Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a: para. 11–12; compare also Augustinus, Sermones ad populum 17.7). Thus, while dates for the particular sub-type of vessel represented by the Chicago dish must remain somewhat tentative (since the closest examples tend to be dated essentially by analogy with each other), it is at least clear that millefiori dishes of this type were being used on high-society tables in the Roman world in the 1st century BCE and, I would suggest, into the first century CE (Oliver, 1968: 68; Grose, 1989: 192; Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a: figs. 71.2–71.4). Even after the technical revolution of blown glass in the 1st century BCE (see Caron & Zoitopoúlou, 2008: xvi–xvii; Larson, 2015), such painstakingly-crafted vessels continued to be made (Grose, 1989: 241–262). This was despite the fact that blown glass vessels were infinitely quicker to produce than the cast glass of previous generations, and even more so than those executed in this intricate technique of fusing individual disks cut from millefiori canes. Notwithstanding the labour it required, the vari-coloured gleam of millefiori glass was long appreciated for its charm.

But is the curatorial method of display I describe, which presents this Chicago dish at its most visually vibrant, actually grounded in the way that the object was used and appreciated in the ancient world? Were glass dishes – of even such a fine quality as this – recognised as objects of aesthetic appeal in anything approximating the manner that the art gallery of today would suggest? In this paper I argue that works of ancient glass were indeed frequently objects of close aesthetic admiration in Roman Antiquity. I further suggest that the dynamics of light that the gallery setting can bring to the fore do not simply represent an aestheticising tendency of the current moment; they tap into a quality of the material itself – one that was vitally appreciated in the ancient world, in a manner that our contemporary viewing practices most commonly disregard. Modern scholarship on glass of the Roman period still typically overlooks the light-reflecting qualities of this material. We are not generally accustomed to taking ‘sparkle’ as a serious aesthetic category (on the notion of Latin color as ‘brilliance’ or ‘brightness’, however, see Clarke, 2003; Elsner, 2007: 219–221, n. 51). The bibliography on the ancient aesthetic value of Roman glass vessels, moreover, is only now emerging (Meredith-Goymour, 2006; Meredith, 2009 and 2015; Lapatin, 2015; Goldstein & Sabino, 2017a), although the interest in the beauty of this medium in the Byzantine period, particularly in its use for mosaics, has been longer recognised (most recently:

138 Dell’Acqua Boyvadaoǧlu, 2008; Entwistle & James, 2013; on the Byzantine appreciation of colour and shine see James, 1996; Franses, 2003). As a whole, Roman glass has been under-treated. Furthermore, modern viewers of Roman glass must balance two contradictory perspectives which anachronistically serve to distort our appreciation of its value. On the one hand, our perception is coloured by our contemporary experience of this material in our own daily life. Accustomed as we are to objects of modern machinemade glass – mass-produced at low cost and with little effort – it can arguably be difficult to conceptualise glass as a material of value. On the other hand, we are accustomed to think of items of Roman glass as inherently valuable by virtue of their antiquity, as is reinforced by the rarefied museum setting, or the high prices works obtain on the art market. Even the iridescent rainbow effect which we admire on the surface of many surviving ancient glass vessels is misleading, since it is not an effect that would have been present in Antiquity, but is actually due to the deterioration of the surface of the glass (Goldstein & Sabino, 2017b). These modern assumptions need to be disregarded in order to examine how Roman glass was valued in Antiquity. In terms of monetary expense, Roman glass originally commanded a wide range of prices, probably dictated in part by the amount of labour required for the different techniques of manufacture: whether hand-made, hand-finished, or quickly produced on a large scale. Blown glass was introduced in the 1st century BCE and was relatively cheap and readily available, but blown vessels were far from being the sole or even the primary referent for the medium in Roman culture, as I will demonstrate. I argue that in particular contexts the Romans considered glass to be of value even after the prices of everyday glassware had fallen (for a rare argument that glass was more valuable in Antiquity than is commonly assumed see Stern, 1997). Even more fundamentally, the thinking that has shaped the discipline of Classical Art History from its emergence in the late 18th century under Winckelmann has long assumed a hierarchy of aesthetic worth that side-lined objects of practical use (such as the glass dish with which I began) in favour of the presumed ‘fine art’ media of painting and sculpture (Lapatin, 2015; Barham, 2018; for Winckelmann’s aesthetics, see North, 2012; Harloe, 2013). This Enlightenment view is most neatly encapsulated in the strict dichotomy Kant draws between works of a “free beauty” (pulchritudo vaga) on the one hand, and a merely “dependent beauty” (pulchritudo adhaerens), on the other. He praises the beauty of the first kind as “presuppos[ing] no concept of what the object should be” – its beauty formed only for beauty’s own sake – while

Barham

that of the latter he describes as more constrained, since it “is ascribed to objects which come under the concept of a particular purpose” (Kant, 1790:§16). Practicality is framed by Kant here as the enemy of enlightened aesthetics. Our discipline has been slow to allow a fully selfreflexive reconsideration of its widespread adherence to an Enlightenment hierarchy of aesthetic worth: the aesthetic priorities of Kant and his generation continue to exert extensive influence on our perception of visual artefacts from the ancient Roman world (on the influence of Kant’s aesthetics upon the study of Classical art see Platt & Squire, 2017: 38–59). Thus, the study of ‘free’ sculpture has long dominated the field; only now are aesthetic objects of practical use – ‘applied artworks’ – receiving the attention they deserve. In Classical Art History, because works of Roman glass are typically either vessels formed for practical use or are otherwise applied panels set into walls or furniture, they have been tacitly judged to fall firmly into Kant’s category of pulchritudo adhaerens, their beauty “dependent” upon – or subsidiary to – their practical form. Considered to be ‘merely decorative’, such pieces have too often languished without close analysis of the aesthetic effects they were made to achieve. This paper is concerned with rediscovering an emic ancient rationale for the aesthetic dynamics of glass objects. It thereby obviates the kinds of bias we may unwittingly bring to the study of these works as the result of a more recent Western cultural moment. I propose to consider these Roman glass works anew through the textual evidence for the socio-cultural context in which they were originally formed and valued. The reliance upon textual evidence in a volume dedicated to material culture may require something of an apologia. Scholars of material culture in previous generations were often – quite rightly – sceptical of textual methodologies that emphasised literary information at the expense of the material objects themselves (on the unconsidered prioritisation of textual over material evidence see the Introduction to this volume: 1 and 6). Ancient texts have not infrequently been invoked to create mis-readings, rather than elucidations, of works of ancient material culture. And yet, it would of course make little sense for the wealth of textual evidence engaging visual objects from the Greek and Roman world to be discarded in its entirety. This paper thus seeks to represent an alternative approach, in which texts are not plumbed for suggestions of the pedigree of particular objects, but rather are recognised as offering evidence for the kind of thinking that Romans, however unconsciously, were socially disposed to bring to their viewing of material works (for other reconstructions of Roman aesthetic concepts see Bradley, 2009; De Angelis, 2014; Platt, 2014). By engaging with the textual evidence, I examine the ancient

“ Everything impossible ” : Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome

aesthetic value of Roman glass, drawing out the particular visual characteristics for which it was most prized. The texts thus nuance and complicate our understanding of the received visual impact of these material objects in the Roman context – a revelation particularly important in a case such as this, where more recent reactions to a medium have contrived to obfuscate its ancient impact and esteem. Moving from the textual evidence for the ancient appreciation of glass to the material remains, one only has to look at the surviving wall-paintings of the 1st centuries BCE and CE to find realistic depictions of a variety of transparent and translucent glass vessels. These are among the most famous examples of the illusionistic skills of the ancient fresco painters, and have been frequently catalogued and analysed (e.g., Naumann-Steckner, 1991; Sabrié & Sabrié, 1992; Squire, 2009: 396–402 and 2017: 213–233; O’Connell, 2018: 28, 31). Depictions of glassware are even found in North African mosaics (e.g., Caron & Zoitopoúlou, 2008: xix figure 2). I do not focus on these much-discussed images of glass, but instead turn to actual glass vessels and inlays in order to understand the ancient experience that is revealed by the ancient texts. 2

Methodology

Beyond this key interest in the identification of Roman aesthetic priorities in viewing, my approach engages several emerging research foci through a marriage of methodologies: data-mining and analysis of the ancient texts, and a form of experimental archaeology. First, I draw upon the digital humanities practice of ‘data-mining’ – of seeking patterns in millions of lines of ancient text (for an introduction to data-mining in the humanities see Hagood, 2012). Such a practice has been made increasingly possible in the last decade by the ongoing development and online publication of comprehensive (and frequently updated) databases of extant Greek and Roman writings. Specifically, for this paper, I have used the resources of: the Brepols Library of Latin Texts; the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae; the Loeb Classical Library Online; the Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby; the Epigraphic Database Rome; the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg; the Searchable Greek Inscriptions of the Packard Humanities Institute; and Papyri.info. While the practice of datamining is typically understood in terms of the production of quantitative data that lends itself to statistical analysis and interpretation, I show that the method can also be used to highlight less-extensive patterns that are nonetheless interesting for their consistent emphases of a conceptual-linguistic character. Such patterns are of

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particular interest in the case of data-sets that are, by their very nature, incomplete such as the textual evidence that survives from the Classical world. The fragmentary preservation of this textual corpus makes many statistical inquiries impracticable. Yet where conceptual patterns are recognised across sources in a diffuse range of genres, they can carry important implications for the prevalence, use, and import of the ideas they reference (for consideration of such ideas, latent in a culture’s linguistic emphases, see Walton, 2007). I seek to highlight patterns of this kind in the following study. It is of course true that practices akin to ‘data-mining’ have previously been possible, albeit at a dramatically slower pace, through the painstaking manual cataloguing of occurrences of ancient terms, as in the monumental ongoing project of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL), begun in 1900. It was such exhaustive work that allowed Mary Luella Trowbridge to complete her landmark Philological Studies in Ancient Glass, which was the fruit of many years of PhD research (Trowbridge, 1930). Still, as the work of the TLL and the digitisation and the deciphering of texts, particularly of papyri and epigraphy, continue, so the arguments that can be made on the basis of ancient evidence develop. Moreover, where the time required by Trowbridge’s thorough work in the 1910s–1920s made her project essentially one of identification and taxonomy, the rapidity with which such terminological studies can now be executed makes possible a broader study of the theoretical implications that the evidence affords. In this case, the technology now available has allowed me to quickly focus on that subset of data that highlights the aesthetic concepts with which the material of glass was most closely associated. In terms of date, I survey surviving Greek and Latin texts from the time of Homeros to that of Constantinus, as well as epigraphic and papyrological sources, and ultimately discuss references made to glass from the 5th century BCE to the 4th century CE (though some of the papyri I reference may potentially date as late as the 6th century CE). My study particularly focusses on the period between the 1st century BCE and the 2nd century CE when most of the references to the aesthetics of glass appear. This is an interesting revelation in itself, given the explosion in the production, and therefore in the availability, of glass at this time. Where glass becomes a familiar poetic image, as we will see it does, the material’s ubiquity evidently created a wide familiarity with its properties making it an attractive simile. My search terms in Latin for this study were based on the stem vitr- (on the clear identification of vitrum and its cognates as glass rather than any other similarly hard and translucent substance, see Trowbridge, 1930: 63 and for the rare uses of the same term to mean woad, the

140 plant known for its blue dye, see 61). The degree of detail in specification and exclusion of various terms that is allowed in certain databases (most notably the Library of Latin Texts), meant that it was possible to identify all references to the noun vitrum (glass) in all of its parts, as well as to the adjective vitreus (glassy), while allowing for orthographical variation since v can be represented as u. In Greek, the stem ὑαλ- was used to isolate occurrences of the noun ὓαλος (glass), variants such as ὑάλη, and the adjectival forms ὑάλεος and ὑάλινος (glassy). Occurrences on the variant stem ὑελ- were also searched for. I further consider the (very few) transliterations of this term into the Latin hyalus and its cognates for my period of interest.3 Before I begin, the semantic significance of ὓαλος requires some detailed comment. Multiple scholars share the view that from at least 400 BCE, “ὓαλος … almost exclusively [meant] ‘glass’” (Aleshire, 1989: 118; see also Caley & Richards, 1956: 161–162; Eicholz, 1965: 122; Stern, 1997: 204–205 and 2007: 348). Yet Michael Vickers asserts that scholars on glass have been biased towards their object of study in their interpretation of this term; he prefers to interpret the word as ‘rock crystal’ wherever objects of value are indicated (Vickers, 1996: 53–54; c.f. critiques of Vickers’ assumptions: Stern, 1997; Crowley, 2016: 246, n. 43). This tendency to reject glass as a possible material of value sits at the heart of the problem with which my work engages, and I will now briefly lay out the argument against an identification of ὓαλος as ‘crystal’. In the Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ9 s.v. ὓαλος or ὓελος, ἡ), ὓαλος is defined as either glass or crystal.4 The chief proof for the application of the word ὓαλος to crystal in the LSJ is drawn from a passage in Herodotos who claimed that the Ethiopians encased their dead in ὓαλος, which they dug out of the ground (ὀρύσσεται) (Historiai 3.24). Trowbridge agrees with the LSJ that in Herodotus some kind of clear stone must be intended, on the grounds that the ὓαλος is said to be mined 3  In this study I leave aside alternative terms such as the (much debated) murra, and crystallus (generally understood as ice or rock crystal), which are also considered by Trowbridge (1930: 79–94)). My focus here is on passages that clearly reference glass, rather than upon all discussions of any term with which this material might ever arguably be identified. I discount the Greek κύᾶνος (often blue enamel), κρύσταλλος (again, generally ice or rock crystal), and μόρρια (often identified as agate) for the same reason (Trowbridge, 1930: 11–18; 53–56). 4  Trowbridge, in considering Loukianos’ reference to the dead being smeared with ὓαλος in India, suggests that here it might mean a balsamic gum (Trowbridge, 1930: 25; Loukianos, Peri penthous 21). Perhaps this is actually a conflation with the occasional Latin signification of vitrum as woad. It seems reasonable to set aside this one-off reference of Loukianos to a smearable ὓαλος.

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(Trowbridge, 1930: 23–26). Yet while Trowbridge, the LSJ, and others have treated glass dug from the ground as an impossibility, glass does in fact occur in nature, as, for example, when lightning strikes sand (Trowbridge, 1930: 24; Stern, 2007: 343; Dell’Acqua Boyvadaoǧlu, 2008: 93; for occurrences in nature see Welland, 2009: 303). Although the fulgurites thus obtained are by no means large enough to fulfil the function Herodotos describes, any awareness in Antiquity of such naturally-occurring glass would provide context for the historian’s belief in such coffins. But a few centuries later Diodoros Sikeliotes (Bibliotheke historike 2.15) also understood Herodotos to be referring to glass here, and was not put off by the explicit statement that the material was dug from the earth, although he followed the Ionian historian’s contemporary, Ktesias of Knidos, in doubting the reliability of the story. According to Ktesias, ὓαλος was poured over a statue of the dead person, since the body itself would have been burnt by the molten glass. Stern concludes from this tale that the term ὓαλος exclusively meant glass from the late 5th century BCE, since Ktesias considered the identification unambiguous (Stern, 1997: 204–205 and 2007: 348). Still more saliently for the question of the semantic charge of ὓαλος, Stern points out that a full coffin wrought of crystal is as much a physical impossibility as one of glass, whether mined or poured (Stern, 2007: 343). Ultimately, given the well-known fantastical and dubious nature of many passages in Herodotos, this reference to ὓαλος dug from the ground must remain poor grounds for the suggestion that ὓαλος should generally mean crystal, particularly given that other more obvious terms for crystal were available (notably κρύσταλλος). Liddell and Scott (LSJ9 s.v. ὓαλος or ὓελος, ἡ) further reference a passage in Aristophanes (Nephelai 768), where ὓαλος is referred to as a λίθον (stone) used for starting fires and denote this “a convex lens of crystal”. But here there is no reason why the ancients need not have thought of glass as a stone of sorts, and so a lump of glass may easily be meant (see Trowbridge, 1930: 26; Stern, 2007: 372). Glass could also be referred to as a ‘cast stone’ (λίθινος χυτός) in this early period, reinforcing this interpretation (Trowbridge, 1930: 19–22; Stern, 1999: 19–20). The other few passages that might arguably identify ὓαλος as crystal are still less compelling. Akhilleus Tatios, like Herodotos, refers to a glass cup whose material is “dug up” (ὀρωρυγμένης) (Ta kata Leukippen kai Kleitophonta, 2.3.1–2; Stern, 2007: 394; Crowley, 2016: 232–233). An object of this scale might feasibly be carved from a fulgurite, or something similar, and it is again unclear why crystal, as opposed to any other translucent stone, should be favoured for the identification (Stern, 1997: 204 suggests that

“ Everything impossible ” : Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome

Akhilleus Tatios was simply employing poetic phrasing for a special substance). Ioulios Polydeukes 3.87 also lists ὓαλος as a substance to “mine” (μεταλλεύειν) or “dig up” (ὀρύττειν) and oddly places it at the end of a group of metals: gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead, glass. Trowbridge notes something similar in an alchemical text where glass appears alongside not only metals like silver but other materials like kohl (Berthelot, 1887: 25; Trowbridge, 1930: 26). Such texts might imply that ὓαλος could mean something beyond glass in these cases, but rock crystal would again arguably seem to be an arbitrary choice. The reference in the Periplous tēs Eruthras Thalassēs, to ὓαλος αργη (“unwrought glass”) is no complication: surely Casson is right to render this simply as “raw glass” (1989: 81; Periplous 49). The last example is a 4th-century letter, where the editors of the papyrus identify ὓαλος as a “crystal” used for clipping coins (P.Fay. 134). Trowbridge suggests that this might more reasonably be interpreted as a diamond, a substance strong enough for such an action (Trowbridge, 1930: 29), but she further postulates that the ὓαλος that the author of the letter requests might simply be a glass for the wine he proposes to drink (Trowbridge, 1930: 29). In sum, these references as a group cannot demonstrate that the noun ὓαλος was knowingly or consciously applied to crystal, or indeed necessarily to any other type of translucent stone. It ought, of course, to be acknowledged that the ancients were interested in the similar translucent aesthetics of rock crystal and glass (see Crowley, 2016: 229–231). By the early 5th century CE – just beyond my period of consideration – the adjectival forms crystallus and vitreus could be used essentially interchangeably with the meaning of “shiny” or “brilliant” and even as a gloss on one another: glassy crystal, and crystalline glass (Crowley, 2016: 230; c.f. Apokalypsis 4.6 for a simile between the two materials which does not conflate them). But such uses should not be taken to imply a general confusion about these materials, as I have argued. Similarly, a 3rd-century CE papyrus preserving a poem about glass-blowing, where the molten gather of glass at the start of the process is referred to as a κρύσταλλος, need not signify any wider terminological overlap between finished products of glass and crystal (P.Oxy. 50.3536); it does not support Trowbridge’s desire that κρύσταλλος should sometimes explicitly signify glass (Trowbridge, 1930: 54–55, 79 – although she is unable to point to any certain examples; Stern, 1997: 205–206; but c.f. Vickers, 1996: 54, n. 44. Halleux, 1981: 47–52 when discussing alchemical recipes containing “κρύσταλλος” does not consider ‘glass’ a viable identification). A final supporting example is drawn from material, rather than textual, evidence. When considering the lists of dedications on the Athenian Akropolis which make

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reference to objects in ὓαλος, Stern demonstrates that the archaeological evidence shows fine glass objects to be present in this context, while evidence for crystal objects is lacking (Stern, 1999: 20; see also Aleshire, 1989: 118–119). She concludes that references to ὓαλος in Classical Greek lists of Athenian temple dedications should generally be understood to indicate glass. Thus, as a translation of the noun ὓαλος, ‘crystal’ lacks both convincing textual and also archaeological support for my period of study. Nor does it follow that glass and crystal were so inherently interchangeable as to be identified by the same terms in the Greek language, although mistakes in material identification were no doubt possible in Antiquity, and there are also examples of conscious imitation. Glass objects often imitated those in crystal, and at least one crystal cup from the Roman period may imitate a work in glass (Vickers, 1996: 51–53; Stern, 1997; Laurenzi, 2012 with bibliography; Crowley, 2016: 231). The reason for the importance of clarity in identification of terminology, is that such arguments, coupled with the general modern predilection to value crystal more highly than glass, have fundamentally affected the translation of Classical texts (quintessentially Vickers, 1996). As I have outlined here in the case of the Greek ὓαλος, scholarship since the 19th century has muddied the waters. But this is also, and more significantly, the case for the Latin vitrum, which is widely agreed to only ever designate glass rather than any hard stone. Translations, particularly of poetry, commonly take the liberty of rendering vitrum as “crystal” from an anachronistic preference for that material as a pinnacle of beauty. The 19th- and 20thcentury association of crystal with the ancient terminology I have traced has, I propose, only served to occlude the importance and status of glass in Classical Antiquity. I therefore suggest, on the grounds I have outlined, that for the period I discuss here ὓαλος should be generally understood to indicate glass and, crucially, the clear admiration for ὓαλος in a text should not be taken anachronistically as a reason to assume that it is not made of glass. Having defined my terms, I return to my discussion. In what follows it will become clear that the ready access to the breadth of passages provided by data-mining enables the consideration of texts on ancient glass to move beyond those most commonly cited ancient passages that focus on the process of the material’s manufacture and practical application (e.g., those listed in Humphrey et al., 1998). The method allows for the analysis of not only the specific discussions of glass objects that survive (which are few), but also of those references to the medium that are made in passing and in contexts that do not focus on physical objects of this material, but which engage with

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its aesthetic effects in poetic simile. In highlighting these particular references to the aesthetics of the medium that only appear as brief mentions, it thus becomes clear that the same visual values are consistently emphasised. A new narrative for the ancient Roman interest in the visual effects of glass thereby emerges. This study is part of the growing movement to engage with ancient aesthetic objects in overlooked functional, applied, and ‘decorative’ media – an interest explicitly championed in the work of Kenneth Lapatin (2003 and 2015), and also found in the trans-medial considerations of scholars such as Jaś Elsner (2003, 2008, 2013a, 2013b, and 2014) and Verity Platt (2007). This growing emphasis in Classical Art History offers an important corrective to the taxonomies and interests that, descending from Winckelmann, have so long dominated the disciplinary discourse as I have already described. Finally, using a simple method of experimental archaeology, it has been possible to engage in practical experimentation with the antiquities themselves, varying the angle at which these objects are lit, and considering the way that the glass responds. New photographs of the Chicago dish (figs. 6.5 and 6.6) demonstrate how the direction from which glass objects were lighted – in the ancient world, as now – impacted the aesthetic effects displayed on the work’s surface (see Underhill, 2012 on reconstructing the original effects of light on artefacts and historic spaces). Through a study of both the textual accounts of this medium, and consideration of its inherent material qualities, the visual purpose of Roman glass is significantly illumined. 3

The Conceptual Evidence: the Value of Glass

3.1 Architecture What initially emerges when Classical references to the medium of glass are taken as a whole in both Latin and Greek is that this material is quite commonly spoken of in contexts that are indicative of its value. Glass was indeed a material that was prized. This is first seen in well-known passages treating extravagant structures, such as Plinius’ description of the temporary theatre built by the son-inlaw of the dictator Sulla. He writes: As aedile he [Marcus Scaurus] constructed the greatest of all the works ever made by man, a work that surpassed not merely those erected for a limited period but even those intended to last forever. This was his theatre, which had a stage arranged in three storeys with 360 columns … The lowest storey of the stage was of marble, and the middle one of glass (e vitro) (an

extravagance unparalleled even in later times), while the top storey was made of gilded planks. Plinius, Naturalis historia 36.114; emphasis my own5

Here we read of a (merely temporary!) Roman theatre with the customary three-storey scaenae frons, built not only from the expensive marble that later came to be accepted for permanent theatres, but with its upper storey made of gilded wood, and the middle storey – apparently the greatest decadence of all (inaudito etiam postea genere luxuriae) – entirely surfaced in glass. One can only imagine how these monumental forms would have impressed as they glistened and caught the light. Though the Theatre of Scaurus was already by Plinius’ time remote in history, and evidently held an almost fabled status (albeit one that Plinius marks with some censure), glass architectural adornments more generally in the 1st centuries BCE and CE were variously considered worthy of comment. Glass ceilings in bathhouses could be particularly admired. Thus Seneca complains of the luxury of his day, noting that: We think ourselves poor and mean if our walls are not resplendent with large and costly mirrors; if our marbles from Alexandria are not set off by mosaics of Numidian stone, if their borders are not faced over on all sides with difficult patterns, arranged in many colours like paintings; if our vaulted ceilings are not buried in glass (nisi vitro absconditur camera); if our swimming-pools are not lined with Thasian marble … Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales 86.6

Glass here appears as one in a list of luxury materials that are employed to bedeck the interior of the bathhouse, presumably with glass mosaic of the type that, according to Plinius, began to be used in such locations in the 1st century CE. While Seneca clearly disapproves of this excess, and Plinius too is often explicit in his condemnation of luxury, the encyclopaedist expresses the opinion that Agrippa, when building his sumptuous public bathhouse in Rome, “would certainly have built vaults of glass (vitreas facturus camaras) if such a device had already been invented or else had been extended from the walls of the stage, such as that of Scaurus, … to vaulted ceilings” (Plinius, Naturalis historia 36.189). Once more, glass is presented as a material at the forefront of early Imperial artistry and grandeur. The poet Statius also bears testimony to this fashion, though in more approving terms. 5  Unless otherwise noted, the translations are taken from the editions of ancient works cited in the bibliography.

“ Everything impossible ” : Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome

In describing the Baths of Claudius Etruscus, he writes: “I sing of the Baths bejeweled with glistening marbles … the ceilings are aglow, the topmost parts are alive, shining with figures in vitreous variety (effulgent camerae, vario fastigia vitro/ in species animata nitent) … Nothing vulgar is here” (Statius, Silvae 1.5.12–13; 42–43; 47; translation adapted by author). Glass was a refined adornment. 3.2 Personal Adornment If glass can be associated with glamour on a grand scale in civic architecture, a number of texts show that the material could carry similar associations of beauty and elegance on a much smaller scale too. Plinius lists objects in glass beside “bronzes, clothes, brooches, along with bracelets and necklaces” (revehunt vitrea et aena, vestes, fibulas cum armillis ac monilibus) as the articles of female finery brought back by traders upon their return from overseas (Naturalis historia 12.88; author’s translation). Martialis, meanwhile, composes satirical epigrams about individuals who make dubious use of fine commodities in glass containers – sought-after wine, and fragrant perfume (Epigrammata 2.40.6 and 3.55.2). Glass was evidently considered the natural carrier for these refined wares. In Greek, and as early as the 1st century BCE, Diodoros Sikeliotes can write of precious stones that are pleasing because they are “similar to glass” (ὑάλῳ παρεμφερὴς) (Bibliotheke historike 3.39.5). Glass was a material that could be connected with fine living and elegance in a variety of contexts. In a passage of the (notoriously difficult-to-date) bucolic poet Calpurnius Siculus (variously placed by scholars in the late 1st down to the 3rd centuries CE), we meet the material once again. In this pastoral context, glass trinkets adorn the beautiful stag that Calpurnius Siculus describes reclining amidst white lilies (Bucolica 6.33–45). In the contest of rustic poets he stages, Astylus invites his opponent to admire this stag and to note “how his forehead gleams  … and how from his back, the side girth, circling his whole belly, has amulets of glass (vitreas … bullas) on this side and on that” (Calpurnius Siculus, Bucolica 6.39–41). Here the twinkling glass intensifies the image of the stag’s gleaming (lucet) “brow enmeshed in a snowywhite halter” (niveo frons irretita capistro) (Bucolica 6.39– 40; translation adapted by author). Similarly, Herodotos in the 5th century BCE related that Egyptians kept tame crocodiles as pets and adorned them with ornaments of “poured stone” (λίθινα χυτὰ), traditionally understood as glass (Historiai 2.69). Glass could be associated with esoteric beauty in the Classical world in a variety of ways. 3.3 The Banquet Not least amongst these is the banquet. Fine glassware (of the kind with which I began), is repeatedly noted as

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contributing to the visual splendour of the Roman table. The appearance of such vessels as a recurring motif in Roman wall painting is also indicative of the fascination that their translucent, gleaming effects (and successful representations of these effects in paint), could conjure (see e.g., Naumann-Steckner, 1991; Sabrié & Sabrié, 1992). Propertius describes a drinking party with “a couch … [set out] in a garden screened from view” (in secreta lectulus herba), in which the guests were presented with “a summer glassware service (vitrique aestiva supellex) and a Lesbian wine of choice vintage” (Elegiae 4.8.35, 37–38). Fine glassware, specially selected for the season, is a key part of the aesthetic environment created here. The Appendix Vergiliana repeats this image in a description of a banquet that included “summer glassware” (aestivo … vitro) among its elegant luxuries (Appendix Vergiliana, Copa 29). In the centuries that follow, other banquets too are described with similar attention paid to beautiful glassware on the table. Thus Apuleius, in his Metamorphoses, can enthusiastically describe how: There were luxuriant tables gleaming with citronwood and ivory, couches draped with golden cloth, generous cups of varied appeal but alike in costliness – here glass crafted with little images, there flawless crystal, elsewhere shining silver and glistening gold and marvellously hollowed-out amber, and precious stones made to drink from – in short, everything impossible was there. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 2.19; translation adapted by author

Vitrum sigillatum – glassware adorned with finely-wrought designs – numbers here alongside cups of flawless crystal (crystallum impunctum), shining silver (argentum clarum), glistening gold (aurum fulgurans), hollowed-out amber (sucinum cavatum) and precious stones (lapides), as “cups of varied appeal but alike in costliness” (calices variae quidem gratiae sed pretiositatis unius). The phrase vitrum sigillatum has often been taken to denote mouldblown glass (which was quickly produced in great quantities and therefore was cheap: Caron & Zoitopoúlou, 2008: xviii), but given Apuleius’ emphasis on the expense of all the works listed, one wonders if that is correct in this case, or if a different manner of rendering the design was employed (King, 1867: 332 suggested cameo glass was meant here). It is in any case striking that in this passage glass is granted a place among the finest of materials as a fit ornament to a luxury setting: its dignity is not in doubt. Indeed, it is marvelled at by Apuleius as contributing to the wonders – the “everything impossible” (quidquid fieri non potest) that decked the table.

144 In Greek too, in the 3rd century CE, Athenaios similarly describes a banquet in which each guest was presented with a number of superlatively elaborate vessels, including “a glass platter about two cubits in diameter lying in a silver frame” (ὑελοῦς πίναξ δίπηχύς που τὴν διάμετρον ἐν θήκῃ κατακείμενος ἀργυρᾷ), along with “an enormous drinking cup of gold” (χρυσίδων μεγάλων), and a silver bread tray (ἀργυροῦν ἀρτοφόρον) – each accompanied by an abundance of fine food, as well as golden crowns (στλεγγίδας χρυσᾶς) and perfume flasks (διλήκυθον μύρου) (Deipnosophistai 4.129.d–e). Fine glass features here again as one of the excessive embellishments of a sumptuous feast. If we accept Akhilleus Tatios’ description of a cup of “mined glass” (ὑάλου ὀρωρυγμένης) at face value (as argued above), upon which “… vines crowned …[the] rim, seeming to grow from the cup itself, their clusters droop[ing] down in every direction: when the cup was empty, each grape seemed green and unripe, but when wine was poured into it, then little by little the clusters became red and dark” (Ta kata Leukippen kai Kleitophonta, 2.3.1–2), then we have yet another example, with the glass giving way to the red wine poured into it (Crowley, 2016: 232–233). Such exquisitely crafted glass remained the mark of an elegant banquet. 3.4 Cups of Significance In the 1st century CE, Plinius in his Natural History also marvels at the value reached by certain articles of glass tableware. He reports that “in Nero’s principate there was discovered a technique of glass-making that resulted in two quite small cups of the kind then known as ‘petroti’ or ‘stoneware’ fetching a sum of 6000 sesterces” (Naturalis historia 36.195). So valued was glass as a material for drinking vessels, that this elegant glassware, which also had the added benefit of not being liable to fracture, could fetch a very high price indeed.6 Plinius also records that “Glass-ware has now come to resemble rock crystal in a remarkable manner (mire his ad similitudinem accessere vitrea), but the effect has been to flout the laws of Nature and actually to increase the value of the former without diminishing that of the latter” (Naturalis historia 37.29). Even when deliberately counterfeiting another material, aesthetic glass tableware could thus be highly valued. Similarly, but with an eye for humour, the epigrammatist Martialis in his pithy poems twice engages with the phenomenon of the affordable glass tableware which was newly widespread in his period. The first such epigram comments on cups of “fearless” (audacis) glass – perhaps 6  The fragility of glass was well recognised and used as a literary image: e.g., Plinius, Naturalis historia 13.140, 16.221, 37.98; Horatius, Saturae 2.3.222; Seneca, De ira, 1.12.4; Commodianus, Instructiones 1.25(26).17; Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 219 (F.24).

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a brand name (Humphrey et al., 1998: 358) – plebeian cups that likewise boast that their “ware is not cracked by hot water” (nostra neque ardenti gemma feritur aqua) (Epigrammata 14.94.1–2. Shackleton Bailey, 1993: 271 understands the poem to be a playful conceit, and suggests that these ‘glass’ cups were actually made of earthenware, although Stern, 2012 argues they were indeed glass). In a second case Martialis writes on Nile, evidently the signature name of a glass blower, of whom he laments: “Desiring to add more to [his creations] … how often has the artist spoiled his work!” (Epigrammata 14.115.1–2). This line has been understood to indicate a slip of the hand that damages or fractures the cup’s carved or facet-cut decoration (Ker, 1920: 480, n. 1; Whitehouse, 1999: 74–75). But Martialis’ comments could also be interpreted in more strictly aesthetic terms – his critique: that glass makers did not always cater well to the taste of their clients (Shackleton Bailey, 1993: 279, n. 100; cf. Leary, 1996:178– 179 who thinks that millefiori glass is being critiqued). Whatever the case, the newly ubiquitous glass tableware of Rome caught the poet’s attention: the technicality and aesthetics of these vessels suggested themselves as subjects of interest and social critique to his audience. As emblematic products of a newly industrialised moment, even quotidian glass vessels could stir the Roman imagination and Roman laughter. The high estimation of well-crafted and elegant glass tableware in Rome was rooted in a long tradition. In Classical Athenai, Aristophanes (Akharneis 74) refers to glass and gold cups in the image he constructs of the grandeur of the Persian court (on ὑάλινος here denoting glass rather than crystal see Trowbridge, 1930: 134; Stern, 2007: 368–371; but c.f. Vickers, 1996: 54–55). In the Hellenistic world too, the textual evidence again indicates that fine glass tableware was highly prized (as the development of the tradition of the millefiori glass in this period also suggests). This is remembered in the Roman period, in references like that of Athenaios to the treasures and great splendour vaunted in the procession of the Seleukid Hellenistic king Antiokhos Epiphanes. This procession, it is reported, included paintings and sculptures, vessels in silver and gold, and also “two gilded vessels made of glass” (ὑάλινα διάχρυσα δύο), with their accompanying stands (Deipnosophistai 5.199; on this see further Rice, 1983: 77). While the details of this account may be less than accurate, an intriguing group of inscriptions dated from between the 4th and the 1st centuries BCE similarly testifies that sets of cups and other vessels made from fine glass were indeed valued as the treasured dedications of temples in the Hellenistic period (IG II2: 1533, 1534; IDélos 1412, 1414, 1417, 1421, 1426, 1429, 1431–2, 1439, 1441, 1443, 1450; Herzog, 1928: cat. 10; Aleshire, 1989: cats. 127, III; 249, V; Segre, 1993:

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cat. ED 149). These temple inventories take the trouble to note the material of the vessels given, the kind of presentation box they came in, and often the name of the patron who donated them. Such glass goblets are frequently listed in these inscriptions alongside other expensive and visually-pleasing household objects in materials like silver, bronze, and precious stones. Glass cups were counted among the treasures of ancient Greek sanctuaries. 3.5 Persistent Value The technical revolution of glass-blowing in the 1st centuries BCE and CE abruptly made possible the rapid production of many glass vessels in a great variety of shapes at low cost (for a cautious reaction to this discovery, see Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales 90.31). It is this much cheaper kind of glassware that is sometimes referenced in wills, and similar inventories, and letters of ordinary individuals that survive amongst the papyri of Egypt from the 2nd century CE to Late Antiquity, where glass is listed alongside vessels of ceramic and wood (see e.g., P.Cair.Masp. 2.67151; P.Oxy. 10.1294; P.Ross.Georg. 2.29; P.Oxy. 16.2058; P.Mich. 8.468; P.Yale 1.84; P.Wisc. 1.3; P.Oxy. 42.3080; P.Vatic.Aphrod. 7; P.Kellis 1.50; see also from Britain: T.Vindol. 3.590). This is also the kind of glassware that Cicero (Pro Rabirio Postumo 40) is clearly thinking of when the orator describes the ships of his client as packed with “cheap showy articles of paper, linen, and glass” (fallaces quidem et fucosae, chartis et linteis et vitro) for import to Italy (see also Strabon, Geographika 4.5.3, and the conclusion of 16.2.25). Since this is a legal defence speech, we may understand this as a ploy on Cicero’s part to downplay the profits of his defendant; his comment need not accurately represent the Roman feeling for the value of this material as a whole. But many blown glass vessels were certainly very quotidian (Epiktetos, Diatribai 3.24.84 in the 1st–2nd century CE underscores the inexpensive availability of glass vessels). The Romans who traded in broken glass were considered the poorest of the poor (Iuvenalis, Saturae 5.48; Martialis, Epigrammata 1.41.4–5; Statius, Silvae 1.6.74). Broken glass was also symbolic of the cheapest material in Dion Kassios (Romaike historia 60.17.6). By the 1st century CE, the material could carry a wide and varied signification of value. Yet despite the availability of cheap glassware, from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity, as we have seen already, glass remained a material that was esteemed and considered a fitting adornment for the very finest of tables. Beautiful glass did remain a luxury. Such a claim might seem to be undermined by the words of the wealthy freedman Trimalchio in Petronius’ Satyricon, who says he would prefer glass to gold, if it were not so fragile, but dismisses it as sadly “cheap” (vilia) (Satyricon 50–51). Yet here

we should understand, as with the rest of this passage, that the recently-enriched outsider is being pilloried by his upper-class Roman creator as an uncultured fool, and that the joke is (sadly) surely on him. Quotidian glass vessels may have been cheap, and such objects are implied to be Trimalchio’s key reference-points for this material. But beautifully wrought glass tableware was, from the associations we have seen, and as the fine surviving examples insist, clearly far from cheap. Furthermore, the fragility that demanded that the wine-glass of exquisite facture be daintily handled, which Trimalchio bemoans, is unlikely to have reduced its value, but rather to have increased its status as a precious, since vulnerable, object (compare Augustinus, Sermones ad populum 17.7). We need to set aside Trimalchio’s confusion and our own modern assumptions, and instead see fine vessels of ancient glass as the valued pieces they evidently were. Their value is also reflected in the 2nd- to 3rd-century legal writings of Paulus, who stipulates that “the buxine-ware (buxina), and the crystal (cristallina), silver (argentea), and glass vases – dishes and cups alike (vitrea vasa, tam escaria quam pocularia) – along with the bedspreads (vestis stratoria) pass to the appointed [heir]” (Sententiae 3.6.67). In this legal text, glass is categorised among domestic materials of high value. 3.6 Wonder It is worth noting, finally, that glass was a material that commonly instilled wonder within the Roman world – both in these luxury contexts, and also in various passages of a scientific or otherwise marvellous nature, which engage with the properties and visual effects of glass with some fascination. This dynamic is on display, for example, in Seneca’s discussion of the material’s ability to make whatever is seen through it appear bigger and more beautiful, since: letters, however tiny and obscure, are seen larger and clearer through a glass ball filled with water. Fruits seem more beautiful than they actually are if they are floating in a glass bowl. litterae quamvis minutae et obscurae per vitream pilam aqua plenam maiores clarioresque cernuntur. poma formosiora quam sunt videntur, si innatant vitro. Seneca, Naturales quaestiones 1.6.5

The magnifying power of thick glass (or glass filled with water) here is a matter of not only practical but also aesthetic interest. The fruits are not simply displayed in a glass bowl but specifically in one filled with water, with a view to further exaggerating their beauty through

146 magnification. The visual effects of the glass and water here are keenly noted. The philosopher further acknowledges glass’s refraction of light, and its consequent ability to produce the patterns of a rainbow (Seneca, Naturales quaestiones 1.7.1, where he stages a debate between himself and Lucilius). Both Plinius (Naturalis historia 36.199) and Dion Kassios (Romaike historia 15, as epitomised and so preserved in Tzetzes, Chiliades 2.123–128; and in Zonaras, Epitome historion 9.4) can likewise marvel at the ability of glass to so focus the sun’s beams as to set clothes, and even ships, ablaze! This quality is also referenced in Aristophanes, Nephelai 768, and was evidently appreciated in the ancient world. Glass was a mystifying, unpredictable, and even dangerous substance. Indeed, glass was considered such a novel and intriguing material in early Imperial Rome that it stimulated the cultural imagination to produce far-fetched tales of the discovery of glass that could bend. This was said to have resulted in the ransacking and destruction of the craftsman’s workshop, lest the market for metals be undermined. Plinius (Naturalis historia 36.195) tells this tale and, though he considers it apocryphal, he notes that it was widely repeated. Indeed, Trimalchio (Petronius, Satyricon 51) repeats a version of this very same story. Meanwhile, a number of ancient authors share the tale that the sand needed to make glass was originally only found in the Eastern Mediterranean where “the River Belus … empties into the Jewish Sea” (Tacitus Historiae 5.7; see also Plinius Naturalis historia 36.190–191; Iosepos, Historia Ioudaikou polemou pros Romaious 2.188–191; Strabon, Geographika 16.2.25). The origins of glass conjured images of this exotic locale. If glass was considered fascinating and mysterious, its glimmering, translucent beauty also made it the stuff of fantasy. Loukianos in his True Story thus imagines a world in which “For baths [the people] have large houses of glass, warmed by burning cinnamon” (λουτρὰ δέ ἐστιν αὐτοῖς οἶκοι μεγάλοι ὑάλινοι, τῷ κινναμώμῳ ἐγκαιόμενοι) and where “instead of water there is hot dew in the tubs” (Alethe diegemata 2.11); in another case he relates that “The clothing of the rich is malleable glass (’Eσθὴς δὲ τοῖς μὲν πλουσίοις ὑαλίνη μαλθακή) and that of the poor, spun bronze” (Alethe diegemata 1.25). Glass is the shimmering stuff of beautiful dream-worlds of convenience for Loukianos. The value laid upon glass tableware is again emphasised in the utopia he creates, as we are told that “There are great trees of the clearest glass … and instead of fruit they bear cups of all shapes and sizes” (ἔστι δένδρα … ὑάλινα μεγάλα τῆς διαυγεστάτης ὑάλου, καὶ καρπός ἐστι τῶν δένδρων τούτων ποτήρια παντοῖα καὶ τὰς κατασκευὰς καὶ τὰ μεγέθη) (Alethe diegemata 2.14). Naturally-growing glass

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cups – in myriad form, and free for the taking – are part of the coveted abundance of this fantastical fairyland. In another story found in Aelianus (Varia historia 13.3), we read of the Persian prince Xerxes, son of Darius, and his discovery of an otherworldly glass tomb filled with olive oil. Strabon (Geographika 17.1.8) similarly describes a glass sarcophagus as a thing of wonder, and it is arguably in this context of the wondrous that the passage from Herodotos, Historiai 3.24, about coffins of mined glass that I explored earlier should be understood. The material of glass was variously appealed to as a substance of marvel and fantasy. 4

The Aesthetics of Glass

As the aggregate testimony of a wide range of texts from the Roman world has demonstrated, the continued interest in fine glass (and particularly tableware) as a medium in the Roman world stands assured. It becomes natural to conclude that Roman eyes would have lingered on glass for its aesthetic effects; the material’s beauty evidently aimed to beguile the diner at the Roman table. Visual analysis of Roman glassware no longer seems so much an academic excess, as an appropriate inquiry into the visual strategies of an ancient aesthetic material. In examining the particular kind of aesthetic attention that works in this medium attracted, I suggest that a distinct group of poetic references can provide further insight. For it is interesting that the aesthetic emphasis that Roman texts place upon this material is both different from what one may perhaps anticipate, and yet is also strikingly consistent. When faced with an array of Roman glass, the contemporary eye is typically struck by its vibrant saturation of colour – perhaps particularly because so few brightly coloured materials from Antiquity survive – as exhibitions like the Getty’s Molten Color vividly illustrate (Wight, 2011). The materiality of ancient glass itself insists that this interaction was also important in Rome. And yet while the modern eye lingers on such inherent features of the material and is unused to moving beyond them, these were not the primary features of glass to be explicitly celebrated in the Roman context. Here the textual evidence suggests that the Roman eye was conditioned to see something more. In ancient Roman poetry, glass is overwhelmingly valued for its engagement with light.7 7  A very rare exception is found in a poem of the (notoriously difficult to date) Romano-Greek poet Rouphinos (Anthologika: Epigrammata 5.48.1), where glass becomes a simile for the smoothness of a beloved’s cheek.

“ Everything impossible ” : Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome

This value is expressed through a cluster of closely related linguistic terms, many of which focus upon the material’s reflective properties – its ability to return a flash of light and itself become a source of light’s gleam. Such a capacity in today’s ubiquitous shining surfaces made of plastic might seem quite unremarkable. But in the ancient world, the ability to catch and reflect rays of light was considered wonderful, a matter of great beauty. And for this, glass – particularly in the Latin-speaking world – was considered the pre-eminent material. In over sixty surviving instances in the poetic corpus from the Roman period, and in other genres too, the aesthetics of glass are extolled in this way, overwhelmingly in poetic descriptions of the finest water. Thus, when the poet Horatius dedicates an ode to the spring of Bandusia, and looks to signify its beauty, he addresses the spring: “O spring of Bandusia, more shining than glass” (splendidior vitro) (Carmina 3.13.1; translation adapted by author). Glass here forms the standard of a shining surface. The material is presented by Horatius as being the most natural recipient of the adjective splendidus (shining) – though this term is actually much more common in Latin texts in reference to the sun and open flames (see OLD2 s.v. splendidus, -a, -um, adj.). Yet for the poet, glass outdoes fire here as the pinnacle of gleaming beauty, a beauty only to be surpassed by that of Bandusia’s waters. Only these can surpass glass in its shine. Similarly, when Ovidius searches for superlatives to describe the nymph Galatea, the phrase “splendidior vitro” is again employed to capture her glow of beauty. Ovidius writes: O Galatea, whiter than snowy privet-leaves, more blooming than the meadows, surpassing the alder in your tall slenderness, more sparkling than glass (splendidior vitro), more frolicsome than a tender kid, smoother than shells worn by the lapping waves … Ovidius, Metamorphoses 13.789–792; translation adapted by author

Galatea’s beauty here is metaphorically compared to glowing glass – lovely as it reflects the light (here the Loeb translation renders vitrum as ‘crystal’ for the sake of poetic effect in the problematic manner I have already discussed). Where colour appears it, intriguingly, also captures the capacity of glass to glint and strike the eye. It has long been recognised, that the Latin term color, although on the one hand readily identifiable with modern notions of colour, was nonetheless a concept that also encapsulated

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a certain quality of the way a surface was apprehended by the eye, a quality most easily captured in the English notion of ‘shine’ (this is well communicated in the OLD2 s.v. color, -oris). Thus, in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, in yet another image of gleaming water, the poet writes of how: … a gentle stream lazily flowed along in the likeness of a quiet pool, a rival for silver or glass in colour (argento vel vitro aemulus in colorem). Apuleius, Metamorphoses 1.19; translation adapted by author

Here the reader is presented with an image of waters compared to silver dishes and to naturally green Roman glass. The poetic image of colour in these lines would seem to be confusing. This passage has, as a result, long been recognised as an instance where the concept of color evokes the idea of shine. Similar references to a glassy color appear in Plinius, Naturalis historia 9.100 and 37.156, while Vergilius, Georgica 4.335 may indicate a green colour as has sometimes been suggested, or similarly a bright shine. The notion is made more easily comprehensible when one considers the desirable vitrum candidus, “colourless glass”, met in Plinius. The naturalist gives a recipe for this kind of glass involving sand only found “along six miles of the seashore between Cuma and Literno” which “produces clear glass, indeed a lump of colourless glass” ( fit vitrum purum ac massa vitri candidi) (Plinius, Naturalis historia 36.194). The term typically employed to denote this glass – candidus – is elsewhere used to communicate clear or transparent materials, but is most widely employed as an adjective for objects of shining white, and has its root meaning in the bright burning – the incandescence – of a white-hot flame (OLD2 s.v. Candidus, -a, -um, adj.). I propose that it is this bright whiteness, this flash of incandescence seen on the surface of glass of all hues but especially that of the translucent variety, that is the color here celebrated. With associations continually redolent of both the gleam of water and the bright glow of a flame, it is the reflective nature of glass – its capacity to flash back light – that is set at the core of its aesthetic value. This is the effect that is captured in the exceptionally skilful representations of glass in Roman fresco painting (e.g., Naumann-Steckner, 1991; Sabrié & Sabrié, 1992). But if glass is appreciated for reflecting light back, it is also, interestingly, valued in the Roman mind for allowing light through. Thus Ovidius writes that “There is a sacred spring, bright and more transparent than any glass …” (est nitidus vitroque magis perlucidus omni/ fons sacer …) (Heroides 15.157–8; translation adapted by author). Here, the water is compared to glass for its great transparency,

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its being literally ‘per-lucid’ (perlucidus in the Latin). Intriguingly, there is again an association between glass and gleaming metal, as seen already in the comparison with silver made by Apuleius (Metamorphoses 1.19), since the spring is described as also nitidus – a term which is more commonly used of polished metal (see OLD2 s.v. nitidus, -a, -um, adj.). In prose, Vitruvius (De architectura 2.8.10) also uses perlucidus to describe light gleaming on the opus tectorium of plastered walls (and so allowing the painted images typical to this kind of surface to gleam as if through glass). Translucidus is another term met in Plinius’ Naturalis Historia (14.17; c.f. 36.198 and 37.156) to describe this effect, for example in an image of light passing through grapes that grow full on the vine, which are again compared to glass through this language (on translucent effects in Antiquity, see Crowley, 2016: 227–229). In Greek too, the image is taken up in a Roman context by Akhilleus Tatios in his novel, where the narrator praises the water of the Nile. He exclaims: So I filled for myself a cup of transparent glass (ὑάλου τῆς διαφανοῦς κύλικα), and saw that the water, for its [flash of] white (ὑπὸ λευκότητος), vied with, nay, defeated the vessel that contained it! Akhilleus Tatios, Ta kata Leukippen kai Kleitophonta 4.18.4; translation adapted by author

Interestingly, it is considered a marvel here that the water rivals even the glass for its leukotēs quality (ὑπὸ λευκότητος). The term chosen is intriguing, literally meaning ‘whiteness’ (see LSJ9 s.v. λευκότης, -ητος). One might be tempted to suppose that Akhilleus Tatios is here referring to the reflective qualities of glass – the ‘flash-back’ gleam that I described above. However, as the LSJ supplement recognises, the term also came to be used to evoke clarity in rhetoric, for instance in an example of the 4th to 5th centuries CE (Eunapios, Bioi philosophon kai sophiston 458); it must have been applied to clear and limpid materials still earlier. Indeed, one wonders whether both qualities are intended to be referenced here together. Glass is the epitome of both a translucent and a gleaming material; only the most marvellous of waters can be said to compete. Meanwhile, in his love letters in Greek, written around the early 3rd century CE, Flavios Philostratos praises his beloved for her eyes: “more translucent than drinking cups (Tὰ μὲν ὄμματά σου διαυγέστερα τῶν ἐκπωμάτων), so that even your soul can be seen through them!” (Epistolai 32 (25)). He once more picks up the trope of glass, here in the form of cups, as the paragon of translucency. The common topos from poetry of the 1st centuries BCE to CE thus comes to influence texts in a variety

of genres. Wonder at the beauty of light passing through glass was evidently a common reaction. With two further concepts in the 1st century poetry of Ovidius and Martialis, ‘pure’ or ‘clear’ (purus or clarus) transparent glass is again celebrated (see also Plinius the younger, Epistulae 8.8.2). In one of two images of a beloved viewed through water, Ovidius first writes of how the boy Hermaphroditus refuses the nymph Salmacis, and how: He, clapping his body with hollow palms, dives into the pool, and swimming with alternate strokes flashes [with gleaming body] through the transparent flood, as if one should encase ivory figures or white lilies in translucent glass. (… in liquidis translucet aquis, ut eburnea si quis signa tegat claro vel candida lilia vitro.) Ovidius, Metamorphoses 4.352–355

Martialis’ rather disturbing image of ‘Cleopatra’, the reluctant bride, explicitly reworks Ovidius’ trope. He describes how: Cleopatra  … had plunged into a gleaming pool (in nitidos … lacus), fleeing embraces. But the water betrayed her hiding place; covered by all of it, she still shone (lucebat). So lilies enclosed in clear glass are counted, so a thin gem does not let roses hide. (… condita sic puro numerantur lilia vitro, / sic prohibet tenuis gemma latere rosas.) Martialis, Epigrammata, 4.22.2–6

Both poets create an image of a beloved, glimpsed through limpid waters and likened to flowers encased in sheer glass sheets (claro … vitro; puro … vitro). Here Martialis reworks, and personalises, Ovidius’ mythological scene, appropriating its drama. Yet the image of glass he employs is no less stark or effective for the poet’s wit in this literary allusion and conceit. The glass simile remains compelling; standing alone as a brief epigram, it evokes recognisable qualities of the material to make a powerful image. As Seneca observed of water and glass together, these materials (when of sufficient mass to refract the light) carry the capacity to make the thing glimpsed through them seem more beautiful, by magnifying them (Naturales quaestiones 1.6.5, quoted above). Yet they also render that which is seen untouchable and cover it with a flash-back glitter. The pure clarity and the bright splendour of both glass and water were here appreciated in tandem, and in tension.

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“ Everything impossible ” : Admiring Glass in Ancient Rome

4.1 The Pinnacle of Beauty This image of glass as providing an alluring perspicuity, along with a reflected shine that denies the beholder and obscures what lies beneath, made it an enduringly popular comparative material for beautiful water in Latin poetry. When Silius Italicus describes how Anna, sister of Dido, ran away from the palace of Aeneas, he writes that she was taken in by “the river Numicius …[who] hid her in his glassy grottoes” (Numicius illam/ … vitreisque abscondidit antris) (Punica 8.190–191; translation adapted by author – yet again, the original translation rejected the word ‘glass’ in favour of ‘crystal’). Glass here provides a compelling image of the water that allows us to glimpse, and marvel at, what lies far below, but which forbids us from ever reaching it. In surviving literary passages dating from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE, as well as in poetic Latin epitaphs and epigraphs from Italy and North Africa, the evocation of water as “glassy” (aqua vitrea; undae vitreae), evokes pools, rivers, seas, and drops of dew as at once tantalisingly gleaming and yet also crisply clear.8 For the English-speaker, it may be hard to take on board the implications of this evidence for Roman viewings of glass as a material. We are more than happy to take images of clear or shining crystal as a trope that reflects the viewer’s experience of its materiality, but glass can appear so quotidian as to hardly deserve such attention. Even further, we are in fact trained to ignore glass’ materiality; both spectacles and windows demand that we do not gaze lingeringly at the surface of glass, but simply look beyond it. In the Roman world, however, glass was given the kind of considered attention we expect to devote to fine crystal. It was not the ubiquitous material of the unseen object. Nor, it is worth noting, are these images of ‘glassy’ water likely to have conjured images of the kind of perfectly colourless, shining water, we are accustomed to expect from the modern tap. Water was not understood to be 8  Examples in literature of aqua vitrea, unda vitrea, amnis vitreus etc.: Horatius, Carmina 4.2.3–4; Vergilius, Aeneis 7.759; Columella, Res rustica 10.136; Ovidius, Amores 1.6.55; Heroides 10.7; Metamorphoses 5.48; Statius, Achilleis 1.26; Silvae 1.3.73–74, 2.2.49, 2.3.5, 3.2.16; Plinius the younger, Epistulae 8.8.2; Quintilianus, Institutio oratoria 9.3.34; Silius Italicus, Punica 5.47; Martialis, Epigrammata 6.68.7, 12.2.13; Apocalypsis 4.6 (Christian scripture here possibly in dialogue with the wider culture); Cyprianus, Ad Quirinum 3.20; Ausonius, Mosella 28, 55, 195, 223; Ordo urbium nobilium 20.30–31, 34; Claudianus, Epithalamium dictum Honorio Augusto et Mariae 128; Fescennina dicta Honorio Augusto et Mariae 2.36–37; In Eutropium 2.263; Panegyricus dictus Olybrio et Probino consulibus 225. In epigraphy: from Stroncone, Samnium: CIL 9, 4756, CIL 11, 4188 with AÉpigr 1999, 577, CIL 11, 98b2; from Cirta, Numidia: CIL 8, 7759, CIL 8, 19478; from Carthage, Africa: Monceaux, 1906: cat. 159, 163; see Trowbridge, 1930: 69–73.

inherently clear in the Roman world, nor chemically consistent, but was observed to differ in quality in different locales. Sea water was most commonly considered caeruleus (blue), but water could also naturally vary to shades of grey or opaque brown (as the Tiber no doubt did!) – which is the cause of Akhilleus Tatios’ comment on the wonder of the clear water of the Nile discussed above (for the flexible Roman understanding of colours, see Bradley, 2009). Water, like glass, could vary in its hue. Similarly, when Flavios Philostratos (Epistolai 32 (25)) describes the eyes of his girl as clearer (διαυγέστερα) than glass drinking cups, he need in no way deny the bright colour of her irises; nor did the rich colour of grapes prevent Plinius’ characterisation of them as glassy (Naturalis Historia 14.17). Things could be described as both like Roman glass in their varying limpid glow and radiant gleam, and yet also be rich in pigment. Ancient waters were prized for equalling glass in their engagement with light, but the image of each substance was more varied in hue than the modern mind readily recognises. It is ancient glass, with its varying tint, that we must imagine in these competitions between the material and water, and in the Roman exultation of glass’ pellucid, gleaming qualities. 5

Reading the Visual Material

These are the aesthetic effects of glass found in poetry, love letters, epitaphs, and scientific prose alike. And when one turns to consider how the attentiveness to the effects of light on glass affected what the Romans saw and appreciated about glass works aesthetically, it becomes strikingly obvious that they were indeed interested in exploiting such effects. The glass cups, jugs, jars, bowls, and dishes which appear in frescoes on the walls of the houses and villas of Campania illustrate a fascination with the visual effects of glass (e.g., frescoes from: Herculaneum, Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli inv. 9024; the Casa dei Cervi, Herculaneum, Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli inv. 8644 & 8645; the Praedia of Iulia Felix, Pompeii, Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli inv. 8611; Villa A, Oplontis, oecus 23, north & south walls; the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor, Boscoreale, The Metropolitan Museum of Art inv. 03.14.13a–g; see also Naumann-Steckner, 1991). The transparency of some vessels frames, and tantalisingly reveals, their contents, while the shining reflection and flashing gleam of others momentarily obscures details (Squire, 2017: 213–233; O’Connell, 2018: 28, 31). If we turn to surviving glassware, the famous Lycurgus cup, dating to the 4th century, effectively represents a

150 late pinnacle of Roman craftsmanship. It embodies and instantiates the, by this time well-established, Roman interest in the effects of light, the connection of this aesthetic with the material of glass, and the desire to observe this effect on an elite Roman table (on the Lycurgus cup, see Elsner, 2013b). Here, metal particles included in the molten glass at a carefully controlled density are impressively employed to allow the cup to appear green when lit from the front, and red when lit from behind. This cup – no doubt one of a series of fine ware of this kind – would have made a perfect addition to Apuleius’ (albeit much earlier, 2nd-century) list of “everything impossible” (Metamorphoses 2.19). This piece is a remarkable instance of a late Roman glass cup designed to engage the aesthetic possibilities of light. Yet much more generally too, the aesthetics of light that were enjoyed in ancient glass come quickly to the fore when one is made aware of the enduring ancient Roman focus upon them. Such aesthetics have long been overlooked by the modern eye, for which shining effects are so ubiquitous as to be unremarkable. Let us consider first the vessels of the translucent, flashing white, candidus glass that became popular from the late 1st century CE (fig. 6.2). The impact becomes especially vivid if we imagine a full set of dishes in this material, arrayed across a table, with wine and foodstuffs set in-between. With the perlucidus effects of light that the Romans so valued shining through it, this gleaming glassware first tantalisingly reveals the wine or the fruit that it holds, as depicted so evocatively in Campanian frescoes (Rauws, 2012: 71–72). Whenever the glass is of an exceptional thickness, or is filled with water as Seneca describes, it also magnifies the contents, as we have seen. As it does so, the reflection of light on the glass surface adds the splendor of a glittering sheen that can make the contents seem more beautiful. Glass is a beautifying container. Moreover, with the candidus flash that made this particular glassware especially popular, these vessels capture the light, refract and reflect it, each mirroring the other’s brightness and increasing the glow. Under the varied groupings of hanging- and table-lamps with which the Roman room was lit, it was not a single source of light that these prized cups reflected, but rather clusters of many small flames dotted around the triclinium. Interacting with this lighting, with each glass first reflecting a flame, and then further catching the reflections of flames in neighbouring glasses too, candidus glass created the visual splendour of a room aglow with myriad points of light. Here was a material that allowed an aesthetic of pinning light to the table. It is striking that many

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figure 6.2

Glass beaker. 2nd half of 1st Century CE. Roman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.194.232 Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)

of the literary sources that aestheticise glass date from the 1st century CE, when a taste for the newly achievable colourless glass was supplanting the fashion for brightly coloured vessels. Still other texts written a century before may even have helped to develop this Roman aesthetic, and so set the stage for its technological realisation. Meanwhile, in the earlier 1st century CE, when glass vessels involving other aspects of bright color in bold blues, purples, and oranges were still popular, these articles further bedecked tables with singular aesthetic effects of light (fig. 6.3). Here, an attentiveness to the way in which the vessels were lit is important. Roman table lamps were shallow (clay or, more expensive, metal) containers with a reservoir for oil, and a spout that would allow a wick to protrude, carrying the light of a single flame. Some table lamps were designed with multiple spouts to increase the sources of light; otherwise, multiple lamps might be used. Because of their design, the light source from these lamps was set low on the table. When glass cups of rich hue are lit from below, as such lamps would naturally

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allow, and their outer surface is then viewed obliquely as across a table, the colour of this curved glass surface is greatly intensified and reaches a tone of deep saturation. These are some of the richest coloristic effects of ancient technology. But when lit from above, as would have been the case when tall candelabra, or hanging lamps (suspended from chains or string) were employed, the colour of a vessel is then cast in bright circles on the supporting surface. This effect would be particularly noticeable if (as would not infrequently be the case), a table was constituted of a slab of white marble (fig. 6.4). Here pools of vibrant light in varied hue would dapple the table, overlapping each other and incorporating adjacent platters of food in their tinted shade. Where both kinds of lamps were used together, each of these effects may have been seen in tandem, observed from varying points around the table, on the surface of each cup, dish, or vase. Given the Roman fascination with the aesthetics of light on glass, it seems highly unlikely that such an effect of brightly-coloured circular pools of light would have gone unnoticed. The Greek aesthetic value of poikilía, (varietas in the Latin), a dappling, shifting, or spangling, often involving varied hues, is seen to extend beyond the objects that create it (on poikilía see Detienne, 1978: 18; Neer, 2010: 113; Barham, forthcoming). It remains tantalising that we have so little ekphrasis on Roman glass (or indeed on real-life, rather than imagined, Roman visual works in general) to give us

figure 6.3

Glass jug. 1st half of 1st Century CE. Roman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.194.226 Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)

figure 6.4

Left to right: mosaic glass ribbed bowl (millefiori bowl) (17.194.561); bluish green ribbed glass bowl (81.10.33); dark blue ribbed glass bowl (81.10.38). Late 1st Century BCE to 1st half of 1st Century CE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)

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figure 6.5

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Millefiori dish lit from above. Mid-2nd/early 1st Century BCE. Hellenistic or early Roman, Eastern Mediterranean. The Art Institute of Chicago, Katherine K Adler Memorial Fund, 2004.722 Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago

further insight into this aesthetic focus. But in a cultural context where chromatic color was not readily differentiated from the color of ‘shine’, the effects of light on these bold chromatic dishes must invariably have been a source of interest to the Roman eye. In the case of other dishes, this effect of light blurring boundaries and enveloping table settings in a multicoloured glow is brilliantly captured within the surfaces of the dishes themselves. This is seen, for example, in late Hellenistic and early Roman millefiori bowls, of the type with which I began (fig. 6.1). Here, the smooth lines and simplicity of form in the composition of the vessel allows all the attention to fall upon effects wrought in the material of which it is made. Once again, the direction of light cast upon such bowls is important in the creation of differing effects. When lit from above, the design on the inside surface of the bowl is revealed in minute detail (fig. 6.5). Within a tight palette dominated by red and blue, and with interspersed areas of white, an effect of constantly changing colour and form is created. The contrast between the unpredictable disarray of shape and swooping colour in the millefiori disks of which the dish is composed, and the containment of this swirling assortment within the tight regularity of the bowl’s form, is palpable. Further, the outside of the bowl becomes aglow with translucent colour, melding blue and red – appearing like a still molten substance, mysteriously tempered within the curve of the dish. Conversely, when lit with raked light from the level of the table, it is the curved inner surface of the bowl that becomes agleam, apparently liquefied, and involving whatever the bowl contains – surely some kind of aesthetically pleasing food substance, like plums or nuts, in a dish of this beauty – in its glow (fig. 6.6). The delights inside the dish are thus still further incorporated into the aesthetic dynamic of the glass piece as a whole, working with light to create a detailed multi-media table adornment.

Finally, since glass inlays were also set into the walls of Roman houses – as at the House of the Golden Cupids in Pompeii – and also quite possibly in furniture, if the standard interpretation is correct, then it becomes clear that the luminary effects of glass could also be structured into the wider aesthetic design of Roman domestic space. Pieces like these, incorporating a variety of motifs such as figures and faces, are evidently what Plinius had in mind when he wrote of how “there is no other material nowadays that is more pliable or more adaptable, even to painting” (neque est alia nunc sequacior materia aut etiam picturae accommodatior) (Naturalis historia 36.198). Even pictures could

figure 6.6

Millefiori dish lit from below at table height. Mid-2nd/ early 1st Century BCE. Hellenistic or early Roman, Eastern Mediterranean. The Art Institute of Chicago, Katherine K Adler Memorial Fund, 2004.722 Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago

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be ‘painted’ in this molten material of saturated shade. Yet, since painted frescos for walls and wooden carvings in furniture were evidently already available, it is interesting that the Romans developed the fashion they did for such detailed miniature images in glass in particular. Why bother to ‘draw’ in this material, rather than any other, in the creation of these ornaments of coloristic detail? One answer is found in the appreciation given, and the wonder felt, for works of glass that manifested such evident skill. Such a feeling is seen in Apuleius’ admiring description of the banquet where “glass with little images” (vitrum … sigillatum) was admired as part of the “everything impossible” (quidquid fieri non potest) that decorated the room, as we have seen (Metamorphoses 2.19). The technique here is a marvel. Here too, I would suggest that it was ultimately the effects of light that helped make these glass images desirable and brought their pictures to life, making inlays of glass a source of adornment in Pompeii’s townhouses. Indeed, close study of glass inlays has revealed that underlays of bright white glass were not uncommonly set behind the figured plaques to add reflected splendour and make the images gleam (Whitehouse, 1997: 13). Such techniques, together with the inherent luminosity of the material, could even briefly occlude an inlay’s figures when the glass reflected the light fully – lending a certain mystery and elusiveness to the images represented. This effect of briefly obscuring images through the reflective nature of their materials was also evidently appreciated (although differently created, using gold instead of white glass) in the well-known gold and glass panels representing gilded cupids in the Pompeian townhouse that bore their name (on the glass from the House of the Cupids see Seiler, 1992: 50; Powers, 2011: 20; Platt, 2018: 268–269). Here too, we see how the transparent, pellucid qualities of the upper layer of candidus glass could also be drawn upon in domestic inlay, magnifying the gold foil figures set beneath, if the glass layer was sufficiently thick, as well as adding extra lustre. Here too, the glass made these figures more beautiful. Crucially, the quality of the light cast onto such figures in a Roman context also added to their visual effect. For such works would not, of course, have been seen with the steady halogens that light them in most museums today, but were typically displayed in darkened domestic rooms where little natural light intervened. They would most commonly have been appreciated by the light of flickering lamps. Such light would further add to the figures’ variation by lending them the appearance of movement as the flame flashed back and forth and they reflected its changing glow. This lamplight would increase the ‘impossibility’ of such “little images”, by making them appear

alive. The moving pictures of the ancient world were set in glass panels on Roman walls. The aesthetic appreciated through light on glass was one of an ever-changing beauty – as seen in the ripples of a stream, and in the flicker of a bright candidus flame. Glass made its forms to dance. The story of glass in the ancient world is of a medium prized for its aesthetic appeal. The Roman eye noticed that glass was agleam. The concepts of aesthetic ‘autonomy’ and ‘freedom from purpose’ that Kant held in such esteem would have made little sense to a Roman audience. Visual objects were not only appreciated for their surface effects, but for the way that surface engaged with the world around it. And if we dismiss works in Roman glass as objects of a “dependent beauty”, we entirely overlook their aesthetic rationale. These were creative insertions of prized aesthetic effects into the immediate material environment of their beholder. The texts I have surveyed here, and the effects of light on glass objects that I have brought to the fore, reveal that these works carried a dignity through their visual dynamics, which the contemporary eye has all but entirely missed. The medium of Roman glass deserves much more attention. The curatorial strategy with which I began is prompted by an unerring instinct to tap into the ancient appreciation of this object. Light is fundamental to the aesthetic effect of the Chicago dish. And ultimately, it transpires that the sparkle we see so valued in the aesthetic thinking of the Byzantine world, emerged from a much earlier Roman attentiveness to light. The shining splendour of Byzantium is heir to the aesthetics of the Roman dinner table. Bibliography of Ancient Sources Aelianus, Varia historia: Aelian. Historical Miscellany, ed. Nigel G. Wilson (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, MA, 1997). Akhilleus Tatios, Ta kata Leukippen kai Kleitophonta: Achilles Tatius. Leucippe and Clitophon, ed. S. Gaselee (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, MA, 1969). Apokalypsis: Novum Testamentum Graece: Greek-English New Testament, 28th edition, edd. Eberhard Nestle, Erwin Nestle, Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Holger Strutwolf (Universität Münster Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung, & Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft; Stuttgart, 2013). Appendix Vergiliana: Virgil. Aeneid: Books 7–12. Appendix Vergiliana, edd. H. Rushton Fairclough & G.P. Goold (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, MA, 1918).

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Barham Welland, Michael, 2009: Sand: The Never-ending Story (Berkeley). Whitehouse, David, 1997: Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass Volume 1 (Corning). Whitehouse, David, 1999: “Glass in the Epigrams of Martial”, JGS 41: 73–81. Wight, Karol B., 2011: Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu).

PART 3 ‘Reading’ Material

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chapter 7

The Pylos Tablets Digital Project: Prehistoric Scripts in the 21st Century Dimitri Nakassis, Kevin Pluta, and Julie Hruby Abstract

One of the most pressing issues for archaeologists of this century is the move away from traditional media for recording and publishing that were designed in the last century and towards an embrace of digital tools.1 Archae-

ologists working in the Mediterranean are exploring the best ways to ‘go digital’ in the field, with ‘born digital’ projects (i.e., projects in which all data are collected digitally) becoming increasingly de rigeur (Averett et al., 2016). Once considered a supplement to the traditional gold standard of publication, digital publication has now emerged as a mode of dissemination in its own right (Opitz et al., 2016). Although it is possible to tell a story in which these developments were the result of the drive for greater efficiency and accuracy in the field (Roosevelt et al., 2015; cf. Caraher, 2016), with the push for digital publication following logically from fieldwork innovations in documentation (like three-dimensional modelling), in fact digital media have been embraced by a wide array of scholars, including those who work in more traditional and non-fieldworkoriented sub-disciplines. One of these traditional areas that is now benefitting from a digital approach is the study of documents written in Linear B (Aurora et al., 2013; Aurora, 2017). This syllabic script was deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris and was thereby revealed to represent the earliest known form of written Greek (Ventris & Chadwick, 1953). As far as we can tell, Linear B was used exclusively for administrative operations associated with individual Late Bronze Age palaces in mainland Greece and Krete over the course of some two centuries (ca. 1400–1200 BCE). Administrators composed clay tablets, primarily, which tracked exchanges under palatial purview; these exchanges range from the payment of taxes to the central authority, to the allocation of goods to deities on the occasions of religious festivals. A small number of clay sealings and labels were inscribed, also to facilitate the documentation of such exchanges. Because of its wide-ranging economic and administrative content, as well as the insights it gives into Bronze Age practices and concepts, Linear B is of interest to archaeologists and historians, but it has equally drawn the attention of Indo-European linguists and students of

1  This project is being carried out under the auspices of the University of Cincinnati Department of Classics and in affiliation with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The research team includes the authors, Joann Gulizio, Jim Newhard, Benjamin Rennison, and Billy Wilemon. We thank Ioanna Damanki, Hembo Pagi, Jim Wright, and in particular Shari Stocker. We also wish to express our profound appreciation to the director and staff of the National

Archaeological Museum of Athens, and especially the Department of Prehistoric, Egyptian, and Anatolian Antiquities. Finally, we would like to thank the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP), the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, without whose financial support this project would not have been possible.

This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Bronze Age through discussion of the authors’ ongoing project to study and publish the Linear B documents from the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos in southwestern Greece. Recent developments move in two distinct directions. The first, digitisation, involves the production of digital models to represent the texts, using both computational photography and three-dimensional modelling. The second, the study of the texts as material culture, involves examining the physical properties of the texts and associated uninscribed documents. Traditional print-based editions are limited in the amount of data they can present, and the use of static images and text requires the user to rely on the authority of the editor, the illustrator, and even the photographer. Digital models, on the other hand, provide a dynamic and interactive environment in which users can work with the texts at a level of resolution that approximates autopsy. That is, they place less emphasis on editorial interpretations and interventions and put more primary data directly into the hands of users. The digital models thus decentre editorial authority by easing scholarly access to material.

Keywords Pylos – Greece – Linear B – XRF – RTI – 3D modelling – written administration – archaeology – Late Bronze Age

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Introduction

© Dimitri Nakassis, Kevin Pluta, and Julie Hruby, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_009

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the history of the Greek language (for recent reviews of the field in English see Duhoux & Morpurgo Davies, 2008, 2011, and 2014). The Linear B tablets are made of clay, generally 1–2 cm thick, and take several forms. Shorter texts are written on ‘leaf-shaped’ tablets that are longer (i.e., on a horizontal axis) than they are tall, and generally include 1–3 distinct lines of text. Lengthier texts, in some cases comprising information copied from multiple leaf-shaped tablets, are page-shaped, i.e., taller than they are long.2 These tablets were inscribed with simple styli, probably most often made of wood or bone, while the clay was still wet. As a result, the tablets preserve, in addition to intentional scribal incisions, the palm- and finger-prints of the people who handled them (Sjöquist & Åström, 1985). Because the tablets were administrative in function, their life-span corresponded to the length of their bureaucratic utility, which varied from text to text, but in no case seems to have exceeded one year. More permanent documents may have been kept on ephemeral materials such as parchment, but the evidence for these hypothetical documents is extremely circumstantial (Palaima, 2011: 116). The tablets themselves are only preserved because they were unintentionally baked by destruction fires. At the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos in the Peloponnese virtually all of the inscribed documents were preserved by the fire associated with the final destruction of the palace ca. 1180 BCE, although a small minority of texts appear to be earlier in date (see Driessen, 2008; Skelton, 2008, with references). What the tablets from Pylos largely present to us, then, is a snapshot of administrative activity over a period of several months (Palaima, 1995: 629–631), with a preservational bias towards documents with longer life-spans, such as texts recording annual payments to the palatial authority, and against those composed on an ad hoc basis (Bennett & Halstead, 2014). In 2013, two of us (Nakassis and Pluta) embarked on a project – The Pylos Tablets Digital Project, or PTDP – to publish the corpus of administrative texts from one particular Late Bronze Age palatial centre, the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos, which was excavated by the University of Cincinnati under the direction of Carl Blegen from 1939 to 1969. The vast majority of these tablets – over 80% – were found in a small, two-room ‘Archives Complex’ located at the main entrance to the palatial building (Palaima, 1988: 177). Approximately 200 texts were found by the

excavators in small deposits at a number of other locations within the palace. In some cases, these texts were found in contexts that can be explained administratively; for instance, tablets recording oil were found in rooms containing vessels for the storage of oil (rooms 23–24, 32, and 38). In other cases, the find-spots reflect other processes entirely. For instance, a number of scholars have convincingly argued that the tablets found in the Pylian throne room (the megaron) had been fired in an earlier period and re-used as building material (Skelton, 2010). These texts have been published in transcription (Bennett & Olivier, 1973 and 1976; Olivier and Del Freo, 2020) and have been the subject of ongoing epigraphical study, primarily by José Melena (1995a, 1995b, 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 2002a, and 2002b), but no authorized, definitive edition has yet been published (although promised in Blegen & Rawson, 1966: xii).3 Such editions in Linear B studies have typically presented each inscribed text in three forms: a transcription, a line drawing, and a (usually black-and-white) photograph. We decided to expand our study to embrace computational photography (Reflectance Transformation Imaging, or RTI) and threedimensional scanning as methods for documenting the shape and topography of the texts, in addition to a suite of other techniques not usually brought to bear to these documents, such as detailed macroscopic analysis of the clay fabric of the tablets and the use of X-Ray Fluorescence to determine their material composition (Nakassis & Pluta, 2017a and 2017b). In this paper, we describe these methods and reflect on their broader relevance, both within the sub-discipline of Linear B studies and for archaeology in the Mediterranean more generally.

2  Absolute measurements vary, but a typical leaf-shaped tablet at Pylos measures 3–4 cm by 17–22 cm; page-shaped tablets typically measure 11–22 cm by 7–12 cm. Some tablets can be best described as card-shaped; these are slightly longer than they are tall and can be understood as short page-shaped tablets.

3  An unofficial definitive edition with high-resolution static images has been recently been published by Godart and Sacconi (2019– 2020), without authorization from the Department of Classics of the University of Cincinnati or the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

2

Why Go Digital?

When we started working first-hand with the Linear B tablets in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, we were startled to discover that the documents, mainly clay tablets, came in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, colours, textures, and so on. This surprise was not due to inexperience: between Nakassis and Pluta, we had worked intensively on the Linear B tablets for some 25 years. Of course, our study of the texts had been based almost exclusively on traditional publication materials and the photographic archives of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory

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figure 7.1 Pylos tablet Cn 655. Black and white photograph, line drawing, and transcription Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati and the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory

(PASP) at the University of Texas at Austin. Our surprise at the physical qualities of the tablets illustrates the degree to which traditional methods for the publication of texts entail a radical simplification of any given document. This is not meant as a criticism of the methods of print publication: in fact, these publications illustrate just how much information can be packed effectively into a simple, elegant format (fig. 7.1).4 4  All objects inscribed in Linear B are assigned a one- or usually twoletter prefix that indicates the subject matter and format of the document (e.g., the “Cn” of Cn 655 in fig. 7.1), in addition to a number

These Linear B tablets have been dismissed as “laundry lists” or “drab and lifeless documents” (Chadwick, 1976: ix) because of their non-literary content, but they are actually records of inventive and creative solutions to very real challenges. In fact, the problem faced by the scribes is the very same one that confronts us in their publication. that is unique to each site. Texts with the same prefix are described as a series and often represent administratively meaningful units. That is, they may represent a set of tablets that together constitute a single record or a coherent dossier. For more details, see Palmer, 2008: 28–30.

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That is to say, the tablet-writers were trying to synthesise enormously complex data-sets into a consistent and comprehensible format in a medium and scribal tradition that encouraged economy and simplicity. Scribes were extraordinarily resourceful problem-solvers, and it is through close study of the texts, and the processes whereby they were composed and inscribed, that their ingenuity becomes most visible (see Palaima, 2011: 63–72). These details, more importantly, are crucial to how these texts are interpreted. Erasures and corrections help us to understand how tablet-writers dealt with the challenges of information-processing and thereby open important windows into their administrative environment. For example, one of the most celebrated Linear B texts, Pylos Jn 829, opens with the statement that .1 jo-do-so-si , ko-re-te-re , du-ma-te-qe , .2  po-ro-ko-re-te-re-qe , ka-ra-wi-po-ro-qe , o-pi-su-ko-qe , o-pi-ka-pe-e-we-qe .3  ka-ko , na-wi-jo , pa-ta-jo-i-qe , e-ke-si-qe , a3-ka-sa-ma .1 Thus will they give, the district administrators and dumartes, .2 and the vice-district administrators, and the key-bearer(s), and the fig-supervisor(s) and the digging-supervisors, .3 temple bronze as points for javelins and spears.5 The writer of this tablet, Hand 2, initially wrote in line 1 “the district administrators and the vice-district administrators” (ko-re-te-re po-ro-ko-te-re-qe), but then apparently reconsidered; s/he then erased the second of these words and replaced it with the text printed above. That is to say, it was important for Hand 2 to list the officials responsible for giving the bronze to the palatial authorities, but the care that s/he took to organise the titles suggests that the officials in line 1 were somehow associated with each other, while the vice-district administrators were associated with the remaining officers in line 2 (Hiller & Panagl, 2001–2002; Palaima, 2001: 157–159). Because we understand so little about the mechanics of resource extraction and the roles of these officers, such small details play important roles in the way that scholars interpret Linear B texts and the complex set of relations that produced them. The standard publication of Linear B tablets in print, however, is not conducive to documenting the texts at this level of detail (see fig. 7.1). Standard photography, whether in colour or (more often) black-and-white, generally does a poor job of representing the tablets. Signs can 5  Translation after Palaima, 2004: 240 with modifications by Nakassis.

be difficult to read under the best of circumstances: the signs are shallowly incised, and the clay is often coarse, discoloured, and misshapen from the destruction fires that preserved the texts. The tablets themselves are also often physically damaged as a result of the palace’s destruction and subsequent post-depositional processes. Even high-resolution images, if they could be published for each and every tablet, have limitations, because the shallow depth of the incised signs, combined with the uneven and damaged surface of the tablet, make it difficult to tell the difference between cracks, unintentional strokes, and intentional strokes. Static photographs can also be deceptive: different photographs of the same tablet are not the same if they are not lit in exactly the same way (see e.g., Duhoux, 2006). When examining the tablets in person, we typically found ourselves using a small hand-held flashlight to produce raking light. Moving the flashlight around a particularly perplexing sign or stroke allowed us to get a better sense of the topography of the tablet and how the clay had been shaped. Conveniently, a technology that simulates this effect had already been developed by Thomas Malzbender and his colleagues at Hewlett Packard Labs at the turn of the 21st century; they had, moreover, tested this new technique on cuneiform tablets. It is now usually referred to as Reflectance Transformation Imaging, or RTI (sometimes it is called Polynomial Texture Mapping, or PTM; see Malzbender et al., 2001; Earl et al., 2010). RTI allows us to overcome many of the limitations of standard photography. Because the Linear B tablets are shallowly incised and the inscribed surface is often not flat, any given photograph of a tablet will highlight certain features by casting them into sharp relief while washing out or obscuring other features. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that raking light is often most useful for observing certain details; while it clarifies some features, it also casts much of the rest of the tablet into shadow. RTI, on the other hand, works by photographing the same artefact multiple times (in our case, at least 54 times) with only the angle and position of the flash changing position. For each inscribed surface, then, we have multiple highresolution colour digital photographs, each with a slightly different lighting environment. Working with freelyavailable software, these photographs can be combined to create a single file in which the artefact can be re-lit in a virtual environment, again using freely-available software, in which the user can manipulate the (virtual) light source.6 This is possible because the program calculates the object’s topography, or rather, the ‘surface normal’ 6  We used the RTIBuilder and RTIViewer of Cultural Heritage Imaging (http://culturalheritageimaging.org).

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figure 7.2

Pylos tablet Cn 655, with various RTI visualisations: (a) default colour, (b) specular enhancement, (c) Overlay of default colour and specular enhancement (d) normals visualisation Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati

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Pylos tablet Cn 45, showing a standard colour photograph (left) and specular enhancement (right) Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati

for each pixel (a ‘surface normal’ is the vector that indicates the direction that any given point is facing). Beyond this, the image can be manipulated using a variety of visualisation modes that enhance particular aspects of the image. For instance, it is possible to exaggerate topographical changes (diffuse gain), edge contrasts (unsharp masks), and specularity (specular enhancement). Multi-light enhancement modes, both static and dynamic, apply different lighting conditions to different parts of the image so as to optimise brightness and detail, and a normals visualisation mode displays the topography of the tablet’s surface in false colour (fig. 7.2). We think that RTI provides two chief advantages. First, it presents users with high-resolution images that can be actively manipulated. That is to say, the images provide scholars with the ability to work with the texts in an interactive digital environment that accurately represents their appearance and topography. Although we do not, at present, think that RTI files allow us to see things that are not visible in person with the naked eye (cf. Newman, 2015), they do provide an approximation of autopsy. This is manifestly superior to static black-and-white photographs, and even to static high-resolution colour images, because with RTI the researcher can adjust the conditions such that the image will highlight the specific details of

interest; s/he can not only manipulate the light, but also the visualisation modes. For instance, tablets whose surfaces are extremely mottled are most easily read by stripping out colour data and reducing the image to its surface topography and texture, using specular enhancement or normals visualisation (fig. 7.3). Because each text has its own particular set of difficulties, users stand to benefit from the flexibility that RTI provides. Second, RTI files are small enough (30–230 megabytes for tablets) that they can be easily published online. The benefit of this portability is, we think, the potential democratisation of editorial and palaeographical authority. At the moment, there is a powerful intermediary between the scholar of Linear B and the text: the editor. It is difficult for the user of an edition of Linear B tablets to supplement, much less to evaluate, editorial decisions. Editors make a large number of choices about readings, drawings, and photographs; all of these certainly provide important information, but they also serve to illustrate the editor’s considered interpretation of the text without providing the user with much input into the interpretive process. RTI files, on the other hand, put much more primary data directly into the hands of scholars, who can interact with the tablets in a high-resolution virtual environment that approximates autopsy. The digital models thus decentre

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figure 7.4 Pylos tablet An 35. Still image of the threedimensional model Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati

editorial authority by easing scholarly access to material. RTI therefore provides much more than a pretty picture, and may entail a (radical) transformation of scholarly practice, in at least three ways: first, it encourages a redistribution of editorial authority; second, it allows students of the script to gain much greater familiarity with the texts (at present, direct access to the tablets is limited to a select few with study permits); and third, it rearranges the usual interpretive procedure by allowing scholars to revisit RTI images over the course of the analytical process (cf. Opitz & Limp, 2015: 358–359). 3

Texts as Material Artefacts

As we mentioned above, the physical forms of the Linear B tablets from Pylos are remarkably diverse. There are many more shapes than the usual two categories referred to by scholars (i.e., long, thin ‘leaf-shaped’ tablets and tall ‘pageshaped’ tablets): Linear B tablets come in varying thicknesses, contours, colours, and fabrics. In retrospect, it may seem a little strange that drawings of Linear B tablets have almost never included cross-sections and that editions of the texts have never bothered to contain detailed descriptions of the clay, but it is also unsurprising, considering

how focussed early work was on extracting the text from the material artefact, and how few Linear B specialists were trained as archaeologists. In the 21st century, however, a scholarly edition of archaeological material that makes no attempt to describe or record the shape of its objects of study seems very odd indeed, and so our project made use of structured light scanning to produce three-dimensional (3D) models (fig. 7.4). This work was carried out by Benjamin Rennison (then at Clemson University’s Warren Lasch Conservation Center) and James Newhard (College of Charleston) using a Breuckmann Smart Scan HE and an HDI Advance visible light scanner (Baxley et al., 2014). We chose structured light scanning for a number of reasons: efficient capture of high-resolution 3D data and colour imagery concurrently, as well as minimal post-processing. Although these 3D scans are extremely accurate, they are not especially practical as tools for reading texts – for that, RTI is far more useful – but the 3D data rather supplement the RTI photography by providing a detailed representation of the overall shape of the tablet, with equal attention paid to inscribed and uninscribed faces. One question that we are often asked is whether higherresolution (i.e., sub-micron) 3D scans of the Linear B tablets would be desirable. We do think that such scans,

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Colour photograph of Pylos tablet Ad 295. Note the enlarged size of the left side of the tablet due to firing variation. Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati

while being much more time-consuming, could be very useful, with one main reservation: namely, that the way that the tablets were fired resulted in variable expansion or contraction of the material, complicating our ability to compare micro-features (like finger- and palm-prints) between tablets and even between individual fragments of the same text (see fig. 7.5). We nevertheless believe that such scans are potentially useful to address specific research questions, and we plan in the future to make use of high-resolution 3D scanning to re-examine two aspects of the texts: first, the prints on the Pylos tablets, which are far more common than is implied by the study of Sjöquist & Åström (1985); and second, the precise shapes of the signs inscribed in the clay by the scribe’s stylus, often referred to as scribal ductus (Palaima, 2011: 67, 110; Carraro, 2017: 141–143). The former will, we hope, improve our understanding of administrative practices by distinguishing who was making and handling the tablets, while the latter should refine the identification of scribal hands, which has at times been controversial (Godart, 2009). More striking than even the diversity of shapes, however, is that of the clay fabrics, which range from the fine to the coarse, with a range of different inclusions. This aspect of the tablets has been studied by Julie Hruby (Dartmouth College) and Joann Gulizio (The University of Texas at Austin). We used standard archaeological methods to describe each tablet’s colour, condition, and its fabric (clay matrix and inclusions). In the past, Linear B scholars have considered such detailed descriptions unrewarding, but in our view the diversity of fabrics makes their detailed study extremely important. For instance, Linear B scholars have often thought that the clay used to write Linear B tablets was finely levigated and often recycled (Palaima, 2011: 105), but in fact many tablet series have clearly differentiable fabrics, many of which are not at all fine: the Ad tablets at Pylos, for instance, are characterised by large chert pebbles that reach a maximum dimension of 14 mm (see note 4 for an explanation of tablet designations). Although some tablets have fabrics that

are consistent with recycling and mixing of different clays, several different series of tablets are composed of distinct clay fabrics. This suggests that recycling as such was less common than generally thought (although many texts are obviously palimpsests) and that tablet production was a more complex, and perhaps less centralised, affair than has been hypothesised. In addition to macroscopic analysis, we are also using X-Ray Fluorescence to understand the diversity of the tablets’ compositions; this work is being done by Billy Wilemon (Mississippi State University) with a Bruker Tracer portable X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometer (Wilemon, 2016 and 2017). X-Ray Fluorescence is a nondestructive technique to analyse the elemental composition of an object (see e.g., Shackley, 2014). Although some archaeologists have been sceptical of the application of portable XRF (pXRF) to archaeological ceramics in particular, experimental work has demonstrated that welldesigned programs can successfully distinguish between compositionally distinct groups of artefacts (Forster et al., 2011). The analysis is still preliminary, but initial results are extremely promising: cross-referencing the results from the XRF with other data, such as scribal hand and find-spot, has yielded clear patterns consistent with the general conclusions of the macroscopic fabric analysis (Wilemon et al., 2020). The extent to which our project is focussing on the material analysis of the texts and their treatment as artefacts is unprecedented for Linear B studies, which has been dominated by philological and linguistic interpretations of the texts (but see Palaima, 1988: 27–31). The great exception to this generalisation is the study of find-spots, which has a long and distinguished history (Palmer & Boardman, 1963; Bennett, 1964; Palaima & Wright, 1985; Palaima, 1988; Firth, 1998 and 2002; Pluta, 1998). Fortunately, this is changing; the new ‘Linear B pa-i-to Epigraphic Project’ has implemented many of the same techniques to document the Linear B texts from Knossos that refer to Phaistos (Greco & Flouda, 2017).

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We anticipate that study of the fabrics, and the elemental composition of the tablets and especially the sealings, in combination with the detailed find-spot data at our disposal at Pylos, will enhance our understanding of administrative procedures and of the activities of the producers of these documents. We also expect that a detailed study of the physical properties of the tablets, because of their short life-spans, will provide insights into the processes whereby the ‘Palace of Nestor’ (where these documents were discovered) was burnt to the ground. Most of the tablets were broken before, or during, the destruction fire: a different surface colour across the break, or indeed changes in size or vitrification, indicates this fact. These finds support the suggestion that the final de­ struction of the palace was initiated by an earthquake (Hruby, 2016). 4

Conclusions

The advantages of ‘going digital’ are, we think, significant and manifest. It is not simply that these digital forms of presentation and publication provide a great deal more data to users than their print counterparts, but that they allow users to customise their experiences. Because tablets and sealings do not come in standard packages, either with respect to their original properties or to their preservation, dynamic environments such as RTI or 3D viewers are preferable. This is not to say that digital forms automatically allow for better interpretations: RTI files do not turn a user into an expert palaeographer, for instance, and autopsy still has a critical role to play (cf. Bennett, 1953: iii–iv). But they do allow more users to interact with the tablets and thereby to develop their sensibility as palaeographers. Moreover, because Linear B scholars work with a small and intensively-studied corpus of texts, the particulars of a single text can bear a great deal of interpretive weight. Arguments can stand or fall on the basis of individual readings (e.g., Duhoux, 2006). In this type of situation, the ability to deliver high-resolution dynamic data has the potential to make a significant difference to the field. We also think that the treatment of the tablets as texts only, while understandable in its historical context (by which we refer to the emphasis on solving textual problems after the decipherment, and to the limited capabilities of standard print publications), has inhibited the possibilities for scholarly analysis of the Linear B texts and the historical forces that produced them. These documents shed an important light onto the past, and given that the Greek Bronze Age is prehistorical, that light is

especially brilliant. Yet it is also extremely concentrated because the texts were composed for very specific administrative purposes, and so the surrounding terrain – the broader context – is usually obscured. Where the purpose or the content of the text is unclear, the light it radiates lacks focus. Understanding the processes whereby these tablets were formed and written will, we hope, improve our understanding of how the texts worked and so both broaden the scope, and tighten the focus, of the light that they shed on Late Bronze Age Greece. Our approach has concentrated on technologies that put more high-quality and dynamic data in the hands of users, which increases not only the depth of their engagement with the material, because the RTI files are so datarich compared to a static photograph, but also the breadth of access to the material, since once the files are published online they will be broadly accessible. At the same time we have brought a number of archaeological methods (fabric analysis, XRF) to bear in order to enhance our understanding of the texts as artefacts. The study of Linear B texts has always been an interdisciplinary endeavour involving linguistics, archaeology, epigraphy, lexicography, and more (Palaima, 2003). Our methods should continue to reflect the wide range of approaches available to us. Bibliography of Modern Works Aurora, Federico, 2017: “pa-ro, da-mo. Studying the Mycenaean Case System through DĀMOS (Database of Mycenaean at Oslo)”, in Nosch, Marie-Louise & Landenius Enegren, Hedvig (edd.), Aegean Scripts: Proceedings of the 14th Inter­ national Colloquium on Mycenaean Studies, Copenhagen, 2–5 September 2015 (Rome) 83–98. Aurora, Federico, Nesøen, Asgeir, Nedić, Damir, Løken, Heidi & Bersi, Andrea, 2013: DAMOS – Database of Mycenaean at Oslo (Oslo). Averett, Erin Walcek, Gordon, Jody Michael & Counts, Derek B. (edd.), 2016: Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology (Grand Forks, ND). Baxley, Jami, Rennison, Benjamin, Newhard, James, Pluta, Kevin, & Nakassis, Dimitri, 2014: “The Use of Structure Light Scanning for the Study of the Linear B Deposits from Pylos, Messenia, Greece”, Poster. 115th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, 2–5 January (Chicago). Bennet, John & Halstead, Paul, 2014: “O-no! Writing and Righting Redistribution”, in Nakassis, Dimitri, Gulizio, Joann & James, Sarah A. (edd.), KE-RA-ME-JA: Studies Presented to Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (Philadelphia) 271–282. Bennett, Emmett L., Jr., 1953: A Minoan Linear B Index (New Haven).

170 Bennett, Emmett L., Jr., 1964: “The Find-Spots of the Pylos Tablets”, in Bennett, Emmett L., Jr. (ed.), Mycenaean Studies: Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies Held at ‘Wingspread’, 4–8 September 1961 (Madison) 241–252. Bennett, Emmett L., Jr. & Olivier, Jean-Pierre, 1973: The Pylos Tablets Transcribed. Part I: Texts and Notes. Incunabula Graeca 51 (Rome). Bennett, Emmett L., Jr. & Olivier, Jean-Pierre, 1976: The Pylos Tablets Transcribed. Part II: Hands, Concordances, Indices. Incunabula Graeca 59 (Rome). Blegen, Carl W. & Rawson, Marion, 1966: The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia. Volume 1: The Buildings and Their Contexts (Princeton). Caraher, William, 2016: “Slow Archaeology: Technology, Efficiency, and Archaeological Work”, in Averett, Gordon & Counts (edd.), 2016: 421–441. Carraro, Flavia, 2017: “Cryptography, a Human Science? Models, Matrices, Tools and Frames of Reference”, in Anichini, Giulia, Carraro, Flavia, Geslin, Philippe & Guille-Escuret, Georges (edd.), Technicity vs Scientificity: Complementarities and Rivalries (Newark) 97–154. Chadwick, John, 1976: The Mycenaean World (Cambridge). Driessen, Jan, 2008: “Chronology of the Linear B Tablets”, in Duhoux & Morpurgo Davies (edd.), 2008: 69–79. Duhoux, Yves, 2006: “Adieu au ma-ka cnossien. Une nouvelle lecture en KN F 51 et ses conséquences pour les tablettes linéaire B de Thèbes”, Kadmos 45: 1–19. doi: 10.1515/ KADMOS.2006.002. Duhoux, Yves & Morpurgo Davies, Anna (edd.), 2008: A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World. Volume 1. Bibliothèque des cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 120 (Leuven). Duhoux, Yves & Morpurgo Davies, Anna (edd.), 2011: A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World. Volume 2. Bibliothèque des cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 127 (Leuven). Duhoux, Yves & Morpurgo Davies, Anna (edd.), 2014: A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World. Volume 3. Bibliothèque des cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 133 (Leuven). Earl, Graeme, Martinez, Kirk & Malzbender, Tom, 2010: “Archaeological applications of polynomial texture mapping: analysis, conservation and representation”, JAS 37.8: 2040–2050. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2010.03.009. Firth, Richard J., 1998: “The Find-Places of the Tablets from the Palace of Knossos”, Minos 31–32 (1996–1997): 7–122. Firth, Richard J., 2002: “A Review of the Find-Places of the Linear B Tablets from the Palace of Knossos”, Minos 35–36 (2000–2001): 63–290. Forster, Nicola, Grave, Peter, Vickery, Nancy & Kealhofer, Lisa, 2011: “Non-destructive analysis using PXRF: methodology and

Nakassis, Pluta, and Hruby application to archaeological ceramics”, X-Ray Spectrometry 40.5: 389–398. doi: 10.1002/xrs.1360. Godart, Louis, 2009: “I due scribe della tavoletta Tn 316”, Pasiphae 3: 99–115. Godart, Louis, & Sacconi, Anna, 2019–2020: Les archives du roi Nestor. Corpus des inscriptions en linéaire B de Pylos. Pasiphae 13–14 (Pisa & Rome). Greco, Alessandro & Flouda, Georgia, 2017: “The Linear B pa-i-to Epigraphic Project”, ASAtene 95: 143–160. Hiller, Stefan & Panagl, Oswald, 2001–2002: “Ein mykenologisches Deutungsproblem aus philologischer und archäologischer Sicht”, Graeco-Latina Brunensia 6–7: 115–120. Hruby, Julie, 2016: “Burning Down the House: Arson, Accident, or Natural Disaster?”, Paper. 117th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, 6–9 January (San Francisco). Malzbender, Tom, Gelb, Dan & Wolters, Hans, 2001: “Polynomial Texture Maps”, in Pocock, Lynn (ed.), SIGGRAPH ’01: Proceedings of the 28th annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques (New York) 519–528. Melena, José L., 1995a: “167 Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 26–27 (1992–1993): 71–82. Melena, José L., 1995b: “244 Joins and Quasi-Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 26–27 (1992–1993): 307–324. Melena, José L., 1997a: “28 Joins and Quasi-Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 29–30 (1994–1995): 95–100. Melena, José L., 1997b: “133 Joins and Quasi-Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 29–30 (1994–1995): 271–288. Melena, José L., 1998a: “40 Joins and Quasi-Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 31–32 (1996–1997): 159–170. Melena, José L., 1998b: “13 Joins and Quasi-Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 31–32 (1996–1997): 171–178. Melena, José L., 2002a: “24 Joins and Quasi-Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 35–36 (2000–2001): 357–369. Melena, José L., 2002b: “63 Joins and Quasi-Joins of Fragments in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, Minos 35–36 (2000– 2001): 371–384. Nakassis, Dimitri & Pluta, Kevin, 2017a: “Vorsprung durch Technik: Imaging the Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, in Nosch, Marie-Louise & Landenius Enegren, Hedvig (edd.), Aegean Scripts: Proceedings of the 14th International Colloquium on Mycenaean Studies, Copenhagen, 2–5 September 2015 (Rome) 285–298. Nakassis, Dimitri & Pluta, Kevin, 2017b: “The Linear B Tablets from Pylos”, in Lagogianni-Georgakarakou, Maria (ed.), Odysseys (Athens) 91–96.

The Pylos Tablets Digital Project Newman, Sarah E., 2015: “Applications of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) to the study of bone surface modifications”, JAS 53: 536–549. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2014.11.019. Olivier, Jean-Pierre & del Freo, Maurizio, 2020: The Pylos Tablets Transcribed. Deuxième edition (Padua). Opitz, Rachel & Limp, W. Fred, 2015: “Recent Developments in High-Density Survey and Measurement (HDSM) for Archaeology: Implications for Practice and Theory”, Annual Review of Anthropology 44: 347–364. doi: 10.1146/ annurev-anthro-102214-013845. Opitz, Rachel, Mogetta, Marcello & Terranato, Nicola, (edd.), 2016: A Mid-Republican House from Gabii (Ann Arbor). doi: 10.3998/mpub.9231782. Palaima, Thomas G., 1988: The Scribes of Pylos. Incunabula Graeca 87 (Rome). Palaima, Thomas G., 1995: “The Last Days of the Pylos Polity”, in Laffineur, Robert & Niemeier, Wolf-Dietrich (edd.), Politeia: Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (Liège) 625–633. Palaima, Thomas G., 2001: “The Modalities of Economic Control at Pylos”, Ktema 26: 151–159. Palaima, Thomas G., 2003: “Archaeology and Text: Decipherment, Translation, and Interpretation”, in Papadopoulos, John K. & Leventhal, Richard M. (edd.), Theory and Practice in Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives (Los Angeles) 45–73. Palaima, Thomas G., 2004: “Sacrificial Feasting in the Linear B Documents”, Hesperia 73: 217–246. Palaima, Thomas G., 2011: “Scribes, Scribal Hands and Palaeography”, in Duhoux & Morpurgo Davies (edd.), 2011: 33–136. Palaima, Thomas G. & Wright, James C., 1985: “Ins and Outs of the Archives Rooms at Pylos: Form and Function in a Mycenaean Palace”, AJA 89: 251–262. doi: 10.2307/504328. Palmer, Leonard R. & Boardman, John, 1963: On the Knossos Tablets: The Find-Places of the Knossos Tablets. The Date of the Knossos Tablets (Oxford).

171 Palmer, Ruth, 2008: “How to Begin? An Introduction to Linear B Conventions and Resources”, in Duhoux & Morpurgo Davies (edd.), 2008: 25–68. Pluta, Kevin, 1998: “A Reconstruction of the Archives Complex at Pylos: Preliminary Progress Report”, Minos 31–32 (1996– 1997): 231–250. Roosevelt, Christopher H., Cobb, Peter, Moss, Emanuel, Olson, Brandon R. & Ünlüsoy, Sinan, 2015: “Excavation is Destruction Digitization: Advances in Archaeological Practice”, JFA 40: 325–346. doi: 10.1179/2042458215Y.0000000004. Shackley, M. Steven, 2014: “X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF): Applications in Archaeology”, in Smith, Claire (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (New York) 7933–7938. Sjöquist, Karl-Erik & Åström, Paul, 1985: Pylos: Palmprints and Palmleaves (Göteborg). Skelton, Christina, 2008: “Methods of Using Phylogenetic Systematics to Reconstruct the History of the Linear B Script”, Archaeometry 50: 158–176. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754. 2007.00349.x. Skelton, Christina, 2010: “Re-Examining the Pylos Megaron Tablets”, Kadmos 48: 107–123. doi: 10.1515/kadmos.2009.006. Ventris, Michael & Chadwick, John, 1953: “Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives”, JHS 73: 84–103. doi: 10.2307/628239. Wilemon, Billy B., Jr., 2016: “Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer Analysis of the Pylos Linear B Tablets”, Poster. 117th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, 6–9 January (San Francisco). Wilemon, Billy B., Jr., 2017: Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer Analysis of the Pylos Linear B Tablets (M.A. diss, Mississippi State University). Wilemon, Billy B., Jr., Galaty, Michael L. & Nakassis, Dimitri, 2020: “Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer Analysis of the Pylos Linear B Tablets,” Paper. 121st Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, AIA, Washington, D.C., 2–5 January (Washington D.C.).

chapter 8

Objects and Things in Classical Literature Sarah Blake and Jennifer Dyer Abstract ‘Object-Oriented Ontology’ and ‘Thing Theory’ situate objects within networks of relations in and through which they interact with other entities, thereby forming associations with real effects where objects and things are thus able to ‘voice’ their influence on the world around them in their own terms. This theoretical perspective opens new lines of enquiry in fields such as Classics since it recognises the function and capacity of objects in new or varied contexts. In this paper we first explore the relevance of Object-Oriented analysis for interpreting the material culture of the ancient world and, second, apply these theories to a specific context: material culture as it appears in Greco-Roman literary texts. We analyse weaponry in the epic poetry of Homeros and Vergilius as material and enigmatical objects. Attunement to the materiality of these objects in literature allows scholars to perceive traces of the dynamic networks of agency, materiality, subjectivity, and representation in which ancient objects were situated.

Keywords Object-Oriented analysis – Thing Theory – relational objects – textual objects – object biography – weaponry – Homer – Virgil

Philology, the study of Classical languages and literature, often avoids or simplifies questions of its material culture. Interpretation or discussion of the material objects described within texts has traditionally been considered to belong to art historical or archaeological studies, while questions about the materiality of ancient writing itself have been set aside for papyrologists, epigraphers, or palaeographers. This tendency reflects the historical division of the study of Greco-Roman antiquity into academic sub-disciplines with distinct interests and conventions, as described in the introduction to this volume (Cooper, this volume: 1 and 10–11). One effect of this habit of relegation has been to produce a corpus of literature seemingly purified of its material contexts and contents. The material world represented within the ancient literary text, if it does gain the reader’s attention, is treated

© Sarah Blake and Jennifer Dyer, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_010

in limited ways. So, for example, the objects described in literary texts might be extracted and understood as empirical descriptions of the physical objects used in ‘real life’ by historical people. Another approach is to understand the material objects appearing within literary texts as primarily belonging to a semiotic system which is contained within the text. Here, the objects described in ancient texts are read as signs which (1) iconically resemble or illustrate the meaning of things, (2) indicate or point out especial meanings to things, or (3) suggest a convention, milieu, or order of understanding about how material objects furnished the context of the ancient world. This set of significations of the material world, then, is considered only insofar as it presents readers with a seamlessly integrated order of things, people, and spaces in the ancient world. In this sense, these literary approaches understand objects formally, and only as they stand in relation to human subjects. Since at least the early Humanists, as argued by philosophers such as Theodor Adorno, Donna Haraway, and Bruno Latour, a set of ideas predominated which has considered material things either as semiotically inert, or meaningful only in relation to human engagements with them. Accordingly, the human subject was always deemed superior to the non-human object (which included animals, inanimate objects, and the natural world); this led to the triumph of the subject and the relegation of nature, or at least the external world, to thoughts, signs, or concepts (Adorno, 1970; Haraway, 1991; Latour, 1994 and 2005). It is no surprise, therefore, that people’s engagement with the materiality in and of literary texts has traditionally considered objects only in terms of how they are acted upon, or relate to the human subjects who found or fashioned them (Brown, 2003 and 2004). In this chapter we intend to read Classical literature from object-oriented theoretical perspectives informed by the ‘material turn’ or ‘new materialism’ (Preda, 1999; Coole & Frost, 2010). The ‘material turn’ is a relatively recent phenomenon which can be traced to theories of culture, ontology, and science in the 20th and 21st century (see Hicks, 2010 for a thorough discussion of the evolution of the material turn in the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology). This ‘turn’ has prompted a new focus on the features, properties, and modes of engagement which

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material objects reveal and often demand from us. It has demonstrated that objects are not merely the furniture of our human universe, but that they enact their own roles in the world independently of how humans conceive of them. Theoretical approaches developed within archaeology, anthropology, and neuroscience have suggested that humans and the non-human object world must be seen as mutually constituted and inextricably interconnected (e.g., Knappett, 2005; Boivin, 2008). It has been argued that human personhood can include non-human objects which embody, extend, or even distribute aspects of the person beyond the individual human body, both at the cognitive level and in a wider social sense (cognitive: Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Clark, 2008; Malafouris, 2008; Renfrew, Frith, & Malafouris, 2009; social: Gell, 1998). Non-human entities can possess and wield agency (Knappett & Malafouris, 2008; Robb, 2010; Collar, this volume: 55–56). These approaches allow us to imagine a wider range of relationships between humans and non-humans and to engage with the creative inscrutability of objects on their own terms. Such relationships are beginning to be recognised by those who work on the literature of the Classical world, leading to experiments with theories of materiality within Classical literature (e.g., Bielfeldt, 2014; Mueller, 2016; Mueller & Telò, 2018). It is this area of study that we will go on to explore. A valuable theoretical technique emerging in material culture studies has been Thing Theory, a term coined by American literary historian Bill Brown (2004). Thing Theory makes a distinction between the term ‘object’ and the more ambiguous term ‘thing’ – two different roles which open two radically different ways of comprehending what matter does to, and despite, the people around it. Human subjects tend to treat the non-human stuff of the world as objects. Objects in this sense are matters of fact; they are parts of the world that are named, categorised, and made part of a system of understanding which takes some features as meaningful and leaves others unconsidered. The process of objectification is unavoidable, since all societies categorise the world in terms of how they understand what is in it and, further, objectify themselves in physical objects to some extent, in terms of how those objects relate to them. We therefore can define objects as substances that are transformed into signs and submitted to systems of signification, meaning, or society. As such, objects mediate our experience of the world. In this respect, Brown famously proposed in his article “Thing Theory” that we see through ‘objects’ to what they represent for us, not what they are despite us, i.e., ‘things’ (2004: 4). As the philosopher Martin Heidegger argues throughout his essay “The Question Concerning Technology”

173 (1993: 308–341), objects are ready-to-hand for us, pieces of the material world that come to us already marked as signifiers with definite human meanings attached to them by way of representation. This means that to say something about an object is also to say something about oneself as a subject; objects are formed at the same time that subjects are formed. The upshot here is that ‘objects’ are reifications of the meaning, status, or value imbued in ‘things’ by humans. Ultimately, ‘objecthood’ is ambiguous ‘thingness’ objectified into a stable, meaningful item. Objects are subjected to concepts or understandings in the same way that a ‘subject’ is a ‘person’ who has become conceptualised as such in a particular system. Things are to objects as persons are to subjects: neither comes to us coded until we ascribe them meaning and value in a system. As substance-transformed-into-sign, material objects are part of our encounter with the world. Objects have neither agency nor affect of their own, for they are conceived of primarily as catalysts for thought, knowledge, and conversation for the subjects that make them meaningful. If a thing has no location in some system of human understanding then it is outside of meaning: it is not considered an object for us at all. It is through this notion of objecthood that literary objects tend to be considered: as representations or significations of objects, signs held together in a seamless unity that develops an overarching meaning of the text itself. Yet Thing Theory and its related approaches encourage us to be aware of the stuff of the world as more than mere objects infused with meaning and significance by, and for, human comprehension. In fact, sometimes objects are ambiguous and impossible to categorise, or act unexpectedly, or refuse to mean what a subject thinks they should; in other words, they are ‘things’. Brown (2004) describes how it is that things go beyond reference (signification) and ontology (indices of the real). He claims that things get in the way: as he says, they either have too much presence or too little. Things get reduced to objects, but they can easily move back into being things. When an object is broken or out-of-date it can revert to thinghood. Over time, the meaning or functionality of the object in the world becomes hindered by the materiality of the stuff that makes it. It does not represent our relation to the world as it once did, nor does it stand as an index of some set of social relations as it should (i.e., a type of social order, a social desire, or an ontology), and so it moves from object to thing – unmediated materiality – yet it still makes some sort of difference in the world it inhabits. While objects are the specific creations of subjects, things can exist without subjects. This is less an anti-humanist position than a post-humanist one: things are recognised

174 as having their own affective force in the world that is not reducible to how we relate to them. How can these observations be applied to the material culture in ancient literary texts? As Brown outlines, the first move in Thing Theory is to tune into the objectworld of a text – that is, to pay attention to the material within the text, be it an object important to the narrative, or, as in most texts, the unremarked background to, or instruments of, human action. This is because ‘things’ have a materiality that is never perfectly contiguous with the representative word, image, or text. To tune into the material in literature, therefore, is not only to finally see the object, but further to register, to trace out, or merely to acknowledge the potential thinghood of the object, in its aspects that may precede, elude, evade, withdraw from, recede from, or exceed its apparent presence in the text. As Rikke Hansen (2008: 16) argues, “the power of things is that” – unlike objects – “they refuse to conform completely to our intentions and interpretations, even when we have designed them ourselves”. The process of objectification hides the histories, the productive conditions, and the very materialities that shape ‘objects’ out of ‘things’. Where objects reify or represent a society’s concepts, intentions, or desires, things interrupt that process. Certain segments of an object’s representation take on the weight of an index of reality and become stabilised for us; by contrast, a thing casts doubt on that conceptual stability. Tuning into objects and knowing that they are also ‘things’ makes a difference to how we see and understand the world and, arguably, to how we interpret the material world of texts. Finally, we come to another important theory based in a non-anthropocentric understanding of material culture: speculative realism or Object-Oriented Ontology (known as OOO). In these related theories, the key concept is the unknowability of objects – human knowledge and perception is but one of innumerable relations through which entities can interact and associate. Here ‘objects’ are considered similarly to Brown’s ‘things’ in that they are mind-independent, which means their relation to human cognitive recognition is no guarantor of access to the essence, being, purpose, or significance of an object; rather, all access can only ever be partial. In Graham Harman’s analysis, things operate in the world independently of the human mind, and therefore they are never fully disclosed to us (2005 and 2011; for the “alien-ness” of things, see Bogost, 2012). In fact, they withdraw even from their associations. Where the Actor-Network theorist Bruno Latour (2005) argues that things basically are their associations (as actors within a network of actors), Harman argues that things are their own materiality, and this materiality is not reducible to anything beyond or

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besides itself. Thing Theory accords a certain agency, response, power, or voice to the stuff of the world: it affects and is affected. In a similar way, Object-Oriented analysis ‘makes things talk’, in Lorraine Daston’s terms (2004), and is neither anti-humanist (in that it does not disparage the human in favour of the object), nor anthropomorphic (in that it does not give human-like agency to things). Rather, it develops what the philosopher Adorno called the “enigmaticalness” of the work (1970: 120), namely an opacity and a resistance to control and instrumentalisation that is connected to its material thingness and which cannot fully be represented. To illustrate an approach to Classical texts informed by the theoretical approaches we have described, we will now tune into the role and presence of a specific type of object – armour and weaponry – as it is represented in two canonical works, the Homeric Ilias, and the Aeneis of Vergilius. At first it may seem as if these two epic poems are too different to be easily compared. The Ilias an early Greek composition with roots in the Late Bronze Age, was transmitted orally over many centuries before becoming standardized in text form, itself a centuries-long process (on the complex early textual history of the poem see Nagy, 1996 and 2009). Vergilius’ Aeneis, by contrast, has a narrower and better documented composition history: written by a single poet over about a decade, it was presented as a near-complete text at the author’s death in 19 BCE (this tradition is preserved in the ancient commentators on the poem, Aelius Donatus and Servius Honoratus; see Stok, 2012). Moreover, the Aeneis was written with the specific political purpose of supporting the regime of Augustus Caesar. Despite these radical differences in their origin, the two poems share a common theme: the Trojan War and its aftermath. Furthermore, Vergilius’ Aeneis is deeply indebted to the Homeric epics, and deliberately takes up Homeric themes and values for poetic purposes. In this sense, the texts share common objects, including weapons and armour, a specially-featured class of material and one with a distinct relationship to a subject, the male warrior-hero. Our analysis will examine the potential ‘thinghood’ of this class of objects as they appear in the world of the Ilias; we will then consider Vergilius’ deliberate engagement with Homeric objects as thing-like in his own text. 1

The Homeric Texts

In the pre-literate world depicted in the Homeric poems, material objects play significant roles; their effects have been described as “magical” (Griffin, 1980: 1–49). The Ilias portrays its material objects as socially powerful, durable,

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and capable of storing memory. The text (like Homeros’ Odysseia) is replete with descriptions of precious objects wielded, exchanged, or plundered by the heroes. These heirloom objects (e.g. the staff of Agamemnon: Ilias 2.100–108; Oineus’ belt and Bellerophon’s gold cup: Ilias, 6.219–221; Odysseus’ bow: Odysseia 21.11–41), are able to initiate and maintain relationships between human subjects, even over several generations. The poem’s objects also illustrate and uphold the central aims of the human characters of the poem, the warrior-heroes: to acquire and maintain social power, to amass visible prestige, and to be remembered. Precious objects that outlive human characters are capable of evoking the past and preserving the memory of human actions and associations, often by circulating between characters (Bassi, 2005 and 2016; Grethlein, 2008; Garcia Jr., 2013; Whitley, 2013). An appropriate adjective to describe these special objects would be dense: although they are small, portable, and inanimate, they nevertheless congeal and contain within themselves hidden depths of time, distance, and cultural meaning within the social orders of the poem (see Weiner, 1994 for the concept of cultural density in objects). These ‘dense’ objects of the Ilias retain some essence of their makers, owners, and users as they move through various life-phases in a biographical trajectory; in this way they acquire personal cultural biographies and genealogies, much like the human characters in the text (on the cultural biography of objects in general, see Kopytoff, 1986; Gosden & Marshall, 1999; Cooper, this volume Chapter 3; in the Homeric context, see Crielaard, 2003). By virtue of these complex and extra-human life-trajectories, the objects themselves come to have a unique character irreducible to any one human who may be associated with the object. So, as one example among dozens, Akhilleus gives the winner of the foot-race at Patroklos’ funeral a silver wine mixing-bowl (krater), a “work of art” which “for its loveliness surpassed all the others on earth” (Ilias 23.742), made in Sidon by Phoenicians who gave it to Thoas, the king of Lemnos. Then, “Euneos, son of Jason gave it to the hero Patroklos to buy Lykaon, Priam’s son, out of slavery, and now Akhilleus made it a prize in memory of his companion” (Ilias 23.740–749). The silver bowl as an object therefore preserves its own long history, as recorded by the narrator: (1) as an art-work made by master craftsmen in Phoenicia; (2) as a gift signifying cultural contact and diplomacy between Greeks and Phoenicians; (3) as a bequest from Thoas to Euneos, the son of his daughter Hypsiple with Iason; (4) as payment to Patroklos for the life of his hostage Lykaon;

175 (5) as an inheritance from Patroklos to Akhilleus to be distributed along with his other possessions; (6) as a prize for Odysseus’ victory in the ritualized funerary athletic competitions. This krater possesses a ‘deep biography’ of several generations characterised by diverse exchange contexts (see Appadurai, 1986 for the concept of the life stages of a commodity). The silver krater’s value as a prize to Odysseus is therefore based not only in its intrinsic value as precious, crafted metal – although it is the metal material that enables its long lifespan – but also in this history of prestigious associations. The Homeric warriors strive for, and celebrate possession of, precious crafted objects as critical elements of their social identity. Material objects are essential to the status and subsequent identity of the heroes. It has recently been argued that the personhood of the Homeric warrior is distributed throughout his objects (Grethlein, 2020; for an analysis of Odysseus’ significant objects, see La Fond, 2017). In this sense, objects can be associated so intimately with an individual that they can invoke his presence and enact his agency even when he is absent or dead. Conversely, the loss or separation from an intimately-held object can diminish the vitality of an individual (the concept of ‘distributed personhood’ was originally developed by Western anthropologists to describe phenomena of exchange observed in Melanesian societies, but was broadened to a wider theory of social agency in Gell, 1998). In the Ilias, a song of war, weaponry and armour deserve special consideration as powerful agents within social relationships. Like other precious objects in these texts, weapons and armour are valuable objects of exchange that create and preserve human relationships over time (for example, the arms exchanged between combatants Diomedes and Glaukos, Ilias 6.119–236). Armour, however, plays an even more intimate role in the formation of the prime subjects of the poem: the warrior-heroes. Armour enhances and extends the masculine body, even as it disciplines the limbs. The donning of armour is an important type-scene in the Ilias (Edwards, 1992: 302–3). Armour and the body in effect become part of a new creature: human subject and material object participate with each other and partake of each other’s properties as they form the figure of the warrior-hero whose animating force is distributed through human body and non-human object (Purves, 2015). The warrior and his weapons cannot be viewed as separate subject and object but must be seen as co-participants in a critical entanglement (Lissarrague, 2010; on the concept of entanglement, see Latour, 1994; Hodder, 2012). From a Thing Theory perspective, the objects of the Homeric warrior have become things. The

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warrior-subject cannot come into being without these things, his material co-agents. The relationships between the participants of this assemblage need not be symmetrical, singular, or at all simplex (Latour, 2005); this intimacy is therefore not reducible to a relationship of instrumentality. This assemblage, moreover, is not necessarily a stable one, since, by our definition, the thing in its materiality has its own affective force (for a full analysis of this phenomenon, see Malafouris, 2013). So, for example, when Patroklos dons the armour of Akhilleus, he is unable to pick up and use Akhilleus’ spear, a gift from the centaur Chiron to Akhilleus’ father: “huge, heavy, thick, which no one else of all the Achaians could handle” (Ilias 16.130– 144). The spear’s material qualities exceed Patroklos’ capabilities; moreover, this distortion in the hero+armour interrelationship prefigures the larger failure of the warrior Patroklos-in-Akhilleus’ armour. Neither he nor, later, Hektor is able to fit together successfully with these arms, and both are killed. At the point of their death both Patroklos and Hektor, stripped of these arms, become significant objects themselves as corpses, fulfilling in this way Simone Weil’s classic observations on the power of force in the poem to dehumanize, turning people into things (Weil, 1940). In Book 10 of the Ilias, we find a powerful object involved in the action in the section of the poem known as the Doloneia, in which Odysseus and Diomedes undertake a night-time raid on the Trojan forces. This book is considered to be of later composition than the rest of the poem and is characterised by close attention to the clothing and armour worn by the heroes (Clay, 1983: 76–89). Odysseus dons a special helmet: While Meriones gave Odysseus a bow and a quiver and a sword; and he too put over his head a helmet fashioned of leather; on the inside the cap was crossstrung firmly with thongs of leather, and on the outer side the white teeth of a tusk-shining boar were close sewn one after another with craftsmanship and skill; and a felt was set in the centre. Autolykos, breaking into the close-built house, had stolen it from Amyntor, the son of Ormenos, out of Eleon, and gave it to Kytherian Amphidamas, at Skandeia; Amphidamas gave it in turn to Molos, a gift of guest-friendship, and Molos gave it to his son Meriones to carry.

But at this time it was worn to cover the head of Odysseus. Homeros, Ilias 10. 260–271

The boar’s-tusk helmet possesses a complex biography as a valued object; once associated with the grandfather of Odysseus, Autolykos, himself a famous thief (Odysseia 19.395–6), we hear that it has been stolen, gifted, and bequeathed (Grethlein, 2008: 37). The helmet plays an important ancillary role in Odysseus’ actions in the Doloneia. The helmet is less visually conspicuous than the bright metal armour worn by heroes in combat, armour typically described as glittering or blazing; it is apt for a night-time raid. The craftwork of the leather and shining-tusk helmet is distinctive, echoing perhaps Odysseus’ own special abilities in technical craft. Odysseus the character is also associated with the boar, through his identifying scar (Levaniouk, 2011); the association is not symbolic but material, as the mark of the boar’s tusk on his thigh is the physical proof of his identity. In this episode, the boar’stusk helmet will disguise his identity in an action that requires concealment. Here, the unusual armour aligns with the character’s personal history, his associations, and his ex tempore actions in the text. It is a felicitous participation as Odysseus succeeds in his mission. We have seen that Homeric objects play roles as markers of time, as objects of exchange within social networks, and as co-participants in the warrior-figure. The dense objects of the poem are not merely physical objects or tools of the human subjects of the poem; they can also demonstrate what Jane Bennett (2010) has called ‘thing power’, the potential of things not only to embody human meanings, but also to exceed or undo those meanings, often in ways that are outside of human understanding and control (for a recent similar analysis with an emphasis on gender, see Canevaro, 2018: esp. 12–28). A complex example appears in Ilias Book 21, when Athena, in her battle against Ares, takes as a weapon a stone once used as a horos, a boundary marker: Athena giving back caught up in her heavy hand a stone that lay in the plain, black and rugged and huge, one which men of a former time had set there as a boundary mark of the cornfield. Homeros, Ilias 21.403–405

Athena’s ad hoc weapon has a multi-stage history as a relic of a former society, i.e., an instrument used to maintain an

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agricultural border; it had been moved (“set there”) from its ‘natural’ position to serve as a property marker by “men of a former time”. In this scene, it is uprooted, which erases its previous cultural role, and is then turned by a higher power toward a violent purpose. The physical properties of the stone, its durability and weightiness, put the stone into a useful instrumental relationship both with human society, as a permanent boundary marker, and as a weapon with the gods who, while being certainly more powerful than mortals, are yet anthropomorphic and form part of the human social order of the Homeric world. When read as a semiotic literary object, reflecting back upon the text, the life of the horos stone mirrors the same trajectory that the Ilias does as a whole; over the course of the war, the boundaries of the fields, which signify orderly and peaceful civilizations, are pulled up and destroyed, turned to violence as societies collapse into chaos. When the horos is considered as a thing, however, the stone in and of itself – “black and rugged and huge” – remains immutable and self-contained, only hinting at its past, present, and future. In the terms of Object-Oriented Ontology, the real stone lurks outside of the history of its relationship to humans, offering only the allure of its reality, which can never be directly present (Harman, 2012). The literary narrative of the Ilias glances at this weird reality but ultimately pulls the stone into relations with the characters and with the readers, forging conceptual order and coherence from the inscrutable material world. (Grethlein, 2008: 35) The literary objects of the Ilias play critical roles as social actors in the poem. Moreover, we see armour and weaponry, in particular, working with human actors at a fundamental level; this co-participation enacts a complex subject formation for the person of the warrior-hero, a personhood that can exist and persist in and across human and non-human bodies. The objects of the Ilias display their potential to exert thing-power. From a Thing Theory perspective, therefore, we suggest that the care taken around the entanglements of humans and objects, and weight of these relationships within the poem indicates an awareness of the power of things. This awareness extends to the capacity of things to exceed and disappoint human expectations at the same time as they create, shape, and maintain the horizon of the possible action for humans in the world of the Ilias. 2

Vergilius’ Aeneis

The Homeric poems present a complicated case for the analysis of objects in texts because of their long life as oral

compositions and the multi-layered, shifting historical and material world that they represent. In what follows, we look briefly at these Homeric dynamics as they are taken up in the Aeneis, a written epic that can be placed in a late 1st-century BCE Italian context, in the wake of the Emperor Augustus’ ascension to power at Rome. The representation of Homeric-style objects in this Roman-Italian poem, crafted by a single author in a different language and many centuries later, presents the reader with textual objects that attempt to translate and to revoice the objects of the Greek literary past in a new song, a process that reveals critical dimensions of the objects’ potentialities. As we will see, Vergilius’ use of Homeric text-things demonstrates what Object-Oriented Ontology philosophers might call the finitude of objects, that is, the irreducibility of any object to any other, and the resistance of the object to control, definition, or translation in its thinghood. From a literary perspective, the specific ways in which objects elude translation can be generative and meaningful within a text. As in the Homeric epics, amour and weaponry is a critical theme of the Aeneis: the first words of the poem are arma virumque: arms and the hero (Aeneis 1.1), while the final murderous moment of the poem hinges upon the fury sparked by piece of armour, the sword belt (cingula) of Pallas worn by Turnus: Then he saw, on that tall body, The belt with shining studs his young friend Pallas Had once worn. Turnus, who had cut him down, Displayed the hateful token on his shoulder. Aeneas stared – the spoils commemorated His wild grief, and he burned with hideous rage. “Will you escape, in loot from one of mine? It’s Pallas who’s stabbing you, to offer Your vicious blood in payment for your crime.” Incensed, he thrust the sword through Turnus’ chest. His enemy’s body soon grew cold and helpless, While the indignant soul flew down to Hades. Vergilius, Aeneis 12.939–952

As we saw in Homeros, weaponry is so foundationally an aspect of a warrior’s personhood as to be inalienable (Weiner, 1992). Indelible aspects of a warrior’s distributed personhood abide in the object; even after the death of the human agent, weaponry persists as a live element of the warrior-figure and is able to translate that person across distances of space and time. When Aeneas sees Pallas’ belt on his killer’s body, he cries that it is ‘Pallas’

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who wounds and kills Turnus; the sword belt, separated from Pallas’ dead body, nevertheless embodies his interests and, through the medium of Aeneas and his sword, acts for him. From this view, the governing phrase of the poem, arma virumque, indicates not two distinct ideas, but suggests rather the intimate human and nonhuman association of the warrior-figure: weapons and a body. In this section we will look at an episode in Vergilius’ Aeneis that rehearses imperfectly Homeric objects in their allure and enigmaticalness: the night-time raid and subsequent death of the beautiful Trojan youths, Nisus and Euryalus (Aeneis 9.176–502). It has long been observed that this passage deliberately echoes and inverts the Ilias’ Doloneia (Ilias, Book 10; Casali, 2004). In this passage, Nisus and Euryalus decide to break the Rutulian siege of their camp by sneaking out at night to reach Aeneas who is at Pallanteum. They escape, find the Rutulian camp and slaughter many, but while escaping they are caught and killed, and their mission fails. Vergilius marks this special episode with a remarkable authorial intervention, the longest and most direct in the entire Aeneis. In what amounts to an epitaph in verse he writes: Lucky pair! If my song has any power, You’ll never be forgotten, while the children Of Aeneas live below the steadfast rock Of the Capitol, and a Roman father reigns. Vergilius, Aeneis 9.446–449

The passage has received special attention in Vergilian scholarship because of this remarkable apostrophe: two minor characters, whose actions do not advance the plot in any way, are nevertheless honoured with all the power of the poet to immortalise glory (Casali, 2004; Behr, 2005: 204). It is the only moment in Vergilius’ Aeneis in which the poet reflects openly – in his own voice – on the function of his poetry, and on the power of his song to create and preserve memory. It is perhaps the most meta-literary moment in the poem, and it remains debated as to why this episode and these characters are so singled out (Seider, 2013: 143–5). The two youths, Nisus and Euryalus, are introduced as beautiful armed warriors in the Homeric style: Nisus, Hyrtacus’ war-keen son, watched one gate. Nimble with arrows and a spear, he’d come From Ida’s hunting grounds, to serve Aeneas. His friend Euryalus was the handsomest Of all the warriors in Aeneas’ band. Vergilius, Aeneis 9.176–180

Moreover, they are motivated in their actions by their desire for glory; this glory is manifested in the objects that they would accrue. Weapons are among the prizes offered to them if they succeed in their effort. As Nisus and Euryalus tell their plan to the Trojan council led by Ascanius, Aeneas’ son, their dreams of glory are materialised in the gifts that they are promised: as recompense and recognition (laus) for their deeds: [Aletes]: ‘What prizes, warriors, could I think worthy Of your heroics? …’ [Ascanius]: ‘I’ll give you Two well-made silver cups, deeply embossed – My father’s spoil from capturing Arisba – Two tripods and two standard bars of gold, And an ancient wine bowl from Sidonian Dido. If Aeneas wins and conquers Italy, Claims kingship and distributes all the spoils – You saw the horse gold-armoured Turnus rode? Nisus, I’ll set that beast aside for you, And the shield and red crest: these are yours already. My father will give twelve choice captive mothers As well, and twelve men, each one with his own armour.’ Vergilius, Aeneis 9.252–3; 263–73

The promised objects will be in recognition and material instantiation of their glory; once acquired, they will then form a part of Nisus and Euryalus’ own expanded personhood as glorious warriors worthy of being remembered. We are firmly in the Homeric warrior prestige economy here, and the objects described are able to mark place and time in the poem just as their Homeric ancestors did. The silver bowls promised to Nisus and Euryalus are spoils of Aeneas, taken at Arisba, a city in the Troad; the bowls were given by Dido. These objects – if appropriately incorporated into the warrior’s personhood – function both to amplify him and to place him within a known geospatial and diachronic network; like the Homeric objects, these dense objects are nodes in this continually developing network. In this episode, however, the objects are never given, since the young men die before they can receive them. The lure of the objects calls the men toward their death and the associations remain uncompleted. When Nisus and Euryalus swoop down on the sleeping Rutulians, they seize precious objects which, like the Homeric objects discussed above, are represented as possessing complex biographies:

Objects and Things in Classical Literature

But Euryalus took Rhamnes’ gold-bossed swordbelt, And badges. Wealthy Caedicus had sent them To Remulus of Tibur, to befriend him At a distance. This man left them to his grandson, After whose time Rutulians plundered them. Euryalus put them on his strong, doomed shoulders; Messapus’ helmet, with its striking plumes, Fitted him well (habilem). Vergilius, Aeneis 9.358–66

Euryalus picks up the phalerae (badges, or general military trappings) of Rhamnes and a golden sword belt (cingula) that we hear has been exchanged already in several ways, each a legitimate transfer according to the warrior economy code. It is part of a set of gifts from King Caedicus to Remulus marking and maintaining a bond of friendship or xenia; then it becomes a bequest to his grandson ensuring patrilinear preservation of the xenia relationship; finally, it is taken from the grandson in the brutal, but acceptable, act of spoliation by the Rutulians. Note that this object is biographised only in the voice of the narrator; the actors within the text in this case do not know the chronological depth of the object or its varied exchange history and associative networks. These objects appeal to the youths primarily as visibly precious spoils, gleaming with the promise of wealth and glory. Euryalus’ stolen helmet, once belonging to Messapus, a son of Neptune and a mature warrior, seems to fit Euryalus well (habilem). Interrupted in their slaughter by an enemy troop returning to camp, Nisus and Euryalus take flight, plunging into the darkness of the woods. In this darkness the gleam of Euryalus’ stolen helmet betrays his location, and he is taken and killed: In the dim-glimmering light, the radiant helmet Betrayed Euryalus – he’d forgotten it. Vergilius, Aeneis 9.373–75

Unlike the intelligently chosen boar’s-tusk helmet of Odysseus in the Doloneia, an object in full sympathy with the action of the text, this helmet refuses to participate with its thief. The helmet acts on its own here and is grammatically represented as a nominative subject. This agentic helmet betrays Euryalus by glittering as if it were the blazing arms of a hero in open battle, where conspicuous armour is desired and brings further glory. In the aftermath of the killing, once the Rutulians have returned to camp and gathered together to mourn their dead, we hear that “the ground was warm with fresh gore, /And there were rivulets of foaming blood. /A murmur arose: those were Messapus’ badges /And helmet – so

179 much work to win them back!” (Aeneis 9.955–958). The helmet, once part of the warrior-hero Messapus, even now in the aftermath of the slaughter is still drawing the attention of the crowd. The helmet is shown as all the more remarkable and valuable because of the lives lost in pursuit of it. The helmet has acquired even greater ‘density’ in the text. The helmet is thus a dense, storied, powerful object. As a literary object, the helmet has worked to uphold the moral code of the Homeric warrior economy on its own since, as sneaking thieves operating under cover of darkness, Nisus and Euryalus ought to have been exposed and killed; these two young men were never as powerful as the mature heroes Odysseus and Diomedes who succeeded in their night-time mission. Nisus and Euryalus turn out to be poor readers of Homeros; the malicious thing-power of the helmet undoes them. In the conclusion of the episode, the uncovered heads of Nisus and Euryalus are mounted upon enemy spears as a spectacle marked out in the text as pitiable (visu miserabile: Aeneis 9.465). Their body parts are now among the spoils displayed by the victors. But then again, perhaps the helmet was utterly indifferent to all these actions and their effects; as a material object with a reflective surface, it merely obeyed the laws of physics and reflected the light of the moon. From an OOO perspective, it is impossible and misguided to interpret the helmet in human frameworks, even in frameworks that incorporate powerful objects as co-agents. While we do not suggest that Vergilius attempts in this scene to philosophise as a speculative realist, it is nevertheless important to note that the text creates a purposeful enigma here, a place of not-knowing where human abilities reach their limits. The young men do not know what they have done or are about to do in the darkness of the night-time raid. Although the helmet “fits” (habilem) the head of Euryalus, we later realize that this was only Euryalus’ feeling as he donned the helmet. In effect, the helmet of Messapus is independent of his mind, of the readers’ minds, and perhaps even of the poet, who is similarly unable to know fully or to predict how the presence of Iliadic things in the text will emerge. The ambiguity of the object, or what we here sometimes called ‘thingness’, indicates what we are sure exists, but about which we have no fully clear and distinct knowledge. The presence and meaning of things derives from their existence in a non-human, extra-subjective world that necessarily defies representation, signification, or conceptualisation. In this sense, the inherent vagueness of these objects means they do not lie beyond the bounds of reason, but they are liminal: things are limit-cases showing where our categories break down. Lying at the margins of language, cognition, and material substance,

180 these objects do not so much demand new ways for us to speak for the inhuman world, as they demand that we learn to attend to the inhuman world and to recognise its agential networks of relations in which things, objects, and subjects participate meaningfully. As we have seen, in the Homeric poems agentic and powerful objects serve to mark time and support human memory, and they also partake in the distributed personhood of the warrior-figure. The agentic Homeric objects work in Vergilius as complex actors in multiple interpenetrated systems within the narrative of the poem: social, moral, economic, and literary. Vergilius makes polysemous use of his Homeric model. He shows us, first, his masterful engagement with Homeric poetics within his own 1stcentury Roman poetic idiom, a feat he signals in the text with his unparalleled epitaphic address to the memory of Nisus and Euryalus and the power of his own poetry to immortalize them. Thematically, the episode also helps to texture the poem’s general feeling of melancholy for the loss of young life in war; the contrast formed with the success of Odysseus and Diomedes in the Doloneia highlights the danger and the role of fortune in war. In terms of our concern in this chapter with materiality, we see that throughout Vergilius’ Aeneis textual cracks and crevasses open when Homeric objects appear. In the dream of the Homeric world aristocrats exchange beautiful objects in honourable and seamlessly reciprocal fashion; warriors receive appropriate glory and praise for their heroic deeds. As we have seen, that dream is distorted by the interactions of humans and powerful things. In the Aeneis, things overpower people, undoing their good judgment, as in Euryalus’ case, or their mercy, as in the climactic moment of Aeneas’ murder of Turnus. Vergilius’ textual reinterpretation of the Homeric song of agentic objects in his own Roman warrior world calls up the enigmatic darkness of those distortions. The glittering weapons, the profits of war, are also parts of the bodies of young men dead before their time; the powers of the armour offset the fragility and penetrability of unarmed men, but also lure them into further danger to their lives. These poetic meanings depend on the capacity for armour and human bodies to exchange properties and to incorporate each other as coparticipants in action. These meanings alone are enough reason to tune into the object world of the text of the Homeric and Vergilian epics. We ended our discussion, however, with an enigmatical thing: the glittering helmet of Messapus. Within the Aeneis, the warrior’s helmet is heavy with the personhood of Messapus himself, and with its long history of social relationships. It is also an invocation of the boar’s-tusk helmet of Odysseus, itself a marker of deep time outside

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the boundaries of the Ilias. The episode in Vergilius’ text recalls this object, and other dense objects, but ultimately illustrates the disappointment of things and the failure of human knowledge to grasp and bring order to the material world. The ‘thing’ indicates for us the critical and particular role that material culture plays in human selfunderstanding, cognition, and action in the ancient context. Material culture studies – from Thing Theory, to Latour’s Actor-Network assemblages, to Object-Oriented Ontology or speculative realism – all refuse the dualism of subjects and objects that limits the material impact of things in our reading of ancient texts. Instead, attention to materiality invokes explanatory networks filled with actors of various kinds – human, thing, object, force, affect – that does not discriminate between animate and inanimate actors, so that we can understand more richly the ancient world represented in, and acting through, the text. That is, it allows us to consider not only how we act with and upon things, but how things themselves act, as well as the effects that produce them, and the affects they produce on the world. In this way, attention to materiality gives things a voice by showing what difference they make in specific situations, even when we are not fully sure of what they are. Discussions of subjects and objects do not allow for the agency of things qua things in explaining the world; a focus on materiality allows people and things to be seen more symmetrically in terms of their capacities of affect and response. They become actors on an equal footing in networks of relations that can help to describe and to explicate situations. When viewed through the lens of the ‘material turn’ in thinking, it becomes clear that ‘things’, such as arma, are always a matter of concern and not merely inert matters of fact, or meaningful only insofar as they are imbued with human significance. In this way, we argue that the enigmatic and layered textual representation of objects and things gives shape to their own contexts in networks of mutual transformations, the appreciation of which can only enhance literary studies in the Classics. Bibliography of Ancient Sources Homeros, Ilias: The Iliad of Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore, with introduction and notes by Richard Martin. (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 2011). Vergilius, Aeneis: The Aeneid, trans. Sarah Ruden (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2008).

Objects and Things in Classical Literature

Bibliography of Modern Works Adorno, Theodor, 1970: Aesthetic Theory. Translated by R. HullotKentor (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1997). Appadurai, Arjun, 1986: “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value”, in Appadurai, Arjun (ed.), The Social Life of Things (Cambridge) 3–63. Bassi, Karen, 2005: “Things of the Past: Objects and Time in Greek Memory”, Arethusa 38: 1–32. doi: 10.1353/are.2005.0002. Bassi, Karen, 2016: Traces of the Past: Classics between History and Archaeology (Ann Arbor). Behr, Francesca D’Allesandro, 2005: “The Narrator’s Voice: A Narratological Reappraisal of Apostrophe in Virgil’s Aeneid”, Arethusa 38.2: 189–221. doi: 10.1353/are.2005.0007. Bennett, Jane, 2010: Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC). Bielfeldt, Ruth (ed.), 2014: Ding und Mensch in der Antike. Gegenwart und Vergegenwärtigung (Heidelberg). Bogost, Ian, 2012: Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing (Minneapolis). Boivin, Nicole, 2008: Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Role of Things in Human Thought, Society, and Evolution (Cambridge). Brown, Bill, 2003: A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature (Chicago). Brown, Bill, 2004: “Thing Theory”, in Brown, Bill (ed.), Things (Chicago) 1–22. Canevaro, Lila Grace, 2018: Women of Substance in Homeric Epic: Objects, Gender, Agency (Oxford). doi: 10.1093/ oso/9780198826309.001.0001. Casali, Sergio, 2004: “Nisus and Euryalus: Exploiting the Contradictions in Virgil’s Doloneia”, Harv. Stud. 102: 319–354. doi: 10.2307/4150045. Clark, Andy, 2008: Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (Oxford & New York). Clark, Andy & Chalmers, David J., 1998: “The Extended Mind”, Analysis 58: 7–19. Clay, Jenny Strauss, 1983: The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey (Princeton). Coole, Diana & Frost, Samantha (edd.), 2010: New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics (Durham, NC). Crielaard, Jan-Paul, 2003: “The cultural biography of material goods in Homer’s epics”, Gaia: revue interdisciplinaire sur le Grèce ancienne 7: 49–62. doi: 10.3406/gaia.2003.1402. Daston, Lorraine (ed.), 2004: Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science (New York). Edwards, Mark W., 1992: “Homer and Oral Tradition: The Type-Scene”, Oral Tradition 7.2: 284–330. Garcia Jr., Lorenzo F., 2013: Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad. Hellenic Studies Series 58 (Washington, D.C.).

181 Gell, Alfred, 1998: Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford). Gosden, Chris & Marshall, Yvonne, 1999: “The Cultural Biography of Objects”, World Archaeology 31.2: 169–78. doi: 10.1080/00438243.1999.9980439. Grethlein, Jonas, 2008: “Memory and Material Objects in the Iliad and the Odyssey”, JHS 128: 27–51. Grethlein, Jonas, 2020: “Odysseus and His Bed. From Significant Objects to Thing Theory in Homer”, CQ: Online FirstView article. doi: 10.1017/S0009838820000063. Griffin, Jasper, 1980: Homer on Life and Death (Oxford). Hansen, Rikke, 2008: “Things V. Objects”, Art Monthly 318: 15–18. Harman, Graham, 2005: Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and The Carpentry of Things (Chicago, IL). Harman, Graham, 2011: The Quadruple Object (Zero Books). Harman, Graham, 2012: “The Well-Wrought Broken Hammer: Object-Oriented Literary Criticism,” New Literary History 43.2: 183–203. doi: 10.1353/nlh.2012.0016. Haraway, Donna, 1991: Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York). Heidegger, Martin, 1993: Basic Writings (New York). Hicks, Dan, 2010: “The Material-Cultural Turn: Event and Effect”, in Hicks, Dan & Beaudry, Mary C. (edd.), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies (New York & Oxford) 25–98. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199218714.013.0002. Hodder, Ian, 2012: Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (Malden, MA). Knappett, Carl, 2005: Thinking through Material Culture: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Philadelphia, PA). Knappett, Carl & Malafouris, Lambros (edd.), 2008: Material Agency: Toward a Non-Anthropocentric Approach (New York). Kopytoff, Igor, 1986: “The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process”, in Appadurai, Arjun (ed.), The Social Life of Things (Cambridge) 64–94. La Fond, Marie E, 2017: Houto Toi Tode Sema Piphauskomai: Significant Objects in the Odyssey (diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison). Latour, Bruno, 1994: Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (Cambridge, MA). Latour, Bruno, 2005: Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (New York). Levaniouk, Olga, 2011: Eve of the Festival: Making Myth in Odyssey 19. Hellenic Studies Series 46 (Washington, D.C.). Lissarrague, François, 2010: “Transmission and Memory: The Arms of the Heroes”, in Walter-Karydi, Elena (ed), Myths, Texts, Images: Homeric Epics and Ancient Greek Art. Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on the Odyssey, Ithaca, Sept. 15–19, 2009 (Ithaca, NY) 191–207. Malafouris, Lambros, 2008: “Is it me or is it mine? The Mycenean sword as body part”, in Borić, Dušan & Robb, John (edd.),

182 Past Bodies: Body-Centered Research in Archaeology (Oxford) 115–23. Malafouris, Lambros, 2013: How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement (Cambridge, MA). Mueller, Melissa, 2016: Objects as Actors: Props and the Poetics of Performance in Greek Tragedy (Chicago & London). Mueller, Melissa & Telò, Mario (edd.), 2018: The Materialities of Greek Tragedy: Objects and Affect in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (London). Nagy, Greg, 1996: Homeric Questions (Austin). Nagy, Greg, 2008: Homer the Classic. Hellenic Studies Series 36 (Washington D.C.). Preda, Alex, 1999: “The Turn to Things: Arguments for a Sociological Theory of Things”, The Sociological Quarterly 40.2: 347–66. doi: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.1999.tb00552.x. Purves, Alex, 2015: “Ajax and Other Objects: Homer’s Vibrant Materialism”, Ramus 44.1 & 2: 75–94. doi: 10.1017/rmu.2015.4. Renfrew, Colin, Frith, Chris & Malafouris, Lambros (edd.), 2009: The Sapient Mind: Archaeology Meets Neuroscience (Oxford). Robb, John, 2010: “Beyond Agency”, World Archaeology 42.4: 493–520. doi: 10.1080/00438243.2010.520856.

Blake and Dyer Seider, Aaron M., 2013: Memory in Virgil’s Aeneid: Creating the Past (Cambridge). Sherratt, E.S., 1990: “Reading the texts: Archaeology and the Homeric Question”, Antiquity 64: 807–824. doi: 10.1017/ S0003598X00078893. Stok, Fabio, 2012: “Commenting on Virgil from Aelius Donatus to Servius”, Dead Sea Discoveries 19.3: 464–484. doi: 10.2307/41720853. Weil, Simone (publishing under the name Émile Novis) 1940: “L’Iliade: le poème de la force”, Cahiers du Sud, 230 (December, 1940) & 231 (January, 1941). Reprinted in Devaux, A.A. & de Lussy, F (edd.), 1988: Œuvres complètes, t.2, Écrits politiques et historiques, v. 3. Vers la guerre (1937–1940) (Paris) 227–253. Weiner, Annette B., 1992: Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving (Berkeley). Weiner, Annette B., 1994: “Cultural difference and the density of objects”, American Ethnologist 21.2: 391–403. doi: 10.1525/ ae.1994.21.2.02a00090. Whitley, James, 2013: “Homer’s Entangled Objects: Narrative, Agency, and Personhood In and Out of Iron Age Texts”, CAJ 23.3: 395–416. doi: 10.1017/S095977431300053X.

chapter 9

The Soundscape of Textile Work in the Roman World: Old Sources & New Methods Magdalena Öhrman Abstract This paper sets out a new methodological approach to the investigation of Roman textile production through metrical and literary analysis of textual sources. The paper draws on experimental archaeology by using recordings and acoustic spectrograms of weaving experiments conducted by the Centre for Textile Research in Copenhagen. The soundscape of ancient weaving thus established is then compared to stylistic features in Roman poetic texts about weaving where the textual analysis shows that authors describing weaving and spinning in progress transpose the working rhythm and sounds into the new medium of the text, using different types of soundplay. The paper offers four case studies of literary sound mimicking the sounds of wool-working in Roman poetry, covering both long, detailed descriptions of textile work (e.g., Tibullus Elegia 1.6) and brief, snapshot-like references to weaving (as in one of Ausonius’ Late Antique epigrams). Detailed textual analysis reveals a mimicking of the sounds of moving heddle-bars, insertion of weft-thread, and the clattering of clay loom weights, achieved through a combination of syntax, metrical features, and soundplay. This provides an important tool for determining the passage-specific meaning of multi-purpose textile terms and for resolving questions where the archaeological evidence is inconclusive. The paper combines the use of literary sources relating to Roman textile studies with the burgeoning field of Roman ‘soundscape studies’ and sensory archaeology to argue that literary descriptions can clarify the way that those elite Romans with access to education and leisure sufficient to engage in the writing and reading of poetic texts experienced the soundscape of textile crafts.

Keywords domestic soundscapes – Roman textile production – Roman poetry – weaving – sensory archaeology – experimental archaeology – Ausonius – Tibullus – Symphosius – Epithalamium Laurentii

© Magdalena Öhrman, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440753_011

1

Introduction

This paper outlines first findings from a larger interdisciplinary research project on descriptions of textile production in Roman literature.1 It credits Latin authors with greater technical understanding of textile work than has sometimes been assumed (e.g., Snyder, 1983: 39; Wild, 2000: 209–213), suggesting that their tacit knowledge of textile production significantly influenced their artistic presentation of such work. Drawing on a combination of experimental textile archaeology and Roman ‘soundscape studies’ to support the interpretation of literary sources, this paper sets out a new way of approaching Roman textile production as portrayed in Latin poetry. Through this interdisciplinary methodology, the paper focusses primarily on sounds associated with the ancient weaver’s work and, by means of a series of close readings, illustrates how these sounds are reflected in Roman poetry. A re-assessment of literary sources on Roman textiles is possible due to advances in the highly interdisciplinary field of ancient textile studies more broadly: for the approach used in this paper experimental textile archaeology is of fundamental importance and informs the literary analysis throughout. Experimental archaeology is itself a methodological approach gaining in importance both generally and specifically in relation to textile research (e.g., Andersson Strand et al., 2010: 149–173; Millson, 2010: 1–4), but the combination with comparative textual analysis of literary sources from across Roman literature is unique to this project. 1  This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 701557; it is hosted by the Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen. I am grateful to colleagues who have added much to my understanding of ancient textile craft and enabled me to observe, and make sound recordings during, ongoing weaving experiments: my thanks especially to Eva Andersson Strand, Ida Demant, Marie-Louise Nosch, and Anna Rosa Tricomi. Furthermore, this paper was prepared during several research visits to the Fondation Hardt in Geneva. I would like to extend my thanks to the staff and my fellow visitors for making this work both easier and more pleasurable.

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Literary scholarship on textiles and textile production has generally focussed on textiles as poetic metaphors, and the prevalence of the connection between metapoetics and textiles is highlighted in two recent edited volumes (Fanfani et al., 2016; Harich-Schwarzbauer, 2016). The notion of correlation between work processes and sounds of ancient textile production, particularly weaving, and literary expression has received more attention in relation to Greek literature (especially Restani, 1995: 93–109; Tuck, 2006: 546–549 and 2009: 153–156; Nosch, 2014: 91–102), but little similar work has been undertaken in relation to Roman literature. Therefore, this paper focusses specifically on Latin poetry, working actively with literary devices that have otherwise often been viewed as a hindrance to textile historians eager to extract information on the development of tools and techniques from literary texts (on weaving terminology, see Wild, 2000: 209). By relating such literary analysis to the experience of the sounds and actions of weaving, I demonstrate that historical craft practices have influenced the stylistic expression of poetic descriptions of weaving. I begin by introducing weaving, looms, and other weaving tools used in the Roman world, and briefly discuss the development of ancient weaving technology throughout Roman antiquity. Next, the study of soundmimicking in poetry is placed in the context of research on ancient soundscapes and the use of experimental archaeology to identify key features of the soundscape of ancient weaving is introduced. I highlight the relevance of matching these key sound-features to sound effects in poetry by examining direct comments on sounds arising from weaving in Latin texts. Finally, I come to the close literary analysis, discussing the methods used for the identification of relevant text passages and for my selection of four case studies – verse texts which range in date from the Augustan to Late Antique periods. Using these four passages I demonstrate that stylistic features, particularly poetic sound-play and rhythm, are employed in Roman descriptions of weaving to reflect specific work elements by mimicking, or alluding to, the sounds produced during their execution. 2

of Roman weaving and its reflection in Latin literature: the warp-weighted loom and the two-beam loom, both of which are vertical, upright looms. Both loom types may be used for manual as well as for mechanised weaving, where warp threads are moved in layers by means of a heddling system (see below), and they can both be used to weave plain and complex weaves (Ciszuk & Hammarlund, 2008: 129–130). Throughout antiquity, the use of wood as the preferred material for loom frames and many weaving tools limits the survival of archaeological evidence for this technology. Our understanding of Roman weaving and the working processes are instead pieced together from a wide range of evidence: iconography, literary and epigraphic material, archaeological textiles, experimental archaeology, and ethnographic parallels. As evidence for the different types of loom and their set-up process, surviving archaeological textiles with preserved starting borders of different types offer some guidance, as do ethnographic studies from both the Middle East and Northern Europe (Ciszuk & Hammarlund, 2008: 122–129; Andersson Strand, 2018). On the warp-weighted loom, the warp is suspended from a high-set, horizontal beam of the fixed frame and stretched by rows of weights made of stone or clay (fig. 9.1). On the two-beam loom, the warp is fastened to beams both at the top and at the

Weaving in Antiquity

In its most basic definition, weaving is the combination of two thread systems, the vertical warp and the horizontal weft, employed at right angles to produce cloth. A loom frame may be used to hold the warp under tension and allow the insertion of weft over and under alternating warp threads. Two loom types dominate the discussion

figure 9.1 The warp-weighted loom with a tabby weave, using one heddle rod and two rows of loom weights. Drawing: Annika Jeppsson, created for academic purposes for the Centre for Textile Research. © The Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen

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figure 9.2 The two-beam loom with a tabby weave, using one heddle rod. Note that some Roman representations of this type of loom are narrower. Drawing: Annika Jeppsson, created for academic purposes for the Centre for Textile Research. © The Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen

bottom of the loom and stretched between them (fig. 9.2). For weaving on the warp-weighted loom, a single, preprepared, often woven starting border (from which the vertical warp threads emerge) is suspended from the top beam (the ‘cloth beam’) of the loom frame (fig. 9.3). The hanging warp threads are stretched out and tensioned as the loom weights are attached. By contrast, the warp for the two-beam loom may be prepared directly on the loom (for a tubular warp) or separately, using two twisted borders. To tension the warp, these borders are attached to the top and bottom beams and the warp is rolled up on the top beam, stretching it as tightly as possible. Consequently, the weave will grow downwards, from top to bottom, in the warp-weighted loom, while in the twobeam loom, it grows upwards from the bottom beam. The high versus low positioning of the working area influences the position of the weaver: a standing working position is required for work on the warp-weighted loom, while one of the advantages of the two-beam loom is that the weaver can work from a sitting position. Once the warp is tensioned, both loom types require at least one heddle rod to be positioned on the loom and individual heddle loops or leashes tied evenly between it and each warp thread for mechanised weaving to be possible (fig. 9.4). Each heddle leash (also simply called a ‘heddle’) governs one individual warp thread, but together the system of heddles allows the weaver to move the warp threads in layers. By pulling the heddle rod toward

themselves, the weaver creates an opening between the two layers of warp (the ‘shed’), so that the weft thread can be inserted. The weft thread is inserted first from one side, and, after the shed has been changed again, from the other. The weaver may use a weaving sword, a weaving comb, or a pin to beat in the weft, packing the new weave more densely. In the finished weave, the weft thread passes over every other warp thread, and under every other one, in a continuous back-and-forth movement. The use of the warp-weighted loom was widespread in the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age onwards. Archaeological evidence (especially loom weights) and iconographic representations prove that the warp-weighted loom was in extensive use in the Italy both in the preRoman period and later. A similar situation applies to many other areas which became part of the Roman Empire, e.g. the Iberian peninsula (Alfaro, 1997: 45–50). As we shall see below, literary evidence confirms the use of this loom type both in the Augustan period and throughout the Imperial period. A gradual reduction in the frequency of loom weights from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE onward has often been understood to indicate a change from the warp-weighted loom to the two-beam loom (e.g., Wild, 2002: 11). However, finds of loom weights (including groups of weights) do occur in archaeological contexts dating to the Imperial period and even to Late Antiquity in different parts of the Roman world (e.g., Trinkl, 2007: 81– 86; Möller-Wiering & Subbert, 2012: 168; Alfaro et al., 2014: 75; Gostencnik, 2014: 69–72, each on a specific geographical location. See also Wild, 1987: 460–461 and 2002: 10–12). Literary evidence also suggests that the warp-weighted loom continued in use, probably in parallel with the twobeam loom: in the 2nd century CE, the grammarian Festus explains the name of the traditional garment of the tunica recta as a reference to the weaver’s upright working position (Festus, 212L and 289L). Similarly, Servius’ commentary on the Aeneis (In Vergilii Aeneidem commentarii 7.14),

figure 9.3 Detail of the starting border for a weave on the warp-weighted loom, showing the border sewn onto the cloth beam. Drawing: Annika Jeppsson, created for academic purposes for the Centre for Textile Research. © The Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen

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figure 9.4

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Detail of the heddling process: Heddle leashes are looped around individual warp threads and attached to the heddle rod. Drawing: Gerassimos Bissas for the author. © the author

dated to the late 3rd century CE, states that linen weavers worked while standing. Thus, Servius and Festus probably both refer to use of the warp-weighted loom.2 Two of the case studies discussed below also suggest that implicit references to the warp-weighted loom occur in Late Antiquity. The use of the two-beam loom in the Roman world is less easily traced. In the 1st millennium BCE, this loom type is mainly associated with Egypt (Ciszuk & Hammarlund, 2008: 125–126), although iconographic evidence does suggest that it may also have been known in pre-Roman Italy at least in the Veneto region (Gleba, 2008: 124–127 on models found in 4th century BCE tombs, possibly representing two-beam looms). However, there are no further certain indications of its use in Roman areas in the archaeological evidence, iconography, or literary sources until a series of two-beam looms appears on the friezes of the Minerva 2  The connection with garments traditionally worn for rites of passage into adulthood furthermore suggests that the warp-weighted loom might have continued to be used in specific contexts, where tradition contributed to a more conservative craft practice.

temple in the Forum Transitorium in Roma at the end of the 1st century CE (Wild, 1992: 13). Thereafter, the twobeam loom recurs in a number of clear iconographic representations in the 1st to late 4th centuries CE, suggesting that its use was widespread at this time, whereas in the same period, the warp-weighted loom was found in only a single possible representation (Wild, 1992: 14–16). Based on this shift in iconographic evidence in combination with the reduction in finds of loom weights indicative of the warp-weighted loom, the use of the two-beam loom is often presumed to have spread throughout the Roman world from the 1st century CE onwards (e.g., Wild, 2002: 11 and 2008: 471–472; Ciszuk & Hammarlund, 2008: 125). In terms of literary evidence, Seneca’s reference to the skills of Roman weavers in his letters (Ad Lucilium epistulae mo­ rales 90.20) has been taken as referring to new weaving technology and the two-beam loom, appearing as it does shortly before the creation of the friezes on the Minerva temple of emperor Domitianus (Wild, 2002: 11). However, neither Seneca nor the Ovidian weaving description he cites (Ovidius Metamorphoses 6.55–58, on which Wild, 2000: 210) makes such a connection explicit. Rather, Seneca states only that Roman weavers in his own time produced finer cloth than weavers in the past, commenting on the quality, but not necessarily on the methods or tools used. Unequivocal literary references to the two-beam loom do not, in fact, occur until the late 6th century CE (Gregorius I, Moralia in Iob 8.26). There is, then, a significant period of time where we must assume that both loom types were used in parallel. This parallel usage is neatly demonstrated by a littleknown text that refers implicitly to both loom types: knowledge of both the warp-weighted and the two-beam loom underpins the weaving metaphors in the theological treatise De Substantia by Potamius of Lisbon in the 4th century CE (Öhrman, 2018: 63–67). As we turn to literary poetic sources, our readings must therefore be particularly attentive to potentially distinguishing features of the looms and weaving processes described, including their respective soundscapes. The case studies included in this paper will draw especially on the following diagnostic features: the direction in which the weave grows, the manner in which the warp is fixed to the loom (warping), and the presence or absence of sounds mimicking the chiming created by loom weights. 3

The Soundscape of Weaving and Experimental Archaeology

Sound shapes our understanding of the world around us. Since the 1970s, the term ‘soundscape’ has been used, by

The Soundscape of Textile Work in the Roman World

analogy with the visually focussed ‘landscape’, to describe the fabric of sounds associated with specific spaces, activities, or periods of time (based on Shafer, 1977). Interest in the soundscapes of the ancient world has developed alongside the increasing interest among ancient historians in the archaeology of the senses. Soundscape studies focussing on the Graeco-Roman world have been primarily concerned with exploring ancient commentary on sound and sources explicitly mentioning sound phenomena (Fritz, 2015; Vendries, 2015; Gurd, 2016; Hartnett, 2016), which were often focussed on urban environments (Laurence, 2017). There is also a growing interest in ancient reflections of the soundscapes of war (Francois, 2015) and religious sites (Grand-Clémant, 2015). Recently, Shane Butler has stressed how sonic features of literary texts “make us listen”, even where literary texts do not seek to produce any exact reflection of a soundscape (Butler, 2019: 250). However, the attempt here to trace implicit representations of sounds connected to one specific set of human activity, such as weaving, has its closest parallels in experimental virtual reconstructions of the acoustics of specific archaeological sites (e.g., Iannace & Trematerra, 2014; Alfano et al., 2015; Veitch, 2017), and of the sounds of musical instruments (e.g., Bakarezos et al., 2012; Vincent, 2017). It also recalls literary, critical commentary on onomatopoetic or sound allusive features in texts (Kissel, 1980: 125–132). In the case of the soundscape of ancient textile work, experimental archaeology allows us to recreate historical tools and work processes such as weaving on a warp-weighted loom, thus also recreating the sounds accompanying that work. This permits a comparison between sounds recorded in experimental reconstructions on the one hand, and the literary reflection of weaving sounds in Roman texts on the other. In this way, the use of experimental archaeology provides the basis for close readings of ancient literary sources such as those presented in the case studies below. It also reduces the degree of subjectivity attached to literary ‘earwitness’ sources (i.e., ancient sources that comment explicitly on sound), as well as reducing the risk of anachronisms affecting modern interpretation, which has often limited the reliability of modern scholarly commentary on sounds connected to textile craft activities. It is impossible to trace the specific circumstances of such textile production with which individual authors of weaving descriptions (or indeed their intended audiences) may have been familiar. Rather, this paper is concerned with the ‘generic’ soundscape of weaving in the Roman world. Therefore, the work outlined in this paper draws on video and audio recordings and observation of a range of weaving experiments with varying set-ups conducted at the Centre for Historical-Archaeological

187 Research and Communication at Lejre (hereafter, Lejre) and at the Centre for Textile Research (CTR) in Copenhagen. Although all experiments used for this project were selected on the basis of their use of equipment representative of the Roman period, they were not specifically designed to assess the soundscape of weaving, but aimed rather to test the functionality of archaeological tools from Roman contexts (especially different type of loom weights) or, in one case, to prepare a precise reconstruction for a museum display. Thanks to the extensive programme of experimental work on ancient textile production at Lejre and CTR, I have collected recordings and documentation from different experiments on both warpweighted and two-beam looms undertaken from 2014 onward. I captured sounds generated by using a warpweighted loom to create simple tabby weaves (necessitating one heddle rod and two rows of loom weights) as well as 2/2 twill (using three heddle rods and four rows of loom weights). The shape and weight of the loom weights were varied between set-ups to ensure that any variation in the sounds generated could be taken into account. Recordings of work on a two-beam loom have also been acquired. All the formal experiments have been conducted in line with the methodological principles of documentation, craft experience, and close replication of ancient tools based on archaeological finds, in this case loom weights, set out by CTR (Mårtensson et al., 2009: 379–380). Basic acoustic spectrograms of the sounds from trial weaving on a warp-weighted loom suffice to illustrate the strong rhythmic qualities of the soundscape of weaving as well as its defining sound features (soundmarks): shed changes and beating. Illustrated here (figs. 9.5 & 9.6) are acoustic spectrograms from audio and video recordings of experimental weaving undertaken by Ida Demant at Lejre as part of an experiment conducted by Anna Rosa Tricomi (Padua), whose generosity in sharing their material I gratefully acknowledge. This experiment reconstructed and tested the functionality of heavy pyramidal loom weights with rectangular bases from sites in Rovigo, dated from the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE (see Tricomi, 2012: 592–594). Two different configurations were tested: in the first set-up (fig. 9.5), two rows of loom weights (2 × 13) arranged long side by long side were used to produce a 58 cm-wide tabby weave with warp and weft of wool. In the second set-up (fig. 9.6) twelve loom weights, again arranged in two rows (2  ×  6) were used for a 50 cm-wide weave. In the second set-up the angle of the loom weights was shifted by 45º. In both cases, a metal weaving sword was used for beating. The sounds of the process were captured in spectrograms generated using Spec (version 0.8.2) and annotated through crossreference to recorded material.

188 The first spectrogram (fig. 9.5) illustrates an overview of the weaving process, a 4.51-minute sequence highlighting the most prominent soundmarks of weaving and its overall repetitive rhythm. The sounds of the shed change appear as regular, tall turquoise spikes (at 00.05 minutes – circled in yellow – 00.56, 01.33, 02.16, etc.), whereas the sounds of beating appear as short series of finer spikes, clustered together after each shed change (at 00.29–00.38 minutes – circled in red – 01.08–01.19, 01.50–01.56, 02.26– 02.30, etc.). It is of particular interest that each shed change is preceded by a short interval of comparative silence as the weaver fits the weft (e.g. at 00.40–00.55 minutes). Higher-frequency sounds generated by the loom weights are distinctly audible as the weaver clears the shed by hand and rearranges individual sections of the warp (e.g. at 00.05–00.15 and 01.38–01.50 minutes). The second spectrogram (fig. 9.6) is 1.31 minutes long and displays the detailed sounds of one repetition (the shed change, clearing of the shed, beating, and weft

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fitting). The first shed change occurs at 00.03–00.04 minutes, and the first prominent green spike represents the clanking of the heddle rod being lifted and rested against the loom frame. This sound is followed by a clear tinkling sound in the 6–8 kHz range from the loom weights, which is repeated as the weaver handles the warp to adjust the shed opening by hand (00.05–00.34 minutes – outlined in yellow). This, along with hissing noises at lower frequencies arising from the warp, gradually separates into individual spikes as the weaver’s moving of the warp shifts to slower movements (cf. 00.05–00.12 versus 00.13–00.34). The sound of regular beating is represented by paired spikes spread from 00.38 to 01.05 minutes (outlined in red). In this set-up, there is also a very faint tinkling sound from the weights during the otherwise silent insertion of weft (at 01.13 and 01.17). This is probably due to the angling of the weights, which caused them to touch against each other more than in other set-ups. After a brief noise as the weaver picks up a pin beater (01.21–01.24), this

figure 9.5 Weaving Sequence 1 Acoustic spectrogram of experimental weaving of a wool tabby using 26 loom weights, conducted by Anna Rosa Tricomi and Ida Demant. Audio recorded by the author. Sound frequency (kHz) is indicated on the vertical axis, whereas sound intensity (dB) is expressed through a colour scale, with bright green and bright turquoise indicating sounds of 70 dB and 80 dB respectively. Time is indicated on the horizontal axis. © the author

figure 9.6 Weaving Sequence 2 Acoustic spectrogram of experimental weaving of a wool tabby using 12 loom weights, conducted by Anna Rosa Tricomi and Ida Demant. Audio recorded by Marie Louise Nosch. The spectrogram shows one repetition from shed change to shed change. Sound frequency (kHz) is indicated on the vertical axis, whereas sound intensity (dB) is expressed through a colour scale, with bright green and bright turquoise indicating sounds of 70 dB and 80 dB respectively. Time is indicated on the horizontal axis. © the author

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spectrogram also captures a series of thin sound spikes illustrating the low scratching noises of the pin beater used to fit the weft into place (01.25–01.29, also initially at 00.03–00.04). Sounds generated by weaving vary slightly depending on the type of weave and the set-up. In other experimental set-ups for weaving 2/2 twill using donut-shaped weights of the type prominent, for example, in the Early Iron Age Aigaian, but also found in isolated contexts from the Roman period (Shamir, 2007: 383–388; Rahmstorf, 2015: 8), noises generated by the weights occur rarely, mainly when the weaver is required to handle the warp particularly forcefully to clear the shed. Importantly, work on the two-beam loom generates a very similar sound set, except for the absence of the chiming sound of loom weights moving against each other: the noise arising from the heddle rod moving against the loom frame as the weaver shifts the shed and the dull sound of beating remain the most distinctive sounds produced. As on the warp-weighted loom, adjustment of the shed opening and individual warp threads leads to fricative sounds as snagging threads are pulled apart (particularly with a weave in wool). This means that only clear sounds generated by the loom weights allow a listener to distinguish between weaving on the warp-weighted loom and work on the twobeam loom. Based on the experiments conducted through CTR, where I was able to analyse the soundscape of a weaver working on an established weave in a warp-weighted loom, the following soundmarks are distinctive, recurring cyclically as the weaver continued their work: Shed change: significant noise of wood against wood arises as the heddle rod is lifted and then allowed to fall into place against its wooden supports. In some set-ups, this also generates a light clanging noise from the loom weights. Testing the new shed with implements or by hand generates a dull fricative sound from the warp itself, along with a tinkling sound from the weights as the movement of the warp creates movement of the weights. Use of weaving sword: as the previously inserted weft thread is beaten into place, the sound of the weaving sword is dull and regular. The width of the weave and its density influences the number of repetitions and pauses. Insertion of weft thread: subtle scratching sounds, on occasion accompanied by very soft clanging of loom weights, occur as the weft thread is divided across the weave. As the weaver shifts sideways to reach a different part of the weave, there are distinct pauses before the pattern resumes.

It is this set of soundmarks and its cyclical nature that one might expect to see reflected in Latin poetic sources on weaving. Allusion to them functions variously as ‘keynote sounds’ (which place the audience in specific sonic environments, see e.g., Schafer, 1977: 9–10; Bijsterveld, 2013: 15) or, in more detailed passages, as indications of particular steps of the weaver’s work. The poetic case studies below will indicate how this understanding of historical craft practice and its soundscape may be applied in close readings of poetry to provide a new interpretive lens, which combines philological analysis with study of ancient sensory experience. 4

Ancient Literary Evidence for the Soundscape of Weaving

The central hypothesis of sound-mimicking is supported by the fact that Latin poets throughout Antiquity explicitly mention sounds that arise as a weaver works. These ‘earwitness’ comments show an awareness even of the details within the soundscape of weaving amongst Roman authors. The sounds they identify as characteristic of weaving correspond very well to sounds generated by weaving in experimental settings. The sound of heddle rods being lifted and falling back against the loom frame informs a reference by the 1st century CE philosopher Lucretius to the “sounding scapi” (scapi sonantes), of the loom (De rerum natura 5.1353). The term scapus occurs only twice in relation to textile production and only Lucretius’ usage has been discussed in scholarship, where several critics assume that it refers to heddle rods (Blümer, 1875: 143 and 1912: 150 n. 3; MacKay, 1956: 67; OLD2 s.v. scapus 3 c; Johncock, 2016: 254). A hitherto overlooked comment in the Vetus Latina supports this interpretation, using the word of an object belonging to weavers: et hasta lanceae eius erat tamquam scapum textorum (Vetus Latina I reg. 17.7 (cod. 93) ed. Vercellone, 262). Taking hasta as a pars pro toto, we may translate the line as “the shaft of his spear was like the weavers’ heddle rod”.3 By speaking of scapi sonantes (“resounding heddle rods”), Lucretius therefore highlights the heddle rods as noise-generating parts of the loom, which corresponds nicely to the highly noticeable sound of clanking heddle rods observed in experimental reconstructions. The sounds generated by the loom weights are mentioned only slightly later, toward the end of the 1st century CE, in one of Tibullus’ Elegiae (2.1.66). Interestingly, 3  Translations from Latin are my own unless otherwise noted.

190 Tibullus implicitly connects beating the weft with noises from the loom weights. His explicit comment that clay weights “struck together” (latere pulso) make the loom sing focusses directly on the small movements of individual loom weights against each other, but it also alludes to the weaver’s larger movement of beating the weft. As we have seen above, that work element can indeed create audible chiming from the loom weights. There is also a reference to sounds coming from the warp itself, although it functions mainly on a metaphorical level. In Late Antiquity, Claudianus speaks of consona telae fila (“harmonious threads of the weave”) when describing the interplay of threads as a design is expertly woven (De raptu Proserpinae 2.42). It is used as a metaphor for how Proserpine’s skill as a craftswoman serves her artistic representation of harmony. However the most concrete meaning of consonus is connected to sound, allowing the reader to envision not only the coherence of the finished weave, but also the regular, harmonious sounds generated as it was woven. However, the most frequently mentioned component of the soundscape of weaving in Latin poetry is the sounds of the comb- and pin-like instrument called the pecten, used in different ways to pack and adjust the weft (ThLL s.v. pecten I B). It is mentioned frequently with the phrase pectine arguto (“chattering wool-comb” or “pin beater”), which occurs in two instances in Vergilius (Georgica 1.294 and Aeneis 7.14). The phrase also recurs in significantly later texts, in Macrobius (Saturnalia 5.12.7.5) and in a law text (Codex Iustinianus 11.9.4). The noise of the pin beater was also mentioned repeatedly in earlier Greek literature as well (e.g., Sophokles, Fragments 890; Euripides, Hekuba. 363; Anthologia Palatina 6.288.5; Nosch, 2014: 94–95), making it likely that an old literary tradition contributes to the prominence of this relatively subtle sound in our sources. Such explicit comments show an awareness of the soundscape of weaving amongst authors throughout Roman antiquity, although the number of such comments is relatively low. However, they appear amongst a widespread use of sound-mimetic effects in Latin verse, which are used to contribute to the overall artistic impression in a number of different literary settings. Vergilius’ hedges buzz with bees in the Eclogae (1.53–58 cf. Fitzgerald, 2016: 17–18), and the cut-off repetition of phrases and syllables distinguishes Ovidius’ description of Echo (Meta­ morphoses 3.359–401), to mention but two canonical examples. Thus, the assumption that authors would also seek to imitate such sounds in their verse, incorporating the making of textiles into the making of poetry, is unproblematic.

Öhrman

At this point, the methodology for collecting the literary material underpinning the results illustrated in the case studies below must be introduced. First, terms describing weaving were identified using fundamentally important ancient descriptions of textile work, in particular Ovidius’ description of the weaving contest between Arachne and Minerva in the sixth book of the Metamorphoses, the description of weaving in Seneca, who quotes Ovidius, (Ad Lucilius epistulae morales 90.20), and the sections relating to weaving and woven goods in the price edict of Diocletianus (Edictum de pretiis rerum venalium 7). Search terms thus established included tools (e.g., tela “loom” or “weave”, pecten “pin beater”, radius “weaving pin”, latus “loom weight”, pondus “weight”), parts of the weave (e.g., stamen “warp”, subtemen “weft”, trama “warp”, filum “thread”, licium “thread” or “heddle”), and verbs describing the actions of the weaver (texo “weave”, along with its cognates). These terms were the basis for a series of word searches conducted using the Brepols Latin Database (LTT-A/B) and cross-checked against the standard advanced dictionaries, the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (ThLL) and the Oxford Latin Dictionary (OLD2), so as to identify all recurrences of the selected terms. To ensure full coverage of words such as tela (“loom”), for which the ThLL articles have not yet been published, I also worked directly with the material available in the Thesaurus archive. By this method, I identified more than twenty Latin poetic passages which indicate specific tools, parts of the weave, or individual work elements of weaving. They are evenly spread from the late Republic into Late Antiquity, showing that interest in these features remained constant across the Roman period.4 To test the usefulness of the methodological approach, I initially selected sample passages from a range of different literary genres and periods. In order to maintain a broad focus, I excluded from my initial consideration any already much-discussed passages where features similar to those of interest here have been noted – if not systematically 4  In addition to those listed and discussed in this paper, see especially: Vergilius Georgica. 1.285–286; Ovidius Metamorphoses 4.275; 6.576–577; Ovidius Fasti 3.819–820; Lucanus Pharsalia 10.142–143; Silius Italicus Punica 14.656–660; Statius Thebais 11.401–402; Iuvenalis Saturae 9.30; Ausonius Epistulae 22.14–16; Epigrammata 28.1–2; Prudentius Hamartia 291–292; Claudianus De Raptu Prosperinae 1.275–276; Panegyricus dictus Olybrio et Probino consulibus 224–225; Panegyricus dictus Honorio Augusto consuli 4.594–595; Paulinus Petricordiae 320–321. Numerous additional references mention weaving in a less specific manner (e.g., Terentius Heautontimorumenos 285; 292–295; Propertius Elegiae 4.3.18; Ovidius Amores 3.9.30; Manilius Astronomica 4.131; Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 1.427–430), and sometimes exhibit weaving-related sound-play.

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examined – in literary-critical and philological commentary (e.g., Kissel, 1980: 125–132 on Horatius, Carmina, 3.12; Rosati, 1999: 240–253 on Ovidius, Metamorphoses 6.53–145). Such previous critical commentary has primarily focussed on Augustan poetry, whereas the examples discussed here derive mainly from Late Antiquity. In combination with the wide chronological range of explicit references to sounds arising from weaving, this indicates the enduring habit of Roman authors of supporting poetic description with sound-mimicking features. The four case studies discussed here are organised, not by chronology, but according to the level of detail they provide, moving from a step-by-step description of a good wife’s work, to the briefest mention of weaving with purple weft. The first example is a Late Antique wedding poem, the Epithalamium Laurentii (Claudianus, Carmina minora Appendix 5), which allows us to connect specific stylistic features to the full range of elements in a weaver’s work. Our second example, Tibullus Elegia 1.6 from the Augustan period, brings out the soundscape of heddling, as well as weaving in progress. Ausonius’ Epigrammata 28, the third example, demonstrates how an author may use sound-mimicking features to heighten the effect even of a very brief description. In addition to emphasising spread across time and genres, the combination of these three examples also offers an opportunity to assess whether analysis of poetic sound-play may contribute to our understanding of the development and use of Roman weaving equipment. Finally, the fourth example, Symphosius’ Aenigmata 17 (another Late Antique poem), highlights the integral role of sound-mimicking in poetic weaving descriptions by demonstrating how the expectations of the reader, generated by craft-based sound-play, could even become the subject of literary games. Rhythm is a vital component in poetic soundmimicking of textile work. In Latin verse, it is varied only within a set framework of metrical rules. Audiences would be accustomed to listen keenly for how poets interacted with set sequences, and for how, while playing ‘within the rules’, they satisfied or defied audience expectations of the chosen rhythm in order to underline the content of the poem. All the examples discussed below are written either in dactylic hexameter, or elegiac verse (consisting of alternating hexameter and pentameter lines), and combine two measures: spondees (two heavy syllables) and dactyls (a heavy syllable followed by two light ones). In the detailed analysis below, the metrical structure of each line has been indicated by the following symbols: placed above vowels, ˘ indicates it is part of a light syllable, whereas ¯ indicates a heavy syllable. Distinctive pauses are indicated by a vertical line, |, between words.

5

Claudianus’s Carmina minora appendix 5.44–48 (also known as the Epithalamium Laurentii)

Our first example, a wedding poem known as the Epithalamium Laurentii, contains a description of the bride’s female virtues illustrated through her knowledge of textile work: fibre preparation and spinning (5.41–43) and weaving (5.44–48). The poem has been transmitted with Claudianus’s Carmina minora but was almost certainly written by a different author. Dating suggestions range from the 4th to the 6th centuries CE (Horstmann, 2004: 251–289). compositas tenui suspendis stamine telas, 44 quas cum multiplici frenarint licia gressu 45 traxeris et digitis cum mollia fila gemellis 46 Serica Arachnaeo densentur pectine texta 47 subtilisque seges radio stridente resultat. 48 You suspend the prepared warp with fine thread, and when, as the leashes hold it in multiple course, you have pulled the fine thread [through it] with twin fingers, the silken weave is pressed together with a wool-comb like Arachne’s and subtle fruit arises from the whistling weaving pin. I will focus here on how the sound-play and metre of this passage correspond to what we know of Roman weaving practice. Some sounds, such as the clanking of the heddle rod, are readily recognisable, but as we shall see, the sound-mimicking also has another, more subtle component. Modern sound studies remind us that “[s]ound has a strongly tactile aspect, particularly with lower frequencies, which we feel as much as we hear” (Czink, 2010: 11; see also Karanika, 2014: 106). This means that a text mimicking sound may render onomatopoetically both sound and tactile experience. It applies particularly to the sounds (and feel) of parting fibres in the warp with one’s hand, which barely register in sound recordings. This can be appreciated in the line which describes the fixing of the warp to the cloth beam of the loom in preparation for weaving. cōmpŏsĭtās tĕnŭī | sūspēndīs stāmĭnĕ tēlās 44 A series of sibilances replicates the sound made by the bundle of warp threads falling against the wooden loom frame, while the i- and t-sounds mimic the minute sounds of the pricking and scratching of the needle used to sew the warp onto the beam. Structurally, the line is perfectly balanced with attributes and nouns bracketing the

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centrally placed verb suspendis (“you suspend”), indicating the need to carefully place the warp in the middle of the cloth beam to ensure smooth operation of the loom. The deliberation is also emphasised by the pause (a penthemimeral caesura) falling immediately before suspen­ dis, where the rhythm also slows in a double spondee. Line 45 alludes to another part of the preparations for weaving with its mention of heddle leashes (licia) by describing their function of controlling the warp threads (on this use of licia see Öhrman, 2017: 281–282), but the relative clause opened by quas also begins to describe the work on a fully established weave and, especially, the use of the heddle rod. Despite its potentially very late date, the use of quantitative verse and high degree of syntactic complexity shows a generally conservative linguistic preference in the Epithalamium which may well extend to pronunciation. In the discussion below, I therefore tentatively assume a pronunciation of the word licium (“heddle leash”) without palatalisation, i.e. with a k- rather than a ts-sound for “ci”, although the latter is otherwise frequently attested in (often non-literary) contexts from the 5th century CE onwards (Clackson & Horrocks, 2007: 274; Adams, 2011: 273–274). Under this assumption, the soundplay of line 45 corresponds well to sounds produced when changing the shed. As demonstrated above, the lifting and replacing of the heddle rod against the loom frame makes a distinct clanking noise, mirrored in the text by a series of harsh, consonantic sounds clustered in two groups, falling in either half of the line: quās cūm mūltĭplĭcī | frēnārīnt līcĭă grēssū 45 The initial spondee (quas cum) illustrates the heavy clanking noise of the heddle rod being moved, whereas the dactylic multiplic(i) resembles the smaller, clattering sounds of individual loom weights generated by the movement of the warp, both in terms of rhythm and in terms of sound. The weaver’s pause to test the shed by hand is mirrored in the two spondees taking up the middle of the line (-ī frēnārīnt). It is tempting to assume that the rhotic sounds clustered in this part of the line mimic the minute sounds of warp fibres being pulled apart, or the touch of them on the hand. After a shed change, warp threads often snag against each other, particularly in a woollen warp. Finally, the line’s finishing dactyl and the plosive k in licia mirror the sounds made as the loom weights fall into their proper place, while the intervening close vowels (2 × i) contributes to a lighter impression corresponding to the lightness of the clattering of the weights in comparison with the sounds created by the heddle rod against the loom frame.

Once the new shed has been opened by the weaver moving the heddle rod, the new weft is inserted: trāxĕrĭs ēt dĭgĭtīs | cūm mōllĭă fīlă gĕmēllīs 46 The prevalence of rhotic and sibilant sounds in the first half of the line mimic the sound and tactile experience of the weaver moving her fingers through the warp. This interpretation is supported by the emphasis on the softness of the weft thread (mollia fila). Next, the text ostensibly describes how the weaver moves to settle the weft with the pecten (here functioning as a beater), but the soundplay in the following line mirrors the weaving process more closely: sērĭcă arāchnaēō | dēnsēntūr pēctĭnĕ tēxtă 47 The emphasis on voiceless plosives (k-sounds) in the first half of the line alludes to the noise generated by the heddle rod and the loom frame as the weaver changes the shed. The gradually slowing rhythm stresses the unusual adjective arachnaeo and brings to the fore both its rarity (on which, ThLL s.v. arachnaeus) and its clunky rhythm. This is suggestive of the weaver’s slower movements as she lifts and lets down the heddle rod. The marked mid-line pause after this word hints at the weaver’s pause to inspect both shed and weave, prior to the direct mention of beating (densentur). The combination of a voiced plosive (d-) and a plosive followed by an open vowel (tu-) in densentur hint at the duller sound of beating, although a series of p-, t-, and k-sounds at the end of the line continues a more general allusion to beating. The perception of beating as a work element characterised by a strong sense of rhythm is underlined by the reference to the pecten as a beating instrument in the metrically most predictable final half of the line, but the light, dactylic rhythm and close vowels of the word (e and i) might also allude to the chiming noises of loom weights falling into place after beating. Next, line 48 repeats (as one would when weaving) an element described above in 46, namely the insertion of weft-thread into the warp: sūbtīlīsquĕ sĕgēs rădĭō strīdēntĕ rĕsūltāt. 48 Radius here must refer to an implement used to insert the weft thread – different from a modern shuttle but similar in function. We find parallels for the term ra­ dius as an implement used to insert the weft in Ovidius, Metamorphoses 4.275, Fasti 3.819, and Metamorphoses 6.56 (see Wild, 2000: 210; Flemestad et al., 2017: 263–264; but cf.

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Wild, 2008: 471, describing the radius as a pin beater used to insert the weft, and ThLL s.v. radius II C 3). It is tempting to take the rhotics and sibliances of subtilisque seges radio stridente resultat (“subtle fruit arises from the whistling weaving pin”) as illustrating the sound and perhaps also the tactile experience of the radius moving, thread by snagging thread, through the warp, as well as of a hand touching the completed weave in inspection. In this passage, sound-play, metre, and metaphors contribute to the artistic-literary representation of weaving, adding a surprising level of accuracy. The craft-based sound-play present in this poem seems to point in the direction of the warp-weighted loom, both because of its carefully designed reference to warping with a high-set starting border, and because of its allusions to sounds generated by loom weights. Further support for the assumption that the Epithalamium Laurentii does indeed refer to the warp-weighted loom may be adduced from Claudianus’ poems, with which our wedding poem was transmitted. Claudianus’ mythological epic The Rape of Proserpine, telling the story of Prosperpine’s abduction by the god of the underworld, similarly appears to mention a warp-weighted loom. Claudianus shows the goddess Ceres searching empty rooms for her abducted daughter and finding her loom semirutas confuso stamina telas, “half-destroyed with its warp tangled” (De raptu Proserpinae 3.155). In a two-beam loom, where the warp is stretched between two beams of the loom frame, it is difficult to tangle the warp threads without the use of a cutting instrument. In a warp-weighted loom, however, the warp hangs comparatively freely down to the loom weights. Damage to individual sections of the warp could therefore occur more easily if the loom was disturbed or jolted in any way. In the context of Claudianus’ epic, it is easy to imagine such damage to Proserpine’s loom as occurring during the earthquake that accompanies Pluto’s emergence from the underworld just before the abduction takes place (Claudianus, De raptu Proserpinae 2.151–153). Both the intratextual evidence in Claudianus and the textile-related sound-play in the Epithalamium Laurentii show that literary analysis, informed by experimental archaeology, may support our understanding of Roman technological development and the equipment choices available to craftspeople. Interestingly, it also seems that the warp-weighted loom continued to be a tool of weaving craft with which even non-weavers (as I assume the author of the Epithalamium to be) came into at least occasional contact, and about which they were able to gain a level of understanding.

6

Tibullus, Elegiae 1.6.77–80

The sound pattern used to mimic the clattering of loom weights in the Epithalamium Laurentii is closely paralleled by sound-play occurring in much earlier poetic passages where the use of the warp-weighted loom is certain. Tibullus’ Elegiae 1.6 (dating to the Augustan period) includes a description of the tying of heddles to the heddle rod before weaving begins. It provides a helpful and detailed example: at quae fida fuit nulli, post uicta senecta 77 ducit inops tremula stamina torta manu 78 firmaque conductis adnectit licia telis 79 tractaque de niueo uellere ducta putat 80 But she who was faithful to none, when overcome with age and destitute, draws out the twisted threads with trembling hand, and ties firm leashes to a rented loom. She scours the teased wool pulled from snow-white fleeces. Tibullus’ description of a wool-working old woman is intended as a warning exemplum for an unfaithful mistress, presenting an image of an elderly woman forced to continue to work despite being wracked by age. The passage employs technical textile terminology. It uses licia in the sense of “heddles”, rather than the more common, broader sense of “thread”(see ThLL s.v. licium 2; Öhrman, 2017: 282–286). But it also plays with the reader by making putat (“scours”) in line 80 function both on a technical, textilespecific level, referring to the scouring of wool (Maltby, 2002: 279), and on a general level, where putat means simply “she thinks” and one might translate the line “and she thinks it [i.e. the material she is working with] drawn and spun from white fleece”. The implication is that the old woman is mistaken, having not only trembling hands, but failing eyesight also. This reinforces the warning function of the exemplum. I will focus here on line 79: fīrmăquĕ cōndūctīs | ādnēctīt līcĭă tēlīs 79 The skill of the old woman as a weaver comes to the fore as she fastens licia firma (“firm leashes”) to her rented loom, i.e., heddle leashes that are consistent and strong, and which will allow her to produce an even weave. Her competence is implied not only through the adjective firma but also through the sound-play of the line, which alludes to sounds arising during the heddling. The clanking noises

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arising from wooden loom parts (such as one or more heddle rods and the loom frame itself) during this process are mirrored in the prevalence of voiceless plosives in the first half of the line ( firmaq̱u̱ e c̱onduc̱ṯi̱s adnec̱ṯiṯ). The lighter sound of clattering loom weights, occurring as the warp threads are pulled back and forth during heddling, is represented in the final words (licia telis) with their faster dactylic rhythm and plosives in combination with close vowel sounds. The penthemimeral caesura (the pause in the verse rhythm) falls immediately before adnectit (“ties”) and marks the difference between the preparation and the execution of the work element of tying the heddles. In this way, the action of tying the heddle leash, indicated by adnectit, is emphasised as the central element described in the line. However, Tibullus’ consistent attention to textile terminology and textile-related work processes encourages careful scrutiny of the passage (see also Maltby, 1999: 243–244). In fact, the line on heddling contains a similar double-exposure effect as we observed in the play on the two different meanings of putat (“she scours” vs. “she believes”) in line 80. Maltby assumes that the old woman is paid for the cloth she produces, rather than simply for undertaking certain elements of the wool- and weaving preparation (Maltby, 2002: 278; cf. also the emphasis on weaving rather than heddling in the parallel Anthologia Palatina 6.286). Granting this assumption, we may also see allusions to the sounds generated by the heddle rod’s movements when weaving is underway in this line. Read from this perspective, the emphasis on plosive consonant sounds echoes the clanking sounds of the heddle rod being lifted and set back against the loom frame. This is followed by the lighter tinkling noise of loom weights settling back into place after each shed change with the placement of licia in the reliably fast-paced fifth foot dactyl at the end of the line. As we have seen, the word licia is placed in the same way, generating similar effects, in the Epithalamium Laurentii. Thus, the line’s sound-play also functions on an additional, proleptic level, pointing forward to the weaver’s use of the heddle rod once the weave is fully established. 7

Ausonius’ Epigrams 28.1–4

In the Epithalamium Laurentii and in Tibullus’ description of the old weaver, the text traces the weaver’s work in detail, marrying sound-mimicking features to literal description. Many poetic descriptions of weaving are considerably shorter, offering less scope for such detailed attention to the soundscape of weaving. However, short

descriptions can also draw on audience awareness of sounds associated with weaving. In such passages, allusion to the key soundmarks of weaving are an integral part of the few quick strokes of the brush with which a scene is painted. Our third example illustrates this: weaving is described in a single line, yet with surprising effectiveness. It comes from a sequence of epigrams by the late 4thcentury poet Ausonius, celebrating the exquisite textile work of his wife Sabina (Kay, 2001: 136–137). While I will focus on the first line only, the full text is included here: siue probas Tyrio textam subtemine uestem 1 seu placet inscripti commoditas tituli, 2 ipsius hoc dominae concinnat utrumque uenustas, 3 has geminas artes una Sabina colit. 4 Whether you prize cloth woven with Tyrian weft, or prefer the aptness of an inscribed motto, the charming skill of this lady alone brings them both together: these twin arts are practised by the same Sabina. Metrically, the first line may be described in this fashion: sīuĕ prŏbās Ty̆ rĭō | tēxtām sūbtēmĭnĕ uēstēm The word textam (“woven”) is the first indication that Ausonius is concerned with weaving specifically. It is followed by an explicit reference to the process of inserting weft (subtemen) into the weave. Weaving-based soundplay supports the shift to a particular focus. Textam gains in emphasis through its position immediately after the pause at the penthemimeral caesura. This pause is suggestive of the relative silence as weft is inserted (illustrated in the acoustic spectrograms in figures 9.5 and 9.6), but also highlights how the weaver’s working rhythm changes from energetic beating to more deliberate movements during the weft insertion. Textam itself transposes the sounds arising from the shed change into words: the clanking plosive combination of t, x, and t mimics the noise of heddle rods being moved. As we have seen, the clanking sounds of wooden loom parts moving against each other are highly distinctive soundmarks of weaving. Here, their literary reflection signposts a more detailed engagement with Sabina’s work on the loom in the last half of the line and with her textile work more generally in the remainder of the poem. Alerted to the presence of craft-based sound-play in the poem, a reader interested in sound effects might also hear allusions to weaving in its b- and t-sounds in combination with repeated sibilances at the beginning and end of the line (siue probas … subtemine uestem). The initial plosives

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in probas (“you prize”) might allude to the dull beating of the weft, appropriately placed just before the shed change alluded to in textam. Similarly, to a reader well attuned to literary representation of the sounds of weaving, the initial sibilance of subtemine mirrors the tactile experience of inserting new weft, while the word’s triple sequence of close vowels aptly describes the pricking of a pin beater settling the new weft thread into place. To such a reader, the sounds combined in the line are peculiarly well suited to the soundscape of weaving: beats, thunks, and swishing threads. To a more general audience, the allusion to a key soundmark of weaving created by textam is sufficient to support Ausonius’ image of Sabina as an expert weaver. 8

Symphosius, Aenigmata 17

Our final example of poetic sound-mimicking reinforces the point that understanding of weaving and its soundscape is deeply embedded even amongst members of an educated male elite who would themselves be unlikely to engage in weaving. Symphosius’ Late Antique riddle underlines the playfulness with which authors alluded to the soundscape of weaving: Pallas me docuit texendi nosse laborem 1 nec telae radios poscunt nec licia telae. 2 nulla mihi manus est, pedibus tamen omnia fiunt. 3 Pallas taught me to understand the art of weaving, but my loom requires neither weaving pins, nor my warp, heddle leashes. No hands have I, but rather everything grows from my feet. The riddle describes weaving generally in its first line, whereas the second line specifically mentions different tools normally used by weavers. The second line privileges plosive sounds (k and t), which function as soundmarks of weaving. This overarching pattern is prominent through the repetition of nec (“neither … nor”) and telae (translated respectively as “loom” and “warp”) as well as through pos­ cunt (“requires”), even if one assumes that palatalisation has affected the c in licia (“heddle leashes”). Leary notes that Symphosius’ Latin is otherwise strongly classicising (2014: 27–28), so, despite the late date often assumed for the text, it is not impossible that the Classical k- pronunciation (without palatalisation) can be appropriately applied, as is the case with the Epithalium Laurentii. Metrically, the hexameter line has a marked penthemimeral pause between radios (“weaving pins”) and poscunt licia (“requires … heddle leashes”). It scans as follows:

nēc tēlaē rădĭōs | pōscūnt nēc līcĭă tēlaē. Thus, the penthemimer falls neatly between the two devices of the loom described (weaving pins used to insert and beat the weft, and heddle leashes used to move the layers of the warp), while also alluding to the two separate stages of the weaving process: weft insertion on the one hand, and shed change by means of the heddle rods on the other. Symphosius’ weaving-based sound-play functions both on an overarching level and at a more detailed level, where individual work elements are traced. The initial plosives in nec telae mirror the heddle rod falling back onto the loom frame, the rhotic and sibilant sound of radios correspond to the tactile and aural experience of the weaver adjusting the warp threads of the newly opened shed and pulling the weft through the layers of warp threads. The physically less demanding nature of this task is portrayed through the faster rhythm. Next, the slowing of pace in the two spondees of (radi)ōs pōscūnt nēc and their clanking c- and t-sounds correspond well to the beating of the weft. Each beat is given emphasis through the slower rhythm once more. Finally, the tinkling sound of loom weights falling into place is represented through the dactylic līcĭă at the end of the line and the lightness of the sound of fired clay in the weights is displayed in their close vowels. Throughout Symphosius’ description, tactile experience merges with aural. The riddle’s final line reveals that the weaver – a spider – has no use for such tools but creates her web entirely with her legs. As a result, the sounds of the loom mimicked in the preceding line disappear: the final line is, as Leary says (2014: 94), very well balanced through interlocking elements, but it contains no allusions to sounds from traditional looms. Additionally, the light running of the spider across its web is illustrated through an entirely dactylic line: the hexameter verse runs as lightly as it possibly can. The difference in the sound-play employed in the two parts of Symphosius’ riddle, before and after the revelation, suggest that sound-mimicking of this type could both support meaning and direct the expectation of the audience, initially leading the reader to think of human weavers and their tools, before confounding their expectations. It also indicates that both the sounds of weaving and the literary representation of them were concepts familiar enough to become the subject of literary games. 8.1 Beyond Individual Case Studies Analysis of other passages describing individual elements of the weaver’s work confirms that the features we have observed in the case studies above are indeed

196 typical of Latin poetic engagement with the soundscape of ancient weaving. The sounds of the heddle rod being moved, together with the sounds of beating, are mimicked through clusters of voiceless plosive consonants (p, t, and k-sounds). Just as in Ausonius’ Epigram 28, they work as aural cues for the audience, supporting the literal description of work on the loom (e.g., Ciris 29; Lucretius, De rerum natura 6.42; Iuvenalis, Saturae 9.30). A few, more elaborate, passages also give the dull sound of beating the weft a specific register to distinguish it from the sounds of the shed change. In such passages, voiced plosives (d, b) become more prominent and further tend to be combined with open vowels (a, ae, u). The verbs plaudo (“strike”, “beat”) and denseo (“condense”, “pack”) are often chosen for such passages (e.g., Ciris 179; Ovidius, Fasti 3.820 and, as discussed above, Claudianus’ Carmina minora appen­ dix 5.47). The moulding of aural and tactile sensory experiences into one literary expression also occurs in other poetic weaving descriptions. Fricative sounds from the parting of snagged warp threads and the swishing of warp threads are frequently represented through rhotic and sibilant sounds, as occurs, for example, in Vergilius’ Georgica (1.294) and in the elegies of Tibullus (Elegiae 2.1.65). As we have seen, the effectiveness of poetic craft-based sound-play in supporting the literary description of a weaver’s work does not depend solely on the inherent onomatopoetic qualities of words like texo (“weave”) or plaudo (“beat”). Such phonetic features are emphasised and made meaningful by how they are fitted into the poem’s specific metre and rhythm. For the use of metre in this fashion, we may tentatively identify some patterns. Beating of the weft, for example, is sometimes expressed through clusters of slow-moving spondees (e.g., Ciris 179; Ovidius, Metamorphoses 6.57–58; Iuvenalis, Saturae 9.30). By contrast, the relative lightness of the clattering of loom weights is represented by the placement of words mimicking their sound in parts of the hexameter line which the reader would expect to be dactylic and fast-paced. Take, for example, the word licia (“heddle leashes”) which, as our passages above have shown, often becomes a vehicle for sounds associated with the loom weights in hexameter poetry. When it is used with this meaning it is consistently placed in the fifth foot dactyl of the line. However, when licia is used for “thread” more generally, the word also appears in other positions across the hexameter line.5 In passages like Symphosius 17.2, Tibullus, Elegiae 1.6.79 and the Epithalamium Laurentii 45, close vowel sounds, plo5  E.g., Ovidius Fasti 2.575 and Lucanus Pharsalia 10.126 for licia in the 5th foot; Vergilius Eclogae 8.74; Ovidius’ Fasti 3.267; Statius Achilleis 1.185; Ausonius Carmina 19.31 for placement in the first foot.

Öhrman

sives, and rhythm together form the aural impression of lighter sounds. 9

Conclusions

Analysis of poetic sound-mimicking and the literary reflection of textiles and textile production reveals how past societies perceived, and related to, this aspect of material culture. While my interest is in the Roman world, allusions to the sounds of weaving in poetry and song of later societies illustrate a similar awareness of the distinctive soundscape of this craft, varying depending on the tools of each period. I am grateful to Eleni Manolaraki for pointing out to me the wealth of Greek folk songs (most notably the Tragoúdi t’argaleioú) that both mirror and mention the sound of weavers at work on treadle looms. In relation to Roman weaving, carefully contextualised and experimentally underpinned literary analysis focussed on sound can furnish us with an additional tool for investigating the passage-specific meaning of multipurpose textile terms and tools. They may also assist in addressing questions where the archaeological evidence is inconclusive, such as the transition from the warpweighted loom to the two-beam loom, as has emerged in the discussion of Claudianus’ Carmina minora appendix 5 and Tibullus, Elegiae 1.6. The occurrence of literary, craft-based sound-play shows that the clanking of the loom frame and the heddle rod, the clattering of loom weights, and the hissing of warp and weft-threads moving against each other and against the weaver’s hands were distinctive even to those not directly involved in weaving. Modern experiments with sound diaries suggest that we mainly notice and reflect on sounds that we can also imbue with meaning, whether linked to nostalgia, novelty, or comfort (Duffy & Waitt, 2009: 20–24). This reinforces the impression that Roman authors did not merely listen to, but also understood the significance of, the soundscape of weaving. Importantly, for references to the soundscape of weaving to enhance the literary text effectively, we must also assume that both authors and at least some of their audience were able to draw on a similar level of experience. The widespread and recurring literary engagement with the soundscape of weaving is such that it is unlikely to derive simply from literary tradition, or even from dedicated research. It is far more likely to be based on experience gained in daily life and in a domestic setting. Such a conclusion complements our understanding of where weaving took place, and allows us to gauge the familiarity with weaving in process among male members of the educated

197

The Soundscape of Textile Work in the Roman World

elite, the class to which most Latin poets and their primary audiences belonged. The various physical locations of domestic textile work is surprisingly difficult to assess by means of archaeological and epigraphical studies (Larsson Lovén, 2013: 123–124). However, the chronological spread of the literary interest in the soundscape of weaving indicates that familiarity with, and exposure to, weaving processes within affluent households remained relatively constant throughout Roman antiquity. This suggests that the increased access to commercially produced textile goods from different parts of the Empire (Flohr, 2014; Broekaert, 2016), did not preclude members of households with sufficient means to purchase such goods from gaining a degree of familiarity with aspects of the working processes of textile production. Furthermore, the stylistic features used in poetic descriptions of spinning and weaving show that even wealthy and educated men at some stage of their lives regularly shared the use of at least some spaces with women undertaking textile work in the household, seeing and hearing them perform these – at least in a domestic context – strongly gendered tasks (Hersch, 2010; Larsson Lovén, 2007; 2013: 118–123; but for extra-domestic settings, also Holleran, 2013: 315). This provides further support for current investigations of shared or multifunctional domestic space, whether building on and relating to material culture in Pompeii (e.g., Allison, 2007 and 2009), or the effective display of the matrona and her work in Late Antique and Christian contexts (e.g., Cooper, 2007; Wilkinson, 2015). As this investigation has demonstrated, my application of interdisciplinary approaches to the material evidence allowed me to recreate and accurately record the aural and tactile experience of weaving in the Roman period. The in-depth understanding of these aspects of the craft, when applied to a close reading of passages describing weaving in Latin poetry, has shown that the use of soundplay and rhythm in the verse reveals Roman authors to be far more aware of, and engaged with, the sensory experience of weaving than was previously imagined. Such knowledge has profound implications both for literary criticism in ancient literature, and also for the study of the social history of antiquity. Bibliography of Ancient Sources Ausonius, Epigrammata: Ausonius Epigrams. Text with Introduction and Commentary, ed. Nigel M. Kay (London, 2001).

Claudianus, De raptu Proserpinae: see Claudianus, Carmina minora appendix. Claudianus, Carmina minora appendix: Claudii Claudiani Carmina, ed. John B. Hall (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana; Leipzig, 1985). Epithalamium Laurentii: see Claudianus, Carmina minora appendix. Lucretius, De rerum natura: Lucreti De Rerum Natura. Libri Sex. Editio Altera, ed. Cyril Bailey (Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis; Oxford, 1947). Ovidius, Metamorphoses: Ovidius Metamorphoses, ed. William S. Anderson (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana; Leipzig and Stuttgart, 1977). Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales: L. Annaei Senecae: Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Vol. II. Libri XIV–XX, ed. L.D. Reynolds (Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis; Oxford, 1965). Symphosius, Aenigmata: Symphosius The Aenigmata. An Introduction, Text and Commentary., ed. Timothy J. Leary (Bloomsbury Classical Studies Monographs; London, 2014). Tibullus, Elegiae: Tibullus: Elegies. Text, Introduction and Commentary, ed. Robert Maltby (Arca Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs; Cambridge, 2002). Vergilius, Georgica: P. Vergili Maronis Opera, ed. Roger A.B. Mynors (Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis; Oxford, 1969). Vetus Latina: Variae lectiones vulgatae latinae bibliorum editionis: quas Carolus Vercellone digessit. Tom. 2 complectens libros Iosue, Iudicum, Ruth et quatuor regum, ed. C. Vercellone (Rome, 1864).

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Öhrman Antiquity”, in Betts, Eleanor (ed.), Senses of the Empire. Multisensory Approaches to Roman Culture (London) 146–158. Wild, John Peter, 1987: “The Roman Horizontal Loom”, AJA 91: 459–471. doi: 10.2307/505366. Wild, J.P., 1992: “The Roman Loom in the Western Europe: The Evidence of Art and Archaeology”, in Vlaamse Vereniging voor oud en hedendaags Textiel Bulletin (Aan Daniël De Jonghe) 1992: 12–17. Wild, J.P., 2000: “Textile Production and Trade in Roman Literature and Written Sources”, in Cardon, Dominique & Feugère, Michel (edd.), Archéologie des textiles (Montagnac) 209–213. Wild, J.P., 2002: “The Textile Industries of Roman Britain”, Britannia 33: 1–42. doi: 10.2307/1558851. Wild, J.P., 2008: “Textile Production”, in Oleson, John Peter (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World (Oxford) 465–482. Wilkinson, Kate, 2015: Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity (Cambridge).

Index of Ancient Sources Cited or Mentioned Literature Achilles Tatius see “Akhilleus Tatios” Aelianus Varia historia 13.3 146 Akhilleus Tatios Ta kata Leukippen kai Kleitophonta 2.3.1–2 140, 144 4.18.4 148, 149 Anthologia Palatina 6.286 194 6.288.5 190 Apokalypsis 4.6 141, 149 n.8 Appendix Vergiliana Copa 29 143 Apuleius [Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis] Metamorphoses 1.19 147 2.19 143, 153 Aristophanes Akharneis 74 144 Nephelai 768 140, 146 Aristotle see “Aristoteles” Aristoteles Politika 1337b 103 Athenaios Deipnosophistai 4.129.d–e 144 5.199 144 Augustine of Hippo = Saint Augustine see “Augustinus” Augustinus [Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis] Sermones ad populum 17.7 137, 145 Ausonius [Decimius Magnus Ausonius] Carmina 19.31 196 n. 5 Epigrammata 28.1–4 190 n.4, 191, 194–195 Epistulae 22.14–16 190 n.4 Mosella 28 149 n.8 55 149 n.8 195 149 n.8 223 149 n.8 Ordo urbium nobilium 20.30–31 149 n.8 34 149 n.8 Calpurnius Siculus [Titus Calpurnius Siculus] Bucolica 6.33–45 143 Cassius Dio see “Dion Kassios”

Cicero [Marcus Tullius Cicero] De Officiis 150–151 103 Pro Rabirio Postumo 40 145 Ciris 29 196 179 196 Claudian see “Claudianus” Claudianus [Claudius Claudianus] Carmina minora appendix 5 = Epithalamium Laurentii 5.44–48 191–193, 196 De Raptu Proserpinae 1.275–276 190 n.4 2.42 190 2.151–153 193 3.155 193 Epithalium dictum Honorio Augusto et Mariae 128 149 n.8 Fescennina dicta Honorio Augusto et Mariae 2.36–37 149 n.8 In Eutropium 2.263 149 n.8 Panegyricus dictus Honorio Augusto consuli 4.594–595 190 n.4 Panegyricus dictus Olybrio et Probino consulibus 224–225 149 n.8, 190 n.4 Codex Iustinianus 11.9.4 190 Columella [Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella] Res rustica 110.136 149 n. 8 Commodian see “Commodianus” Commodianus Instructiones 1.25(26).17 144 n.6 Cyprian see “Cyprianus” Cyprianus [Thaschus Cæcilius Cyprianus] Ad Quirinum 3.20 149 n.8 Diocletianus [Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, Emperor Diocletian] Edictum de pretiis rerum venalium 7 190 Diodorus Siculus see “Diodoros Sikeliotes” Diodoros Sikeliotes Bibliotheke historike 2.15 140 3.39.5 143 Dion Kassios [Lucius Cassius Dio] Romaike historia 15 146 60.17.6 145 Epictetus see “Epiktetos” Epiktetos Diatribai 3.24.84

145

202

Index of Ancient Sources Cited or Mentioned

Epithalamium Laurentii see “Claudianus, Carmina minora appendix 5” Eunapios Bioi philosophon kai sophiston 458 148 Euripides Hekuba 363 190 Festus [Sextus Pompeius Festus] 212L 289L

185 185

Gregorius [Gregory Magnus, Pope Gregory I, Saint Gregory] Moralia in Iob 8.26 186 Herodotus Historiai 2.69 143 3.24 140, 146 Homer see “Homeros” Homeros Ilias 2.100–108 175 6.119–236 175 6.219–221 175 10.260–271 176 16.130–144 176 18 80 21.403–405 176–177 23.740–749 175 Odysseia 19.395–396 176 21.11–41 175 Horace see “Horatius” Horatius [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] Carmina 3.12 191 3.13.1 147 4.2.3–4 149 n.8 Saturae 2.3.222 144 n.6 Ioulios Polydeukes Onomastikon 3.87 141 Iosepos [Titus Flavius Josephus] Historia Ioudaikou polemou pros Romaious 2.188–191 146 Iuvenalis [Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis] Saturae 5.48 145 9.30 190 n. 4, 196 Josephus see “Iosepos” Julius Pollux see “Ioulios Polydeukes” Juvenal see “Iuvenalis” Loukianos [Lucian of Samosata] Alethe diegemata 1.25 2.11 2.14

146 146 146

Peri penthous 21 Lucan see “Lucanus” Lucanus [Marcus Annaeus Lucanus] Pharsalia 10.126 10.142–143 Lucian see “Loukianos” Lucretius [Titus Lucretius Carus] De Rerum Natura 5.1353 6.42

140 n.4

196 n.5 190 n.4

189 196

Macrobius [Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius] Saturnalia 5.12.7 190 Manilius Astronomica 4.131 190 n.4 Martial see “Martialis” Martialis [Marcus Valerius Martialis] Epigrammata 1.41.4–5 145 2.40.6 143 3.55.2 143 4.22.2–6 148 6.68.7 149 n. 8 12.2.13 149 n. 8 14.94.1–2 144 14.115.1–2 144 Ovid see “Ovidius” Ovidius [Publius Ovidius Naso] Amores 1.6.55 149 n. 8 3.9.30 190 n.4 Fasti 2.575 196 n.5 3.267 196 n.5 3.819–820 190 n.4, 192, 196 Heroides 10.7 149 n. 8 15.157–158 147–148 Metamorphoses 3.359–401 190 4.275 190 n.4, 192 4.352–355 148 5.48 149 n. 8 6.53–145 191 6.55–58 186, 190, 192, 196 6.576–577 190 n.4 13.789–792 147 Paulinus Petricordiae 320–321 Paulus [Julius Paulus Prudentissimus] Sententiae 3.6.67 Periplous tes Eruthras Thalasses 49 Petronius Satyricon 50–51

190 n.4 145 141 145, 146

203

Index of Ancient Sources Cited or Mentioned Philostratos [Lucius Flavius Philostratus] Epistolai 32(25) 148, 149 Plato see “Platon” Platon Politeia 6.495d–e 103 Plinius the elder [Gaius Plinius Secundus] Naturalis historia 9.100 147 12.88 143 13.140 144 n.6 14.17 148, 149 16.221 144 n.6 34.32 128 36.114 142 36.189 142 36.190–191 146 36.194 147 36.195 144, 146 36.198 148, 152 36.199 146 37.29 144 37.98 144 n.6 37.156 147, 148 Plinius the younger [Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus] Epistulae 8.8.2 148, 149 n. 8 Pliny see “Plinius” Ploutarkhos Perikles 1.4–2.2 103 Plutarch see “Ploutarkhos” Potamius of Lisbon 186 De Substantia Propertius Elegiae 4.3.18 190 n.4 4.8.35–38 143 Prudentius [Aurelius Prudentius Clemens] Hamartia 291–292 190 no.4 Publilius Syrus Sententiae 219 (F.24) 144 n.6 Quintilian see “Quintilianus” Quintilianus [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus] Institutio oratoria 9.3.34 Rouphinos (Epigrammatist) Anthologika Epigrammata 5.48.1 Rufinus see “Rouphinos” Seneca [Lucius Annaeus Seneca] Ad Lucilium epistulae morales 86.6 90.20 90.31 De ira 1.12.4

149 n. 8

146 n.7

142 186, 190 145 144 n.6

Naturales quaestiones 1.6.5 145, 148 1.7.1 146 Servius [Maurus Servius Honoratus] In Vergilii Aeneidem commentarii 7.14 185–186 Silius Italicus [Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus] Punica 5.47 149 n. 8 8.190–191 149 14.656–660 190 n.4 Sophokles Fragments 890 190 Statius [Publius Papinius Statius] Achilleis 1.26 149 n. 8 1.185 196 n.5 Silvae 1.3.73–74 149 n. 8 1.5.12–47 143 1.6.74 145 2.2.49 149 n. 8 2.3.5 149 n. 8 3.2.16 149 n. 8 Thebais 11.401–402 190 n.4 Strabon Geographika 4.5.3 145 16.2.25 145, 146 17.1.8 146 Strabo see “Strabon” Symphosius Aenigmata 17 191, 195, 196 Tacitus [Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus] Historiae 5.7 146 Terence see “Terentius” Terentius [Publius Terentius Afer] Heautontimorumenos 285 190 n.4 292–295 190 n.4 Tibullus Elegiae 1.6.77–80 191, 193–194, 196 2.1.65–66 189–190, 196 Tzetzes [Joannes Tzetzes] Chiliades 2.123–128 146 Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 1.427–430 190 n.4 Vergilius [Publius Vergilius Maro] Aeneis 1.1 177 7.14 190 7.759 149 n. 8 9.176–502 178–179 9.955–958 179 12.939–952 177–178

204

Index of Ancient Sources Cited or Mentioned

Vergilius [Publius Vergilius Maro] (cont.) Eclogae 1.53–58 190 8.74 196 n. 5 Georgica 1.285–286 190 n. 4 1.294 190, 196 4.335 147 Vetus Latina I reg. 17.7 (cod.93) 189 Virgil see “Vergilius” Vitruvius De architectura 2.8.10 148

Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) II2

Zonaras [Joannes Zonaras] Epitome historian 9.4

146

Inscriptions & Papyri (including Linear B) Aleshire, 1989 Athenian Asklepion 127, III 144 249, V 144 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) 8, 7759 8, 19478 9, 4756 11, 98b2 11, 4188 (= AÉpigr 1999 no. 577) Herzog, 1928 Heilige Gesetze von Kos 10

149 n.8 149 n.8 149 n.8 149 n .8 149 n.8

144

Inscriptions de Délos (IDélos) 1412 144 1414 144 1417 144 1421 144 1426 144 1429 144 1431–2 144

1439 1441 1443 1450

144 144 144 144

1533 1534

144 144

Linear B

PY Ad 295 PY An 35 PY Cn 45 PY Cn 655 PY Jn 829

168 fig. 7.5 167 fig. 7.4 166 fig. 7.3 163 fig. 7.1, 165 fig. 7.2 164

Monceaux, 1906, RA 7

159 163

149 n.8 149 n.8

2.67151

145

134

141

1.50

145

8.468

145

10.1294 16.2058 42.3080 50.3536

145 145 145 141

2.29

145

7

145

1.3

145

1.84

145

P.Cair.Masp. P.Fay. P.Kellis P.Mich. P.Oxy. P.Ross.Georg. P.Vatic.Aphrod. P.Wisc. P.Yale

Segre, 1993 Iscrizioni di Cos ED 149

144–145

T.Vindol.

145

3.590

General Index 3D modelling 15, 16, 20–21, 161, 167–168 see also “digital tools in archaeology” 3D scanning see “structured light scanning” abstract art, Late Roman 7 acoustic spectrogram 187–189, figs. 9.5, 9.6 Actor-Network Theory (ANT) 50, 56–57, 174, 180 administration, Late Bronze Age 161–164, 167–168 see also “Linear B” Aeneis = Aeneid of Vergilius arms and armour 177–180 authorial intervention 178 composition  174, 177 echoing Homeric epic 177, 180 Messapus’ helmet 179–180 raid of Nisus and Euryalus 178–180 Turnus with armour of Pallas 177–178, 180 aerial surveying 7 see also “archaeology, practical (fieldwork)” Aerospace Corporation, The 125, 127 aesthetics (ancient) 3, 14, 20, 137–139, 146–153 colour 146–148, 150–153 light 137–138, 146–153 shine/gleam 147–149, 153 afterlife of antiquities  82, 94–95 afterlife of ROM Bull-Leaper 82–95 agency, of artefacts see “object agency” Akhilleus = Achilles see “Ilias” Algeria, conquest by French 4 see also “antiquities, use of” Altertumswissenschaft 6 Annales School 10 Antiokheia = Antioch, Syria 52 antiquities, use of 19th century 4–7, 23–24 20th century, first half 4, 7, 24–25 21st century 18 Ancient Greek world 2, 21 as commemoration 2, 15 as cultural imperialism 2–6, 18, 83 as excuse for conquest 4 as inspiration 2–5 as political tool 2, 4–5, 7, 18 Byzantine world 2, 21–22 Enlightenment 2–5, 22–24 Medieval World 2, 22 Renaissance 2, 22–23 Roman world 2, 21–22 see also “collecting antiquities” applied arts (ancient)  19, 20, 138, 141–142 appropriation of Classical Antiquity see “antiquities, use of” archaeological data collection methods 9–10, 16, 68–70, 103–108, 113–114 digital technology see “digital tools in archaeology” incompleteness of 8, 17, 48, 54, 58, 65, 74 problems with 64–66, 72–74 quantification and large-scale analysis of 8, 17, 19, 63–64, 68–70, 73–75 see also “archaeology, practical (fieldwork)”; “Big Data”; “context, archaeological (excavation)”

archaeology, practical (fieldwork) archaeology in Eastern Europe 9–10 Athens metro excavations 9 ‘big digs’ 5, 17, 74 Boeotia Survey 9 Bronze Age Messenia Survey by Minnesota University 9 excavation 9–10 excavation as treasure-hunting 5, 83 keyhole archaeology 17 landscape archaeology 9, 15 Pylos Regional Archaeological Project 9 rescue excavations 9, 74 Roman Peasants Project 17 surveys 9, 17 stratigraphic excavation, introduction of  5 Tiber Valley project 17 underwater archaeology 16 Western Argolid project 17 see also “aerial surveying”; “archaeological data”; “context, archaeological”; “digital tools in archaeology”; “Geographical Information Systems”; “photogrammetry”; “photography”; “Pompeii & Herculaneum” Archaic Greek period 2, 8, 10, 13–14, 21–50–51, 54, 108–120 Archanes, Crete see “Arkhanes” architectural terracottas see “roof tiles” architecture (ancient) 8, 20 economic analysis of 16, 113–120 labour required 104 monumental architecture 15, 20, 108–109, 118 polychromy 16 space studies/use of space 8, 15 see also “energetics”; “labour organisation (ancient)”; “temple-building, Greek”; “Vitruvius” Ares see “Ilias” Arkhanes = Archanes, Krete excavation of 89 ivory figurines from 89, 91–92 Art Institute of Chicago 136–137, 152–153 Ashmolean Boy God (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, AN1938.692) 87–88, 90 see also “Evans, Sir Arthur”; “Lapatin, Kenneth” Athena see “Ilias” Athenai = Athens (ancient) 119 see also “Athenian vase painting” Athenian Agora American excavations 5 as a context 12 Athenian vase painting 4, 14, 23–24, 124–134 attributions of vase painters 6, 9, 133; see also “connoisseurship of Greek vases” black gloss, analysis of 127–131 iconography, study of  8–9, 15 production 19, 124–134 red-figure vases 126–133 restoration of (historic) 125 scientific analysis 124–134 thought to be Etruscan 4, 125 workshops & craftsmen 6, 14, 104, 133–134 see also “clay slip”; “contour line”; “kiln firing”; “miltos”; “pottery, ancient Greek”; “relief line”

206 Athens (ancient) see “Athenai” Athens (modern) 4 Athens, National Archaeological Museum see “National Archaeological Museum of Athens” Attic vase painting see “Athenian vase painting” Augustan period see “Roman Imperial period” Ausonius 194–195 authentication of antiquities 86–88, 93, 95 see also “Evans, Sir Arthur” authority 16, 19 archaeological 73–75, 86 editorial 166–167, 169 museum 16, 18–19 see also “authentication of antiquities”; “interpretation” Bacon, Kevin 48 Baltimore Snake Goddess (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 71.1090)  87, 90 Baths of Agrippa, Rome 142 Baths of Caracalla, Rome 2, 103, 119 Baths of Claudius Etruscus, Rome 143 Beazley, John see “connoisseurship of Greek vases” Beazley Archive online 10, 17 see also “Digital Humanities” Berlin Painter 131–134, fig. 5.5 see also “Athenian vase painting” Bieber, Margaret 7 Big Data approaches used in archaeology 63–75 as a means of control 65 definition and examples 63 ‘big digs’ (archaeological) see “archaeology practical (fieldwork)” Binford, Lewis 8 Blegen, Carl 162 Boardman, John see “connoisseurship of Greek vases” boar’s-tusk helmet see “Ilias” Boeckh, August 6 Boscoreale, Italy, frescoes 149 Boston Snake Goddess (Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 14.863) 87–90 see also “Evans, Sir Arthur”; “Lapatin, Kenneth”; “Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” Brendel, Otto 7 bricks production, ethnographic parallels 111–112 Roman industry 47, 52, 104 British Hellenism 5 British Museum, London 4, 5 see also “History of the World in 100 Objects”; “Naukratis research project” Bronzes (ancient) techniques 9, 16 Bronze Age period see “Early Bronze Age”; “Late Bronze Age” Broodbank, Cyprian 54 Brown, Bill see “Thing Theory” bull leaping (Minoan) 86 frescoes, from Knossos 83, 86–87 gender of participants 86–87 ritual 87–88 see also “Ivory Deposit acrobat figurines”; “ROM Bull-Leaper”; “Royal Academy London exhibition, 1936” burial practice (ancient) 8, 15

General Index Byzantine Egypt 47, 52 Byzantine period see “Late Antique period” Calvert, Frank see “Troia” Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum see “Snake Goddess, Fitzwilliam Museum” Campania, frescoes 139, 150 see also “Boscoreale”; “Pompeii & Herculaneum” categorisation 57–59, 72–74 see also “authority”; “ceramics (archaeological)” Caylus, Comte de (Anne Claude de Caylus) 2 Centre for Historical-Archaeological Research and Communication at Lejre 187 Centre for Textile Research (CTR), Copenhagen 183 n.1, 187, figs. 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 ceramics (archaeological) chronology 68, 72–73 classification/typology 57, 72–73 visibility in the material record 72, 74 see also “brick”; “Linear B”; “pottery, ancient Greek”; “pottery, Roman”; “roof tiles”; “vase painting” chaîne opératoire as determined from reverse engineering 104–105 in ceramics 104–08, 109–110, 116–118, 134 uncertainty in 107 see also “reverse engineering” Chandler, Richard 4 Chaptel, Jean-Antoine 125 Chicago, Art Institute see “Art Institute of Chicago” Childe, Gordon 7 chryselephantine 79, 82, fig. 3.1 see also “Ashmolean Boy God”; “Baltimore Snake Goddess”; “Boston Snake Goddess”; “Palaikastro Kouros”; “ROM Bull-Leaper”; “Seattle Boy God” Classics & Classical Archaeology see “disciplinary relationships” Classical Archaeology diversity of 1, 10–12, 19, 21 separation of sub-specialisms within 1, 6, 10–11 unity of 1, 6–7, 10–12, 19, 21 and see “disciplinary relationships”; “interdisciplinarity” Classical Archaeology, development of the discipline 19th-century development 4–7 20th century, first half 6–7 20th century, late 7–10 21st-century approaches 11–21 beginning of discipline, 18th century 2–4 scholarship about the history of discipline 18 see also “antiquities, use of” Classical Art History 138, 142 see also “Classical Archaeology”; “disciplinary relationships” Classical Greek period 8, 12–15, 51, 144, 125–126, 128–133 classification see “categorisation” Claudianus = Claudian 191, 193 see also “Epithalamium Laurentii” clay slip (Athenian vase painting) 124–128 added zinc 128 production 125–126 sources 134 clay tablets, Linear B see “Linear B” climate change in Antiquity 15 cognition 15

207

General Index collaboration see “interdisciplinarity” collecting antiquities 19th century 4–5, 23–24 ancient world collecting in the 2, 21–22 Arundel, Earl of, Thomas Howard 2 British collectors 2–5, 24 collection history 13, 18, 20; see also “provenance” Cultural Ownership laws, Krete 94 Enlightenment 2–4, 22–24 French kings of 16th and 17th centuries 2 imperialism through collecting 5, 18, 83 Italian Renaissance, nobles and popes 2 King Charles I of England 2 Medieval 22 modern attitudes to 18, 20, 83, 95 museum collecting 18, 83, 94–95; see also “ROM Bull-Leaper” Napoleon 5 South Italian towns 4 smuggling antiquities 84, 94 see also “antiquities, use of”; “Caylus, Comte de”; “Elgin, Lord”; “Evans, Sir Arthur”; “Grand Tour”; “Hamilton, Sir William”; “looting antiquities” collecting natural history 16th-17th centuries 2 Enlightenment  3 see also “Hamilton, Sir William” colonisation (Archaic Greek) 10, 50–51 commemoration through ancient material culture 2, 15 computing see “digital …” connectivity see “network approaches” connoisseurship of Greek vases 6, 8–9, 11, 23–24, 34 criticisms of  9 see also “Athenian vase painting”; “Beazley Archive online”; “Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum” context, archaeological (excavation) 12–13 destruction of 13, 83, 94–95 ‘ungrounded’ antiquities 13, 94 see also “looting antiquities”; “provenience” contour line (Athenian vase painting) 128–129, figs. 5.1, 5.2 see also “relief lines” Cook’s tours 5 see also “collecting antiquities, 19th century” copies, Roman 6, 9, 14 see also “sculpture (ancient)”; “replica antiquities” coral-red (Athenian vase painting) 131 Corinth see “Korinthos” Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (CVA) online, hosted by Beazley Archive 17 Pottier, Edmund, initiated by 7 see also “Digital Humanities” craft production (ancient) 9, 14 ancient literary attitudes toward 103 epigraphic sources 104 ethnographic parallels 105–106, 110–112 insights from practising artists 106, 129, 133 see also “Athenian vase painting”; “bricks”; “labour organisation (ancient)”; “pottery, ancient Greek”; “roof tiles” Crete see “Krete” culture-diffusion model 8 Currelly, Charles Trick 83–86, 88, 96 Curtius, Ernst 5

Dark Age Greece see “Early Iron Age Greece” data-mining of texts 139, 190 decorative arts see “applied arts” Delphoi = Delphi 5, 108 ‘democratisation’ of Classics see “authority” de Montfaucon, Bernard 2 ‘dense’ objects see “object biography” destruction of archaeological sites and contexts see “context, archaeological” D’Hancarville, Baron 4 digital databases used within this volume 68–72, 139, 190–191 see also “Digital Humanities” Digital Humanities 20th century beginning and approaches 10 21st century approaches 16–17 see also “digital publication”; “digital tools in archaeology” digital publication 16–19, 161, 164–167, 169 see also “Digital Humanities” digital tools in archaeology databases of archaeological data 10, 16–17, 64 fieldwork (collection of data) 16, 65, 161 and see “3D modelling”; “Geographical Information Systems”; “photogrammetry”; “Reflectance Transformation Imaging”; “structured light scanning” Diomedes see “Ilias” disciplinary relationships Ancient History and Classical Archaeology 7, 10–11 Classical Art History and Classical Archaeology 1–21, 79–96, 124–134, 136–153 Classical Literature and Classical Archaeology 5–6, 136–153, 172–180, 183–197 Classics and Classical Archaeology 1, 6 Text (ancient) and Material Culture (ancient) 6, 14, 20–21, 136–153, 161–169, 172–180, 183–197 Doloneia see “Ilias” domestic textile production (ancient) 184–186, 196–197; and see “weaving” Dörpfeld, Wilhelm 5 EAGLE network 16 see also “Digital Humanities” Early Bronze Age 54 Early Iron Age Greece 8, 18–19, 63–64, 66–68, 70–74, 174 ekphrasis  14, 151–152 electronic see “digital …” elemental analysis see “scientific analysis” elephant ivory 92 Elgin, Lord (Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin) 5 Elgin Marbles see “Parthenon marbles” emic understanding 20, 80, 138–139 energetics 16, 19, 20, 107–08 craftsperson-hours 107, 115–118 economics analysis 119–20 in ancient Mediterranean archaeology 107, 115–120 in New World archaeology 107, 119 minimum effective crew 107–108, 118–119 of Protokorinthian roof tiles 115–119 EpiDoc 16 see also “Digital Humanities”

208 epigraphy Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) 6 epigraphic evidence used 52–53, 104, 107, 116, 144–145, 149 n.8 Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) and Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (CIG) 6 inscriptions as artefacts 6, 14 see also “Boeckh, August”; “Digital Humanities”; “disciplinary relationships, Text (ancient) and Material Culture (ancient)” Epithalamium Laurentii 191–193 ethnicity, concepts in antiquity 10, 13–14, 51–53 ethnographic analogy 104–06, 110–112 brick and tile production 105, 110–112 pottery production 105–106 see also “experimental archaeology” Etruria 4, 12, 53, 125 European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble 127, 133 Euryalus see “Aeneis” Evans, Sir Arthur creation of demand for Minoan fakes and ‘Minoica’ 87–91, 95–96 discovery of the Minoan civilisation and excavations 7, 83, 86, 89; and see “Knossos” preconceptions about the Minoan civilisation 86–87, 89 reputation, negative 89, 91, 95–96 reputation, positive 83, 86–88 smuggling antiquities 94 see also “Ashmolean Boy God”; “Boston Snake Goddess”; “fake antiquities”; “Minoan civilisation”; “ROM Bull-Leaper”; “Royal Academy London exhibition, 1936”; “Seattle Boy God” experimental archaeology 15–16, 20–21, 104–108 appreciation of glass 142, 150–153 Athenian vase painting 125–127, 129, 133 Protokorinthian roof tiles 104, 108–118 relationship with energetics 16, 107–108 weaving methods 183, 186–189 see also “replication projects”; “reverse engineering” fake antiquities 95 artificial aging of ivory 90 Etruscan Warriors, Metropolitan Museum of Art 95 forgery workshops staffed by Sir Arthur Evans’ workmen, Krete 90 Minoan fakes 89–91, 95–96 Saitaphernes tiara, Louvre 95 see also “Ashmolean Boy God”; “Baltimore Snake Goddess”; “Boston Snake Goddess”; “Gilliérons, Émile & Émile”; “Lapatin, Kenneth”; “replica antiquities”; “restoring antiquities”; “Ring of Minos”; Ring of Nestor”; “ROM Bull-Leaper”; “Seattle Boy God”; “Seltman, Charles”; “Snake Goddess, Fitzwilliam Museum” Faliscan vase painting 128 Fascist use of Antiquity see “Mussolini” Fiorelli, Giuseppe see “Pompeii & Herculaneum” firing, pottery see “kiln firing” feminist theory applied to ancient material culture in the 20th century 10 in the 21st century 18 Fenn, Julia 89, 91 Feuerdent Frères, Paris 84, 87 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge see “Snake Goddess, Fitzwilliam Museum” Foreign Schools of Archaeological Research, Athens and Rome  5, 103 n.1

General Index funerary customs (ancient) see “burial practice” Furtwängler, Adolf 6 see also “connoisseurship of Greek vases”; “sculpture (ancient)” Gargiulo, Raffaele 125 gender biases in Classical Archaeology 18 gender studies in Antiquity 18 geo-archaeology 15 geodatabase 68–73 Geographical Information Systems (GIS) 9, 16, 53, 64 see also “Digital Humanities”; “digital tools in archaeology” Geometric Greece see “Early Iron Age Greece” Gilliérons, Émile & Émile 90, 95 glass (ancient) 20 aesthetics of 137–138, 146–149 as temple dedications 141, 144–145 blown glass  137, 138, 141, 145 Byzantine glass 137–138, 153 candidus (colourless) glass 147, 150 colour of 147, 149, 150–153 frescoes depicting glass 139, 149 in Greek literature 140–141, 143–146 inlays for furniture 152–153 in Roman literature 139–149, 152–153 iridescence 138 lighting effects 136, 146–148, 150–153 magnification 145–146, 150 millefiori glass 136–137, 152–153 mosaic glass see “millefiori glass” mosaics depicting glass 139 mould-blown glass see “vitrum sigillatum” perlucidus 147–148, 150 reflecting light 146–153 splendidus 147, 150 tableware 143–144, 149–152 terms for 139–141 to produce fire 146 translucidus 148 ὓαλος 140–141 used as personal adornment 143 used in architecture 142–143 value of glass 138, 140–141, 142–146 vitrum 139–140 vitrum sigillatum 143, 153 globalisation (Roman) see “Roman Empire” GlobalXplorer© 64 see also “Digital Humanities” Gombrich, Ernst 7 Gosden, Chris & Marshall, Yvonne 80–82 see also “object biography” Grand Tour 2–3, 5, 22–23 see also “collecting antiquities” Greek literature 139–149, 174–177 Greek Revival style 4 Greek War of Independence 4–5 Hadrian’s Villa see “Villa Adriana” Hamilton, Sir William 3–4, 23 Hartwig, Paul see “connoisseurship of Greek vases” Hektor  see “Ilias” Hellenistic Greece 13, 52–53, 104, 112–113, 116, 136, 144–145

209

General Index Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Krete see “Ivory Deposit acrobat figurines”; “Pisokephalo terracotta figurines”; “Snake Goddess, Temple Deposits” Herculaneum see “Pompeii & Herculaneum” hierarchy of art 138 see also “Winckelmann, Johann Joachim” Hirsch, Jacob 88 historiography see “history of scholarship” history of scholarship Athenian vase painting 6, 23–24, 125–126 Classical Archaeology see “Classical Archaeology, development of the discipline” Dark Age/Early Iron Age Greece 66–67, 69–71 History of the World in 100 Objects (British Museum) 17, 82 see also “object biography” Homer see “Homeros” Homeros = Homer 6 composition of epics 174–175 objects in epics 80, 174–177 warriors, armour, and weaponry in epics 175–177, 179–180 see also “Ilias”; “Odysseia” Hood, Sinclair see “Royal Road figurines (Knossos)” Horden, Peregrine & Purcell, Nicholas 48 Hoskins, Janet  see “object biography” identity 10, 14 Archaic Greek 50 Classical Greek 51 indicated by pottery 12–14 indicated by sculpture 13 Late Bronze Age Italy 53 Roman see “Roman Empire” and see “religion (ancient)” Ilias = Iliad of Homeros armour of Akhilleus 176 Athena against Ares 176–177 Bellerophon’s gold cup 175 boar’s-tusk helmet of Odysseus 176, 179 Doloneia (Odysseus & Diomedes) 176, 178–180 krater as a prize at funerary games of Patroklos 175 Oineus’ belt 175 shield of Akhilleus 80 staff of Agamemnon 175 Illiffe, J.H 83, 85 imaging technology 16, 21 see also “3D modelling”; “aerial surveying”; “digital tools in archaeology”; “Geographical Information Systems”; “photogrammetry”; “photography” Ingold, Tim see “meshwork” interdisciplinarity 1, 7–21, 47–60, 91–96, 124–134, 161–169, 172–180, 183–197 see also “Classical Archaeology”; “disciplinary relationships” interpretation (subjectivity) 19–20, 65 archaeological 50, 57–60, 65–67, 72–75 editorial 166, 168 modern responses to antiquities 15, 20 postprocessual understanding 8, 10 see also “authentication”; “authority”; “categorisation”; “reception studies, Classical Archaeology” iron oxides (Athenian vase painting) 126, 132–133 see also “Athenian vase painting”; “kiln firing”

Islamic world, Classical tradition in 18 Isthmia 108–109, 115–116 Ivory Deposit acrobat figurines (Heraklion Archaeological Museum) 87, 92 see also “Boston Snake Goddess”; “Knossos”; “Seattle Boy God” ivory figurines (Minoan or said to be Minoan) with legitimate excavation findspot see “Arkhanes”; “Ivory Deposit acrobat figurines”; “Palaikastro Kouros”; “Royal Road figurines” without legitimate excavation findspot see “Ashmolean Boy God”; “Baltimore Snake Goddess”; “Boston Snake Goddess”; “ROM Bull-Leaper”; “Seattle Boy God” Jacobsthal, Paul 7 Joy, Jody see “object biography” Jupiter Dolichenus 51 Kant, Immanuel 3, 138, 153 kiln firing 9, 20, 117–118, 124, 127 bisque firing 133 multiple firings 131–133 temperatures 129–133 three-stage process 20, 125–126 Kingdom of Italy see “Risorgimento” Kleophrades Painter 128–131, figs 5.1, 5.3, 5.4 see also “Athenian vase painting” Knappett, Carl 47, 54–55, 59 see also “network approaches”; “object agency” Knossos, Krete 7 excavation by Evans 12, 83, 86, 89 frescoes 83, 86–87 Ivory Deposit 87–88 Linear B tablets from 168 ‘reconstitution’ (restoration) by Evans 89, 96 Temple Repositories  87 Theatral area 87 see also “bull leaping”; “Evans, Sir Arthur”; “Ivory Deposit acrobat figurines”; “Minoan civilisation”; “Snake Goddess” Kopienkritik see “sculpture (ancient)” Kopytoff, Igor 80–81 see also “object biography” Korinthian vase painting 128, 133 Korinthos = Corinth American excavations 5 Archaic clay sources 113, 117 Archaic patronage of architecture 119 Archaic pottery making 112–113 Archaic social complexity 119–20 Archaic tile making 109–110, 112–113, 117–118 Old Temple, 7th century BCE 108–09, 115, 118–20 see also “Korinthian vase painting”; “pottery, ancient Greek”; “roof tiles, Protokorinthian” Krete = Crete 71–73, 107 Arkhanes see “Arkhanes” Knossos see “Knossos” Palaikastro 91–92 Petsophas 85 Pisokephalo open-air sanctuary 91 Siteia see “Palaikastro Kouros” see also “Herakleion Archaeological Museum”; for Cultural Ownership laws see “collecting antiquities” Kyrenia shipwreck 15–16

210 labour, quantification of see “energetics” labour organisation (ancient) 9, 14, 103–104, 111–119, 133–134, 162–164 see also “craft production (ancient)”; “energetics” lamps, Roman 150–151 Lapatin, Kenneth 89–91, 96, 142 see also “Ashmolean Boy God”; “Baltimore Snake Goddess”; “Boston Snake Goddess”; “ROM Bull-Leaper”; “Seattle Boy God” large-scale data see “archaeological data” Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) 126–127, 129, 131 Late Antique period 21–22, 47, 52, 137–138, 140–141, 145, 149–150, 191–193, 194–196 Late Bronze Age (LBA) 7–9, 13, 15, 20–21, 47–48, 54–56, 58–59, 66, 68–73, 79, 82–83, 86–89, 94, 107, 161–169, 174, 185 collapse 66, 72, 162 see also “Minoan civilisation” Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age transition 66–67, 70–73 Latin literature 139–153, 177–180, 186, 189–197 Latium 53 Latour, Bruno see “Actor-Network Theory” Lefkandi, Euboia 67, 70 Leipen, Neda 89 Le Roy, Julien-David 3 Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) 8 Libya, conquest by Italians 4 Linear B 20–21 character of text 161–164 decipherment by Michael Ventris 161 findspots of  162, 168 nature of the clay tablets 162, 164, 166–168 preservation of tablets 162, 164, 168, fig. 7.5 publication, traditional 163 n. 3, 162–164, 166 fig. 7.3 scribes 162, 164, 168 see also “Knossos”; “Late Bronze Age”; “Pylos” Linear B pa-i-to Epigraphic Project 168 Linked Open Data (LOD)  17 see also “Digital Humanities” literary studies see “Greek literature”; “Latin literature” London, British Museum see British Museum, London London, Museum of London see Museum of London London, Royal Academy see “Royal Academy, London” longue durée 10 loom, two-beam 184–186, fig. 9.2 archaeological evidence from antiquity 185–186 literary evidence, Roman 186 loom, warp-weighted 184–185, figs 9.1, 9.3 archaeological evidence from antiquity 185–186 literary evidence, Roman 186, 193 looting antiquities 13, 18, 83, 94–95 see also “collecting antiquities”; “GlobalXplorer©”; “provenance”; “provenience” Louvre, Paris 5 Lycurgus Cup (British Museum, 1958.1202.1) 149–150 Magna Graecia 4 Malkin, Irad 47, 50–51 see also “network approaches” Mayan architecture 119 Meisterforschungen see “sculpture (ancient)” memory see “commemoration” meshwork 51, 56–57 Messapus see “Aeneis”

General Index metrical analysis of Latin verse 191–196 micro-history 17, 59, 68 miltos (Athenian vase painting) 131–133, fig. 5.5 Minoan civilisation architecture 15, 107 Boy God 88; see also “Ashmolean Boy God”; “Seattle Boy God”, drinking cups 55–56 Great Goddess 87–88; see also “Boston Snake Goddess”; “ROM Bull-Leaper” modern attitudes to 20, 90–91, 96 naming of the civilisation 86 palace of Knossos see “Knossos” religion, according with Evans’ ideas 86–89, 96 see also “bull leaping”; “Evans, Sir Arthur”; “fake antiquities”; “ivory figurines”; “Krete”; “Royal Academy London exhibition, 1936”; “Snake Goddess” minor arts and crafts (ancient) see “applied arts” Morelli, Giovanni see “connoisseurship of Greek vases” multi-scalar analysis 17–19, 50, 59 multi-vocality 10, 13–14, 16, 18–19, 65, 96 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 83–84 see also “Boston Snake Goddess” Museum of London 136 museums collection acquisition see “collecting antiquities” display strategies 79, 82, 91, 136–137, 153 foundation of public museums (18th & 19th centuries) 4–5 visitor engagement strategies 16, 18-19, 82–93, 91, 93–94, 96 see also “ROM Bull-Leaper, reputation in museum” Mussolini, use of Antiquity 4 Mycenae see “Mykenai” Mykenai = Mycenae 7, 86, 107 see also “Late Bronze Age”; “Schliemann, Heinrich” Napoleonic France 4, 5 National Archaeological Museum of Athens 162 Naukratis research project (British Museum) 17 Nearest Neighbour Analysis (NNA) 71–72 Neoclassical movement 4 network approaches 13, 19, 47–60 definition 48–50 everyday examples 47, 49 formal network analysis 48, 50, 52–55 geographic networks 53–55 networks as metaphors 48, 50–52 nodes in a network 49–50, 53 problems 48–50, 57–60 Proximal Point Analysis (PPA) 48, 50, 54 scale-free network model 49 scales of analysis 49, 58–59 six degrees of separation phenomenon 48 small-world network model 49–50 Social Network Analysis (SNA) 50, 51–53 ties in a network 49–50, 53–54 use in popular science and sociology 48 New Archaeology see “processual archaeological movement” New Art History 8 New Materialism 65, 172–173 see also “object agency”; “object biography”; Object-Oriented Ontology”; “Thing Theory” Nisus see “Aeneis” North Africa 139 see also “Algeria”; “Libya”

211

General Index object agency 13, 21, 55–57, 173, 180 see also “object biography” object biography 13, 20, 79–83, 175–176, 178–179 criticisms of 81–82 ‘dense’ textual objects 175–176, 178–179 museums, use in 82–83 see also “afterlife of antiquities”; “Ilias, shield of Akhilleus”; “object itinerary”; “object life paths”; “ROM Bull-Leaper” object itinerary 81 object life paths 81–82 Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) 174, 177, 179–180 Odysseia = Odyssey of Homeros bow of Odysseus 175 Odysseus see “Ilias” and “Odysseia” Olympia, German excavations 5 see also “Curtius, Ernst”; “Dörpfeld, Wilhelm” Olympias see “replication projects” ORBIS 64 see also “Digital Humanities” orientalising, rethinking approaches to 18 Ottomans in Greece 3, 5, 23 Our Lady of Sports see “ROM Bull-Leaper” Oxford, Ashmolean Museum see “Ashmolean Boy God” Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum see “Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford” painters (ancient Greek)  see “Athenian vase painting”; “pottery, ancient Greek” palace of Knossos see “Knossos” palace of Nestor see “Pylos” palaeography 20–21, 164, 169 Palaikastro Kouros (Minoan) (Siteia Archaeological Museum) 91 Pallas see “Aeneis” Panovsky, Erwin 7 papyrological evidence 47, 52, 141, 144–145 papyrus rolls from Herculaneum, decipherment 16 Paris, Louvre see “Louvre, Paris” Parthenon Marbles 5, 82 Parthenon, Nashville Tennessee 15–16 Patroklos = Patroclus see “Ilias” Pausanias 6 Perseus online library project 10 see also “Digital Humanities” phenomenology 7, 15 philology 6, 172 photogrammetry 16, 65 see also “digital tools in archaeology” photography 5–6, 65 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista 3 Pisokephalo terracotta figurines (Minoan) (Herakleion Archaeological Museum) 91 Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford 80, 82 see also “object biography” plaster casts 24, 95 Pleiades project 16, 64 see also “Digital Humanities” Plinius the elder = Pliny the elder 6, 128, 143–144, 146–149, 152 polychromy (ancient) see “architecture (ancient)”; “sculpture (ancient)” Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) see “Reflectance Transformation Imaging” Pompeii & Herculaneum 24 excavations 3, 5 excavations beneath the 79 CE ruins 17

Fiorelli, Giuseppe 5 frescoes 149 glass inlays from House of the Golden Cupids 152–153 pottery assemblage from Insula of Menander 12 replicas 95 see also “papyrological evidence”; “prostitution” post-colonial approaches to Classical Archaeology 10, 13–14, 18 postmodern approaches in Classical Archaeology 8, 11, 16, 18 postprocessual archaeological movement 8–10, 18, 80, 89 potters (ancient Greek)  see “Athenian vase painting”; “Korinthos”; “pottery, ancient Greek” pottery production, ethnographic analysis 104–106, 111 pottery, ancient Greek customers & patrons 14 dipinti & inscriptions 14 Early Iron Age 73–74, 104 firing process see “kiln firing” function 12 kilns, excavated 9; and see “kiln firing” pigments used 16 regional styles 9 scientific analysis of 9, 16, 20; and see “Athenian vase painting” techniques 9, 16, 19 trade 13–14, 124 workshops & craftsmen 9, 14, 104, 133–134; and see “labour organisation (ancient)” see also “Athenian vase painting”; “Beazley Archive online”; “ceramics (archaeological)”; “connoisseurship of Greek vases”; “Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum”; “roof tiles”; “trade” pottery, Roman 12, 17, 47, 57–58, 64, 104, 107 see also “ceramics (archaeological)” Pottier, Edmund see “Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum” Prehistory see “Bronze Age period”; “Early Iron Age Greece” processual archaeological movement (New Archaeology) 8, 18, 104 Programs in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP), University of Texas, Austin 162–163, fig.7.1 prostitution in antiquity (material culture) 18 Protogeometric Greece see “Early Iron Age Greece” provenance (collecting history) 83 creation of false provenance 84, 89–90 provenience (archaeological findspot) 83 creation of false provenience 84, 88 dangers of lack of 13, 83, 94–96 ‘ungrounded’ antiquities 13, 94 see also “collecting antiquities”; “fake antiquities”; “looting antiquities” Proximal Point Analysis (PPA) see “network approaches” Pylos destruction of ‘palace of Nestor’ 162, 168 findspots of Linear B tablets 162 Linear B tablets from 20–21 see also “Ring 2, Tomb of the Griffin Warrior, Pylos” Pylos Tablets Digital Project (PTDP) 162 pXRF see “X-ray Fluorescence” quantification see “archaeological data” racism see “antiquities, use of” radiocarbon dating 7, 90 raking light 164 see also “Reflectance Transformation Imaging” reception studies, Classical Archaeology 10, 18, 96

212 red-figure pottery see “Athenian vase painting” Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) 164–167, fig. 7.2 see also “digital tools in archaeology” relational theory 49, 55–56, 172–180 relief line (Athenian vase painting) figs. 5.1, 5.3, 5.4 analysis of 129–130 application of 129 religion (ancient) and religious identity 8, 51–53 Renfrew, Colin 8 repatriation of antiquities 13, 18 replica antiquities 3, 95 see also “Gilliérons, Émile & Émile”; “plaster casts”; “restoration of antiquities” replication projects 20, 21, 106 Athenian vase painting 127, 131, 133 Kyrenia shipwreck 15 Nashville Parthenon 16 Olympias (trireme) 15 Protokorinthian roof tiles 108–109, 113–118 see also “experimental archaeology”; “reverse engineering” restitution of antiquities  see “repatriation” restoration of antiquities 3, 94, 125 pastiches 94 see also “Gilliérons, Émile & Émile”; “Knossos” reuse of antiquities 2, 15, 82 reverse engineering from artefacts 105, 109–111, 114 see also “chaîne opératoire”; “experimental archaeology”; “replication studies” Richter, Gisela 125 Riegl, Alios 7 Ring 2, Tomb of the Griffin Warrior, Pylos 92 Ring of Minos 89, 92 Ring of Nestor 89, 92 Risorgimento 4 Robinson, David M. 88 Roman amphorae digital database (University of Southampton) 17 see also “Digital Humanities” Roman Empire identity in provinces/periphery 14, 18 identity, Roman 14 power expressed through material culture 9 ‘Romanisation’ 14, 18 Roman period 2, 4, 8–9, 12–21, 51–52, 57, 64, 104, 107, 116, 119, 136–153, 177–180, 183–196 Augustan period 9, 174, 177, 193 Romanisation see “Roman Empire” ROM Bull-Leaper (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 931.21.1) 82–96, figs 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 acquisition 83–86 aging of ivory 92 association with the Seattle Boy God 90 authentication and publication by Evans 83, 86–88 condition at discovery, alleged 84–86, fig. 3.2 conservation of 92 gold costume 83, 87, 92 identification as 20th century fake 88–91, 95–96 identification as a Minoan goddess of bull leapers 86–88 influence on academia 89, 96 ivory identification and condition 92 stylistic parallels with Minoan artefacts 91–92 reputation in the Museum 79, 84–86, 88–89, 91, 96

General Index see also “afterlife of antiquities”; “Evans, Sir Arthur”; “Lapatin, Kenneth”; “Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto” roof tiles, Greek 104, 116 ethnographic evidence 110–111 Protokorinthian system 108–119 see also “experimental archaeology” roof tiles, Protocorinthian see “roof tiles, Protokorinthian system” Rostovetzeff, Michael 7 Royal Academy London exhibition, 1936 88 Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 79, 83–86, 89, 91 see also “Currelly, Charles Trick”; “Fenn, Julia”; “Illiffe, J.H.”; “Leipen, Neda”; “ROM Bull-Leaper” Royal Road figurines (Knossos) 89 sanctuaries see “religion (ancient)” Samothrake, Greece = Samothrace 52–53 Schliemann, Heinrich 6, 86 scientific analysis 9, 16 of Athenian vases 124–133 of ivory 90, 92 of Linear B tablets 162, 168–169 of roof tiles 105 sculpture (ancient) 17 criticism of Kopienkritik & Meisterforschungen  9, 14 Kopienkritik 6, 9, 11 Meisterforschungen 6 polychromy 16 portraits, Greek 13 quarries 9 regional styles 9 Roman adaptations of Greek models 9, 14 sculptors, identification of  9, 11 techniques 16 Seattle Boy God (Seattle Art Museum, 57.56) 87–88, 90 see also “Evans, Sir Arthur”; “Hirsch, Jacob”; “Lapatin, Kenneth” Seltman, Charles 83–86, 96 see also “ROM Bull-Leaper”; “Snake Goddess, Fitzwilliam Museum” Semantic Web 17 see also “Digital Humanities” semiotics 8, 15, 55–56 sensory archaeology 187 sensory perception (ancient) 14–15, 20–21 settlement patterns (LBA to EIA) 71–73 see also “urban planning (ancient)” Silk Route (ancient) 13 Siteia Archaeological Museum see Palaikastro Kouros slavery in antiquity (material culture) 18 Snake Goddess Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 84 Temple Repositories, Knossos (now Heraklion Archaeological Museum) 87 see also “Baltimore Snake Goddess”; “Boston Snake Goddess” Society of Antiquaries 3 Society of Dilettanti 3 soundscape studies 186–189 South Italian vase painting 133–134 Sparta, British excavations 5 Speculative Realism 174, 179–180 see also “Object-Oriented Ontology” Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) 125, 127 state formation (ancient) 8

213

General Index Strabo see “Strabon” Strabon = Strabo 6, 145–146 structured light scanning 167 see also “digital tools in archaeology” Stuart, James & Revett, Nicholas 3–4 stylus 81, 162, 168 subjectivity see “interpretation” Symphosius 195–196 temple-building, Greek 16, 19–20, 108–109, 118–120 terminology in Classical Archaeology 18 Dark Age versus Early Iron Age 18–19, 63–64, 66–67, 69–71 of ancient glass 20, 139–141 of weaving 189–191 terra sigillata see “pottery, Roman” textile manufacture see “weaving” textual analysis 191–196 The Archaeology Data service (TAG) 64 see also “Digital Humanities” Theatre of Scaurus, Rome 142 The Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) 64 see also “Digital Humanities” Theodoretos = Theodoret, bishop of Kyrrhos 52 Thing Theory 173–176, 180 three-dimensional see “3D” Tiber Valley, Italy 17, 52 Tibullus 193–194 Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum see “Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto” trade (ancient)  13–14, 48–49, 53, 108, 124 see also “pottery, ancient Greek” Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) 127, 131, fig. 5.4 Troia = Troy 5–7, 24–25, 86 see also “Dörpfeld, Wilhelm”; “Schliemann, Heinrich” Troy see “Troia” Turnus see “Aeneis” typologies 6–7, 57, 73–74 United States of America, independence 4 urban planning (ancient) 15 US Southwest Social Networks Project 58

Vasari, Giorgio 3 vase painting see “Athenian vase painting”; Faliscan vase painting”; “Korinthian vase painting”; “South Italian vase painting” Vauquelin, Louis-Nicolas 125 Ventris, Michael see “Linear B” Vergilius = Virgil see “Aeneis” Villa Adriana = Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli 2 Virgil  see “Vergilius” visual theory 7, 15 vitriol 128 Vitruvius 6, 148 Walters Art Museum, Baltimore see “Baltimore Snake Goddess” weaving 21 archaeological evidence for antiquity 184–186 exposure to weaving in Roman households 190, 196–197 heddle/heddle leash 185, fig. 9.4, 192–196 heddle rod/heddling 185, 188–189, 192, 196, fig. 9.4 in literature, Greek 184, 190 in literature Roman 184–186, 189–196 loom weights 184, 186–190, 193–196 process 184–185, 188–189 rhythms and sounds in Roman poetry 21, 189–196 shed change 188, 189, 192, 195; see also “heddle rod” soundscape of 187–195 weaving sword/comb/pin 185, 189–196 see also “loom, two-beam”; “loom, warp-weighted” Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 2–3, 138, 142 Wölfflin, Heinrich 7 Wooley, Leonard 90 workshop structure (ancient) see “labour organisation (ancient)” Wunderkammern 2–3 X-Ray 92, fig. 3.3 X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) see “X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy” X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) 127–128, 133 X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) 92, 126–127, 129, 131, 162, 168