Breaking Boundaries – Connecting the Aegean Bronze Age Proceedings of the 3rd Scapecon Conference, hosted online at the Groningen Institute for Archaeology on 22 and 29 September and 6 October 2020 TMA Supplement 2 2021 TMA supplement 2 (2021) We would like to thank our sponsors: – National Research School for archaeology ARCHON, – the Netherlands Institute in Athens (NIA), – the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (SPHS), – the Groninger University Fund (GUF) for their generous support to these conference proceedings Colofon TMA Supplement 2 (2021) Breaking Boundaries – Connecting the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 3rd Scapecon Conference, hosted online at the Groningen Institute for Archaeology on 22 and 29 September and 6 October 2020 Price: €15,Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie (TMA) is an independent journal that publishes on current archaeological research on the Mediterranean world, carried out by scholars at Dutch and Belgian universities and by Dutch-speaking scholars abroad. TMA works with single blind peer review. TMA Supplement 2 was reviewed by the Scapecon editorial board and the TMA editorial board. Subscriptions: TMA is published twice per year. You can subscribe per mail (address below) and via our website. A subscription costs €20,- (€15,- for students). Subscriptions run from 1 January until 31 December and are automatically renewed, unless cancelled in writing a month before the new year. TMA Supplements are published irregularly and are not part of a subscription on the journal. Contents Sponsors Index Editorial to TMA supplement 2 (2021) Conference programme ii iii v ix Articles Waterbirds and argonauts An ambiguous design on a Late Minoan larnax and its interpretation 1 Julia Binnberg Symbols as social strategy Negotiating change in the Final Palatial Period through glyptic Diana Wolf 7 Breaking ceramic boundaries: formation and change in pottery assemblages during the Middle Helladic period with a special look at the Trapeza settlement (eastern Achaea, Greece) Assunta Mercogliano 15 Bank details: Stichting ter Ondersteuning Oudheidkundig Onderzoek IBAN: NL14INGB0005859344 BIC: INGBNL2A KvK: 41014777 Tracing early Mycenaean ceramic traditions in the Northeast Peloponnese The involvement of Aegina Kolonna Daniel Frank 22 TMA online: – tijdschrift@mediterrane-archeologie.nl – mediterrane-archeologie.nl – rug.academia.edu/ TMATijdschriftvoorMediterraneArcheologie – facebook.com/mediterranearcheologie From origin to deposition: examining the context of Mycenaean finds north of Greece Abby Pendlebury (previously Durick) 29 Address: Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie Poststraat 6 9712 ER Groningen, The Netherlands Editorial board Scapecon 2020: Iris Rom (editor-in-chief), Daniel Turner, Dimitris Filioglou, Francesca Slim, Youp van den Beld Editorial board TMA: Sjoukje Kamphorst, Rian Lenting, Fardau Mulder, Yannick de Raaff, Sandra de Regt, Iris Rom, Tanya Sieiro van der Beek, Caroline van Toor (editor-in-chief), Robin van Vliet, Marcello de Vos, Renée de Vries Advisory board: Prof. dr. P.A.J. Attema (RUG) Prof. dr. G.J.M.L. Burgers (VU) Prof. dr. R.F. Docter (UGent) Prof. dr. E.M. Moormann (RU) Prof. dr. J. Poblome (KULeuven) Dr. W.D.J. van de Put (NIA) Dr. T.D. Stek (KNIR) Prof. dr. M.J. Versluys (UL) Dr. G.J.M. van Wijngaarden (UvA) Cover design: Iris Rom Lay-out: Hannie Steegstra TMA is created in collaboration with Barkhuis Publishing, Eelde ISSN 0922-3312 81999/SOOO How did environmental factors affect the spread of Minoan Thalassocracy? Seasonal changes in winds and currents and their influence on the Minoan exchange networks Dawid Borowka & Effimia Angeli 35 Rhythms of seasonal taskscapes at Early Bronze Age Çukuriçi Höyük Sabina Cveček & Stephanie Emra 42 Contextualising the Late Minoan tombs of Praisos Alexandra Katevaini 50 Investigating the sacred landscape in the Aegean Bronze Age Dimitra Rousioti 56 Introductions to ongoing research SETinSTONE (ERC funded Project) Ann Brysbaert 63 North Cemetery at Ayios Vasileios, Laconia & Ayios Vasileios Survey Sofia Voutsaki 64 → TMA supplement 2 (2021) Introductions continued Ceramic technology and cultural interaction in the Aegean Bronze Age (3000-1100 BC) Jill Hilditch 65 Geraki Project (Laconia) Mieke Prent 66 The Amsterdam Troy Project & The Zakynthos Archaeology Project Gert Jan van Wijngaarden 67 Anchoring mimetic design as a building guide during the Aegean Bronze Age Daniel Turner 68 Into the wild: Hunting in Late Bronze Age Mainland Greece Massimiliano Carbonari 69 Mortuary practices and the expression of social relationships in western Greece during the Middle Helladic period (2100-1700 BC) Iris Rom 70 Farming food for the Mycenaean society: the agricultural potential of the Late Bronze Age (1600 – 1100 BCE) Argive Plain, Greece Riia Timonen 71 The development of visual imagery in prehistoric Greece Theo Verlaan 72 Virtually 3D reconstructing the temple of Dionysus at Thorikos Yannick de Raaff 73 The political geography of Laconia in the Middle and Late Helladic period Youp van den Beld 74 Nederlandse vertalingen van de abstracts Dutch translation of the abstracts 75 Breaking Boundaries Connecting Aegaean Bronze Age scholars in times of a global pandemic It is with great pride that we present you the volume before you: TMA Supplement 2: Breaking Boundaries – Connecting the Aegean Bronze Age. This second supplement in the history of Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie (TMA) is the result of the combined efforts of the TMA editorial team and the Scapecon 2020 conference organisers. Scapecon 2020 & TMA The international conference Scapecon 2020 was originally set to take place in Groningen in March 2020. Since 2018, this event has been organised annually in early spring to connect early career scholars of the Aegean Bronze Age. Previous editions at Heidelberg (Germany) and Poznan (Poland) were a great success, allowing young researchers to share and discuss their research and socialise with their peers from all over the world. The edition in 2020 did not go quite as planned. Less than two weeks before the three-day event was supposed to kick-off, the Netherlands went into lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, eliminating any hope to host the event as planned. At first we postponed the event, in the hope to come together in Groningen at a later date. However, as uncertainties continued, we were facing the choice between either cancelling the event completely or switching to a different format. Having over 20 enthusiastic speakers lined up from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, we decided to go online. In three afternoon sessions in September (22nd and 29th) and October (6th), Scapecon 2020 Online: Breaking Boundaries: Negotiating change in the Aegean Bronze Age took place (see pp. ix-x for the complete programme). Its success was much bigger than we could have imagined: over a hundred people from all over the world signed up and enjoyed interesting papers and lively discussions. Going online proved easily accessible, and while we definitely missed the network aspects of an in-person event, we were happy and grateful so many people signed in and decided to join us. We did not want our initiative to stop with the online conference. After discussing ways in which we could further support the early career scholars of our event, we decided to get a selection of papers ready for publication. Reaching out to the TMA-team to combine our efforts seemed a very natural step. The Groningen-based Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie (TMA) was founded in 1988 with the goal to offer early career researchers of Mediterranean archaeology a podium next to senior academics. TMA is the only Dutch-language scientific journal on mediterranean archaeology and as such, it is primarily aimed at scholars affiliat- ed to Belgian or Dutch universities and at Dutch-speaking scholars abroad. Over the years, however, TMA has organised several English-language conferences following its themed issues. Due to the covid restrictions, such a conference was not an option for 2020. Working together with the organisers of Scapecon 2020 on a supplement offered a beautiful alternative to those conferences. With the combined efforts of the TMA’s editorial team, the enthusiastic Scapecon participants, the Dutch Aegean Prehistory academic community and the generous input from our financial supporters we are proud to now present you this volume with nine selected papers from the congress and twelve research profiles from Dutch researchers. Because TMA Supplements are not part of a subscription on the journal and because the supplement is in English, rather than primarily in Dutch, we decided to make the supplement freely accessible online. About the theme: connecting the Aegean Bronze Age The overarching theme of the Scapecon conferences has traditionally been ‘relational archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age’. This decidedly wide topic allows approaches from many different angles, including (but not limited to) people’s relationships with each other, with the landscape, objects or architecture. In 2020, the focus of the conference was on the flexibility of these relationships. Relationships of people and their material and immaterial worlds are not static; they are subject to continuous adaptation, renegotiation and manipulation, depending on the changing wants and needs of the agents shaping these relationships. This becomes visible in many aspects of the archaeological record, from object-oriented studies on subtle changes in iconography (Binnberg, Wolf) to more visible changes in shape and function of objects (such as pottery and metal) and the spread of these objects over the Mediterranean world (Mercogliano, Frank, Pendlebury). Then there is the impact of the environment (Borowka & Angeli, Emra & Cveček), and the use and (re)structuring of the landscape (Katevaini, Rousioti). The articles in the volume are roughly ordered according to these different perspectives on relational archaeology. As the articles cover not only a broad span of topics, but also a vast area and period, with different chronologies and terms for different regions, we created two figures to aid the reader. Figure 1 provides an overview of the most commonly encountered chronologies of the Bronze Age in this volume, i.e. those of Crete and the mainland. Figure 2 provides an overview of most sites and regions discussed in the various contributions. v TMA supplement 2 (2021) Figure 1. An overview of the most commonly encountered chronologies of the Bronze Age in this volume, i.e. those of Crete and the mainland (figure Iris Rom). About the contributions The volume opens with a contribution by Julia Binnberg, who discusses the Late Minoan equivalent of the rabbit-duckillusion, which is found on a clay sarcophagus (larnax) from Crete. She shows that readers of the image can recognise both waterbirds and argonauts in the decoration on the larnax, and she offers an answer to the question why such an ambiguous design was chosen for a sarcophagus. For the article of Diana Wolf we remain in Crete, in the Late Minoan II-III period. She discusses four iconographic objects (figure-of-eight shields, impaled triangles, plant devices, and double axes) found on hard-stone seals. These objects were held by or engaging with figures in designs from the Neopalatial period, but seem to be ‘floating’ in seals from the Final Palatial period. Wolf proposes that this subtle change may have been adopted as a social strategy to negotiate a claim to power. Moving from iconography to networks of trade, we continue with two studies on pottery assemblages in the northeastern Peloponnese. Assunta Mercogliano presents preliminary insights on a recently discovered MIddle Helladic settlement near Trapeza Hill (see figure 2, no. 19). Mercogliano argues that the continuous use of certain pottery shapes in the settlement can be understood as a con- vi sequence of the settlement’s location. Innovation may have presented itself in more peripheral sites differently. From the Middle Helladic period we move to the Late Helladic period, with a paper by Daniel Frank. Using Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), Frank shows that scientific analysis can go beyond certain limitations of macroscopic analyses. With this, Frank presents a fascinating case of potters from Kolonna (see figure 2, no. 12) continuing to supply a site very close to the rising Mycenaean centres in the Argolid for far longer than would be expected. Next is a contribution by Abby Pendlebury (previously Durick), who discusses the (limited) evidence of Mycenaean objects from modern Bulgaria (see figure 2, nos. 31-34). She presents an exciting example of how absence of evidence (largely due to events in recent Bulgarian history, including the destruction of archaeological sites) should not be interpreted as evidence of absence. For the next two papers we move from objects to seasonal changes, and their influence on the development of trade networks and ways of living. First, Dawid Borowka & Effimia Angeli draw their readers’ attention to the importance of maritime knowledge and navigational techniques. They do so in the context of the Minoan Thalassocracy (ca. 2000-1400 BC). The approximate starting date of the thal- Figure 2. Map with important sites mentioned in the papers of this volume (figure Iris Rom and free vector maps by Vemaps.com). A: Greece – Argolid and Saronic Gulf B: Greece – southern mainland, Cyclades and Crete C: Wider Aegean 1. Mycenae 14. Pylos 31. Bresto 2. Argos 15. Nichoria 32. Koprivlen 3. Dendra 16. Ayios Stephanos 33. Dragoyna 4. Midea 17. Geraki 34. Ada Tepe 5. Tiryns 18. Ayios Vasileios 35. Poliochni (on Lemnos) 6. Lerna 19. Trapeza 36. Troy 7. Katsingri 20. Agia Triada 37. Liman Tepe 8. Asine 21. Mitrou 38. Bakla Tepe 9. Tsoungiza 22. Dimini 39. Çukuriçi Höyük 10. Korakou 23. Pefkakia 40. Agia Triada (on Cyprus) 11. Methana peninsula 24. Agia Irini (on Keos) 12. Kolonna (on Aegina) 25. Phylakopi (on Melos) 13. Athens 26. Akrotiri (on Thera/Santorini) 27. Knossos (on Crete) 28. Malia (on Crete) 29. Phaistos (on Crete) 30. Praisos (on Crete) assocracy corresponds to the first depictions of sails on Crete – something they may have learned from trading with Egypt, where the earliest depictions of sails are at least a millennium older. The study by Sabina Cveček & Stephanie Emra also discusses seasonal changes, but in a very different context. Late Bronze Age zooarchaeological evidence from Çukuriçi Höyük (see figure 2, no. 39) suggests, as the authors argue, that most domestic young animals were slaughtered before the beginning of the winter, rather than being kept until older age to increase wealth. Combining this with anthropological studies on the Baruya (a tribe in Papua New Guinea), Cveček & Emra propose inferences about the social structure of the settlement’s inhabitants. vii TMA supplement 2 (2021) The final two papers discuss examples of inhabitants actively giving meaning to and shaping the landscape around them. Alexandra Katevaini combines modern elevation data with old maps and excavation reports (over a century old) to test the possibility of using these data in contextual analyses. Late Minoan tombs on Praisos (see figure 2, no. 30) constitute the case study for her test. Finally, Dimitra Rousioti presents an overview of results from her recently published PhD thesis on the formation of the religious landscape in the Late Bronze Age Greek mainland and on Cycladic islands. Evidence for Mycenaean sanctuaries is scarce, but by bringing together what evidence there is for a larger region, Rousioti is able to provide a comparative analysis, showing regional differentiation in Mycenaean cultic practices. The volume is complemented with introductions to research projects of both junior scholars and senior staff working on the Aegean Bronze Age in The Netherlands. The final pages of this supplement offer Dutch translations of the abstracts of all nine articles. Thanks We wish to thank several people in aiding us in getting this publication ready for print, especially our keynote speakers viii at the conference, Prof. Dr. Ann Brysbaert (University of Leiden) and Prof. Dr. Sofia Voutsaki (University of Groningen). We would also like to thank our sponsors, National Research School for archaeology ARCHON, the Netherlands Institute in Athens (NIA), the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (SPHS), and the Groninger Universiteitsfonds (GUF), for their generous support in publishing this volume in an open access format, as well as in print. You can find their logos on p. ii. We thank our Scapecon colleagues for reviewing all papers in this volume, and our TMA colleagues for aiding them and for dotting the i’s. Our thanks also go to Adam Wiznura, Daniel Turner and Ineke de Vries for their corrections of the English papers. Finally, we would like to thank Hannie Steegstra, for the amazing job of getting this volume ready for print. We hope you enjoy this supplement! On behalf of the Scapecon organisers and on behalf of the TMA editorial board, Iris Rom & Caroline van Toor Breaking boundaries: negotiating change in the Aegean Bronze Age Conference programme Tuesday 22 September 2020: Session I Moderator: Daniel Turner, PhD Session I: Human relations with their lived space Keynote lecture 1: Prof. Ann Brysbaert (Leiden University) A ‘moving’ story about labour. The taskscape of the Late Bronze Age Argive Plain Stephanie Emra (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna) & Sabina Cveček (University of Vienna) Negotiation and interaction in EBA Çukuriçi Höyük: differing solutions to competing ‘scapes’ with the beginning of rising inequality Dawid Borowka (University of Gdańsk) & Effimia Angeli (Democritus University of Thrace) Environmental aspects of the the so-called ‘Minoisation’ process in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Aegean POSTER: Dimitra Spiliopoulou Life with the help of artificial light sources in the prehistoric settlement of Akrotiri, Thira Tuesday 29th September 2020: Session II Moderator: Iris Rom, MA Session II: Human relations with sacred and mortuary space Başak Ongar (University of Ege) Household archaeology in West Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age Keynote lecture 2: Prof. Sofia Voutsaki (University of Groningen) Towards an archaeology of kinship Piotr Zeman (Adam Mickiewicz University) Entangled Mycenae: case study of a Late Bronze Age palatial town Alexandra Katevaini (University of Groningen) Contextualizing Late Minoan tombs Sarah Hilker (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Beyond the palace: case studies in Mycenaean townscapes Francesca Nani (University of Pisa), Salvatore Vitale (University of Pisa), Calla McNamee (Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Sciences) Building identities: breaks and continuity in construction practices at the prehistoric settlement of the ‘Serraglio’ on Kos Yannick de Raaff (university of Groningen) Experimenting with change: the built tomb of the North Cemetery at Ayios Vasileios, Lakonia Dimitra Rousioti (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Investigating the sacred landscape in the Late Bronze Age Greek mainland ix TMA supplement 2 (2021) Iris Rom (University of Groningen) Negotiating death in the Bronze Age: a view from western Greece Daniel Frank (Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg) Tracing Early Mycenaean ceramic traditions in the north-east Peloponnese Katarzyna Dudlik (Adam Mickiewicz University) Mortuary practices in context. Local idiosyncrasies in search of the Koan identity POSTER: Kilian Regnier Building interactions beyond boundaries during the Bronze Age: the case of the Aegean tripod stone mortar POSTER: Youp van den Beld Understanding socio-political processes through the study of labour investment: the case study of the North Cemetery at Ayios Vasilios POSTER: Todor Valchev The marble pendant from the prehistoric settlement mound Maleva Mogila near the village of Veselinovo, Yambol municipality, Bulgaria Tuesday 6th October 2020: Session III, IV, V Moderators: Francesca Slim, Youp van den Beld, Dimitris Filioglou Session III: Human relations through material culture and art Thomas Mumelter (University College London) Affective fields in Akrotiri’s miniature frieze, Thera Diana Wolf (Université Catholique de Louvain) Symbols as social strategy? Late Palatial hard-stone glyptic as Identity markers POSTER: Anna Filipek One but many. The concept of the great mother goddess in the study of the Minoan religious system in the Bronze Age Session IV: Human relations viewed from material culture Evgenia Tsafou (Université Catholique de Louvain) Identifying the changing function and use of cooking vessels in Minoan societies Assunta Mercogliano (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) Breaking ceramic boundaries: formation and change in pottery assemblages during the Middle Helladic period with a special look at the Trapeza settlement (eastern Achaea) x Session V: Human relations with the economic landscape Giulia Paglione (Sapienza University Rome) Reconstructing the landscape through the Linear B texts: the case of coriander cultivation in Phaistos Anastasia Vergaki (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) Lonesome are hee yes: The depiction of the animals on the Ayia Triadha sarcophagus Abby Durick (Fulbright Student Researcher, Bulgaria) Origin to deposition: the socio-cultural significance of gold provenance studies in the North Aegean and Ancient Thrace POSTER: Jakub Witowski Relation between the form of Aegean swords and modes of use in the light of use-wear analysis – the case of two bronze swords from the Athenian Agora Introduction Virtually 3D reconstructing the temple of Dionysus at Thorikos Yannick de Raaff (MA) Project member of Thorikos Archaeological Research Project (TARP) at Ghent University E-mail: yannick.deraaff@ugent.be Keywords: Mainland Greece, Early Mycenaean period, digital archaeology, 3D reconstructions, Virtual Reality Bio. The fieldwork campaigns at the settlement of Ayios Vasileios – the long-sought palatial settlement in Laconia, Greece – served as my first introduction to Mycenaean archaeology. Naturally, I was captivated by the beauty of the Bronze Age. I am primarily interested in architecture, which I preferably approach through a range of digital archaeological techniques. My interest for architecture and digital archaeology came together for the first time while working on a group project aimed at the reconstruction and architectural design of a Built Tomb from the early Mycenaean cemetery of Ayios Vasileios. The roof of this experimental tomb had collapsed in antiquity and presented the excavators with a complex puzzle of how the tomb was initially constructed. To understand its construction, use and collapse, we applied photogrammetry and Virtual Reality to digitally build and test various hypothesised roof constructions. Our ‘virtual anastylosis’ suggests that the tomb was covered by a cairn of stones that was supported by a number of horizontally placed wooden beams (see figure 1). I recently graduated from the Research Master’s at the University of Groningen. My thesis titled Towards monumentality? Emerging elite architectural complexes on the Middle and Late Helladic Greek mainland discusses the emergence of socio-political differentiation on the Greek mainland from the perspective of settlement architecture. I used legacy data of the settlement of Malthi, Messenia, to conduct an analysis of the interplay between tradition and innovation as visible in architectural practices. My thesis was awarded the Groningen Institute of Archaeology Master Thesis Award 2020. Project. Currently, I am affiliated to Ghent University as member of the Thorikos Archaeological Research Project (TARP) through generous funding of the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Roald Docter, I will virtually 3D reconstruct the temple of Dionysus from Thorikos. It has been excavated in 1886 and again in the 1960s, but the results of these excavations have not been fully published, so the architecture of the temple remains poorly understood. Luckily, however, various decorated architectural terracottas and parts of the cornice are still stored in the Archaeological Museum in Lavrio and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. I will 3D model these objects using photogrammetry and subsequently use them in the creation of a virtual model of the temple to better understand its original form. Recent publications De Raaff, Y.P., Voutsaki, S., Verlaan, T. & Nobles, G.R. forthcoming, “Construction, destruction, reconstruction: the architecture of the built tomb of the North Cemetery at Ayios Vasileios, Laconia” in Competing principalities? Middle and Late Helladic Laconia, (eds.) C.W. Wiersma & M. Tsouli. De Raaff, Y.P., Voutsaki, S., Verlaan, T. & Nobles, G.R. 2020, “Experimentele archeologie in een digitale wereld: een Virtual Reality 3D-reconstructie van Tombe 21 van de noordelijke begraafplaats van Ayios Vasileios (Lakonië, Griekenland)”, De Spieker. Periodiek van de Drents Prehistorische Vereniging, vol. 4, pp. 24-27. Voutsaki, S., Van den Beld, Y. & De Raaff, Y.P. 2018, “Labour mobilization and architectural energetics in the North Cemetery at Ayios Vasilios, Laconia, Greece” in Constructing monuments, perceiving monumentality & the economics of building. Theoretical and methodological approaches to the built environment, (eds.) A. Brysbaert, V. Klinkenberg, A. Gutiérrez Garcia-M. & I. Vikatou, pp. 169-191. Figure 1. Hypothesised use of wooden beams in the Virtual Reality reconstruction of Tomb 21 at the Ayios Vasileios North Cemetery (figure author). 73