Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta

Ústav archeologie a muzeologie Klasická archeologie

Bc. Eva Buchtová

Meaning of dance in the Aegean Bronze Age in the context of the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe

Význam tance v egejské době bronzové v kontextu východního Středomoří a Evropy

Magisterská diplomová práce

Vedoucí práce: Mgr. Věra Klontza, Ph.D.

2018

Affidavit

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the sources listed in the bibliography. This thesis was not used to obtain an academic degree at any other university.

……………

Acknowledgements

My great thanks belong to Mgr. Věra Klontza, Ph.D. for professional supervision over my thesis and mainly for her patience. Also support of other university staff was important for me, no less than support from classmates. This thesis would not be written without the encouragement of my husband and daughter.

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Contents

1 Introduction ...... 7

1.1 The goals of the thesis ...... 7

1.2 Sources and methodology ...... 8

1.2.1 Dance from the perspective of ancient authors ...... 9

1.2.2 History of the research ...... 12

1.3 Question of chronology and geographical borders ...... 13

1.3.1 Aegean region ...... 14

1.3.2 Europe ...... 16

1.3.3 Egypt ...... 17

1.3.4 Near East ...... 18

1.3.5 Geographical borders ...... 18

2 Cultural anthropology of dance ...... 19

2.1 Objectives ...... 19

2.1.1 Definition of dance ...... 20

2.1.2 Biological anthropology: Influence of dance to the human body ...... 22

2.2 Brief history of dance ...... 23

2.3 Relationship between dance and society: general objectives ...... 27

2.4 Modern parallels ...... 30

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3 Meaning of dance in the Aegean ...... 34

3.1 Catalogue of images of dancing activities ...... 36

3.1.1 Protopalatial period in Crete and MH II ...... 36

3.1.2 Neopalatial period in Crete and MH III – LH IIA ...... 40

3.1.3 Postpalatial period in Crete and LH II – LH IIIB ...... 57

3.2 Interpretation ...... 75

3.2.1 Objectives ...... 75

3.3 Statistics ...... 78

3.3.1 Media of the dancing scenes depictions ...... 84

3.3.2 Contextual analyses ...... 88

3.3.3 Objects included in dancing scenes ...... 90

3.3.4 Social categories and their expression on images ...... 93

3.3.5 Bull dance ...... 100

3.4 Evaluation ...... 108

4 Egypt ...... 122

4.1 Introduction ...... 122

4.1.1 Historical background ...... 122

4.1.2 Rules for painting and interpretation of dance ...... 123

4.2 Dance types ...... 124

4.3 Dance and society ...... 132

5 Near East ...... 135

5.1 Introduction ...... 135

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5.1.1 History background ...... 135

5.2 Dance ...... 136

5.2.1 Archaeological remains ...... 136

5.2.2 Iconographic material ...... 137

5.3 The sun cult ...... 143

5.4 Dance and society ...... 145

6 Europe ...... 148

6.1 Introduction ...... 148

6.1.1 Historical background ...... 148

6.2 Egtved dancer ...... 149

6.3 Solar disc and cult of sun ...... 155

6.4 Reconstruction of the Bronze Age dance ...... 156

6.5 Archaeological remains ...... 161

6.6 Dance and society in Bronze Age Europe ...... 162

7 Conclusion ...... 164

8 Resumé ...... 170

9 References ...... 174

9.1 Bibliography ...... 174

9.2 Online sources ...... 194

9.3 Abbreviations and conventions ...... 194

9.4 List of Figures ...... 195

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1 Introduction

To study dance presents my personal need because I am an active dancer in my spare time for many years. The idea to deal with this topic at historical level was firstly realized in my bachelor thesis that deals with Dance in ancient Greece.1 I focused mainly on the types of dances and their illustrations, less on their significance. I decided to modify that approach because I became more interested in the deeper meaning of depictions of dance in connection with society. Dance has a tradition dating back to prehistory, and I have decided to study the Bronze Age because in this period there are various sources of illustrations of dance and it is historically interesting, while complicated era. I primarily focus on the Aegean region in comparison with the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe.

1.1 The goals of the thesis

Studying the dance leads to the better understanding of the human behaviour. The reason, why people danced and why they illustrated it, can be relevant to the historical circumstances. Information gained from the study of dance could be helpful to prove or disprove some of the theoretical models of the organization of the society. The main aim of my thesis is to study the meaning of dance for the Aegean culture in the Bronze Age. Firstly, it is necessary to discuss the ways, how dance could reflect the state of the society, by using cultural anthropology of dance. Next step is to gain and systematize the archaeological and iconographic material related to dance. Those images are interpreted and evaluated statistically. The evaluation of the archaeological context or the type of used material will be included. I propose that there must be a reason why the specific number of artefacts was found in the particular context. On the basis of those analyses, I try to answer the question:

1 Benešová, Eva. Dance in ancient Greece [online]. Brno, 2012 [quoted 2018-02-16]. Available from: . Bachelor thesis. Masaryk University, Faculty of arts. Supervisor Elisabetta Maria Gagetti.

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“What function had dance and its depictions in the Aegean area in the Bronze Age?” In parallel, I connect dance with the society and the historical background. I want to prove that dance and the way how is depicted, mirrors particular social structures, and besides the ritual use, it can be used as a political tool as well.

I will compare the studied region with Egypt, Near East and Europe. These regions will be introduced only briefly because an elaborated study would go beyond the scope of the thesis. I chose only the main features, good for comparison with the Aegean region, and I am aware of the imperfection of such approach. In the separate chapters, I am trying to summarize the meaning of dance in Egypt, Near East and Europe in the Bronze Age. My goal is also to find parallels between examined regions.

Because the beginning of the Bronze Age varies by region, I examined the entire Aegean Bronze Age. Longer time range allows collecting more material to study, from the other regions. The focus on the end of the Middle Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age Aegean is given by the high number of found artefacts and archaeological sources.

1.2 Sources and methodology

Dance cannot be preserved as a tangible artefact. Yet, there are sources that provide information about dance in the Bronze Age. It is crucial to study the iconography, survived on archaeological artefacts and 3-D figurines. The most numerous material depicting dancing in the Bronze Age Aegean is a seals. The other sources were frescoes, pottery, toreutics, or 3-D figurines. Useful are also the findings of musical instruments, organic material (clothing) and architectural structures adapted for dance. All collected archaeological material must be properly classified according to chronology, artefact type, and iconography. Such classification is necessary for subsequent evaluation. Information gained from such sources is interpretative.

To involve the discipline of the Cultural anthropology of dance is necessary as well. It helps to understand the relation between dance and society. It

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involves knowledge about the biological anthropology of dance, ethnic cultural tradition, and modern parallels. But again, a critical approach is crucial.

The study of literary sources was an integral part of the research. Written sources focused on dance from the examined period do not exist. The ancient authors wrote about dance and some information is possible to transfer to the Bronze Age, but with a very critical approach. The study of modern scientific literature is necessary to set the iconography in the historical and social context. Literary sources are discussed in the following two chapters.2

I also try to support that the experimental approach to dance can be valuable therefore I am presenting a chapter documenting my own efforts in this field.

I proceeded as follows:

- Creating an overview of images of dancing dated to the Aegean Bronze Age. - Setting of iconography into historical and social context. Consider the meaning of dance in the Aegean Bronze Age. - Finding parallels from Egypt, Near East, and Europe. - Comparing the meaning of dance between these regions. - Reconstructing of costume and ways of dancing.

Used literature is quoted in footnotes according to the rules of the American Journal of Archaeology. The bibliography is summarized in alphabetical order in chapter 8.1.

1.2.1 Dance from the perspective of ancient authors

Although ancient written sources were not written in the Bronze Age, they provide the useful source of information about dance in the past. Ancient authors described dances practiced during their life or dances that were already very old to them. The

2 1.2.1 Dance from the perspective of ancient authors and 1.2.2 History of the research.

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ancient description of dance could be transferred using the cultural anthropology, with a critical approach, to the Bronze Age.3

Ancient written sources are usually based on oral tradition written down much later, religious texts or text of utility character. People, who have transmitted it from generation to generation and recorded it, were mainly bards or some kind of cult specialists.4 These sources provide descriptions of dances and also opinions of these authors on dance.

Homer, in Iliad, describes dance depicted at Achilles’ shield made by Hephaestus. Youths and acrobats are dancing on the dancing floor with an audience around.5 According to him, it was the pleasant and joyful event. Homer connect this dancing floor to the one made by Daedalus for Ariadne.6 In Odyssey, he writes about dance several times. One of the cases is the description of festivity in the royal houses of Menelaus and Odysseus. Festivity was full of food, drinking, singing, and dancing.7 The double wedding ceremony of daughter and son of Menelaus is also described there. The ceremony involved singing, accompanied by whirling acrobats.8 Wild dance is also mentioned later in Sophocles’ plays, in the 5th century BC, where satyrs perform the energetic leaping dance.9

Xenophon, in the 4th century BC, wrote about Sokrates’s love to dance.10 It proves that dancing was important also for such honourable person. Aristotle believed that dance enhanced aesthetic, moral and intellectual values as well as

3 More in chapter 2 Cultural anthropology of dance.

4 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 256−7.

5 Homer, 1924, book 18, lines 590−

6 Brandstetter, 2015, 262.

7 Homer, 1919, book 1, lines 145−150.

8 Homer, 1919, book 4, lines 5−15.

9 Ormand, 2015, 196.

10 Gray, 2010, 261.

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physical fitness.11 According to Plato, in the 4th century BC, only noble dance was allowed and lascivious dances should not be allowed.12 In accordance with that, Cicero, in the 1st century BC, claims that only mad and drunk people dance.13

Some of the texts are very useful while describing dance itself or story behind that dance. Plutarch, in the 1st century AD, in Life of Theseus, wrote about Theseus’s crane dance on Delos connected to the Knossian Labyrinth. This dance could be the dance with rope and could represent freedom or even return to the life. Also, other authors mention this, for example, Callimachus or Pollux.14 Lucian, in the 2nd century AD, in his book On dancing describes myth in which Rhea was the first dancer and she taught that her priests, the Kouretes. Later, they saved her son Zeus before his father Kronos by dancing and making noise to hide his crying. Lucian wrote about dance very nicely. He says that it is good for body and mind of the dancer and even of the spectator.15

Unfortunately, to collect written sources from the other parts of Europe is not easy due to poorly preserved texts.16 From Near East and Africa, I would mention Egyptian the Book of the Dead, Old Testament, Jewish literature or Arabic literature.17

I consider this overview of ancient authors as sufficient because further analysis of the literature would be beyond the scope of this thesis. From mentioned studied ancient sources I found out that even at those times the opinions about the morality of dance were various. Some authors present dance as an entertainment for performers and spectators and as a very moral activity. They admire acrobatic skills

11 Soar and Aamodt, 2014, 3.

12 Joseph, 2013, 107.

13 Edmonds, 1857, 156.

14 Greene, 2005, 84.

15 Michaelides, 1956, 37.

16 Short mention about dance in Celtic sagas or bible is in chapter 2.2 Brief history of dance.

17 Oesterley, 1923, 11.

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of artists or, in contrary, some authors judge dance for its vulgarity and connect it only with insane people. The perception of dance is subjective, and it depends on specific culture and region. The diversity of opinions is evident at all times.

1.2.2 History of the research

What has been written about prehistoric dance in the ancient times is discussed in the previous chapter. This chapter deals with modern written sources about dance. A quite interesting fact is that despite the attraction and undoubted importance of the topic of dance, no comprehensive study has been written yet. I am not mentioning here a complete list of all works dealing with dance in prehistory and in antiquity but just the most fundamental ones. In the earlier studies is traditionally accepted that dance was primarily of religious significance. The more recent studies also deal with social and political significance.

Probably the first archaeologist dealing with dance was Sir Arthur John Evans. In his books The Palace of Minos at Knossos, in bands I−IV, he discusses iconography of the Minoan world, including dancing scenes, which he mainly connected with religious ritual.18

The most valuable source to me was the dissertation and articles from Senta German.19 She believes that dance in the Aegean was more of a political significance than religious. I personally contacted her to discuss other literary sources. She kindly answered me that all the sources could be found in her dissertation work and generally there is not much literature devoted to the Bronze Age dancing.

Kathryn Soar dealt with the use of circular dances in the Aegean rituals, in connection with historical and social changes.20 Her study is based on the

18 For more information see Evans, 1921, 1928 (parts I and II), 1930, 1935 (parts I and II).

19 For more inforamtion see German, 1999, 2005, 2007.

20 For more information see Soar 2010.

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archaeological remains, like statuettes or paved dancing platforms. Dance in the Prehistoric Aegean is studied also by Christina Aamodt.21 She connects dance mainly with a cult, but she admits that it could be used as a way of maintaining authority as well. These two authors, mentioned above, are redactors of the book Archaeological Approaches to Dance Performance. This book contains several articles about dance from various periods of the Aegean, Near East and Egypt.22 The book contains also an important article about Egyptian dance and its interpretation of iconography, written by Batyah Shachter.23 Yosef Garfinkel is focused on dance in Near East but also on dance in Europe.24 Europe in the Bronze Age is researched by Kristian Kristiansen.25 In his books about Bronze Age society, he often mentions dancing.

I have chosen those authors as the most important because they deal with the interpretation of the iconographic material and they do not neglect the social and historical context. In the other literature sources, used in this thesis, dance is not the main topic and is mentioned only marginally. All authors are listed in the bibliography at the end of this thesis.

1.3 Question of chronology and geographical borders

The Bronze Age represents a very long period of time. Moreover, it begins in each region at a different time. Due to the problematic synchronization, I created a chronological overview of each examined regions. I focused the end of the Aegean Middle Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age, but sometimes it is necessary to include examples from the previous era.

21 For more information see Aamodt, 2014.

22 For more information see Soar and Aamodt, 2014.

23 For more information see Shachter, 2014.

24 For more information see Garfinkel 2003, 2010, 2014.

25 For more information see Kristiansen and Larsson 2005, Kristiansen and Rowlands 2005, and Kristiansen 2011, 2013.

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1.3.1 Aegean region

Determining the absolute chronology of the Aegean region is problematic. The most important historical milestone is the eruption of the Santorini volcano. Its absolute date has several variants, according to used dating methods. Till the 1970s, the Aegean chronology was reconstructed on the basis of the comparison with the Egyptian chronology. According to this comparison method, the year of the eruption was set at 1450 BC. It is the turn of the periods LM IA and LM IB (LH I and LH IIA, after the Shaft Grave Horizon). Radiocarbon dating moved this date to the 17th century BC.26 Radiocarbon data support so-called High chronology while the conventional archaeological data support Low chronology.27 The relative chronology is based on the archaeological material. Sometimes it can be complicated because this material does not always fit into borders of one period.28

In the first table, there is an overview of absolute and relative chronology for all three Aegean regions (Fig. 1). In the overview is mentioned also Cycladic culture. I am not focused on the Cycladic culture because, during the earlier 2nd millennium BC, it has been transformed into Minoan culture.29 The Helladic periodization is obvious from both following tables. A term Shaft Graves Horizon is omitted in the tables. It is the period dated to MHIII–LHI.30 In the second table, there is an overview of the terms of the Minoan and Helladic relative chronology, complete with absolute data (Fig. 2).

26 Klontza, 2014, 111.

27 Cline, 2012, 22.

28 Shelmerdine, 2008, 3.

29 Ibid., 50.

30 Cline, 2012, 330.

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Fig. 1. Chronology of the Aegean Bronze Age. (after: Cline, 2012, 22.)

Architectural Alternative Minoan relative Absolute Helladic relative phases terminology chronology chronology chronology

Prepalatial EM I–MM IA ca. 3100/3000− EH I–MH I −1925/1900 BC

Protopalatial = Old Palaces MM IB–MM II ca. 1925/1900− MH II −1750/1700 BC = First Palaces

Neopalatial = New Palaces MM III–LM IB ca. 1750/1700− MH III–LH IIA −1470/1460 BC = Second Palaces

Monopalatial LM II–LM IIIA2 ca. 1470/1460− LH IIB–LH IIIA2 −1330/1315 BC

Postpalatial = Mycenaean LM IIIA−C ca. 1420/1410− LH IIIB–LH IIIC −1075/1050 BC = Third Palaces

Fig. 2. The Minoan and Helladic chronology (after: Cline, 2012, 14, 2)

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1.3.2 Europe

Two types of chronology are usually used for the European Bronze Age. The first was compiled by Oscar Montelius and it applies only to Scandinavia. The second applies also for Central Europe and was compiled by Paul Reinecke. He developed the periodization system of the Bronze Age phases, characterized by findings from graves and hoards, mostly on the territory of today's Germany. Basic chronology is summarized in the following table (Fig. 3).31

REINECKE NOTE ABSOLUTE MONTELIUS

(Müller-Karpe CHRONOLOGY for Ha)

Early Br A1 Full bronze industries, 2200− I BA axe and daggers in hoards −2000/1950 BC

Br A2 Únětice culture 2300/2200– 2200/1950− I

−1600/1500 BC32 −1600/1500 BC

Br A3 Material later than A2, but not I fully developed into Tumulus BA (or A2/B1)

Middle Br B Tumulus cultures 1500−1300 BC II BA

Br C Tumulus cultures 1500−1300 BC II−III

Late BA Br D Urnfield 1400−1200 BC III−IV

Ha A1−B1 Urnfield 1250−1000 BC IV

Ha B2−B3 Urnfield 1050−750 BC V

Fig. 3. Periodization of Central Europe in the Bronze Age (after: Harding, 2000, 10−18)

31 Harding, 2000, 10−18.

32 Ibid., 725.

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1.3.3 Egypt

The Aegean and the Egyptian chronology (Fig. 4) cannot be synchronized accurately, because the absolute date of Thera eruption in LM I is still the subject of discussion.33 The beginning of the Aegean Late Bronze Age is usually unified with the start of Egyptian New Kingdom.34

Fig. 4. The Chronology of Ancient Egypt. (after: Shelmerdine, 2008, fig. 1.1.)

33 Steiner, 2014, 57.

34 Periodization of the beginning of the New Kingdom has several variants. For more information about this problematics see Kitchen, 1991, Manning, 1988 and Hornung, 2006.

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1.3.4 Near East

The basic periodization of the Near East is divided into Early, Middle and Late period (Fig. 5). In the note are written only the cultures that I mention in the chapter devoted to Near East.35

Relative chronology Absolute chronology Note

Early Bronze Age 3000−2000 BC

Middle Bronze Age 2000−1600 BC Old Babylonian period 2000−1800 BC36

Old Assyrian Empire 2000−1750 BC37

Akkadian III 2112−2004 BC38

Late Bronze Age 1600−1200 BC Hittite culture 1600−1200 BC39

Philistine culture 1500−1000 BC40

Fig. 5. Periodization of Near East (after: Potts, 2012, 558)

1.3.5 Geographical borders

In this thesis, I mostly deal with the territory of Crete and the Greek mainland. I am searching for parallels, connected with dance, in Egypt, Near East, and Europe. Examples from various parts of Near East will be presented. It involves Anatolian plateau, Levant, and Mesopotamia. On the basis of the availability of sources, I deal mainly with the northern part of Europe. The size of the examined region is given by the globality of the Bronze Age.

35 Chapter 5 Near East.

36 Collon, 2003, 98.

37 Meng, et al., 2017, 12.

38 Hasselbach, 2005, 1.

39 Meng, et al., 2017, 12.

40 Garfinkel, 2014, 12.

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2 Cultural anthropology of dance

Anthropology is traditionally divided into four branches: biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology and anthropological linguistics. Archaeology of dance is examining the tangible remains. Because dance has not been preserved as an artefact, except dancing stages, archaeological remains almost do not exist. I devote this chapter mainly to cultural anthropology, which examines similarities and differences among cultures.41 I will present examples of dances of various cultures,42 their meaning, and relation to the society because I want to compare them with the Bronze Age dances. Studying of the relationship between dance and society is crucial to this work. I also take into account biological influence of dance to a human body. I will not deal with anthropological linguistics because I did not find any useful information associated with dancing.

2.1 Objectives

Cultural anthropology deals with observing, describing and understanding of the living societies.43 The combination of archaeology and cultural anthropology allows also examining of extinct cultures. It is possible to compare extinct cultures between each other or an extinct and a living culture.44 In the field of classical archaeology, cultural anthropology is useful as well. It is used, for example, by Harriet Blitzer.45 She published the article about the comparison between the Bronze Age trade using the pithoi for transporting commodities, and the 19th – 20th century AD trade using large storage jars. Another classical archaeologist, who used cultural anthropology, is

41 Ferraro and Andreatta, 2017, 5.

42 It is discussed in chapters 2.2 Brief history of dance and 2.4 Modern parallels.

43 Moore, 1998, 23.

44 Peoples and Bailey, 2011, 110.

45 For more information see Blitzer, 1990.

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Guy Sanders.46 He made the excavations at Panayia field in Corinth and he focused on the Hellenistic period in the confrontation with much earlier Neolithic phase.

I use methods of cultural anthropology in several ways. By studying the reaction of the people/societies to a crisis, I try to describe how dances can reflect the state of society and how it can be mirrored in the art.47 I describe the ancient cultures and their relationship to dance,48 and then I will make the comparison between these cultures.49 For the better understanding of the ancient cultures, I will compare it to the modern ones.50 This examination is necessary because it defends the basic premise of my theses – that dance and its depictions reflect the actual state of the society.

2.1.1 Definition of dance

Although everybody knows what dance is and recognizes it at least in contemporary culture, the one generally accepted definition does not exist. From a number of studied definitions, I mention the following because they represent the main points of view. By using these definitions, I want to explain how dance could be transformed from a natural movement into the political tool. I tried to evaluate these definitions and add mine. I think it is important for the reader to know my perception of dance, and what is the concept of dance in this thesis.

“Dance is the movement for the sake of movement itself.”51

46 For more information see Sanders, et al., 2014.

47 Examples are given in chapters Brief history of dance, Relationship between dance and society in Anthropology part and in Analyses part as well.

48 It is discussed in separate chapters about dance in the Aegean, Egypt etc.

49 I use comparison and analogy continuously throughout my thesis, but mainly in final conclusion.

50 See chapter 2.4 Modern parallels.

51 Shachter, 2014, 17.

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“Dance is seen [by anthropologists] not as entertainment or as a mode of self- expression, but as “an active force in shaping ideas and social life.”52

“Dance has been defined as human behaviour composed of purposeful, intentionally rhythmical and culturally patterned sequences of nonverbal body movements other than ordinary motor activities, where the motion has an inherent and aesthetic value.”53

“Dance is a product of specific people and their social system.”54

The first example defines dance only as heartfelt body movements, the other goes deeper and adds its narrative function. The third definition explains dance as a part of the human behaviour and interaction with and in the society. The last one is important by using the word ‘product’, thanks to which it is better to understand that dance could be also used as a tool. A tool used in the social and political sphere, for transmitting an idea or an ideology. Each society has (produced) its own dance. If it were not, the dances of all cultures would be the same. Even today, people are able to distinguish, for example, Irish dances from flamenco. Dance has a wide range of meanings that I can say that I agree with all these definitions. I define dance as a natural body movement caused by our feelings and emotions. These movements can be also deliberate and corresponding to some rhythm. Dance has the narrative function and could be used as a tool for transmitting information.

52 Soar and Aamodt, 2014, 2.

53 Aamodt, 2014, 47.

54 Ibid.

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2.1.2 Biological anthropology: Influence of dance to the human body

It is scientifically proven that dancing moves have a physiological effect on the body. Everybody can feel this effect, for example, while spinning around. The rotating body movement can even cause trance to some individuals. In the past, this state was a bridge between human and supernatural. This is the reason why it was used in religious rituals.55 The circle has also meaning as the geometric shape. Nowadays it is common, for example, the encircling of ritual objects or places. For example, wedding circle, in various forms, occurs till today. Jewish bride made seven circles around her man, today everybody make the circle around the couple.56

Intensive movements cause physiological changes in the body related to brainwave frequency, level of adrenalin or sugar in the blood. Such changes are related to the state of consciousness and they also have an effect on health, which can be used in healing rituals.57 While dancing, our brain produces dopamine, the chemical that supports our cognitive functions, as memory or making decisions. Another one, serotonin is the one, thanks to which we feel good and supports the production of new brain cells. Noradrenalin helps us to learn new tasks and endorphin is responsible for euphoria and reduces the pain threshold. Physical contact while dancing causes the production of oxytocin and support social bonding.58

All chemical processes mentioned above improve physical and psychological health. Dance therapy has been tested, with positive results, on patients suffering from dementia, cancer, heart diseases, depression and other illnesses, whose treatment does not depend on physical rehabilitation. A complex study about dance therapy was written by Dosedlová.59

55 Garfinkel, 2014, 5.

56 Ibid., 10.

57 Soar and Aamodt, 2014, 2.

58 Hanna, 2014, 39−41.

59 For more information see Dosedlová, 2012.

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Because I am an active dancer, I can feel all the beneficial effects on myself. On the other hand, at times when I am limited to do any physical activity, I also feel negative feelings like frustration and physical discomfort, associated with the withdrawal symptoms. I am sure that in the ancient times these feelings depending on the biological processes in the body were not different and people could use its healing benefits.

I think that these effects can be also used deliberately, to cause a biological and psychological effect on dancers or viewers by a manager of an event. Sometimes, it may have been desirable to get attendants into trance state or just to have the strong emotional impact on them, to strengthen the power and influence of higher class.

2.2 Brief history of dance

Here I want to introduce a brief overview of important and interesting eras in the history of dance. Well-arranged publication on this topic is written by Gayle Kassing.60 In my opinion, exact time and place of origin of dance can’t be determinate, because it is not even accurate to talk about the origin, like in a case of some tangible invention. I would rather say that dance of people evolved concurrently with humans. Dance has become a subject of interest for its universality and its biological nature. It took place in art and in physical activities of people everywhere in the world and probably in every stage of development of cultures.61

There exist sculptures and paintings of dancing people during the whole prehistory. According to the art of prehistoric hunters, dance had a magical function.62 From Upper Paleolithic are known engravings of dancing figures for example from Germany, from Geissenklösterle site in Southern Germany, or

60 See Kassing, 2017.

61 Soar and Aamodt, 2014, 1.

62 Dosedlová, 2012, 21.

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Gönnerdorf.63 From Galgenberg in Austria comes the oldest known so-called dancing Venus. This woman statuette is approximately 31 000 years old, she stands in dancing posture and her left arm is raised.64 To sum it up, during the Paleolithic era, rock art and statuettes in dynamical gestures were the most common mediums used. The dance was bound with some place and served form ceremonies related to harvest, hunt or maybe initiation rites. From the Upper Paleolithic period, there is no evidence about dance in Near East. On the contrary, motives of dance were used in the Neolithic period, and together with the Neolitic diffusion of agriculture were spread to Europe. At that time, preferred media were vessels and artists often used its three-dimensional design. The purpose was probably ritual, linked to the agricultural cycle.65 Cave paintings and engravings originating from the Neolithic period in North Africa are worth the mention as well. Typical hunting scenes and dancing scenes occur on site Tassili n’Ajjer in Sahara desert. The interesting detail is drawing of big rounded heads in the period around 9000 BC.66

To the Bronze Age is devoted main part of this work, so I will not discuss it in more detail in this overview. In ancient Mesopotamia cultures, between the years 3000−331 BC, dance was associated with war or astral mission. Art of Palestine between 1300 BC and 135 AD, combined elements of Egyptian, Cretan and Mesopotamian. Figural motives were forbidden. A special source of dance for this period and place is the Bible. This can sometimes be problematic, because some translations may intentionally omit parts about dance. For example, Bible of Kralice skips parts about dance because the protestant church was suppressing dancing. Texts written by Homer can be considered as sources about dance from the time of Dark Age.67 In the civilization of classical Greece between 750−100 BC art fulfilled a new function, aesthetic. Dance in ancient Greece can be considered a very wide

63 Garfinkel, 2010, 207−8.

64 Andrea, et al., 2011, 291.

65 Garfinkel, 2010, 212.

66 Shillington, 2013, 177.

67 See the chapter 1.2.1 Dance from the perspective of ancient authors.

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topic. It was practiced really abundantly and at several levels, such as religious, competitive, festive or combat and was taught as a part of the lesson.68 This period is called Iron Age in the rest of Europe. Celtic sagas from those times are worth mentioning because thanks to the storytellers we have an idea about their types of dances. One of them - pantomimic dance - was practiced in public and their performers narrated stories through movements, props and masks. Other dances were connected with crop, war or funeral. Most people do not even realize that at least one of the Celtic dance is still in practice today, in a certain variation. For example, Bealtaine dancers danced to bring summer by jumping over flames in masks expressing beasts, to avoid evil spirits. The ritual is usually held during summer solstice at the turn of April and May. 69 Dance at the time of the reign of Roman Empire is very diverse. Even the art was a mixture of Greek and Etruscan. Their customs were spread along with their power and Romanization.70 Pieces of evidence of dance from the period of the migration of nations are known. They were practiced by various tribes, for example the Goths,71 Huns or Lombards.72 Dance also plays role in the Scandinavian art of this period,73 or Byzantine art.74 Dance of Slavs was practiced for the wide spectrum of occasions like harvest, magical healing rituals, honouring the dead or winning battles. Their first dance was probably a variation on a circle dance around some object, accompanied by singing, clapping or stamping.75 Dance in Early Middle Age was not the frequent phenomenon, because society was more concerned with their possessions and struggles. With the rise of Christianity, the perception of dance come to the totally different situation compared to previous

68 Dosedlová, 2012, 38−45.

69 Phelan, 2014, 61−65.

70 Hekster, et al., 2009, 145.

71 For more information see Burns, 1991, 214.

72 For more information see Phillpotts, 2011, 186.

73 For more information see Webster, et al., 1997, 202.

74 For more information see Pevny, 2000, 73.

75 Rinaldi, 2010, 43.

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periods. Roman dances to honour their gods were considered as immoral and unacceptable by Christians. Also, trance dance, as a way of connection between a man and a god, was excluded with Christian dogma. However, some dances were still practiced. For example, Midsummer dance, rural dances or dances involved in mysteries, school religious theatre plays. In the 14th century, when people were suffering from plaque, magical dance ritual to avert illness by joy came back to practice. There are interesting notes about dance of Saint Vitus preserved, describing people furiously dancing in streets and acting like madmen. The curiosity of the 15th century is la danse macabre - dance of death. People were disguised as dead and danced in cemeteries. Faith in healing by dance is noted even at this period and it is included in the ritual in the cult of Saint Paul.76 A dance was an important part of Islamic culture in Mediterranean region in Middle Ages as well. Many occasions, like anniversaries, important events, religious festivals and more, involved dancing. I would like to highlight dance of Whirling Dervishes, which is also practiced till today.77 By the dance Dervishes present circulation of the planets around Sun.78 It also represents Islamic principle of unification and transcendence of the only God.79 I once saw that dance. The dancer is still spinning during the dance and creates creations with the large skirt made from several layers. In 17th and 18th century, dance has acquired social value as a part of education. For example, French follower of the throne had to pass through initiation ritual involving dance. The foundation of dancing academies accelerated the evolution of ballet. On the contrary, to dance in aristocratic circles, common folk dances were not so stiff, and moralists did not like it.80 Nowadays, there are really a large number of dance types, from stiff with strict rules to immoral dances. I think this diversity has always existed and it depends on

76 Dosedlová, 2012, 55−59.

77 İhsanoğlu, 2003, 701.

78 Renard, 2015, 190.

79 Esposito, 2003, 62.

80 Dosedlová, 2012, 61−62.

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people what they actually consider as inappropriate as well. There are also many reasons for dancing and they are not fundamentally different from the original ones.

2.3 Relationship between dance and society: general objectives

At first, I have to remind that dancing is typical only for humans. Animals do not dance. Although sometimes, it may seem that some species, for example, spiders, bees, snakes or some birds, make dance moves. Today, their weird movements are not considered as dance, but ancient and ethnic people believed that they are.81 The interesting idea is that animals do not do anything unnecessary like dancing. So when some moves remind dance, it is only part of their communication skills.82

I have distinguished the topic of interaction between dance and society into two parts to which we can ask the following questions. Firstly “Why people dance?” and secondly “Why it is portrayed and propagated?” Nice summary of these questions is in the publication Archaeological approaches to Dance Performance.

“...the socio-political meaning of dance, and consider the question of what dance can do for society and what we as archaeologists can reconstruct about the society based on that knowledge.”83

Prerequisite for this study is that the society is reflected in its dances. The appearance of dancing activities is a natural reaction of people to some natural or social cause. Simultaneously, natural change usually results in social change. Each ethnic group has its own specifics – place, time, geographic location and physical characteristic.84 There is the term “social drama” for these changes. It is the idiom for

81 Werness, 2006, 125.

82 Copeland and Cohen, 1983, 56−57.

83 Soar and Aamodt, 2014, 2.

84 Rust, 2013, 5.

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organized social events. In other words, it is the active or passive participation in the social activity, responding to some historical crisis of culture. Modern examples could be the rain dance of Americans as a respond to drought, or Spanish running of bulls (so-called Spanish Fiesta) as a part of the transition into maturity. The portrayal of social drama is characterized by typical features as a depicting of a crowd.85 Fact, that dance reflect the society is proved also thanks to the parallel with the other type of art, with music. I agree with Younger,86 who thinks that if music does not reflect social factors, then the music of all cultures would be similar. Human is the one who produces music, which is the embodiment of decisions concerning melody, lyrics or musician. These decisions, spontaneous as well as planned, define the form of resulting music. I believe that the same principle appears in the case of dance. Human decides on the character of dancer, clothing or setting and other aspects.87

Reasons for dancing are variable, which is obvious from the chapter about the history of dance.88 I think it is probably impossible and not necessary to name them all for the purpose of this thesis because my goal is not listing the types of dances. Moreover, I write about various reasons in whole continuously in the whole thesis. It is possible to study the dance in two ways. Firstly, dance as a living phenomenon and biological expression or secondly, dance as an expression of philosophical/ideological, socio-political, economic or characteristics of each society.89

I would also mention that there are differences depending on the purpose of the dance and the audience that the dance is intended for. One example could be ritual dance or prayer when did not matter the quality of dance technique. The other possibility is dancing for an audience. In this case, the dancers could depend on the

85 German, 2005, 13−14.

86 For more infromation see Younger, 1998.

87 Younger, 1998, 43.

88 See chapter 2.2 Brief history of dance.

89 Giurchescu, 2001, 109.

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precision of the dance. Here I would emphasize fact that performers affect an audience, sometimes even deliberately. I believe also that situations when people danced only for fun always and worldwide existed, but this fact is impossible to investigate. Here I will mention at least some of the reasons for dancing in non- literary cultures. My ideas are illustrated in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6. Reasons for dancing in non-literary cultures. (after: Kassing, 2017, Fig. 1.1)

One of the main goals of this thesis is to answer the questions: “What function had dance and its depictions in the Aegean area in the Bronze Age?” In connection with this question, I would like to introduce few articles focused on the deeper subtext of images of dancing. Two articles have been written by Robert Laffineur.90 He wrote that the major parts of scholars have the same opinion, that social status can be expressed by iconography. One article from Brigitte and Erik

90 See Laffineur, 1992 and Laffineur, 1990.

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Hallager91 deals with the comparison of interpretations of illustrations. They compare the interpretation of the dance and bull leaping. They highlighted the bull as the symbol of the Knossian power. The last example is the doctoral thesis of Alexandra Alexandri.92 The important idea is that art could be used not only as a decoration but also as the deliberate propaganda and strengthening the authority beyond these depicted dancing activities.93

When interpreting an image, we also need to take into account whether it is formal or informal art. As well as it is necessary to count with more aspects than the image itself. That could include archaeological context, which type of object was used for this image or period, in which it was used.

In the end, I would highlight that in this thesis I am not dealing with types of dance and dance choreography, because it is beyond the scope of the diploma thesis. I focus on the meaning of dance and its connection with the society. I use types of dance and dancing movements only as the additional information.94

2.4 Modern parallels

In this chapter, I try to introduce some examples of dance as a mirror of society from the modern times. This use of the cultural anthropology in practice could help to understand how the societies were reflected in their dances in the past.

Let’s start with the question, how dance can be dangerous to the political system. The reason is that dance is a social event, where people are grouping, which always makes the community stronger and more integrated. It is common knowledge

91 Hallager, 1995, 549.

92 See Alexandri, 1994.

93 German, 2005, 15−16.

94 I use it in chapters Scheme of dancing steps or in Egtved dance.

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that during the totalitarian regimes, often public events were banned, just for this reason.

In Asia, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Chinese Communist army occupied Nanking and Yangtze Valley. They introduced Yang Ko dance to the adjacent cities. The meaning was the transformation of the society into their way of thinking. Later, the Chinese government used the European ballet as a message that they made the step forward and these regions are equal. Ballet for Russians was the symbol of elegance and patriotism.95

In the United States of America and Canada, Sundance was the ceremony practiced by indigenous people and involved also voluntary bodily self-harm. This dance was banned by the Bureau of Indian Affairs edict in 1883 till the 20th century because the government desired the transformation of the Lakota people and they were afraid of their assembly at the ceremony.96 Other dances, like the Rain dance or the Ghost dance, are related to this. After the bloody incident between white men and Native Americans, their dances began to mirror relationship and tension between them. At the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, Native American dances were allowed only within theatre performances.97

From America comes another provocative dance. It is Charleston and it was danced at the beginning of the 20th century. For the older generation, it was not easy to see women dancing alone such eccentric dance. For example in the Soviet Union was this dance considered as the demonstration of bourgeois luxury or at London, it was banned.98

Some dances were banned because they were too bold for the decent society. In my opinion, it means that it would be desirable that people obey and adapt to the

95 Hanna, 1987, 138.

96 Feraca, 2001, 10.

97 Fuhrer, 2014, 17.

98 Batchelor, 2008, 281.

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system, and do not resist it. Among these dances could be the twist,99 with which I have the personal experience when one very old lady at my friend’s wedding was shocked by the way how today young people have fun. We danced twist, which was forbidden for her in her young life experience.

One of the European provocative dances was jazz, connected with the World War I era because he symbolized an upheaval strengthened by knee-length skirts or women in men’s coats with cigarettes. Many countries have a problem with that and for example, in Italy, it was banned in 1926.100

Dance pointing to the social status of people in the 19th and 20th century, was the European waltz because people used to organize the ball in their own houses. But dance itself was available also for the lower class. Class barriers were breaking down and social dances were accessible to all. Except that, it symbolized women’s equality because they can dance in pair dance with a completely strange man.101

Greek war dance called Pentozali was performed by warriors and had the slow and fast version. The fast one served to maintain their physical condition to enemies because it included jumps, high kicks, and fast movements, which men repeat after their leader. In general, this dance symbolised revolution against conquerors and occupation, because Greeks were in this situation several times.102 About this dance, much has been written in the past. It very likely evolved from ancient Pyrrhic dance.103 As the inventors of weapon dance are in mythology considered Dioskourous, in other words, The Divine Twins, Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux for Roman people).104 On the contrary, Lucian wrote that Pyrrhos, son of

99 Knowles, 2012, 13.

100 Jackson, 2003, 71−72.

101 Knowles, 2012, 179−180.

102 Krētē: Monthly Publication of the Pancretan Association of America, 2006, 25.

103 Fielding, 2013, 98.

104 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 264.

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Achilles, was a good dancer and it is said he invented war dance pyrrhiccos.105 In general, purposes of war dance can be to unify society, encourage solidarity and to create a feeling of strength.106

Previous examples were rather of the political nature. From dances as a natural reaction to circumstances with no purposeful side intentions, I would mention festivals celebrating the end of harvest and vintage, which are known from the ancient times. Dances were included, mostly in connection with fertility, with a plenitude of crops. Continuation of this tradition is happening not only in modern Greece107 but all over the world.108

From this overview, it is clear that dance relates to the state system and the situation in politics. I gave some examples of dances forbidden by the government, as well as those which were supported. I chose these exact examples because they fit well into the context of this whole thesis. The government support may take the form of granting of funds for dance teachers, sponsoring competitions or providing spaces for performances. As the specific example, I can mention strong support of folk dance of Ukraine and Russia by USSR after World War II.109 Especially folk dances could be considered as a part of national identity, other dances, I think, were created with a particular intent. Unfortunately, I found out that pieces of evidences about folk dances from the Bronze Age are not nearly preserved. Apparently, they had no reason to record these dances at the same or greater extent than other socially significant dances. And how this parallels works in this study? If modern dances, which are safely known, express something about dancers, society, economy etc., why dances from the past could not have the same predictive value.

105 Michaelides, 1956, 37.

106 Aamodt, 2014, 47.

107 Oesterley, 1923, 156.

108 For example, from Africa see Asante and Mazama, 2009, 305, or from Asia see West, 2010, 357.

109 Nahachewsky, 2011, 112.

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3 Meaning of dance in the Aegean

I would like to begin this main chapter by introducing schema of dancing steps in the Bronze Age. By examining of dancing scenes it is possible to recognize dancing moves. At figures we can distinguish several positions of arms, which are repeated. German (2005) made a brief schema of these seven figures (Fig. 7). Pose A, upper arm in front of body, lower behind, as at fruit stand from Phaistos, is the most frequent (Fig. 10). In pose B, shown on Isopata ring CMS II3.51, both arms are in front of body (Fig. 58). Pose C, captured in seal CMS II7.17, shows figure with arms at hips (Fig. 41). At Aidonia rings we can see pose D, on which only one arm is at hip, second is down (Fig. 68, Fig. 69). Both arms lifted up is called pose E, shown at seal CMS I.162 (Fig. 62). For both arms low at one side is used term pose F, on V.Sup.IA.178 (Fig. 27). Pose G (both arms down along the body) is unordinary, engraved on CMS I.132 (Fig. 64).110 I think that categorization of moves is very useful for simple describing an image and for clarity of dancing positions. I agree with this scheme and it I will be used for description of dance in the catalogue of images of dancing activities.

I am not sure if German had some inspiration for creating such a schema or not, but she is not the only one who tried to reconstruct the dancing moves typology, the single features of the choreography according to the art. For example Yosef Garfinkel focused on dance gestures depicted in Neolithic art all over the world (village communities of the ancient Near East and southeast Europe, Predynastic Egypt, Valcamonica Valley in North Italy, Zuoijang river valley in China, Australia and more) and he made scheme of gestures of arms (Fig. 8), legs and even a combinations that usually occurs. He admits that dance involves jumps, turns or many transitional states, but movements of arms and legs are fundamental.111

110 German, 2005, 56.

111 Garfinkel, 2003, 28−34.

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We should not underestimate movements of arms and hands, because we can see the importance of this even in modern dances as Chinese classical dance with long sleeves or Indian hand gestures, called mudras.112

Fig. 7. Diagram of dance steps. (after: German 2005, 56)

Fig. 8. Scheme of the Neolithic arm gestures. (after: Garfinkel, 2003, fig. 2.1)

112 Aamodt, 2014, 50.

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3.1 Catalogue of images of dancing activities

This chapter presents the main illustrative images of dancing activities (dance and procession), depicted on various media from Aegean islands and on the Greek mainland. There are presented in chronological order. Each example is illustrated113 and the depicted scene described in detail.

For the completeness of information, I want to mention the only example of Early Cycladic period. At Korphi t’Aroniou on Naxos was found marble plaque with three male figures probably in circle dance with their arms held high and legs apart (Fig. 9).114

Fig. 9. Dancing figures on the marble plaque from Naxos. EC period (after: Goodison, 1989, fig. 49g)

3.1.1 Protopalatial period in Crete and MH II

From the protopalatial period, the earliest representation of dance is painted on ceramic open bowl found in Crete in palace of Phaistos, in the room opening out onto the West Court of the Old (or First) palace (Fig. 10). Painting shows three

113 I tried to find a quality image to each presented item, and it was not easy in some cases.

114 Marankou and Zapheiropoulou, 1990, 113, 116.

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women: the lateral two wear petal-shape tunic and hold dancing pose A.115 Central figure wears dress starting just below head and conically shaped. It is flanked by little loops what remains the Minoan Snake Tubes known from Snake Goddess household shrines.116 Rhythmic movements and an interaction in gestures between figures are clearly recognisable. Shape of bowl is used for emphasizing dynamics of two lateral women whilst middle figure is static.117 Between them is drawn a lily blossom. The interpretation of lily is given in the chapter Analyses. Conventional interpretation is dance of two dancers around a goddess (or priest), maybe in honour of The Snake Goddess.118 Except this plate from MM II there was found fragment from a second plate with similar motif.119

Fig. 10. Goddess and dancers painted on the open bowl, Phaistos. MM II. (after: Branigan, 1993, Fig. 7.12)

From the same period and also from the same room comes ceramic so called fruit stand (Fig. 11) with dancing women placed on upper and also lower plate. Dancing poses are very similar to those on the bowl mentioned above. On upper plate, woman in the centre holds E position, hands up, and moreover holds lilies.

115 German, 2005, 58.

116 Minoan snake tubes are ritual objects with symetrical loop handles served as stands for offering kalathos. Plenty of them are dated to LM, but such object was used even earlier, in MM period. For more information see Gessel, 1976.

117 Branigan, 1993, 137.

118 Immerwahr, 1990, 33.

119 Goodison, 1989, 29.

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Women by her sides hold A position. On lower part of the vase, four women hold C position, hands on their waist. All of them have similar dressing, long skirt or dress; lower figures wear petal shape dresses. Interpretation is similar as for the previously mentioned vessel, epiphany of the goddess and votaries. Around the rim are also small figures in bend position, probably worshipers.120 Dancers are probably shown with bird heads, which is another symbol of ritual scenes.121

Fig. 11. Reconstruction of the painted fruit stand from Phaistos palace. On the right is the detail of the upper plate, depicting dancing scene. Protopalatial period. (after: Barber, 2013, fig. 20.06)

There are also examples of glyptic art from this period. Unfortunately the motif of dance is not clear and it is being questioned. First one is serpentine lentoid seal from the Old Town of Gournia (CMS II3.236; Fig. 12) dated to Early MM I122. Two figures probably hold sabre there, which is also interchangeable with salutation.123 However women are also shown here, so I think that the procession is

120 Immerwahr, 1990, 34.

121 Goodison, 1989, 49.

122 Senta German, 2007, 38, classified it into neopalatial period, even though she dates to MM I period. I prefere to move it into previous period accordign to relative chronology.

123 German, 1999, 280.

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more probable. More notes about sword dance are in part Analyses. From the mainland I introduce here a gold ring from tholos grave at Pylos dated to MH II (CMS I.292; Fig. 13). According to bibliography, we see here cult scene with adorants. In this case I think they are rather the dancers.124 I mention more about confusions of meanings also in the chapter about identification of images in part Analyses.

Fig. 12. Seal from Gournia with women, probably in a procession. Early MM I (after: CMS II3.236)

Fig. 13. Gold ring from Pylos depicting dancers or cult scene with adorants. MH II (after: CMS I.292)

124 Sakellariou, 1964, 329.

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3.1.2 Neopalatial period in Crete and MH III – LH IIA

In the Neopalatial period also the vast majority of images of dance come from Crete, with a few exceptions from the mainland. This time artefacts are tot made only from pottery, but dancing scenes are present on various media as seals or plaster walls.125

Let’s start with frescoes, on whose the depicted positions remaining dance are visible. The most valuable frescos are undoubtedly the Sacred Grove fresco and the Dance fresco (Fig. 14) dated to MM IIIB/LM IA. This famous fresco was discovered by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos palace. It was fallen on late basement’s floor of small room at the north end of the central court.126 Evans began with using it as a pattern, while he described it and compared it to other similar images, so it served for identification of dancing figures displayed on other media. Lower level of the fresco is significantly damaged, yet we can draw the following facts. Background of the scene is blue. From the remains we can count fourteen women in the same clothing. They wear varicoloured, multi-layered and up to ankles skirts. The upper part of their garment is short bolero jacket with open breast. Overall impression is very spectacular. Upper level, separated by line of bricks probably indicating pavement or wall, shows a grove. Among the women, similar to those of the lower part, there are men, differentiated by dark skin. They wear loin cloth with light belt around waist and light collar around neck. At the top of the scene are painted male hands with light wristband. The most frequent position of arm is the pose A when one hand rose up in front and the other down and behind, or the pose B when both hands are pointing forward the body.127

Second dancing fresco of this era, more precisely from LM IB, is called Goddess in nature and comes from Hagia Triada, particularly from room 14 of the

125 German, 2005, 59.

126 German, 1999, 279.

127 Evans, 1930, 67.

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east wing of the villa (Fig. 15).128 The Lady in the middle is considered as a goddess despite the lack of common recognition elements like presence of supernatural attendants or enthroning. Whether she is human or divine, the entire fresco is of religious content. It is supposed for example by presence of lilies.129 Features proving her divinity just may not have been preserved. On the contrary, what is preserved is her body. She has body leaning forward, slightly bent knees, and her hands pointing upward, crooked in elbows. Also dressing, same as on previous fresco, indicates that she is in dance position. When sitting, she should have a more bent body and a different arm and head position. Those are the reasons why I support an opinion that she is painted while dancing a dance related to religion. Very similar pose is depicted also on seal from Vapheio about which I will write below (Fig. 28). Scene is complemented by farther architectural structure. In my opinion it may be a stepped platform or a shrine. On the left part are animals.

Less known dancing fresco comes from the island of Keos, from Hagia Irini. Exact location of fragments of the miniature fresco of the town with inhabitants is North-east Bastion. From fifty men, who have dark skin and sharp profile, six are dancing and from six women, who are painted pale and with soft profile, two are dancing. Behind them is prepared place for dancing and according to the position of dancers it is rather dance in the row than in the circle (Fig. 16). Some men have open mouth, maybe because they are singing and they hold dancing position of arms. Four men and women have a direction to the left; for the other two it is not obvious. A sharp profile of men and their dressing into short chiton and one with kilt is not typical for Minoan art but rather for Mycenaean. Women’s skirts are not common and they have parallel for example on Hagia Triada sarcophagus (Fig. 49). Something like a caricature of naked man (Fig. 17) could be put into context with the dancing scene in a religious significance. Part of the whole fresco occupies scene of male procession with objects (Fig. 18). At least nineteen men in himation-like clothing are moving at both directions, some have pole over shoulder. One of them,

128 German, 2007, 37.

129 Chapin, 2004, 58.

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on image under number 73, has hands in religious gesture typical for Minoan art. Their garment, long himation without chiton underneath is not typical clothing in Aegean art.130 Composition of scenes was very likely composed of dancers in the centre, procession moving towards them and viewers. It seems that the depicted event has religious overtone.131 Dating of this miniature fresco from North-east bastion can be established into LM IB/LH II132, the period of destruction of Minoan sites.133

The only mainland fresco of MH III−LH IIA period is procession fresco from Kadmeia at Thebes, Room N, and House of Kadmos (Fig. 19).134 At the same time it is generally considered to be the earliest mainland procession fresco.135 It is dated to LH II period. Scene is counting at least nine, at most twelve life-sized women, carrying lilies, pyxides, poppy flowers, cup and jewellery136 in poses B or D, they wear polos-crowned hairstyle usually worn by priestess.137

130 Abramovitz, 1980, 57−59.

131 Abramovitz, 1980, 68.

132 Aamodt, 2014, 52.

133 Weisman, 2008, 56.

134 For more information see Reusch, 1948−49.

135 Harlow, et al, 2014, 256−7.

136 Interpretation of objects involved in the process is given in chapter 3.3.3 Objects included in dancing scenes.

137 German, 2007, 39.

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Fig. 14. “The Sacred Grove and Dance” fresco from Knossos. MM IIIB/LM IA (after: Evans, 1930, pl. XVIII)

Fig. 15. Dancing goddess in nature, Hagia Triada fresco. LM IB (after: Panagiotopoulos, 2012, fig. 36)

Fig. 16. Dancing men and women, fresco from Hagia Irini, Keos. Beside number 62 is a man in kilt and beside 63 is detail of a women’s skirts. LM IB−II/LH II (after: Abramowitz, 1980, pl. 4.a)

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Fig. 17. Caricature of a naked man on fresco from Hagia Irini, Keos. LM IB−II/LH II (after: Abramowitz, 1980, pl. 4.b)

Fig. 18. Man procession with objects on fresco from Hagia Irini, Keos. LM IB/LH II (after: Abramowitz, 1980, pl. 4.c)

Fig. 19. The procession fresco from Kadmeia, Thebes. LH II (after: Nagy and Dadian, 2017, fig. 10)

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Temple at Hagia Iriny in Keos shows elements of Minoanization as in art, as in pottery production. Nearly fifty terracotta statues (Fig. 20) dated to MM III−LM IB/LH II, of dancing women in Minoan-like dresses were found there. Their costumes are decorated by the girdle around their waists and garlands around their necks. Similar statues are known also from the minoan Neopalatial Shrine at villa of Kannia/Gortys.138

Another example of Neopalatial pottery with depicted dance scene is a clay sculpture from Kamilari cemetery. Similar artefact was found at Palaikastro. Kamilari A tholos tomb is situated three kilometres west from Phaistos. A tomb is unique by presence of wooden beams and mud-brick.139 It is quite large (7,65 m in diameter) and it is dated to MM I−III, re-used in LM.140 Here was found a clay model of men set in circle dance known as “Kamilari dancers” (Fig. 21). It is dated to MM III. Four men, who are except hat, are naked. It has been supposed that the scene can plausibly represent an initiation rite.141

Fig. 20. One of the terracotta statues of dancing women from Hagia Irini, Keos. MM III−LM IB/LH II (after: Aamodt, 2014, fig. 2)

138 Aamodt, 2014, 49.

139 Branigan, 1993, 50−51.

140 Ibid., 144.

141 Aamodt, 2014, 51.

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Fig. 21. Dancing figures from the Kamilari cemetery. MM III (after: Branigan, 193, fig. 7.6)

To this period belongs also one steatite vessel, so called Harvesters vase from Minoan palace complex at Hagia Triada (Fig. 23). On this vase dated to LMI are men in procession, singing and playing a seistron.142 Because there are young men led by older man, it might be an initiation ritual as well.143

To this period belongs one special toreutics product bearing dance motif. In the building nearby the Mallia temple was found sword with a gold hilt, into which an acrobat was shaped (Fig. 22). Such sword, which was made about MM III, could have served for ceremony or for ritual sword dance.144

Fig. 22. Gold sword hilt with an acrobat, Mallia. MM III (after: D’Amato and Salimbeti, 2013, 27)

142 Younger, 1998, 2, 8.

143 Aamodt, 2014, 51.

144 Castleden, 2002, 92.

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Fig. 23. Procession on steatite Harvester’s vase from Hagia Triada. LM I (after: Kleiner, 2010, fig. 4-14)

The following paragraphs are devoted to seals and sealings. In first part I sum up seal impressions from Hagia Triada, more precisely from Stanza dei sigilli (room of seals) in the NW upper floor. The one, which was printed six times in clay medium is dated in LM IB, and bears motif of two women in dancing pose (CMS II6.13; Fig. 24). The original medium is ovoid seal, possibly a golden ring. Two slim women dressed in wide skirt or dress and wearing high hats on their heads hold one hand up before their bodies and second down behind. Their arms look gracefully and hips looks like swaying to the rhythm in pose A, which is also considered as the most common figure of the period.145 Similar scene as we see on the fruit stand of the previous period (Fig. 11) is on the seal impression, coming probably from LM IB ring, (CMS II6.1; Fig. 25). It also shows three women, here in poses C. The middle one is larger than others, and all of them are having hands on their hips. Besides, this scene shows a piece of architecture, because women move on paving and there is also a built structure in background.146 In my opinion it is well recognisable that their skirts are turning because its layers are flowing. Even position of arms is good for rotation. More impressions coming from the same place are described in the

145 German, 1999, 280.

146 German, 2005, 60.

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following paragraphs about processions (CMS II6.10; Fig. 31; CMS II6.9; Fig. 32 and CMS II6.11; Fig. 33).

As interesting artefact I find so called ring of Nestor (CMS VI.277; Fig. 26). It was found at tomb of Nestor’s Pylos and according to its decoration it was classified in MM III−LM IA.147 It was also said that it was a fake, but not only Evans defended its veracity. He concluded scene as a Minoan paradise with male, female and griffin female dancers. Scene involves also lion as guardian of the underworld according to Egyptian mythology, couple together again after death and even, as Evans wrote, dancing goddess, which is also parallel to Egyptian funerary scenes.148

Fig. 24. Dancing women on seal impression from Hagia Triada. LM IB (after: CMS II6.13)

Fig. 25. Three females are dancing in front of some architecture structure on seal impression from Hagia Triada. LM IB (after: CMS II6.1)

147 Evans, 1930, 145−146.

148 Marinatos, 2015, 80−84.

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Fig. 26. Dance depicted on Minoan Ring of Nestor, Pylos. MM III−LM IA (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 104)

Here, I would like to present examples of a dancing pair and a solo dancer. Such oval seal impression was found at Chania Kasteli, Katre street 10, a settlement dated to MM III/LM I. It depicts two women facing each other in pose F (V.Sup.IA.178; Fig. 27). Again, some architectural structures are visible behind them.149

Solo dancer is depicted on seal coming from the tholos tomb at Vapheio, dated to LH II, (CMS I.226; Fig. 28). Dancing woman wear decorated skirt, her breast is exposed and she holds a stick. This type of skirt indicates her religious status.150

Fig. 27. Women daning in pair on seal impression from Chania. MM III/LM I (after: CMS V.Sup.IA.178)

149 German, 2005, 56.

150 Aamodt, 2014, 48.

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Fig. 28. Solo dancer with religious status on seal from the tholos tomb, Vapheio. LH II (after: CMS I.226)

Processions are represented in glyptic art of the Neopalatial period. At Mallia settlement was found seal from MM III bearing motif of procession composed of three women (V.Sup.IA.58; Fig. 29). From Zakros House A which belongs to storage/administration context room 7, comes several impressions as well. On the one of them there are two men carrying double axe151 and object remaining shield while having dance position, maybe D (CMS II7.7; Fig. 30). Similar scene as the previous mentioned comes from Hagia Triada from Stanza dei sigilli (The Room of seals) but instead of two men there are one man and one woman holding double axe again, in poses E and B. Significance of this motif is debated in chapter Analyses. Movements are highlighted by swaying of women skirt (CMS II6.10; Fig. 31). On the other impression from the same place, there are two men and one woman, who are moving in the procession carrying unidentified objects. Body position indicates walking to the left direction with arm gestures B, C and D. This oval imprint was - may be - caused by a ring (CMS II6.9; Fig. 32). Last example from the same room is an oval impression, perhaps from ring, and shows figures in procession holding objects, including sword,152 in gestures that looks like C pose (CMS II6.11; Fig. 33). On other seal impression from Zakros is an example of type of procession, when

151 Interpretation of double axe is given in chapter 3.3.3 Objects included in dancing scenes.

152 Interpretation of sword is given in chapter 3.3.3 Objects included in dancing scenes.

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people are carrying objects toward a sitting person. Here one woman holds vessel while having arms in pose B, the other one is sitting (CMS II7.8; Fig. 34).153 Except the first one, all previous examples are dated to LM IB period.154

Fig. 29. Woman procession on seal from Mallia. MM III (after: CMS V.Sup.IA.58)

Fig. 30. Man procession on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.7)

Fig. 31. One man and one woman in a procession on seal impression from Hagia Triada, Stanza dei sigilli. LM IB (after: CMS II6.10)

153 German, 2005, 61.

154 German, 2007, 38.

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Fig. 32. Two men and one woman in a procession on seal impression from Hagia Triada, Stanza dei sigilli. LM IB (after: CMS II6.9)

Fig. 33. Procession on seal impression from Hagia Triada, Stanza dei sigilli. LM IB (after: CMS II6.11)

Fig. 34. Procession leading to a sitting person on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMSII7.8)

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An example of a seal impression with imprint of procession that does not come from Crete, but from the mainland, is gold ring from the Acropolis Treasury at Mycenae, south of the Grave Circles, within the ruins of the Rampen Houses (CMS I.17; Fig. 35). Estimated dating is Early LH II. There are two women approaching the third one, seating under a tree. All of them are in pose D and carry double axe and poppy in their hands. Exceptional detail is presence of three distinctly smaller figures, two women and one man with shield. It is not clear what exactly the purpose of this procession is.155

Fig. 35. Procession leading to a sitting person on a gold ring from Mycenae. Early LH II (after: CMS I.17)

From the Neopalatial period is known an interesting group of seals and sealings showing processions, during which the participants do not hold anything in their hands. It is only small group, which almost do not continue into the next era. Examples depicting men are sealings from Zakros, they are similar to each another (CMS II7.15; Fig. 36; CMS II7.13; Fig. 37; CMS II7.14; Fig. 38). Placement and date is again House A and LM IB as previous Zakros artefacts. An interesting fact is that all of the depicted persons are in C position. They even move to the same direction and wear the same type of clothing. Another example is serpentine lentoid

155 German, 2005, 61.

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seal from Nerokourou, northern portion of Minoan Villa. It is classified into MM III−LM I (CMS V.Sup.1A.186; Fig. 39). Depiction of a group of women is special due to the pavement under their feet. Moreover, their clothing - long skirt and sophisticated jacket - is clearly visible. Another type of procession is that in which participants do not hold the same position of arms. Well visible it is on the seal impressions from Zakros dated to LM IB like all previous examples from the same site (CMS II7.16; Fig. 40; CMS II7.17; Fig. 41) where man and woman walk in the same direction, but she has her hand on her hips in pose C and he before him in pose B.156

Fig. 36. Men in procession with empty hands on sealing from Zakros. LM IB(after: CMS II7.15)

Fig. 37. Men in procession with empty hands on sealing from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.13)

156 German, 2005, 62−63.

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Fig. 38. Men in procession with empty hands on sealing from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.14)

Fig. 39. Women in procession with empty hands on seal from Nerokourou. MM III−LM I (after: CMS V.Sup.1A.186)

Fig. 40. Procession, in which participants hold arms differently, on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.16)

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Fig. 41. Procession, in which participants hold arms differently, on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.17)

Last is example of a seal with scene where the motif of dance can be questioned. It comes from LM IA−B Crete, from the House of the Frescoes at Knossos, and it is the cushion type seal made from serpentine. Scene shows two women on it hold an A dance position, but if scene is purely static, someone can interpret that as females in pose of salutation157 or just with hands up (CMS II3.17; Fig. 42).158 I am inclined to assertion that it is a dance or procession, because I do not know circumstances under which women should salute.

Fig. 42. Saluting people/adorants/dancers on seal from Knossos. LM IA−B (after: CMS II3.17)

157 German, 1999, 280.

158 Platon and Pini, 1984, 20.

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3.1.3 Postpalatial period in Crete and LH II – LH IIIB

During the postpalatial period in contrast with previous era, there was a number of dancing and procession scenes found this time on the mainland.

Firstly, I introduce wall paintings which excel among the illustrations of the LH II−LH IIIB. They usually perpetuate people of both gender carrying objects in procession. Following examples of procession frescoes are all from palatial environment.159

At the palace of Nestor at Pylos were preserved remains of procession frescoes. Such decoration evokes that some communal feasting could have been held there. This theory is supported by the fact, that a lot of potteries, mainly cups, were found there, even up to 6000 pieces.160 Procession here is the most common motif among the frescoes. I chose three examples. One fresco, depicting procession with mighty bull in the middle, remained at the wall of the vestibule of the megaron (Fig. 43).161 Fresco is dated to generally LH III.162 The remains of destroyed frescoes were found on plaster dump on northwest slope of the palace. One shows men in miniature fresco from LH IIB (Fig. 44). They are less than life-sized and they are carrying objects in pose B. The other from LH III shows women equal proportions carrying objects in pose A/G (Fig. 45). 163

In Mycenae in House of the Oil Merchant, it was found a small procession fresco. It may be part of a previous building dated to LH IIIA because it was hidden beneath the floor of the main corridor. It depicts men in pose B in procession with

159 German, 2007, 30.

160 Wesolowski, 2006, 118.

161 Castleden, 2005, 169.

162 Shank, 1987, 99.

163 German, 2005, 65.

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objects while one of them is carrying a palanquin with jars over his shoulder (Fig. 46).164

In Tiryns in the west slope of rubbish deposit, it was preserved a frieze with painted life-sized women (Fig. 47). According to small preserved piece it can be said that they hold some objects: a pyxis is recognisable; they are also in poses B as at Kadmeia fresco. Head is slightly tilted forward and eyes look downwards. Their robe is decorated by hem made from rosettes. Reconstruction is based on several fragments dated to LH IIIB.165

From Minoan region, to this period belongs the famous Knossos Procession fresco (Fig. 48). Exact dating is still debated and moves around the border of the Neopalatial and postpalatial period. Preferred period is LM II and it should be of Minoan origin.166 But there are also suggestions that its motif originated on mainland was taken to Crete. On fresco are depicted people surely of both sexes, although men prevail, facing each other, so procession have both directions, the numbers of figures are unbalanced. They go towards female figure, probably a goddess.167 Some figures were preserved in poses holding an object; the B pose is clearly recognizable. One man is playing a seistron. Well visible are the parts of young man signed as a Cup Bearer who besides the cup presents an ideal example of a male body. Originally, frescoes covered whole length of both sides of the west entrance Corridor of the Procession at Knossos. Unfortunately, only few small fragments are preserved, because of the part of fresco fallen backwards from the west wall of South Propylaeum.168

Single Cretan depiction of procession with men carrying cattle from this era, comes from Hagia Triada and it is realized on sarcophagus (Fig. 49) dated to

164 Wace, 1953, 14−15.

165 Rodenwaldt, 1912, 18, 70.

166 Wright, 2004, 46.

167 Lang, 2015, 58−59.

168 Evans, 1928, 720−725.

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LM IIIA169. Deceased man is painted in front of procession of men, accompanied by harp player.170

From the funerary context comes a drawing of dance as being represented both in Mycenaean and Minoan culture. From Mycenaean one it is scene at Tanagra larnax (Fig. 50) dated to LH IIIA−C. There are women in baggy skirt holding hands up. Style of painting is very different from Cretan style. From Crete is known painting at larnax from Mochlos dated to LM IIIA1 (Fig. 51).171 Just under the rim are depicted two women, with hands on hips in dancing position, they wear pointed shoes and maybe dagger at waist, one is wearing mask of probably jackal.172

Only one example of women dancing depicted on a wall painting from LM II173 Crete is located at Knossos, particularly in Queen’s Megaron (Fig. 52). It shows a woman with hands in pose D and hair painted in movement, lower part of body did not survived.174

Fig. 43. Procession fresco with bull from Palace of Nestor, Pylos. LH III (after: Wesolowski, 2006, fig. 2)

169 Soles, 1992, 116.

170 Kleiner, 2015, 82−3.

171 Aamodt, 2014, 52.

172 Soles and Davaras, 1996, 213.

173 Periodization of this fresco is varied. To LM I it is classifiecd by Evans, 1930, 71, but newer studies classified it to LM II. For example Driessen, 1990 119, or German 2007, 40.

174 Evans, 1930, 70−72.

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Fig. 44. Miniature man procession fresco from Palace of Nestor, Pylos. LH IIB (after: Lang, 2015, Pl 7)

Fig. 45. Female procession fresco, Palace of Nestor, Pylos. LH III (after: Nagy and Dadian, 2017, fig. 9)

Fig. 46. Man with a palanquin in a procession on fresco, Mycenae. LH IIIA (after: Wace, 1953, pl. 9.a)

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Fig. 47. Tiryns woman procession fresco. LH IIIB (after: Rodenwaldt, 1912, plates IX, VIII)

Fig. 48. “The procession Fresco” from Knossos. LM II (after: Hood, 2005, fig. 2.17)

Fig. 49. Hagia Triada sarcophagus. LM IIIA (after: Kleiner, 2015, fig. 4-1)

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Fig. 50. Dance on Tanagra larnax. LH IIIA−C (after: Aamodt 2014, fig. 6)

Fig. 51. Dancing women on larnax from Mochlos, Crete. LM IIIA1 (after: Soles and Davaras, 1996, fig. 21.

Fig. 52. Dancing woman fresco from Knossos Queen’s Megaron, the only Cretan dancing fresco. LM II (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 40)

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Artefacts from the third palace period are complemented by a famous small group of terra-cotta dancers from LM III shrine in Palaikastro (Fig. 53). Three women are dancing a ring dance around a musician playing a lyre or kithara.175

The only Mycenaean dance sculpture of LH IIB−LH IIIC period is terracotta statue of three connected dancers in ring dance (Fig. 54). These three figures have typical Mycenaean bird-like heads and dresses with stripes and they are holding hands. Artefact is dated to LH IIIA2−B1, and unfortunately, its way to the British Museum and therefore so finding context is unknown.176

An example of Mycenaean art in Minoan territory could be a Mycenaean krater dated to LH IIIC from tomb at Hagia Triada which bear motif of a man in wild dancing movement during funeral rite (Fig. 55). Another Mycenaean vessel with a dance depiction is a hydria dated to LH IIIC from Kamini cemetery at Naxos (Fig. 56). Motif is painted around bulge of the vessel. Eight are the figures dancing around a deceased and some of them have animal heads. Both as in Mycenaean, as in Minoan culture, wearing masks is rare and usually connected with funeral rite. It is probably a funerary ritual storage vessel for some special drink, dance may be apotropaic or it can tell some myth.177

Fig. 53. Terracotta circle dance with musician from Palaikastro, Crete. LM III (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 41)

175 Evans, 1930, 72−3.

176 Aamodt, 2014, 53.

177 Aamodt, 2014, p 53.

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Fig. 54. Terracotta sculpture of three ring dancers in Mycenaean style. LH IIIA2−B1 (after: The British Museum, museum number: 1996,0325.1, available from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=433394 &partId=1&searchText=1996+terracotta&page=1)

Fig. 55. Men in wild dance on the Mycenaean krater, Hagia Triada. LH IIIC (after: Aamodt, 2014, fig. 7)

Fig. 56. Dance on hydria from Naxos. LH IIIC (after: Aamodt, 2014, fig. 8)

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The following paragraphs are devoted to glyptic art. Three seals originating from Knossos in Crete have a dance motif. First is a seal impression from East wing of the palace dated to LM II−IIIA with three women holding pose A (CMS II8.266; Fig. 57). Second is pretty famous gold ring from Isopata cemetery, grave 1 (CMS II3.51; Fig. 58), which is near to Knossos palace. It is important in conjunction with Sacred Grove and Dance fresco. There are five female characters dancing outdoors, according to growing lilies. Lady in the middle is elevated and holds pose A, other woman on one side has pose E and the rest two have both hands up in poses B.178 Woman in upper part of image is probably a priestess. Over her shoulder we can notice miniature woman, which usually indicates a deity.179 Ring is dated to LM IIIA1.180 All of them wear similar rich dresses which accentuate swaying of their hips. It is not clear about what exactly the scene is. Third and last example of the postpalatial period of dancing scene from Crete is an electrum ring dated to LM IIIA1 again from Isopata cemetery, but from grave 6 (CMS II3.56; Fig. 59). There are two women holding hands in pose F.181

Fig. 57. Three women in dancing pose on seal impression from Knossos. LM II−IIIA (after: CMS II8.266)

178 German, 2005, 63.

179 Aamodt, 2014, 50.

180 German, 2007, 40.

181 German, 2005, 63.

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Fig. 58. Dancing women on gold ring from Isopata cemetery, Crete. LM IIIA1 (after: CMS II3.51)

Fig. 59. Two dancing women on electrum ring from Isopata cemetery. LM IIIA1 (after: CMS II3.56)

At LH IIB−LH IIIC period on the mainland, there are several proves about dancing in glyptic art. Gold ring from Mega Monastiri, Grave gamma dated to LH IIIA1−B1 depicts women swaying hips. Their arms are held in position to which can be assigned pose A (CMS V.728; Fig. 60).182

Several following examples come from Mycenae. First two look more like procession than dance, at the rest we can see various dancing position. Scene of cult

182 Wedde, 2004, 160−162.

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procession comes from seal dated to LH IIIA−LH IIIC from Mycenaean acropolis.183 There are depicted three men in identical positions, but they are presented very schematically (CMS I.42; Fig. 61).184 An impression originating maybe from shape of the ring coming from the House of the Oil Handlers dated to LH IIIB (CMS I.162; Fig. 62), and bears figures in poses E. I think the scene is closer to the procession according to the same body positions than to dance. Further example is gold /silver ring from the chamber tomb Nr. 71 dated to LH II−III on necropolis of the Lower Town at Mycenae (CMS I.108; Fig. 63) on which three women are dancing in poses C, A and G. A unique quartz seal stone from chamber room 103 dated to LH II−III again in the Lower Town at Mycenae (CMS I.132; Fig. 64) bear dancing scene consist of two female dancers both in pose D and one man in pose G, who looks like he creates a pair with one of the woman, also not rarely two eight shape shields are present.185 On gold ring dated to LH II−III186 from Mycenae grave 91 (CMS I.126; Fig. 65), which is surely inspired by Minoan style, shows a lady in ecstatic dance in the middle, man flanking he on one side and another lady from other side.187 Very similar is the scene on a gold ring dated to LH II−IIIA1 from tholos grave at Vapheio (CMS I.219; Fig. 66).188 Both scenes includes sacred tree, male worshiper, woman in ecstatic dance and kind of sacred architecture over which is bend another women in mourning, so maybe it is a tomb. Evans believed that dancing women are goddesses and it is a representation of ecstatic cult.189

183 Krzyszkowska, 2005, 271−3.

184 Muskett, 2007, 41.

185 German, 2007, 39−40.

186 Vasilikou, 2000, 55.

187 Krzyszkowska, 2005, 254−256.

188 Ibid., 2005, 305.

189 Marinatos, 2015, 30.

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From the palace of Pylos, Room 98, comes an oval shaped impression probably of gold ring dated to LH IIIB (CMS I.313; Fig. 67). There whole scene is set into built environment, shrine, and all participants hold A position.190

Two gold rings come from Aidonia, Field of Gournospilia. They are dated to LH II−IIIA−B. On first ring female dancers hold poses A, E and D (CMS V.Sup.IB.114; Fig. 68). On the second ring, women are in poses A and D (CMS V.Sup.IB.115 B; Fig. 69).191

Fig. 60. Women in dance position on gold ring from Mega Monastiri. LH IIIA1−B1 (after: CMS V.728)

Fig. 61. Schematic cult procession scene on seal from Mycenae. LH IIIA−LH IIIC (after: CMS I.42)

190 Wedde, 2004, 159.

191 German, 2005, 64−65.

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Fig. 62. Women in dance position on seal impression from House of the Oil Merchant, Mycenae. LH IIIB (after: CMS I.162)

Fig. 63. Women in dancing pose on gold ring from chamber tomb, necropolis of Lower Town, Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.108)

Fig. 64. Women in dancing pose on unique quartz seal stone from chamber room in the Lower Town, Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.132)

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Fig. 65. Ecstatic dancer in the middle of scene on gold ring from Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.126)

Fig. 66. Ecstatic dancer in the middle of scene on gold ring from Vapheio. LH II−IIIA1 (after: CMS I.219)

Fig. 67. Women in dance position on impression from the palace of Pylos. LH IIIB (after: CMS I.313)

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Fig. 68. Women dancing on gold ring from Aidonia. LH II−IIIA−B (after: CMS V.Sup.IB.114)

Fig. 69. Women dancing on gold ring from Aidonia. LH II−IIIA−B (after: CMS V.Sup.IB.115)

The following text will be dedicated to glyptic art in the postpalatial period, depicting procession with objects. Well preserved and beautiful seal which represents dance was placed into a gold ring found in Aidonia (CMS V.Sup.1B.113; Fig. 70) and it is dated as the previous examples from this site to LH II−IIIA−B period. Except two ladies in dancing poses A on the sides, there are lilies between them. One of the women keeps a lily, second holds papyrus flower. Surrounding structure seems to be palatial or in general sacral architecture. The paving under the feet of those

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ladies could be a kind of stage, so they may are performing to some observers.192 Another gold ring comes from Dendra, Chamber Tomb, Grave 10 from period LH IIB−LH III. It bears motif of people in poses A (CMS I.191; Fig. 71). Another seal, again in form of gold ring, from Lower Town of Mycenae, particularly from the Chamber Tomb #55 dated to LH II−III shows again figures dancing in poses A (CMS I.86; Fig. 72). Exceptional finding is a steatite block from Eleusis (CMS V.422; Fig. 73) with engraving serving as a mould for making patterns of rings. One of two motives on it bears figures in poses B and A. Exact location was Necropolis NW of Classical site in Family Grave Hpie3 and dating is LH II−III. All three mentioned rings and one ring form have in common their topic, women in procession carrying objects in pose A. Architectural structures or floral backgrounds are presented on all of them. The same theme, women in pose A, shows chalcedony seal stone from Vaphio, beehive tomb from LH IIA, with interesting detail of woman bearing an animal over her shoulder (CMS I.220; Fig. 74). In last example, sealing from Pylos, room 98 in palace (CMS I.361; Fig. 75) dated to LH IIIB2−C1, we can observe similarities with illustrations of women in A pose from previous period, the gold ring from Mycenae (CMS I.17; Fig. 35), and sealing from Zakros (CMS II7.8; Fig. 34). They all have similar deployment of persons.193

Fig. 70. Procession on gold ring from Aidonia. LH II−IIIA−B (after: CMS V.Sup.1B.113)

192 Wedde, 2004, 162.

193 German, 2007, 37−39.

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Fig. 71. Procession on gold ring from Dendra. LH IIB−LH III (after: CMS I.191)

Fig. 72. Procession on gold ring from Lower Town, Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.86)

Fig. 73. Procession on steatite block from Eleusis. LH II−III (after: CMS V.422)

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Fig. 74. Procession on seal stone from Vaphio. LH IIA (after: CMS I.220)

Fig. 75. Procession on sealing from Pylos. LH IIIB2−C1 (after: CMS I.361)

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3.2 Interpretation

3.2.1 Objectives

Identification of dance on images

Interpretation of iconography could be problematic. According to Evans, the most fundamental scene for the study of dance from visual art is painted on the Sacred Groove and the Dance fresco. He suggests that people depicted there, are watching dancers performing ‘Choros of Ariadné’, or another dancing performance. His theory is based on the position of the bodies of the depicted people. The iconography of glyptic art could be examined the same way, on the basis of the similarity to the fresco.194 However, there are opinions, that depicted people are not dancers but adorants (CMS I.292; Fig. 13), simply people moving to the side or persons with arms raised (CMS I.86; Fig. 72; CMS II3.17; Fig. 42).195 I found the theory of adorance implausible because adorants are usually portrayed with both hands up, not only one. Those scenes I would myself consider rather like dancing. J. Younger labelled the scene on which females hold one arm down and the second arm in front of the head as a pose of salutation.196 However any cases of salutation of women in iconography are not known, so dancing is more probable.

This confusion could be caused by the fact, whether the observer considers the scene as dynamic or static. Dynamic movements could be recognizable, because they could cause that hair are flying or skirt is depicted very wide in rotation or shaped as if adapted to the movement. Also the position of legs and feet is a clue. For example, a figure with one leg raised is probably in the middle of the motion. Position of hips is not always well recognizable, but it also gives us some

194 Evans, 1930, 67−68.

195 Sakellariou, 1964, 329, 102 and Platon and Pini, 1984, 20.

196 German, 1999, 280.

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information. Despite all the indicia, it is sometimes difficult to discern if person is static or dynamic.

Dance versus procession

We can discern dance and procession thanks to the few important facts. Procession is movement in a row leading to specified destination, so it has start and finish (usually some person watching the event) and participating persons often carry objects. In simpler case, the presence of musicians can tell us that scene shows dance. However, it can be said that they have much in common and often it is not clear which scene we see. For example in processions, typical poses of arms, mentioned as dancing steps, are common. Moreover, a combination could be procession of dancing people. Maybe it is even not so important to separate these two activities, due to the fact that often it is not recognizable which is depicted because of mixture of signs.197 In this study, I will not make strict distinction between these variations, because I consider walking as a part of dancing activity, but I will use both terms. A combination could be procession of dancing people.

When I was looking for modern analogies of the processions or dancing with full hands, two came to my mind. The first is dancing with props, and the second is religious procession with oblations. A mixture of them could be festival of harvest, practiced till today usually in villages. There, couples are walking and singing in the parade, carrying spring of rosemary and carafe with wine. They make stations to dance and an important part of it is the religious mass. As the analogy could be used the Harvester’s vase (Fig. 23).

Archaeological evidences of dancing activities

In this chapter I will discuss archaeological evidences of real places, where dancing activities could have been practiced. The word stage or arena could be used. Dance itself cannot be preserved as an artefact, unlike these architecture structures where dancing could have been performed.

197 German, 2005, 57−58.

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Among the tangible proofs of organizing events involving dancing, belong structures of courtyards of villas, palaces and settlements, due to the possibility use of the space for dance activities (performance, processions). An archaeological evidence of tribunes also exists in Crete. Some remains of foundations of such grandstand were found northwest from Knossos palace. 198 On the same location, during excavations, three circular structures with paved surface appeared. Two smaller have a diameter of about 3 meters, the third one about eight metres. They all correspond to the time of the postpalatial period (LM II−IIIA2). Their circular shape even evokes circular dances.199

These places did not have to serve necessarily only to dance, but that dance was among practiced activities is obvious from the surviving drawings, such as Sacred Grove and Dance fresco or Grandstand fresco with tribune for an audience (Fig. 76. The grandstand fresco from Knossos. (after: Evans, 1930, PL XVI).200 It is believed that Central Courts of the palaces, whose remains are preserved, served also for bull games.201

Fig. 76. The grandstand fresco from Knossos. (after: Evans, 1930, PL XVI)

An architecture related to dance is depicted also on seals. Here I present a few examples of seal impressions from the Neopalatial period. First comes from Hagia Triada (CMS II6.1; Fig. 25). This scene shows us a piece of architecture and women.

198 Catling, 1972−1973, 27−28.

199 Warren, 1984, 307−311.

200 Evans, 1930, 79, 47.

201 Graham, 1957, 255.

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Women move on paving and there is a built structure in the background. The second is the seal impression from Chania (CMS V.Sup.IA.178, Fig. 27). There are visible an architectural structures behind women.

It must be mentioned that structures used for dance activities existed already in the Early Minoan period (3100−2000 BC).202 For example, specially surfaced areas associated with tholos tombs were found at Koumasa, Platanos or Mochlos.203

3.3 Statistics

The following statistics are based on the images collected by German204 and complemented by me. Her statistics is made of forty-five images of dancing activities coming from Crete and from the mainland between the Middle and the Late Aegean Bronze Age (Fig. 77). I have included twenty other images, to make the evaluation of the statistics more accurate (Fig. 78). They are classified by the time and the location. The importance of archaeological context (storage/administration, burial, settlement, and palace) is not neglected. Historical background is also taken into account. She focused on dancing, processions and a bull leaping. In contrast with her, I did not care with a bull dancing so much, actually I only use it to complete the whole context. The following text will be based on the tables of findings.205 The first one includes only the findings examined by German,206 into the second one are added few mine examples and shortcuts of the specific findings are written out for better

202 More examples of the archaeological structures serving as a kind of stage, from other locations than Greece, I present in chapter about Near East 5.2.1 Archaeological remains.

203 Aamodt, 2014, 52.

204 See German, 2007.

205 Here I only present data. Their analysis is in chapter 0

Evaluation.

206 See German, 2007.

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clarity. I want to draw attention to the fact that she has small typing error, wrong sums of findings, in her original table of findings quoted in the table below. She also classified one seal (CMS II3.236) otherwise than me.

Crete Mainland Note

Protopalatial Period – total 2 MH II – total 0

2 palace – pottery (Phaistos) × Only pottery.

Neopalatial Period – total 19 MH III−LH IIA – total 1

2 palace – frescoes (Knossos) No pottery. 7 storage/admin – glyptic (Zakros) 1 burial – glyptic (gold ring from Burials from Crete Mycenae but Minoan origin of are unknown. 10 settlement manufacture) Only one artefact - 1 fresco (Hagia Triada) from the mainland. - 9 glyptic

Postpalatial Period – total 5 LH IIB−LH IIIC – total 18

2 burial – glyptic (Knossos) 10 burial − glyptic More frescoes than before. 2 palace 7 palace Now a lot of - 1 fresco (Knossos) - 5 frescoes examples from the - 1 glyptic (Knossos) - 2 glyptic (Pylos) mainland.

No processions 1 settlement –pottery (Palaikastro) 1 storage/admin – glyptic (Mycenae) without gifts.

Fig. 77. Overview of arrangement of artefacts according to the archaeological context made by Senta German. (after: German 2007, 32, 37−39)

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Crete I add Mainland I add Note Potopalatial Period MH II – total 1 – total 3 2 palace Phaistos bowl 1 burial - 1 glyptic CMS I.292 According to German motif of dance was – 2 pottery Phaistos fruitstand only at pottery and - 1 glyptic CMS II3.236 (German only in Crete. classified it into period I think that 1 seal from later, I put it there Gournia and even 1 according to relative seal in gold ring from chronology) Pylos (mainland!) belong here. Neopalatial Period MH III−LH IIA – total 4 – total 21 1 palace Sacred grove and dance According to fresco (Knossos) S. German there are – 1 frescoes no dancing images on pottery and the only one artefact from the 7 storage/admin CMS II7.7 mainland. – 7 glyptic CMS II7.8 I added some more examples from the CMS II7.15 mainland and more CMS II7.13 types of media bearing image of dance. Some CMS II7.14 of them are from

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burial or temple CMS II7.16 context. CMS II7.17

11 settlement Goddes in nature fresco Acrobat modelled at 2 temple Row dance and men Kind of speciality of (Hagia Triada) gold sword hilt procession at temple this era is processions - 1 fresco - 1 fresco (Mallia) bastion fresco (Hagia without gifts. - 9 glyptic CMS II3.17 - Lot of pottery Irini, Keos) - 1 toreutics V.Sup.IA.58 CMS II6.13 Nearly 50 terracotta Settlement context CMS II6.1 statues of dancing prevail. CMS II6.10 women in Minoan dresses (temple at CMS II6.9 Hagia Irini, Keos) CMS II6.11 site wears elements of Minoanization CMS V.Sup.IA.178

CMS V.Sup.1A.186 2 burial Clay model of 2 burial CMS I.17 (gold CMS VI.277 “ring of The only mainland ring from Nestor” seal with motif of - 1 pottery “Kamilari dancers” – 2 glyptic Mycenae but dance is on gold ring - 1 glyptic CMS I.226 Minoan origin of from Mycenae manufacture) Treasure and it is Cretan origin. Ring of Nestor is sometimes being questioned. Wealth burials from Crete are almost absent, I bring two examples.

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Postpalatial Period LH IIB−LH IIIC – total 25 – total 10 5 burial CMS II3.51 Men procession at 15 burial CMS V.728 Dance fresco at larnax More frescoes than sarcophagus (Hagia (Tanagra) before. – 2 glyptic CMS II3.56 − 13 glyptic CMS I.108 Triada) Dance at hydria from Procession is favourite - 1 pottery - 1 fresco CMS I.132 Dance fresco at larnax Kamini cemetery motif. - 2 fresco (Mochlos) - 1 pottery CMS V.Sup.IB.114 (Naxos) Now a lot of examples Wild dance at CMS V.Sup.IB.115 CMS I.126 – gold from the mainland. Mycenaean krater ring from Mycenase CMS V.Sup.1B.113 Almost no processions (tomb at Hagia Triada) surely inspired by without gifts. CMS I.191 minoan

CMS I.86 CMS I.42 CMS V.422 CMS I.219 CMS I.220 4 palace Dancing lady fresco in Procession at steatite 8 palace Procession fresco Procession fresco Queen’s Megaron “Harvester’s vase” (Kadmeia) with bull (Pylos) - 2 fresco - 6 frescoes (Knossos) (Hagia Triada) - 1 glyptic - 2 glyptic Miniature male - 1 pottery The procession fresco procession fresco (Knossos) I decide to (Pylos) put it into postpalatial Female procession period instead of fresco (Pylos) Neopalatial. Procession with CMS II8.266 palanquine fresco (Mycenae)

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Female procession fresco (Tiryns) CMS I.313 CMS I.361 1 settlement Terra-cotta dancers 1 storage/admin CMS I.162 (shrine in Palaikastro) – 1 pottery – 1 glyptic 1 unknown context Sculpture of three bird Palatial and burial headed figures in ring context prevail. - 1 pottery dance – the only Mycenaean dance sculpture of Third palace period

Fig. 78. Table of all discussed images of dance in this thesis. Senta German’s basis completed by mine ideas.

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3.3.1 Media of the dancing scenes depictions

The following table presents the overview of the media and the archaeological contexts (Fig. 79).207

Protopalatial Minoan Mycenaean

(and MH II) pottery 2 (palace) 0 glyptic 1 (palace) 1 (burial)

Neopalatial - -

(and MH III−LH IIA) fresco 2 (palace, settlement) 1 (temple) toreutics 1 (settlement) 0 glyptic 17 (7× storage, 9× settlement, 1× 2 (burial) burial) pottery 1 (burial) 1 (settlement with many pieces)

Postpalatial - -

(and LH IIB−LH IIIC) glyptic 3 (2× burial, 1× palace) 16 (13× burial, 2× palace, 1× storage) pottery 3 (burial, palace, settlement) 2 (burial, unknown)

207 Here I present only the data. The evaluation of the questions, which medium is dominant in what context, in which period and what does it mean, is part of the chapter 0

Evaluation.

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fresco 4 (2× burial, 2× palace) 7 (1× burial, 6× palace)

Fig. 79. Statistics of media and finding contexts.

The following paragraphs are devoted to the media used for the depiction of dance. To characterize each medium is useful for the following evaluation. One of the common objects used in the Bronze Age Aegean is pottery, divided into two forms. The first form is a vessel, which can be decorated with dancing scene, painted or 3D. The second is a terracotta statuette in shape of dancer. Except for practical use, vessels served for religious rituals.208 For this purpose they usually were decorated by the thematic decoration, for example, dancers around a goddess (or priest),209 epiphany of the goddess, and worshipers (Fig. 10; Fig. 11).210 Pottery also played role in funerary rites. Well preserved is the funerary ritual storage vessel depicting dance (Fig. 55). The deceased and the dancers are depicted on it. Some of them have animal heads, which is connected with the funeral rite.211 As we can see in the statistics table (Fig. 78), the statuettes of dancers mainly occur in burial context (Fig. 21; Fig. 53). The reasons for the presence of statuettes in graves are various. They were used during funerary ceremony and they served as offerings for the dead as well. It could also be a property of deceased. The place, where statuettes were used was not always the same. In LH IIIA1, such statuettes were used at homes and then thrown into pits, whilst in LH IIIA2 they were put into graves. In Minoan culture in general figurines were found at shrines, also in graves and much less in houses.212 Whole chapter could be devoted to the Aegean prehistoric figurines. I decided not to involve more terracotta statuettes from BA reminding dancing positions.213 A decides so because some of them are similar type as Palaikastro

208 Davis, 1977, 161.

209 Immerwahr, 1990, 33.

210 Ibid., 34.

211 Aamodt, 2014, p 53.

212 Cline, 2012, 216.

213 For more information and illustration see Cline, 2012, chapter 16.

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dancers (Fig. 53) or statues from Hagia Irini (Fig. 20). In the case of Palaikastro dancer, I interpret them as performing a ring dance without any doubt. Hagia Irini figurines have the hands-on-hips dancing position. It can be argued that the raised arms on the other statues represent also a dance gesture, but these statuettes do not have wider context, as musician or group of statues representing a kind of group dance. Because it can be easily confused with a deity or worshipper, I consider the two given examples as sufficient for my study.

Wall paintings are mostly paint in palatial complexes. They are associated with the elite layer of the society. Minoan frescoes were painted on interior walls and floors. In the protopalatial period they had the decor of geometric shapes, later were depicted humans, animals, nature and other motives. Techniques were various, artists drawn into wet and also dry plaster. Some colours were well available and some had exotic origin.214 Popularity of frescoes grows over time. The most frescoes are preserved from the Postpalatial and LH IIB−LH IIIC period, with the majority on the mainland. Minoan wall painting originated much earlier than Mycenaean palaces were built. Mycenaeans than assumed this habit to decor important buildings and Minoan artists were transported on the mainland. Minoan’s common motif is the nature or ceremonies. Mycenaean’s motif is usually hunt, battle or procession. Decoration of a particular room could be related to activities practiced there. Because frescoes on the mainland were painted not only in palaces, shrines or rich burials, but also in the elite residential buildings, they served as the indicator of the elite.215

Seals were used in administrative and the need of using them, began together with the increase of proto-urban settlements and social complexity in southern Greece during EB II.216 They were used to ensure the integrity of goods, or as a personal adornment and symbol of high status. It has an informative value about the owner, and his profession. The relation between the image depicted on the seal and

214 Castleden, 2002, 73−75.

215 Feuer, 2004, 213.

216 Krzyszkowska, 2005, 1.

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the way in which it was used, may had some meaning.217 With EH II destruction came the decline and the absence of seals. It can be associated with the lack of glyptic art till the later protopalatial period and MH II period. In this era, both cultures have a common minimum of glyptic artefacts. During the Neopalatial period the seals were used for administrative practices synchronously with growing socio- economical demands, again.218 In Crete, they belonged mainly to storage and settlement contexts, few to burial. Two examples come from the MH III−LH IIA mainland. The stamp seals were part of the administration of elites, who use them to connect the palaces within internal Crete or even to connect Crete with the external areas.219 Connection between Crete and other islands is proved, but Minoan influence to the Greek mainland was limited till Shaft Grave horizon on the mainland. After that it is not always easy to differentiate mainland products from Cretan imports.220 An interesting detail is that Minoan ones often had string-holes. The ring itself is small. It is adapted for a female finger or for use as a pendant. On the contrary, the Mycenaean ones were large enough for male finger.221 In the postpalatial period, reversed situation occurred. Only a few seals came from Minoan burials and many from LH IIB−LH IIIC mainland, but mainly from burials. At this era, Mycenaean sealing system has developed very much, that is the time when palatial structures firstly appeared on the mainland and when Mycenaean presence at Knossos is supposed.222

217 German, 2005, 9.

218 Ibid., 2005, 232.

219 German, 2005, 9.

220 Ibid., 2005, 119.

221 Krzyszkowska, 2005, 21.

222 Ibid., 2005, 279.

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3.3.2 Contextual analyses

The statistics (Fig. 79) present various types of contexts. In the following paragraphs, I want to briefly introduce these contexts.223

A Minoan palace served as a centre of both, politics and religion. The important function was also to store and redistribute the goods. The palaces are also connected with the harvest festivities, associated with fertility cult and dancing women.224 Thanks to the various rituals in the palaces, there was an integration of elite and lower class people. The minoan economy and ritual were closely linked and they were part of more complex state system. Mycenaean castles were also centres of politics, economy and control above luxury goods. In contrast, castles focused on centrality of the state and power of the ruler.225 Statistics says that in Minoan civilization, the palace finding context was popular continuously with a peak in the postpalatial period, whereas in Mycenaean palaces were used after LH IIB.

Human’s settlement consisted of villas, farmsteads and towns. Minoan settlements have not been excavated so much, but it is known that they were centres of craft and served for more important centres. Villas could have served for the cultivation of crops like olives or grapes.226 The increasing number of Mycenaean settlements is dated to LH I and II, together with growing prosperity and population. Again, enough localities were not surveyed.227 Artefacts found here are usually objects of daily necessity or personal belongings.

223 Here, I present only the brief overview. A detailed explanation of the number of findings in specific contexts is part of the chapter 0

Evaluation.

224 Pyburn, 2004, 197.

225 Cline, 2012, 242−243.

226 Shaw and Jameson, 2002, 400.

227 Feuer, 2004, 10.

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By storage/administration context is meant a site where amount of stamp seals were fired by chance and preserved in a form of seal itself or sealing, which is the fired imprint in clay.228 It is believed that these stamps had the administrative function connected with redistribution and storage of goods. In the protopalatial and the postpalatial period seals were used for marking objects, whilst in the neopalatial period for documents. The image on seal is important and plays its role.229 In Mycenaean MH and LH period, there were almost no artefacts with dancing scenes coming from this kind of context. It seems that they did not have need to use such images in administration.

One of the of the most famous Mycenaean’s burial custom is burial into a shaft grave. Shaft graves were popular in MH period and later, in LH II and III were used mainly tholos and rock-hewn chamber tombs. In LH III cremation was practiced more often.230 Ordinary people were buried in pits or in cist graves from stone slabs. Multiple burials were common. The funeral goods were modest on none. People with higher status had better offerings.231 Due to the repeated use of graves or tombs, there can be a mixture of goods inside it, dating is often determined as a mid date. Location and richness of burials relates to position of individual in society.232 Also in Minoan graves the presence of gifts varied. Minoans bury their relatives in caves, clay coffins,233 tombs, tholoi or house tombs. Funerary practices were connected to the ancestor cult. Hand in hand with this type of context go cultic sites. Minoans had shrines in open areas, but also within palaces. Early Minoan cult was practiced on burial sites. In the protopalatial period, natural sites were mostly used. Later cult was connected with palaces. Tomb inventory, if there were some,

228 Krzyszkowska, 2005, 356−357.

229 German, 2005, 80.

230 Mylonas, 1948, 67.

231 Schofield, 2007, 30.

232 German, 2005, 77−78.

233 Castleden, 2005, 59.

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consisted of items bearing cult scenes, motives of cult (bull’s horns, double axe), epiphany or directly figurines - cult idols.234 Mycenaean cult was mainly held in funerary places, castles and urban sites. We gain information from frescoes or figurines, Mycenaean Pi and Phi-shaped idols from tombs.235 Also from small art objects as it is written above.

I included the previous paragraphs because not only concrete scene is an indicator of status of depicted people a do not introduce us complete depicted situation. But also finding context, the way there were deposited and material on which is scene caught has an information value which will be useful in the final evaluation.

3.3.3 Objects included in dancing scenes

In my opinion, dancing scenes are mostly associated with cult or power of higher class people. These scenes are often completed by specific objects. In following paragraphs I introduce these objects and their additional meaning for whole dancing scene.

Lily is in Eastern and early Aegean mythology symbol of fruitfulness, marriage, motherhood and it is also emblem of ancient chief goddesses. Lilies are also associated with power, among others they are painted in the throne hall in Knossos Palace.236 Lily blossoms were popular motif in the protopalatial period and even more in the following Neopalatial period. They decorated pottery, storage jars, or pendants of this shape were made by Minoans, Mycenaeans and they were found even in Central Europe. Motif decorated also larnakes, frescoes or seals.237 In my

234 Hornblower, et al., 2012, 1266.

235 Bintliff, 2012, 194.

236 Chwalkowski, 2016, 256.

237 Klontza, 2012, 191−193.

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inventory lily occurs in every period (Fig. 10; Fig. 15; Fig. 19; Fig. 25; Fig. 35; Fig. 58; Fig. 70).

Papyrus flower has for Egyptians as well as Minoans, regenerative qualities and religious value. Sometimes we see hybrid flower resulting from papyrus and lily.238

Poppy flower is a symbol of fertility and reincarnation. It is flower of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and fertility. It is known for its effects, reaching the trance.239

Double axe is symbol of female divinity giving life and it occurs in many ancient societies (Phrygian, Egypt, Canaanites and others). This “Great Mother” or “Cow goddess” joined sky god to maintain the life cycle. It came to Crete at the beginning of BA probably with Anatolian colonists and it was the most popular in LM I period after Santorini eruption..240 Double axe is connected with cow goddess because it often occurs on the picture attached to cow’s head or horns. Cattle were in the various ancient mythologies an animal in charge of processes on the heaven. These horns of a bull are sometimes interpreted as a gate of the cosmic mountain. Double axe in the middle could than represent sun, because sun disc is commonly displayed at this position.241 Banou (2008) revised probability of existence of sun cult in palatial and postpalatial Crete and using horns of consecration as a solar symbol, but not related to bull’s horns.242 Alternative interpretation is that double axe in the Neopalatial period was a symbol for a particular class dealing exercising power in the agriculture, economy, cult and military, and after that it was used only

238 Marinatos, 2010, 120−121.

239 Goodman and Nauwald, 2003, 84.

240 MacGillivray, 2012, 126.

241 Marinatos, 2010, 115−116.

242 For mor information see Banou 2008.

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as a cult symbol.243 In my inventory there are two examples from the Neopalatial administration context (Fig. 30; Fig. 31), so there is a question why would cult symbol be used in administration. It supports theory that more powerful people ruled also through religion. A scene where procession with double axe, lily, added by figure-of-eight shield representing military power and even with sun with moon above, was carved on ring from Mycenaean burial context. This connects all previous theories together (Fig. 35). In the postpalatial period double axe was usually depicted as a symbol, not in some process.244 On this example it is even with bull’s head (Fig. 66).

Cultic scenes could be accompanied by miniature floating woman, which usually indicates a deity. It may indicate the presence of priests.245 Clearly visible it is on Fig. 58. Another symbol of ritual scenes is dancer wearing masks of bird’s head (Fig. 11).246 Although both as in Mycenaean, as in Minoan culture wearing masks is rare and usually connected with funeral rite.247 Here I see strong influence from Egypt, where wearing masks were part of funerary tradition. Mask of jackal represented Anubis, the god of the dead (Fig. 51).248

In processions, people are often carrying offerings. It means that specific objects were chosen for ceremonial delivery to somebody who was not in every case present in scene. They offered luxury goods like cups, pyxides or flowers mentioned above.

Presence of sword on image, except military, relates to cult of the Great Mother, chthonic or nature goddess. Her attributes are usually pairs of birds or

243 Haysom, 2010, 35.

244 Ibid., 43−44.

245 Aamodt, 2014, 50.

246 Goodison, 1989, 49.

247 Aamodt, 2014, p 53.

248 Simpson, et al., 2003, 21.

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snakes, pillar and tree, sword and double-axe.249 I think that processions with swords can be part of cult ritual for this goddess (Fig. 12). On the other hand they can express only military power, especially when they are mixed with other military objects as shield (Fig. 33). The sword could be used except in processes, also in dancing. The most direct artefact connected to sword dance is probably sword with carved acrobat on its golden hilt (Fig. 22). This sword could be used in ceremonies involving dance or in dance itself.250 I have personal experience with using sword as a dancing tool. Nowadays it serves mainly for balancing on head or other body part, while dancing, mostly in belly dance. It is changing with fighting positions.

3.3.4 Social categories and their expression on images

I included this chapter because to group people into social categories helps us to interpret the scenes on which they are depicted and why. Judith Butler251 indicates this by term performativity in her book focused on gender studies. I would define performativity as ability of communication (verbal and nonverbal) to present individual. It helps to reveal valuable data, as age, gender, nation, race, sexuality, geopolitical positioning, etc for that we can use term social categories of examined culture. They mingle among themselves and they are changing throughout life. Social differentiation (hierarchy?) depends on social categories, they play role in its recognition and identification. It is certain, because we have comparison with contemporary cultures.252 I chose only main categories for a closer look.

I start with analyses why it is useful to recognize the age of people on images and how to recognize it. Details of the human figure are best seen on frescoes. Seals are too small as well as paintings or carvings on ceramics. Clay figures are also good in details.

249 Stephens, 2016, 93.

250 Castleden, 2002, 92.

251 Butler, 1993, 2−3.

252 German, 2005, 10.

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Firstly, I want to introduce works dealing with recognition of age on the basis of hairstyles on frescoes. Ellen Davis (1986) wrote study about recognition of women’s age. She determined six life stages. Children have shaved heads except one lock growing above forehead and one at the back of their heads (Fig. 80). As they grow into second stage, locks of hair are accruing and fringe is longer (Fig. 81). At third stage hair get thicker, hair locks from first stage are retained, from the second stage are absent (Fig. 82). Except hairstyle is characteristic feature for older stages a double chin. Fourth age stage women have no fringe, but full head of hair, tied with cloths (Fig. 83). Breakthrough moment is phase of abandonment of shaving hair and cutting latest locks. It is a time of transition into adulthood.253 Fifth stage hairstyle is whole bound in cloths and special lops at forehead and sideburn are glaring (Fig. 84). The oldest women have strands of hair free flowing. Example comes from the House of Ladies (Fig. 85). Similarity with Egyptian custom of head shaving, in the Middle and New Kingdom era, is visible. An imitation of Horus Locks is made by one lock tied around head as fillet, as a part if rite of initiation around the age of ten. This tied lock is also known from Aegean ladies. Another rite of passage is set between styles four and five, when women may entered into marriage. Analogy to classical period supports this theory. At those times hair were cut both at the entrance into adulthood and marriage. Also Athenian girls dedicated hair as a part of the rite to Artemis at Brauron. It is not excluded that thanks to hairstyle we can recognize older, nevertheless unmarried women who could stay in the service of ritual nature.254 By recognizing age of men by hairstyles deals Robert Koehl (1986). Children are completely hairless. As an example, he provides the Palaikastro ivory boys (Fig. 86). Second age group is represented at Thera fresco by the Boxing Boys and Fisher Boys, who have only few locks of hair (Fig. 87).255 Males of the third stage have hair combed into top knot and some into fringe as men in small group in upper part of Grandstand fresco (Fig. 76). Hairs of fourth stage, men in their physical peak, are waist-length with one sideburn lock; we can see men with this hairstyle also at

253 Davis, 1986, 402.

254 Ibid., 402−406.

255 Scanlon, 2014, 35.

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Grandstand fresco. Men of the last age stadium have shorter hair hangs freely and often wear beard. Also, Koehl writes about similarity between Minoan and Egyptian portraying of age of younger people and kids.256

Interesting fact is that the most frequently are depicted women at third age category and men at fourth.257 It is the time of physical peak of an individual and simultaneously adequate time for wedding and starting a family.

I was more focused on observation the whole body, because changes in human physiology can be well visible. Girls could be depicted on impression from Hagia Triada (Fig. 25), because the woman in the middle is obviously mature, according her breasts, while females on the sides have breasts depicted more decent. It is remarkable, that females are depicted with narrow waist and with proportions perfect also for modern ideal of beauty. It seems improbable that every woman has such slim silhouette so the idea that bodies were idealized arises. On the other hand, elderly women have infirm breasts and they are painted with signs of stress and dilapidation. Here I bring the same example as Davis (1986), because it is well visible (Fig. 85). Maybe are the depicted women respected and their appearance should be complimentary. Between young and old man I see also difference in the shape of their body. Muscular body of mature men on their physical peak is well recognizable in contrast with old dilapidated body. Both stages are visible on Harvester vase (Fig. 23). ). When examining the whole body without details, it was not possible to recognize more age categories. Child’s body is without shapes, except bulging belly. In my inventory of images there are no children. Young people wore clothes highlighting their shapes; old people could have worn more comfortable and more wrapping garments. I will return to clothes also in connection with social status. My personal observation leads to following results. I did not find any images of dancing children. The most commonly, there are young women and men in a stage of their physical peak occurring in dancing scenes, than mature women.

256 Koehl, 1986, 100−103.

257 German, 2005, 20.

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To sum it up, I believe that determining age of depicted dancer gets us a closer look into situation who is on the image and why. Thanks to that we can better recognize depicted scene. For example children can be part of some initiation ritual whereas mature person can be involved into some cultic scene. The most important is the transition between these two stages, adolescence, marriage and starting a family. I write about possible reasons for depicting a particular age group in chapters Analysis and Evaluation. Determining age on the basis of hairstyles could be quite accurate, but it very much depends on quality and extent of image. I personally prefer to orient according to proportions of whole body. Nevertheless I agree with previous studies writing about age and hairstyles. The fact is that even on seals or imprints, hairstyles could be well recognizable and useful.

Fig. 80. Example of the first age stage. Thera fresco. Crocus Gatherer from Xeste 3. MM IIIA – LM IB (Doumas, 1992, fig. 116, detail)

Fig. 81. Example of the second age stage. Thera fresco. Young Pristness from the West House. MM IIIA– LM IB (after: Cohen and Rutter, 2007, fig. 11.6, detail)

Fig. 82. Example of the third age stage. Thera fresco. Crocus Gatherer from Xeste 3. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 116, detail)

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Fig. 83. Example of the fourht age stage. Thera fresco. Maiden with the necklace from the adyton of Xeste 3. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 100, detail)

Fig. 84. Example of the fifth age stage. Thera fresco. Xeste 3. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Evans, 1921, fig. 397)

Fig. 85. The sixth stage of maturity. Thera fresco. House of the Ladies. MM IIIA – LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 7, detail)

Fig. 86. Ivory boys, Palaikastro. LM I − II (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 310)

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Fig. 87. Boxing boys, Thera. MM IIIA – LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 79)

That gender is difference between representation of femininity and masculinity is generally known. Thanks to recognition or emphasis of gender, we have more clues to estimate the nature of the scene. We cannot omit that gender differentiation and system of hierarchy goes hand in hand. In general, attributes of femininity are hips and breasts. With age the body gets more feminine shapes. Man body usually has significant musculature and codpiece. Gender is associated with sexuality and in Minoan and Mycenaean culture is noticeable peculiarity, that their art does not include scenes of sexual character.258 A poor substitute may be the fact that bodies of both sexes are exposed in their best angle. It is interesting that in general, in Aegean art are depicted mostly women. It was even suggested that woman was sitting on the throne.259

Usually clearly visible body feature is skin colour. Contrast between colours of skin can indicate sex of figure. For females white colour is used meanwhile for men brown. This is the same as in Egyptian or Etruscan iconography.260 About confusion caused by body colour I write in chapter Bull dance, where the possibility that women disguised themselves as men, is discussed. It means that recognizing of sex is important, but it does not automatically mean that it represents the same gender. In my inventory I do not have any example where gender is deiberatelly

258 German, 2005, 23.

259 Younger and Rehak, 2008, 180.

260 Immerwahr, 1990, 53.

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different of sex, but sometimes depiction is not perfectly preserved, and attributes connected with some gender can help to determine sex of person. For example when upper part of image is destroyed and we can see skirts in lower part, it is probable that figures are women.

Very useful but also poorly recognizable from visual art is social status. It gives to individuals different options in life quality, often from birth. Archaeological excavations provide us with evidences about people who lived their lives surrounded by rich property and conversely. Unique Minoan source is administrative records written in Mycenaean Linear B script, which tells us about economical situation of people.261

Just like nowadays, indicator of wealth or poverty of person is, among other aspects, clothing. Evident contrast is in dressing of the Late Bronze Age art, when people wear classy dress, and at the end of the first palaces, when people in art wear simple costumes. Women have almost uniform dress code, elaborate skirt with various bands and patterns and short breast opening jacket. This garment may indicate some special social status, if we think on the fact that these dresses are not comfortable work outfit. Men have little less rich costumes, but still posh.262 The most common form of men’s appearance is a muscular and narrow waist youth with belt and loincloth or with a kilt. Another is usually bearded male in large robe.263

Social status is recognizable not only from the appearance of depicted person, but also by type of used media or finding context, as I wrote in previous chapters. In my inventory, dancing persons are mostly those with higher status. It can be caused by character of the scene. The most ordinary inhabitants are not ordinarily occurring in cultic scenes or palace rituals even although they could be present. I did not find artefacts characterizing folk dances, but it does not mean that such dances did not exist. It just was not needed to picture and propagated them.

261 Cooke, 2010, 33.

262 German, 2005, 23−25.

263 Ibid., 7−8.

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3.3.5 Bull dance

I devote this chapter to a bull dance, often referred as a bull leaping. I decided to do so, because it carries a significant informative value about the society. Bull dancing is closely related to other dancing activities and it represents an useful analogy to the Aegean dance.

Variety of bull dancing depiction in chronological order

The most ancient representation of a bull leaping264 in a Mediterranean region is deemed fresco (Fig. 88) from Anatolian Çatal Hüyük found in shrine (level V.III.), dated to the first quarter of the 6th millennium BC. It depicts a scene with a large bull surrounded by small-scale people, some of them leaping over the bull.265 An interesting fact associated with this area is that it is believed that people from Neolithic Anatolia are the people who at that time colonized Crete.266 Another, this time Syrian, bull leaping scene is on seal impression imprinted in tablets in palace of Alalakh (Fig. 89), room 11, level VII. Impression is dated to about 1700 BC. In Syria it is not an isolated occurrence of such depiction and presence of these images may imply that bull leaping may have originated in this area and Cretans were inspired by the Anatolian people.267 The third foreign example originates in Egypt and comes from the 18th dynasty. Palace with mixture of Minoan and Egyptian art is situated in the Nile Delta, the Avaris site. Fresco depicts several bulls and leapers in motion (Fig. 90).

264 For more information see Rice, 2014.

265 Mellaart, 1965, 136.

266 Nowicki, 2014, 41.

267 German, 2005, 47.

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Fig. 88. Painting from the north wall of a shrine, Çatal Hüyük. First quarter of the 6th millennium BC. (after: Mellaart, 1965, fig. 64)

Fig. 89. Fragment of a clay envelope from Alalakh, Level VII, carrying the impression of a cylinder seal with two bull leapers, ca. 1700 BC. (after: Aruz, et al., 2008, fig. 43)

Fig. 90. Bull leaping fresco from the palace at Avaris, Egypt. (after: Aruz, et al., 2008, 131)

From the times of the Early Aegean Bronze Age of Greece are the oldest artefacts symbolizing bull leaping two ceramic rhyta. Both were found in prepalatial cemeteries in the Mesara plane in Crete, one at Porti, second at Koumasa (Fig. 91). Rhyton has a shape of a bull on whose front part and horns are three people holding him. At the following phase are no known artefacts of bull leaping; next is Hagia Triada sarcophagus (Fig. 49) from Late Bronze Age, already discussed in inventory.268

268 Branigan, 1993, 133.

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In the Neopalatial period a bull leaping depictions comes mostly from Crete. The best known is an ivory male figure (Fig. 92), dated to MM IIIB, and carved in the middle jump, found in the Temple Treasure at Knossos. It is the only artefact with the whole body preserved and it may be floating in the air thank to chain. Nearby the temple was found a statuette of a bull, with which figure could have formed a pair. From the same period originates a whole scene of a bull leaping, carved into an ivory pyxis from Katsamba. Except for the acrobat, there is also a hunter standing in front of the bull.269 Time-related is also a steatite rhyton from Hagia Triada (Fig. 93) including scene with bull leaper in its second register from the top. Presumption that the bull leaping is there carved as a part of some athletic competition event is based on presence of a boxing men found in other register.270 Among other artefacts depicting this theme are a few sealings coming from Crete, namely from Hagia Triada (CMS II6.42., II6.41., II6.43., II6.44., II6.39.), Zakros (CMS II7.34., II7.36.) and Chania (CMS V.Sup.1A.171.). From the mainland, Grave Circle B at Mycenae was found only small fragment of ivory plaque illustrating part of a leaping man and bull’s legs.271

During the postpalatial period a bull leaping was preserved both in Crete and on the mainland. The most famous and one of the earliest discoveries of the bull leaping frescoes is made by Evans and fresco from the Court of the Stone Spout from Knossos (Fig. 94). In Knossos, other examples in the northwest treasure house and in the Queen’s Megaron, was found. Seals from this period with bull leaping were also located in Crete, namely they are from Praisos (CMS II3.271), Gournes (CMS II4.157) and Knossos (CMS II8.222). On the mainland, were found more examples than during the previous period. Best known are the frescoes from Tiryns, Pylos and Mycenae.272 Famous is also a larnax from Tanagra (Fig. 96), dated to the 13th century

269 Lapatin, 2001, 22.

270 Scanlon, 2014, 32.

271 German, 2005, 35−36.

272 Ibid., 37−42.

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BC depicting funeral with bull leaping and an armed combat.273 Also large number of seals is known, such as seals from sites of Dimini (CMS I.408), Thebes (CMS V2.674), Mycenae (CMS I.137 and CMS I.79), Koukounara (CMS V2.638), Asine (CMS I.200), and Pylos (CMS I.305).274

Fig. 91. Rhyton from Koumasa, in shape of a bull with three leapers. EBA. (after: Branigan, 1993, fig. 7.8)

Fig. 92. Ivory figure of an acrobat jumping over a bull from the Temple Treasure, Knossos. MM IIIB. (after: Donald and Hurcombe, 2000, fig. 5.11)

273 Scanlon, 2014, 29.

274 German, 2005, 37−42.

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Fig. 93. The stone rhyton from the Ahgia Triada with bull leaping scene in second register from the top. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Scanlon 2014, fig. 1.1)

Fig. 94. Fresco from the Court of the Stone Spout, Knossos. LM II–LM IIIC (after: Kleiner, 2015, fig. 4-8)

Fig. 95. Fresco from Tiryns. LH IIB−LH IIIC (after: Younger 1995 Pl. LXIb, pl. XIII).

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Fig. 96. Larnax from Tanagra. LH IIB−LH IIIC (after: Suter, 2008, fig. 4.4)

It is of importance to take into account the places where these activities were performed. Paved platforms, palaces or theatres, were taken into consideration. Evans suggests enclosed elliptical space with possible wooden palisade or wall and structure for spectators, as Roman amphitheatre.275

Other important elements are the performers of the bull dance. They are usually young men, but as Evans noticed, some of those who are depicted on the wall paintings have white or very pale skin.276 It indicates that, according to Etruscan tradition, they may be females. At the other hand they are mostly very muscular and some scholars propose different meanings of the pale skin as a representation of the distinct moments of the leap. If both sexes are presented in the scene, than it seems that the women are performing the male identity.277

Significance through the time till present and approach of various scholars

Interaction between a bull and a man has such deep roots, that one could claim to be a phenomenon which we can find in religion, culture, sports and art. The oldest

275 Evans, 1930, 223.

276 Evans, 1935, 31.

277 German, 2005, 44.

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evidences can be the Palaeolithic cave paintings.278 I have already mentioned some examples from the prehistory. When we pass to the classical Greece era, bull had an eminent place in the mythology. Zeus himself exploited its appearance for his own benefit.279 In his cult, bull has a procreative power. The most striking evidence of the importance of a bull in Greece is probably the myth of the Minotaur.280

We can recognize similar activities in the modern events. Corrida del toros in Spain involves intricate movements around a bull, but in this case from the beginning of the performance it is clear that bull will be killed. Maybe more similar present sport is the rodeo, practiced in the western part of the USA. Arthur Evans suggests a connection between these two activities.281

Similar conclusion about significance of a bull dance as Evans was reached by John Younger, who had an effort to categorize activities comprising bulls as bull- leaping, bull-wrestling, bull-sacrifice or bull-leapers and others in one of his article about bull games. Just as Evans he places this activity into surrounding of courts of palaces and he attaches it to the ritual significance.282 It can also have competitive form unlike the dance itself. At least we do not have any evidences about dancing competitions. Though is seems that it could served sometimes only for entertainment, in the past even the entertaining event were happening for had some reason.283

An interesting contemporary analogy might be a tribe of Hamer people in Ethiopia, practising the bull leaping during one of their ritual. Purpose of this act is a rite of passage into the adulthood. They have a custom when men get over backs of

278 Kleiner, 2010, 23.

279 Graves, 1992, 194.

280 Ibid., 293.

281 Ibid., 129.

282 Younger, 1995, 512.

283 Scanlon, 2014, 31−33.

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bulls standing in line in the middle of the village and other villagers are standing by. This community is predominantly Muslim.284 The rite is initiating by young man choosing the girl, so the rite leads to dances and a marriage ritual.285

In summary, the bull dance accompanied man for the long period of time. In Aegean, originating in the prepalatial period, two examples were found in the burial sites. In the protopalatial period, none and on the other hand in the Neopalatial period many examples were found in the Crete’s centres, considerably less on the mainland. Motif was used also on the seals. In the postpalatial period, the number of findings is balanced. Significance of using objects bearing such motif could be varied. In a religious domain, it could be a part of a ritual. In public domain there were organized competitions. Or in political domain, because bull was a symbol of power, it could be used in propaganda. Evans was of the opinion that bull leaping was the main ritual of Minoans aristocracy held at the sites of courts of palaces.286 Except for examples here introduced from out of the Greece areas, I did not find any bull leapers dating to the Bronze Age Europe. But the representation of cattle itself is common.

284 Shinn and Ofcansky, 2013, 205.

285 Williams, 2016, 66.

286 Younger, 1976, 129.

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3.4 Evaluation

This chapter should discuss the collected data summarized in a comparison table (Fig. 77) in connection to the society and history changes. I try to answer the question: “What does mean that the specific number of media was found in the specific context? How does it relate to the historical period?” Many experts in the Aegean prehistory followed the original Evans theory and associate dancing exclusively with deity or religious ritual. Another idea, next to that approaches, is that dancing had also political meaning.287 Here I would remind that dancing and depicting of dance are two different ways of perceiving dance. Dancing could involve various types of dances and choreographies. The need of deliberate illustration and propagation of dance moves it to the next level and has also informative value about the society.

Art of the Minoan and Mycenaean society was under control and restrictions in its depiction were applied. The primary purpose of Aegean formal art is to present and confirm politics. 288 This also includes art showing dance. It follows that dance could serve as a means of social control. It is generally assumed, that it happened in the Aegean and in the other parts of the world.289 Unfortunately, a source about informal art depicting dances is missing. I suppose that folk dances existed and served for an entertainment and for consolidation of interpersonal relationships, as it is today. It means that the available forms to examine are dancing activities of high status people and palatial authority.290 Informal art depicting scenes of the daily lives is infrequent and if we have some, they are only from period of Minoan era.291

287 German, 1999, 279.

288 Younger, 1998, 43.

289 Hanna, 1987, 138.

290 German, 2007, 36.

291 Younger, 1998, 44.

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Use of dance for the needs of the elite is known from the prepalatial period. In the tholos tombs in the Messara plain, dances were practiced within the funerary rite. The purpose was, except celebration of reception of deceased among ancestors, also to emphasize the authority, so cemeteries could serve as the focal points of rituals and plays role in maintaining stability.292

In the protopalatial period, Crete was considered as a form of state, divided into the regions with the main palace centre supervising on near territory.293 This period ends by destructions of unknown origin, at the beginning of MM IIB. Mainly large centres were destroyed, except Knossos. Knossos than began to exercise political power over the island.294 This could relate to the climatic change (characterized by drought) around the year 2200 BC, which had impact on the whole Mediterranean, and could caused economical crisis lead to the consolidation of the power of Knossos. One of the reactions of Crete to these changes was for example, to move settlements to higher positions.295

In this period, religion was centred on the death/fertility cults which strengthened the kin-group associations in Crete. It is proposed that these rituals, originally taking place in tombs, were later taken over by the palatial centres. It corresponds with the fact that all of the only three Cretan artefacts come from palatial context. It was the way of taking control of society, so it can be perceived as a sort of the state religion.296 German297 gives two Minoan artefacts depicting dance, the pottery from the palace context. I agree with the evaluation of this motif as a dance, and I think these artefacts even support the theory written above. Two facts are obvious: people chose right this dance and cult motif for decorating and this

292 Aamodt, 2014, 54.

293 Knappett, 1999, 620.

294 Macdonald, 2012, 536−7.

295 Klontza, 2014, 213.

296 Branigan, 1993, 139.

297 See German, 2007.

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pottery was used in the palace. From that I draw conclusions that dance was part of the ritual practices through which the palace can influence people. I think that by this connection politics uses the power of the cult, including dance. Adding two seals into the statistics can be questionable, due to the problematic chronology. The motif of the Minoan one, two women in procession holding a sabre, could, in my opinion, symbolically express already mentioned destructions. The only mainland seal with the motif of dance comes, unlike the previous examples, from burial context. The presence of seals on the mainland relates to the existence of Shaft Graves at the end of MH period,298 so this seal was used at the turn of this and the next period. Ancestor cult and cult of death are documented on the mainland in MH II299 and this particular seal, I think, is related to those cults rather than to politics. This opinion, that Mycenaeans starting to utilize cult in service of politics much later, in LH period, but it was not necessary earlier, in MH period, is also written in Lupack.300 Due to the very limited number of artefacts, no further conclusions can be drawn. These evidences may be occurred in higher number, but have not been preserved or found yet. Or maybe they even did not existed because people did not need such kind of art in large numbers.

In Neopalatial Crete, after MM IIB destructions, palaces were rebuilt, mostly enlarged and their structure was similar to each other. Island was surprisingly urbanized and its administration system worked also beyond its borders.301 The statistics show (Fig. 78), that on the contemporary mainland, MH III−LH IIA period, there were generally fewer depictions of dance than in Crete. Lots of artefacts from Crete were mainly from settlement and storage/administration contexts. On the mainland dominate the findings from burial and temple contexts. It relates with the rise of the funeral practice during this period. We must take into account that very wealth royal burial deposits from Neopalatial (and also Protopalatial) Crete, are

298 Younger, 2012, 329.

299 Muskett, 2007, 29.

300 Lupack, 2012, 264.

301 Younger and Rehak, 2008, 140−1.

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almost absent.302 It is the reason why only two examples are included in the statistics. Conversely, from the mainland are available data almost only from the Mycenaean castles and surface exploration. Rural settlements or shrines have not been properly examined.303 During the Neopalatial period were famous figural motif and cultic scenes.304 Human figure have been painted very preciously, even though it had almost not occurred before.305 I suppose that this sudden progress could have been caused by influence of another culture.

LM I period could be a highpoint of Minoan culture.306 Knossos in this period very probably strove for supremacy over the island. Unanswered question is the nature of its influence (political, ideological, and ritual) on other centres. The society was also influenced by dance, music and other types of art, as it is proven on the procession frescoes also outside of Crete.307 From administration and art foreign remains, could be concluded than Crete practiced a trade with luxury goods or with its artists also with distant localities. From parallel LH I period, many Cretan imports were found on the mainland, while there were not much foreign imports in Crete.308 For example, the gold rings with Minoan dance iconography were imported or were produced on the mainland according to the Minoan pattern. Famous artefact with the motif of dance on it is gold ring from Mycenae (Fig. 35), but of Minoan origin.309

At the end of the period LM IA there was an explosion of the Santorini volcano. It had an impact on society, its economy and settlements. Some of the destroyed sites were renewed and some were not. End of LM IB period is also

302 Cline, 2012, 242.

303 Klontza, 2014, 498.

304 Krzyszkowska, 2005, 131.

305 Immerwahr, 1990, 52.

306 Younger and Rehak, 2008, 140−1.

307 Soles, 1995, 407.

308 Klontza, 2014, 291−2.

309 Aamodt, 2014, 53.

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characterized by fire destructions caused by people. The destructions were mostly targeted at administrative centres, except Knossos.310 They did not occurred at the same time as one event, but it was longer process with roots already in LM IA period. This collapse is nowadays understood as reaction to some social crisis. Maybe related to theory that after explosion, Knossos was not able to dominate over secondary centres. Theory that fires were set as a result of the epidemic has been told.311 This hypothesis is only little discussed, but I think it can be a part of the whole crisis because the elapsed eruption could have had an impact on people’s health.

The most used motif was already debated bull dance.312 Special meaning has image of a powerful bull itself as a symbol of power and supremacy of Knossos. Here we can use an analogy of a bull leaping and dancing scenes. Hallager313 thinks that thanks to the frequent presence of processions and dancing scenes on seals, their highlight among frescoes and expansion abroad, can be said that images of dancing could present political ideology and they fulfil the function of indicators of authority of palaces.314 After the eruption, objects characterizing symbols of the Knossian power were find deliberately broken.315 The sources, I studied, do not mention that this would involve procession and dancing scenes too. From the statistics table (Fig. 78) is clear that in the Neopalatial period, there are many seals and sealings. They come mainly from the settlement and the storage/administration contexts in Haghia Triada and Zakros. I think that it is possible that these places of findings were destroyed with intent to damage such administrative tools bearing the motif of dance. There is one exception in the statistics, whole seal with dance on it, from Knossos (Fig. 42). I am inclined to believe that these destructions, led by

310 Younger and Rehak, 2008, 140−1.

311 Klontza, 2014, 191−192, 2, 231, 286.

312 German, 2005, 84.

313 See Hallager 1996.

314 Hallager, 1995, 549−550.

315 Klontza, 2014, 242−3.

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people, were caused by the complicated situation after eruption and were directed against the ruling class.

Minoan palaces served, except for administrative functions, also as a centre of cult and ideology. This is one of the few features that are common for the Mycenae castles as well.316 In the religion are also noticeable changes between the periods LM IA and B. Firstly, cult was practiced in the palaces, instead in peak sanctuaries (centre of folk cult). Later, in LM IB, various types of sanctuaries lost on popularity, even palace cult centres. Only cave shrines persisted to LM III. It is another fact testifying the decline of the power of the Knossian palace.317 I suppose that the presence of the two artefacts in the burial context indicates the remains of the previous tradition of the death/fertility cults, taking place on burial sites. Collected artefacts are the seal depicting ecstatic dancer with religious status (Fig. 28) and the statuette of Kamilari dancers (Fig. 21).

There are several hypotheses dealing with the way how the Minoan culture has been bridged into the Mycenaean. The most accepter one claims that Mycenaeans infiltrated the society in peace, maybe thanks to the marriage policy. Marriage policy is also documented between Minoans and Egyptians of the Tuthmoside (18th) dynasty. It was a normal way of foreign policy how to conclude agreements between the nations.318 I remind that according to the chronology, it was happening from the Neopalatial to the Postpalatial period. Another hypothesis tell us that Mycenaeans penetrated in Crete violently, and last, less supported, option could be that no foreign people played role in social changes and it was a kind of a civilian struggle.319

The main question of the Neopalatial period is that there must be a reason why there are only a minimal number of the dance depictions in LH II

316 Ibid., 202, 206−7.

317 Klontza, 2014, 259.

318 Bietak, 2005, 89−90.

319 Klontza, 2014, 249.

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period on the mainland in contrast with Crete. The statistics tells us that only three depictions of dance were found on the Mainland. Two frescoes from settlements and one seal ring from burial context. In Crete, there are together sixteen seals and sealings from settlement and storage/administration context. About their meaning is written above, in association with intentionally destroyed localities. Other dance motif in Crete is on one palace fresco, one statue from burial context and one seal from burial context too.

Possible explanations of the predominance of the findings from Crete above the mainland:

- Unbalanced survey. The lack of researches of burial grounds in Crete versus the lack of researches of settlements on the mainland. I think that is affects the statistics, but not entirely. Because this survey problem continues to the next period, when the result is different. - The number of images can be influenced, in my opinion, also by different structure of the Minoan and Mycenaean palatial centres. In Crete, there is proven the presence of the dance on the frescoes in palatial and settlement context. On the mainland there is the only one example, which comes from the settlement. No artefact was found in any castle. Mycenaean’s castles are made for controlling access and accommodating only a limited number of citizens, so character of the social events was different from the Minoan style. For Minoans, public events like festivals were important, and their palaces have been adapted to this. For Mycenaean people such events may have been slightly less important, but nonetheless dancing as a part of cult is documented in both cultures.320 I did not find sources writing about places for the performance on the mainland, as we know from Crete. It is related to text written above, and I repeat that lack of diversity of surveyed sites plays role, but does not affect the whole result of statistics. I believe that reason for lesser number of dance images is that they did not needed to promote what dance featured.

320 Aamodt, 2014, 55.

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- Symbolism of these images could be useful on the mainland later than in Crete, where these dance representations have its origin.321 Dance and its variations are most often represented on the seals used in administration and settlement context, as it has been already written. In addition, in the Neopalatial period was need of seals in administration, but later in the mainland burials they served as a symbol of high status of an individual. I see in that possible change in the administration system. Firstly it was bound to the site, then to the individual. - They picked up exactly this image because it has political subtext. Even more ancient prove that there could be a special relationship between representation of dance and stamp seals exist. On the basis of another example from ancient Ur in Mesopotamia we can support this hypothesis. During the Ur III period, last two centuries of the third millennium BC a prosperity of civilization is evident. Seals from there have standardized pattern consists from image of the owner, who was signed, depicted before the king. Because this seals were used in the administration for seal economic, social and other transactions, it may indicate owner’s service to the king or another type of relationship between them.322 More precisely, this seals featuring dance, associated their user with the sovereign and legitimized transactions between them. So in the Aegean some kind of circumstances might existed, which need such seals featuring dancing scenes.323 - Parallel period LH II on the mainland, is characterised by the increase of the power of Mycenaean castles.324 So maybe at this era they did not have the need of the strengthening and propagating of power through art. It could be the explanation why only three dancing scenes were found there. Procession fresco and amount of statuettes come from temples. The only seal ring comes

321 German, 2007, 33.

322 Winter, 1991, 60.

323 German, 2007, 35.

324 Klontza, 2014, 220.

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from the burial. It may indicate that dance on the mainland during LH II period served more to religious purposes than political.

In the Postpalatial period in Crete and LH IIB−LH IIIC on the mainland, after the destructions there was a chaos solved by Knossos under the Mycenaean influence in LM II/LM IIIA. This palace is the only one with uninterrupted working and becomes again the centre of the unified ideology, as reflected, for example, by a change in the funeral rite. The statistics (Fig. 78) show a similarity of findings from the burial context in Crete and on the mainland. At both cases there was found one piece of pottery depicting dance. Frescoes showing dance are painted on three larnaxes, one from the mainland and two from Crete. This similarity may indicate Mycenaean influence on the Minoan burial tradition. There were found graves of warriors around Knossos, belonging to the individuals with Cretan origin. That centralization of the power is probably thanks to the Mycenaeans or the mykenized Cretans,325 which is also opinion of two important scholars, Driessen and Macdonald,326 dealing with Crete.327 Strong argument confirming presence of Mycenaean’s elite on Knossos after LM IB destructions is findings of tablets with Mycenaean’s linear B script. They were used in administration, which may indicate that Mycenaeans had taken control over Crete.328 Change in the administration system is evident also from the statistics of findings (Fig. 78). Only one seal, usually used in Minoan administration, was found in the palace context and no single artefact was found in the storage/administration context in Crete. On the mainland there was only one seal in such context. Two seals were found in the castles. It follows that Minoan administration system was in decline.

325 Klontza, 2014, 287−289, 308−9.

326 See Driessen and Mandonald, 1997.

327 For more information about period before and after Santorini eruption, see 17th edition of Aegaeum series, written by Driessen and Mandonald, 1997.

328 Stansbury-O'Donnell, 2015, 50.

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On the mainland in LH I and II there were political centres with territorial control. This system developed in LH III into politically organized society, so called “polity”.329 Traditional, but not true opinion is that people on the mainland lived mainly in the castles. New information is that during LH IIIA, when castles were at the peak, the largest number of settlements was also inhabited.330 Despite of this new fact, no artefact was found in the settlement context. Here, I remind the problem with already debated unbalanced research.

This situation, presence of another culture, was reflected in art. Now, the number of artefacts connected with dance is reversed. More artefacts come from the mainland than from Crete. The most often context was burial and palatial, and only one seal came from storage/administration context. The motif of a bull dance, as the strong symbol of political power, was about as popular as dance. Here I would remind that both activities were held in the palaces. One explanation could be that art migrated to north, which German331 did not support. The second idea, with which she agrees, is that people on the mainland suddenly needed such type of art. I think that both hypotheses could be partly true. Artists could migrate to the north, but in any case, it would be on the Mycenaen elite's wish. The most common artefacts were seals, mostly found in graves. They served as the badge of identity332 and Mycenaean’s graves exhibit pronounced social stratification.333 It is not detectable whether they are the Minoan or the Mycenaean origin, because they became unrecognizable. Seals were produced till final destructions of Mycenaean’s centres.334 On the mainland, there were found thirteen seals in burial context. In Crete, there were only two. A striking feature is also high value of the chosen media (for example gold rings) and uniformity of images, which

329 Shelmerdine, 2008, 289.

330 Klontza, 2014, 327.

331 See German, 2005.

332 German, 2005, 84.

333 Tartaron, 2013, 12.

334 Younger and Rehak, 1998, 156.

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may indicate a form of their standardization. The similarity of women on seals to women at Sacred Grove and Dance fresco is very noticeable. Possible option could be that seals were inspired by frescoes, but more likely images simply represent the same thing, in this case dancing.335 It follows that the higher status Mycenaeans had to have reason to use this exact image. I think that this image represented ceremonies involving dance (diplomatic weddings or religious rituals). The seal served to mark official administrative documents related with such ceremony. The owner of such a seal was a high status person who had the ceremony and the administration in charge.

In LM II-III, the representation of the human figure and cultic scenes is decreasing. It could be related to the collapse of the Neopalatial society.336 The statistics of images (Fig. 78) shows that after the palace destructions in this period, there are more frescoes on the mainland than in Crete. Their painters may have migrated from Crete to the mainland.337 The most common motif is procession. On contrary to the previous era, almost no processions without gifts were depicted. My opinion is that with empty hand performers had better conditions for eventual dance creations involved in the procession. When they held the objects, it evokes connection to the cult and they probably needed to postpone these gifts when some dance follows during cultic ritual.

Another possible interpretation of procession frescoes mainly in the important centres is that there were practiced rituals controlled by elite people. There were preserved two frescoes in the palatial context in Crete and six on the mainland. It is possible that on those frescoes are painted the ceremonies considered as the group marriage. In other words, it is kind of the rite of passage. As an analogy could be used the Harvester vase coming from the palatial context in Crete. An initiation rite is depicted on it as well. Participating people on the frescoes are mostly adolescents

335 German, 1999, 280.

336 Krzyszkowska, 2005, 204.

337 Dickinson, et al., 1994, 167.

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of both sexes, dressed into the garment indicating their higher status.338 Such frescoes do not show directly the wedding act, but procession, which was part of the larger ceremony.339 Existence of the group marriage is also proved by ancient literal sources. In the 4th century BC, the historian Ephorus wrote about organizing boys into groups and after reaching adulthood they were forced to enter into the marriage within group ceremony.340 Ephorus wrote about the specific Ekdysia festival, made for the young men of Phaistos. In the first stage, they were sorted into the groups and in the last phase they obtained the warrior costume, their look was changed and as it was written, the marriage follows.341 If so, it can be the evidence of the power of the palaces, and this ceremony may be the way of the control above the youth entering into the adult life and supervision of community. The custom of the collective marriage in Crete was not anything extraordinary. An analogy is written in the Homer’s Knossian dance of Ariadne in the myth of Theseus, which also ends with the wedding.342 An analogy with the Ethiopia bull dance, leading to the group marriage, is obvious.343 German344 believes that the Mycenaean higher status people had control of the social promotion of the youth practiced by the Minoans continuously from the Neopalatial to the Postpalatial period. The fact that pose A was the most famous arm position across all periods lead us to the idea that they may support some specific type of dance.

I agree with Klontza,345 who believes that Knossos and Crete were mykenized, but in a non-violent way. The diplomacy or foreign weddings could be

338 See chapter 3.2 Interpretation.

339 German, 2007, 35.

340 Koehl, 2001, 237.

341 Koehl, 1986, 104.

342 Willetts, 1962, 125.

343 Chapter 3.3.5 Bull dance.

344 See German, 2007.

345 See Klontza, 2014.

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used within the politics.346 These changes and political techniques were reflected in art, as it is written above. In contrast to the political meaning of dance I would like to write a few lines about the dance in cult. Because the fact, that dance was used within the politics, does not mean that it was not practiced in the religion. It the politics, depiction of dance presented the elite, their way of living and function in the society. Depiction of dance in cult had the ritual-ideological message. Illustrations of dancing goddess, dancing priest, cultic architectural structure or divine attributes complementing the scene, are common (for example Fig. 11, Fig. 70). After LM IB we notice changes in cult practices. Minoan peak sanctuaries are no longer used so much. New cult icon, after Mycenaean influence, the Goddess with Upraised arms, is often found. They wear flounced skirt and crown with deity’s attributes like bird, snake, poppies, and horns of consecration or discs. Snake tubes are also new. Whereas these attributes were known much earlier, it is proposed that old religion continues, but in a much less extent.347 In the Postpalatial period in Crete are common small shrines in the houses and cities. The terracotta statue of the dancers from the shrine in Palaikastro was found. It is the only artefact found in the settlement context in Crete. This artefact connects dance and cult within a settlement. Another change in cult practices occurs after LM IIIB.348 It is the time of the first palatial destructions caused by people, setting up refuges in the higher positions and end of Knossos palatial centre.349 For the Helladic cult is characteristic its connection between the official religion and military. The main source of mainland’s religion is Helladic iconography. On frescoes and seals are depicted processions, sacrifices, celebrations, musical and dance performances. On the contrary, a bull horns, double axes, as a symbol of political power, or Minoan cups were not found. On the mainland the only known shrines belong to the castle centres, there were no peak

346 Klontza, 2014, 324.

347 Cline, 2012, 259−260.

348 Klontza, 2014, 447−8.

349 Ibid., 371.

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sanctuaries.350 So the Minoan cult moved from nature into cities and houses and Mycenaean cult was probably continuously practiced in the castles. People may had not have reason to depart from the official religion, as was the case of Minoans. The end of the Mycenaean era followed by Dark Ages was probably caused in LM IIIC by Sea peoples.351 From this period, there is a lack of findings and sources in general and it does not belong to the field of my research.

350 Ibid., 450−452.

351 Ibid., 388.

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4 Egypt

4.1 Introduction

The Egyptian Empire was inspiring for surrounding cultures, particularly through the participation in the international trade. Because I want to put Aegean dance into broader context, in this chapter, I would like to evaluate what dance meant for the Egyptians, in what way it was depicted, how it relates to politics and how dance looks in modern Egypt. Analogies between Egyptian and Aegean dance are often mentioned throughout whole thesis; further comparison will be discussed in final Conclusion. For Egyptian dance I chose system different from Aegean one. I divided Egyptian dance according to types of dance because it was the clearest way how to organize examined images. At last I evaluate it and put it into social context. I deal with 2nd intermediate period and New Kingdom, because these periods are concurrent with Late Bronze Age in Aegean. I want to compare meaning of dance in Aegean and Egypt culture and in what way dance was or not propagated.

4.1.1 Historical background

It is necessary to briefly introduce main points of examined period, to know from what background art and dance in Egypt have originated. At the beginning of the 18th century BC, well developed Middle Kingdom era has transformed into 2nd Intermediate period starting with XIII. dynasty. It was period in which Hyksos came to power. Their supremacy was not accepted by Egyptians and whole this period they have tried to overthrow them.352 Beginning of New Kingdom era353 Amosis expels the Hyksos and become a ruler. The policy of the eighteen and following dynasties was expansive with effort to create superpower. Only Queen Hatshepsut chose

352 Burian and Oliva, 1984, 40−42.

353 For more information see Healy, 2013.

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business policy. Well known is Amenhotep IV., who reformed religion by promotion a solar disc, Aton, to a single deity. It was a political step against influential priests of Veset, who propagated cult of Amon. His reform was cancelled due to the economic downturn. At Ramesses epoch Egypt was again a very prosperous country concentrating on Asian territory with several army interventions. The most famous was battle of Qadesh at 1286 BC, where Ramesse II. collided with Hitties. Result was peace treaty. Prosperous empire then has begun to be attacked by Libyans and Sea people and despite of effort of Ramesse III. a decline came. It was not ultimate demise of empire, but administration was infiltrated by foreign nations. Army was not very capable and society was dissatisfied. Priests of Veset had bigger power than ruler.354

4.1.2 Rules for painting and interpretation of dance

List of known images of dance from Old and Middle Kingdom with brief information was created by Louise Klebs at the beginning of twenty century.355 I do not know that such a list exists also for New Kingdom Era.

In Egyptian art, dominated by painting, we deal with extra problem to interpret images. It is the lack of perspective in paintings. Deployment of figures and objects at image does not have to correspond to reality. On image it can seem like figures are standing one behind the other, but in real they can be next to each other. However plenty of images on which is undoubtedly shown dancing, are preserved. Like on the image from tomb of Kheruef at Thebes (Fig. 97).356

Egyptian painting is subject to several rules. Gods and higher class people, while standing, have legs drawn from the profile, stepped leg is more distant, torso is drawn en face and head from the profile while eyes en face. Rules were modified for persons in movement. On static figure he could bend some chosen joints like fingers,

354 Burian and Oliva, 1984, 59−63.

355 See Klebs, 1915 and Klebs, 1922.

356 Shachter, 2014, 16.

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ankles, wrists and whole torso and head. Rules for painting lower class people were not so strict, so they can be drawn similarly or whole in profile or rarely whole in en face. Complications in interpretation occur in case of round dance when some persons should be drawn from back and some from front side, but they are drawn from profile with little differences like bending foots. People standing one behind other means row from side or front view.357

Three dimensional art examples are rare; I can mention dancing goddess Bes or statues of two women in back-bend position.358 Below in text I mention also carved handles of toiletries.

Fig. 97. Egyptian dancers from Kheruef tomb, Thebes (after: Shachter 2014, fig. 2)

4.2 Dance types

Dance in tombs

Dancing scenes coming from tombs from fourth Dynasty till the end of New Kingdom are part of funerary rite, banquet or worshipping Hathor.359

357 Lexová, 1935, 16−19.

358 Shachter, 2014, 18.

359 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 5.

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Banquets

Dancing men and women at banquets served for entertainment of guests.360 A change has appeared in presence of people at banquets during 18th Dynasty. Now living persons are part of banquets of deceased. In general these events undergone a change, scenes are painted in more details.361

Funerary dance

Very important part of funerary rite was dance of Muu dancers, who were always three men or they were in pairs. Till 18th Dynasty they were depicted with papyrus head which make them simply recognizable. They usually hold hand at chest and point two fingers to the ground, holding or touching hands. One foot is touching the ground with toes while second leg is rose. It is sign of moving forward while they are safeguard procession with statue to coffin (Fig. 98). They served as ferrymen of deceased and guardians of borders to another world.362 Different part of funeral religious dances was before tomb performed by men and women. Rhythm was given by a dance leader. Custom of dancing at funerals survived to nowadays Egypt and its aim is simple, mainly to protect soul by ward off evil. Thanks to inspiration by god Bes, it was believed that dance is the most powerful when it is practiced by a dwarf.363 Dwarf dance was kind of ritual dance practises already in Old Kingdom.364 Physical appearance of dwarfs was not understood as indisposition, but on the contrary as divine mark. They appear in entertainment dance, festivals but mainly in ritual dance for their special ability of healing, to fight evil and protect threshold limits.365

360 Lexová, 1935, 13.

361 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 6.

362 Ibid., 5.

363 Lexová, 1935, 12−13.

364 Ibid., 38.

365 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 5.

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Worshipping Hathor

We can consider as dancers also priests and worshippers who are just performing ritual. Except Muu dancers it can be people honouring some god. As at stele of the Nefersut at Deir el Medina is scene of worshipping the goddess Hathor (Fig. 99).366 Dance involving leaps and splits was practiced to her honour already in Old Kingdom and continued through Middle Kingdom with changes in dressing.367 During the 2nd Intermediate Period, cult of Hathor of Dendra practiced so called Festival of Drunkenness. A lot of music, dance and drinking had purpose to calm the goddess. Later festival of Homecoming, when Hathor came back from Nubia, was also full of dance and alcohol. Presence of alcohol, drunkenness and ecstasy was an exception in religious celebrations.368

According to preserved sources it seems that dancers were very important part of funerary rites of all types like funeral of the ruler, of private person or even of sacred bulls Apis and Mnevis.369

Fig. 98. Muu dancers. Thebes Tomb of Tetiki. (after Shachter 2014, fig. 12)

366 Bierbrier, 1989, 86.

367 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 6.

368 Assmann, 2001, 155.

369 Spencer, 2003, 116.

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Fig. 99. Worshipping Hathor on stele of Nefersenut, Deir el Medina. (after: Bierbrier, 1989, fig. 60)

Solo dancers

Solo dancers are the least represented type of dancers at Egyptian Art.370 Two ostraca from Dynasty 18 with women in backbend were found at Deir el-Medina (Fig. 100). They wear only kilt or loincloth and jewellery.371

When a musician is presented at scene, it is simpler to indentify solo dancer, who is usually distinguished by costume, in his vicinity as on the image from Tomb of Nakht at Thebes (Fig. 101).372

Example of combination of solo dancer, three dimensional art and rendering of the deity is statuette of dancing god Bes, who is also playing tambourine (Fig. 102). This god in a shape of lion headed dwarf, maybe coming from Africa, should turn away evil spirits during labour.373 Bes is mainly god of fertility, but he is also connected with dance and music.374

370 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 2.

371 Aruz, et al., 2008, 337.

372 Shachter, 2014, 20, 24.

373 Spencer, 2003, 112.

374 Bierbrier, 1989, 91.

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Dancers have always been mainly Egyptian nationalities, but specialities of 18th Dynasty are dancers of different origin.375 Nubian female dancers could be carved for example into handle of cosmetic spoon. Also male dancers from Nubia and Lybia were depicted perhaps participating public events like Opet-processions or celebration of return of Hathor to Nubia.376 They also could be carved into toiletries; nice example is a razor in shape of Nubian dancing while playing lute.377

Pair dancing

Couples in Egyptian dance were consisted of persons of the same sex; an image of mixed couple dancing together is not discovered. Dancing in pair is good opportunity to show perfectly symmetrical dance, that Egyptians liked during the Old and also New Kingdom period.378

Two female dancers, who don’t hold symmetrical dance position, are painted at Thebes in Tomb of Nebamun (Fig. 104). Is seems that each of them dance their own steps, accompanied with clapping their hands. Pair dance is also depicted at already mentioned image from Tomb of Kheruef (Fig. 97). It is excluded from context of group line dancing.379 Their dancing posture is interesting by bending their bodies into horizontal bend forward.

Already mentioned backbend solo dancers are also part of group performances. Such as example from Festival of Opet, during which god Amon-re travelled from Karnak to Luxor (Fig. 105).380 Supplementary event was Festival of

375 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 1.

376 Ibid., 8.

377 Hayes, 1990, 268.

378 Lexová, 1935, 27.

379 Shachter, 2014, 25.

380 Spencer, 2003, 112.

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the Valley, when image of Amun-re went to royal mortuary temples after he gets over Nile to the west coast.381

In connection with Opet-procession at the times of Hatshepsut, arose a theory that now newly also dancers were part of the temple. This is sure, according depictions, about musicians, who had dancers under the leadership. Physical condition and knowledge of religion was required, due to possible imitation of mythology and ritual habits. Such dancers could be also hired, first written document, Papyrus Cornell 26, confirming this act, comes from Ptolemaic-Roman period.382 This is connected with a fact that music and dance was part of education and at banquets and festivals professional dancers were performing dance.383 At harvest festival of Min, god of fertility, also king himself or his representatives were obliged to dance.384

War dance

During New Kingdom period, Egyptians dispose of mercenary army composed of men of various nations. Troops danced war dance in their free time for recreation, sometimes in form of duel. Their effort could be supported by war musical instruments like drums or wooden sticks for clapping.385 I think that it was also good training. I see connection with modern capoeira fighting style looking like a dance. Also Greek Pentozalis, about which I write in Greek part of thesis, can gave us better idea about was dances. It is said that also Egyptian women danced war dance, when they must protect families when their men were gone in battle. To this day it survives in modern form of dance with saber, but connection with history can only be conjecture.

381 Spencer, 2003, 117.

382 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 7.

383 Lexová, 1935, 8.

384 Ibid., 12.

385 Ibid., 30.

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Animal dance

During the reign of 18th Dynasty, animal dance is known from art. At Papyrus from Tomb of Ani BM 10470 are apes dancing to welcome sun at the beginning and end of god’s journey. At ostracon from Deir el-Medina is satirical scene on which goat is dancing while hyena is playing at the double oboe. A typical position of arms in ritual dance is up and incurved, like bulls horns. It was common in fourth millennium BC, than motive survived, but was not typical. It survived till today in African fertility dances.386

Theatre and private life

There is no evidence about Egyptian theatre, maybe only plays and dances inspired by mythology. At profane and private events, entertainment was provided by its participants or hired performers. Dance scenes from home environment are known from Old to the end of New Kingdom.387

Fig. 100. An acrobat in backbend painted on limestone ostracon. (after: Aruz, et al., 2008, fig. 108)

386 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 4−5.

387 Spencer, 2003, 117−118.

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Fig. 101. Musician and dancer in the Tomb of Nakht, Thebes. (after: Russel, 2013, 334)

Fig. 102. Dancing god Bes with tambourine. (after: Spencer, 2003, 112.)

Fig. 103. Handle of razor with Nubian dancer. (after: Hayes, 1990, fig. 164)

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Fig. 104. Two female dancers in Tomb of Nebamun. (afret: Spencer, 2003, 113)

Fig. 105. Group of dancers in backbend at Festival of Opet. (after: Spencer, 2003, 112)

4.3 Dance and society

Art goes hand in hand with quality of life of a particular culture. For better understanding let’s take a quick look at history. Earliest Egyptian dancing scenes comes from predynastic rock art and vessels. After Egypt, around the year 3100 BC, become unified kingdom, thanks to political stability, art could be developed. The

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oldest known type of Egyptian dance was The Scorpion mace dance practiced in royal unification ceremony. Next oldest kind of dance is funerary dance practiced by professional dancers and musicians, who accompanied deceased in funerary procession or behind entrance into tomb. From Second Intermediate Period between 1975−1550 BC, when Egypt did not have centralized government, comes great example of freedom in art. This freedom of expression corresponds with looseness in society. Scene depicting people enjoying pair-dancing is painted in tomb of Intef at Dra Abu’l Naga (Fig. 106).388

Nice sup up of relation between group dancing and society is made by Shachter. I think Egyptian culture is not the only one to which it can be applied.

„This (group dancing) can be understood as a socio-cultural statement regarding the nature of dance in Egypt. Dance takes place in a social context and deals with the connection between both man and man, and man and god, in festivals and in the context of death; between one dancer and another and between the dancers and the spectators.“389

The most important part of Egyptian dancing is practiced at state religion rituals, which were mostly held inside of temples, so only ruler, priests and performers could attend. For public served religious festivals, including processions, and feast celebrations before the sacred place. In general, Egyptian religious events inside the temple had very formal and sober course. Celebrations outside of the temple did not have to adhere to such strict etiquette and were more crowded and alive.390 Dancing as a part of worshipping deities and by the way religious festivals outside of temple was taken from Egyptians by Jews.391

388 Spencer, 2003, 115.

389 Shachter, 2014, 26.

390 Spencer, 2003, 117.

391 Lexová, 1935, 9.

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The most crucial idea about Egyptian art is that it was usually created in order of ruler and it served to propagandist and religious purposes.392

Change in costume occurred in New Kingdom Era. Men replaced apron for long transparent cloaks or only for belt around hips. Impress of dancers is more sophisticated than before. Women’s costume during religious processions was based o nudity, thanks which were discouraged demons. They could be completely naked or they have only breast uncovered.393 The same applies in the case of banquets.394

Fig. 106. Pair dancing in the tomb of Intef. (after: Spencer, 2003, 113.)

392 Shachter, 2014, 19.

393 Lexová, 1935, 11−12.

394 Meyer-Dietrich, 2009, 6.

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5 Near East

5.1 Introduction

My interest is also to compare Aegean dance with dance in East Mediterranean. I have already written about Egypt and Helladic culture on the west coast of Anatolia. In this chapter, I would like to discuss area further east, because I have found interesting and important analogies to Aegean dance there. It involves territory of today’s Turkey, Syria, Israel and neighbouring countries. Due to the large area of territory, lots of cultures and historical changes, I only selected few localities and evaluated a small number of artefacts. Nevertheless, they provide the necessary information about the meaning of the dance and could be used as an analogy to the Aegean dance. I evaluate what dance meant to Near East cultures. How dance looked like, how it was related to religion and politics and how it was or was not propagated. The methodology is based on the availability of resources. I collected the representative sample of artefacts and evaluated its connection to dance and society.

5.1.1 History background

The territory of the Bronze Age Near East involves several regions. Main parts are the Anatolian plateau, Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. For uniqueness of Egypt, I have decided to devote a separate chapter to it. In such a large territory, many cultures were formed during the Bronze Age.395 Evaluated artefacts are coming from Philistines, Hittites, Sumerians, Akkadians and other cultures. In these agricultural societies, there was a high social stratification. They contributed to the development of kinship tribes into state societies. Mostly it is used term king for a ruler.396 From following artefacts I try to find out how dance reflected society.

395 For more information see Bryce, 2009.

396 Chirichigno, 1993, 49, 142.

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5.2 Dance

5.2.1 Archaeological remains

The following cult centres are significant for presence of courtyards. The presence of a dance floor is documented as early as the 9th millennium BC. On the Syrian burial site Tell Halula, it was discovered a plastered floor, decorated with painted dancing women. The site connects burial and cultic place. On the following two localities were preserved several evidences about dance. Part of both temples was large courtyard. First is the temple in Megiddo in Israel and is dated to the Early Bronze Age. Scenes of dancing and playing musical instruments (Fig. 107) were engraved into the stone slabs located in the courtyard. Second one is in Israel either in Tell Quasile. It is Philistine temple from 12th−11th centuries BC. The clay cultic stand (Fig. 108) depicting round dance was preserved there. Four dancing figures are created by holes in the material. Dancers are visible from the profile and they are holding hands. Moreover, inside the temple were found two trumpet shells, commonly used as musical instruments. These artefacts point to the fact that the large courtyard before the temple served for dance activities of a cult. It continues even to the following era. Cultic centre at Sinai, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, (Sinai Peninsula, Egypt) comes from 7th century BC and bears various proves of ritual events. A row dance, maybe of worshippers, is depicted on pottery storage jar. Drawing of lyre player indicates the presence of dance as well. Such evidences identify these sites as a convenient place for cult dancing activities.397

397 Garfinkel, 2014, 6−10.

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Fig. 107. The dancing scene from Megiddo, Israel. (after: Loud, 1948, Plate 270)

Fig. 108. Clay cultic stand from Tell Qasile with circle dance. Israel. (after: Ben-Shlomo, 2010, fig. 3.20)

5.2.2 Iconographic material

There is a large amount of an iconographic material from Near East, which depicts dance. It is not the aim of this thesis to make an inventory of all of them, so I selected several examples, which can be a useful analogy to Aegean dance.

From the Early Bronze Age come two cylinder seals with the motif of a circle dance. More accurate dating is to 3000−2700 BC. The first seal comes from Niniveh in Iraq and shows people who are bending forward and holding hands (Fig. 109). The

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second seal comes from Hama in Syria and shows dancers holding their raised hands (Fig. 110). Such pattern is similar to the decoration of a circumference of vessels. Collon (2003) associate it with wedding ritual.398 I would rather associate it with the sun cult. Because there are sun rays behind figures and there are animals, maybe for sacrifice.399

A cylinder seal from an atypical funeral context was found in the city of Ur in Iraq. Graves are dated to 2600−2500 BC. It shows a banquet, divided into two registers (Fig. 111). In its upper part, it is the woman drinking from the cup and men drinking from big jars through tubes. In the lower part are female dancers and lyre players. It seems that dancers are clapping hands and two small dancers below the lyre are naked. The motif of a banquet with dancers is not unusual, but this exact seal was found on the neck of the woman buried in the group grave together with 73 other people. They probably have drunk narcotic drinks.400 It seems to me like a ritual suicide. I suppose that in this case, connection to religion is not clear thanks to the motif, but thanks to the finding circumstances.

Naked dwarf dancers with bent legs, mentioned above, are common motif on cylinder seals or on terracotta plaques. They were popular mainly in the Old Babylonian period. From this period come also two following artefacts. It is not sure if they are really dwarves or they are small only because of the composition of the image. Anyway, the term “bow-legged dwarf” is usually used. On the plaque originating probably from Susa in Iraq is the dancer playing some kind of guitar (Fig. 112).401

Another depiction of the dwarf dancer is on the lower register on the other cylinder seal. The exact location is unidentified, but it comes from the Old Babylonian period (Fig. 113). Rest of the register shows the king with an axe and a

398 Collon, 2003, 97.

399 More information is in the following subchapter 5.3 The sun cult.

400 Collon, 2003, 98.

401 Ibid., 98.

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mace above an enemy, an escort and seating goddess. In the upper register, a pair of dancing naked men is visible. Next to them is the mythological representation of the battle.402 It suggests that the victory dance after a battle is shown there.

The terracotta disc from Iraq certainly depicts performers at a festival (Fig. 114). It is dated to 1850−1750 BC. There are two dancing dwarves and two nude women in a dancing pose.403

A later artefact, the faience cylinder seal dated to 1400−1350 BC, comes from palace of Alalakh (Fig. 115). On image is depicted the seated goddess, the tambourine player, the lute player and between them is the crouching acrobat with a ball.404 Exactly the same dancing position is used by dancers of modern gymnastics with a ball.

Dance as a part of wedding ritual is depicted on relief-vase from Inandik in Turkey (Fig. 116). The vase is dated to 1600 BC.405 It displays all parts of Hittite wedding ritual as a libation, bull worshipping, playing instruments, dancing and more activities connected with marriage.406

A dance can be related to the funeral rituals as well. Garfinkel (2014) states that the Philistines from Israel, between years 1500−1000 BC used to depict mourning dancers around rims of vessels in a circle dance. Using clay objects for depicting funeral dancing scene is the same for Mycenaean culture. On the contrary, Egyptians preferred to paint mourners on tomb’s wall.407

402 Collon, 2003, 99.

403 Ibid., 99.

404 Ibid., 100.

405 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 282.

406 Güterbock, 2002, 47.

407 Garfinkel, 2014, 12.

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In Anatolia and neighbouring regions, in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC, dance is a part of bigger festivals associated with celebrating woman giving birth. Music was playing and people brought gifts.408 In other cultures, such ceremony has not been documented yet. For last two examples, I unfortunately did not find a quality image.

The motif of procession existed in Near East, as well. Cylinder seals are well adapted to this motif. Thanks to the scrolling, a motif can be endless. A human procession as a part of banquet scene is depicted on cylinder seal from Syria dated to 1720−1650 BC. In upper part are men in royal robes approaching Sumerian goddess.409 From my research of the motif of the procession, I concluded that processions are mostly related to some cult event. Examples can be presentation scenes. There a human or gods are approaching a deity. Some examples mention Kist (2003).410

Fig. 109. Circle dance on the cylinder seal from Niniveh. 3000−2700 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 97)

408 Lion, et al., 2016, 143.

409 Pittman, et al., 1987, 67.

410 Kist, et al., 2003, 86−87.

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Fig. 110. Circle dance on the cylinder seal from Hama. 3000−2700 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 97)

Fig. 111. Dance on a banquet with a narcotic drink. The cylinder seal from Ur. 2600−2500 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 98)

Fig. 112. Dwarf dancer on the terracotta plaque originating probably from Susa. The Old Babylonian period (after: Collon, 2003, 98)

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Fig. 113. Dance on cylinder seal, unknown location. The Old Babylonian period (after: Collon, 2003, 99)

Fig. 114. Dancers on a festival. The terracotta plaque from Iraq. 1850−1750 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 99)

Fig. 115. Dancer with a ball on the cylinder seal from Alalakh. 1400−1350 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 100)

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Fig. 116. Hittie wedding ritual on the Inandik vase. 1600 BC (after: Güterbock, 2002, fig. 1)

Fig. 117. Procession on banquet on the cylinder seal from Syria. 1720−1650 BC (after: Pittman and Aruz, 1987, fig. 58)

5.3 The sun cult

The most important female deity in the Hittite culture was the Sun Goddess of Arinna, who was also the goddess of fertility. She and her husband were part of an official state religion.411 The cult of the sun of the Hittites is similar to the Indo European cult. Their belief is based on the Heaven, the Earth, and the Netherworld.

411 Stiebing, 2016, 214.

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An important role plays the sun-goddess, because of her travelling from the west to the east to the underworld. She has bright and dark sides.412 Arinna is depicted in a shape of a sun-disc. A material of the disk can be gold, silver, bronze, copper, and iron. A good example of the portrait of the sun goddess is the gold statue from central Anatolia dated to 13th−14th century BC (Fig. 118).413 Festivals of Arinna were organized and a dance was part of it. Animals for a sacrifice were present as well.414 The tradition of dances in honour of sun gods is held across Europe from Ireland to Russia.415 Unfortunately, I did not find any convenient iconographic material showing how dance looked like. Each Hittite king has his own god as patron and in the 13th century BC, Arinna was chosen by one of the kings.416 I think it may mean that the religion served for strengthening the royal power and propaganda.

The sun god is known even from glyptic art. From the Akkadian III period originates the cylinder seal illustrating the sun god standing between mountains. The sun rays come from his shoulder. All figures wear stripped dresses. The sun god and the second god, leading the worshipper, wear horned headdresses.417 Such special garment emphasizes the importance of the ritual.418

412 Kristiansen and Larsson., 2005, 283−284.

413 Ibid., 2005, 294−295.

414 Takahito, 1999, 203.

415 Golan, 1991, 55.

416 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 293.

417 Kist, et al., 2003, 87.

418 Topic of the sun dance, ritual garment and analogies of the un cult between cultures will be discussed in chapters 6.3 Solar disc and cult of sun and 7 Conclusion.

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Fig. 118. The sun goddess of Arinna. 13th−14th century BC (after: Metropolitan Museum of Art, museum number: 1989.281.12, available from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/327401, last access: 8. 6. 2018)

Fig. 119. Sun god wearing string dresses and horned headdresses, on Akkadian cylinder seal. The Akkadian III period (Kist, et al., 2003, fig. 145)

5.4 Dance and society

From collected sources is possible to conclude that the dance in Near East was associated mainly with the religion. This is confirmed by the presence of courtyards, dancing scenes and musical instruments found in the temples together. The main deity of the Hittite pantheon, who inhabited large areas in Near East, was the Sun

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goddess. She is related to the cult dance. Dance as a part of the sun cult is practiced in Europe as well.419 A similarity between string dresses is obvious.

From the 3rd millennium BC, the dance was mostly depicted on cylinder seals. The motif was popular during the whole Bronze Age in Near East.420 On seals, it is often depicted the connection between religion and dance in a form of the procession. They are usually part of scenes involving acceptance of a god. A much more information about dance and procession is possible to gain from the glyptic material. Unfortunately, careful study of many seals is not in my power. For the same reason is not aim of this thesis to make an inventory of dancing images of each region. That is the reason why I chose only a few artefacts and information that could be used in analogy to the Aegean dance.

From presented examples is obvious, that many kinds of dances existed in the Bronze Age Near East. A dance was part of funeral rites, banquets, festivals, birth- giving celebrations, religious processions, and rituals within the cult of the sun. Performers were worshippers, dancers, acrobats or dwarves. Special meaning might have wedding dancing because marriage policy was a common process in the whole Bronze Age in Near East.421 I did not find any iconographic material showing some group marriage or a demonstrable diplomatic wedding. But I think that importance of a wedding ritual is evident from the thorough elaborate decoration on the Inandik vase.

If dance served for the propaganda of politic power, I think it worked through the religion. Because dances in connection to some religious activity are depicted more often that dances relating just to high-class people. Between Near East and Aegean region, there is a similarity in using dance as a part of political propaganda. Wedding celebration, involving dance, can be compared. In Aegean region, pieces of

419 Dance in sun cult will be also discussed in chapters 6.3 Solar disc and cult of sun and 7 Conclusion.

420 Garfinkel, 2003, 110.

421 Karavites, 2008, 81.

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evidence about group weddings tell us that elite had control over people through activities in palaces. I did not recognize scene of group marriage from Near East iconography. But it is certain that organized political marriages were concluded. The precision of iconographic material illustrating dance proves that it was the important ceremony. Weddings and included dances served as a political tool, in a similar way as did in the Aegean.

Cylindrical seals are connected with people of higher classes. Illustration of dance on seals often relates to a religious or royal motif. This is obvious from the previous overview of images. The reason, why they used this particular motif on seals, can be that people who wore it were probably servants of a god or a ruler.422 From the 3rd millennium BC, cylinder seals were used by elite people in the administration, but also to ensure goods in vessels for trade. People wore it as their expensive personal amulet.423 I think they could promote their political power in this way.

I am aware that I make conclusions on the basis of the small number of artefacts, in comparison with Aegean sources. Moreover, sources about folk dances or unofficial art are missing. However, given examples have very high information value and their connection to dance is certain.

422 Marinatos, 2010, 9.

423 Kist, et al., 2003, 3.

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6 Europe

6.1 Introduction

In this chapter I want to outline the meaning of the dance in the Bronze Age Europe. Contacts between Aegean and central Europe, but also with more distant European regions, have been established from the later third millennium BC and intensified in the Reinecke A2/A3 period.424. Unlike the Aegean region, I was limited by lack of sources and iconographic material. I have find no pottery bearing dancing motif, so my main source is rock art and findings from graves. I have decided for following methodology. Due to the good quality of available data, I focused on Nordic Bronze Age. I chose a burial of so called Egtved dancer as an example which I considered to use as a representative model example for several reasons. This grave is well preserved and provides a lot of information about dancing and society as well, as it will be analysed below. The buried girl’s garment is connected to the dance as well as solar disc on her belt plate. Solar disc was important symbol with central role in sun cult and in dancing rituals. I decided to include experimental archaeology and reconstruct costume of Egtved dancer and her dance, because the reconstruction is useful to verify theories about sun dance. At the end of this chapter I am discussing to discuss dance and its role in European society. Comparison between meaning of dance in Europe and Aegean will be discussed in final conclusion.

6.1.1 Historical background

European Bronze Age, especially between 1700–1500 BC, is characterized by long distance trade leading from Scandinavia, through central Europe to the Aegean. Scandinavia exported amber, metal and new esoteric knowledge was moving from south to north. Chiefs of various origins were moving as well. Later, from 1500 to

424 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 118.

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1300 BC, Nordic culture was at very high artistic and technical level. Between 1500 till 1100 Scandinavia disposed of a large number of high-quality weapons. Such wealth tells about good economy. It is supported also by fact that more than 20000 barrows from Bronze Age are preserved there.425 Under this barrows were buried chiefs. Ritual and warrior chief were two different functions according to the inventory inside coffin.426

6.2 Egtved dancer

Introduction to the Egtved girl

So called Egtved girl’s grave was discovered at 1921 and year of burial was set to 1370 BC. She was buried under mount at Egtved (in south Jutland) in oak coffin, lying on cow skin, in which contour of her body is still seen, and covered by woollen blanket. From her body only hair, brain, teeth, nails and a little skin remain. Inventory of coffin is rich, it is certain that she was of high status.427

The newest research has shown unexpected facts about origin of the girl, who was according her teeth between 16−18 years old. Analysis of the strontium isotopes (it is found in plants, soil, and water - humans take up strontium from the food and drink) in the wool of her clothing revealed that used wool was from somewhere outside Denmark. Strontium isotopes also occur in bones or teeth. By analyzing her molar tooth we can see that she had not grown up in Denmark. Strontium isotopes are saved also in hair, which grows 1 centimetre per month, so it can be used as indicator of living place. Further analyses of her clothes, hair, and nails, revealed that she had also travelled long distances back and forth in the last 23 months of her life. Today we would call her a commuter. The most probable place of her origin is the

425 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 186.

426 Kristiansen, 2011, 202.

427 Davidson, 2002, 91.

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Black Forest in southern Germany. It follows that she had privileged position in society.428

Oak coffin also contained interesting items as bucket of bark with traces of some liquid, probably beer with honey, cow skin on which she was laying (Fig. 128) or bundle containing the burnt bones from an 8−9 year old child. Child probably died at south and travelled with her already burnt. Due to the age of both individuals, she cannot be her mother, but maybe a relative.429 I will pay special attention to her clothes, which I reconstructed, and belt because from that it is possible to gain information about dance and ritual.

Blouse

Blouse in which Egtved girl was buried was made from wool. For my reconstruction I chose to make it from linen. Linen is more economic and better available material today. I used a pattern from web sites of The National Museum of Dennmark museum430 (Fig. 120), converted measurements into my size, cut it and sew it by woollen thread. Final product has seams in shape of letter T on the back (Fig. 121). Blouse dresses over the head.

Fig. 120. Pattern of the woollen blouse from Egtved. (after: http://natmus.dk/historisk- viden/danmark/oldtid-indtil-aar-1050/livet-i-oldtiden/hvordan-gik-de-klaedt/bronzealderens- dragter/kvindens-dragt-i-bronzealderen/; last access: 1. 6. 2014)

428 Kaliff and Oestigaard, 2017, 143.

429 Ibid., 2017, 145.

430 The National Museum of Dennmark. [online] [Cited: 2. 6. 2018] http://natmus.dk/historisk- viden/danmark/oldtid-indtil-aar-1050/livet-i-oldtiden/hvordan-gik-de-klaedt/bronzealderens- dragter/kvindens-dragt-i-bronzealderen/

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Fig. 121. My blouse from back. (photo by author)

Cord skirt

Cord skirts are known already from prehistory. At least two Upper Palaeolithic figures of Venuses are documented, both are dated around 20 000 BC. One was found in Lespugue (France; Fig. 122), second in very distant Gagarino (upper Don, Kazakhstan; Fig. 123), so it is not just local thing. From Neolithic period, clay statuette of woman in string skirt from Ukrainian Šipintsi (Fig. 124) was found. To the Late Bronze Age is dated bronze knife handle in shape of woman wearing cord skirt and holding flask, coming from Itzehoe at Germany.431 Mention about string skirt is also in Iliad, when Hera dresses string belt with intent to seduce Zeus. Its sexual potential is evident.432

It is clear that practicality of this garment is not priority, intimate parts are quite exposed and protection from the cold weather is low. Such skirts were probably worn during dancing ritual not as everyday clothing. It could have served as a garment showing maturity of woman, it highlights her sexual features, or it shows her special position is society. It is possible that making of such skirt could be practiced ritually, although I cannot say whether every dancer did it herself or skirt was made by someone else.

For my reconstruction I used 100% wool and consumption of it was approximately 700 m. I did not have access to the loom, so I had to improvise and

431 Ehrenberg, et al., 1989, 122.

432 Barber, 1991, 256−7.

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created my own, using ordinary boxes, wooden spoons and carton weaving heddle. I took main inspiration about how to make it from short internet video.433 At first I tightened wall between two points and I threaded half of it through the carton heddle. Then I created part of belt by classical way of weaving. After belt part was long enough for my waist, I started to create twisted strings. I twisted two strings together and then again, so one final twisted string was made from four simple strings. Whole length should be long enough to wear it twice around waist, or around hips. Fact is that she wore it quite low. Vertical length is ideal knee length.434 These steps are clear from photos at Fig. 125. Next step was to make a loop at the end of each sting. At last image is final product (Fig. 126). It ends with another part of belt, necessary for tying round the waist, decorated ending of belt, as it is on original skirt is missing. Lower part consists from loops through which is threatened a string, second string is above loops and strings are bound together by it. I made simplified version composed only from blouse and skirt. (Fig. 127). I did not wear belt plate and other decorations like foot wraps or bracelets. Garment with all accessories is effective for dance, but would not be practical at manual work. The costume does not cover the body too much. It would be very uncomfortable in cold climates. To the modern viewers, it can look vulgar, especially the skirt, under which originally it was no underwear. It evokes connection to fertility dance.

Fig. 122. Venus from Lespugue in France wearing cord skirt (after: Barber 1991, 40)

433 Malling,Ole. [online] [Cited: 1. 5. 2014] https://vimeo.com/77738761

434 Barber, 1991, 180.

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Fig. 123. Venus from Gagarino wearing cord skirt (after: Barber, 1991, 257)

Fig. 124. Neolithic female clay statuette wearing cord skirt. Šipintsi, Ukraine (after: Barber, 1991, 256)

Fig. 125. First steps of making cord skirt. (photo by author)

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Fig. 126. Making twisted strings and finished skirt. (photo by author)

Fig. 127. Costume from museum and mine reconstruction. (left image after: The National Museum of Denmark, available from: http://natmus.dk/historisk-viden/danmark/oldtid-indtil-aar- 1050/bronzealderen-1700-fkr-500-fkr/egtvedpigen/snoreskoerter-og-ritualer/, last access 2. 6. 2018; right image: photo by author)

Fig. 128. Funeral inventory of the Egtved girl. (after: The national Museum of Denmark, available from: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-bronze-age/the- egtved-girl/, last access: 13. 11. 2014)

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6.3 Solar disc and cult of sun

Belt plate representing solar disc was an important part of whole costume. It indicates connection with sun cult and ritual dancing. According to other parallels with rich female burials and representations of solar discs, Kristiansen and Larsson435 claim that only priestess could wear it. The Egtved girl is not the only one, another burial is for example in Hesselagergärd, Ølby or Tobøl. These priestesses always wear cord skirt and solar disc on belly, hands folded in their lap a cross over the belt.436 There can find some parallels of solar discs across the archaeological cultures. In later Únětice Culture, women wear sun-disc and maybe, according bronze tubes, also corded skirt. The Mycenaeans sometimes used sun-discs in female burials, but in a form of toilet mirrors. Its usage was rather ritual than practical and it is connected with priestess of sun cult as well. One of examples coming from the Greek Mainland is tholos “Tomb of Clytemnestra” at Mycenae. Buried woman had ivory mirror-handle against her belly. Another burial with similar content comes from Pylos. On gold signet ring from Mycenae is scene known as “Goddess with mirror”. She is interpreted as sun-goddess, using mirror as a solar symbol within ritual. The only male grave containing the mirror is “Chieftain’s Grave in Knossos. An interesting fact is that the decoration of discs is often in a shape of spiral. Spiral is generally perceived as a symbol of the sun. It is related to the fact that this decor was widely used in Nordic Bronze Age art between 1500 and 1300 BC. It may mean accepting of the sun cult.437 I see symbolism also in the strings on the skirt. They are created by twisting, which may resemble a spiral. Skirt does not cover body much, which can be connected to fertility. Fertility played an important role in sun cult, mainly in connection to crops.438

435 See Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005.

436 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 298.

437 Ibid., 2005, 302−303.

438 Johnsen, 2005, 27.

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A tool connected to sun cult was found in Denmark. It is an amber disc with bronze handle probably serving for looking into the sun. Other analogy to sun cult comes from Scandinavian rock art. It depicts sun-crosses and discs with handles. Solar disc as a representation of Sun-goddess is used on bronze miniature chariots as well. It is made from shiny metal as gold, silver, bronze, copper or iron. The horse pulls chariot carrying the sun-disc, which has one side light and other dark and placement responds to the movement of the sun at the sky. Light is visible when chariot moves from left to right and vice versa.439 It characterizes bright and dark side of the Sun-goddess, which travels from west to east to the underworld. The most famous artefact is bronze miniature chariot from Trundholm (Denmark), dated to mid-second millennium BC.440 While dancing, such disc has a special visual effect. It is shining in shape of spirals, especially during circular movements of the hips.

The tradition of the cult of the sun remains till archaic and classical period. Ancient Greeks believed that the world called Hyperborea existed in the north Europe. They considered is as a homeland of their sun god, Apollon. He returned there from Greece every winter.441 It is possible that this myth is based on contacts between north Europe and the Mediterranean.

6.4 Reconstruction of the Bronze Age dance

This chapter is special by containing a little bit of experimental archaeology. I think that here is appropriate to clarify term experimental archaeology. Number of works has been written about it.442 I use definition from book written by J. M. Coles.

“The term experimental archaeology is a convenient way of describing the collection of facts, theories and fictions that has

439 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 294−295.

440 Ibid., 2005, 283−284.

441 King and DeForest 1993, 99.

442 For instance, Ingersoll, et al, 1977 and Mathieu, 2002.

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been assembled through a century of interest in the reconstruction and function of ancient remains. Experimental archaeology can be divided into two sections, one concerned with the imitative aspect, the duplication of products of the industry of early man, the other utilising such products in determining their functional capabilities.”443

Thanks to making replicas of archaeological objects and their consequent use is possible to make reconstruction of specific situations or events. This empirical experience helps to understand the behaviour of ancestors. Stumbling block may be a certain degree of subjectivity.

Except already debated reconstruction of costume, I dealt with reconstruction of Bronze Age dance. I focused on dance practiced within sun cult, connected to Egtved girl.

My main sources for reconstruction of Egtved girl’s dance were bronze sculptures various poses considered as dance positions. Similarity with the Egvted dancer is also in the garment. One statue is bronze figure, kneeling and wearing corded skirt. Her eyes are made from gold and she is identified as a goddess (Fig. 129).444 Due to the gold eyes it is assumed that she is connected to sun cult. She has one hand at breast level, the other is lifted. There may have been a string between her hand and bronze snake statue, found close to it.445 There is a connection with Egyptian mythology, according to which snakes play role during the journey of sun disc to the Underworld.446 Second statue is bronze figure of acrobat (Fig. 130) in backbend or leap, dressed into cord skirt. It is one piece of seven from one unit.

443 Coles, 2010, 1.

444 Kristiansen, et al., 2005, 260.

445 Johnsen, 2005, 65−66.

446 Johnsen, 2005, 102.

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Sadly, the only two of them are available. Third was only drawn and lost. They all have been attached to wooden ship model, used during ceremonies.447

Other type of sun dancers is that without cord skirt. Sometimes clothing is not actually shown at all on following images. People of both sexes are dancing a ritual dance on rock carving from Engelstrup in Dennmark, dated between 1700−500 BC. Circular shapes on one of the boats connects whole scene with sun cult.448 Each of the four figures holds a different hand position, which also served me as an inspiration.

A burial of a chief was found in Kivik in Sweeden. It is composed from stone slabs with engravings. Some of them bear abstract symbols, the other show burial process. It involved chariot race, music, dance and procession. In upper part are two discs hanging from the pole, which may represent two sides of the sun and bull head at the top.449 Grave was intended for male chief of great importance, nevertheless he is not depicted on slabs. Dating is between years 1500−1100 BC.450 A connection between Mediterranean iconography is evident.451 I consider it as an example of combination of solo sun dance and procession. The most outstanding dance gesture hold male figure before people in procession.

447 Price, 2015, 218.

448 Arnold and Clark, 2004, 133.

449 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 269.

450 Jones, 2008, 62−65.

451 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 134.

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Fig. 129. Kneeling woman wearing cord skirt, Fårdal in Denmark (after: Johnsen 2005, fig. 41)

Fig. 130. Woman doing position of bridge and wearing cord skirt, Grevensvænge, Zealand, Denmark (after: Barber, 1991, 256)

Fig. 131. Ritual dance on rock art from Engelstrup, Dennmark. 1700−500 BC (after: The National Museum of Denmark, museum number: B6988, available from: http://samlinger.natmus.dk/DO/asset/1291; last acces: 2.6.2018)

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Fig. 132. Funerary ritual depicted on burial slabs from Kivik. 1500−1100 BC (Jones, 2008, fig. 2.6) -

I reconstructed the dance in the following way. I created moves how to get into and from already mentioned positions of bronze statues. More positions I copied from other depictions, on which sun cult is showed. Second step was to think out steps and positions which could naturally evoke connections to sun cult. Costume, musical accompaniment and atmosphere help empathize with Bronze Age dancers and to improvise. When our ancestors danced, I suppose that their thoughts were focused on narration of their wishes. In this case probably a visual effect or entertainment of viewers was not main purpose.

Reconstruction of dance has elements of belly dance, positions of bronze statues and figures on carvings and improvisation part. Musical background was based on vocals of musicians and simple rhythms of drums. I danced it with my colleagues and we decide to be in a shape of a circle, because it symbolizes a sun. In some parts we were moving around circle. We made circle by rotating our arms as well. Three of us were in clothing inspired by Egtved girl and three in simple peplos. Dance was performed in occasion of summer solstice in 2014 in centre of experimental archaeology Prehistoric settlement Křivolík near Česká Třebová in Czech Republic (Fig. 133). Although it is not aim of this thesis, I think that dancing may help to understand thinking and behaviour of Bronze Age people. Famous reconstruction of Egtved girl’s dance was created by belly dancer Anni Brøgger, who

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wrote about it in her book.452 To sun dance of today is devoted short mention in chapter Modern parallels.

Fig. 133. Reconstruction of the sun dance at summer solstice 2014. (photo by author)

6.5 Archaeological remains

Except iconographic sources and objects in graves, I would like to mention two others tangible artefacts connected with dance. First is architectural proof of dancing rituals. During whole Bronze Age occurs in Britain stone or timber circular structures. It is generally assumed that in these circles were held rituals and ceremonies involving dancing and music. Firstly they were very large, more than 100 metres in diameter and gets smaller through the time, up to 6 meters. On contrary to Aegean one, they are not pawed, but they are markedly bordered around by pillars. Sometimes in lunar, solar or stellar allignment.453

Other tangible artefacts related to dance are musical instruments called rattles. Clay form, usually in a shape of water-bird, contain small stone inside. It makes a sound when shaking. They were popular in many Bronze Age cultures, including the

452 See Brøgger, 2003.

453 Fokkens and Harding, 2013, 150−151.

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Urnfield culture in central Europe. Such rattles were found in the burial context and it was probably used to indicate rhythm during ritual or dance. According to the only small stone erosion, it seems that they were made for one-time use at a funeral.454

6.6 Dance and society in Bronze Age Europe

Here I would like to sum up possible meanings of dance in Bronze Age Europe. My main sources come from the Nordic Bronze Age culture. Wealth Scandinavian cultures depicted dance mostly on rock carvings. It is questionable whether places with rock art were public or private, used only for rituals and invited people. For me it would be logical that they were public places, as they were in Prehistoric cultures. Nevertheless in this case, the spatial layout of the site often does not correspond.455 If depictions of dance are not primarily connected to the public places, I think then these images did not serve as a political propaganda. It means that dance in Nordic culture had primarily ritual function and power of elite was not consolidate by dance in religious practices. I think this is because there was no need to consolidate power, and if so, it happened rather military way or through redistribution of food.456 Another aspect is that main religion of Bronze Age, sun cult, had very strong impact on people.457 This influence is expressed by rock art, barrows of ritual chiefs or graves of dancers, all bearing strong characters of sun cult.

A relationship between Nordic and Mediterranean world is evident. In this chapter were discussed Kivik burial, dancing stages and Mediterranean mirrors as sun discs. Well expressed it is by Kristian Kristiansen.

454 Fries, 2003, 379.

455 Berghaus, 2004, 173−174.

456 Gilman and Adams, 1981, 8.

457 Kristiansen, 2013, 83.

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“The Nordic Bronze Age employed the whole religious and ritual repertoire of the east Mediterranean, but adapted to a different social and economic environment.”458

I see the difference in meaning of dance. According to available data, dance served mainly for cult and less for political purposes in Europe. I am aware of that I cannot apply one example to whole Europe, but I think I have chosen good representative model based on good archaeological and iconographic material. Connection with central Europe is evident from sun disc and probably even cord skirt from Únětice culture mentioned in chapter about cord skirt. I consider it as a sufficient to get a picture of the meaning of the dance in Bronze Age Europe. Study of social and historical changes in the Bronze Age Europe in relation to dance activities would fill the whole other long essay.

Theories of Kristiansen and Larsson (2005) are well applied on intangible topics with lack of archaeological material, which is also a dance. Some prehistorians are arguing that European regions were more isolated and contacts between them were not significant.459 I rather accept approaches of Kristiansen and Larsson (2005), and Bouzek (2009).460 Their studies are based on myths, cosmology and rituals and they believe that contacts between cultures were numerous even at greater distances and thre were coherence in the Bronze Age Europe. The study of the dance supprorts this approach.

458 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 316.

459 It is mentioned for example by Champion, et al., 2016 or Waldman and Mason, 2006, 252.

460 See Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005 and Bouzek 2009.

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7 Conclusion

The basic prerequisite for study the dance in relation to the society and historical circumstance is to prove the hypothesis, that a society is reflected in their dances. The hypothesis was confirmed on the basis of the cultural anthropology of dance. It is possible to associate the modern dances in relation to the society, with the historical dances. Several examples, which prove that society really is reflected in their dances, have been given.

It is sure that dancing moves have a physiological effect on the body of the dancers and to the mind of the viewers. That could be used in cases when was desirable to fanatic and acquiesce the crowd. Another aspect is if some narcotic substances were or were not served. With exaggeration, it can be said that dance could work as a tool. Art depicting social dancing activities, could work as deliberate propaganda and strengthen the authority beyond these activities. Dance can be studied primarily as a living phenomenon and biological expression or secondarily as an expression of philosophical/ideological, socio-political, economic or characteristics of each society. In this thesis, I am dealing mainly with the second variant.

My main interest is the Aegean region during the Bronze Age. I created the chronological overview of the dance illustrations. The interpretations of these images were based not only on iconography but also on the kind of used material and the archaeological context. All of these aspects were compared with the society and the historical background of the respective period. It came out that since the Prepalatial Crete, dance served as a means of controlling the society. On the plains of the tholos tombs, dances were practiced within funerary rite. The purpose was, except celebration of reception of deceased among ancestors, also to emphasize the authority. It follows that cemeteries could serve as the focal points of rituals and plays role in maintaining stability.461 In the following Protopalatial period this

461 Aamodt, 2014, 54.

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tradition continues. Small territories were under the supervision of palaces. The dance was mainly part of the religion and it was danced within death/fertility cult. It was practice first in the cemeteries, then in the palaces.462 It corresponds with the fact, that only three artefacts were found in Crete. All these artefacts come from palatial context and all bear motif of ritual dance. This period ends by destruction in MM IIB. The character of these destructions is unknown. Only Knossos remained untouched.463 On the mainland in MH II, only one seal was found. It came from burial context, and the motif is also connected with the death cult. Dancing in this period was more religious than political significance. In the Neopalatial period, artefacts illustrating dance comes mainly from Crete. From collected information it seems that artefacts with the motif of dancing activities were produced by the palaces. Such images were mostly used in administration in the form of the seal. It is supposed that these images depict events organized by palaces. They also served as the indicator of the authority of the palaces. The structure of the palace was adapted for organizing dance events and bull games.464 Archaeological remains of dance stages were preserved. LM I period is considered as the peak of the Minoan culture. Knossos in this period probably strove for supremacy over the island. At the end of LM IA, there was the explosion of the Santorini volcano. End of LM IB period is also characterized by destructions. They were caused by fire, probably set up by people. Destructions were mostly targeted at administrative centres, except Knossos.465 This social crisis, during which the palaces tried to keep their authority, is reflected in the dancing events and in art. Art was used for propagation of activities organized by the palaces. Simultaneously, LH II period on the mainland is characterised by the increase of power of the Mycenaean castles.466 The ruling class did not need to strengthen and propagate their power through art. It could be the

462 Branigan, 1993, 139.

463 Macdonald, 2012, 536−7.

464 Hallager, 1995, 549−550.

465 Younger and Rehak, 2008, 140−1.

466 Klontza, 2014, 220.

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explanation why only three artefacts illustrating dancing scenes were found on the mainland. It is generally assumed that in the Postpalatial period, Crete was under the influence of the Mycenaean culture.467 Artefacts illustrating dancing activities support this theory. In this period, much more artefacts with motif of dance come from the Mainland, than from Crete. They were used by the individual authority, mainly in the form of a sealing ring. It is possible, that depicted events relates with diplomatic weddings.468 These weddings could be attended by more couples. The seal could serve to mark the official administrative documents related with such ceremony. It is sure that practiced rituals were controlled by elite people. From the study of participants of dancing activities results that there are no children depicted. The main protagonists are men and women with high social status. They are at an appropriate age to start a family. Thanks to the cultural anthropology is known that group marriage is known also from modern times. The tribe of Hamer people in Ethiopia practices initiation ritual relates with bull leaping. This ritual ends with the wedding.469 A connection with palaces, bull games, dance and diplomatic marriage is obvious.

Examined illustrations from the Aegean region are part of the formal art, which was under the control of elite people. In the Aegean art, and there are no preserved depictions of folk dances in informal art. It could be caused by incompleteness of archaeological research or degradation of the material.

Dance in Egypt often relates to the cult. From the illustrations is visible that dances within the temple were formal. On the contrary, dances practices outside the temples were organized for non-elite people. In some cases is possible to trace that dancing activities mirrored the state of society. When society was stable, art could evolve. During the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt did not have the

467 Klontza, 2014, 287−289.

468 Ibid., 324.

469 Williams, 2016, 66 and Shinn and Ofcansky, 2013, 205.

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centralized government, there was a freedom in art and in dance.470 Art was usually created in order of ruler and it served to propagandist and religious purposes.471 This is what Egyptian and Aegean dance have in common. Egyptian art is based on funerary and religious rituals and both of these activities were full of dance. Thanks to the cultural anthropology of dance, is known that the tradition of dance within various rituals continues till today in Egypt.

Dance in Near East is similar to the Aegean dance in several ways. The reason could be that Cretans are maybe descendants of people from Anatolia. It is believed that people from Neolithic Anatolia are right the people who at that time peopled Crete.472 Scenes showing bull leaping originates there and Cretans were brought this art with them to the Crete. The second option is that Cretans just were inspired by Near East. The similarity is also in the presence of courtyards serving for dancing. In Near East, they were built in the temples and they were decorated with the dancing motif. In Crete, they were part of the palaces and served for dancing activities and for bull games.473 Another event involving dance was a wedding. Marriage policy was a common process in the whole Bronze Age in Near East.474 Weddings and included dances served in Near East as a political tool, in a similar way as did in the Aegean. From the studied iconographic and historical material, I deduce that dance in Near East served also for ritual purposes. Religion is well represented on cylinder seals illustrating the religious processions. The speciality of this region is the dance to celebrate woman giving birth.475

The connection between Near East and Egypt is obvious in the sun cult. Egyptian faraon Achnaton carried out the reform of religion, which allows the only

470 Spencer, 2003, 115.

471 Shachter, 2014, 19.

472 Nowicki, 2014, 41.

473 For more information see chapter 5.2.1 Archaeological remains.

474 Karavites, 2008, 81.

475 Lion, et al., 2016, 143.

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religion, the sun cult. In Hittite culture, the sun cult is documented as well. King had his own god as his patron and in the 13th century BC, Arinna, the sun goddess, was chosen by one of the kings.476 This connection of religion and politics may mean that the religion served for the strengthening of the royal power and propaganda.

The sun cult is an element, which connects more regions than Near East and Egypt. The tradition of dances in honour of sun gods is held across whole Europe from Ireland to Russia.477 The cult is very distinctive in north Europe. There were preserved graves with women dressed in the special garment. According to the sun disc on the belt plate, it is supposed connection to the sun cult. The plate symbolizing the sun had parallels even in other cultures. In later Únětice Culture, women wear sun disc and maybe also the corded skirt. The Mycenaeans sometimes used sun discs in female burials but in a form of toilet mirrors. Its usage was rather ritual than practical and it is connected with the priestess of sun cult as well. Those discs were often decorated by a spiral, which is generally perceived the symbol of the sun, also in the Nordic Bronze Age. Kristiansen and Larsson478 even think that the sun cult could be kind of the world religion in the Bronze Age. They believe that in general, contacts between cultures were common even on long distance.479 To sum it up, in northern Europe, according to the available data, dance served mainly for the cult and less for political purposes.

It may seem that there is not much left to say about this topic, mainly because of badly available tangible material. Nevertheless, during my study, I found more examples relating to the dance of the Bronze Age. It was not possible to involve every new artefact or idea because thesis would never be completed. Dance can be studied with many different approaches. I focused on the relation between dance and society. The examination of dancing steps, choreography, dancing rituals, and other

476 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 293.

477 Golan, 1991, 55.

478 See Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005.

479 For more information see chapter 6.3 Solar disc and cult of sun.

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aspects is only marginally in this work. Those other approaches could be the topic for another study. I am convinced that the study of dance can help to understand the Bronze Age cultures. Dance has an informative value about human behaviour, which is one of the main subjects of the study of archaeology.

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8 Resumé

Tanec v době bronzové je téma, kterému prozatím nebyla věnována žádná komplexní studie. Přitom je to aktivita, která má velkou vypovídací hodnotu o společnosti, a může poskytnout přínosné informace pro archeologii. Studovat význam tance v době bronzové je problematické, protože tanec jako takový se pochopitelně nezachoval ve formě archeologického materiálu. Mými zdroji byly převážně kratší články věnované tanci v době bronzové v různých oblastech,480 ikonografie pečetidel, keramiky a fresek, a v menší míře hliněné či kovové plastiky. Pro přesnější interpretaci bylo nutné hledat paralely tanečních aktivit i v moderní době, s využitím kulturní antropologie tance.

Cílem této práce je zjistit, zda tanec v době bronzové v Egejdě měl kromě náboženského významu i význam politický, a jakým způsobem to bylo prezentováno. Součástí je vytvoření chronologického přehledu ikonografického materiálu, zobrazujícího taneční scény nebo scény s tancem úzce související. Ve zjednodušené formě, kvůli zachování úspornějšího rozsahu textu, je takový přehled vytvořen i pro oblast Předního východu, Egypta severní Evropy. V Egejdě se zaměřuji na konec střední a pozdní dobu bronzovou, protože poskytuje nejvíce materiálu. Věnuji se ale celé době bronzové, a to také kvůli zahrnutí dostatečného množství materiálu z dalších regionů. Konečným výsledkem je srovnání, jaký význam měl tanec pro konkrétní společnost a jak se v něm případně odrážely sociální krize.

V prvních kapitolách jsem se věnovala kulturní antropologii a historii tance, protože lze srovnat význam tance v dnešní společnosti a v prehistorii. To, že taneční aktivity mohou odrážet stav společnosti a mohou společnost ovlivňovat, je

480 Podrobněji v kapitole 1.2.2 History of the research.

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předpokladem pro další analýzy v této práci. Proto jsou zahrnuty kapitoly o tanci v souvislosti se společností a také biologickým vlivem tance na člověka.481

Archeologický materiál jsem vyhodnotila na základě ikonografie, nálezového kontextu a materiálu, který byl použit. Nutná byla také statistická a chronologická analýza. Z těchto analýz vyšlo najevo, že v Egejdě v době bronzové, měl tanec výrazně politický význam a vyobrazování tanečních scén souvisí s politickými a společenskými událostmi. Již v předpalácovém období sloužil tanec jako nástroj pro kontrolu společnosti. Byl praktikován převážně na pohřebištích, v rámci pohřebního ritu. Pohřebiště zároveň sloužila k rituálním účelům, skrze které vyšší vrstva upevňovala svou moc. V protopalácovem období tato tradice pokračuje, ale uskutečňuje se v palácích. Dokládá to fakt, že byly nalezeny pouze dvě keramické nádoby s motivem rituálního tance a jedno pečetidlo, vše z palácového kontextu na Krétě. Po destrukcích neznámého původu, kterým byl ušetřen pouze Knossos, nastalo novopalácové období. Z tohoto období se dochovalo množství artefaktů s motivem tance, převážně pečetidel z administrativních center. Nálezů na Krétě je významně více než na pevnině. To, že motivem k pečetění dokumentů byl právě tanec, značí, že by mohl symbolizovat aktivitu organizovanou elitní vrstvou společnosti, která si skrze ni upevňovala moc. Když Minojská civilizace dosáhla svého vrcholu, byla zasažena explozí Santorinského vulkánu. Po této události docházelo k dalším destrukcím, vedeným proti administrativním centrům.482 Tato krize se odrazila i v tanečních scénách v umění, protože paláce skrze něj propagovaly svou moc po tom, co byla následkem výbuchu sopky oslabena. V tom samém období, pozdně helladská II, vzrůstal vliv mykénských hradů na pevnině.483 V následujícím popalácovém období je naopak počet nálezů větší na pevnině než na Krétě. Byly nalezeny převážně v hrobových kontextech a ve formě pečetidel, zejména prstenů, jež patřily osobám z vyšší vrstvy společnosti. Je pravděpodobné, že

481 Podrobněji v kapitolách 2.3 Relationship between dance and society: general objectives a 2.1.2 Biological anthropology: Influence of dance to the human body.

482 Younger and Rehak, 2008, 140−1.

483 Klontza, 2014, 220.

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některé zobrazené taneční události souvisí se sňatkovou politikou.484 To by podporovalo teorii, že v novopalácovém období byla Kréta dobrovolně pod vlivem mykénské kultury. Dle shromážděných ikonografických pramenů a jejich analýz vyplývá, že tanec a jeho vyobrazení v Egejské době bronzové měly politický význam a sloužily k propagaci moci palácové elity. Tanec byl samozřejmě zároveň i součástí lidové kultury a náboženství, ale to již není předmětem této práce.

Pro Egypt jsem se zaměřila na druhé přechodné období a Nové království, protože to časově odpovídá době bronzové v Egejdě. Umění, tedy i zobrazovaný tanec, bylo vytvořeno na příkaz vládce a sloužilo k náboženským účelům, ale těž k propagaci moci.485 Vyobrazené taneční scény, nejčastěji na freskách, mají základ v pohřebních a náboženských rituálech, jejichž součástí byl tanec. I dnes se v Egyptě drží silná tradice tance při různých příležitostech.

Význam tance na Blízkém východě v době bronzové, může mít s tancem v Egejdě mnoho společného. Existuje teorie, že lidé, kteří osídlili Krétu, na ni ve skutečnosti přišli z Anatolie.486 Podobnost lze vidět v umění zobrazujícím akrobaty ve skoku přes býka nebo v přítomnosti dlážděných platforem, přizpůsobených i k tanečním aktivitám, což je zřejmé například z fresek, vyobrazených přímo okolo nebo na platformě. Na Blízkém východě byly umístěny v chrámech, na Krétě v palácích.487 Další spojitost mezi Blízkým východem a Egejdou je sňatková politika, která byla na východě běžná, už jen proto, že toto území obývalo mnoho různých kultur. Tanec zde byl také vyobrazován na válečkovitých pečetidlech. Tanec na Blízkém východě byl dle zkoumaných materiálů a ikonografie většinou spojen s náboženskými praktikami, mohl mít ale i politický význam a sloužit k propagaci síly elit.

484 Klontza, 2014, 324.

485 Shachter, 2014, 19.

486 Nowicki, 2014, 41.

487 For more information see chapter 5.2.1 Archaeological remains.

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Velmi výrazná spojitost mezi Blízkým východem, Egyptem a Evropou, je skrz kult slunce, jehož součástí byly taneční rituály. Egyptský faraon Achnaton jej prohlásil za jediné povolené náboženství. Na Blízkém východě byla, především Chetity, uctívána sluneční bohyně Arinna. Ve 13. století př. n. l. byla dokonce vybrána jako králův patron, což spojuje náboženství a politiku.488 V Evropě je kult slunce doložen především na západě a severu, díky nálezům hrobů dívek, které, dle oblečení, mohly být kněžky právě tohoto kultu. Výrazným atributem je kovový disk umístěný v pase, symbolizující slunce a také šňůrová sukně. Tento kostým a tanec slunce jsem se pokusila rekonstruovat, a následně předvést před publikem. Myslím, že díky rekonstrukci se člověk dostane blíže ke způsobu myšlení tehdejších lidí. Zároveň je to nejatraktivnější forma, jak téma předat laické veřejnosti. Vybrala jsem právě tento tanec, protože pochází z geografické lokality, která je mi ze zkoumaných lokalit nejblíže. Samotný kult slunce je obsáhlé téma. Panuje názor, že v době bronzové byl obdobou světového náboženství.489 Shrnuto, v kulturách střední a severní Evropy měl tanec převážně náboženskou funkci a elita k upevnění své moci využívala jiných způsobů než propagaci skrze organizování a zobrazování tanečních aktivit.

Ve všech případech je třeba mít na paměti, že zkoumaná ikonografie je součástí formálního umění. Nedostatek příkladů neformálního umění lze vysvětlit buď špatným dochováním, nedostatečností výzkumů na venkovských lokalitách nebo jeho malou produkcí. Na každé ze zkoumaných lokalit se právě díky umění zobrazující tanec potvrdilo, že taneční projevy a jejich záznamy souvisely s aktuální politickou, společenskou situací a společenskou strukturou.

Na závěr bych dodala, že během psaní této diplomové práce jsem objevila mnoho dalších způsobů jak téma tance uchopit a jak z něj získat užitečné informace. Další bádání by mohlo být zaměřeno na typologii tanců, jejich rekonstrukce nebo zaměření se na tance lidové. Obecně je téma tance pro archeologii užitečné, protože nese velkou vypovídací hodnotu o lidském chování.

488 Kristiansen and Larsson, 2005, 293.

489 For more information see chapter 6.3. Solar disc and the sun cult.

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9.2 Online sources https://en.natmus.dk/ https://vimeo.com/ http://sciencenordic.com http://www.uni-heidelberg.de http://britishmuseum.org

9.3 Abbreviations and conventions

CMS Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel (Berlin 1964−2000; Mainz 2002 − )

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9.4 List of Figures

Fig. 1. Chronology of the Aegean Bronze Age. (after: Cline, 2012, 22.) ...... 15

Fig. 2. The Minoan and Helladic chronology (after: Cline, 2012, 14, 2) ...... 15

Fig. 3. Periodization of Central Europe in the Bronze Age (after: Harding, 2000, 10−18) ...... 16

Fig. 4. The Chronology of Ancient Egypt. (after: Shelmerdine, 2008, fig. 1.1.) ...... 17

Fig. 5. Periodization of Near East (after: Potts, 2012, 558) ...... 18

Fig. 6. Reasons for dancing in non-literary cultures. (after: Kassing, 2017, Fig. 1.1)29

Fig. 7. Diagram of dance steps. (after: German 2005, 56) ...... 35

Fig. 8. Scheme of the Neolithic arm gestures. (after: Garfinkel, 2003, fig. 2.1) ...... 35

Fig. 9. Dancing figures on the marble plaque from Naxos. EC period (after: Goodison, 1989, fig. 49g) ...... 36

Fig. 10. Goddess and dancers painted on the open bowl, Phaistos. MM II. (after: Branigan, 1993, Fig. 7.12) ...... 37

Fig. 11. Reconstruction of the painted fruit stand from Phaistos palace. On the right is the detail of the upper plate, depicting dancing scene. Protopalatial period. (after: Barber, 2013, fig. 20.06) ...... 38

Fig. 12. Seal from Gournia with women, probably in a procession. Early MM I (after: CMS II3.236) ...... 39

Fig. 13. Gold ring from Pylos depicting dancers or cult scene with adorants. MH II (after: CMS I.292) ...... 39

Fig. 14. “The Sacred Grove and Dance” fresco from Knossos. MM IIIB/LM IA (after: Evans, 1930, pl. XVIII) ...... 43

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Fig. 15. Dancing goddess in nature, Hagia Triada fresco. LM IB (after: Panagiotopoulos, 2012, fig. 36) ...... 43

Fig. 16. Dancing men and women, fresco from Hagia Irini, Keos. Beside number 62 is a man in kilt and beside 63 is detail of a women’s skirts. LM IB−II/LH II (after: Abramowitz, 1980, pl. 4.a) ...... 43

Fig. 17. Caricature of a naked man on fresco from Hagia Irini, Keos. LM IB−II/LH II (after: Abramowitz, 1980, pl. 4.b) ...... 44

Fig. 18. Man procession with objects on fresco from Hagia Irini, Keos. LM IB/LH II (after: Abramowitz, 1980, pl. 4.c) ...... 44

Fig. 19. The procession fresco from Kadmeia, Thebes. LH II (after: Nagy and Dadian, 2017, fig. 10) ...... 44

Fig. 20. One of the terracotta statues of dancing women from Hagia Irini, Keos. MM III−LM IB/LH II (after: Aamodt, 2014, fig. 2)...... 45

Fig. 21. Dancing figures from the Kamilari cemetery. MM III (after: Branigan, 193, fig. 7.6) ...... 46

Fig. 22. Gold sword hilt with an acrobat, Mallia. MM III (after: D’Amato and Salimbeti, 2013, 27) ...... 46

Fig. 23. Procession on steatite Harvester’s vase from Hagia Triada. LM I (after: Kleiner, 2010, fig. 4-14) ...... 47

Fig. 24. Dancing women on seal impression from Hagia Triada. LM IB (after: CMS II6.13) ...... 48

Fig. 25. Three females are dancing in front of some architecture structure on seal impression from Hagia Triada. LM IB (after: CMS II6.1) ...... 48

Fig. 26. Dance depicted on Minoan Ring of Nestor, Pylos. MM III−LM IA (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 104) ...... 49

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Fig. 27. Women daning in pair on seal impression from Chania. MM III/LM I (after: CMS V.Sup.IA.178) ...... 49

Fig. 28. Solo dancer with religious status on seal from the tholos tomb, Vapheio. LH II (after: CMS I.226) ...... 50

Fig. 29. Woman procession on seal from Mallia. MM III (after: CMS V.Sup.IA.58) ...... 51

Fig. 30. Man procession on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.7) ...... 51

Fig. 31. One man and one woman in a procession on seal impression from Hagia Triada, Stanza dei sigilli. LM IB (after: CMS II6.10) ...... 51

Fig. 32. Two men and one woman in a procession on seal impression from Hagia Triada, Stanza dei sigilli. LM IB (after: CMS II6.9) ...... 52

Fig. 33. Procession on seal impression from Hagia Triada, Stanza dei sigilli. LM IB (after: CMS II6.11) ...... 52

Fig. 34. Procession leading to a sitting person on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMSII7.8) ...... 52

Fig. 35. Procession leading to a sitting person on a gold ring from Mycenae. Early LH II (after: CMS I.17) ...... 53

Fig. 36. Men in procession with empty hands on sealing from Zakros. LM IB(after: CMS II7.15) ...... 54

Fig. 37. Men in procession with empty hands on sealing from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.13) ...... 54

Fig. 38. Men in procession with empty hands on sealing from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.14) ...... 55

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Fig. 39. Women in procession with empty hands on seal from Nerokourou. MM III−LM I (after: CMS V.Sup.1A.186) ...... 55

Fig. 40. Procession, in which participants hold arms differently, on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.16) ...... 55

Fig. 41. Procession, in which participants hold arms differently, on seal impression from Zakros. LM IB (after: CMS II7.17) ...... 56

Fig. 42. Saluting people/adorants/dancers on seal from Knossos. LM IA−B (after: CMS II3.17) ...... 56

Fig. 43. Procession fresco with bull from Palace of Nestor, Pylos. LH III (after: Wesolowski, 2006, fig. 2) ...... 59

Fig. 44. Miniature man procession fresco from Palace of Nestor, Pylos. LH IIB (after: Lang, 2015, Pl 7) ...... 60

Fig. 45. Female procession fresco, Palace of Nestor, Pylos. LH III (after: Nagy and Dadian, 2017, fig. 9) ...... 60

Fig. 46. Man with a palanquin in a procession on fresco, Mycenae. LH IIIA (after: Wace, 1953, pl. 9.a) ...... 60

Fig. 47. Tiryns woman procession fresco. LH IIIB (after: Rodenwaldt, 1912, plates IX, VIII) ...... 61

Fig. 48. “The procession Fresco” from Knossos. LM II (after: Hood, 2005, fig. 2.17) ...... 61

Fig. 49. Hagia Triada sarcophagus. LM IIIA (after: Kleiner, 2015, fig. 4-1) ...... 61

Fig. 50. Dance on Tanagra larnax. LH IIIA−C (after: Aamodt 2014, fig. 6) ...... 62

Fig. 51. Dancing women on larnax from Mochlos, Crete. LM IIIA1 (after: Soles and Davaras, 1996, fig. 21...... 62

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Fig. 52. Dancing woman fresco from Knossos Queen’s Megaron, the only Cretan dancing fresco. LM II (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 40) ...... 62

Fig. 53. Terracotta circle dance with musician from Palaikastro, Crete. LM III (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 41) ...... 63

Fig. 54. Terracotta sculpture of three ring dancers in Mycenaean style. LH IIIA2−B1 (after: The British Museum, museum number: 1996,0325.1, available from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.a spx?objectId=433394&partId=1&searchText=1996+terracotta&page=1) ...... 64

Fig. 55. Men in wild dance on the Mycenaean krater, Hagia Triada. LH IIIC (after: Aamodt, 2014, fig. 7) ...... 64

Fig. 56. Dance on hydria from Naxos. LH IIIC (after: Aamodt, 2014, fig. 8) ...... 64

Fig. 57. Three women in dancing pose on seal impression from Knossos. LM II−IIIA (after: CMS II8.266) ...... 65

Fig. 58. Dancing women on gold ring from Isopata cemetery, Crete. LM IIIA1 (after: CMS II3.51) ...... 66

Fig. 59. Two dancing women on electrum ring from Isopata cemetery. LM IIIA1 (after: CMS II3.56) ...... 66

Fig. 60. Women in dance position on gold ring from Mega Monastiri. LH IIIA1−B1 (after: CMS V.728) ...... 68

Fig. 61. Schematic cult procession scene on seal from Mycenae. LH IIIA−LH IIIC (after: CMS I.42) ...... 68

Fig. 62. Women in dance position on seal impression from House of the Oil Merchant, Mycenae. LH IIIB (after: CMS I.162) ...... 69

Fig. 63. Women in dancing pose on gold ring from chamber tomb, necropolis of Lower Town, Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.108) ...... 69

199

Fig. 64. Women in dancing pose on unique quartz seal stone from chamber room in the Lower Town, Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.132) ...... 69

Fig. 65. Ecstatic dancer in the middle of scene on gold ring from Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.126) ...... 70

Fig. 66. Ecstatic dancer in the middle of scene on gold ring from Vapheio. LH II−IIIA1 (after: CMS I.219) ...... 70

Fig. 67. Women in dance position on impression from the palace of Pylos. LH IIIB (after: CMS I.313) ...... 70

Fig. 68. Women dancing on gold ring from Aidonia. LH II−IIIA−B (after: CMS V.Sup.IB.114) ...... 71

Fig. 69. Women dancing on gold ring from Aidonia. LH II−IIIA−B (after: CMS V.Sup.IB.115) ...... 71

Fig. 70. Procession on gold ring from Aidonia. LH II−IIIA−B (after: CMS V.Sup.1B.113) ...... 72

Fig. 71. Procession on gold ring from Dendra. LH IIB−LH III (after: CMS I.191).. 73

Fig. 72. Procession on gold ring from Lower Town, Mycenae. LH II−III (after: CMS I.86) ...... 73

Fig. 73. Procession on steatite block from Eleusis. LH II−III (after: CMS V.422) ... 73

Fig. 74. Procession on seal stone from Vaphio. LH IIA (after: CMS I.220) ...... 74

Fig. 75. Procession on sealing from Pylos. LH IIIB2−C1 (after: CMS I.361) ...... 74

Fig. 76. The grandstand fresco from Knossos. (after: Evans, 1930, PL XVI) ...... 77

Fig. 77. Overview of arrangement of artefacts according to the archaeological context made by Senta German. (after: German 2007, 32, 37−39) ...... 79

200

Fig. 78. Table of all discussed images of dance in this thesis. Senta German’s basis completed by mine ideas...... 83

Fig. 79. Statistics of media and finding contexts...... 85

Fig. 80. Example of the first age stage. Thera fresco. Crocus Gatherer from Xeste 3. MM IIIA – LM IB (Doumas, 1992, fig. 116, detail) ...... 96

Fig. 81. Example of the second age stage. Thera fresco. Young Pristness from the West House. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Cohen and Rutter, 2007, fig. 11.6, detail) .... 96

Fig. 82. Example of the third age stage. Thera fresco. Crocus Gatherer from Xeste 3. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 116, detail) ...... 96

Fig. 83. Example of the fourht age stage. Thera fresco. Maiden with the necklace from the adyton of Xeste 3. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 100, detail) ...... 97

Fig. 84. Example of the fifth age stage. Thera fresco. Xeste 3. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Evans, 1921, fig. 397) ...... 97

Fig. 85. The sixth stage of maturity. Thera fresco. House of the Ladies. MM IIIA – LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 7, detail) ...... 97

Fig. 86. Ivory boys, Palaikastro. LM I − II (after: Evans, 1930, fig. 310)...... 97

Fig. 87. Boxing boys, Thera. MM IIIA – LM IB (after: Doumas, 1992, fig. 79) ...... 98

Fig. 88. Painting from the north wall of shrine, Çatal Hüyük. First quarter of the 6th millennium BC. (after: Mellaart, 1965, fig. 64) ...... 101

Fig. 89. Fragment of clay envelope from Alalakh, Level VII, bearing the impression of a cylinder seal with two bull leapers, ca. 1700 BC. (after: Aruz, et al., 2008, fig. 43) ...... 101

Fig. 90. Bull leaping fresco from palace at Avaris, Egypt. (after: Aruz, et al., 2008, 131) ...... 101

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Fig. 91. Rhyton from Koumasa, in shape of bull with three leapers. EBA. (after: Branigan, 1993, fig. 7.8) ...... 103

Fig. 92. Ivory figure of an acrobat jumping over a bull from Temple Treasure, Knossos. MM IIIB. (after: Donald and Hurcombe, 2000, fig. 5.11) ...... 103

Fig. 93. The stone rhyton from Ahgia Triada with bull leaping scene in second register from the top. MM IIIA–LM IB (after: Scanlon 2014, fig. 1.1) ...... 104

Fig. 94. Fresco from the Court of the Stone Spout, Knossos. LM II–LM IIIC (after: Kleiner, 2015, fig. 4-8) ...... 104

Fig. 95. Fresco from Tiryns. LH IIB−LH IIIC (after: Younger 1995 Pl. LXIb, pl. XIII)...... 104

Fig. 96. Larnax from Tanagra. LH IIB−LH IIIC (after: Suter, 2008, fig. 4.4) ...... 105

Fig. 97. Egyptian dancers from Kheruef tomb, Thebes (after: Shachter 2014, fig. 2) ...... 124

Fig. 98. Muu dancers. Thebes Tomb of Tetiki. (after Shachter 2014, fig. 12) ...... 126

Fig. 99. Worshipping Hathor on stele of Nefersenut, Deir el Medina. (after: Bierbrier, 1989, fig. 60) ...... 127

Fig. 100. An acrobat in backbend painted on limestone ostracon. (after: Aruz, et al., 2008, fig. 108) ...... 130

Fig. 101. Musician and dancer in the Tomb of Nakht, Thebes. (after: Russel, 2013, 334) ...... 131

Fig. 102. Dancing god Bes with tambourine. (after: Spencer, 2003, 112.) ...... 131

Fig. 103. Handle of razor with Nubian dancer. (after: Hayes, 1990, fig. 164) ...... 131

Fig. 104. Two female dancers in Tomb of Nebamun. (afret: Spencer, 2003, 113) . 132

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Fig. 105. Group of dancers in backbend at Festival of Opet. (after: Spencer, 2003, 112) ...... 132

Fig. 106. Pair dancing in the tomb of Intef. (after: Spencer, 2003, 113.) ...... 134

Fig. 107. The dancing scene from Megiddo, Israel. (after: Loud, 1948, Plate 270) 137

Fig. 108. Clay cultic stand from Tell Qasile with circle dance. Israel. (after: Ben- Shlomo, 2010, fig. 3.20) ...... 137

Fig. 109. Circle dance on the cylinder seal from Niniveh. 3000−2700 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 97) ...... 140

Fig. 110. Circle dance on the cylinder seal from Hama. 3000−2700 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 97) ...... 141

Fig. 111. Dance on a banquet with a narcotic drink. The cylinder seal from Ur. 2600−2500 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 98) ...... 141

Fig. 112. Dwarf dancer on the terracotta plaque originating probably from Susa. The Old Babylonian period (after: Collon, 2003, 98) ...... 141

Fig. 113. Dance on cylinder seal, unknown location. The Old Babylonian period (after: Collon, 2003, 99) ...... 142

Fig. 114. Dancers on a festival. The terracotta plaque from Iraq. 1850−1750 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 99) ...... 142

Fig. 115. Dancer with a ball on the cylinder seal from Alalakh. 1400−1350 BC (after: Collon, 2003, 100) ...... 142

Fig. 116. Hittie wedding ritual on the Inandik vase. 1600 BC (after: Güterbock, 2002, fig. 1) ...... 143

Fig. 117. Procession on banquet on the cylinder seal from Syria. 1720−1650 BC (after: Pittman and Aruz, 1987, fig. 58) ...... 143

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Fig. 118. The sun goddess of Arinna. 13th−14th century BC (after: Metropolitan Museum of Art, museum number: 1989.281.12, available from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/327401, last access: 8. 6. 2018) ...... 145

Fig. 119. Sun god wearing string dresses and horned headdresses, on Akkadian cylinder seal. The Akkadian III period (Kist, et al., 2003, fig. 145) ...... 145

Fig. 120. Pattern of the woollen blouse from Egtved. (after: http://natmus.dk/historisk-viden/danmark/oldtid-indtil-aar-1050/livet-i- oldtiden/hvordan-gik-de-klaedt/bronzealderens-dragter/kvindens-dragt-i- bronzealderen/; last access: 1. 6. 2014) ...... 150

Fig. 121. My blouse from back. (photo by author) ...... 151

Fig. 122. Venus from Lespugue in France wearing cord skirt (after: Barber 1991, 40) ...... 152

Fig. 123. Venus from Gagarino wearing cord skirt (after: Barber, 1991, 257) ...... 153

Fig. 124. Neolithic female clay statuette wearing cord skirt. Šipintsi, Ukraine (after: Barber, 1991, 256) ...... 153

Fig. 125. First steps of making cord skirt. (photo by author) ...... 153

Fig. 126. Making twisted strings and finished skirt. (photo by author) ...... 154

Fig. 127. Costume from museum and mine reconstruction. (left image after: The National Museum of Denmark, available from: http://natmus.dk/historisk- viden/danmark/oldtid-indtil-aar-1050/bronzealderen-1700-fkr-500- fkr/egtvedpigen/snoreskoerter-og-ritualer/, last access 2. 6. 2018; right image: photo by author) ...... 154

Fig. 128. Funeral inventory of the Egtved girl. (after: The national Museum of Denmark, available from: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-

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knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-bronze-age/the-egtved- girl/, last access: 13. 11. 2014) ...... 154

Fig. 129. Kneeling woman wearing cord skirt, Fårdal in Denmark (after: Johnsen 2005, fig. 41) ...... 159

Fig. 130. Woman doing position of bridge and wearing cord skirt, Grevensvænge, Zealand, Denmark (after: Barber, 1991, 256) ...... 159

Fig. 131. Ritual dance on rock art from Engelstrup, Dennmark. 1700−500 BC (after: The National Museum of Denmark, museum number: B6988, available from: http://samlinger.natmus.dk/DO/asset/1291; last acces: 2.6.2018) ...... 159

Fig. 132. Funerary ritual depicted on burial slabs from Kivik. 1500−1100 BC (Jones, 2008, fig. 2.6) ...... 160

Fig. 133. Reconstruction of the sun dance at summer solstice 2014. (photo by author) ...... 161

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