Social Diversity in Dark Age Greece

Whitley, Anthony James Monins

doi:10.1017/s0068245400014994

Cited by 115 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Debates have focused on whether these facts make up a coherent social whole, and how they are to be understood in relation both to archaeological evidence and ethnographic analogy (e.g. Qviller 1981;Whitley 1991a). This approach certainly has its value, but recent scholarship has emphasized its limitations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Objects with Attitude: Biographical Facts and Fallacies in the Study of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Warrior Graves

Whitley

2002

CAJ

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107

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Aegean prehistory still has to deal with the legacy of ‘Homeric archaeology’. One of these legacies is the ‘warrior grave’, or practice of burying individuals (men?) with weapons which we find both in the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age in the Aegean. This article suggests that the differences between the ‘weapon burial rituals’ in these two periods can tell us much about the kind of social and cultural changes that took place across the Bronze Age/Iron Age ‘divide’ of c. 1100 BC. In neither period, however, can items deposited in ‘warrior graves’ be seen as straightforward biographical facts that tell us what the individual did and suffered in life. Rather, the pattern of grave goods should be seen as a metaphor for a particular kind of identity and ideal. It is only in the Early Iron Age that this identity begins to correspond to the concept of the ‘hero’ as described in the Iliad. One means towards our better understanding of this new identity is to follow up work in anthropology on the biography of objects. It is argued that the ‘life cycle’ of ‘entangled objects’, a cycle which ends in deposition in a grave, provides us with indispensable clues about the nature of new social identities in Early Iron Age Greece.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Objects with Attitude: Biographical Facts and Fallacies in the Study of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Warrior Graves

Whitley

2002

CAJ

Self Cite

107

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“…23 It was then used to interpret archaeological remains dating from the tenth to the ninth century. 24 Finally, it facilitated a new interpretation of Archaic aristocracies. 25 Challenges to these debatable interpretations came primarily from the continent.…”

Section: Status Performance and New Conceptions Of Greek City-statesmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Formation of Greek City-States: Status, Class, and Land Tenure Systems

Zurbach

2013

Annales (Engl. ed.)

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Recent scholarship has often remarked on the opposition between two conceptions of Archaic Greek societies, relating either to a legal and static definition of status or to a notion of status as personal and fluid, linked to diversified strategies for obtaining social distinction. This article seeks to move beyond this opposition by examining the history of status groups in the Archaic period. After analyzing the key stages within the complex historiography devoted to this subject, it goes on to provide a history of status groups during the formative period of the city-states. The creation of new status groups was an essential feature of the city-states’ history and was primarily linked to indebtedness and war. Although statuses were collective and often imposed from the outside, they nevertheless display a historical development that is central to the formation of city-states. In the seventh century BCE, new groups were created in response to the aristocracy’s need for a workforce. The resulting conflict led to an evolution of the systems regulating access to land and food. This reorganization of entitlement, which was how communities responded to the social and economic crisis they faced, was in turn based on the creation of new status groups. Social conflict led to the definition of a new system of status groups.

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“…Priest 's House (61,80,[58][59][60] 67 (FIGS. [15][16][17][18] The name of this complex reflects Pendlebury's view of it as having a special, even elite function. This association, as well as its size, integrity and relative clarity of plan (though rapid deterioration is changing this) made it an attractive target for study.…”

Section: -17 ('Great House')™ (Figs 8-12)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Last chance to see? Karfi (Crete) in the twenty-first century: presentation of new architectural data and their analysis in the current context of research

Wallace

2005

Annu. Br. Sch. Athens

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The paper presents new studies of the architecture at Karfi (12th-11th centuries BC) which has significantly deteriorated since excavation in the 1930s. 1:50 plans of the best-preserved buildings, a new topographical plan of the whole site area, and an EDM plot of the main visible unexcavated remains, allow enhancement of previous commentary on social organization at the site and others of the period. It examines in detail and with the use of wide-ranging comparisons (including with sites of the preceding LM III and subsequent PG-A periods) the ways in which new social systems were materially constructed from soon after widespread settlement relocations in Crete c. 1200 BC. It highlights inter-site similarities suggesting regular, deep-rooted interaction between communities during or soon after this horizon of major social change while evaluating subtle differences probably related to differences in size and complexity between the new villages. For example, cooking facility distribution suggests a role for communal cooking, paralleled at other sites, which is here especially pronounced. This limitation on individuals' potential to achieve status through the hosting of exclusive secular feasts/gatherings may relate to particularly volatile factional competition in large settlements. Evidence recently cited in support of such a model for Karfi (the presence of several different large structures, some containing feasting evidence) is used to raise the question of whether all large secular buildings at this period must be seen as residences. The distinctive character of Karfi's eastern excavated zone (previously argued to relate to diachronic development or to ethnic origins/power balance at the sites) is here characterized in terms of its static rather than agglutinative planning, a feature possibly marking a unique social role for the area. The ‘Megarons’ block, located in this zone, is compared with similar buildings at contemporary sites, with the conclusion that Crete saw the emergence soon after 1200 BC of a fairly fixed template for public feasting buildings, drawing deliberately on features which had earlier possessed exotic/prestige associations. Though such buildings may have shared their social role with powerful families' residences, and direct emulation of their form may have been an important element in social competition, they represent a separate, standardized social institution at this period, complementing the new standardization of cult practice in settlement temples. We seem able identify consistently recognized social concepts spanning the Latest Bronze through Archaic periods in Crete, which were nonetheless transformed through their materialization in changing historical circumstances. The paper concludes by discussing future management and research potential at Karfi.

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Social Diversity in Dark Age Greece

Cited by 115 publications

References 30 publications

Objects with Attitude: Biographical Facts and Fallacies in the Study of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Warrior Graves

Objects with Attitude: Biographical Facts and Fallacies in the Study of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Warrior Graves

The Formation of Greek City-States: Status, Class, and Land Tenure Systems

Last chance to see? Karfi (Crete) in the twenty-first century: presentation of new architectural data and their analysis in the current context of research

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