This week we focused on the Cyclades and visited the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, seeing artifacts that included sauce boats, frying pans (not actually used as frying pans, just named for the shape), stone vessels, metalwork, and figurines. The characteristic female figurine of the Early Cycladic II was a female with crossed arms and often included an outline of the public triangle, but we also saw specialized (male) figures, such as musicians. As rich archaeological sites, the Cyclades were also frequently victims of looting, creating difficulty for archaeologists trying to determine the context and potential uses of artifacts.
We also had the opportunity to listen to a guest lecture by Michael J. Boyd, who spoke to us about the cycladic islands of Keros and Dhaskalio and the 3rd millennium BCE (these were not separate islands, but connected at the time). Boyd focused on the key issues of connectivity and mobility, material culture circulation and transformation, and creativity and identity, which were all relevant to evidence for transformation of human identity on Keros where small isolated villages transformed into a highly integrated hierarchical society.
Boyd told us about finds from a couple of deposits, one looted and the other not, that both had fragments of figurines and marble bowls, along with pottery sherds and obsidian. In addition to being imported, all of the broken figurines were fragmented, and only one fragment of each piece was found on the island. Furthermore, their team determined through water sieving that the breakage of these pieces had taken place elsewhere, meaning that islanders were selecting these particular pieces to bring to Keros. A similar trend appeared in the metalworking on Keros as well: islanders brought metal to Keros from mines in the western cyclades, and the resulting products were transported elsewhere. On Dhaskalio, buildings, walls and stairs on the north and east sides of the island were made from 10,000 tons of stone, imported from Naxos.
Boyd believes that the differing places of origin, production and use/final destination of these marble and metal products supports his hypothesis of a “distributed mode of habitation” in the Cyclades; rather than all daily tasks being based in one settlement, different tasks were being done in different areas distributed across the landscape.
At the Museum of Cycladic Art, curator and archaeologist Metaxia Routsi showed us many examples of the figures and other artifacts discussed in the lectures of the week, including one of the frying pan vessels that she found herself in a grave excavation. According to Metaxia, these vessels could have been used as mirrors, creating perfect reflections when filled with water or olive oil. Alternatively, they could have been astrolabes, creating a map of the night sky whereby a navigator could measure the angles of the stars’ movements for sea travel.
In discussing the marble figures, Metaxia noted that 95% of them were female, and they could not stand because their feet were pointed rather than flat. This suggests that they were supposed to be reclining when displayed. In contrast to the stationary female form, male forms are always in action. The cup-bearer, for example, sits on a stool and holds a cylindrical cup with extended arm and hand. Beginning in approximately 3200 BCE, this period of Cycladic culture came to an end around 2000 BC, likely because of the invention of the sailing ship.
