B000WLLXDK EBOK by Donald Preziosi;Louise A. Hitchcock

Author:Donald Preziosi;Louise A. Hitchcock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Reconstruction of room 3 and upper floor of House Xeste 3, Akrotiri, Thera. The scenes taking place in the frescoes and the presence of an adyton or lustral basin may indicate that this room was a shrine that may have been used for female initiation ceremonies.

Young girl gathering crocus flowers; fresco from room 3, House Xeste 3, Akrotiri, Thera. Based on the shaved head and snake-like locks of hair, the girl is believed to be an adolescent.

She is to the rear of the central seated figure, walking in her direction; the girl on the left side of the painting is similarly attired and made up, and carries a basket of crocus flowers, no doubt as an offering to the central figure. It seems reasonable to conclude that the central seated adult female is not an ordinary woman. She is depicted between two more or less fantastic animals-a bluish monkey making an offering to her, and a rampant (half-bird, half-lion) griffin at her back, perhaps in a protective heraldic gesture.

Monkeys (usually painted blue) are known in many Minoan depictions; for example those in the fresco [821 from the upper storey of House Beta shown cavorting in what appears to be Theran landscape seem to be vervets, native today to Nubia, indicating more than casual contact between the Aegean and the upper Nile Valley at this period either through direct contact or by way of Egypt as an intermediary."

Illustration 83 shows a portion of a life-size female figure from room i in the House of the Ladies in Akrotiri, so called because of this and an accompanying scene. Of unknown function, the House of the Ladies also contained a large fresco of papyrus plants in an adjacent alcove. Here an adult woman with a full head of hair wears a flounced Minoan skirt and an open bodice which reveals a large breast. She is carrying what appears to be another apron and may be offering it to a second, possibly seated woman. On the wall opposite this are traces of a similar scene, and it may refer to a robing ceremony which may on occasion have been carried out in this anteroom. Above all the figures on both walls is a wavy blue line separating the robing scene from a field of blue stars connected by red dotted lines.

The paintings at Akrotiri on Thera are quite extraordinary, both for their compositional and naturalistic qualities, and for the new glimpses they are giving us of aspects of Bronze Age Aegean life hitherto unknown or only known by inference. It is coming to be understood much more clearly how intensely and encyclopedically the Therans (and Minoans) seem to have recorded and celebrated their lives and social worlds through art and material culture. In this respect, it may well be that they bore no small resemblance to their contemporaries in Egypt and perhaps elsewhere in the eastern Mediteranean (as we shall see later, Minoan-style painting left its trace in Egypt itself). Most of the Thera

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