Rhyta Revisited...

Long term followers of this blog will remember how - on my return from a holiday to Crete - I waxed lyrical about Minoan artefacts.  I was particularly struck by the big storage jars - the pithoi - and the libation vessels - the rhyta.

I encountered a wide range of artefacts in Crete, but there was one which really hit me between the eyes and made me go wow!!!  I'd have taken it home with me, had it been allowed - unfortunately, I had to settle for a small resin miniature version, which is better than nothing, I suppose.

The artefact in question was a rhyton in the shape of a bull's head.  Here's the picture, featured for those of you who didn't see it the first time (and because I was just itching for another chance to broaden its popularity...):-

The museum label was very minimalist.  It went something along the lines of 'Rhyton in the form of a bull's head.  Serpentine.  Knossos.'  There was a little bit about dating, but that was it. 

I found this situation very frustrating.  Okay, so the object is 'ritual' (that time-honoured archaeological catch-all phrase for the misunderstood, the unloved and the downright weird) but I was itching to know the circumstances of its discovery, and to understand why it was chucked away in the first place, when it's such a spectacular and beautiful piece...

I knew that the answer to this puzzle lay in literature.  The Minoan civilisation was something I knew next to nothing about when I visited Crete, and to devour a general synthesis on the Mediterranean Bronze Age didn't strike me as being a suitable route to finding the answer to this conundrum.  So, when a secondhand bookshop which specialises in archaeology and history had a load of books on the Minoans for sale, I snapped them up.

I read the first of them last week.  It was Knossos: The Little Palace, by Eleni M. Hatzaki (British School of Athens Supp. Vol. 38, 2005).  As entertaining reads go, this is not on the recommended list.  It is first and foremost, a site report, and unless you're a serious archaeological or ceramic geek, who thrives on buff sandy soils, pyxis lids decorated by quirks and alternating hatched bands, LMIIIA versus LMIIB and infilled lustral basins, this is not for you. 

But...  What did I find when I got to Special FInds Section (i.e. anything which isn't bone or pottery) but a reference to 'SF1: Stone bull's head rhyton, HM [i.e. Heraklion Museum] 1368 and 1550. H. 20.0 (mouth to top of head). Serpentine, missing ears, left cheek and eye [yes, it's been substantially reconstructed]. Decoration incised, including double axe between the eyes, curls in relief.  Libation holes at top of head and in the mouth. (Hatzaki, 2005, 186).

Yep, that's my boy alright.  I'd wondered all along about structured deposition in Minoan Crete, and -miraculously - this volume went a long way to inform me.  Here's what we're told about this object:-

'Evans considered the steatite bull's head rhyton (SF1) as part of the furnishings of an upper floor room...  Mackenzie reported its discovery in a walled pit... at roughly one metre down from the preserved walls... It is certain that the rhyton was already broken before it was thrown in... There are two possible explanations regarding its find place and state of preservation:

1) Space 35 was filled in with rubbish, containing not only fragmentary MMIIIB/LM !A [i.e. Middle Minoan IIIB/Late Minoan IA] material.  The fragmentary stone rhyton was thrown in as well.
2) The broken up stone rhyton was intentionally thrown into Space 36 as a foundation deposit. Paul Rehak has suggested that stone bull's head rhyta were ritualistically smashed and subsequently placed as a foundation deposit.  The find circumstances of the LP stone rhyton does not contradict such an interpretation. (Hatzaki, 2005, 184 - comments within square brackets are my own)

So there you have it. 

I'm going for option 2.  It supports the gut instinct I'd had about this object all along - I mean, if you have an object of this quality you're really going to look after it, and I would think it would take a heck of a lot of effort to break it into bits in the first place.   

And oh, boy, am I glad I invested in these books and that I've actually learnt something by reading them.  This was just the first of five books about Minoan archaeology that I've picked up this year, so I have high hopes for the rest of them.

Whether it has any relevance whatsover for carrying out watching briefs in deepest darkest Ayrshire is open to question, but it's reassuring to know that somewhere out there, nice archaeology does exist, even if I'm never going to encounter it in my day job:-(

Rhyta Revisited...

Long term followers of this blog will remember how - on my return from a holiday to Crete - I waxed lyrical about Minoan artefacts.  I was particularly struck by the big storage jars - the pithoi - and the libation vessels - the rhyta.

I encountered a wide range of artefacts in Crete, but there was one which really hit me between the eyes and made me go wow!!!  I'd have taken it home with me, had it been allowed - unfortunately, I had to settle for a small resin miniature version, which is better than nothing, I suppose.

The artefact in question was a rhyton in the shape of a bull's head.  Here's the picture, featured for those of you who didn't see it the first time (and because I was just itching for another chance to broaden its popularity...):-

The museum label was very minimalist.  It went something along the lines of 'Rhyton in the form of a bull's head.  Serpentine.  Knossos.'  There was a little bit about dating, but that was it. 

I found this situation very frustrating.  Okay, so the object is 'ritual' (that time-honoured archaeological catch-all phrase for the misunderstood, the unloved and the downright weird) but I was itching to know the circumstances of its discovery, and to understand why it was chucked away in the first place, when it's such a spectacular and beautiful piece...

I knew that the answer to this puzzle lay in literature.  The Minoan civilisation was something I knew next to nothing about when I visited Crete, and to devour a general synthesis on the Mediterranean Bronze Age didn't strike me as being a suitable route to finding the answer to this conundrum.  So, when a secondhand bookshop which specialises in archaeology and history had a load of books on the Minoans for sale, I snapped them up.

I read the first of them last week.  It was Knossos: The Little Palace, by Eleni M. Hatzaki (British School of Athens Supp. Vol. 38, 2005).  As entertaining reads go, this is not on the recommended list.  It is first and foremost, a site report, and unless you're a serious archaeological or ceramic geek, who thrives on buff sandy soils, pyxis lids decorated by quirks and alternating hatched bands, LMIIIA versus LMIIB and infilled lustral basins, this is not for you. 

But...  What did I find when I got to Special FInds Section (i.e. anything which isn't bone or pottery) but a reference to 'SF1: Stone bull's head rhyton, HM [i.e. Heraklion Museum] 1368 and 1550. H. 20.0 (mouth to top of head). Serpentine, missing ears, left cheek and eye [yes, it's been substantially reconstructed]. Decoration incised, including double axe between the eyes, curls in relief.  Libation holes at top of head and in the mouth. (Hatzaki, 2005, 186).

Yep, that's my boy alright.  I'd wondered all along about structured deposition in Minoan Crete, and -miraculously - this volume went a long way to inform me.  Here's what we're told about this object:-

'Evans considered the steatite bull's head rhyton (SF1) as part of the furnishings of an upper floor room...  Mackenzie reported its discovery in a walled pit... at roughly one metre down from the preserved walls... It is certain that the rhyton was already broken before it was thrown in... There are two possible explanations regarding its find place and state of preservation:

1) Space 35 was filled in with rubbish, containing not only fragmentary MMIIIB/LM !A [i.e. Middle Minoan IIIB/Late Minoan IA] material.  The fragmentary stone rhyton was thrown in as well.
2) The broken up stone rhyton was intentionally thrown into Space 36 as a foundation deposit. Paul Rehak has suggested that stone bull's head rhyta were ritualistically smashed and subsequently placed as a foundation deposit.  The find circumstances of the LP stone rhyton does not contradict such an interpretation. (Hatzaki, 2005, 184 - comments within square brackets are my own)

So there you have it. 

I'm going for option 2.  It supports the gut instinct I'd had about this object all along - I mean, if you have an object of this quality you're really going to look after it, and I would think it would take a heck of a lot of effort to break it into bits in the first place.   

And oh, boy, am I glad I invested in these books and that I've actually learnt something by reading them.  This was just the first of five books about Minoan archaeology that I've picked up this year, so I have high hopes for the rest of them.

Whether it has any relevance whatsover for carrying out watching briefs in deepest darkest Ayrshire is open to question, but it's reassuring to know that somewhere out there, nice archaeology does exist, even if I'm never going to encounter it in my day job:-(