School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemInterpreting the wine-dark sea: east Mediterranean marine symbolism( 2014)This thesis is a study of the symbolism connected with the marine themed floor-paintings from the Late Bronze Age Mycenaean palace at Pylos (ca. 1330/15-1200/1190 B.C.E.), and the stone anchor assemblages from the Late Bronze/ Early Iron Age ‘sacred area’, Area II, at Kition, Cyprus (ca. 1300-1050 B.C.E.). Both the marine themed floor-paintings and the stone anchor assemblages have been little studied since they were first published, almost 50 years ago and almost 30 years ago, respectively. Since this time, and especially throughout the last thirty years, theoretical and practical approaches to archaeology, particularly with regard to the study of land- and sea-scapes and artefact symbolism, have greatly advanced, and as a result, interpretive studies of material culture are now more abundant. In addition, archaeologists have been recently experimenting with the idea that the Mediterranean Sea was understood by ancient people as a liminal zone, i.e. an uncontrollable and mysterious space existing on the threshold between the world of the living and the world of the gods, which required specialized knowledge, rituals, and technology to navigate safely. Nevertheless, despite these theoretical developments, which have spawned a large bibliography on symbols, thus far only a small number of studies dealing with material remains from the east Mediterranean region engage with symbols in a critical way, and these studies tend to be focused on iconographic artefacts. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the utility of symbolic theories in understanding both three-dimensional and iconographic material remains. Therefore, contextual analysis and the privileging of multivalent meanings are used to produce new interpretations regarding why the marine themed floor-paintings from Pylos and the stone anchor assemblages from Kition were created, and what they may have meant to the ancient people who produced and utilised them.