School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemRitual Architecture, Material Culture and Practice of the Philistines( 2023-03)This thesis focuses on the recognition of cult and ritual in the Late Bronze Age to Iron Age (1175-586 BCE) Levant. It is concerned with the identification and elucidation of ritual architecture, material culture and practices based on the existing archaeological record and series of indicators that allow for reasonable inference that a site had ritual capacities. The aim of this study is to employ the synthesis and interpretation of data and apply comparative analysis to create an encompassing study that better represents the archaeological phenomenon of the Philistines. The ritual architecture, material culture and practice of the Philistines and their surrounding world are complex and multilayered. The following is a comprehensive catalogue of ritual-related architecture, material culture and (where appropriate) practices of sites in the Southern Levant, interpreted in the social and cultural framework of the LBA to Iron Age. The analyses of ritual-related architecture, material culture, practice and ideology require a detailed study of societal intricacies, architectural components and a defined typological framework. Ritual structures offer an alternate means of understanding the built environment and provide an insight into human-place-object interaction. Whilst the Philistines have been studied by archaeologists over the past four decades, there is a distinct gap in publication and knowledge when it comes to Philistine ritual and religious architecture, material culture and practice. This task can be especially difficult in regions of continuous settlement and destruction, particularly when large ritual and/or cultic centres stand out in the archaeological record in comparison to smaller, more nuanced, areas of ritual importance. Many debates which revolve around the Philistines concern aspects such as migration, the location of their cultural homeland, chronology and religious beliefs. A portion of excavation data coming from wider Philistia has not been re-assessed in the light of new theoretical approaches and the general developments in the field of archaeology and anthropology. It is my goal to reconstruct such data where possible and apply these new viewpoints, namely interpretive archaeology, to present an alternative to positivism in the field. The primary goal is to ‘even out’ the over-saturation of single-site publication through the collation and interpretation of all excavated sites in one corpus. Whilst writing my honours thesis, I noted the abundance of handpicked comparative studies and an overall lack of overarching studies pertaining to Philistine architecture and material culture. Consequently, there is no far-reaching study that discusses Philistine ritual architecture, material culture and its systematic characterisation in a way that presents all known data, relevant research and theoretical approaches. It is evident that a certain amount of scholarship on this topic suffers from the lack of wider comparative approaches and a failure of identification of ritual architecture and artefacts; a downfall that many facets of the discipline of archaeology experience. Therefore, this thesis will attempt to construct a comprehensive and summative history of ritual and cult in the Southern Levant with a focus on the Philistines and their world, moving away from the previously restrictive frameworks to produce a far-reaching piece of research which has not yet been generated within the field. A study such as this is not particularly new in the field of Bronze and Iron Age archaeology. Webb’s published PhD thesis entitled Ritual Architecture, Iconography and Practice in the Late Cypriot Bronze Age addresses the topic of specific ritual phenomena in a precise and succinct manner, creating an indispensable handbook to all who study the archaeology of ritual. Furthermore, the theses of Nakhai (Archaeology and religions of Canaan and Israel), Gilmour (The Archaeology of Cult in the Southern Levant in the Early Iron Age) and Elkowicz (Tempel und Kultplatze der Philister und der Volker des Ostjordanlandes. Eine Untersuchung zur Bau- und zur Kultgeschichte wahrend der Eisenzeit I-II) presented studies of similar design which helped bring this current study to fruition. Whilst this thesis heavily critiques previous interpretations and studies put forward by excavators, this research was only possible due to their unbroken hard work and dedication to the field of archaeology. This thesis owes great debt to the excellent predecessors who laid the framework for this study. It is my hope that the following analysis only highlights their success and commitment. Chapter 1 is a review of literary and archaeological sources that consists of an overview and summary of previous literature in the field with analysis and reference of biblical, historical and academic sources, including chronological issues and a review of excavation. Chapter 2 explores and defines the archaeology of ritual and cult within the framework of the LBA and Iron Ages, drawing on important previous studies which paved the way for new approaches. This chapter also considers cult identifiers and the difference between public, domestic and private ritual architecture and material finds. This section will also deal with specific definitions in relation to the cultic and ritual architecture of the geographical region. Chapter 3, 4 and 5 provide a compendium of Philistine ritual architecture and finds from the Early Iron through to the Iron II. Sites and buildings have been categorised into Reliably Identified Sites, Less Reliably Identified and Misidentified sites. These are accompanied by top plans, block plans, reconstructions and three-dimensional models (where available) in-text and in the body of the thesis. Sites are divided into architecture, material finds and discussion sections. Chapter 6 discusses Philistine religion, deities and epigraphic evidence, providing a summary of previous studies and new developments and understanding of Philistine ritual with an in-depth analysis and up-to-date table of Philistine altars and their comparisons with the wider Mediterranean. These discussions employ comparative analysis along with interpretive analysis to further understand what may have taken place within these cult and ritual-related areas. The study concludes with an overview of the findings and the future of Philistine archaeology of ritual and cult through the suggestion of a new cultic and ritual research agenda.
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ItemBotanic motifs of the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands: identity, belief, ritual and trade( 2019)Botanic motifs of the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands: Identity, Belief, Ritual and Trade Marcia Nugent, University of Melbourne This thesis argues the motifs with which we surround ourselves signify something – about us, our identities, our values and our understanding of the world. Frequently and infrequently represented motifs tell us something about the culture from which they come. Assemblages of motifs from different peoples and places tell us something about the people who created and viewed them – their preferences and their sense of place in their environment. In short, motifs have meaning. Although in many cases the original viewer may have assigned non-intrinsic meaning to motifs, patterns of representation and placement and the context of motifs can allow the uninitiated to recognise meaning. Motifs can communicate feelings, ideas, beliefs, practice and uses of the items represented to observers far removed from the original intended viewers. Since prehistoric times, the natural world has been a focus of human artistic endeavour. From before people first settled and started practicing agriculture, plants have been important sources of shelter, nourishment and clothing materials. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that plants feature in early artistic representations. The artistic record reflects our early and continuing inextricable link to our natural environment. Our reliance on plant products makes botanic motifs an important subset of the iconographic record. The temporal and geographical focus of this study is the Bronze Age period (approx. 3000 – 1200 BC) of three sites from the Cycladic Islands, a group of islands in the Aegean Sea north of Crete – Akrotiri (Thera), Ayia Irini (Kea) and Phylakopi (Melos). Motifs are frequently from the Late Bronze Age period (1600 – 1200 BC), but some motifs are first seen and traced from the Early and Middle Bronze Age periods. The thesis seeks to answer two broad research questions: 1. Which plants were represented at the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands of Melos, Thera and Kea and how were they represented? 2. What can the context, form and associations of the botanic motifs tell us about the identity, beliefs, rituals and trade of the people that created and viewed them? Although a number of scholars have undertaken broad iconographic studies and other research has considered a limited assemblage of plant motifs, none have focused only on the three Cycladic Island sites featured in this study. This thesis also uniquely applies a quantitative and contextual analysis to over 500 botanic motifs to understand broader qualitative archaeological problems. The newly developed analytical methodology of this thesis intends to extend a replicable, scientific approach reaching from a quantitative, numbers based analysis to qualitative analysis utilising theoretical frameworks, enabling a post-processual, post-structuralist, contextualised study of the botanic motifs. The study ultimately reveals botanic motifs and the plants they represent have an entangled relationship with humanity, built on dependency and co-dependency, which support and enhance the economic, health and spiritual lives of the people of the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands.
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ItemMinoan stone vessels with Linear A inscriptions( 2011)Minoan stone vessels with Linear A inscriptions are ritual vessels whose stone and inscriptions denoted the permanence of the dedicants’ devotion. The vessels were dedicated to deities, and were used in a variety of Minoan rituals, some of which can be tentatively reconstructed. Most of the vessels come from peak sanctuaries, the most important of which probably doubled as observatories for marking the passage of the equinoxes and solstices; thus the concentration of inscribed vessels at these sites suggests that the vessels played a part in seasonal rituals whose timing was determined by the sun and moon. The seasonality of these rituals suggests that they were focused on aspects of the cycle of life: fertility, birth, death and renewal. However, offerings left with the vessels also suggest that people visited these sanctuaries for other, more personal reasons—for example, to give thanks for good fortune, to request healing, or to seek divine protection before a dangerous journey. Inscribed stone vessels may have played a part in any of these rituals. A smaller number of inscribed stone vessels come from Kato Syme, a very important shrine built high on a flank of Mt Dikte, on the spot where a perpetual spring issues from the mountain. This spring is an important water source for the valleys and arable lands below; thus the location of the sanctuary again suggests that the inscribed vessels found there were used in rituals focussed on the divine source(s) of fertility. Most inscribed stone vessels can be interpreted as receptacles for liquid and/or solid offerings. The so-called Minoan ‘ladles’ are a special case: I interpret them as pouring vessels meant to be held in cupped hands. Iconographic evidence suggests that ‘ladles’ may have been used in male maturation rites. Though Linear A remains undeciphered, linguistic analysis of the inscriptions on the vessels is still possible on several fronts. Clues to the phonology of Minoan can be found in the structure of Linear A itself, and in the way in which it was borrowed by the Mycenaeans to create Linear B. Mycenaean spellings of Minoan words and names also contain clues as to the sounds of Minoan, while alternating Classical spellings of some Minoan words suggest that Minoan had some sounds that were not native to Greek. The morphology of Minoan can be investigated through statistical analyses of the frequency with which the various Linear A signs occur. Inflection in human languages usually involves affixes; thus signs that appear inordinately often at the beginnings or ends of Linear A words are likely to be prefixes and suffixes. Finally: most inscribed Minoan stone vessels contain a version of the so-called ‘Libation formula’, a lengthy sequence of Minoan words; comparing these versions yields valuable clues about the nature of Minoan syntax. The results of these investigations suggest that Minoan is a non-Indo-European, non-Semitic language with a fairly standard set of phonemes, an agglutinative morphology incorporating both prefixes and suffixes, and (possibly) VSO word order.