Creta Antica (E-Journal - Università di Catania)
Not a member yet
158 research outputs found
Sort by
DEDALO E LE ORIGINI DELLA SCULTURA GRECA
Full text linkIl problema delle origini della scultura greca, a somiglianza di quello della poesia greca, è connesso con un nome che talora sembra dissolversi nella nebbia del mito, talora invece sembra prendere forma e voce umane, e concretarsi nella personalità di un artista realmente vissuto: per la fama che le sue opere godettero presso gli antichi, per la risonanza che ebbe il suo nome, Dedalo infatti può essere accostato ad Omero, e come si parla di una questione omerica, si potrebbe anche parlare di una questione dedalica le cui soluzioni oscillano tra l’affermazione della reale esistenza dell’artista e la negazione di ogni fondamento alla tradizione che ne fa l’iniziatore e il caposcuola della scultura greca. Di fronte al rinnovarsi di tali atteggiamenti divergenti, non appare inutile riprendere il problema in tutti i suoi elementi, tanto più che esso è strettamente connesso col più vasto problema delle origini dell’arte greca
POTTERY AND RITUAL ACTIVITY AT PROTOPALATIAL HAGIA TRIADA: A FOUNDATION DEPOSIT AND A SET OF BROKEN RHYTA FROM THE SACELLO
Full text link This paper deals with the Protopalatial levels uncovered under the LM IIIA so-called Sacello, located in the SE part of the settlement of Hagia Triada. The systematic investigation of these levels, carried out by La Rosa in 1978, brought about the identification of the remains of some Protopalatial rooms, which were originally part of a terraced quarter oriented with the slope. The assessment of the stratigraphy and the study of the related pottery groups has allowed the Author to identify two ceramic assemblages in room a, which can be interpreted as the remains of two different forms of ritual activity. The first assemblage, partly discovered by La Rosa and partly by Banti during her 1958 sounding, was located just N of room α, and consists of 5 bowls, dated to MM IIA, which had been voluntarily deposited on the virgin soil and arranged in three groups: an inverted bowl, and two pairs of opposing pots. On the basis of the comparison with similar depositions found at the nearby site of Phaistos, it is argued that the assemblage found at Hagia Triada represents a foundation deposit, which seemingly bears witness to a ritual that involved the consumption or deposition of food before the building of a new floor. The second assemblage comprises 4 animal heads belonging to rhyta of the bull-shaped figural type, which were found in a closed stratum found between the two earliest stucco floors of room a. As the only remaining part of the four rhyta, all MM IB in date, is the head, it is suggested that they originally formed a set and that after their use in a ceremonial setting, they had been voluntarily broken in the same point, as part of the ritual.In despite of the lack of a complete picture of the contexts against which frame the ceremonies detected, on the basis of the vessels examined, they both seem to be linked to some kind of building activity
MINOAN, CANAANITE, PHOENICIAN MARITIME CULTURESON THE SHORES OF THE WEST NILE DELTA:A BREAKING ARCHAEOLOGICAL STATEMENT
Full text linkIn this new maritime study, the author, Serge R. Collet, following those led on the Phoenician sea oriented culture in the nineties and the much more archaeological recent one on the Minoan presence nearby the Cape skylaion in South Tyrrhenian sea, reports his findings from the coastal margin of the West Nile delta: Alexandria shores and southern Maryut Lake.In spite of a heavy and disturbed social context in 2011-2012, he surveyed still accessible stretches of the shores and lake banks, bringing to light amazing ceramics evidence for imported Minoan, Canaanite, Phoenician and Sea People vessel. This ceramics is related to three type of maritime installations: a true marine cult place, a quay and a harbour basin holed in the Kurkar ridge on the south bank of Maryut Lake.To understand fully the reason why of the existence of such maritime structures it is necessary to deepen the notion of «sea orientation» by including the coastal environmental determinations as well as those bound to an imaginary of the sea, to a positive valuation of the sea as entity. The sea and marine environment remain essentially extraneous to the Nile culture.These new findings and breaking considerations lead the author to a re-evaluation of the completely forgotten discovery of impressive submersed harbour installations at the west of the Homeric Pharos Island by the French maritime engineer Gaston Jondet and their accurate re- examination by Sir A. Evans, who argues for a Minoan origin. They inaugurated in some way the maritime archaeological researches so well developed since the eighties by Avner Raban at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime studies, he founded at the University of Haifa. Avner Raban is deceased in February 2004. This contribution is devoted to his memory
UNA NUOVA COPPA CON RAFFIGURAZIONI DI PESCI DA FESTÒS: ALCUNE OSSERVAZIONI SU ICONOGRAFIA E USO RITUALE
Full text linkThis paper aims to present an unpublished MM IIB (1750-1700 B.C.) bowl from Phaistòs, partially reunited by fragments from different find spots on the Lower West Court (Piazzale LXX), near the Protopalatial façade. Some aspects, primarily the marine iconography decoration, with a rare representation of a Tuna, and the unusual shape lead us to assume a special function for the vase. It is also suggested that this unique bowl was most likely part of a ceremonial set – associated with the famous pitharaki (F. 1898) from Room LXIV – probably employed on Rooms LIX-LX with benches or in the adjacent court area
MINOANS ABROAD: NEW EVIDENCE FROM CALABRIA AND EGYPT
Full text link This article presents the outcomes of an archaeological survey carried on the Calabrian North West coast of the Strait of Messina, nearby the narrows of the mythical Skylla during the mid nineties. This research, which has represented a strong experience and a turning point in the cognitive itinerancy of a maritime anthropologist, who in a "transgressed” way dared to put his nose on the ground, was the consequence of previous anthropological and historical studies on a traditional coastal fishing culture of which the long enduring of diverse harpooning technics of the swordfish, marlin, sharks and tuna found their roots in Phoenician times (www. ssfsymposium.org / presentation ).Indeed, there, on the Marturano promontory, promontory M, as in many instances in the Mediterranean, were first found Phoenician ceramics dating of the beginning of the ninth Century BC which has been published in part in 1995. But the field survey and soundings in seven areas of the promontory has been yet much more fructuous. The part one of this contribution presents the catalogue of the Minoan ceramic findings mainly dated LMI and LMI-II, but beginning at the end of MMIII, leaving so to hypothesise a long enduring presence. Amazingly, in fact, at the point of promontory M were spot and brought in light granite stone built structures.Part two restitutes the process and the steps of the spotting and discoveries: building-line of cyclopean stone granite cut blocks, terrace wall, a unique impressive boulder faced by two granite dressed blocks boat shaped, a monumental pyramidal assemblage of triangular and polygonal cut blocks crowning a stately trapeze shaped monolith edged with white sea pebbles facing an oval space. At the end of 1995 these lithic structures remained largely a puzzling issue. This difficult issue was left aside until a stay in Egypt between 2009 and 2012,where to escape to the depressing effects of a social-political heavy context soon after an initial strongly democratic uprising repressed in the blood, were undertaken a new field survey on the West coast of Alexandry. In a tiny island, in a somewhat interesting context was discovered a square altar with a sandstone baetyl in the middle, provoking the author to a come back to the lithic structures brought in light on the Calabrian coast some fourteen years before. In the paper, these lithic structures are accurately analysed in their material characteristics, their morphological oppositions, their building technics which for example systematically use to cut triangular granite blocks or polygonal ones but pointed at their back extremity as in the case of the embankment wall. All these architectonic traits belong to Minoan building technics.The last part of this contribution proceeds to a sharp critic of the development in the nineties of an exclusive religious vision of the Minoan culture and society, which has so often interpreted such lithic structures, as immediately and inherently religious artefacts. From recent archaeological works on ritualized practices led by L. Goodison, C. Moriss, J. Younger, the author comes back on the seminal paper of P. Warren on the baetyls and the new excavation of V. La Rosa at the end of the nineties, carried on at the tholos A of Hagia Triada, putting all these analyses in perspective with those of A. Evans and M. Nilsson. The Minoan archaeological realia discovered on the promontory M (Minoan, Mycenaean) are not only confronted with the ones found in Crete, but in a critical way with their rare iconic representations. Thus, a typology of these lithic, aniconic structures is put in light, and also their morphology and the ritual practices they supported. These stone structures of promontory M, the ceramic evidence, the building artefacts like pumice slabs, clay water pipes allow to infer to the settling of a Minoan community nearby the narrows of Skylla, Skylaion cape and at the end of this enduring presence not so much after a Phoenician short one, that is to say two Mediterranean paradigmatic sea oriented cultures
Presentazione
Full text linkSono raccolti in questo volume i contributi presentati nel corso del seminario bilaterale italo-tedesco «Πήλινα ειδώλια. New perspectives in Cretan Coroplastic Studies (13th-7th cent. B.C.)», organizzato da Antonella Pautasso (IBAM-CNR) e Oliver Pilz (Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz), patrocinato dal CNR e dalla Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) e tenutosi a Catania dal 19 al 21 settembre 2013
ΜΑΡΜΑΡΙΝΟ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΟΦΟΡΟ ΜΕ ΑΠΟΚΑΜΩΜΕΝΟ ΕΡΩΤΙΔΕΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΚΙΣΑΜΟ. MARMOR TRAPEZOFOROS FROM KISSAMOS
No full textThis article draws upon a marble table support of the 2nd century A.D. that depicts a young sleeping Eros resting on an inverted torch. The sculpture, found randomly in Kissamos Health Center area, some decades ago, is exposed in the regional archaeological Museum. Despite attic influences, probably is the product of a local workshop. Since the exact findspot and the context remains hypothetical, its particular motif is connected with death (Eros funéraire) as well as the joys of life and the banquets (symposia) conducted in the luxury villas that have been excavated in Kissamos Health Center broader area
LA CONCLUSIONE DEI LAVORI AD HAGHIA TRIADA. LE CAMPAGNE 2010-2012
Full text linkThe activities carried out in 2010-2012 represented the completion of the field activity in Ayia Triada started in 1977. All the area has been, in fact, thoroughly sounded and the new analytical drawing of all the structures, with the exception of the Villa, has been accomplished. Soundings in 2010 investigated the area to the North of Tholos B. Along the archaeological fence, they confirmed the lack of Minoan structures, and, on the contrary, the presence of evidence for at least 4 flood events, dating back to the Byzantine period. Byzantine strata were also identified just to the North of Tholos B testifying agricultural exploitation during the VII and VIII century A.D. Finally, to the North of the archaeological area and of the road to Kamilari, a long walls has been identified, which can be dated to the LM period due to its technique of construction and seems to be in relation with the Hieropotamos river. The 2011 Campaing concerned the area to the South of the ‘Case a Nord-Ovest del Bastione’. The most interesting results were the identification of a MMII large dwelling group to the West of the ‘Bastione’ and a better phasing for the ‘Case a Nord Ovest del Bastione’, which can now be dated within the MMIIIA period. They were probably abandoned after an earthquake in MMIIIA. The 2012 campaign, finally, concentrated on the Casa del Lebete, especially room 9. The House was built at the beginning of LMIB, knew at least 3 phases, with rooms 7 and 8 being added in a second moment, and Room 9 at the end, and was burnt down by fire at the end of LM IB. It was partially reoccupied after the destruction of the Villa, while Room 9 was later used as an open air short living precinct. Room E overlapped Room 9 and part of Room 7 in LMIIIA1. The cleaning of Room 9 allowed to bring to light the original stepped floor, covered by white and red stucco, but its function remains not clear
CROCO E ZAFFERANO A XESTE 3: BOTANICA; ETIMOLOGIA; AFFRESCHI
Full text linkXeste 3 frescoes depict a spring setting with a flower identified as autumnal and sterile (so cultivated) Crocus sativus. Crocus sativus, however, blossoms in autumn so that its presence in a spring setting is justified with temporal hiatus (from collecting to offering), or hypothesizing a missing scenes (desiccation process).For the flower identification the author, helped by botany and etymology, compares many species confused with the Crocus sativus during time such as the Carthamus, the Colchicum, the Curcuma and also the Sternbergia, concluding that the represented flower does not coincide with any of them and therefore can refer to a no more existing species. If, on other hand, we have to admit that it is a Crocus, Minoan representations attest its harvest but not its cultivation (so it can not be sativus) while Micenean texts confirm its cultivation, with scarce harvest from many sites.To support it can’t be sativus, the same frescoes from Xesté 3 are analyzed.If they describe a life’s celebration in a typical spring context, an autumnal flower is out of place. If they show an initiatory rite or a rite of passage, the offering of a near home cultivated flower is also out of place, because such rites imply fresh offerings, obtained through dolor (the bloody foot) and strain. A different interpretation for the meaning of the flower in the frescoes is therefore proposed, and it is that it symbolizes the Four Elements (water, earth, air and fire). Finally, a possible use of crocus in textile manufacture is proposed, together with a possible use the adyton as a regeneration space
