“semitisches pantheon”. eine “männliche tyche” - MOSAIKjournal.com

DOMESTIC SPACE AND COMMUNITY IDENTITY |111
individual societies. 106 Those named as “universal factors” have
been of course recognised as such in the examination of culturespecific
contexts. Their applicability is questioned whenever a new
cultural context is being examined by their means, which means
that we recognise at the same moment the danger of trying to test a
specific culture upon the characteristics of a different one.
A final principle of spatial-behavioural analysis concerns the
symbolic dimension. In sites where continuous occupation over a
considerable time can be attested, later generations will be confronted
with a previously developed and „meaningfully constituted”
social landscape. 107 Therefore, there is the possibility for ideological
use of the landscape with place-values and tradition-values
acting as a source of both social cohesion and social control. 108
Chalasmenos, during the Late Geometric reoccupation of the site,
must definitely have been confronted with a „meaningfully constituted”
previous social landscape that influenced the construction
and character of the later phases (e. g. the Late Geometric oikos of
Chalasmenos, symbolically placed on top of the Late Minoan IIIC
ruins of the three megara).
Another way to discuss the sociological and symbolic dimensions
of Early Iron Age houses, is to observe the patterns of communication
they enabled. In the typical one- or two-room houses
of the Early Iron Age, one could enter the family sphere directly.
Later Archaic houses were more compact, complex, and allowed
different kinds of communication for the household, both within
the domestic sphere and with the outer world. The inhabitants of
Early Iron Age houses without a courtyard would upon leaving the
house immediately perform some of their domestic tasks in the
outside world where a member of the community could see them
working: Eye contact with neighbours could be made and unexpected
encounters were possible. 109 Houses closed to the outside
world, such as the Archaic courtyard houses, did not allow this
kind of accidental contact, as communication could occur only upon
intentional entry into the house. The courtyard of such houses
106 DOXIADIS (1968).
107 ENGELSTAD – GRØN (1991).
108 HOBSBAWM (1983) 1–13.
109 LANG (2005) 28–30.