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

DOMESTIC SPACE AND COMMUNITY IDENTITY |73
methodological disciplines, along with a considerable increase of
available data, gave way to similar case studies in the Dark Ages
and the Iron Age domestic context. K. Fagerström‟s work, which
first looked at the distribution of artefacts in Greek Iron Age architecture,
or that of F. Lang, discussing social relations in sixth century
BC houses, exemplify this new direction. 12 Most importantly,
this development has brought with it the consciousness that textual
misconceptions had hampered not only the archaeology of the
Classical period but also that of the Early Iron Age, where similar
misconceptions were produced in relation with the Homeric texts.
When it comes to the exploration of households of the historic
period, the availability of written documentation can often provide
researchers in those areas with a fuller body of data for the investigation
of household relationships and behaviours. The relationship
between textual and archaeological material can be as complex and
as difficult to grasp as the relationship between ethnohistory and
archaeology. Attempts to read the archaeological record through
direct associations with documentary sources, without regard for
the specific social and ethnic contexts of the archaeological data,
can result in normalization of past domestic behaviour which denies
historicity or its regional or status specificity. M. Goldberg has
highlighted the so-called “textual tyranny” in Greek archaeology
but has also demonstrated that a re-reading of the same texts with a
critical reinvestigation of their relationship to the archaeological
remains can substantially alter our interpretations of domestic behaviour
in Classical Greece. 13 Finally, we have become aware that
the absence of textual sources for the Greek Iron Ages does not
prevent the interpretation of household behaviour and functions in
this early period from the architecture and the material culture evidence
itself, with the aid of ethnographic and cross-cultural research.
Publications without good contextual information are very often
one of the main concerns of anyone who attempts to work in
the field of household archaeology in Greece. But, rather than dismissing
this material, researchers like M. Goldberg, B. A. Ault, L.
C. Nevett and P. M. Allison have recently demonstrated approach-
12 FAGERSTRÖM (1988); LANG (1996).
13 GOLDBERG (1999) 142–161.