Honouring the Dead in the Peloponnese - University of Nottingham

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Marioanna Louka The same decorative motif, that is the fruit of the pomegranate, is the main motif of the 11.6 cm-long silver pin which is believed to come from the Argive Heraion and today belongs to the British Museum: above the globe is a disc with an incised flower with twelve petals while the decoration is completed underneath by six moulded rings. On the shaft one reads the inscription τᾶς Ἥρας. The pin is dated approximately to the 7 th century BC (FIG. 8). 13 Objects like these do not stand isolated but belong to an earlier tradition: during the 8 th century BC some repeated motifs of these ‘primary’ ‘early’ pins, that is, those topped by a disc and a spherical bead decorating the shaft, appear in the Peloponnese and Attica. 14 Independent of their period of use, a general rule is that pins (ἥλος, περόόνη 15 ) found in pairs are associated with holding the garment in place, while isolated pins could be more decorative in nature; some were linked with the adornment of the head, as they were placed next to diadems or cloths covering the head. 16 Their usage was linked with the predominance of the peplos which was not sewn and was fixed at the shoulders: it is therefore to be expected that we discover a significant number of pins not only in graves but also as offerings in sanctuaries, such as that of Artemis Orthia 17 and at the Argive Heraion. It is worth noting that an important percentage of offerings in sanctuaries were in fact pins and fibulae, i.e. jewels used par excellence in everyday life; women were therefore offering to their gods their immediate, everyday jewels, which perhaps bore a stronger sentimental value. A late Archaic–early Classical cemetery was unearthed in the Argolid- Corinthian region, in a plot west of the Kyras Vrisi site, on the occasion of irrigation works in 1967. Almost 119 burials were revealed, mostly dated to the 6 th and 5 th centuries BC – most were burials in sarcophagi while their shallow depth indicates that the cemetery was not used at a later phase. Quite a few tombs were looted; however some important finds survive: pottery of the period (the black-figured aryballoi, skyphoi and pyxides), metallic objects such as strigils and jewellery: pins, rings and an exceptional pair of silver earrings (FIG. 9). Their composition is elaborate, bringing to mind the form of 13 Marshall l911, n. 1250, 106 pl. XIV 14 Athens has actually yielded similar iron pins, dated as early as the 9th and the beginning of the 8th century BC. They were covered in gold sheet and were sometimes incised or granulated – in which case they exhibit a more monumental character (cf. Kübler 1954 , 190 f., 235 f., pl. 159 n. M42; Αlexandri 1968, 26 fig. 11). 15 Deonna 1938, 275, n. 11–12. 16 Deonna 1938, 277. Also in Pinset-Deslandres 1960, 28–29. 17 Dawkins 1929, pl. CXXXVI (pins with ivory heads, whose shape and decoration imitates a rosette). 408
Archaic funerary and votive jewellery an inverted pyramid: each earring is formed by two globules which are succeeded by several layers of granulation and finish with a sole globule. 18 FIG. 9. Pair of silver earrings from Kyras Vrisi site, Argolid–Corinth region, late 6 th – early 5 th century BC. AN IMAGE FOR COMPARISON Our study of the different types of women’s jewels as grave offerings could be understood better through the reconstitution of a female burial inside a cist grave which was unearthed by the local Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities in 1953 at Amphikleia (Dadi) in the department of Phthiotis and was dated at the end of the 8 th century BC. This burial was reconstructed and is today on display in the Karapanos Bronzes hall in the National Archaeological Museum (FIG. 10). We therefore acquire a complete image of the variety of jewels, their place within the grave and their functional relationship with the different body parts. At the same time we have the opportunity to discern similarities with Peloponnesian jewellery, in a region constituting a crossroad between the artistic languages of north and south, east and west. The dead woman wore a diadem with embossed decoration and three series of 390 biconical beads. In the space left between these series we find three bird-shaped pendants, having their parallels in 7 th and 6 th century BC Thessaly. 19 She also wore a chain with a pair of jewels formed by 18 Archaiologikon Deltion 24 (1969) Β1, 119 pl. 108 19 Picard & Sodini 1971, 28–29, pl. III ter. Similar birds were also used as pin heads (Picard & Sodini, 1971, n. 751, p. 29, pl. III bis and Jacobsthal 1956 : n. 75). For a complete picture of the bird types found as jewellery ornaments throughout the archaic Greek mainland (Argos, Corinth, Boeotia, Delphi, Pheres, Macedonia) cf. Bouzek 1988, 47–60, fig. 4. Pendants of this type are also commonly present in the grave tumuli dating from the 8 th to the 6 th century BC 409
Page 1 and 2: Honouring the Dead in the Peloponne
Page 3 and 4: 16 Georgia Kokkorou-Alevras Funerar
Page 5 and 6: Abstracts 1 Emilia Banou and Louise
Page 7 and 8: 5 Rachel S. Fox. Vessels and the bo
Page 9 and 10: and their decoration as well as the
Page 11 and 12: connected with the early Mycenaean
Page 13 and 14: χρονικές περιόδους
Page 15 and 16: του Σιδήρου στον Ελ
Page 17 and 18: Προτείνεται ότι οι
Page 19 and 20: offer a detailed examination of the
Page 21 and 22: γυναικείου θρήνου,
Page 23 and 24: ανάγκη επίδειξης κ
Page 25 and 26: Preface The Conference ‘Honouring
Page 27 and 28: If in a negative way, the deliberat
Page 29 and 30: CHAPTER 21 THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF
Page 31 and 32: Archaic funerary and votive jewelle
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Honouring the Dead in the Peloponnese - University of Nottingham

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