Dissertation committee:
Νάγια Πολυχρονάκου-Σγουρίτσα, Ομότιμη Καθηγήτρια Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Αφροδίτη Χασιακού, Λέκτωρ Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Άννα Παπαδημητρίου-Γραμμένου, Ομότιμη Λέκτωρ Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Ιφιγένεια Τουρναβίτου, Καθηγήτρια Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Τμήμα Ιστορίας, Αρχαιολογίας και Κοινωνικής Ανθρωπολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας
Ελευθέριος Πλάτων, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Γεώργιος Βαβουρανάκης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Προϊστορικού Αιγαίου, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Αιμιλία Μπάνου, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας, Αρχαιολογίας και Διαχείρισης Πολιτισμικών Αγαθών, Πανεπιστήμιο Πελοποννήσου
Summary:
The present dissertation is an attempt to study the rituals of burnt offerings in the cult of Mycenaean religion, as they are formed during the pre-palatial period, standardized and evolved during the heyday of the Mycenaean palaces, and continue to be regulated during the post-palatial period. The system of religion, and the symbolic units that make it up, i.e. the various ritual practices, are interactively inscribed in the cultural and social contexts. For this reason, they simultaneously act as symbolic and communicative signs of the wider ideological conceptions of a synchronically given society, and its political situations, as well as the evolutionary processes that led to it.
As normative and demonstrative sequences of acts of a special purpose, i.e. as events centered on special ritualized actions, the rituals, and in this particular case those with fire treatment of the religious offerings, are formalized, and in this way are traced in the archaeological environments. The material expressions of the practice of ritual burnings on the one hand concretize the differentiated use of ritual fire, and on the other hand declare the central importance of the symbolic energy of burning/destruction. (Chapters 1-2). What is found in the Middle Helladic era, and the ways of coupling the Middle Helladic traditions, are also of interest to this research (Chapter 3). Important evidence is also obtained from the mycenaean written documents of Linear B tablets (Chapter 4). In the Mycenaean religious ritual, the types or varieties of ritually burnt offerings mainly concern animals-animal bones, followed by seeds-cereals, as well as aromatic incense. At the same time, the function of the altar-hearth constructions, as well as the hearths with associated ritual significance, is illuminated. In the pattern-scheme of Mycenaean burnt offerings, the results/residues of ritual fire use are equally shown, with the option of preserving the ashes, with the burnt offerings (sometimes together with other types of offerings) (Chapters 5-6i). Beyond the identification criteria and the more stable tendencies-patterns of the Mycenaean ritual burning of offerings, which emerge from the existing data, the questions that are attempted to be answered, and the issues that are investigated, concern, among other things, the permissible explanatory patterns and possible symbolisms, how, when and where this type of offerings appear, by whom and why they are made, what are the variations, or local heterogeneities, and what they possibly signify, what emerges from the evolutionary course of the mycenaean ritual practice of burnt offerings, and the nature of interdependence and coexistence with socio-political evolution, how the choices, ways and degrees of integration of new elements into old ones, i.e. the transformations of the respective ritual practice, which can be observed, are evaluated, as well as the type of continuity in later historical times (Chap. 6ii).
The examination of the process of the mycenaean ritual practice of burnt offerings highlights, as it seems, conditions of pursuance and promotion of the conjuction/syneresis of religious and socio-political system of principles, values and ideas, within which it is drawn up, and at the same time which it draws up. Thus, the observation of the Mycenaean world through the practice of ritual burnings and the system of religion, reveals itself to be particularly informative, for significant aspects regarding elements, figures and claims of the mycenaean era, in each observed phase of formation and evolution of the Mycenaean “regime”.
Keywords:
religion, ritual, fire, burnt, offerings, hearth, altar-hearth, ash, mycenaean
