To Interact, Possess and Express: Glass Jewellery and its Social Meaning in the Mid-Late Mycenaean Bronze Age

研究问题和背景拟议的项目旨在对玻璃和光泽珠子进行详细的重新评估，后者在公元前18-17世纪开始占据希腊大陆的随葬品。解读这些小型可穿戴饰品的分布、连锁操作和埋葬环境，将有助于更好地理解这些文物在更长一段时间内在构建个人和群体身份中所起的作用。作为定期存放在地位较高的墓穴和与城市化中心不同的较大墓地的物品，这些材料提供了一种新的方式来探索迈锡尼社会的多个梯队。同样让这个证据语料库脱颖而出的是，它几乎一致地包含在从中希拉迪亚到青铜时代晚期崩溃的埋葬沉积物中，这段时间约为800年。在同一时期，浮雕珠的类型具有显著的连续性(见南丁格尔，2018：43)，这就提出了关于预定仪式是如何构建并传递给后代的有趣的可能性。为了充分挖掘这一迄今尚未开发的数据集的全部潜力，这位博士问：在伯罗奔尼撒东北部的迈锡尼人社会身份的表达中，玻璃体或玻璃物质的媒介是如何使用的？迈锡尼青铜时代中后期(公元前2000-1050年)通常被认为是一个动态的社会和文化变革时期。在伯罗奔尼撒东北部，迈锡尼和提里恩斯的前赫拉迪克人定居点变得突出起来，经济的基础是食品、税收和服务的重新分配(见Halstead，1993)。得益于正常的海上贸易路线(见Knapp&Demessticha，2017)，迈卡尼大陆的工匠可以获得定期供应的原材料(即金、银、半宝石、象牙)、人造原材料(即青铜、玻璃)以及生产优质物品所需的技术知识。在这些材料中，玻璃和光泽(两者都用于个人装饰的成分相关材料)已经得到了很好的考古研究(即Polikreti等人，2011年；斯米尔尼奥等人)。2012年；Zacharias等人，2018年)。然而，对它们的社会意义的了解更多地局限于一般的类型学概述(即Higgins，1980；Nightinglae，2008,2018 vs.Hughes-Brock，1999)，并且对材料本身进行量化的工作严重受限(Konstantinidi，2001)。我的硕士论文清楚地表明了这一基本背景信息的缺乏，仅通过文献调查就在迈锡尼周围的25个埋葬地点发现了3000多件玻璃和美丽的文物)；这一现实与沃尔顿等人(2009：1496)的总结形成了鲜明对比，即“材料是如此稀缺”。尽管描述性数据有限，但仍有可能将珠子定义为三组(简单、复合和浮雕)，并根据类型、图案、大小和分布分析人工制品。也许最重要的是，这种材料被发现出现在所有性别和年龄的墓葬中，包括青少年。这些近乎一致的包裹物是玻璃守护神仪式化破碎或故意减少项链的证据，这一前景引发了人们对这些文物的重要性的关键问题。迈锡尼决定花费资源生产专门的工具、分配工艺空间和来源原材料，这无疑证明了人们将玻璃视为身份定义的观念发生了转变。然而，正如剑不仅仅代表军事功能一样(Dirlmeier，1990)，迈锡尼的玻璃首饰具有一系列复杂的动机，从宗教信仰的传送者(Schallin，2016：176)到身份徽章(Nikita，2003：29)。

Research Question and ContextThe proposed project seeks to provide a detailed reassessment of glass and faience beads, the latter of which began to occupy funerary deposits on the Greek mainland during the 18th-17th centuries BC. Interpreting the distribution, chaine operatoire, and burial context of these small, wearable ornaments will facilitate an improved understanding of the role these artefacts played in the construction of individual and group identities over an extended period. As items which were regularly deposited in both high-status chamber tombs and larger burial areas geographically distinct from urbanised centres, this material offers a novel way to explore the multiple echelons of Mycenaean society. What also makes this corpus of evidence stand out is its almost consistent inclusion in burial deposits from the Middle Helladic until the Late Bronze Age collapse, a period of some c. 800 years. Over this same period, there is remarkable continuity in relief bead typology (see Nightingale, 2018:43), and this raises interesting possibilities as to how predetermined rituals were constructed and passed on to successive generations. In order to access the full potential of this hitherto untapped dataset, this PhD asks: How was the medium of vitreous or glassy substances utilised in the expression of Mycenaean social identity within the north-east Peloponnese region?The Mid-late Mycenaean Bronze Age (c. 2000-1050 BC) is commonly regarded as a period of dynamic social and cultural change. In the north-east Peloponnese, the pre-Helladic settlements of Mycenae and Tiryns rose to prominence, with economies based on the redistribution of foodstuffs, taxes and services (see Halstead, 1993). With the benefit of regular maritime trade routes (see Knapp & Demessticha, 2017), craftworkers on the Mycaenaean mainland were granted access to regular supplies of raw materials (i.e. gold, silver, semi-precious stones, ivory), manmade ones (i.e. bronze, glass), and the technical knowledge required to produce objects to a fine standard. Of these materials, glass and faience (compositionally related materials both used for personal adornment) have been well-studied archaeometrically (i.e. Polikreti, et al, 2011; Smirniou, et al. 2012; Zacharias, et al, 2018). However, knowledge of their social meaning is more restricted to general typological overviews (i.e. Higgins, 1980; Nightinglae, 2008, 2018 vs. Hughes-Brock, 1999), and work that quantifies the material itself is severely limited (Konstantinidi, 2001). My MA thesis made clear this dearth in essential contextual information, which through literature survey alone found over 3000 glass and faience artefacts across 25 burial locations surrounding Mycenae *Cummings, 2020: 55); a reality that starkly contrasts with the summation of Walton et al (2009: 1496) that 'the material is so scarce'. Despite limited descriptive data, it was possible to define the beads into three groups (simple, composite, and relief), and analyse the artefacts based on type, pattern, size, and distribution. Perhaps most significantly, the material was found to appear in burials of all sexes and ages, including juveniles. The prospect that these near-consistent inclusions are evidence of ritualised breakage or intentional necklace reduction by the griever, raises vital questions as to the perceived importance of the artefacts.The decision at Mycenae to expend resources to produce specialised tools, allocate craft space, and source raw material is certainly evidence of a shift in perception that identified glass as status-defining. However, in the same way that swords did not simply represent military function (Dirlmeier, 1990), Mycenaean glass jewellery held an array of complex motives ranging from conveyors of religious belief (Schallin, 2016: 176), to identity badges (Nikita, 2003: 29).