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彩陶珠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葬礼沉积物。解释这些小的、可穿戴的装饰品的分布、连锁操作和埋葬背景，将有助于更好地理解这些人工制品在很长一段时间内对个人和群体身份的构建所起的作用。由于这些物品经常被存放在地位很高的墓室和地理上与城市化中心不同的较大墓地中，因此这些材料为探索迈锡尼社会的多个阶层提供了一种新颖的方式。这一证据库的另一个突出之处在于，它几乎一致地包含在从希腊中期到青铜时代晚期崩溃的埋葬沉积物中，这一时期约为800年。在同一时期，浮雕头的类型学具有显著的连续性（见Nightingale， 2018:43），这就提出了关于如何构建预定仪式并将其传递给后代的有趣可能性。为了充分挖掘这个迄今为止尚未开发的数据集的潜力，这位博士提出了这样的问题：在伯罗奔尼撒东北地区，玻璃或玻璃物质的媒介是如何被用来表达迈锡尼人的社会身份的？迈锡尼青铜器时代中晚期（公元前2000年至公元前1050年）通常被认为是一个充满活力的社会和文化变革时期。在伯罗奔尼撒半岛东北部，前希腊时期的迈锡尼和梯林斯定居点开始崭露头角，其经济以重新分配食物、税收和服务为基础（见Halstead， 1993年）。得益于定期的海上贸易路线（见Knapp & Demessticha， 2017），迈锡尼大陆的手工艺者得以获得定期供应的原材料（即金、银、半宝石、象牙）、人造材料（即青铜、玻璃），以及生产高质量物品所需的技术知识。在这些材料中，玻璃和陶器（都是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；Smirniou等人，2012年；Zacharias等人，2018年）。然而，对其社会意义的了解更多地局限于一般类型概述（即Higgins, 1980; nightingale, 2008, 2018 vs. Hughes-Brock, 1999），并且对材料本身进行量化的工作受到严重限制（Konstantinidi, 2001）。我的硕士论文明确了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多件玻璃和陶器（Cummings, 2020: 55）；这一现实与Walton等人（2009:1496）“材料如此稀缺”的总结形成鲜明对比。尽管描述性数据有限，但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，这些材料被发现出现在所有性别和年龄的墓葬中，包括青少年。这些几乎一致的包裹物是受害者仪式性破坏或故意减少项链的证据，这一前景引发了关于这些文物的感知重要性的重要问题。迈锡尼决定花费资源来生产专门的工具，分配工艺空间，并寻找原材料，这无疑是观念转变的证据，证明玻璃是身份的定义。然而，就像剑并不仅仅代表军事功能一样（Dirlmeier, 1990），迈锡尼玻璃珠宝也有着一系列复杂的动机，从宗教信仰的传递器（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).