POTS AND POLITICS? EXPRESSING STATUS USING THE EXTERNAL AND THE LOCAL IN A SHIFTING SOCIO-ECONOMIC
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-19

Recent analyses of Middle Helladic (MH) and Late Helladic I (LH I) pottery in central Greece (2050–1675 BCE) has significantly improved our understanding of pottery development (Hale 2014; 2015; 2016; Vitale et al. [in prep]). The likely pottery imports suggest that the latter MH period witnessed significant interaction with the islands of Kea and Aegina. These imports may have initially been part of a strategy to improve social status within central Greek communities by utilising pottery with connections to centres of power like Kolonna on Aegina and Ayia Irini on Kea. Clear central Greek elites who were expressing their status materially had emerged by LH I, evident in both settlement organisation and mortuary practices (Van de Moortel 2016). Counter-intuitively, from MH III onwards, clear pottery imports almost disappear from the assemblage despite the increase in socio-economic complexity. Some examples of what might be interpreted as import substitution (locally produced imitations of Aeginetan aesthetics and morphologies in the near absence of genuine imports) suggest that Aeginetan-style pottery still carried some social capital at this time but was no longer easily available to emerging elites – perhaps reflective of a changing political and economic seascape in the south. This necessitated a new strategy for social differentiation in early LH I. A re-orientation of central Greek pottery consumption which emphasised innovative and distinctly local aesthetics becomes evident, epitomised by the appearance of the highly specialised Boeotian Bichrome (or Mainland Polychrome) pottery. A parallel embrace of central Greek elite mortuary architecture instead of the Shaft Grave constructions of Aegina and the Argolid suggest that a distinct central Greek LH I elite identity had emerged. While initially catalysed through external interaction with the south, early LH I central Greek social capital was ultimately expressed and negotiated through the consumption of predominantly local material culture.


Author(s): Hale, Christopher (O.P. Jindal Global University)