Thera Paintings and the Ancient Near East: The Private and Public Domains of Wall Decoration

Despite several shared motifs and elements in common between the Near Eastern palaces of Alalakh and Mari on the one hand and the houses of Thera on the other, the central themes decorating the palaces can be shown to have had public functions of articulating issues of royal and state ideology, while those found in the houses of Akrotiri on Thera seem to have had more private goals, one of which may be reflected in the distinctive use of space to create the impression of a total environment. Thus it is argued that even those motifs held in common cannot be said to document direct contact between the two painting traditions, as opposed to the possibility of transmission via other movable media, such as pottery.

It is logical, and would seem to have been the case, that sites on or closer to the coast, such as Alalakh and Tel Kabri, manifest greater interaction with Aegean painting traditions in general, and with Thera in particular, than more inland sites, such as Mari. For the present, there is no evidence to privilege direct contact between Thera and the Levant on the basis of the painting repertoire. What seems necessary for the immediate future is progress in methodology: specifically, the development of measurement criteria that will enable an inquiry into not only the mechanisms but also the intensity of cross-cultural interaction in the early to mid-second millennium BC. Crucial in this regard is the need to incorporate aspects of production, function and overall surround, not merely the presence/absence of individual design elements, such that degrees of intensity may be effectively evaluated.

I would like to begin by borrowing a felicitous phrase from a paper on Mycenaean ivories by Günter Kopcke (1997) where, in contrasting the exuberance of design on Mycenaean pottery of the Late Helladic IIB/IIIA1 phase with what he called the relatively poor and formulaic quality of Mycenaean ivories, he noted that - in the case of the pottery: "We are looking at pleasure, not at prestige anxieties". This contrast between "pleasure" and "prestige anxiety", I shall argue, serves as a leitmotif for the distinction I would make between the private and the public domains in which wall paintings have been discovered in the Aegean and the ancient Near East, and goes a long way toward helping to put into context both differences and elements held in common.

The issues I shall raise, and the comparative material I shall draw upon, intersect with and even overlap significantly with the papers of a number of colleagues in the present volume, whose topics, like mine, are essentially comparative, or in which specific elements, like repertoire or concepts of space are under scrutiny.⁽¹⁾ It is my intention, therefore, to give voice to some methodological issues that underlie the comparative enterprise, as well as reviewing the substantive connections, the better to assess possible linkages between the wall paintings of Thera and those of the contemporary ancient Near East.

The topic of 'interconnections' with the ancient Near East is broached with a lengthy bibliography (for example, Kantor 1947; Stevenson Smith 1965; Hankey 1970; Karageorghis 1973; 1995; Merrillees 1974; Immerwahr 1977; Güterbock 1983; Mellink 1983; Crowley 1989; Peltenburg 1988; Cline 1994; Davies and Schofield 1995; among others), and is added to each time a new archaeological discovery provides materials for further discussion (e.g. Bass 1967 and 1986 with the shipwrecks of Cape Gelidonya and Ulu Burun; Bietak 1992, 1996a and 1996b with the paintings from Tell el-Dab'a/Avaris; Kempinski and Niemeier 1992 with the floor painting from Tel Kabri).⁽²⁾

For the topic of wall painting in particular, connections were initially noted in terms of commonalities in motifs. Hence, with Woolley's discovery of fresco fragments of relatively free-flowing (for the Near East!) grasses executed in light pigment on a dark ground at the second millennium Syrian palace of Yarim-Lim at Alalakh, or with Parrot's discovery of false-marbling on the throne pediment and several instances of painted running spirals in the palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari, scholars were quick to note their Aegean parallels (e.g. Woolley 1955, 228-234; Parrot 1937; 1958, 109-110). However, with both the grasses and the running spirals, at least, it was also frequently pointed out that these motifs were not restricted to wall painting in the Aegean, but occurred equally in other media -particularly pottery of the early second millennium (Noll, Born and Holm 1975). Indeed, often the very best parallels lay with Aegean ceramics: Kamares ware, that was reaching the shores of the eastern Mediterranean at just about the same time as the elements in wall painting became apparent, as well as the slightly later Minoan dark-on-light 'Palace ware' found on Thera as well as on Crete (see on this, Betancourt 1984; Kantor 1947; Stevenson Smith 1965; Walberg 1987).

The project of Barbara and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier to study all of the painting remains from Alalakh (see Niemeier and Niemeier this volume) further establishes the parallels between Alalakh and the Aegean, so I shall concentrate on the Mari materials here. For the Alalakh palace, suffice to say that, at the time of discovery, the individual plant stalks and floral elements frequently found as motifs on Kamares ware pottery seemed considerably closer to the non-narrative grasses of Alalakh than then known examples of Minoan painting. Even with the recent and exciting reconstruction of the reed/grass motif among the Thera paintings from Xeste 3 (Vlachopoulos this volume), there is no compelling argument from motif alone for direct interaction between the wall painting traditions, as distinct from mediation through a second medium such as ceramics or some other moveable commodity (for example, the decorative textiles suggested by Sherratt 1994, 239). In short, just as within the Aegean Walberg (1987) has suggested that Kamares pottery could have influenced wall painting, so also in the Levant moveable objects could have served as the transmitters of design elements.

Such observations have led to a new generation of considerations: not just whether connections could be demonstrated, but by what mechanisms of intercourse? through which media? through how many socio-cultural channels? and with what, if any, cultural impact?

That sea trade was in full operation throughout the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean during the period of the Middle, as well as the Late, Bronze Age no longer needs argument (see Altman 1996; Bass 1967; 1986; Branigan 1981; Cadogan 1969; 1973; Casson 1959; 1975; Castle 1992; Cline 1994; Davies and Schofield 1995; Gale 1991; Hankey 1970; Heltzer 1977; Heltzer and Lipinski 1988; Karageorghis 1973; 1995; Knapp 1985; Lolos 1995; Mellaart 1968; Merrillees 1974; Murray 1995). Indeed, for some time now, the study of Bronze Age trade in the Mediterranean has been the greatest growth industry in all of Old World archaeology! Among the open questions are: 1) whether artisans were actually travelling to potential markets along with the finished works, on the model of the exchange of craftsmen between urban sites in the ancient Near East (Sasson 1968; and as suggested by Niemeier (1991) with respect to some Middle Bronze period paintings); 2) whether the transport of goods and the types of goods circulating in the trade were reciprocal or tilted more to one side than another (Heltzer 1988); 3) the degree to which high-level, elite gift giving also played a significant role in exchange (as studied by Zaccagnini (1973; 1987) in connection with the Amarna letters, and by Feldman (1998) for Ras Shamra-Ugarit); and 4) how raw materials may have figured in the patterns of circulation along with finished goods.

Lest it seem that the questions enumerated above are a long way around to a discussion of relations between the paintings of Thera and those found in the ancient Near East, let me say immediately that I believe they are, in fact, fundamental. Many of these questions were raised prior to the discovery and publication of the Thera frescoes (Marinatos 1968; 1969; 1970; 1971; 1972; 1974; 1976; Doumas 1983; 1992). If anything, while the frescoes may have significantly added to the numbers of demonstrable connections with the ancient Near East, they have also significantly increased the complexity of our universe of discourse.

Specialists in the Aegean Bronze Age know well how much attention has been focused upon whether there is or is not evidence for Mycenaeans on Thera, and just how much exchange there was between Thera and Crete, both artistically and socially (Cameron 1978; Crowley 1983; Davis 1981; Höckmann 1978; Immerwahr 1977; Laffineur 1983; 1984; Luce 1976; Negbi 1978; Niemeier 1990). And all have had to worry about the issue of absolute chronology and the date of the eruption that devastated Akrotiri (Betancourt and Weinstein 1976; Doumas 1974; Hankey and Warren 1974; Manning 1988; 1990; Page 1970; Popham 1970), which, happily, scholars of the ancient Near East have not. While absolute chronology may influence arguments for the direction of transmission - the 'low' Near Eastern chronology making it easier to view borrowings from west to east than the 'high', for example (see Åström 1987) - it is not essential to a comparison of similarity or difference in function and/or contextual meaning. What is clear is that the palaces of Alalakh and Mari, the wall paintings of which show significant ties to the Aegean, pre-date that eruption, and were in use more or less contemporary with the great palaces of Crete and the Theran houses (Gates 1987; Margueron 1990; 1992).

Let us keep Alalakh and Mari in the foreground for a while, therefore, as we proceed toward a consideration of the distinction between public and private, and before we look at the Theran paintings with an easterly light. What I would emphasise is that the structures containing wall paintings excavated to date in the Near East are indeed palaces. As such, they were the seat of multiple activities and served many functions: administrative, bureaucratic, industrial, ceremonial and residential (see on this, Margueron 1982; Winter 1993). With the recent publication of a new series of painting fragments from second storey apartments at Mari (Margueron, Pierre-Muller and Renisio 1990; Pierre-Muller 1990), it is even possible to demonstrate that not only were the multiple functions of the Mesopotamian palace consistent over two millennia, into the period of the great neo-Assyrian palaces of Nimrud, Nineveh and Khorsabad, but also their decorative programmes held a series of motifs in common that were part of the standard display repertoire of Mesopotamian rulers: lion hunts, battle scenes, ritual worship of deities. And, given this continuity, it is possible to gloss the 'meaning' of such programmes with reference to the better documented later palaces, where parallel royal texts make evident that the decorative programme is closely allied with the epithets and aspects of kingship: the ruler as pious maintainer of the religious, socio-political and economic order internally, and forceful protector of that order to the exterior (Winter 1981). This is, of course, entirely consistent with Mesopotamian notions of the functions of the ruler, and with the palace (Akkadian ekallu, from the Sumerian é.gal, literally 'large/great house') as the seat of his rule, the centre of a series of public as well as private activities.

In the Assyrian palaces, the royal figure is therefore prominently displayed in key places - not only within individual scenes, but within specific rooms: on axis in his own throne room, or opposite the doorway, in order to afford the royal image maximum visibility (see on this, Reade 1976; Winter 1981). In Mari as well, narrative scenes in the wall paintings including the ruler are strategically distributed throughout the palace: performing service to the gods in a small chapel (Room 132); being invested with the authority of rule at the entrance to the throne room (Court 106); engaged in symbolic protective acts in his reception suite (Room 220) (on which, see Barrelet 1950; Parrot 1958; Moortgat 1964; Gates 1984; Muller 1994; Margueron 1987; 1990; 1992; Muller 1995); and this is entirely in keeping with the many facets of the royal office, as preserved in the Mari texts. If, therefore, one wishes to compare like entities in the Aegean and the ancient Near East, one should look to the decorative programmes of the palaces, and especially consider those motifs selected for the throne room: Knossos and Phaistos, for example, and then Pylos, Mycenae and Tiryns (Immerwahr 1990; Evans 1921-35; Hopkins 1963; Cadogan 1976; Hood and Taylor 1981; Pernier 1935; Pernier and Banti 1951; Blegen and Rawson 1966; Lang 1969; Kilian 1987; Rodenwaldt 1912). One should then look carefully at the intra-regional comparative studies that have been undertaken in recent years (as, for example, those contained in Lévy 1987; Hägg and Marinatos 1987; Marinatos 1996); and also at the ways in which the specific language of representation has been realised in the Aegean (as in Morgan 1985), as well as the development of both the royal office and royal rhetoric (for example, K. Kilian (1988) on Mycenaean royal ideology). At that point, the iconography associated with the Aegean palaces - for example, the occurrence of ceremonial processions of figures bearing votive or royal gifts, the association of the ruler with composite, probably apotropaic mythological creatures, or the representation of the ruler as an enthroned figure (see Rehak 1993) - could be effectively compared with that of the ancient Near Eastern palaces (as Fiandra (1997) has done for structural elements); and the anxieties attendant upon rule and the maintenance of authority (on which see Kopcke 1997) could be directly compared with a view to establishing functional-cum-institutional similarities and/or cultural difference.

To do so would be, in effect, to compare apples and apples, following the English idiom: entities that belonged to the same classificatory niche. In the specific case of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, to do the job effectively one would still have to add consideration of the important relations that existed between the Aegean and Egypt (Pendlebury 1930; Merrillees 1972; Hankey 1970; Bietak 1995), and the possible role of intermediary stations like Cyprus (Karageorghis 1996; 1995; Republic of Cyprus Ministry of Communications and Works, Department of Antiquities 1973; Catling 1975). Only then could one attempt to determine the degree(s) to which any particular manifestation shared by the Near East and the Aegean was the product of 1) direct interaction, 2) independent invention tied more to the nature of a hierarchical social order and a semi-public seat of ceremonial and administrative activity, or 3) the product of an already existing web of interconnections characteristic of a more generalised international era in which the threads of individual interactions were no longer possible to untangle (Hall 1903-4; Kantor 1947; Stevenson Smith 1965; Graham 1970; Porada 1981; Peltenburg 1987; Crowley 1989; Niemeier 1991).

In the best of circumstances, the threads of such interconnectedness in the domain of the visual arts are difficult to follow. How does one distinguish 'influence' in production by local artists from the hybrid and adaptive products of itinerant craftsmen from elsewhere (Niemeier 1991)? How can one assess the degree to which a class of imported objects may have affected a local tradition in the same and in other media - as has been discussed with respect to Mycenaean ivories (e.g. Kantor 1960; Poursat 1977a; 1977b; Gachet 1992)? And by what evidence is it possible to get beyond individual instances of elements in common to a deeper analysis of attitudes and structures held in common - as manifest visually in aspects like composition and space in wall painting, as distinct from mere individual design elements or motifs? Methodologically, answers to such questions can only be sought by a systematic comparison of two data sets - for example, with respect to the last question, by utilising studies like those of Laffineur (1990), Renfrew (here, vol. I), Palyvou (here, vol. I) and Betancourt (here, vol. I) on Aegean notions of combination, composition, space and perspective, juxtaposed to analyses like that of Durand (1987) concerning aspects of the organisation of space at Mari.

However, it must be emphasised that even such apparently simple prescriptions are not easy to fill, given the incompleteness (and often the incommensurability) of the archaeological record, both artefactual and textual. As with many comparative enterprises, it is more frequently the case that one begins by observing areas of commonality, and only then measuring nuances of difference toward an assessment of the unique characters and nature of one or both elements in the comparison. And in methodological terms, such comparisons are vastly strengthened when one begins with some fundamental property held in common. Thus, as noted above, by beginning with the cross-cultural category 'palace', and defining the two distinct cultural regions in which certain civic and ceremonial functions and morphological features are shared, it should be possible to assess both similarities and differences - first in repertoire and decorative programme, then in terms of possible dependency and/or interaction -and finally, to attempt to account for the phenomena in cultural and historical terms.

In just such a way, it has been possible to demonstrate that the public buildings of Hasanlu, Iran, in the early first millennium BC, show a major shift in the vocabulary of exterior decoration, following contact with the large territorial state of Assyria to the west. I have argued that this shift was due to a desire to emulate, through formal imitation on the exterior, public facade, the power and authoriry of the neighbouring kingdom (Winter 1977). But it must also be noted that the spatial organisation of the interiors, which must have reflected a particularly Iranian social structure, and hence usage, did not change. The juxtaposition of these two areas, one of marked change and the other of continuity, permits us to suggest that selection was operating and that the ruling elite of the population of Hasanlu took on many of the outer signs of authority without changing fundamental patterns of social interaction within their so-called 'palaces'.

When one attempts a comparison between Akrotiri/Thera and the ancient Near East, problems arise immediately from the fact that the structures excavated to date on Thera, however elite, represent private dwellings in a village or town, while the two major exemplars I have been discussing, Alalakh and Mari, are both palaces within large, urban centres. This problem is compounded, as Béatrice Muller (1995, 131) has recently pointed out, by the fact that over the course of history from the eighth to the second millennium BC, in an area that comprises ancient Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, Anatolia and Iran, the sample of preserved painting is extremely small. Furthermore, because archaeological strategies in the ancient Near East have tended to concentrate upon elite buildings, there is not sufficient data within the region to permit an analysis of internal distinctions between contemporary buildings of differing status and function (as is possible for Egypt: see Kemp here, vol. I). Thus there is no way at present to determine whether painting was or was not a common means of decorating domestic, let alone public, buildings; all we can say is that either environmental conditions, methods of recovery, strategies governing excavation, or a combination of these variables, have resulted in a general absence of such work (see Courtois 1979; Callot 1983). How, then, given the examples that have been recovered, can we undertake an inter-regional comparison that will result in anything more than a list of obvious differences or banal similarities?

I would respond to my own question by suggesting that one way of making the comparison of difference interesting is to frame it in such a way that the individual members of the comparison represent exemplars of larger classificatory groups, and it is with that in mind that I have raised the issue of public and private domains in the present title, keeping in mind that even so-called 'public' buildings such as palaces will contain 'private' apartments, while 'private' buildings may well include 'public' reception suites.

On those grounds, a number of points can be made:

1. TECHNOLOGY

According to recent technical studies, the Thera paintings and those of Knossos, Tel Kabri and Alalakh are executed in 'true fresco' - that is, on wet plaster - whereas the Mari paintings are done on a dry ground. Indeed, it is the combination of commonality in (some) motifs plus technique that has led Niemeier (1991) to suggest actual Aegean craftsmen as responsible for the Kabri and Alalakh paintings. For Mari, by contrast, neither the technique nor the colours used take us very far in meaningful consequences (see Muller 1995, 132-133). This could suggest that the coastal sites are more likely to have absorbed not only Aegean subject matter but also Aegean technology; however one would want to do for the Middle and early Late Bronze Age structures what Fiandra (1997, 92) has done for Phaistos and the Late Bronze II palace of Ugarit, in studying wall construction, supports and plastering techniques, along with painting techniques and the preparation of surfaces, before attempting to assess the intensity of contact and/or common origins.

2. DESIGN ELEMENTS

       A. Variegated stone imitation. As noted above, the frequent use of conical, bi-or tri-colour overlapping forms, or simply mottled patterns to indicate stone is a relatively common feature of Aegean painting (for example, Gesell 1981, and see Marinatos 1974, pl. 56; Doumas 1992, figs. 14-17 from the West House, Room 5, and figs. 49-64 from the West House, Room 4). In Mari, such painted imitation of stone is found on the surface of the podium (presumably a throne-base) along the south wall of Room 64, part of the reception suite of the ruler (Parrot 1958, pl. XV and fig. 54) (Fig. 1). Pierre (-Muller) (1987, 569; 1995, 134-135) has discussed the occurrence of all such 'false materials', including instances of wood at both Thera and Alalakh, the later occurrence of a false stone dado at Qatna (du Mesnil du Buisson 1935), and the false stone plinths from the West House at Thera, referred to above. While these points in common are tantalising, I think caution is required in contextualising their respective meanings. Since the full range of Aegean landscape painting with stone outcrops apparently does not travel, what one can suggest is that a technique for rendering may have been seen, appreciated and adapted, but within a local system of values. That local system of value at Mari must be understood as one grounded in the essentially stone-poor environment of the Mesopotamian alluvium. In the later second millennium, display in stone was considered an indication of status and control of wealth, as preserved in a carefully emphatic reference by a Middle Assyrian king to his having decorated his palace with stone orthostats - probably on the model of the Hittite palaces of Anatolia. I would suggest, then, that for the ancient Near East, the ability to suggest stone in paint may have been seen as highly desirable because of the value and scarcity of real stone, without suggesting much in the way of a permeable cultural membrane at Mari with respect to the Aegean.

       B. Running spirals. The same may be said with respect to the presence of a border of running spirals around the edge of the Investiture painting from Court 106 at Mari (Parrot 1958, pl. XI and fig. 47) (Fig. 2), along the edges of the same podium on which the simulated stone pattern occurs (ibid., pl. XV) (Fig. 1), and as a decorative frieze in Court 31 (ibid. 2-3 and pls. I:1, II:1-3, discussed in Pierre 1987, 554). Despite the common presence of this motif in the Aegean (for example, on Thera, in Xeste 3, Room 2 and in House Beta, Room 6: Doumas 1992, figs. 85-86, 90, 93-94), and its considerably increased presence in Egyptian tomb painting at exactly the same time as other Aegean motifs make an appearance (Stevenson Smith 1965), it had already been around in the ancient Near East for quite some time by the mid-second millennium (for example, in Anatolia). The pattern lends itself well to edges and borders. As such, its use as a framing device (on which see Betancourt here, vol. I; True here, vol. I, fig. 1) in both the Aegean and the Near East need not suggest deep cultural interaction, particularly when the larger motifs and scenes it borders remain significantly unmarked by any such interaction: e.g. a traditional Mesopotamian 'presentation' scene of ruler and deity at Mari versus the very Aegean blue monkeys of House Beta, Room 6, on Thera (Doumas 1992, figs. 85-86). Its use as a border motif on the Investiture panel, rather than as a design element for its own sake, could suggest a connection with textiles, as initially proposed by Moortgat (1952), the motif also occurring on flat-woven textiles of the Middle East today; and may even imply a purposeful reference to a textile wall-hanging in the Court 106 wall painting - just as some floor carvings in later neo-Assyrian palaces have been thought to be reproductions of carpets in stone (Pierre 1987, 570; Albenda 1978). The relationship between the Mari podium and later Aegean floor decorations, particularly the painted floor of the throne room at Pylos, might offer an interesting comparison (Hirsch 1977; 1980), particularly now, in view of the painted plaster floors at Tel Kabri (Niemeier 1991; Kempinski and Niemeier 1992) and Tell el-Dab'a (Bietak 1994; Bietak and Marinatos 1995). However, the mere presence of running spirals around the edge of the Investiture painting, or in bands along the upper wall of Court 31, or on the podium of Room 64, cannot be considered strong evidence for special connections with Aegean wall painting traditions, especially given the frequency of the same motif on pottery (on which see West 1995, with bibliography).

       C. Trees and birds. The pairs of trees that flank the central Investiture scene on the Court 106 painting, and the birds that are indicated in/above their foliage (Parrot 1958, pl. XII), are certainly more naturalistically rendered than anything preserved prior to the time of the Mari palace. At issue is whether this should be understood as a direct response to stimuli from the Aegean, or whether it is any more Aegean than Egyptian, when Middle Kingdom painting in Egypt also included quite natural renderings of landscape, often with birds juxtaposed to plants (e.g. tomb No.3, of Khnum-hotep II, at Beni Hasan). In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that, although we in the ancient Near East may be well-disposed to our rare birds, when their rather stiff execution in flight is directly juxtaposed to the exuberance of the swallows of Thera, for example (Hollinshead 1989; Doumas 1992, figs. 72-76; Harte this volume; Pls. 17-18), or the free flight amid dense vegetation in the garden scene of the House of the Frescoes at Knossos (Cameron 1968, fig. 9; Immerwahr 1990, fig. 16), they suddenly become rather stodgy, distant cousins indeed!

Where some interaction may be identified is with respect to the date-palm, one of the two trees of the Mari painting. The tree is closely associated with fertility and abundance in Mesopotamia (see for brief reference Muller 1995, 136, but there is a huge literature), and appears in Aegean iconography, having most likely been translated into religious symbolism as well. N. Marinatos (1984b) has argued that the date-palm is also considered a sacred tree in the Minoan world, just as it was important in Egypt by association with funerary concepts, including the nourishment of the deceased in the netherworld (M. Bietak, personal communication). As such, it would speak in favour of two-way interaction, rather than impact in a single direction, since the date-palm was native to the Levant and Egypt, rather than to the Aegean; but, as with Peter Warren's discussion of papyrus and the Aegean (Warren 1976), it would have to be put into a larger context of meaning, in which one could hopefully distinguish between a motif picked up for its visual form, one already having its own local meaning, or one absorbed with a purposeful reference to a specific kind of environment and/or to the specific foreign culture at home in that environment.

       D. Grasses and plants. It should come as no surprise that the closest connection between a complex design element and the Aegean occurs among the painting fragments discovered at Alalakh, rather than at Mari, since the site is located in proximity to the Levant coast, along the direct route of the Orontes river to the Mediterranean (Woolley 1955). Thus, the fragmentary nature of the Alalakh remains - whether the grasses mentioned above, the false wood, or any of the other preserved motives - is all the more to be lamented. It is clear that the Alalakh palace originally exhibited a good deal of wall decoration, now largely lost to us. Nevertheless, as noted earlier, on the basis of the grasses at least, it is impossible to determine whether the stimulus for the Alalakh frescoes came directly from Aegean wall painting or through the intermediary of Minoan/Aegean pottery. In fact, to date, scholarly opinion varies greatly, from Niemeier (1991; Niemeier and Niemeier this volume), who would suggest the actual intervention of itinerant craftsmen, to Caubet and Matoian (1995), who emphasise instead the results of a long history of circulating motifs, already evident in the Middle and early Late Bronze periods.⁽³⁾

3. ORGANISATION OF SPACE IN PAINTING, AND ORGANISATION OF PAINTING ON WALL SURFACES AND IN ROOMS

Several papers in the present volume touch upon the aspect of space in Aegean painting. I would just point out that, to my knowledge at least, there is no parallel in the art of the second millennium Near East for the full range of illusionary devices employed in the West House miniature fresco (on which see Davis 1983; Giesecke 1983; Laffineur 1990; Niemeier 1990; Warren 1979). Even in the surround of the Investiture painting at Mari, there is no spatial depth. Distance, if referenced at all, is suggested only through stacking vertical elements; and in general, everything is set up on a single plane, parallel to the wall surface, with each register serving as a ground line. The use of painted dados, and the maintenance of a narrative band anywhere from one metre to more above the floor surface, is not in itself a fruitful avenue for comparison, as the variations are exactly what one would expect given human physiognomy and 'eye-level' in common across cultural boundaries (see a delineation of those variations in Pierre 1987, 561-568).

What is interesting is the difference between the tendency on Thera for decorative scenes to wrap around walls (for example, in the spring fresco of House Delta, Room 2), thereby creating 'total environments', as opposed to the careful neo-Assyrian placement of the ruler at strategic points opposite doorways or on axes, or the careful empanelling of motifs at Mari into areas of focus or specific walls of focus (for example, in the palace 'chapel', Room 132). To my mind, this difference weighs far more heavily than the similarities in false stone or wood, or the presence of running spirals.

Because Aegean painting was relatively well known, thanks to the early excavations at Knossos and Mycenae, prior to the discovery of wall painting in the ancient Near East, and was so clearly a highly developed art form, it was only natural that scholars immediately saw evidence of 'Aegean influence' in the Near East. This agency was seen in the larger context of other goods and resources travelling the Mediterranean in the Middle and Late Bronze Age as well - pottery, ivories, metal vases, faience, and later glass and seals among the works we have found, and less tangibles, like perfumes (Shelmerdine 1985) and raw metal (Heltzer 1977; 1989; Muhly 1996). Now that we are at a different point in the intellectual climate of Mediterranean archaeology and cultural history, it is important to stop and assess the intensity of interaction those material remains imply. Collon (1994 and here, vol. I), and Muller (1995, 133-135) have actually begun to question the direction of 'influence', citing evidence for the chronological precedence of some important motifs in the Near East rather than in the Aegean. The possibility of a reference in one of the Mari letters to an individual from Kaphtor (Crete) further implies a degree of interaction between the two regions; although the time we know the last ruler of Mari, Zimri-Lim, to have spent in proximity to the Levant coast (see Villard 1992) leaves open the possibility that the actual means of transmission of Aegean motifs and practices could well have been what the exiled ruler saw in other Syrian palaces - whether Alalakh or Aleppo, which has never been excavated - and took home with him upon reinstatement.

In short, both the means of transmission and the intensity of this interaction are difficult to assess, given present data. One can question the Collon and Muller argument of primacy in the Near East by referring to the incompleteness of the archaeological record, since there is no question but that the motifs cited, from running spirals to bull leaping, are so much 'at home' in their Aegean context, or by reference to the virtues of the 'low' chronology in the Near East. Furthermore, once one begins to describe degrees of intensity in interaction based upon the evidence, as distinct from mere presence-absence of common features, then it becomes clear that social or political or artefactual exchange does not necessarily imply profound cultural interconnectedness.

I should add that the situation with Egypt seems to have been significantly different. Early studies recognised Aegean vessels carried in Egyptian tomb paintings of the New Kingdom (Hall 1903-4; 1909-10; Davies 1941; Aldred 1970); and, subsequently, many other forms of interaction have been noted (e.g. Pendlebury 1930; Graham 1970; Hankey 1970). Most recently, excavations at Avaris/Tell el-Dab'a in the Delta have produced not only the painted bull jumping frescoes of the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, but also a bronze dagger and Kamares ware pottery contemporary with Middle Bronze IIA in the Aegean, suggesting even closer ties between Egypt and the Aegean than had been anticipated (Bietak 1992; 1996a; 1996b; and here, vol. I; Walberg 1991). Indeed, S. Marinatos had suggested quite early that one way to explain the Aegean character of some design elements on early Eighteenth Dynasty objects associated with the rulers responsible for the expulsion of the Hyksos (for example, the dagger of Ahmose and the axe of Aahotep (Frankfort 1936-7; Needler 1962)), and the extraordinary increase in wealth evident in the Shaft Graves at Mycenae (Karo 1930-1933), was if the Egyptians had had the paid help of Mycenaeans during this period. This perspective makes the royal building of Avaris, attributed to the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the reign of Ahmose, plus the dagger with clear relations to one found on Thera and others from the Shaft Graves at Mycenae, all the more interesting; and it fits equally well with the papyrus recently acquired by the British Museum of the later Eighteenth Dynasty that shows Egyptians fighting alongside soldiers in tunics and what may well be boar's tusk helmets. But for our purposes, it also underscores that one cannot assume the intensity of interaction between all units in a complex international age to have been equal. Depending upon historical interest, trade patterns, availability of resources, political stability, proximity and a host of other variables, differing pair-bonds among the totality of interacting units will evince quite different patterns and intensities of interaction, as pointed out in an article on cultural contact by Ian Hodder some years ago (Hodder 1979).

This is the point at which it is useful to come back to the observation of Günter Kopcke with which I began. For, in the end, I see relatively little in common between the wall paintings at Thera and the more-or-less contemporary wall paintings known from the palaces of the ancient Near East. Here, I would tend to agree with Caubet and Matoian (1995), in seeing similarities in motifs and even in rendering more as products of the free-flowing circulation of goods and ideas and less the work of actual moving craftsmen. This fits better, as well, with more recent revisions of early views of Aegean, particularly later Mycenaean, 'colonies' on the Levantine coast, to more tempered notions of less deeply rooted commercial installations (discussed in Caubet and Matoian 1995, 100, citing M. Liverani).

If one wished to seek similarities instead of differences between western Asia and the Aegean, more fruitful avenues for comparison would exist, for example, between the decorative programmes of Minoan and Mycenaean palaces, especially Knossos and Pylos, and those of the ancient Near East, where messages related to state ideology were perforce encoded, and comparability in iconography, if not in style, suggests some common aims in public display. Given the unfortunate scarcity of excavation of private houses in the ancient Near East, and/or the absence of well preserved wall paintings in them, at present the decorative traditions of the houses of Thera would compare best with those of later Roman houses, where the domestic surroundings, even if meant for semi-official entertaining or ritual ceremony, were patterned according to similar notions of reception and life in a less public political sphere (Doumas 1983; Gazda 1991; Marinatos 1984a; 1985; Wallace-Hadrill 1988), and where, like the spring fresco of House Delta, garden or landscape scenes often tend to wrap around the entire room (for example, in the villa of Livia at the Prima Porta near Rome, on which see Settis 1988).

Apart from calling for more excavation in the Near East of non-elite residences, and equally for the opening of more architectural units on Thera, what can be done, then? I believe it is extremely important to work on methodology itself: to begin to establish criteria for measuring the nature and intensity of socio-cultural interaction, as noted above, not merely the presence-absence of individual motifs. Equally useful might be a motif-by-motif comparison between the public and the private domain within the Aegean, toward distinguishing repertoires and schemata as they converge or diverge in palatial and non-palatial residences (as begun by Cameron (1968 and 1978), and discussed by Immerwahr (here, vol. I)). Indeed, these exercises may need to be done before a more definitive version of the present paper can be written. Nevertheless, if one is willing to acknowledge the importance of negative evidence, and to admit the possibility that one can learn from degrees of difference and distance as well as from degrees of similarity, then a comparison between the paintings preserved in Near Eastern palaces and in the houses of Thera is not without its instructiveness.

First, it has emerged that in fact several options exist for reconstructing the interactive members in any possible transmission of motifs and techniques evident in wall painting: direct contact between persons/artisans/traditions from Thera specifically and the ancient Near East; separate lines of connections from Minoan Crete to Thera and the Cyclades, on the one hand, and to the Near East on the other, such that apparent relationships between Thera and the Near East are actually reflective of their common connection back to Crete; or even the existence of some intermediary, such as Cyprus, mediating between Theran/Minoan traditions and those elements reaching the Levant. At present, there is no evidence to privilege direct contact between Thera and Mari. What is more, I trust it has been demonstrated that even in those cases where connections between Aegean and Near Eastern painting can be demonstrated, it is not at all clear that they represent interaction at deep cultural levels. What does appear to have been the case is that, as might be predictable, evidence for interaction seems more intense at coastal sites, such that there is a direct correlation between proximity to the coast and degrees of impact, with Alalakh and Tel Kabri showing considerably more features in common with the Aegean than Mari. This coastal impact, as discussed above, may well have included craftsmen as well as artefacts and agents of transportation, and reminds us that it is important to distinguish relations in design tradition across media from relations in painting tradition, as one attempts to reconstruct degrees of interaction.

Second, it is apparent that we must consider function and surround, not just 'elements' or even 'motifs' in isolation, in order to assess these degrees of interaction. This would include the full range of composition, disposition on wall surface and architectural setting as factors in description, and function plus socio-cultural value as matters of interpretation. Thus, by Kopcke's broad brush, the anxieties related to order and control attendant upon public display for purposes of the state had to have determined in some significant way the decorative schemes of the Mesopotamian palaces, no less than those of the Aegean. By contrast, what one tends to see in the Thera paintings is a reflection of the exuberance of life and of nature - even if particular references carried with them a religious sub-text of productivity as appropriate to shrines as to living spaces - and this is especially true where continuous friezes wrap the walls of individual rooms, virtually encircling the spectator/occupant. In sum, then, the decorative programmes of the Theran paintings, while not free of rhetoric and purposeful agendas of display, both promise and provide pleasure, and as such are significantly different from the heavier messages (and their attendant anxieties) necessary to maintain a hierarchical state system.

It is on this level that the distinction between public and private space may prove useful. Archaeologists tend to be as chary in attributing emotional values to art as they are in valuing negative conclusions, and for good reason, given the unreflective retrojections of contemporary values to which some early scholarship was prone. However, if one can suggest not just that the Aegean islands were filled with exuberance and joy because theirs was a more benign eco-system, while the desert-surrounded Middle East had to struggle against a harsher natural environment in order to survive, but rather (or also) that we are looking at different classes of objects within their cultural systems, as well as at different cultures, then we will be in a far better position actually to assess degrees of interaction and/or artistic dependence.

Finally, it has emerged that there is a twofold need to develop more complex models to describe and analyse the various mechanisms of transmission, and also to develop standards of measurement for assessing those degrees of interaction referred to above. This will require greater precision in vocabulary, along with more nuanced definitions of key analytical terms and concepts, if one is to move from a stage of documentation to a more advanced stage of evaluation in the domain of inter-cultural impact.

Here, it is important to note that the full-blown 'international age' of the later Late Bronze Age, from ca. 1500 to ca. 1200 BC, has been the focus of most studies of interconnections between the Aegean and the Levant/Near East. However, from the evidence preserved at both Alalakh and Mari it is possible to assert that, albeit to a lesser degree, the patterns of interaction with the Aegean and their domains of manifestation were already established by the end of the Middle Bronze and the earliest phases of the Late Bronze, that is in the first half of the second millennium. These early interactions appear to have been largely in terms of a network of trading connections (suggested by Schachermeyr (1967, 24) to have been organised by/through the palaces), manifest in the transport of objects and the possible movement of craftsmen, and did not yet reflect the complex (and dense) political interweaving reflected in the Amarna letters and in the artefactual remains of the latter half of the millennium (on which see Zaccagnini 1973 and Feldman 1998). Yet, they clearly set the stage for later intensification. As such, the relatively weak connection between Thera and/or the Aegean and Mari in the first half of the second millennium becomes an extremely important datum-point in assessing the intensification that followed. The distinctions that can be drawn between (mere) commodity exchange, purposeful emulation (as at Hasanlu), and a truly interactive koine are crucial. And therefore I would close by underscoring the importance of venues for discussion that cross traditional sub-field boundaries, as we attempt to reconstruct cultural dynamics in the eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze Age.

(1).      See, in particular, those of Philip Betancourt, Dominique Collon, Sara Immerwahr, Barbara and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier and Colin Renfrew.

(2).      It is both a privilege and daunting to tiptoe in the footsteps of Helene Kantor, who was one of my first teachers in Near Eastern archaeology. Indeed, with the recent re-issue of The Aegean and the orient (Kantor 1947, reissued with introduction by E.H. Cline and J.D. Muhly in 1997), along with a full symposium devoted to her work and memory held in April 1997 (Cline and Harris-Cline 1998), topics of interconnection are very much in the collective scholarly mind.

(3).      This last caution would also serve in investigation of the motif of two goats (or animals in general) flanking a central tree or plant element. This motif is found among the fragments of the House of the Frescoes at Knossos (see Cameron 1968; on its MM III date, see Hood this volume) as well as at Mari, where a fragment from the large Court 106 shows two rampant goats, forelegs resting on a 'mountain', with muzzles towards a plant on its apex (Parrot 1958, pl. C:3 and fig. 23). The motif has a long history in the ancient Near East, continuing through the end of the second millennium well into the first (see, for example, the wall paintings at Kar Tukulti Ninurta of the Middle Assyrian period, discussed most recently in Harper et al. 1995, 74a-c). It may represent one of those elements that travelled west rather than east. However, its associations and meaning, rather than merely its presence, would have to be assessed, in order to suggest cultural, as distinct from merely motival, indebtedness.

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