Clay vessel containing skull
Π16415
Clay, Bone
Excellent
Height: 20.5cm. Rim diameter: 18cm.
Phourni
Burial Building 6
Early-Middle Bronze Age. Prepalatial period. Early Minoan ΙΙΙ-Middle Minoan ΙΑ:
2100-1800 BC:
Gallery:
IICase:
17Exhibition thematic unit:
Middle Bronze Age - Late Prepalatial-Protopalatial period (2200-1700 BC). From small communities to townsThe Archanes Cemetery
Description
Clay two-handled vessel with tubular spout. It contains a human skull which was carefully placed inside it, in what appears to have been a reverential secondary burial. The vessel was found in Burial Building 6, at the highest point of the cemetery of Archanes Phourni. The building, surrounded by paved areas and streets, consists of six parallel rectangular rooms, thought to have been accessed via a ladder in the wooden roof. The human remains found in the rooms mainly come from secondary burials; in other words, they were moved there after the decomposition of the bodies originally inhumed in the tholos tombs of the cemetery. The secondary burials were found in the floor of the tomb, loose or placed in wooden sarcophagi. The bones were accompanied by rich grave goods such as clay vases, jewellery of semiprecious stones, gold, ivory and faience, and a few seals carved with symbols of the Archanes Script , indicating that some of the deceased may have been members of the administrative elite. The carefully laid out Burial Building 6 is believed to have contained important burials, forming the focus of memorial ceremonies that occasionally included funerary feasts, as the presence of animal remains shows. The skull inside the vessel demonstrates a special care for the dead, as the part of the body in which a person’s identity and existence are believed to be condensed has been gently and attentively placed within. The use of a domestic vessel is not unknown in the burial rites of the late Prepalatial period, when inhumation in clay pithoi was becoming a particularly popular and ultimately long-lived custom.Bibliography:
Sakellarakis J. and E. Sapouna-Sakellaraki, 1997. Αρχάνες: Μία Νέα Ματιά Στη Μινωική Κρήτη, Ammos, vol. Ι, p. 202-205. Papadatos, Y. 2018. Mortuary variability, social differentiation and ranking in Prepalatial Crete: The evidence from the cemetery of Phourni, Archanes, in M. Relaki & Y. Papadatos (eds), From the Foundations to the Legacy of Minoan Archaeology: Studies in honour of Professor Keith Branigan, (Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology 12), Oxford & Philadelphia (2018), 96-114. Vavouranakis, Giorgos. 2014. Funerary pithoi in Bronze Age Crete: their introduction and significance at the threshold of Minoan palatial society. American Journal of Archaeology 118, no. 2: 197-222.Author:
I. G.Photographs' metadata