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ancientplanetH istor y Arc hae o l o g y Sc ie nceIN THIS ISSUE A Prehistory Of Belief Human Sacrifice In Ancient Egypt Unmasking Ancient Colour : Colour And The Classical Theatre Mask Kalyna Copper Plates Of ilhra King Chittarja (1019 CE) Anomalies In The Social Norm: A Description Of Battle Graves And Execution Graves In The British Archaeological Record Exploring Pastoral-Nomadic Origins And Population History Of The Xiongnu Confederacy Of Iron Age Mongolia... and more

ONLINE JOURNAL

VOL. 04 FEBRUARY 2013

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for evolving minds

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AncientPlanet Online Journal VOLUME 04 February 2013WEBSITE http://ancientplanet.blogspot.com/ EDITOR/PUBLISHER Ioannis Georgopoulos email: [email protected] NOTICE The editors accept no responsibility for any loss, injury or inconvenience sustained by persons using the resources contained within the journal and/or websites mentioned herein. Editorial and contributors views are independent and do not necessarily reflect those of AncientPlanet. 2013 AncientPlanet Online Journal, founded by Ioannis Georgopoulos. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent from the authors. Permission of the author is also required for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. Unless stated otherwise, all photos and illustrations are by AncientPlanet and its authors. Reproduction of the material published in AncientPlanet in any form by any person without prior consent is a violation of copyright and appropriate action may be taken against any person(s) violating the copyright. Front Cover: Relief at the A barantha iva Temple. Photgraph courtesy of Rupali Mokashi. ANCIENTPLANET PATRAS, ACHAIA E | GREECE ISSN: 2241-5157

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contents

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Numismatic Iconography in Classical Greece

112 Anomalies in the Social Norm

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Human Sacrifice in Ancient Egypt

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The Sacred Image of the Palladium

Unmasking Ancient Colour

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Unmuddling Ancient Choices

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Exploring PastoralNomadic Origins and Population History of the Xiongnu Confederacy of Iron Age Mongolia

100 Kalya Copper

Plates of ilhra King Chittarja

120 Symbols of Mortality

136 Dinosaurs on Ice

150 The Minerva CulturalAssociation

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contributors

Mike Williams, PhD Archaeologist interested on prehistoric belief and shamanism. He is the author of Prehistoric Belief: Shamans, Trance and the Afterlife, an exploration of shamanism and religious belief in the past.

Ryan W. Schmidt, PhD Anthropologist interested in human variation, population genetics, and ancient DNA studies. Ryan is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, and am studying Japanese population history through the analysis of ancient DNA.

Andrea Sinclair, MA Classical scholar specializing on the interconnections and iconographic issues for the Egyptian, Aegean and Near Eastern Bronze Age.

Shashikant Dhopate, Senior Numismatist and Epigraphist (right) and Rupali Mokashi, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History, RKT College (Permanently Affiliated to the University of Mumbai (left).

Lisa Swart, Ph.D Egyptologist specializing in the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, Egyptian art and iconography, funerary customs and theology

Maria Correas-Amador, MA Recently completed her PhD in Archaeology at Durham University. Maria is passionate about mud, languages and travelling.

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Cristiana Margherita , PhD Archaeologist specializing in Medieval burials in Italy and co-founder of the Cultural Association Minerva.

Jesse Obert, BA Classical Archaeologist specializing in Warfare in Antiquity and currently sitting for an MA in Ancient History.

Amy Talbot, BA Archaeologist interested in Palaeopathology, Biblical Archaeology and Gender Studies.

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Lorraine Evans, MA Research Fellow at the IIPSGP. and author of the best-selling book Kingdom of the Ark, together with Warrior Women of Northern Europe and Murder at Medinet Habu - A Heritage Tour Guide, the first in her mini-heritage tour series.4

Eva Alex. Statherou, Graduate in Humanities and Arts in Greek Culture and Civilization interested in Myth, Cult and Analysis.

Tristan Stock, is a 15-year-old high school student who has been studying palaeontology for more than 5 years. Tristan spends all of his spare time exploring prehistoric life on Earth and intends to major in palaeontology in college.

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elcome to Volume 04 of the AncientPlanet Online Journal. In this issue we present twelve feature articles dealing with various aspects of life in the ancient world. As can be seen from our list of contributors on the left, we also have the pleasure of welcoming several new members to the AncientPlanet team. Our first article, by British archaeologist Dr. Mike Williams, delves into the subject of religious belief in prehistoric times. Exactly how did our early ancestors see the world around them and why did they contrive the idea of an afterlife? In this fascinating article, Dr. Williams explains how concepts of death, the afterlife, and even agriculture arose simply from what people imagined to be true. Next our resident Egyptologist, Dr. Lisa Swart, examines the evidence for human sacrifice in ancient Egypt. Disputed by some scholars, the evidence for human sacrifice in Egypt, as Dr. Swart says, is not only undeniable but was in fact practiced on two levels - viz., the killing of servants and that of ritualized sacrifice proper. We are then transported to ancient Greece and Rome by Eva Statherou who introduces us to the sacred cult of the Palladium, a divine effigy cast down from the heavens that was used by the Trojans, Greeks and Romans as divine justification of political power. This is followed by two articles from our resident classicists, Andrea Sinclair, who explains the importance of colour in ancient GraecoRoman theatrical masks, and Jesse Obert, who introduces the subject of iconography on the coinage of classical Greece. Our next article, by PhD candidate Maria CorreasAmador, takes us back to Egypt to explore how modern Egyptian mud-brick houses can shed light on housing construction

methods in ancient Egypt. From there we travel to Mongolia with American anthropologist Dr. Ryan Schmidt who shares with us his insights into the origins and population history of the Xiongnu confederacy of Iron Age Mongolia. Staying in Asia, our next article by Mr. Shashikant Dhopate and Dr. Rupali Mokashi discusses a recently discovered set of copper plates, recovered fortuitously by local authorities. which illuminate hitherto unknown aspects of life in eleventh century India. The next two articles deal with the burial customs and practices from Medieval Britain and Scotland. The first of these, by Amy Talbot, introduces the subject of battle graves and execution graves in Anglo-Saxon England. This is followed by a foray into the field of graveyard archaeology by PhD candidate Lorraine Evans, who examines the various symbols and imagery engraved on the memorials found in late medieval and early historical cemeteries of Scotland. We then journey to the earths distant past with an article on the dinosaurs of Alaska and Antarctica by Tristan Stock, a talented young man from the USA with an unbridled passion for palaeontology. Finally, Drs. Cristiana Margherita and Tommaso Saccone introduce the work of the Minerva Cultural Foundation, established in 2010, which aims to promote, preserve and disseminate the cultural heritage of Italy online. The last few pages provide information regarding several field schools aimed at aspiring archaeologists. On behalf of the AncientPlanet team Ioannis Georgopoulos Editor/Publisher

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A model of the face of an adult female Homo erectus, one of the first truly human ancestors of modern man, on display in the Hall of Human Origins in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Credit Wiki Commons


A Prehistory of BeliefBy Mike Williams, PhD.

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esearch into the human mind shows that much spiritual experience, especially that induced through trance, is common to all people at all times. This provides a new way of exploring

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what prehistoric people may have thought about their world and how they formulated what we might recognise as religious belief. Examining images created by Palaeolithic artists, shapeshifting practices of Mesolithic hunters, the conception of the afterlife within Bronze Age communities, and why Iron Age people slaughtered some of their own in gruesome bogside executions, a new past reveals itself in which peoples beliefs come to the fore. Using ethnographic evidence from historical shamans, the article shows how concepts of death, the afterlife, and even agriculture arose because of what people believed.

the Middle East, China, or even Britain. The people were Homo erectus, an early form of human who were the first to leave their homeland of Africa and to strike out into the far reaches of the world (Rightmire 1993). One advantage they had over earlier species was control of fire. Dating the first use of fire is fraught with difficulty and archaeologists cite different evidence to support a range from 1.5 million years-ago to 200,000 yearsago, but it seems certain that H. erectus This scene comes from the Cave of Hearths was the first to build a fire and cook food in South Africa, around 500,000 years-ago, upon it (James 1989). Cooking food enabled but could have just as easily occurred in H. erectus to absorb more nutrients from A group sit around a fire, some roasting meat in the curling flames, others knapping flint with an incessant tap-tap. Although not speaking words, people communicate with sound and gesture. When the fire lights the face of one, it is powerful and dark; eyebrow ridges, receding forehead, and pronounced jaw revealing that, although resembling and acting just like humans, they are different; not yet us.7


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General view of Blombos site, South Africa. Credit Wiki Commons.

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Artistic depiction of phosphenes. Credit: Wiki Commons.

their diet and, over time, this led to the Those with a particular affinity for trance likely lived longer and had easier births. The development of the brain. genes of these individuals became dominant Prolonged staring into flames would have and passed to their descendants. As H. been a regular occurrence for H. erectus and erectus gave rise to other species of human, this may have induced trance (Winkleman these genes replicated, all the way down to 1986). Trance is something all higher-order our species, Homo sapiens. We evolved with mammals can achieve, mainly through eating the capacity and even the need for trance. hallucinogenic plants (Siegel and Jarvik 1975). H. erectus may have done similar but As the brain developed, changes allowed what is more certain is that sitting around a better memory retention, meaning that H. fire likely led to and possibly even increased sapiens began to remember their experience of trance. The dormant posture of those trance activity. in trance is not unlike that of the dead Although H. erectus could enter trance, their and people probably made a connection brains had not yet developed the memory between the two. Unlike the dead, however, function to remember the experience those in trance could return and relate what afterwards (Mithen 1996: 65-78). To them, they had experienced. People may have trance was probably something that deduced that the dead went somewhere instinctively felt good. Moreover, they were similar but that they do not return. Over right: regular access to trance helps problem time, these rudimentary musings may have solving, develops thought, and aids the coalesced into spiritual belief in an afterlife. immune system (McClenon 2002: 47-52). It is striking that, of all the modern human9

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Artefacts found at Blombos Cave, including a small piece of ochre carved with hashed lines. Credit: Chris Henshilwood, Wiki Commons.

behaviours to emerge with H. sapiens, Palaeolithic imagery reveals it, although burial and provisioning for the afterlife not until people migrated out of Africa and entered Europe some 35,000 years-ago. In was among the first (Williams 2010: 23-6). southern regions, people squeezed into Upon entering trance, people report clefts in the ground and followed sinuous seeing shapes in the darkness, known as tunnels until they reached enormous phosphenes (Oster 1970). One such shape caverns. It is even possible that the incentive comprises hashed lines and, at Blombos to enter the caves came from the experience Cave in South Africa, people at around of trance. After seeing phosphenes, people 70,000 years-ago carved a small piece of in trance report the images coalesce to form ochre with exactly this image (Henshilwood a tunnel. By following its route, they are et al. 2002). It was a means of externalising eventually able to step out into an otherwhat they saw in their minds eye; showing world. The similarity to the underground others what they experienced in trance. It caves would have been striking and perhaps also demonstrates the importance people this is why, in a breath-taking explosion of placed on the practice since this was among creativity, people painted the walls of the the first pictorial representations ever caverns with their trance visions of this otherworld (Clottes 2008). Herds of horses, created. mammoths, and deer swirl in a dizzying There is a lot more to trance than merely mass of flesh and fur. These animals seem seeing phosphenes and, once again, to cover every available space and it is10


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Copy of a palaeolithic painting from the Lascaux Cave depicting reindeer, at the Muse dAquitaine, Bordeaux, France. Credit: Wiki Commons.

revealing that zoopsia, the hallucination of animals, is among the most common effects of trance (Siegel 1978: 311). Moreover, as if to emphasise that the art was, indeed, a vision of the otherworld, people painted phosphenes in among the animals, the shapes that they saw in trance. People painted some of the animals moving in and out of the wall, occasionally appearing and disappearing from a crack in the rock. These were not ordinary animals but spirits, able to cross the boundary between the worlds. People tried to follow and, putting their hands against the wall, blew paint over and around them, so that they appeared to reach behind the veil and touch the mysteries beyond. Pockets of noxious gas in the caves, together with the hallucinogenic quality of the paint (both causing trance), would have blurred the boundaries between this

world and the other until the spirits broke free from the walls and people stood at the centre of an otherworldly maelstrom (LewisWilliams 2002: 204-27). It must have been overwhelming, perhaps even provoking what we would recognise as religious awe. People did not just paint prey species in the caves. There was also the occasional predator: a bear or lion stalking the herds looking for a kill. Since people were themselves hunters, it is likely they sought to emulate, even befriend these predators. People wanted their spirits to be at their side in the hunt. Perhaps this is why people carved small figurines of predators, copious wear marks showing individuals carried them as touchstones of power (Dowson and Porr 2001). Moreover, if we are in any doubt as to the origin of these creatures, phosphenes scratched on the sides shows that they were11


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Palaeolithic cave painting dubbed Great god of Sefar from the Tassili Natural Park, Algeria. (redit: Wiki Commons.

of the otherworld: spirit animals. Occasionally, a model or a painting in the caves shows a hybrid creature, part animal and part human. The sensation of turning into an animal often occurs in trance and people were visually representing this phenomenon (Vitebsky 1995: 68-9). The hybrid images in the caves occur in the most inaccessible places, as if such shapeshifting was the most secret and sacred knowledge people held. Indeed, these techniques were so important that they survived the abandonment of the painted caves, and, as the Palaeolithic became the Mesolithic, people continued to shapeshift into animal form.


wrapping themselves in hides to complete the transformation (Conneller 2004). Whether used in dances or as disguise in the hunt, people probably felt more animal than human as they took the shape of their prey. At Lepenski Vir, on the Danube in Serbia, a fishing community carved boulders into hybrid human-fish forms. These represented the dead, buried between houses with their heads facing downstream. It was their role to take on the form of a fish and guide back the beluga migration each spring (Radovanovi 1997). To emphasise the close connection between the dead and their piscine spirits, people even scattered fish teeth over graves, making the unseen real.

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The importance of animal spirits may At Star Carr in England, people fashioned explain why people at atalhyk in Turkey headdresses from deer skulls, cutting eye- decorated entire rooms with the skulls and holes through the mandible and possibly horns of aurochs, an extinct form of oversized12



Above: Aurochs found on the Fourneau-du-Diable (Devils Furnace) rock in Bourdeilles, Dordogne, France, dating to the Solutrean period (18,000 BP), housed in the National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac; Below: Auroch horns decorating room at Catalhoyuk , Konya-Turkey. Credits: Wiki Commons.

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View from Newgrange burial chamber. County Meath, Ireland. Credit: Jimmy Harris, Wiki Commons.


cattle (Mellaart 1967: 77-130). These potential shrines provided a place people could show due reverence to this mighty beast. Wild aurochs roamed outside the settlement and, to supplement the shrines, people may have caught a few beasts to bring back to the village. Over time, the more docile of the captive creatures might have bred, slowly turning the wild aurochs of the plain into the tame cattle of the farmyard (Williams 2010: 100-101). Spiritual belief may have given the first impetus for agriculture. Shapeshifting survived into the Neolithic and at Para in Romania, a large structure contained a raised platform holding two human figurines, one with an ox head (Lazarovici et al. 1985: 34-42). It seems that reverence for aurochs had now transferred to their domesticated kin. Perhaps the ambiguity of cattle, moving from animal to human realms, gave them a liminal quality that people associated with journeying to the otherworld. In some British tombs, cattle even served as surrogate humans, buried in place of the dead (Ashbee, Smith and Evans 1979: 247). Again, people may have believed that the liminality of cattle reflected the liminality of the newly dead.Triple spiral motif carved in the inner chamber of the prehistoric tomb at Newgrange, Ireland. Credit: Wiki Commons.


Some tombs faced solstice sunrises or sunsets, so that the rays of the sun entered the tomb and passed along the passageway to the chamber itself. At Newgrange in Ireland, the first rays of the winter solstice illuminate three spirals carved in the inner chamber, flaring them into life (LewisWilliams and Pearce 2005: 230-31). Maybe this was a portal for the dead to move onto the afterlife. Outside, the community may have chanted or drummed to help the passing, with some forecourts amplifying drumming to exactly the right frequency to From the burial practices of the time, such affect trance (Watson 2001). It was not only liminality lasted between the first and the dead who journeyed at these times. second burial stages. First, people left the land of the living, their remains left to People experienced similar at Stonehenge. decompose in tomb entrances, and second, Excavation in recent years has concluded they joined the ranks of the dead, when that people gathered at midwinter at nearby descendants collected defleshed bones Durrington Walls, where they feasted on pigs and moved them into the burial chamber and waited for the solstice (Parker Pearson itself. Like the Palaeolithic caves, entering 2012). On the day itself, people sailed a short the tomb reflected the sensation of passing way along a river before processing to the through the tunnel of trance. This may be stones. Owing to the copious burials there, why people carved phosphenes onto the excavators believe the circle may have been a sides of tomb walls, emphasising the journey place of the ancestors and, as at Newgrange, people watched as the last rays of the sun to the otherworld (Dronfield 1995).15


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Rock carvings at Alta, Finnmark, Norway. Credit: Karl Brodowsky, Wiki Commons.



A female Bronze Age mummy from Cladh Hallan, Scotland, made from different body parts. Credit: Mike Parker Pearson, University of Sheffield.

pierced the enclosure and brought light to and sea, as if wandering spirits picked up their transport on the way. Engravings of the dead. footprints point the way for any lost souls The river journey on the way to the stones may (Bradley 1999). have also referenced trance. Hearing running water is a common auditory hallucination In South Uist, off the west coast of Scotland, (Harner 1968: 28) and this may also be why, people mummified corpses, making at Alta, in the far north of Norway, Bronze composite identities from body parts of Age people chose a shoreline location to several individuals (Parker Pearson et al. carve myriad images, including numerous 2005). Perhaps people retained the mummies boats (Sveen 1996). In some of these boats to keep their spirits close. After the Bronze individuals drum, a technique still used in Age had given way to the Iron Age, people the region to initiate trance. Other images buried the mummies in the northern part of of boats, on bronze razors from southern their houses. This was where people slept; Scandinavia, carry a different but just as possibly dreaming of the ancestors whose potent cargo: hallucinogenic mushrooms remains lay beneath the floor. (Kaul 1998: 188-95). It seems that, for people of the time, boats were appropriate Other bodies from the Iron Age preserved transport to the otherworld. Perhaps this is naturally. In the peat bogs of northern Europe, why, at burial cairns overlooking the sea in anaerobic conditions arrest decomposition Norway, people carved boats between cairn so that features survive with startling realism17


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Lindow Man. Credit: Einsamer Schtze, Wiki Commons.


(van der Sanden 1996). Many of these bog bodies had distinguishing characteristics, through disability, having extra bones, or walking with a pronounced gait. These characteristics set these individuals apart and people may have viewed them as touched by the spirits (Green 2001: 157-60). Some bog bodies had taken drugs before they died while one had eaten mistletoe, a plant sacred to the Druids (Scaife 1986: 131). Most bodies show signs of good nourishment and hands betray a lack of manual work. Clearly, these people served their communities in other ways. Many of the characteristics of the bog bodies are also evident in Siberian shamans of more recent times. Liminal positions in society, prevalence for illness or disability, and use of drugs all denote shamans in Siberia. Moreover, many wear particular18

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items of clothing, such as a hat or cape, and these garments occur with bog bodies, often with no accompanying apparel. Some bog bodies carried animal fetishes, such as the fox fur armband worn by Lindow Man from England; Siberian shamans do the same. Other bodies had newly shaven hair, or else wore it in elaborate styles, matching the importance of hair to Siberian shamans as a source of spiritual power (Williams 2002: 101-103). The bog bodies may have been Iron Age equivalents to shamans. If so, then their deaths become more explainable. Prior to immersion in bogs, these individuals died in horrific and brutal executions (van der Sanden 1996: 154-65). For example, the executioners first bludgeoned Lindow Man, garrotted him until his face went blue, before finally slashing his throat, causing

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The entrance to Bull Rock Cave in Moravian Karst, Czech Republic. Credit: Wiki Commons.

the pressurised blood to erupt like a geyser. Other bodies met similar fates. Even after death, the violence did not cease with limbs hacked off, heads severed, and remains crushed beneath blocks of stone. Incredibly, the bodies show no sign of resistance; victims acquiesced in their treatment.

62). The similarity to the remains in Bull Rock Cave, and to the dismembered bog bodies of northern Europe, is striking except that, for these individuals, there would be no rebirth. The execution of the bog bodies seems to represent a striking performance of what they undertook when they journeyed to the otherworld in trance. From their preparation, dress, diet, and even the manner of death, all events matched aspects of usual spiritual practice. It must have been truly appalling to witness but perhaps this was the point. If these individuals were revealing the secrets of their profession then it was vital that people watching would remember. Such shocking events imprint themselves on the brain with astonishing clarity (Brown and Kulik 1977).

A similar ritual occurred at Bull Rock Cave in the Czech Republic (Poulik and Nekvasil 1969: 38-49). Inside the cave, dismembered remains of 40 individuals lay around a bronze cauldron. To understand the scene, we need to move forward 2,000 years to hear the tale a Siberian shaman told to a young Hungarian ethnographer. In his first journey to the otherworld, the spirits carried the shaman to a cave where they hacked him apart and threw him in a cauldron. After flensing the bones, the spirits remade the man, returning him to life in perfect form (Diszegi 1960: But what drove these people to die in this

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manner? The answer was rapidly approaching from the south: Roman invasion. As the Romans advanced, more died in the bogs. It was an act of defiance, literally preserving peoples spiritual practice in a watery grave. Romans incorporated rather than obliterated native beliefs but the decline had started. The rise of Christianity sounded the death knell and snuffed out indigenous spirituality in most of Europe. But the intervening period has not altered our brains from when the first inhabitants of Europe painted their caves some 35,000 years ago. The ability to access alternative realities through trance is hard-wired into each of us; an ability that symbolically connects us to our prehistoric forbears and the beliefs they held. ***Further Reading Ashbee, P., I. Smith and J. Evans. 1979. Excavation of Three Long Barrows near Avebury, Wiltshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 45: 207-300. Bradley, R. 1999. Dead soles. In Gustafsson, A. and H. Karlsson (eds.) Glyfer och Arkeologiska Rum en Vnbok till Jarl Nordbladh. Gotarc: 661-6. Brown, R. and J. Kulik. 1977. Flashbulb Memories. Cognition 5: 73-99. Clottes, J. 2008. Cave Art. Phaidon. Conneller, C. 2004. Becoming Deer. Corporeal Transformations at Star Carr. Archaeological Dialogues 11: 37-56. Diszegi, V. 1960. Tracing Shamans in Siberia. Anthropological Publications. Dowson, T. and M. Porr. 2001. Special objects special creatures: shamanistic imagery and the Aurignacian art of south-west Germany. In Price, N. (ed.) The Archaeology of Shamanism. Routledge: 165-77. Dronfield, J. 1995. Migraine, Light and Hallucinogens: the Neurocognitive Basis of Irish Megalithic Art. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 14: 261-75. Green, M. 2001. Dying for the Gods: Human Sacrifice in Iron Age and Roman Europe. Tempus.20

Harner, M. 1968. The Sound of Rushing Water. Natural History 77: 28-33 and 60-1. Henshilwood, C., F. dErrico, R. Yates et al. 2002. Emergence of Modern Human Behavior: Middle Stone Age Engravings from South Africa. Science : 295: 1278-80. James, S. 1989. Hominid Use of Fire in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene: A Review of the Evidence. Current Anthropology 30 (1): 126. Kaul, F. 1998. Ships on Bronzes: A Study in Bronze Age Religion and Iconography. National Museum Copenhagen. Lazarovici, G., Z. Kalmar, F. Draoveanu and A. Luca. 1985. Complexul Neolitic de la Para. Banatica 1985: 7-71. Lewis-Williams, D. 2002. The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. Thames and Hudson. Lewis-Williams, D. and D. Pearce. 2005. Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods. Thames & Hudson. McClenon, J. 2002. Wondrous Healing: Shamanism, Human Evolution, and the Origin of Religion. Northern Illinois University Press. Mellaart, J. 1967. atal Hyk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia. Thames & Hudson. Mithen, S. 1996. The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and Science. Thames and Hudson. Oster, G. 1970. Phosphenes. Scientific American 222: 83-7. Parker Pearson, M. 2012. Stonehenge: Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery. Simon & Schuster. Parker Pearson, M., A. Chamberlain, O. Craig et al. 2005. Evidence for Mummification in Bronze Age Britain. Antiquity 79: 529-46. Poulik, J. and J. Nekvasil. 1969. Hallstatt a Bi Skla. Akadamie Vd Archeologick stav. Radovanovi, I. 1997. The Lepenski Vir culture: a contribution to its ideological aspects. In Antidoron Dragoslavo Srejovi: Completis LXV Annis ab Amicis Collegis Discipulis Oblatum. University of Belgrade: 85-93. Rightmire, P. 1993. The Evolution of Homo Erectus: Comparative Anatomical Studies of an Extinct Human Species. Cambridge University Press. Scaife, R. 1986. Pollen in human palaeofaeces; and a preliminary investigation of the stomach and gut contents of Lindow Man. In Stead, I., J. Bourke and


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D. Brothwell (eds.) Lindow Man The Body in the Bog. British Museum: 126-35. Siegel, R. 1978. Cocaine Hallucinations. American Journal of Psychiatry 135: 309-14. Siegel, R. and M. Jarvik. 1975. Drug-induced hallucinations in animals and man. In Siegel, R. and L. West (eds.) Hallucinations: Behaviour, Experience and Theory. John Wiley: 81-161. Sveen, A. 1996. Rock Carvings, Jieprialuokta Hjemmeluft, Alta. Trykkforum Finnmark. van der Sanden, W. 1996. Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe. Batavian Lion. Vitebsky, P. 1995. The Shaman. Duncan Baird. Watson, A. 2001. The sounds of transformation: acoustics, monuments and ritual in the British Neolithic. In Price, N. (ed.) The Archaeology of Shamanism. Routledge: 178-92. Williams, M. 2002. Tales from the dead: remembering the bog bodies in the Iron Age of north-western Europe. In Williams, H. (ed.) Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies. Kulwer. Williams, M. 2010. Prehistoric Belief: Shamans, Trance and the Afterlife. The History Press. Winkelman, M. 1986. Trance States: A Theoretical Model and Cross-Cultural Analysis. Ethos 14: 174203. ***


Carved boulder depicting a hybrid human-fish from Lepenski Vir in Serbia. Credit: Wiki Commons.21


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Pyramid and Sphinx, Giza. Credit: Codadilupo78 via Wiki Commons.


HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT EGYPTBy Dr. Lisa Swarthe ritual sacrifice of human beings has been practiced regularly throughout history in various forms and for various reasons. Mention of the words human sacrifice for many people brings to mind gruesome scenes of Aztec priests ripping out the still-beating hearts of their unwilling victims in a debauched sadistic ritual replayed continually on television documentaries world wide. As such, human sacrifice is not typically associated with Ancient Egypt and is still considered a controversial topic despite evidence to the contrary. It was long believed that the Egyptians were too civilized to perform this type of barbarous deed, an excellent example of the transmission of western moral superiority onto the Ancient Egyptians. In fact, the sacrifice of humans is attested in two primary forms in Ancient Egypt. The first being the practice of killing servants (retainer sacrifice) during the formative years of the Egyptian state, and ritualized sacrifice within a magico-religious context that appeared in later periods at the peak of Egyptian civilization.


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period (c. 3500 3200 BCE), where several dismembered bodies have been excavated. This burial custom had not previously been demonstrated in earlier times. In a few cemeteries, it has been noted that parts of the bodies were buried or reburied separately, and many bodies were decapitated. In one tomb, the skulls and longer bones were arranged along the perimeter of the tomb, which has been interpreted by some scholars as the development of retainer sacrifice. By the reign of King Aha, the first king of the First Dynasty, numerous retainers were killed an extravagant display of conspicuous consumption, demonstrating the solidification of central authority of the new Egyptian civilization.

Experiments in Absolute Power: Retainer Sacrifice in the First Dynasty

The royal cemetery of Umm el-Qaab contains the impressive mud brick tomb complexes of the kings of the First Dynasty (c. 2950 2775 BCE). Located in the desert, west of the ancient city of Abydos, Umm el-Qaab, was in use as an exclusively royal cemetery The earliest occurrences of sacrifice of from earliest times. According to the custom retainers are attested archaeologically of the time, and for reasons unknown, each from most prominently in the Naqada II First Dynasty ruler built a corresponding23


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The name Umm el-Qaab, literally translated means Mother of Pots, due to astounding amount of ceramic pots littering the site. Flinders Petrie first excavated here from 1899-1903, and again in 1922.

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royal mortuary enclosure 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) north of the royal cemetery, closer to habitation. Each enclosure may have been related to the specific kings mortuary cult. The most recent excavations undertaken by German and American missions uncovered a vast number of small subterranean graves surrounding both the tombs of the First Dynasty kings in Umm el-Qaab and their enclosures in north Abydos. The majority of these subsidiary tombs contain the skeletal remains of one individual interred in a wooden box. The subsidiary burials border the royal tombs and enclosures, and are laid out in regular patterns. The subsidiary graves surrounding the tomb of King Aha were laid out in parallel rows of three, facing the east. The occurrence of these graves increases, peaks, and then decreases over the course of the First Dynasty. 34 subsidiary burials accompanied the tomb of Aha, and his funerary enclosure in northern Abydos contained 6 additional burials. Ahas successor, Djer noticeably increased the amount of burials to 326 around his tomb, and added 269 subsidiary graves to his funerary enclosure in northern Abydos. Beginning with the burial of following ruler, Djet, there is a gradual decrease in the number of secondary burials. Djets tomb was surrounded by 174 subsidiary burials, and his funerary enclosure contained 154. Queen Merytneith, who probably acted as a regent to her son Den, was interred with 41 subsidiary burials around her tomb, and a further 80 graves around her enclosure. This steady reduction of subsidiary tombs is demonstrated by the 121 subsidiary burials surrounding Dens tomb, 63 around Anedjibs tomb, 69 at Semerkhets tomb, and 26 at Qaas tomb. No subsidiary graves occur


Map of the Umm el Qaab cemetery.

in Second Dynasty tombs and enclosures, however, three skeletons were found lying near Khasekhemwys burial chamber, which may be attributed to sacrifice (OConnor, 2009:173). As is often the case with ancient civilizations, there are more questions than answers with each new discovery. Were the occupants killed, i.e., sacrificed or did they commit suicide? Conversely, did they die natural deaths and were buried at varying intervals of time around the mortuary complexes of their monarch? Archaeological evidence strongly supports the argument for sacrifice, the subsidiary graves in both Aha and Djers enclosures were roofed at the same time. The wooden roofs over the individual graves were covered by a compacted layer of mud plaster laid down concurrently over all the graves, and parallel to the construction of the enclosure. The 69 subsidiary burials surrounding Semerkhets25


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Ivory label of King Den. The king is depicted in the customary smiting pose; here he is striking an Asian dignitary. The inscription reads first time of striking the easterners. This label may indicate conflict with the Levant.


tomb were constructed directly around the burial chamber, and were covered by the same roofing structure. Moreover, the necropolis at Umm el-Qaab and the northern Abydos enclosures exhibited very strict social hierarchy in that only royalty were permitted burial. Thus, making the case for ritualized group sacrifice and simultaneous burial with the royal funeral very likely. Additional evidence for retainer sacrifice can be found in the early Dynastic cemetery at Abu Roash, Saqqara, and Tarkhan, indicating the possibility that retainer sacrifice26

was not just a royal prerogative. At Abu Roash, in the 1913-1914 season, the French archaeologist, Pierre Montet excavated at least two mastabas (tombs I and VII) that were surrounded by rows of subsidiary graves dating to the time of Den. Tomb VII contained eight subsidiary tombs. The seven subsidiary tombs of Tomb I, though badly looted, still contained skeletal remains and remnants of wooden coffins. Fortunately, one grave contained a well-preserved coffin, not only with human remains, but also the bones of unspecified animals. Although the superstructures of these mastaba tombs no

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longer exist, it is possible to discern that they are much smaller than the royal mortuary tombs in Abydos. It is possible that these tombs belonged to members of the ruling elite, the relatives of the reigning monarch.

many of the occupants were skilled artisans who were more than likely working for the monarch at the time of his or her death. In Semerkhets tomb at Umm el Qaab, analysis of the skeletal remains reveals that several retainers were dwarfs. During the Old Kingdom, dwarves were actively involved in the administration of the kingdom. Although, the six burials surround Ahas enclosure was heavily plundered, excavators found valuable funerary articles of ivory, lapis lazuli, and carnelian, indicating that the individuals buried there were of a very high social standing.


The Transference of Social Hierarchy in the AfterlifeWho was sacrificed and why were they sacrificed? Are more enduring questions that have arisen since the discovery of the subsidiary tombs. Forensic analysis of the skeletal remains from the tombs around Ahas enclosure provides further evidence that these individuals were killed simultaneously. The occupants were healthy males, between twenty and twenty-five years of age, and in the prime of their lives. In a re-examination of the tomb occupants teeth, it appears that these young men died of strangulation (van Dijk, 2007:5). Most of the burials around Djers enclosure were women.


In many ancient civilizations, the practice of sacrificing individuals at the burials of highranking persons is a custom that sought to transfer the social hierarchy that existed on earth in the afterlife. For the First Dynasty rulers, it appears that the occupants of the subsidiary tombs were slain in order to continue to provide goods and services Despite having being badly plundered in to their deceased monarch in the afterlife. antiquity, the subsidiary tombs have yielded Thus, these attendants become part of the many clues concerning their function within funerary equipment included in the burial. the funerary complexes. It appears that the occupants of the subsidiary burials around The discovery of the burials of ten donkeys, at the enclosures provided basic services to the least seven lions, and fourteen full-size boats deceased rulers, while the burials around around the funerary complex of Aha, gives the tomb at Umm el Qaab contain higher credence to this hypothesis. Consequently, status occupants. The enclosure subsidiary the needs for supply and transportation of graves have generated an unexpected the dead King Aha were provided for his use number of copper tools, and it appears that in the afterlife. the occupants were interred with the tools of their trade, such as adzes, chisels, knives, An Extravagant Display of Coercive needles, and axes. Moreover, following Power? the reign of Aha, a number of small stelae inscribed with the names and occupations What is the significance of retainer sacrifice of the deceased individuals have been in Egypt? Wilkinson (2000: 32) maintains that unearthed from the subsidiary graves around these great tombs with their complementary Djer, Djet and Merytneiths enclosures. Thus, enclosures and subsidiary tombs represent27


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Tomb of Den, Abydos, Um el-Qaab. Credit: Wiki Commons.


a transitional period in Egyptian funerary beliefs. King Narmer of Dynasty O(c. 3150 3100) is credited with the final unification of the predynastic kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt, and ushering in the Dynastic period of the pharaohs. His successor, King Aha firmly stamped his authority as an absolute ruler over Egypt by having his servants sacrificed and buried alongside his tomb in an extravagant demonstration of royal power. Aha also set the precedent for the construction of a new style of funerary architecture, and provision for the afterlife. Not to be outdone, his actions were promptly emulated by his successors, each working to stamp their own authority on the new Egyptian realm.

formation of early dynastic Egypt. These monarchs now had the ability to command the life and death of their loyal retainers to serve them further in the afterlife. By embarking on grand architectural projects, and initiating new forms of artistic and iconographic conventions, the First Dynasty kings reformulated and strengthened their power. The royal First Dynasty tombs symbolized the new political order, with a state religion headed by a king to legitimize this order. In doing so, they distinguished themselves from the previous dynasts of Egypt by effectively eradicating traces of Predynastic cultural traditions.

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Retainer sacrifice disappeared from the Within the greater scheme of monarchial archaeological record by the Second power, the subsidiary burials signify the Dynasty, and it seems that the First Dynasty cementation of absolute royal power in the represents a transitional period in terms of

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The fortress of Mirgissa. It was located on the west side of the Nile, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Buhen and built to keep the Egyptians in control of the Second Cataract of the Nile, as it was an important transit route for trade goods. Credit: Wiki Commons.

royal power and authority, and the royal necropolis was relocated to Saqqara. After this period, small-scale wooden models of workers involved in a number of industries were included in the tombs of the monarchy and elites. Van Dijk (2007:152) avers that with the development of a strong centralized authority and the growing demand for luxury goods and services, the ruling elite may have contemplated more economically sustainable options to serve their departed rulers. It is logical to assume that the deaths of these skilled courtiers and craftsmen would deprive the succeeding monarchy and elite of vital expertise and skills. Taking this inference one step further, occupations were family affairs in ancient Egypt and were passed down from father to son; thus, retainer sacrifice could potentially deplete valuable skill bases, and endanger the economy.

Execration, State-Sanctioned Killing, and the Mirgissa DepositIt was believed until very recently that the Predynastic Period and First Dynasty offered the only evidence of human sacrifice, which many scholars attributed to the expansion of royal power in the formative stage of the Egyptian civilization. However, the discovery of a decapitated disarticulated skeleton lying adjacent to a skull in a red bowl at the Middle Kingdom fort (c. 2100 BCE) in Mirgissa provided indisputable evidence for the continuation of human sacrifice in Egypt. The intact assemblage contained the skeleton of an executed man; his body was badly mutilated and he was buried in a shallow pit. Numerous broken red clay vessels, several limestone and clay figurines of bound prisoners, and associated materials were included in the burial. It is believed that this deposit reveals the existence of human29


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Execration texts aimed at destroying destructive elements and enemies were inscribed on pots, and then deliberately smashed to ensure the efficacy of the spells. Egyptian Museum, Berlin Inv. no. P. 14.517. Credit: Wiki Commons.

sacrifice within the parameters of the well- locked in a box, burned and saturated in known Egyptian rites of Breaking of the Red urine, before being buried (often upside down) (Muhlestein, 2008: 2) Pots and the execration ritual. The Egyptians regularly practiced a ritual involving the magical removal of their enemies called Execration Rituals. This often involved writing texts with curses on red pots and deliberately breaking them in the belief that this would increase their efficacy. The colour red was believed to be a very potent symbol in Egyptian magic. Clay, stone or wax figurines depicting bound prisoners, often broken, were included in these rites, and the pots and figurines were buried near areas that needed protection. Hence, these deposits are frequently found near military forts along the outlying frontiers of Egypt. Ritual objects could also be stomped on, stabbed, cut, speared, burned, spat on,30


The finds at Mirgissa comprised of four burials, or deposits, one of which included the human remains. The other three contained 197 broken red pots, 346 assorted clay figures, three limestone prisoner figures, and the single head of a fourth figure. The human skull was found resting upside down on one half of a broken ceramic pot. About the skull were traces of beeswax dyed with red ochre. A flint blade, the traditional ceremonial knife used for ritual slaughter was found five centimetres from the skull. The mutilated skeleton was found nearby. It can be assumed that this ritual provided a magical safeguard for the inhabitants of the

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An execration figure made from clay and inscribed. It was believed that figurines were subsititued in effigy for human sacrifice. Brussels, Muses Royaux dArt et dHistoire E.7491. Credit: Wiki Commons.

frontier fort against their Nubian enemies on the border, and the single head may allude to the sacrificed skull formed part of the ritual. Forensic analysis points to a Nubian origin of the skull and skeleton. It cannot be ascertained whether the individual was simply chosen at random with the human sacrifice being the primary objective of the ritual, or, whether, the deposit represents the religious significance of a ritualized execution that would have taken place on the basis of some military or legal precedent. It is also likely that the victim could have been a Nubian criminal or rebel leader whose execution took on greater cosmic meaning by the application of the execration rituals to his execution.

yielded more evidence for human sacrifice. Archaeologists uncovered two execration pits dating to the Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1550 1295 BCE). The smaller pit, Locus 1055 contained three human skulls and human finger bones. Further examination of the skulls revealed that one skull belonged to a mature male adult, and the remaining two were young adolescent males. One skull displayed a prominent hole on the right side above the ear, and indication of a hard blow that have damaged his temple. The finger bones belonged to three right hands, and are believed to correspond to the owners of the skulls. The cutting off of the hands of enemies was a common practice in Egypt, and very often, Egyptian soldiers were rewarded for the amount of hands they brought back with them following a conflict. The Avaris Deposit The second pit, Locus 1016 contained two The Mirgissa Deposit is not the only one of human skeletons and a large quantity of its kind. In 1997, the Austrian Archaeological broken clay pots. Institute in Egypts excavations at Avaris (Tel el Daba) in the delta region of northern Egypt These rituals typically substituted a figurine31


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A severed right hand discovered in front of a Hyksos palace at Avaris (Tell el-Daba). Credit: Axel Krause.

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in effigy for a human sacrifice, which is why it was believed that human sacrifice was not practiced when a symbolic form was used instead. Here, the inclusion of humans in these rituals corroborates with and intensifies the efficacy rituals.

the Mirgissa and Avaris deposits provide compelling evidence for the practice of state-sanctioned human sacrifice in a highly ritualized setting in Ancient Egypt. ***Further Reading Muhlestein, K. Royal Executions: Evidence Bearing on the Subject of Sanctioned Killing in the Middle Kingdom. Journal of the Economic andSocial History of the Orient 51 (2008) 181-208. Muhlestein, Kerry. (2008). Execration Ritual. UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 1(1). nelc_uee_7901. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/ item/3f6268zf OConnor, D. 2009. Abydos: Egypts First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris. Thames & Hudson: London. Penn Museum, Archaeologists Discover Evidence that Courtiers Were Sacrificed to Accompany Early Egyptian Kings into the Afterlife. 24 March 2004.

ConclusionFrom the beginning of the Egyptian state and at the peak of Egyptian civilization, there is convincing evidence for the sacrifice of humans. These findings correlate to many cultures that practiced human sacrifice, with the centralization ofabsolute royal power, the ultimate authority was the divine king upon whose death retainers were offered as sacrifices. Later, at peak periods of Egyptian history, execration rites were utilized to rid Egypt of evil and dangerous beings, and32


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Ritner, R. 1993. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice. Oriental Institute of University of Chicago: Chicago. Van Dijk, J. Retainer Sacrifice in Egypt and in Nubia. In Jan N. Bremmer (ed.), The Strange World of Human Sacrifice. Studies in the History and Anthropology of Religion, Vol. 1 (Leuven, Peeters, 2007), 135155. Wilkinson, A. H. What a King Is This: Narmer and the Concept of the Ruler. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 86 (2000), pp. 23-32. Wilkinson, A. H. 1999. Early Dynastic Egypt. Routledge: London.


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Carved relief inside the main temple of Ramesses II showing showing bound Nubian prisoners,13th century BCE..

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Archaic Palladium statuette of the late 6th century BCE from Sparta, Greece in The Walters Organization.


T he Sacre d I mage of the PalladiumBy Eva Alex. StatherouRemember to establish in the city which you shall build perpetual worship to the gods, and to honour them with safeguards, sacrifices and choirs. For, as long as these venerable gifts of the daughter of Zeus to your wife shall remain in your country your city shall for ever be impregnable. Dion of Halicarnassus


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he Palladium, perhaps the most legendary sacred image among the miraculous cult idols of Greek antiquity, was both a unique talisman of divine power and an insuperable political weapon. Said to have fallen from the heavens, this mysterious statue was an indisputable symbol of divine authority over the land in which it stood and the most powerful cities of the Graeco-Roman world vied for its ownership. According to ancient sources, the Palladium was an image of Pallas Athena, given either to Dardanus wife Chryse as a wedding gift by the gods or sent to Ilus, Dardanus son, during Troys foundation as assurance that the new city would be divinely protected as long as the

idol remained untouched within its shrine. Ancient sources also refer to the incident of its theft by Odysseus and Diomedes before or during the sack of Troy since, as the seers Calchas and Helenus had prophesied, its removal from the sacred shrine was crucial for the Greeks victory over the Trojans. The Palladium, as one scholar says, is the secret strength of Troy or [rather] it is the secret weakness of Troy, the magical weak link that is mastered [James M. Redfield, 2003]. After the fall of Troy the Palladium was transferred to the Greek city of Argos by Diomedes, though some accounts place it in Athens or Sparta. Yet other versions of the myth refer to the Palladiums venerable35


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Apulian red-figure oinochoe of ca. 360350 BCE from Reggio di Calabria depicting Odysseus and Diomedes stealing the Palladium from Troy. Credit: Wiki Commons.

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removal by Aeneas, forced to abandon the beleaguered city, to Italy as a promising symbol of the continuity of the Trojan race. Later ancient scholars in fact reasoned that there must have been at least two palladia in the temple of Athena at Troy, either because the gods had given Chryse more than one statue or because the Trojans had fashioned duplicates in an effort to protect the original.

Ancient depictions of the Palladium in both Greek and Roman art present a repeated and somewhat static portrayal of the goddess Athena holding a spear or javelin in her right hand and a shield in her left. However, the fact that common mortals were forbidden to gaze upon the statue raises questions Indeed, the Palladium did not lose its totemic about its true form. Robert Graves [1955], for power even after Aeneas had transferred example, believed that the Palladium was it to Italy where it served as a venerable36


not a truly anthropomorphized figure at all, but was instead a phallus-shaped idol that represented the male attributes of the Virgin Goddess. This phallocentric theory certainly has some merit given that primitive idols often take the form of a phallic trunk or a single stone column on which the abstract shape of a face is etched, much like those seen in pottery depictions of Dionysian and other primitive ritual cults. This also explains the idols talismanic properties since the Palladium served as a kind of conjuring totem whose original ritual function was to protect and legitimize a royal clans right to rule.

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Roman Lamp showing Aeneas fleeing Trow carrying his father on his shoulders, while dragging his little son Askanius by the hand. The Palladium (and probably goddess herself) is depicted near by him on the right, standing on its shrine. Credit: Wiki Commons.

cult symbol of the Trojan (i.e. Roman) supremacy over Magna Graecia. Like other traditional phylacteries, the Palladium was an object of rituals which were revealed to only a handful of select individuals, either hereditary priesthoods or the highest rank of political leadership [C. A. Faraone, 1988]. The foundation of the temple of Vesta and the rigorous preservation of the Sacred Fire by the virgin priestesses who were also entrusted with the safe-guarding of the sacred image of the Palladium maintained this totemic function insofar as the preservation of Roman dominion was concerned [F. Bennett, 1913]. It is further apparent that the patron hero-deity Aeneas

was little more than a fictional requirement from the earlier saga [Tim Cornell, 1995], serving to complement the Palladium myth as a pre-shamanic or proto-shamanic resynthesizing element of the Palladiums cult, whose early myth was greatly developed by later Roman Emperors to bolster their growing dominion over conquered lands. Of course, the early Roman policy of empire building and the reassurance of divine support derived from the possession of the original sacred image, thus fulfilling an old oracle about the global revival of Troys power as rightful inheritor, was not the sole purpose of the Palladium cult. It also37


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Nike offers an egg entwined around a column, at the top of which the Trojan Palladium stands, to a Greek warrior. Marble bas relief, Roman copy of the late first century CE after a Greek original of the Hellenistic era, in the.Louvre Museum. Credit: Wiki Commons.

possessed a moral dimension. It is said that during the sack of Troy the kings daughter, Cassandra, had taken refuge inside the temple and was embracing the Palladium when was violently dragged away by Locrian Ajax to join the other captives. According to some accounts Ajax also raped Cassandra before the Palladiums unflinching presence. In recompense for this transgression, often referred to as the sin of Ajax, the Locrians were obliged to send two maidens annually to the Trojan temple of Athena for more than a thousand years. The German classicist A.38

Reinach [1916], in an attempt to reconcile the story of Ajax to a ritualistic framework, claimed that the Athena of Ilium was the successor of the great Phrygian goddess who may have been worshipped at Troy under the name of Cassandra; that the Palladium [that was guarded in the temple] was the primitive statue of this goddess; that when Cassandra became a distinct personality it was necessary to chain her to the stone which had once symbolized the goddess herself... to explain the story of blood on the stone due to the generative


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Locrian Ajax raping Cassandra. Tondo of an Attic red-figure cup by the Kodros Painter, ca. 440430 BCE, in the Louvre Museum. Credit: Wiki Commons.

character of the original goddess. This argument recalls a similar assertion for the supposed existence of a primeval deity named Iphigeneia, later associated with the cult images of Vrauronia Artemis in Athens and Orthia Artemis in Sparta. In any case, Ajaxs sacrilegious act cannot support the idea of a sacred wedding simply because the consequence of this insolent behaviour was the cruel and humiliating punishment of the Locrians in historical times. Rather, the theme of the Ajax-Cassandra myth is one of ritual punishment. Ajaxs transgression was a direct insult against the sacred image itself, of which Cassandra was a supplicant,

and thus against the goddess herself [L. R. Farnell, 2004]. Certainly the most remarkable point which emerges from the different versions of the myth and its associated cult conventions is the fact that the image was treated as a living entity. It was, for all intents and purposes, the earthly manifestation of the goddess herself. Ancient references about the Palladiums movement or of the blinding of unqualified persons who had gazed upon its forbidden countenance are common traits shared by many mysterious talismans. Such magical attributes are physical manifestations of the39


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Detail from a Roman fresco in the atrium of the Casa del Menandro in Pompeii, showing Locrian Ajaxs insult upon Cassandra who is embracing the sacred Palladium in supplication. Credit: Wiki Commons.

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deitys power instilled in the talisman by the divinity that is worshipped through that symbol. In epic and archaic literature, the contentious influence of primitive images over their possessors is particularly striking in images referred to as daidala [Sarah P. Morris, 2004].

According to the historian and traveller Pausanias says (IX, 3:2 & VIII, 53:8) that daidala were the same as the wooden images or xoana worshipped in prehistoric times when people used to call the images *** of gods by the name of their first mortal Further Reading creator, in this case the master craftsman Florence M. 1913, A Theory concerning the Daidalus. These images were said to be Bennett, Origin and the Affiliations of the Cult of Vesta in The possessed by something divine, some sort Classical Weekly, Vol. 7, No. 5 (Nov. 1, 1913), pp. 35-37. of celestial animating power. Writing in the Bennett, Florence M. 1917, A study of the word fifth century BCE, a certain Pherecydes says in American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar. 1917), pp 8-21. that palladia were forms not fashioned by Tim. 1995, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and human hands and derives the term from the Cornell, Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 Greek verb pallein or ballein, meaning to B.C.), Routledge. throw, because they had been cast down Dowden, Ken. 1992, The Uses of Greek Mythology, from the heavens. This if often interpreted Routledge. C.A. 1988, Talismans, Voodoo Dolls and other as evidence of early meteorite worship and, Faraone, Apotropaic Statues in Ancient Greece, Stanford. while there is no mention in Homers Iliad Farnell, L. R. 2004, Greek Hero Cults and the Idea of of the Palladium as such, there are in fact Immortality, Kessinger. several passages (e.g. XIX:126-131) which Graves, Robert, 1955, The Greek Myths Vol. 2. Penguin describe Athena descending meteorically Books. McBeath, A. A. & Gheorghe, A. D. 2004, Meteor to Earth (McBeath & Gheorghe, 2004). The Palladium then was a talismanic xoanon, a mythological archetype dating from remote antiquity used to explain objects that had fallen from the sky, often connected with heroic legend and around which were performed mysterious and unusual rites [F. Bennett, 1917]. An etymological analysis of the word talisman reveals that it is derived from the perfect passive participle of the Greek verb telein, meaning to complete or consecrate [Peter Struck, 2008]. In Medieval Greek, as well as in Arabic and Turkish, the root evolves into words designating amulets

consecrated through ritual and which became animated and imbued with mystical power. To sum up, the primary function of the Palldium was that of a transcedental weapon which assured the safety of both a city and a clan. Ultimately, it represents that ceaseless human desire to communicate with the supernatural, to seek solace in the divine, to surpass the limitations imposed by a transient and all too mortal existence. It was, for all intents and purposes, a little piece of heaven.


Beliefs Project: The Palladium in ancient and early Medieval sources in Journal of the International Meteor Organization, vol. 32, no. 4, p. 117-121 McBeath, A. & Gheorghe, A. D., 2005, Meteor Beliefs Project: Meteorite worship in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds in Journal of the International Meteor Organization, vol. 33, no. 5, p. 135-144 Morris, Sarah P. 2004, Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art, Princeton. Redfield, James M. 2003, The Locrian Maidens, Love and Death in Greek Italy, Princeton. Struck, Peter T. 2008, Birth of Symbol: Ancient Readers at their Limits of their Texts, Princeton. Reinach, A. cite (p. 493) in William N. Bates, Archaeological Discussions of American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec. 1916), pp. 475-509, Archaeological Institute of America.

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Masked actors: mosaic from the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii, Italy. 1st century BCE-1st c. CE. Naples Archaeological Museum. Credit: Wiki Commons.


Unmasking Ancient ColourColour and the Classical Theatre MaskBy Andrea Sinclair M.A.

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the Roman Imperial periods. The primary literary source employed to illustrate this discussion is the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux, which will be examined from the point of view of the importance of colour to convey meaning in the creation of a theatrical mask.background in theatre design. But this assumption of austerity would be faulty, for theatre performance in antiquity was a different animal, less refined and more diverse in its application and unlike The idea of theatre performance in ancient contemporary theatre, all actors wore Greece and Rome conjures up a variety of masks. images for me, one of vast semi-circular auditoriums, layered schema with elegant The intention of this article is to elaborate columns and facades, audiences dressed on a topic relating to theatre from ancient in their Sunday best reclining leisurely Rome and Greece that appears to be sadly on steeped seating and, of course, the absent. A factor which one could argue is performers. Somehow I cannot help but as crucial to the nature of an object as its be influenced by the elegance of modern form and texture: the colour of these masks reconstructions of classical theatre when worn by performers in early plays. Much I envision ancient theatre performance. literature has applied itself to the physical Perhaps this may be blamed on my own characteristics of masks from late antiquity43

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he purpose of this article is to provide the reader with an overview of the characteristics of traditional theatre masks from the Hellenistic Greek and

Who introduced masks, prologues, the number of performers and such things is unknown. Aristotle, Poetics, 1449b


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Theatre masks: architectural relief from the Roman theatre at Side, Turkey. Credit: Bruce Allardice.

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and their relation to earlier Greek masks from the Classical and Hellenistic periods, with particular emphasis placed upon masks from comedy. However, there appears to be little or no discussion of the nature of colours associated with these highly visual objects.

to take advantage of the visual nature of a magazine format by providing a range of relevant colour images. When we think of Greek and Roman theatre masks our own perception is highly coloured by the extant material that we have available to us as representative of these early performance tools. Sadly, because the original masks were constructed from degradable materials, such as leather, fabric and fibre, we do not have examples of the original artefacts. Instead, we are dependant on imagery of masks from the visual arts and some (few) references in texts for the physical nature of these objects.


Classical masks were intended to provide strong visual cues to an audience in what was, to all intents and purposes, a large performance space. This goal was achieved by using full head/helmet masks with broad and exaggerated features. The sculptural qualities of these very visual theatrical tools were an important feature of their legibility, but this legibility ought also to entail the use of colour. I consider this article to be an The visual evidence consists of two primary opportunity to discuss this facet of ancient sources: the two dimensional, via wall mask and also, unlike academic publications, paintings, ceramics and mosaics and the44

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The venue for masked drama: a Roman theatre from Bosra, Syria. Credit: Wiki Commons.

three dimensional, from sculpted terracotta figurines and from architectural ornaments. Of the aforementioned types, only mosaics and wall paintings employ colour, and I would hazard that you, the reader, when thinking of a mask, conjure up a monochrome image most likely related to masks from architectural and sculptural sources.

Aeschylus and comedic writers such as Aristophanes, Menander and Plautus. In ancient Greece plays were an important component of public festivals and were designed to be performed by a reasonably small group of actors. This troupe comprised three core actors who would perform all the speaking roles, in addition, there was a chorus of up to fifteen performers who sung and danced and guided the audience through the storyline. Finally there was the potential for a non specific amount of nonspeaking roles, such as attendants, slaves, guards or citizens. All characters, actors, chorus and extras were masked, and all parts were performed by men.

Theatre Performance in Greece and Rome

To begin this discussion, I will provide a brief overview of the theatrical context with which we are dealing. The performance of public theatre in Greece and Rome has a long and illustrious history which one could argue remains with us today with contemporary interpretations of the plays of renowned Within the theatre space, the action proper tragedians such as Euripides, Sophocles, would take place on a raised stage, while

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Three actors from Greek comedy: Apulian bell-krater. 2nd century BCE. National Archaeological Museum, Spain. Credit: Wiki Commons.

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the chorus would sing and dance in the semi-circular orchestra at the front of this stage. It is worth noting that with the limited number of actors performing all speaking roles, the use of mask would have been a convenient device to facilitate scene, character, and particularly, gender changes in a performance. But this may not be considered the sole motivation behind the choice of mask for performance. The earliest use of mask was not bound to character types and thus the masks of 4th century Athenian drama and comedy would have been constructed to suit the requirements of a given play and playwright. It was not until the second half of the fourth century and the plays of Menander and his contemporaries that costume and mask types became clearly defined. The grotesque46

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padding and phalli of the Old Comedy were dispensed with and masks too were adapted into more rigid characters. This does not mean however, that a playwright could not still adapt or invent masks to suit his own requirements.

What is a mask and what was a classical mask?In any dictionary a mask may be defined in a variety of ways: as the likeness of a face, a covering for all, or part of a face, an object worn as a disguise, or to amuse, or frighten others. When employing this term mask, I am referring to the head coverings in the likeness of beings (divine, human and animal) that were employed in the performance of theatrical plays in Greece and Rome in the classical period (500 BCE-



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Tragic actors: Roman fresco. 1st century CE. Archaeological Museum of Palermo, Italy. Credit: G. DallOrto, Wiki Commons.

300 CE). I use the term head coverings intentionally, since it must be emphasised that a mask in the context of classical drama was not simply a covering for the forepart of an actors head. Rather, it was a combination of hair, headdress and the face. For the intentions of this work I clearly distinguish between a mask that is designed to be worn on a human head and a reproduction of a human face. And it is worth noting that the features required to identify a mask that may be worn in performance are the presence of eye sockets, breathing holes and suspension holes. They also must be light and durable. There is absolutely no point in describing a

ceramic mask as a performance mask, these on the contrary, must be either ornamental copies of an original, or replicas perhaps intended for votive use. The term used in Greek literature to describe a mask was pros pon (). This noun may be literally translated as something which is (placed) before the eyes, that is, a covering for the face, but it can also be used to refer to the face proper. Another word which may be used in the discussion of masks in antiquity is protom , () which actually refers to a reproduction of a bust, head, or face, and may therefore, not be considered crucial to this discussion. (It is however, of value to an examination of47


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Satyr mask: marble (provenance unknown). 2nd century CE. Capitoline Museum, Rome. Credit: Wiki Commons.


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characteristics from Greece and Rome may lead you to the realisation that our information pool is indeed small. However, The sources for masked performance we have one detailed account by a classical It is a considerable disadvantage to modern author left to discuss. scholarship that we have only limited textual evidence for the use and description The primary textual source employed of masks in antiquity. While we do have in literature for mask in antiquity is the secondary sources, we are casting about in Onomasticon () of Julius Pollux the dark with regard to the original objects. of Naucratis, (2nd century CE). Now this text Aristotle in the Poetics , his discussion of is a form of thesaurus and was intended 4th century Greek theatrical practice, refers by its author as a general description of sparingly and somewhat dismissively to the a variety of topics from geography to use of masks in Greek theatre and with a few astronomy and so forth. Therefore, the sentences he passes laconically over them. discussion of theatre and theatrical masks is necessarily concise and most probably A direct example (of this) is the comic functions on the assumption that the mask which is ugly and distorted yet reader has a basic awareness of the topic. without (being) distressful. This applies particularly to his discussion of the characteristics of masks. For each detail Aristotle , Poetics: 1449 provided, there appears to be much that is Somewhat later in the Roman period, we absent, or assumed. have another brief but colourful reference to mask characteristics in Lucians Anacharsis . This text is nonetheless our best literary source for the description of masks in I have seen those tragedians and antiquity and for this reason I too have comedians of whom you speak, if they used it as my source, but I would emphasise are those individuals wearing heavy here that this article is naturally biased raised shoes, with costumes decorated in towards the late 1st millennium before the gold and quite ridiculous head-dresses Common Era and the early Common Era. with enormous gaping mouths from This time frame is governed by the period within which they shout out mightily, contemporary with Julius Pollux (2nd and I do not know how they cannot century) and on the understanding that fall over in those shoes when walking. I his information is considered to be derived believe at that time the city was celebratfrom an earlier 3rd century BCE Alexandrian ing a festival of Dionysus. But comedians source. Discussion of the nature of 5th are shorter than them, use their feet, century Attic theatre masks shall therefore are more human and bellow less. Their be considered a topic for another article. head-dresses are more comical and the entire theatre laughed as one. In antiquity there were three specific From the fact that these sources are often varieties of theatrical performance and each employed in literature to describe mask was masked. In the Onomasticon of Pollux49

the origins of masks).


Lucian , Anarchasis: 23.

The Masks in Pollux: the Satyr Play


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these three are duly listed as masks that were used in the performance of Tragedy, those for Comedy and those belonging to the Satyr play. We shall begin with the Satyr play since it has been argued that it is from these that later theatrical performances were derived (Aristotle, Poetics ). The Satyr play was a risqu rough and tumble farce which (much like that of tragedy) revolved around anecdotes sourced from traditional mythology. The costumes somewhat reflected the animal nature of these followers of the god Dionysus and consisted of horse tails, erect phalli and masks. The Satyr masks described in the Onomasticon pose the least challenge to us and contain only four clearly defined characters: an old satyr, a bearded satyr, a clean-shaven satyr and one that was worn for the god Silenus. Pollux is sparing with detail for these masks, but describing their characteristics is not difficult, since we have adequate resources for the characteristics of satyrs and of satyr masks from antiquity. The satyr mask may be identified by the bestial characteristics of the classical satyr: the presence of horns on the upper forepart of the mask, elongated and pointed goat ears framing the face and unkempt, shaggy hair. Colour is not indicated in the text with the exception of the use of polios () or grey haired to describe the old satyr, and Pollux is emphatic that the distinction between the four rests with their names: old, bearded, beardless and the god Silenus.


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Above: Silenus mask: fresco from Villa of Fannius Synistor, Boscoreale, Italy. 1st century BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Credit: WikiCommons; Below: Old man: encaustic painting from Solunto, Italy. 1st century CE. Palermo Archaeological Museum. Credit: G. DallOrto, Wiki Commons.50


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The Masks in Pollux: Tragedy and ComedyIn the Onomasticon the categories for masks from both tragedy and comedy have been arranged into four groups: those for old men, young men, male servants and for women. In addition there is a description of equipped ( ) or extra` masks belonging to tragedy. These were masks with unusual features, such as animals, deities, demi-gods, or monsters (nymphs, gorgons, titans, sea monsters, giants, centaurs); forces of nature (rivers, mountains, cities); and abstract concepts (justice, death, persuasion, deceit, envy). It is worth noting that Pollux states that any one of these masks may also be used for the performance of comedy. The following is a brief list of the names for characters that are given by Pollux.Old Men Six tragic masks : Shaved hair, White, Greying, Black, Yellow, More yellow. Nine comic masks : 1st Grandfather/Pappos, 2nd Grandfather, Leader, Old man, Hermeneios, Brothel keeper, 2nd Hermeneios, Peaked beard, Lycomedeios. Young Men Eight tragic masks : All purpose young man, Curly haired, More curly, Delicate, Dirty, 2nd Dirty, Ochre, Faded Ochre. Eleven comic masks : All purpose, Black, Curly haired, More curly, Delicate, Bumpkin, Wavy haired, 2nd wavy haired, 1st Parasite, 2nd Parasite, Foreigner, 3rd Parasite.Above: Young man: mosaic from the House of Masks, Sousse, Tunisia. 3rd century CE. Sousse Archaeological Museum; Below: Comic servant: mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii. 1st century BCE-1st c. CE. Naples Archaeological Museum. Credits: Wiki Commons.51



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Masks of women: mosaic from the House of Cicero, Pompeii. 2nd-1st centuries BCE. Naples Archaeological Museum. Credit: Wiki Commons.

Servants Three tragic masks: Leather, Peaked beard, Snub nosed.j o u r n a l

Grey talking, Mistress, Hetaira (prostitute) at the end of her career, Hetaira in her prime, Golden hetaira, Diademed hetaira, Hetaira with torch hair-do and two serving girls.

Eight comic masks : Grandfather, Leader, Lower 3rd or 4th attendant, Perhaps the one notable detail for womens Curly haired, Middle attendant, Tettix (cicada), masks is that they mostly differ by hairstyle and, excluding the mention of specific Wavy haired leader. Women Eleven tragic masks : Grey old woman, Freed old woman, Old domestic servant, Domestic (medium hair), Leather, Ochre (long hair), Ochre (medium hair), Medium cropped, 1st sallow maiden, 2nd sallow maiden, Young girl. Seventeen comic masks :


characteristics, may therefore be viewed as having reasonably regular features. In fact, this observation may be made for all the masks listed in Pollux. Where facial features are absent, we must assume that they are in fact there, but in each example relatively regular, such as aquiline nose, level brows and so on.

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Lean old woman, Fat old woman, Old domestic, And this brings us in a roundabout way to the Talking, Curly haired, Girl, False girl, 2nd false girl, issue of the characteristics for these masks.52


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Marble relief of tragic masks showing the onkos headress and curly beard (this would have been real hair in antiquity), Rome. 2nd century CE. Museum of Art History, Vienna. Credit: Wiki Commons.

I do not feel that I can throw you headlong into a discussion of mask colour without some brief explanation of the features of the masks in Pollux. There are actually a limited range of features listed in the text and they may be summarised as follows: Hair: straight, curly, wavy. Hairstyle: various for women: for men: waving forward, bald, receding. Headpieces: onkos, stephan and speira. Beards: long, short, curly, peaked, beardless. Brows: knitted, raised, lowered, asymmetrical. Eyes: lazy, cheerful, severe, distorted. Nose: hooked, snub. Mouth: flat lips. Battered ears and snaggle teeth.

Finally we have descriptions of the complexion which may be good, wrinkled, lined or of a specific hue, and thus we come to the discussion proper.

Colour for Masks: Age and GenderOn examining the characteristics above, it could be argued that the distinctions between masks in classical drama were based on stereotypes: a characters age, their social standing and their gender. In addition, it has been asserted in the past that due to the auditorium distance, only age and gender would be easily recognised by an audience and that there was actually little distinction between the characteristics of individual masks.53


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Gender expressed by using light and dark complexions, tragic female and comic servant: mosaic from Hadrians Villa, Tivoli, Italy. 2nd century CE. Credit: Wiki Commons.

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It is not this writers intention to support such a claim, for while costume, hair, and physical features do provide enough scope for identifying a character, mask colour could also provide similar important visual cues to a distant audience. Nonetheless, these three basic distinctions: age, status and gender are reasonably apparent from the evidence of extant plays and the description in the Onomasticon and it is worth noting that they are still basic distinctions for a modern audience. Age distinction for a mask could be conveyed through a variety of methods, such as wrinkled skin, or varying shades of grey through to white hair on both men and women. In Pollux white hair is indeed reserved for the oldest characters. For the complexion, age is conspicuously indicated by lack of pigment and older54

characters have whiter skin than younger. Facial hair on men is another criterion for distinguishing age, as after the Hellenistic period it became fashionable for young men to shave. Thus the absence of a beard infers youth (although in earlier periods this would have been used to convey a notion of effeminacy). Older, respectable men are correspondingly to be recognised by the various styles of beard. Gender distinction is consistent with Greek artistic convention and is characterised by the use of dark and light skin tones. Thus, a male character will have a darker complexion than a female, whose ideal colouring was white, no doubt from a notion of seclusion in the domestic environment (but this may apply more to women of higher social standing). For young male characters the complexion is generally described by a


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Tragic woman: fresco from the House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii. 1st century CE. Credit: Wiki Commons.

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verbal form of , black, here more appropriately translated as dark. Ideally a healthy active Greek or Roman man was athletic and tanned, thus masks of young men are described as dark and in some instances, flushed with red (). For male characters this convention could also be manipulated to express character nuances, and a man could indeed have a pale mask, but this could convey specific visual cues to the audience. Thus, a paler mask could be effeminate, sickly, dying, pining away from love, or of delicate constitution. On the other hand, a pale mask on an older man conveys a notion of advanced age and/ or physical weakness. Finally a pale or white mask on a male character could also be used to indicate a ghost or a spirit of the dead.

and I am aware that the choice of name in Pollux often appears to reflect the nature of a mask. One has to concede that leathery does conjure up a specific (perhaps modern) notion of texture and age.

Colour and Mask Character

To turn to the broader colour terminology encountered in Pollux, we have a limited range of colours used to describe thea

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