journal of near eastern studies 2009 - wright james-the mycenaean feast-review by

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150 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES V O L . 68 No. 2I cannot in good faith recommend this book,however. Itwill be of little use to the specialists,and it is too fraught with mistakes to beused bybeginners. There are, unfortunately, too manyerrors inthe text to be given in full here. Eor thisreason I will give examples of thevarious typesof problems encountered in this book.The use of bold face to indicate words to betreated is inconsistently used. In example 391(p. 64), the first person preterit form a-se-sa-nu-

nu-un is given in bold in a passage meant toexemplify third-person-singular preterit forms.In example 10 (p. 10), noform isgiven in bold,although kat-ta-wa-tar should be. Not all gram-matical endings are given in the paradigms eventhough they may appear in the example passages.For example, in the preterit active paradigm in2.2.1.3 (p. 60) and the accompanying subsec-tion 4 (p. 65), the first-person-plural form -menis not mentioned, but in example 400 (p. 65) theform ku-in-nu-um-mi-en is given. There is nothingin the book to indicate to the beginner that thisis an appropriate first-person-preterit form. Thereare also a large number of errors in the transla-tions. Some of these can be attributed to prob-lems in the translation of the work from Germaninto English, such as translating wenn in oracletexts as "when" and not "if." Others are simplyincorrect translations of the Hittite. Eor example,the phrase za-a-u K.BABBAR in 106 (p. 24) isincorrectly translated as "the golden zau" whenit is actually "the silver ZM" (p. 147). The editingof the book is also subpar. Note, for example,that the text at the end of the introduction is forsome reason not double spaced (p. 6). A furtherproblem ison e of fonts. The Akkadian dotted Sis given as "!" in the transliterations: in the firstexample we have .'-BAT given twice (p. 9).

DENNIS CAMPBELLThe University of Chicago

The Mycenaean Feast. Edited by JAMES C.WRIGHT. Princeton: American School of Clas-sical Studies at Athens, 2004. Pp. xii + 217 +63 figs. + 10 tables. $25 .

tute of America. Its eight accounts discuss theremains of feasting in the archaeologieal recordand the written records of feasts both in Linear Band in Homer.I start with the clear theoretical description offeasting in Louise Steel's "A Goodly Eeast. . .A C up of M ellow W ine: Eeasting in Bronze AgeC yprus" ( chap. 7). She states that "food and drinkare symbolically charged because they representembodied material culture" (p. 161). Social codesare inscribed into diet, dietary restrictions, thepreparation and choice of food, and the occasion.Eeasts differ from household dining in theirchoice of location, quantity and choice of foodand drink, dining paraphernalia, and the identityof the participants . The author distinguishesbetween patron-sponsored feasts ("a single indi-vidual who asserts and maintains his elevatedsocial position," p. 163) and commtinal feastswhose participants contribute to the feast, pot-luck style. Communal feasts celebrate socialcohesion and identity; patron-sponsored feastsoperate more exclusively, since the jjatron in-vites the participants to join an elite group.At C halcol ith ic Kissonerga-M osphi l ia inCyprus a special area produced many bowls andthe remains of hunted deer and male goats,whose preponderance may symbolizeieconomiclavishness. In the Bronze Age, Anatolia intro-duces Cyprus to orchard husbandry, olives,grapes, and cattle; new types of monochromebowls and spouted flasks respond to these inno-vations. In the thirteenth century, a building Xat Kalavasos-Ay ios D himitrios held the remainsof a single feast deposit; the large number of re -

storable vessels, including M ycenaean imports,attests to another result of public feasts, breakage.M ycenaean drinking sets become more commonin the thirteenth century (especially in tombs)and are displaced by M ycenaeanizing wares andmetal drinking sets in the twelfth century.Similar deposits are described by M. K.Dabney, P. Halstead, and P. Thomas , "M yce-naean Feasting on Tsoungiza at Ancient Nemea"(chap. 4).One such, dating to LH I i rA2 ear ly ,was only half-excavated, but it obviously heldon e or a few separate feasts. A large percentageof the pottery consisted of mendable bowls


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A P R I L 2009 B O O K R E V I E W S 151Elisabetta Borgna's "Aegean Feasting; A

Minoan Perspective" (chap. 6) firs t describesfeasting deposits at LM III B-C Phaistos. Eromthe Acropoli Mediana, drinking sets includekraters and deep bowls, belonging to a commu-nity feast. Erom the Casa a ouest del Piazzale 1comes a more complex deposit of vessels andimplements belonging to a host-sponsored event.

In the Prepalatial period, paved areas (in frontof tombs) provide arenas for feasting, but drink-ing sets come later (Kamares ware). The Neo-palatial banquet halls in the palaces lead Borgnato posit that an "elite ideology of consumptionwas materialized according to a common andcodified architectonic language" (p. 138). Thegold drinking cups in the Shaft Graves are evi-dence of an exclusive elite whose "restrictedattendance at feasts sanctioned bonds withpowerful ancestors , legitimized powers, andstrengthened ties among equals" (p. 143).

James C. Wright contributes "The Myce-naean Feast: An Introduction" (chap. I) and "ASurvey of Evidence for Feasting in MycenaeanSociety" (chap. 2). In his introduction, Wrightlays out theoretical concepts and practical aspectsaddressed in the other papers.Although Wright acknowledges that "feastsoccur throughout the year," are "performed byevery social group," and celebrate "any eventfrom birth to death" (p. 5), the papers here con-cern only political feasts that offer arenas forelite competition. Household and small commu-nity feasts are not considered, and "none of thesepapers . . . conside rs the role of gender in feast-ing" (p. 9). This is too bad since it is the generalassumption that men feasted on the products oftheir hunt. Women appear, however, on sealstonesand in frescoes as boar hunters (Tiryns fresco),archers {CMS XI 26), and sword wielders (Myce-nae Cult Center fresco and painted plaque, andCM5 113.16).

Wright's Survey (chap. 2) sets the stage forthe evidence of elite feasting at Pylos, in theLinear B documen ts, and in the Homeric epics.First, feasting is "a social activity that binds agroup through sharing," cuisine, and etiquette(p . 14); yet it affirms status distinctions. We canidentify feasts by their repeated and conven-

Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis, in "AnimalSacrifice, Archives, and Feasting at the Palaceof Nestor" (chap. 3) present six LH III (A-)B de-posits excavated both in and outside the Pylospalace; these contained the select bones of adultbulls "probably representing a sacrifice to thegods" (p. 62). The bones, almost solely mandiblesand leg joints (fig. 2), were burned.

From Archives Room 7, the burned bones of tenbulls were found with 20-22 miniature kylikes.The PY Ta tablets found nearby list twenty-twoseats and eleven tables, as if diners are pairedlike those depicted in the Pylos Throne Roomfresco and in the Knosso Campstool fresco. Sincethe miniature kylikes are too small for use, theymust have been "employed in ritual," but it seemsto me more likely that the kylikes were employed,instead, in the administrative process as tokensrepresenting the diners and/or seats.

The authors conclude that the twenty-twodiners might "have comprised representativesfrom the principal subcenters of the kingdom ofPylos" (p. 71, and n. 58). The bones of the tenbulls, however, might refer instead to the nineregional centers only in the Hither Province(PY Vn 20; cf. Homer's nine cites of Pylos) andthe palace itself. Stocker and Davis then go onto calculate the number of people fed by the tenbulls (ca. 100 kg of meat per bull): 1,000 people,roughly one-third the population of Pylos (assum-ing a territory of 15 ha and 200 peo ple/h a; seen. 62).

Finally, the authors propose that the feast inquestion might have celebrated the wanax'sappointment of a new damokoro (a local official.Ta 711) (p. 73). Though this feast was special,the fresco program in the megaron assumes thatsuch feasts were routine.

Thomas G. Palaima summarizes the evi-dence for "Sacrificial Feasting in the Linear BDocuments" (chap. 5) with useful translations inappendixes. The Thebes Wu sealings record afirst-stage contribution of forty-eight animals(sheep, goats, pigs, a Bronze Age suovetaurilia)from twenty-three individuals (the number of sealimpressions). Sometimes the animals' handlersare also named, apparently responsible for theanimals being properly "finished" {o-pa), fat-


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152 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES VoL, 68 No , 2Thebescompare the "animal pens" at Knossos{AJA 89 [1985]: 308-1 6),

Other texts (PY Ta series. Un 138) give last-stage information for presumably the same feastto which the excavated bones and miniaturekylikes belong. The Ta tablets list furniture (thetwenty-two seats and eleven tables), vessels, fireand cooking implements, and tools of sacrifice(two knives, two stunning axes, and two cere-monial bridles for leading the animals, obvi-ously in pairs). The twenty-two seats comprisesix thrones and sixteen stools. Since thrones(chairs with backs) and stools are paired, we canimagine sets of six tables with matching throneand stool seats and five tables with just twostools each,

Susan Sherratt's "Eeasting in Homeric Epic"(chap, 8) first describes how the Hom eric heroesfeast atevery opportunity. While meat is alwaysconsumed, that could not reflect reality. The egali-tarian nature of Homeric feasts is bound up in theterminology (dais or "shared feast"), the seatingarrangement (in a circle, with food passing fromleft to right), and the process of slaughter. Heroesbarbeque their own meat. Thigh bones are cutou t for the gods andburneddoes this practicerefer back to the accounting system in evidenceat Pylos?

The words for feast (dais, eitapt'n, and ranos)seem already archaic in Homer, Iron spits forbarbequing are not much attested before the EarlyIron Age, Bronze Age cauldrons could only havebeen used for boiling meats in stews; similarly.Homer's cauldrons are used only to heat water forablutions,

Sherratt discusses wine in detail, its grades,locales, and aging. Since untnixed wine produceddrunkenness (bad), wine must always have beenmixed (Homer mentions it twice). Women, how-ever, such as Circe and Helen, mix wine withdrugs. The clay kraters used for mixing wine andwater begin in LH III Al, contemporaneouslywith the appearance of the Mycenaean palaces,reflecting "a deliberate inclusion of wider ele-ments of society in official feasting" (p,206).Einally, Sherratt discusses the epic s inging inthe epic songs themselves, mirroring "the eon-texts of their own performance" (p. 188).

gins for notes and copious bibliographies. Andits low price means that allcan afford a copy.

J O HN G . YOUNGERUniversity of Kansas

Textiles in Situ: Their Eind Spots in Egypt andNeighbouring Countries in the Eirst Millen-nium CE. Edited by SABINE SCHRENK, Riggis-berger Berichte 13, R iggisberg, S witzerland:Abegg-Stiftung, 2006, Pp, 256 -t- 102 figs, +17 tables. 85 Swiss francs.This important volume for textile history pub-

lishes papers from a two-day colloquium held inOctober 2001 at the Abegg-Stiftung,Museums hold hundreds of thousands of single

textile items and fragments from the ancientworld with little information on where they camefrom. That means that textiles were usuallystudied as objects of art based on the piece it-self. Once removed from their contexts datingwas notoriously difficult. Most old finds werefrom graves, and the finders often cut pieces upto preserve only the most salable pieces ratherthan whole garments. The site of Karanis yearsago produced finds from living areas, however,and indeed today more domestic sites are beingexcavated even though the finds are often fromrubbish dumps. There is nowmuch more of arealization that textiles are themselves archaeo-logical objects as much asare pottery,' coins, andother artifacts, which help in giving much morereliable dates.

The first section of the volume is devoted tofunerary contexts, Ccilia Eluck writes on tex-tiles from Arsinoe, specifically Georg Schwein-furth's finds from 1886. By that time the sitehad been largely plundered and demolished bysebakhin digging for fertilizer, Schweinfurth'sinterest in the textiles was scholarly and not com-mercial, A peculiarity of textiles from this siteand the Eayyum seems to be garments with pileon the inside, C-14 analyses have given dates inthe seventh and eighth centuries A,D.

W, Godlew ski studies m aterial from AI-NaqlD n,Various hermitages yielded fragments, mostly


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