How does intentionally inflicting damage to material objects mediate the human experience in the prehistoric eastern Mediterranean? For all of the diversity in cultural practice in the civilisations of the Greek mainland and Aegean islands, Crete, Cyprus and the eastern coast of Italy between 4000-750 BC, archaeologists consider the custom of ritually killing objects as a normative, if inconsistent practice. Yet as artefacts that are alike only in that they have been disarticulated, intentionally destroyed objects defy easy characterization. Such pieces frequently stand outside of clearly defined patterns. This volume is an initial step in addressing a gap in the scholarship by aiming to deconstruct and contextualize the practice of intentional fragmentation. The case studies in this volume present a diverse range of evidence, including pottery, lithics, metals, jewellery, figurines, buildings and human remains, in an exploration of the wide spectrum of meanings behind material destruction.
Fragmented souvenirs 15
Introduction to the volume
Jan Driessen
The Social Life of Θραύσματα 21
Kate Harrell
Bits and pieces 25
Fragmentation in Aegean Bronze Age context
John Chapman
Situated intentions 49
Providing a framework for the destruction of objects in Aegean prehistory
Stratos Nanoglou
The rough and the smooth 61
Care and carelessness in the forgetting of buildings
Carl Knappett
Damaged Pottery, Damaged Skulls at the Tsepi, Marathon Cemetery 75
Maria Pantelidou Gofa
Evidence for ritual breakage in the Cycladic Early Bronze Age 81
The Special Deposit South at Kavos on Keros
Colin Renfrew
Des biens de prestige grecs intentionnellement fragmentés dans un contexte indigène
de la Méditerranée occidentale au VIIe siècle av. J.-C. 99
Mario Denti
Coincident biographies 117
Bent and broken blades in Bronze Age Cyprus
Jennifer M. Webb & David Frankel
Piece Out 143
Comparing the Intentional Destruction of Swords in the Early Iron Age and the Mycenae Shaft Graves
Kate Harrell
Destruction and other material acts of transformation in Mycenaean funerary practice 155
Michael J. Boyd
Breaking Up the Past 167
Patterns of Fragmentation in Early and Middle Bronze Age Tholos Tomb Contexts in Crete
Giorgos Vavouranakis & Chryssi Bourbou