"Ethnic Landscapes and Collective Identities in the Late Bronze Age Aegean Frescoes"
It is common knowledge that during the previous decade, as far as the Aegean area is concerned, the term Landscape was linked mostly to research and programs that were conducted through the application of an ecologic model, in the frame of both surface surveys and research examining specific aspects of the civilization, such as the financial relations and the distribution of space of the settlement.
On the other hand though, there is the need to examine the landscape in its multiple dimensions.
Usually the different parameters constitute different landscapes (economic, ritual, historical and symbolic) that are experienced as such by people in their interdependence. Thus, apart from the ecologic approach – on a local level – an alternative approach is needed, with different orientations and objectives which could act supplementary.
An approach that utilizes and associates with both Settlement Ecology and Ideational Landscapes is an approach that relates to the Ethnic Landscapes. The term insinuates at spatiotemporal composing of landscapes defined by communities that create and manage their material culture and their symbols, in order to set ethnic and cultural limits based on customs and to demonstrate mentalities that may not have other means of expression but through tradition.
The Ethnic Landscapes approach, as mentioned above, shifts the interest to the interaction of communities living and acting both simultaneously and diachronically .Thus, the Ethnic Landscapes constitute spatial and temporal elements that these groups create, usually incorporating symbolic meanings and, having tradition as their main medium, they set their cultural and ethnic boundaries.
I will examine the features of the Aegean iconography associated with a special element which characterizes the way collectivity is expressed; i.e. how the Aegean natural environment is depicted on Aegean frescoes and how this type of depiction illustrates the “constructing” of an ethnic landscape.
Frescoes participate in the material culture of a society, as an object used in specific areas, from specific points of view and from individuals with specific references in their lives. The frescoes function as elements of the visualisation of meanings. The immiscibly architectural surfaces are activated, lose their neutral character, the distinction between open and closed space is abolished and via this activation they motivate some mechanisms, such as reasoning and mentalities, and they particularize the deity, the higher principles and/or the values generating their superempirical world.
A characteristic feature of frescoes is that through the use of images they constitute a representation that functions both as a visual idiom and a mean of communication. It also functions as a narrative text, giving shape to central ideas and symbols, turning them into something tangible and placing them in space. It provides symbols that organize and determine the world’s hierarchy, the process through which we view and conceive the world, that stimulate the memory, the imagination and the feeling. Largely, the art of illustration is reproduced as long as its notions, aiming at the justification, support and reproduction of the principle defining its existence, are reproduced in the frame of a “long-lasting period of time”.
I now return to the Aegean area to investigate if and how these civilizations built their own Ethnic Landscapes via the Late Bronze Age frescoes. In order to succeed in this, they usually turned to symbolism. So, it looks like the selection of some themes, associated with natural environment in Minoan and Theran art, is not random at all. The significance of the patterns, which are repeated but also possess a specific place in the “architecture” of the representation, shows that they are charged with special meanings. Moreover, the repetition of the same figurative units in diverse archaeological contexts (utensils, seals, jewellery), and the ritual of the rules followed in the representation impose their association with special meanings expressing a symbolic idea for the people who conceived them. So, a “symbolic narrative” is composed referring to cultural processes that affect the Minoan lifestyle.
In this frame, between the edges of symbolism and representation, are these special features of Aegean iconography that allow the configuration of Ethnic Landscapes and are associated with nature. It is the representation of a number of conventions and hybrid depictions of the natural world, that seem to relate directly to ideology – maybe not with our contemporary meaning of the term ideology, but at least freed from financial or other associations such as tradition or social memory.
However, the current observer of Aegean frescoes will be impressed by a group of conventions defining the special feature that Aegean representation receives, in combination of course with the omnipresent feeling of praise of individuality that it exhales, as well as with the way movement and vividness are represented. Consequently, in Minoan iconography we rarely meet a real conception of depth, light or shadow. To these conventions we will add the schematic depiction of rocks, the so-called “silent wave”, the depiction of the seashores, the banks of the river and the ponds, the dadoes’ polychromy, the existence of the so-called “easter eggs”, the rarity of green and the depiction of the figures, the leaves of the olive and the leaves of the palm tree with a bluish colour, or
the “flying gallop”, the non-recognisable hybrids and the convention of employing imaginary creatures in the Aegean. By imaginary creatures we mean the griffins in their Aegean version, the demons, the sphinxes and the “donkey-headed” demons.
In Egypt, illustration is a separate, special chapter in studying the way landscapes were depicted in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium BC, during which it dominated the region from an economic and a cultural point of view. At the same time, the Aegean had developed a multidimensional way of communication with Egypt, exchanging merchandise, people, ideas and… “art”. This kind of contact in turn, participated in forming an art, where each group of people contributed in their own way in depicting the landscape, maintaining, to a great extent, their own ethnic characteristics.
Egyptian iconography cannot be understood – like other forms of prehistoric art– outside its special functions and ideological or religious context.
The Egyptians’ attempt to impose the invariance on their iconography (sculptured, graven, wall-paintings, in both anthropogenic and natural landscapes), in the context mentioned above, turned out to be a kind of regularity to a great extent.
It has been stressed that this invariance is interpreted by the standardization principle Naturally, both the canon and the invariance do not find their roots in esthetic choices. On the contrary, we could state that they serve social decisions. Nevertheless, the Egyptian iconography is idealistic, it has an intense symbolism and it can be viewed in a religious, ritual and of course in a social context, since the viewers of the representation should be integrated in an homogenized ethnic community, in order for the message to be semantically recognisable. Usually, this message is considered to be a medium of reproducing political power and dominance over the world based on its regularity. Thus, we must consider the canon as an ideological element promoting the static, which is finally surpassed by social principles, but also the esthetic that, at the end, has an impact on the art. Even though it is characterized by similarity, in the end innovation manages to enforce itself (see the New Kingdom and Amarna period).
First of all, one should start with the “aspective view” with which Egyptians tried to depict the natural environment. At the same time, the two-dimensional depiction finds a way to apply to the way depth is depicted. They use mainly the ground line and the depth is given via the partial cover of the animals or via the placing of the legs of the inner side forward. Consequently, we will first meet the application of the canon of “Replacement” by imaginary creatures in a row of natural elements. We should also mention the hunting scenes, with a figurative and a stereotypical character. Similar clichés are used in the Nile’s landscapes description.
In conclusion, one could argue that the canon in Egyptian iconography gives some data that the artist should strictly keep to. Not only external but also internal factors influenced deeply the evolution of art in Egypt. The repression of the Hyksos during New Kingdom, and especially during the 18th Dynasty, makes the changes and innovations in the Egyptian art even more tangible. The artistic trends are liberated from the conventions and the themes are often characterized by uniqueness. We observe that the elements of natural environment evolve in an illustrative way and receive some elements associated with the Aegean art, probably combined with internal movements in Egypt, and thus are worth being thoroughly investigated. In this way, we realize that by not having clarified the seriousness of the Aegean impact, we stand to the point that Ethnic Landscapes reveal the dynamics that the iconography, as well as the iconography of the natural environment has in its interaction with other people’s arts.
Both the ethnic characteristics and the ethnic identity, that can comprise notions such as gender, status or possession, are determined by the society and enable communication between groups.
The concept of ethnic identity, which derives from the ideology dominant during the establishing of the European national states, does not always allow us to consider the exchange of ideas of ethnic groups as an interaction degree and as a degree that reflects the closeness of their relation. Whereas its homogenization – which reflects the material culture – refers to the relation and interaction, its discontinuity -referring to the socio-political relation- is due to the natural distance that exists between ethnic groups. The cultural role that the ethnic qualities have is obvious, while at this point, we should emphasise that a direct association between cultural similarities / dissimilarities and ethnic limits rarely exists. Despite that, the cultural practices, and ethnic characteristics which might be potentially a part of them, create symbols via which the acting subjects materialize their cultural distinctive traits (through similarities or dissimilarities or even both of them) and thus, their identity in regard to the others. This materializing is reflected in the material culture and can be considered as evidence of the subject’s identity.
Moreover, the collectivities modulate the landscape they experience as an identity. In other words, the socio-cultural identity the collectivities create and express is converted in notion of landscape, amongst others. The reminiscences, the stories, the comprehension, the temporality, the social activity are the means that the collectivities use in order to create the notion of landscape and to express that notion through the representative art, announcing at the same time their collective identity. Thus, the Ethnic Landscapes are associated not only with the space but also with the identities of the collectivities that generate them.
Taking all that into account, one would logically wonder whether the Aegean frescoes of the Late Bronze Age can function as elements of the material culture that would provide information and meanings for the cultural landscape that the collectivities of that time built and experienced. First of all, we should mention that Aegean people should be seen as an acting subject that will determine, through his agency, the place he will get, as a painter for example, or a viewer, or as a part of the representative space that the wall painting specifies in a symbolic system. This agency, which is reflected in the material culture materializing it, determines the degree of self-reference of the subjects, enabling them to develop the identities. Of course, these identities are multiplex, multi-layered and possibly overlapping. At the same time, people will also develop the identity representing an ideology, which is reflected on the material culture they produce. This ideology uses the representative art in order to materialize symbols or even whole systems of symbols, through which the sense of this collectivity is expressed. Thus, the Aegean inhabitant either uses the symbols delivered to them or creates new ones or even alters the ones belonging to other peoples with who they comes into cultural contact (Egyptians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Hittites etc), in order to define their self-reference and develop ethnic characteristics. These characteristics will on the one hand distinguish them, from these people, by enhancing the collectivity, and on the other hand, will enable themselves to come into contact with the aforementioned peoples, to co-evolve themselves and to co-operate with them, on the grounds of some specific capabilities they will develop.
In this frame, the Aegean inhabitants depict on the walls, amongst others, the landscape that entourages them and which they experience via numerous and manifold aspects. They use the elements of the natural environment, either these are real or imaginary, native or exotic (the bisectors may not play a substantial role at that time), in order to depict a landscape that will enable them – beside the rest of the functions that such a representation might have – to create an element of self-reference so as to structure or develop an identity relative to their aspirations, according to their social memory, tradition, and feelings.
The investigation of these data indicates that the Aegean people use the cultural similarities and differences in order to build this identity, stating their ethnic coordinates. These coordinates are determined, to a great extent, by their co-existence with the people neighbouring in the Eastern Mediterranean basin. The cultural similarity, especially the one referring to the Egyptian art of painting, as was stressed previously, is both intense and substantial. We observe the way a whole world is created, in which the natural environment plays an essential role. This environment presents differences in the Aegean area and Egypt, which are worth noticing. However, an ideational landscape is created, whose representative part has a lot in common with the two geographic regions, comprising a cultural contact which is characterised by the close relationship in the way natural environment is depicted. On the other hand, the ethnic characteristics include also the notion of diversity, of cultural difference form the “others”. And actually, apart from the references to “Egyptianization” of the Aegean area and the “Aegeanization” of Egypt, Egyptian art, mostly during the Old and Middle Kingdom, presents special features when depicting a landscape, as these features are primarily defined by the invariance and the Canon. But on the other hand, Aegean art too keeps having a special character, which allows the inhabitants of Cyclades and the Cretans and also the people of the Eastern Mediterranean with whom they came into contact, to realise the (self-) determination of the ethnicity in the Aegean area and the place it had inside of them. The highlight of the elements of the natural environment in regard to the human and even the divine presence in the representations, the dominance of a more free spirit in depicting the figurative units, the special hybrids and the conventions used in Aegean art, the choices made by the painter, and many more, are reflections of the inhabitants’ ideology in the representative art. These reflections enable them to articulate their own cultural speech. Therefore, these people presented their ideology turning it into the material culture they produce and, in this case, into the frescoes on the wall of some specific buildings and spaces, materializing also the elements of the natural and the unrealistic environment which participate to that ideology. In this way, they set out the self-reference points that the subject would have used as such.
The examination of the remains of the material culture enables us to consider that every people adapts the way the natural environment is represented according to its world view, religion or any other ideological factor that affects its self-determination.
