Papers by Jennifer Palmer
By bringing together a wealth of scholars specialising in the Bronze Age Aegean and wider area, E... more By bringing together a wealth of scholars specialising in the Bronze Age Aegean and wider area, Eric Cline aims to produce the definitive handbook for this period. These scholars contribute sixty-six papers, which are broken down into four sections:
Talks by Jennifer Palmer
"Title: ‘Sacred Marriage or Divine Patronage: Decoding Mycenaean Iconography’
The Mycenaean ci... more "Title: ‘Sacred Marriage or Divine Patronage: Decoding Mycenaean Iconography’
The Mycenaean civilisation of Late Bronze Age Greece (c.1600–1150 BC) has bequeathed to us few traces of its religious practices. The only surviving texts are administrative records documented on clay tablets, which list the names of deities and rituals, with no explanation offered. Recourse to archaeological remains fails as few structures have been securely identified as serving a cultic purpose. Our principal tool in unlocking the rich religious culture alluded to in the administrative texts is iconography. The most plentiful source of this iconography is the corpus of seal-stones, rings, and their impressions in clay. The images engraved upon the faces of these artefacts offer an otherwise hidden insight into the religion of the Mycenaean people, who through this medium depicted their deities and religious rituals.
I will focus on one of these artefacts, a gold ring excavated at Mycenae itself. Its face bears a depiction of a woman seated opposite a standing man who clasps her wrist. This scene has been interpreted as a ‘sacred marriage’ relating to fertility rituals, a ‘conversation’ between two deities, and even as an encounter between mother and son. Frequently, however, this ring and artefacts carrying similarly enigmatic images have been studied in isolation, divorced from the wider corpus. I argue that a sound interpretation of an image can only be achieved through a re-integration of the artefact with its context and a thorough exploration of relevant parallels. By analysing the elements included within this image and assessing their appearance elsewhere in the corpus, the image’s true meaning can be revealed. It will thereby be shown that this ring alludes to a dialogue between the divine and secular worlds more closely akin to patronage than marriage.
"
Thesis Chapters by Jennifer Palmer
This thesis presents an analysis of glyptic motifs of a religious nature attested on the Greek ma... more This thesis presents an analysis of glyptic motifs of a religious nature attested on the Greek mainland in the Late Helladic period and on Crete post Late Minoan IB. Its purpose is to ascertain to what extent such an analysis can, firstly, expand our knowledge of religious practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean, and, secondly, elucidate the nature of the relationship between Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece.
This was achieved through the classification and analysis of five glyptic themes generally regarded as possessing religious significance in scholarship. These are anthropomorphic figures and non-anthropomorphic elements flanked by animals, seated women, figures with architecture, and animal sacrifice. This contention was critically appraised by developing a widely applicable methodology that demonstrated that many possessed religious aspects.
The comparative analysis between the glyptic iconography of the Cretan Neopalatial Period and that of the Greek mainland and post-Late Minoan IB Crete identified specific changes that occurred from circa 1470 BCE onwards and established which of these originated on the mainland.
As a result, I have defined a group of iconographic representations that provide specific information regarding religious practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean and clarified the relationship between religious iconography and reality.
Uploads
Papers by Jennifer Palmer
Talks by Jennifer Palmer
The Mycenaean civilisation of Late Bronze Age Greece (c.1600–1150 BC) has bequeathed to us few traces of its religious practices. The only surviving texts are administrative records documented on clay tablets, which list the names of deities and rituals, with no explanation offered. Recourse to archaeological remains fails as few structures have been securely identified as serving a cultic purpose. Our principal tool in unlocking the rich religious culture alluded to in the administrative texts is iconography. The most plentiful source of this iconography is the corpus of seal-stones, rings, and their impressions in clay. The images engraved upon the faces of these artefacts offer an otherwise hidden insight into the religion of the Mycenaean people, who through this medium depicted their deities and religious rituals.
I will focus on one of these artefacts, a gold ring excavated at Mycenae itself. Its face bears a depiction of a woman seated opposite a standing man who clasps her wrist. This scene has been interpreted as a ‘sacred marriage’ relating to fertility rituals, a ‘conversation’ between two deities, and even as an encounter between mother and son. Frequently, however, this ring and artefacts carrying similarly enigmatic images have been studied in isolation, divorced from the wider corpus. I argue that a sound interpretation of an image can only be achieved through a re-integration of the artefact with its context and a thorough exploration of relevant parallels. By analysing the elements included within this image and assessing their appearance elsewhere in the corpus, the image’s true meaning can be revealed. It will thereby be shown that this ring alludes to a dialogue between the divine and secular worlds more closely akin to patronage than marriage.
"
Thesis Chapters by Jennifer Palmer
This was achieved through the classification and analysis of five glyptic themes generally regarded as possessing religious significance in scholarship. These are anthropomorphic figures and non-anthropomorphic elements flanked by animals, seated women, figures with architecture, and animal sacrifice. This contention was critically appraised by developing a widely applicable methodology that demonstrated that many possessed religious aspects.
The comparative analysis between the glyptic iconography of the Cretan Neopalatial Period and that of the Greek mainland and post-Late Minoan IB Crete identified specific changes that occurred from circa 1470 BCE onwards and established which of these originated on the mainland.
As a result, I have defined a group of iconographic representations that provide specific information regarding religious practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean and clarified the relationship between religious iconography and reality.
The Mycenaean civilisation of Late Bronze Age Greece (c.1600–1150 BC) has bequeathed to us few traces of its religious practices. The only surviving texts are administrative records documented on clay tablets, which list the names of deities and rituals, with no explanation offered. Recourse to archaeological remains fails as few structures have been securely identified as serving a cultic purpose. Our principal tool in unlocking the rich religious culture alluded to in the administrative texts is iconography. The most plentiful source of this iconography is the corpus of seal-stones, rings, and their impressions in clay. The images engraved upon the faces of these artefacts offer an otherwise hidden insight into the religion of the Mycenaean people, who through this medium depicted their deities and religious rituals.
I will focus on one of these artefacts, a gold ring excavated at Mycenae itself. Its face bears a depiction of a woman seated opposite a standing man who clasps her wrist. This scene has been interpreted as a ‘sacred marriage’ relating to fertility rituals, a ‘conversation’ between two deities, and even as an encounter between mother and son. Frequently, however, this ring and artefacts carrying similarly enigmatic images have been studied in isolation, divorced from the wider corpus. I argue that a sound interpretation of an image can only be achieved through a re-integration of the artefact with its context and a thorough exploration of relevant parallels. By analysing the elements included within this image and assessing their appearance elsewhere in the corpus, the image’s true meaning can be revealed. It will thereby be shown that this ring alludes to a dialogue between the divine and secular worlds more closely akin to patronage than marriage.
"
This was achieved through the classification and analysis of five glyptic themes generally regarded as possessing religious significance in scholarship. These are anthropomorphic figures and non-anthropomorphic elements flanked by animals, seated women, figures with architecture, and animal sacrifice. This contention was critically appraised by developing a widely applicable methodology that demonstrated that many possessed religious aspects.
The comparative analysis between the glyptic iconography of the Cretan Neopalatial Period and that of the Greek mainland and post-Late Minoan IB Crete identified specific changes that occurred from circa 1470 BCE onwards and established which of these originated on the mainland.
As a result, I have defined a group of iconographic representations that provide specific information regarding religious practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean and clarified the relationship between religious iconography and reality.