Books by Ute Günkel-Maschek
Gesture, Stance, and Movement. Communicating Bodies in the Aegean Bronze Age. Acts of the International Conference at the University of Heidelberg, 11–13 November 2021, 2024
The meaning of action in figurative imagery is conveyed through bodily posture, placing the depic... more The meaning of action in figurative imagery is conveyed through bodily posture, placing the depicted figures – humans, gods, or hybrids – in relation within coherent visual narratives. Especially for societies with few deciphered texts, the analysis of gesture, posture, movement, and facial expression is crucial for understanding ancient ‘webs of significance’. With 29 papers from a conference held in Heidelberg in 2021, this volume examines ‘body language’ in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece and proposes new ways of interpreting non-verbal communication in Aegean Bronze Age iconography.
This volume presents a new analysis of the wall paintings discovered over a hundred years ago in ... more This volume presents a new analysis of the wall paintings discovered over a hundred years ago in one of the most important centres of Minoan culture, the palace at Knossos. Introducing the theoretical concept of Bild-Raum, a relational construct linking pictorial elements with humans, actions and places, the aim is to produce new insights as to the types of rituals, ideas and people which can be related with individual parts of the palace based on the decoration painted on the walls. The images and architecture of three key areas of the palace are studied in broad detail, improving our understanding of performances and people involved and their role within the complex history of the Late Bronze Age palace at Knossos.
Der vorliegende Band stellt eine neue Analyse der Wandbilder vor, die vor über 100 Jahren an den Wänden des bedeutendsten Zentrums der minoischen Kultur, des Palastes von Knossos, gefunden wurden. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen steht der Begriff des Bild-Raums, eine theoretisch begründete, relationale Verknüpfung von Bildelementen, Menschen, Handlungen und Orten. Das Ziel ist es, basierend auf dem Wanddekor einzelner Gebäudetrakte ein besseres Verständnis der einst mit ihnen verbundenen Rituale, Ideen und Personen zu gewinnen. In ausführlichen Fallstudien werden die Bild-Räume dreier bedeutender Palastareale analysiert, rekonstruiert und in ihren spätbronzezeitlichen Kontext gestellt.
More than 100 years ago Sir Arthur Evans’ spade made the first cut into the earth above the now w... more More than 100 years ago Sir Arthur Evans’ spade made the first cut into the earth above the now well-known Palace at Knossos. His research at the Kephala hill as well as contemporary fieldwork at further sites on Crete saw the birth of a new discipline: Minoan Archaeology. Since these beginnings in the first decades of the 20th century, the investigation of Bronze Age Crete has experienced fundamental progress. The impressive wealth of new data relating to the sites and material culture of this Bronze Age society and its impact beyond the island’s shores, the refinement of its chronology, the constant development of hermeneutical approaches to social, religious or political issues, and new methods and instruments employed for the exploration and conservation of the archaeological remains have shaped the dynamic trajectory of this discipline for more than a century. In March 2011 – exactly 111 years after the beginning of Evans’ work at Knossos – a conference on Minoan Archaeology took place at Heidelberg with the aim to outline current trends and prospects of this scientific field, by setting up an open dialogue between renowned scholars and the young generation of researchers.
The present volume brings together most of the papers presented during the conference. They are subsumed under six chapters highlighting current key issues in the study of Bronze Age Crete with a pronounced focus on the broad subject of society.
Papers by Ute Günkel-Maschek
Gesture, Stance, and Movement. Communicating Bodies in the Aegean Bronze Age. Acts of the International Conference at the University of Heidelberg, 11–13 November 2021, 2024
Grieving, emotionally distressed, or lamenting figures rarely appear in the scholarly discussion ... more Grieving, emotionally distressed, or lamenting figures rarely appear in the scholarly discussion on early Late Minoan religious scenes. This is mainly due to the generally accepted view that Minoan religion was essentially focused on adoration and the invocation of divine epiphanies. However, a recent re-evaluation of gestures in two- and threedimensional representations by the author has led to the identification of a considerable number of expressions of grief and emotional distress and of gestures of lamentation. A thorough examination of the contexts in which these gestures and expressions appear in the LM I period, of how they developed from their early beginnings in the Middle Minoan period, and of how they were carried forward into the LM II and LM III periods, reveals their consistent importance in religious representations. The fact that some of the gestures shown by figurines dedicated at peak sanctuaries first appeared in funerary contexts supports the assumption that they were expressive forms that originally fulfilled their function in relation to the deceased before they became part of ritual activities in the Middle
Minoan period. Their continued use on figurines deposited in tombs during the LM II / III period and beyond confirms the persistent understanding of the gestures as expressions of sadness, grief, and mournful contemplation. In order to explain this surprisingly widespread appearance of mourning and lamenting figures in Minoan religious imagery, the old idea of a deity (or hero) who resided in the underworld and was therefore
considered dead and/or absent from the world of the living is revived along with the argument that mourning for him was a central aspect of Minoan ritual practice.
Annual of the British School at Athens, 2024
With the reconstruction of the Prince of the Lilies (also known as Prince with the Lily Crown or ... more With the reconstruction of the Prince of the Lilies (also known as Prince with the Lily Crown or Priest-King) from a group of fragments of painted stucco relief found in the palace at Knossos, Arthur Evans and the Gilliérons created not only one of the most famous icons of Crete's early Late Minoan past, but also its most controversial. Addressing a debate that has taken place over the last 45 years, this paper considers the question of the orientation and gesture of the figure, which some scholars would like to see as a right-facing boxer or deity with his left arm extended forward and his right arm bent at the side, rather than the well-known man striding to the left with his right fist on his chest. Focusing on the key relief fragment described by Evans as ‘male torso with the lily collar’, a comparison of the orientation of the eponymous piece of jewellery with contemporary depictions of necklaces conclusively confirms the leftward orientation of the figure to which the torso once belonged. The iconographic analysis of the gesture of the right fist on the chest and of the contextual associations of the waz-lily allow the ‘Man with the waz-Lily Necklace’ to regain his central place in Minoan religious imagery as well as in the monumental relief decoration of the Late Minoan I palace at Knossos.
Current Approaches and New Perspectives in Aegean Iconography, edited by Fritz Blakolmer, 2020
This paper presents a new approach for Minoan frescoed spaces. It uses networks of conceptual
str... more This paper presents a new approach for Minoan frescoed spaces. It uses networks of conceptual
structures that are drawn from images and archaeological contexts and visualised in the form of concept
maps, to reconstruct what a frescoed space could have looked like in its original state and how it
could have been used in ritual performances of the Late Bronze Age. The fresco of the so-called Dancing
Lady is presented as a case study for this approach. It elaborates on Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier’s identification
of the ‘Dancing Lady’ as a hovering figure, a motif well known from Neopalatial ritual scenes, which
would have decorated the wall of a polythyron structure located on an upper storey in the East Wing of
the palace at Knossos. After discussing the find context, the LM I B/early LM II date of the fresco and
my new methodology, I proceed by mapping the network of conceptual relationships between female hovering
figures on the one hand, and pictorial elements co-appearing with female hovering figures in LM I
ritual scenes, on the other hand. This concept map captures and visualises shared and distinct spatial and
structural features of the images in a concise and focused manner, thus giving an overview of contextual
and performative features related to female hovering figures in Minoan art. This information is then used
to create models of the structural, pictorial and architectural setting of the ‘Dancing’ or rather ‘Hovering
Lady’. In the final chapter, I am reconsidering the function and importance of the ‘Hovering Lady’s’ lost
ritual space within the wider context of Minoan palatial ritual and affirmation of power relations, before I
conclude with a final note on the loss in significance of the ‘Hovering Lady’ and associated rituals in the
Final Palatial period.
The aim of this paper is to re-examine the painted fragments discovered by Arthur Evans and his t... more The aim of this paper is to re-examine the painted fragments discovered by Arthur Evans and his team in the Throne Room at Knossos in 1900. We have tried to integrate systematically the extant archival data stored in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the archaeological remains at Herakleion in an attempt to retrace the history of discovery of the paintings. In our view, the iconography of this programme places its execution at the onset of Late Minoan (LM) II. We see the inclusion of both ‘traditional’ (Neopalatial) and ‘innovative’ (Final Palatial) elements in the composition as suggestive of an attempt on behalf of the artist(s) and the commissioner(s) to blend artistic traditions in the creation of a new, yet still recognisable, image of power. We assess the implications stemming from this suggestion and interpret the decorative programme of the Throne Room at Knossos as part and expression of the emergence of the wanax ideology.
Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliog... more Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abruf bar.
in: O. Dally - S. Moraw - H. Ziemssen (Hrsg.), Bild - Raum - Handlung. Perspektiven der Archäologie ( de Gruyter, Berlin 2012) 167-188
This paper analyses the interaction between wall paintings, places and spaces (of activity) in th... more This paper analyses the interaction between wall paintings, places and spaces (of activity) in the Minoan Neopalatial
and Final Palatial Period on the theoretical basis of a »Pictorial-Space« concept. In the case of the palace
at Knossos there are at least three types of spaces, each distinguished by a specific type of painting: entryways
were frequently decorated with a bull motif, passageways with processions, and in the ›throne room‹ both the
throne and a door in the rearward wall were f lanked by griffins which provided a backdrop for the throne and
created the impression of a kind of ›door of epiphany.‹ The paintings therefore functioned either as an emblem
that made symbolic reference to the ruler for those entering the palace, or, as in the case of the passageway, they
presented idealized depictions of activities that were actually performed in the space in question, or, as in the
case of the throne-room griffins, they lent a complementary layer of meaning to events that took place onsite,
presenting the person who entered the ›throne room‹ and sat on the throne as the epiphany of a divinity.
The wall-paintings of building Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera, provide a unique insight into the Bron... more The wall-paintings of building Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera, provide a unique insight into the Bronze Age Aegean conceptualization and visualization of age-grades, which were experienced by girls in the course of their sexual development. The depictions on the wall of the ‘Lustral Basin’ decorated a ritual area on the ground floor. They represented both the initiatory moment of the socially defined phase of adolescence and the image of a fully fertile woman. On the upper floor right above, pubescent girls were shown engaged in the gathering of crocus flowers. The focus was formed by the depiction of an enthroned goddess, whose visual appearance showed the characteristic elements of each stage of the girls’ sexual development. Altogether, the wall-paintings of building Xeste 3 suggest that girlhood during the years of pubescence was heavily influenced by the preparation for the future role as reproductive woman and potential mother.
in: M.-L. Nosch - R. Laffineur (Hrsg.), Kosmos. Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 13th International Aegean Conference, Copenhagen, Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile Research, 21-26 April 2010, Aegaeum 33 (Liège 2012) 361-367
Wall paintings are an integral part of Minoan architecture. They have been positioned in relation... more Wall paintings are an integral part of Minoan architecture. They have been positioned in relation to the function of the architectural space and must be conceived in relation to the action that took place in this space. Building Xesté 3 in Akrotiri, Thera, is used as an example of Minoan decoration schemata. The architectural spaces are distinguished into passage ways and rooms for other, unspecified activities. According to this spatial distinction a differentiation of mural decoration can be stated: Passageway decoration is characterised by unpainted or abstract backgrounds and approximately life-sized figures which, on the sidewalls, walk into one direction or, on the wall approached by the visitor, hint at some performance before the latter reaches the room of destination. Room decoration is characterised by complex scenes situated in an outdoor setting; instead of reflecting the action within the room they form an appropriate surrounding, in some cases providing the relevant items for the ritual performance. A reconsideration of the Procession Fresco at Knossos questions its previous interpretations and stresses its reading as a passageway decoration.
›Verwundet‹ und ›verhüllt‹ Vom Mädchen zur Frau in den Darstellungen aus Xesté 3, Akrotiri Mit de... more ›Verwundet‹ und ›verhüllt‹ Vom Mädchen zur Frau in den Darstellungen aus Xesté 3, Akrotiri Mit der Freilegung des Gebäudes Xesté 3 im bronzezeitlichen Akrotiri auf Thera/Santorin konnte in den 70er Jahren des 20. Jhs. einer der wohl faszinierendsten Wandmalereikomplexe aus der spätminoischen bzw. spätkykladischen Kultur geborgen werden 1 . Aus mindestens neun Räumen stammen Darstellungen von Mädchen und Frauen, Jungen und Männern, Enten und Schwalben, Affen und Vierbeinern 2 . Die Malereien aus dem sog. Lustral Basin (Raum 3 a) im Erdgeschoss von Xesté 3 (Abb. 1) markieren sowohl aufgrund des Ortes ihrer Anbringung als auch aufgrund ihres Bildinhalts einen der wichtigsten Räume des Gebäudes. Auf der Nordwand sind von links nach rechts die ›Kettenträgerin‹, die ›Verwundete‹ und die ›Verhüllte‹ dargestellt, die sich allesamt einem Kultbau auf der Ostwand des ›Lustral Basin‹ zuwenden (Abb. 2). Eine erneute ikonographische und hermeneutische Betrachtung der Malereien unter Einbeziehung ihres architektonischen Kontexts soll nun Gegenstand des vorliegenden Beitrags sein.
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Books by Ute Günkel-Maschek
Der vorliegende Band stellt eine neue Analyse der Wandbilder vor, die vor über 100 Jahren an den Wänden des bedeutendsten Zentrums der minoischen Kultur, des Palastes von Knossos, gefunden wurden. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen steht der Begriff des Bild-Raums, eine theoretisch begründete, relationale Verknüpfung von Bildelementen, Menschen, Handlungen und Orten. Das Ziel ist es, basierend auf dem Wanddekor einzelner Gebäudetrakte ein besseres Verständnis der einst mit ihnen verbundenen Rituale, Ideen und Personen zu gewinnen. In ausführlichen Fallstudien werden die Bild-Räume dreier bedeutender Palastareale analysiert, rekonstruiert und in ihren spätbronzezeitlichen Kontext gestellt.
The present volume brings together most of the papers presented during the conference. They are subsumed under six chapters highlighting current key issues in the study of Bronze Age Crete with a pronounced focus on the broad subject of society.
Papers by Ute Günkel-Maschek
Minoan period. Their continued use on figurines deposited in tombs during the LM II / III period and beyond confirms the persistent understanding of the gestures as expressions of sadness, grief, and mournful contemplation. In order to explain this surprisingly widespread appearance of mourning and lamenting figures in Minoan religious imagery, the old idea of a deity (or hero) who resided in the underworld and was therefore
considered dead and/or absent from the world of the living is revived along with the argument that mourning for him was a central aspect of Minoan ritual practice.
structures that are drawn from images and archaeological contexts and visualised in the form of concept
maps, to reconstruct what a frescoed space could have looked like in its original state and how it
could have been used in ritual performances of the Late Bronze Age. The fresco of the so-called Dancing
Lady is presented as a case study for this approach. It elaborates on Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier’s identification
of the ‘Dancing Lady’ as a hovering figure, a motif well known from Neopalatial ritual scenes, which
would have decorated the wall of a polythyron structure located on an upper storey in the East Wing of
the palace at Knossos. After discussing the find context, the LM I B/early LM II date of the fresco and
my new methodology, I proceed by mapping the network of conceptual relationships between female hovering
figures on the one hand, and pictorial elements co-appearing with female hovering figures in LM I
ritual scenes, on the other hand. This concept map captures and visualises shared and distinct spatial and
structural features of the images in a concise and focused manner, thus giving an overview of contextual
and performative features related to female hovering figures in Minoan art. This information is then used
to create models of the structural, pictorial and architectural setting of the ‘Dancing’ or rather ‘Hovering
Lady’. In the final chapter, I am reconsidering the function and importance of the ‘Hovering Lady’s’ lost
ritual space within the wider context of Minoan palatial ritual and affirmation of power relations, before I
conclude with a final note on the loss in significance of the ‘Hovering Lady’ and associated rituals in the
Final Palatial period.
and Final Palatial Period on the theoretical basis of a »Pictorial-Space« concept. In the case of the palace
at Knossos there are at least three types of spaces, each distinguished by a specific type of painting: entryways
were frequently decorated with a bull motif, passageways with processions, and in the ›throne room‹ both the
throne and a door in the rearward wall were f lanked by griffins which provided a backdrop for the throne and
created the impression of a kind of ›door of epiphany.‹ The paintings therefore functioned either as an emblem
that made symbolic reference to the ruler for those entering the palace, or, as in the case of the passageway, they
presented idealized depictions of activities that were actually performed in the space in question, or, as in the
case of the throne-room griffins, they lent a complementary layer of meaning to events that took place onsite,
presenting the person who entered the ›throne room‹ and sat on the throne as the epiphany of a divinity.
Der vorliegende Band stellt eine neue Analyse der Wandbilder vor, die vor über 100 Jahren an den Wänden des bedeutendsten Zentrums der minoischen Kultur, des Palastes von Knossos, gefunden wurden. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen steht der Begriff des Bild-Raums, eine theoretisch begründete, relationale Verknüpfung von Bildelementen, Menschen, Handlungen und Orten. Das Ziel ist es, basierend auf dem Wanddekor einzelner Gebäudetrakte ein besseres Verständnis der einst mit ihnen verbundenen Rituale, Ideen und Personen zu gewinnen. In ausführlichen Fallstudien werden die Bild-Räume dreier bedeutender Palastareale analysiert, rekonstruiert und in ihren spätbronzezeitlichen Kontext gestellt.
The present volume brings together most of the papers presented during the conference. They are subsumed under six chapters highlighting current key issues in the study of Bronze Age Crete with a pronounced focus on the broad subject of society.
Minoan period. Their continued use on figurines deposited in tombs during the LM II / III period and beyond confirms the persistent understanding of the gestures as expressions of sadness, grief, and mournful contemplation. In order to explain this surprisingly widespread appearance of mourning and lamenting figures in Minoan religious imagery, the old idea of a deity (or hero) who resided in the underworld and was therefore
considered dead and/or absent from the world of the living is revived along with the argument that mourning for him was a central aspect of Minoan ritual practice.
structures that are drawn from images and archaeological contexts and visualised in the form of concept
maps, to reconstruct what a frescoed space could have looked like in its original state and how it
could have been used in ritual performances of the Late Bronze Age. The fresco of the so-called Dancing
Lady is presented as a case study for this approach. It elaborates on Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier’s identification
of the ‘Dancing Lady’ as a hovering figure, a motif well known from Neopalatial ritual scenes, which
would have decorated the wall of a polythyron structure located on an upper storey in the East Wing of
the palace at Knossos. After discussing the find context, the LM I B/early LM II date of the fresco and
my new methodology, I proceed by mapping the network of conceptual relationships between female hovering
figures on the one hand, and pictorial elements co-appearing with female hovering figures in LM I
ritual scenes, on the other hand. This concept map captures and visualises shared and distinct spatial and
structural features of the images in a concise and focused manner, thus giving an overview of contextual
and performative features related to female hovering figures in Minoan art. This information is then used
to create models of the structural, pictorial and architectural setting of the ‘Dancing’ or rather ‘Hovering
Lady’. In the final chapter, I am reconsidering the function and importance of the ‘Hovering Lady’s’ lost
ritual space within the wider context of Minoan palatial ritual and affirmation of power relations, before I
conclude with a final note on the loss in significance of the ‘Hovering Lady’ and associated rituals in the
Final Palatial period.
and Final Palatial Period on the theoretical basis of a »Pictorial-Space« concept. In the case of the palace
at Knossos there are at least three types of spaces, each distinguished by a specific type of painting: entryways
were frequently decorated with a bull motif, passageways with processions, and in the ›throne room‹ both the
throne and a door in the rearward wall were f lanked by griffins which provided a backdrop for the throne and
created the impression of a kind of ›door of epiphany.‹ The paintings therefore functioned either as an emblem
that made symbolic reference to the ruler for those entering the palace, or, as in the case of the passageway, they
presented idealized depictions of activities that were actually performed in the space in question, or, as in the
case of the throne-room griffins, they lent a complementary layer of meaning to events that took place onsite,
presenting the person who entered the ›throne room‹ and sat on the throne as the epiphany of a divinity.