The Creation of Value and Prestige in the Aegean Late Bronze Age

Agency and personhood at the onset of the Mycenaean period

“…At the same time, however, mortuary practices are pervaded by an increased emphasis on differentiation: while variation in the wealth deposited with the dead may be the most obvious one, other more subtle changes have gone unnoticed: the fragmentation of the social body through the emphasis on the burial (kin?) group (Voutsaki 1997), and an increasing segregation between not only status groups, but also age and sex groups (Voutsaki 2004).…”

“…We see therefore a tension in the mortuary ideology which reveals two opposed principles of social categorization: on the one hand, descent and the unity of the kin group; and on the other, differentiation along lines of age, gender and personal achievement. Persons (and men, in particular) are defined through participation in gift exchange networks (by means of which valuables were acquired), in hunting expeditions and fighting, as well as in ceremonies of conspicuous consumption, such as feasting or the lavish deposition of valuables with the dead (Voutsaki 1997).…”

“…Instead of extending one's identity, the opposite now happens: consumption allows one to absorb and appropriate the transitory gifts with all their associations of exotic places, famous previous owners and foreign value systems. Consumption removes objects from circulation and withholds them (Chapman 1996;Voutsaki 1997). What is more, consumption, in a world pervaded by the principle of reciprocity, abolishes the reciprocal relationship and prevents others from acquiring the coveted object.…”

An archaeological approach to the concept of value

“…While I fully agree with van Wijngaarden that value is culturally constructed and socially regulated and that the value of an imported object should be investigated in the context of the receiving society, this approach cannot fully explain changes through time nor shifts in demand. Assessing value is an important step forward, but understanding how value and demand are created in the first place is perhaps even more essential (see Voutsaki 1993;1997).To put it simply, we also need to address how and why objects became desirable, as well as how and why they became accessible.…”

Between brains, bodies and things:tectonoeticawareness and the extended self

“…Mycenaean, cultural trajectory. By the same token, the change from single contracted to collective extended inhumations that took place during that period in the Greek mainland (Dickinson 1977;Rutter 1993;Voutsaki 1997) does not tell us anything about the human symbolic capacity and self-awareness per se but simply signifies one of the countless possibilities about how this symbolic capacity can become actualized and transmitted in ritual, and thus cultural, time and space.…”