Author Archives: laura-obrion

Artists, Ancient and Modern

For me, Monday was full of thinking about art and its many incarnations on Crete and beyond. We spent the afternoon following the journey of a pot at the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, an administrative center out of which excavations are run. Besides helping archeologists with the administrative parts of setting up an excavation, the center is also a place to process finds. First, an incoming piece of pottery from a place like Mochlos is washed and laid out in pieces on a large table.
20140121-054918.jpgThen, as sherds of the pot are identified (like puzzle pieces), they move on to a new artist – the conservator. She carefully reconstructs the pot with tape, glue and patch ceramic, using a range of technologies like X-rays along the way. Next, a pot might head to the artist’s studio. There, another creative person handles the ancient work, this time to accurately reproduce the pot in a book drawing. Ink drawings used to prevail, but now the art is all done on a tablet. Now the pottery, despite the many artists who have worked on it, likely does not go to a museum. Instead, it is labeled and stored in a giant basement among the other finds.

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This trajectory is certainly not what a modern viewer has come to expect for a piece of artwork, including a Minoan pot. As many of us remarked at dinner, this art is approached differently, both in the Minoan world and in the world of archeology. Despite their communal goal, to recreate the work of the ancients, the staff at INSTAP are certainly individual artists. Likewise, I think we have all noticed the artistry of repeating Minoan designs (for example, sea creatures), even though ancient artists were privileging just a few pop images over the individuality we often value today. It’s a fascinating subject that was wonderful to discuss with my classmates, whose broad range of majors (History, Art History, Classics) brings to light ideas I never would have imagined as we enjoy the Cretan food that I’ve grown so attached to.

Final Resting Places

This week we visited three gravesites: the British commonwealth Cemetery at Suda Bay, the German cemetery at Maleme, and a Late Minoan tholos tomb nearby. It was a great opportunity to see what these burial sites showed about Crete, and Greece, at the time of their construction. As resting places for the dead, their design would have been chosen with care. The sites speak about the dead, but also about Crete’s relationship with the world beyond the island.
​ Suda Bay is a prominent waterside spot chosen in 1944 for the soldiers from Commonwealth countries who died on Crete. Most of them were killed defending the island from Nazi attack in May 1941. The effort failed, but it may have contributed to a later important German loss in the Soviet Union. The site is manicured, organized and prominent. Each fallen soldier is given an individual headstone customized by country, rank, and religion. Each grave is easily accessible, and the many visitors from Commonwealth countries in the guestbook have clearly spent time finding specific young men. Freshly smarting from German occupation, the designers of the cemetery created a public spot to honor Crete’s heroes – a celebration of victory.

20140112-085835.jpg​ But what about the bodies of Germans killed in the battle? Kept in isolated graves and eventually moved to a monastery, it was not until 1974 that they were provided with a final resting place. This secluded area is very different from Suda Bay. Here, the landscaped graves blend together, masquerading as an olive grove. Soldiers share headstones and graves are difficult to access. To me, the area suggested healing, unity and a smoothing over of the past. Likely it blends in both to avoid offending residents, but also to convey that the war is a thing of the past. Dedicated just months after the fall of Greece’s military junta in 1974, the site suggests a willingness of the new government to be welcomed into modern Europe.

Just a little past the cemetery is a stone “tholos” tomb from the Late Minoan period. Built into the hillside, slightly square and using a long entryway, the site has Mycenaean (mainland) characteristics. Even so, it is the product of a transitional period on Crete with the arrival of Mycenaean influence. I had to wonder why the builders chose this specific design, and whether it was an effort to deal with these changes on the little island. Just like the designers of the cemeteries nearby, their choices reflect Crete’s constantly changing position, as different groups gained power. In what we have seen so far, maintaining an identity in the midst of these shifts is a key goal of Crete’s rich array of culture.