Three - Stone Poets

Summary

Chapter 3 explores the relationship of material and immaterial embodiments of animals in the Bronze Age Aegean, through the lion. Since populations of living lions were not present on Crete, representational embodiments were the basis of people’s physical encounters with the species; hence the peculiarities of these “object-bodies” powerfully contributed to the characterization of the beast. The vast majority of Cretan lion representations occurred in glyptic. Seals (as worn objects) and impressions (as material signifiers of identity) consistently placed the leonine in direct relation to the human, through bodily and sociocultural juxtapositions. Cretans also would have encountered lions in immaterial manifestations, through oral culture. Early Aegean poetic traditions formulated a paralleling of human and lion through similes that was remarkably similar to the paralleling juxtaposition generated between a lion-seal and person. In MBA III–LBA II, after centuries of development in Crete, the lion’s association with glyptic extended to the early Mycenaean mainland. This moment saw intense intra-Aegean exchange, with material, practical and linguistic dimensions. The epic tradition was taking form, including lion similes. Through its various embodiments, the lion was caught up in this interaction, as its Aegean juxtaposition with humans fluidly continued and developed.