Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:04:16.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bodies Transformed: Negotiations of Identity in Chalcolithic Cyprus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Kirsi O. Lorentz
Kirsi O. Lorentz*
Affiliation:
The Cyprus Institute, Cyprus
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper focuses on how the human body, and the dead body in particular, was used to create social categories and identities in prehistoric Cyprus. Specifically, it explores how a particular condition, such as death, was integrated into social processes, and how the treatment of dead bodies both created and reinforced social categories and identities. The material the paper focuses on is the mortuary evidence from Chalcolithic Cyprus (3800–2300 BC). In particular, it argues that the extensive, intentional manipulation of dead bodies and human remains visible in Cypriot Chalcolithic cemeteries was aimed at integrating the individual to communal, collective wholes on the occasion of death and during the time period that followed.

Cet article porte sur la façon dont le corps humain, et plus particulièrement le cadavre, était utilisé pour créer des catégories et identités sociales en Chypre préhistorique. Plus précisément, il examine comment une condition particulière comme la mort fût intégrée dans des processus sociaux, et comment le traitement des cadavres créait et renforçait en même temps des catégories et identités sociales. Les preuves matérielles sur lesquelles cet article se base sont les maisons mortuaires en Chypre chalcolithique. On soutient notamment que la manipulation extensive et intentionnelle des cadavres et restes humains comme on l'observe dans les cimetières du Chalcolithique chypriote, avait pour but d'intégrer l'individu à des ensembles communautaires et collectifs à l'occasion d'un décès et pendant la période consécutive. Translation by Isabelle Gerges.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

Dieser Beitrag untersucht, wie der menschliche Körper—und insbesondere der eines Verstorbenen—dazu genutzt wurde, soziale Kategorien und Identitäten im prähistorischen Zypern zu schaffen. Insbesondere betrachtet er, wie ein bestimmter Zustand, wie z. B. der Tod, in soziale Prozesse eingebettet war und wie die Behandlung des toten Körpers soziale Kategorien und Identitäten schuf und auch vertiefte. Das Ausgangsmaterial des Artikels umfasst menschliche Überreste des kupferzeitlichen Zypern. Insbesondere wird betont, dass die umfassende und intentionelle Manipulation des toten Körpers und menschlicher Überreste, die auf chalkolithischen Nekropolen Zyperns beobachtet werden können, darauf hinzielte, das Individuum anlässlich des Todes und der nachfolgenden Zeit in die kommunale, kollektive Gesamtheit einzubeziehen. Translation by Heiner Schwarzberg

Keywords

Archaeology of the bodysocial categoriessocial identitieshuman remainssecondary burialChalcolithicCyprusarchéologie du corpscatégories socialesidentités socialesrestes humainsinhumation secondaireChalcolithiqueChypreArchäologie des Körperssoziale Kategoriensoziale Identitätenmenschliche ÜberresteSekundärbestattungChalkolithikumZypern
Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 17 , Issue 2: Special Issue—Body Practices and Concepts in Later Prehistoric Europe , 2014 , pp. 229 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © European Association of Archaeologists 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agarwal, S.C. & Glencross, B.A. eds. 2011. Social Bioarchaeology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. 1988. Death and the Concept of a Person. In: Cederroth, C., Corlin, C. & Lindstrom, J., eds. On the Meaning of Death: Essays on Mortuary Rituals and Eschatological Beliefs. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, pp. 11–30.Google Scholar
Bolger, D. 1996. Figurines, Fertility, and the Emergence of Complex Society in Prehistoric Cyprus. Current Anthropology, 37: 365–73.Google Scholar
Bolger, D. 2002. Gender and Mortuary Ritual in Chalcolithic Cyprus. In: Bolger, D. & Serwint, N., eds. Engendering Aphrodite: Women and Society in Ancient Cyprus. Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute Monographs 3. Boston, Massachusetts: American Schools of Oriental Research, pp. 67–86.Google Scholar
Bolger, D. 2003. Gender in Ancient Cyprus: Narratives of Social Change on a Mediterranean Island. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
Bolger, D. 2012. A Companion to Gender Prehistory. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Borić, D. & Robb, J. eds. 2008. Past Bodies: Body-Centred Research in Archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, S. & Green, A. eds. 1995. The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Catling, H.W. 1979. The St Andrews-Liverpool Museums Kouklia Tomb Excavation 1950–1954. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 1979: 270–75.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. 2000. Fragmentation in Archaeology: People, Places and Broken Objects in the Prehistory of South-Eastern Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. 2010. ‘Deviant’ Burials in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Central and South Eastern Europe. In: Rebay-Salisbury, K., Sorensen, M.L.S. & Hughes, J., eds. Body Parts and Bodies Whole. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 30–45.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. & Gaydarska, B. 2007. Parts and Wholes. Fragmentation in Prehistoric Context. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Christensen, A. 2000. Childhood and the Cultural Constitution of Vulnerable Bodies. In: Prout, A., ed. The Body, Childhood and Society. London: MacMillan Press, pp. 38–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christou, D. 1989. The Chalcolithic Cemetery 1 at Souskiou-Vathyrkakas. In: Peltenburg, E., ed. Early Society in Cyprus. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 82–94.Google Scholar
Crewe, L., Lorentz, K., Peltenburg, E. & Spanou, S. 2005. Treatments of the Dead: Preliminary Report of Investigations at Souskiou-Laona Chalcolithic Cemetery, 2001–2004. Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, 2005: 41–67.Google Scholar
Dobres, M.-A. & Robb, J. eds. 2000. Agency in Archaeology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 1978. Archaeologie funeraire et anthroplogie. Cahiers d'Anthropologie, 1978 (1): 55–101.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 1981. Le place de l'anthropologie dans l'etude des sepultures anciennes. Cahiers d'Anthropologie, 1981 (1): 27–42.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 1987a. Contribution des observations osteologiques a la chronologie interne des sepultures collectives. In: Duday, H. & Masset, C., eds. Anthropologie Physique et Archaeologie. Paris: C.N.R.S., pp. 51–61.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 1987b. Organisation et fonctionnement d'une sepulture collective neolithique. L'aven de la Boucle a Corconne (Gard). In: Duday, H. & Masset, C., eds. Anthropologie Physique et Archaeologie. Paris: C.N.R.S., pp. 105–11.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 2006. L'archéothanatologie ou l'archéologie de la mort. In: Gowland, R. & Knüsel, C., eds. The Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 30–56.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 2010. The Archaeology of the Dead: Lectures in Archaeothanatology. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Duday, H., Courtaud, P., Crubezy, E., Sellier, P. & Tillier, A.-M. 1990. L'anthropologie de ‘terrain’: reconnaissance et interpretation des gestes funeraires. Bulletins et Memoires de la Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, 2 (3–4): 26–49.Google Scholar
Duday, H. & Masset, C. eds. 1987. Anthropologie Physique et Archaeologie. Paris: C.N.R.S.Google Scholar
Farnaby, H. 2008. A Preliminary Investigation into the Burial Practices of Chalcolithic Cyprus—A Case Study from the Cemetery Site of Souskiou-Laona (unpublished undergraduate dissertation, Newcastle University).Google Scholar
Fowler, C. 2004. The Archaeology of Personhood: An Anthropological Approach. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fox, S.C., Lunt, D.A. & Watt, M.E. 2003. Human Remains. In: Peltenburg, E., ed. Lemba Archaeological Project, Cyprus Vol. III.1: The Colonisation and Settlement of Cyprus. Investigations at Kissonerga-Mylouthkia, 1976–1996. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70 (4). Sävedalen: Paul Astroms Forlag, pp. 221–24.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Goring, E. 1992. Secondary treatment of prehistoric figurines: an example from Chalcolithic Cyprus. In: Ioannides, G.C., (ed.) Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis. Nicosia: Imprinta, pp. 37–40.Google Scholar
Gowland, R. & Knüsel, C. eds. 2006. The Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Y., Pluciennik, M. & Tarlow, S. eds. 2002. Thinking Through the Body: Archaeologies of Corporeality. London: Kluwer academic & Plenum Publishers.Google Scholar
Harper, Ν.Κ. & Fox, S.C. 2008. Recent Research in Cypriot Bioarchaeology. Bioarchaeology of the Near East, 2: 1–38.Google Scholar
Hertz, R. 1960[1907]. A Contribution to the Study of Collective Representation of Death. In: Death and the Right Hand. Trans. Needham, R. & Needham, C. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, pp. 27–86, 117–54.Google Scholar
Joyce, R. 2005. Archaeology of the Body. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34: 139–58.Google Scholar
Joyce, R. 2008. Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives. Sex, Gender, and Archaeology. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Kansa, S. & Campbell, S. 2004. Feasting with the Dead? A Ritual Bone Deposit at Domuztepe, South Eastern Turkey (c. 5550 cal BC). In: O'Day, S.J., Van Neer, W. & Ervynck, A., eds. Behaviour Behind Bones: The Zooarchaeology of Ritual, Religion, Status and Identity. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 2–13.Google Scholar
Keswani, P. 2004. Mortuary Ritual and Society in Bronze Age Cyprus. London: Equinox Publishing.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.B. 1993. Social Complexity: Incipience, Emergence, and Development on Prehistoric Cyprus. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 292: 85–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knapp, A.B. 2008. Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus: Identity, Insularity, and Connectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knapp, A.B., Held, S. & Manning, S. 1994. The Prehistory of Cyprus: Problems and Prospects. Journal of World Prehistory, 8: 377–453.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.B. & Meskell, L. 1997. Bodies of Evidence on Prehistoric Cyprus. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 7 (2): 183–204.Google Scholar
Laqueur, T. 1999. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lorentz, K.O. 2004. Age and Gender in Eastern Mediterranean Prehistory: Depictions, Burials and Skeletal Evidence. Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift, 45 (2–3): 297–315.Google Scholar
Lorentz, K.O. 2006. Headshaping at Marki and its Socio-cultural Significance. In: Frankel, D. & Webb, J.M., eds. Marki Alonia. An Early and Middle Bronze Age Settlement in Cyprus. Excavations 1995–2000. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 123 (2). Sävedalen: Åström Editions, pp. 297–303.Google Scholar
Lorentz, K.O. 2011. Cyprus. In: Marquez Grant, N. & Fibiger, L., eds. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeological Human Remains and Legislation: An International Guide to Laws and Practice in the Excavation and Treatment of Archaeological Human Remains. New York: Routledge, pp. 99–112.Google Scholar
Lunt, D.A. 1995. Lemba-Lakkous and Kissonerga-Mosphilia: Evidence from the Dentition in Chalcolithic Cyprus. In: Campbell, S., ed. The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East. London: Oxbow Books, pp. 56–61.Google Scholar
Lunt, D.A., Parras, Z. & Watt, M.E. 2006. The Mortuary Population. In: Peltenburg, E., ed. The Chalcolithic Cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, Cyprus. Results of the Investigations of Four Missions, from 1950 to 1997. Nicosia: Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, pp. 45–66.Google Scholar
Lunt, D.A. & Watt, M.E. 1998. The Human Dentitions. In: Peltenburg, E., ed. Lemba Archaeological Project Vol. II.1A: Excavations at Kissonerga-Mosphilia 1979–1992. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70 (2). Jonsered: P. Åströms Förlag, pp. 73–82.Google Scholar
Malacrida, C. & Low, J. eds. 2008. Sociology of the Body. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Malone, C., Bonanno, A., Gouder, T., Stoddart, S. & Trump, D. 1993. The Death Cults of Prehistoric Malta. Scientific American, 269 (6): 110–17.Google Scholar
Malone, C., Stoddart, S., Trump, D., Bonanno, A., Gouder, T. & Pace, A. eds. 2009. Mortuary Ritual in Prehistoric Malta. The Brochtorff Circle Excavations (1987–1994). Cambridge: McDonald Institute.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. 1934. Les Techniques du corps. Journal de Psychologie, 32: 3–4.Google Scholar
Mina, M. 2012. I meleti tou somatos os meso analysis tis koinonikis tautotitas sti Chalkolithiki kai Protokypriaki Kypro. Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, 2010: 95–111.Google Scholar
Moore, J. & Scott, E. eds. 1997. Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology. London: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Niklasson, K. 1991. Early Prehistoric Burials in Cyprus. Goteborg: Paul Astroms Forlag.Google Scholar
Peltenburg, E. 1985. Lemba Archaeological project I. Excavations at Lemba-Lakkous 1976–1983. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70 (1). Göteborg: Paul Åströms förlag.Google Scholar
Peltenburg, E. 1991. Lemba Archaeological project II.2 A Ceremonial Area at Kissonerga. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70.3. Goteborg: Paul Astroms Forlag.Google Scholar
Peltenburg, E. 1998. Lemba Archaeological Project (Cyprus) II.IA: Excavations at Kissonerga-Mosphilia, 1979–1992. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 70 (2). Göteborg: Paul Åströms förlag.Google Scholar
Peltenburg, E. ed. 2006. The Chalcolithic Cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, Cyprus. Results of the Investigations of Four Missions, from 1950 to 1997. Nicosia: Department of Antiquities.Google Scholar
Peltenburg, E. 2011. The Prehistoric Centre of Souskiou in Southwest Cyprus. In: Demetriou, A., ed. Praktika tou Δ’ diethnous kyprologikou synedriou. Nicosia: The Leventis Foundation, pp. 681–89.Google Scholar
Peltenburg, E., Bolger, D., Kincey, M., McCarthy, A., McCartney, C. & Sewell, D.A. 2006. Investigations at Souskiou-Laona Settlement, Dhiarizos Valley, 2005. Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, 2006: 77–104.Google Scholar
Place, B. 2000. Constructing the Bodies of Critically Ill Children: An Ethnography of Intensive Care. In: Prout, A., ed. The Body, Childhood and Society. London: MacMillan Press.Google Scholar
Prout, A., ed. 2000. The Body, Childhood and Society. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Rautman, A.E. ed. 2000. Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the Archaeological Record. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Rebay-Salisbury, K. 2010. Cremations: Fragmented Bodies in the Bronze and Iron Ages. In: Rebay-Salisbury, K., Sorensen, M.L.S. & Hughes, J., eds. Body Parts and Bodies Whole. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 64–71.Google Scholar
Rebay-Salisbury, K., Sørensen, M.L.S. & Hughes, J. eds. 2010. Body Parts and Bodies Whole. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Schirmer, W. 1998. Havara on Cyprus: A Surficial Calcareous Deposit. Eiszeitalter und Gegenwart, 48: 110–17.Google Scholar
Skeates, R. 2010. An Archaeology of the Senses: Prehistoric Malta. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sofaer, J. 2006. The Body as Material Culture: A Theoretical Osteoarchaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sørensen, M.L.S. 2000. Gender Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Steel, L. 2004. Cyprus before History. From the Earliest Settlers to the End of the Bronze Age. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Strathern, M. 1988. Gender of the gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. California: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Talalay, L. & Cullen, T. 2002. Sexual Ambiguity in Early-Middle Cypriot Plank Figures. In: Bolger, D. & Serwint, N., eds. Engendering Aphrodite: Women and Society in Ancient Cyprus. Cyprus American Arhaeological Research Institute Monographs 3. Boston, Massachusetts: American Schools of Oriental Research, pp. 181–95.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. 2001. Death, Identity and the Body in Neolithic Britain. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 6: 653–68.Google Scholar
Toumazou, M. 1987. Aspects of Burial Practices in Early Prehistoric Cypriote Sites, c. 7,000–2,500/2,300 B.C. (, Bryn Mawr College, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor).Google Scholar
Vagnetti, L. 1980. Figurines and Minor Objects from a Chalcolithic Cemetery at Souskiou-Vathyrkakas (Cyprus). Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, 21: 17–72.Google Scholar
Webb, J. & Frankel, D. 1999. Characterizing the Philia Facies: Material Culture, Chronology, and the Origin of the Bronze Age in Cyprus. American Journal of Archaeology, 103: 3–43.Google Scholar