In practice, archaeologists and historians grapple with two different groups of past peoples: those under study and prior researchers. Understanding the latter’s interests, aims and character are important for contextualizing their work, and Festschriften can contribute such valuable insights, especially for scholars who, as in this case like myself, never had the privilege of meeting the person to whom it is dedicated.
A handsome portrait of Ellen Davis in the field and a short biography in the preface are accompanied by a useful bibliography of her work, which serves as a reminder in this publication-orientated age that quality, not quantity, is more likely to secure a lasting impact; it provides an overview of her interests: gold and silverware, frescoes, nature, representations of age, the lack of ruler imagery and the dating of the Thera eruption. Perhaps mercifully, given the heated nature of the ongoing chronology debate, this last is not touched upon. Throughout, various contributors hint at further ideas that Davis discussed, but never put into print.
The first four chapters relate to Davis’ interest in metals, their sources and, of course, her seminal work on gold and silver vessels. Judith Weingarten builds directly upon the latter, resolving a dating issue concerning the well-known silver lobed kantharos from Gournia that had vexed Davis, and affirming Davis’ recognition of its unique status in the Aegean corpus and probable ritual connotations. Malcolm Wiener also returns to Davis’ work on metal vessels, in particular her argument that two separate craftspeople, a ‘Minoan’ and a ‘Mycenaean’, were responsible for the two famous gold Vapheio cups with scenes of bull-hunting. Although acknowledging that this attribution is problematic, Wiener is still sufficiently persuaded to use them to explore what he considers a long-standing cultural relationship between host and guest present throughout the Mycenaean period. This necessarily brief but wide-ranging treatment will hopefully be expanded upon in future. Günter Kopcke challenges Davis’ ideas about a metal shortage on Crete. While agreeing with Davis that the Carpathians were a probable gold source, his counterarguments clearly highlight the pitfalls encountered when taking the archaeological record at face value, especially for metals. Philip Betancourt, Susan Ferrence and James Muhly round off this section by publishing Early Minoan metal finds from Petras which they argue demonstrate that the type of strong links between Crete and more northerly locations, as identified by Davis, were also present earlier; however, their evidence goes no further than previous observations that Crete shared certain elements of material culture that were distributed across much of southeastern Europe, probably mediated via the Cyclades.
The following five chapters are oriented towards Davis’ interest in iconography. Christos Doumas employs the full spectrum of Cycladic art to discuss past perception of the human condition, in particular noting the essentially human side to their deities. Andreas Vlachopoulos discusses the use of colour in Aegean frescoes, a subject of apparent interest to Davis, revealing how optical illusions were produced by combining colour with shape, and emphasizing the importance of purple in the palette. Elizabeth Shank investigates the depiction of water in miniature frescoes, a hitherto neglected subject. She identifies six different methods, using colour, pattern and even three-dimensional manipulation of the plaster to create a feeling of movement and communicate transparency. Bernice Jones applies Davis’ style of meticulous first-hand observations to examine the faïence ‘snake goddess’ figurines from the Knossian Temple Repositories. Disentangling Arthur Evans’ reconstructions from the originals enables her to advance a new interpretation of their appearance and meaning. Robert Koehl returns to a favourite subject for both Davis and himself: age-related rituals. Using microscopical analysis to gather high-quality data on the details of glyptic images, he argues for a clear distinction of age grades and the integration of homoerotic elements into initiation practices.
The volume finishes with a very original contribution by Thomas Palaima, who reconsiders Davis’ observations concerning the ‘missing ruler’ in Minoan and Mycenaean iconography by turning to evidence from the Linear Band archaeological records.
The book is well presented, with an easy-to-read layout incorporating many images, including colour, vital for the subject matter. Astated aim of this volume was to appeal to scholars beyond the Bronze Age Aegean. Given the specialist and varied nature of the subjects treated, this is difficult to achieve, but some overarching themes may attract a wider readership. That most contributors seek not only to extend but also challenge Davis’ ideas and methodology is a welcome approach. This book’s value lies in providing exemplars that combine archaeology and art history in modern scholarship, thus inspiring others to follow in Ellen Davis’ pioneering footsteps.
