Tomb cult and the ‘Greek renaissance’; the past in the present in the 8th century BC IAN MoRRIS* Greek society was changing rapidly in the 8th century BC. The archaeological record reveals population growth, increasing _ political complexity, artistic experiments and a strong interest in the past. Because these processes resemble those at work in early modern Italy, the period has often been referred to as the ‘Greek renaissance’ (e.g. Ure 1922; Hagg 198: cf. Burke 1986). This paper is about the glorifi- cation of the past in the 8th century, and its relationship to the rise of the polis, the Greek city state. I concentrate on one particular phenomenon, the spread of cults at tombs dating to the Mycenaean period (c. 1600-1200 BC). I argue that the common renaissance analogy has limited value, and that the 8th- century Greeks created a past narrowly focussed on the persons of powerful ancient beings, from whom they could draw authority in the social upheavals which came about as the loose, aristocratic societies of the ‘Dark Age’ (c. 1200-750 BC) were challenged. Tomb cults go back at least to 950 BC, but after 750 they were redefined and used as a source of power in new ways. I have adapted my subtitle from Maurice Bloch’s well-known paper ‘The past and the present in the present’ (1977), where he argues that rituals bring the past into the present to form a system of cognition mystifying nature and preserving the social order. The argument here is slightly different. 1 stress the variety of the cults and the range of meanings they must have had, making their recipients highly ambiguous figures. The same cults could simul- taneously evoke the new, relatively egalitarian ideology of the polis and the older ideals of heroic aristocrats who protected the grateful * Department of History, The University of Chicago, 1126 E Anmigurry 62 (1988); 790-61 and defenceless lower orders, while standing far above them. Bloch’s paper borrowed Mali. nowski’s idea of culture as a ‘long conversa- tion’; developing the analogy, | look at the multiple meanings which any statement in such a conversation may have for the different actors, ‘The generation of iron Hesiod, active probably in the early 7th century, begins his account of his own days with the words: ‘Would that I did not live in this fifth generation, but had either died before it or been born afterwards! This is now truly a generation of iron; for men never stop toiling and wailing by day, and perishing by night. The gods will give them sore troubles’ (Works and days Il. 174-8). In his subtle myth of the sequence of the generations of man Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron — the story is by no meansone of steady decline, but the age of Iron is definitely the nadir, It is not hard to see why such a myth is heard from. The Dark Age Greeks lived in a countty- side dotted with monuments of a lost past. Ruined Mycenaean tombs and fortifications, built in a ‘Cyclopean’ style far beyond the technology of the 11th to 9th centuries, were everywhere to be seen. Sometimes the men 0! ron Age even built their crude mud-brick huts within the shells of burned-out palaces: The psychological impact of all this can onlY be guessed at. A sense of loss and decline is * common theme in ancient literature, and must have been very acute in the Dark AS" Judging from the material record alone, thous’ Greeks took relatively little interest in their P th Street, Cl 1g0 IL, 60637, USA.seg: and even then, only one aspect Uieatt Toor cly — the figure of tho hero, gated ty had existed throughout the io ROC jround this time Homer's Hliad st Odyssey were written down, then, Meir stories of the long-past Trojan jst efirst narrative art since Mycenaean ind the vd on a small group of Athenian es af Lime scenes which probably evoked a 9s, with rdgrass 19802; 1980b: 65-78; 1987 1 nD, Hesiod's Theogony and Works eae ared, with their elaborate myths ae ‘of the gods, spirits, men and and athe or roic’ art had developed to the point be can identify specific legends, some: are we © sete Yomeric, in the scenes. Meanwhile, wor- fins Mcenaean tombs had spread across a f ce. many parts of Greece S, al oy Mycenae ens . olympia ° Tegea Papoulia afi [=~ Volmidiae =Koukounaras FIMESSENIAY SS Nichoria Koukgi Sparta ‘TOMB CULT AND THE ‘GREEK RENAISSANCE” : DBAS ser Eo Asing, cmd ‘The analogies with other 'renaissances’ in the historical literaure break down when we look closely at the &th-century interest in the past. It was not Mycenaean civilization or culture which was attractive and useful; it was the Mycenaeans themselves, in the present. Theit tombs were nodes of power, narrow openings through which the &th-century Greeks could reach out and touch these great men, drawing. on their authority. It was the body of the hero, incorporated into the world here and now and preserved in his moment of glory in poetry, painting or burial which fascinated. For instance, in the 8th-century village of Kou- kounaries on Paros (FIGURE 1), the inhabitants worshipped a buried Mycenaean, but at the same time they re-used the ruins of his burned. mansion as foundations for their own houses, Figure 1. Sites mentioned in the text.IAN MORRIS 752 and his fortifications as terraces when their hamlet spread down the hillside. The antiquity of these remains cannot have escaped them — they chose to place their sanctuary of Athena and Apollo on top of a probable ritual area of the 42th century (Schilardi 1986) — but it did not excite them. The &th-century obsession with the past could be more fruitfully compared to the late antique cults of the than to the Italian renaissance. The tombs of the saints, just like those of the Mycenaeans, acted as nodes of power ina period of rapid social change (Brown 1981). The polis emerged in the 8th century. It was unique among ancient states in the extent to which its citizen body actually was the state. The division into rulers and ruled so typical of pre-modern states was vigorously combated within a social structure where power was devolved through the entire citizen body (Finley 1983; Morris 1987: 1-10; Farrar 1988 1-14). The polis was an important exception to Champion et al.'s claim (1984: 266) that in early Iron Age Europe ‘the state w a means of increasing and perpetuating aristocratic control over society’. The rise of the polis came about through the collapse of the more aristocratic Dark Age societies, and the conflicts of this period were partly played out in the rituals which created the material record (Morris 1987: 183-96). The tomb cults must be considered within this context. LaBarre (1971) has shown how important ‘crisis cults’ — rituals which help to ‘explain’ sudden and profound social changes — are for our understanding of state formation. The Greek tomb cults are a particularly interesting example. The literary sources allow us to create a rich background, revealing ambiguities and tensions generally lost in the archaeological record. They also show the importance of look- ing at any process, even such a familiar one as secondary state formation, in its own historical context. The rise of the polis can be studied at one level with a model of ‘peer polity interac- tion’ (Renfrew & Cherry 1986), but without analysing the actors’ confrontations with their own histories and the symbols through which the past was brought into the present, our understanding of this period would be impover- ished (cf. Hodder 1986; 1987). After describing the cults, I disc were used to evoke the authority uss ways they of the men of the past. We cannot reduce the cults to message, but they do provide evidence mene ideological turmoil and conflict which rounded the rise of the polis and the triumph op the citizen ideal. Heroic cults As Coldstream says, ‘Greek hero-worship has always been a rather untidy subject, where any general statement is apt to provoke suspicion’ (1976: 8). Even deciding what to describe as hero cult is difficult. The first definite cases belong to the 5th century: a sherd from Grave Circle A at Mycenae, inscribed ‘I belong to the hero’ (Jeffery 1961: 174, no. 6), and a boundary stone by a triangular shrine at Athens, marked ‘of the hero’ (Thompson 1968: 58, associated not with a Bronze Age tomb but with gth- century graves). In later Greek literature, the word heros applied toa dead man who received worship, and it is widely assumed that the same was true earlier. The assumption is logical since heros was used by Homer to describe Achilles, Ajax and the others at Troy, who, according to the most popular ancient chrono- logy, should have lived and died in the period to which modern scholars date the Mycenaean tombs. : ‘Hero cult’ can also describe other classes of site. Several sanctuaries to Homeric heroes have been found, without any traces of a tomb; and Greeks applied heros to a third group of men, those who had died in recent times and who ived worship. These were usually the foun- ders of cities, outstanding warriors or great athletes. Malkin (1987) has argued that hero cull began with the worship of founders; but while the recent dead cannot be separated entirely from the occupants of Mycenaean tombs or Homeric heroes, there were some very signif cant differences. All three typi | but became much more common in the late century. Since very few sites have f\. published in detail, no serious quantitall! analysis is possible. The most detailed — rical studies are by Haigg (1987), who compas the range of votives from the tomb oe Prosymna near Argos and Menidi neat AN, and from the sanctuary of Agamemnety Mycenae, observing regional variation 2° general similarity of the heroic a those in local sanctuaries of theee TOMB-CULT AND THE iby (1988), who argued that the cut al ve hd differont functions at Athons ae es only pre-bth-century cultat a Mycenaean jurial began around 950, when Koukounaries iniparos was teocenpied after being abandoned {100 (Schilardi 1975: 82; 1976: 289). This cult © jsinacave rather than at a built tomb, and the Morshippers may not even have known that the hurial was there. The possibility that the cult tras aimed at the cave itself was reinforced by the discovery in 1988 of a second cave, also containing Iron Age pottery. ‘The offerings are poor in the cults at Mycenaean tombs, and metal is very rare. Vases were sometimes put on the floor of the burial chamber, but in most cases the roof had collap sed before rituals began, leaving a distinctive hollow. The objects were placed on top of the debris. In a few cases there are marks of fire and feastin The scale of offerings varies enormously, from one vase up to several hundreds, and in some cases the finds span long periods of time In TABLE 1, the sites are divided into ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ cults. The ‘weak’ class comprises those tombs which contained only a handful of pots, but the vagueness of the reports means that the distinction cannot be very precise, Some of the post-Mycenaean material in the ‘weak’ cults may even be intrusive, as in most of the tombs at Volimidia (Coulson 1988: 73-4); while other examples may have been to propitiate the dead when an earlier grave was accidentally dis- turbed. This seems to be the case with one burial at Eleusis (Mylonas 1975: I, 94-7). The cults of the famous Homeric heroes tend ‘obe longer-lived, and most have monumental architecture. The earl r evidence for such @ cult is from a sanctuary and smaller enelaos and Helen at Sparta, identi fied by a bronze of 7th-century shape Haviibed ‘Deinis dedicated these objects to len wife of Menelaos’ (Catling 1975/6: 14). distinnt 80 other sites perhaps blur the ction between anonymous tomb cults and ieee cults of heroes, not focussed on a (ig7qi7 ,(0mbs have been found, but Catling thought assests that the Spartans may have eee the two knolls the deposits were on are a Mesalace and Helen. A shrine to the mn eeBinning about 700 may have be * Homeric hero Phrontis (Picard om 1940; Abramson 1979). We have no tomb, but in the Odyssey (3.2845) Menelaos buried Phron- tis here, and that may have been enough. Both these cases could perhaps be treated as tomb cults. Herrmann (1962) suggested that Olympia, where metal finds go back to the 10th century, was originally a hero cult at a Middle Bronze Age mound thought to be the tomb of Pelops. This would have claims to more than purely local significance, especially as the 10th- century figurines are mainly from Argos (Heil- meyer 1979); however, it remains more likely that it was a sanctuary of Zeus from the start (Morgan 1986: 115. 31). Dedications began in Polis cave on Ithaca around 800 BC, and an inscription of around 100 BC names the site as a sanctuary of the Homeric hero Odysseus; how- ever, it might not have had this réle in its earliest years, and a 7th-century inscription, said to come from the cave, names Athena and Hera. The cave did contain Mycenaean burials but as at Koukounaries we cannot be sure that the worshippers were even aware of this (Benton 1934/5: 52-6). But at least two cults seem to be independent ofany tomb. A shrine of the local hero Academeus existed at Athens by 900, but there are few details (Stavropoullos 1958: 9), and a sanctuary was set up for Agamemnon near Mycenae around 700 BC. In Roman times, Agamemnon’s tomb was said to be the equivalent of about 1 km away (Pausanias 2.16.6). The excavator suggested that the shrine marked where Agamemnon was supposedly murdered (Cook 1953: 113), and Snodgrass (1982: 112) put forward the alternative that it was deliberately placed at a Mycenaean bridge, although that would be unique. The earliest known cults are those of the recently dead. The first possible occurrence is at Lefkandi, around 1000-950 BC, where a rich double burial and four sacrificed horses were found under the largest Dark Age building yet known. Shortly after the funeral, this was con- verted into a huge tumulus (Popham et al. 1982). Details of the cult are unclear, but a rich cemetery, used until about 825, sprang up outside what had been the entrance to. the building, There has been some scepticism about the excavators’ interpretation of the site (de Polignac 1984: 92, n. 146; Mazarakis Ainian 1985: 8), but another 10th-century hero has been identified on Naxos, where one or more quite recent burials were honoured. This cult "GREEK RENAISSANCE?IAN MORRIS 754 continued into the 6th century BC, wana the shrine was covered with a mound whic! en respected for a millennium (Lambrinouda a Zapheiropoulou 1983; 1984; 1985). In us P century the recently dead could be wors! ipped in the cemetery, as at Asine (Hagg 1983b), an some became strong symbols of the polis, with a grave either by a city gate or in the assembly place. Some were given monumental tombs, and others had ritual dining rooms. Such heroes proliferated in later times, and very many minor cults are known from excavations and the literary sources. These generally had their own rituals which were kept separate from those of the Olympians (Farnell 1921; Nock 1944). No more heroes ? Classical tomb and hero cults were explained by Fustel de Coulanges (1864) and Rohde (1890: chapter 4) as faded survivals of primeval Indo- European institutions; the first scholar to emphasize the 8th century was Farnell (1921: 340), who suggested that Homer stimulated the interest in the heroes. Little archaeological evidence was then available, and the case has since been presented more forcefully by Coldstream (1976). He argued that Homer drew attention to the heroic age, and in areas of Greece where the Mycenaean practice of multi- ple burial had disappeared, 8th-century Greeks were so awed by these tombs that they wor- shipped them. In other places, where Greeks claimed lineal descent from the heroes, there had been cults even before Homer; and in places like Athens, where both conditions applied, hero cults were especially strong. But did Homer cause, rather than being a part of, the desire to get in touch with the heroes? Hadzisteliou-Price (1973) showed that Homer was already aware of the power of tombs, but since the earliest known cults go back at least to 950, and the poems do not actually refer to worship at the tombs, this is not a decisive flaw in Coldstream’s model. However, Snodgrass has raised more serious objections on three grounds. First, art-historical. While Athenian figured vases of the late 8th century seem to evoke the heroic period, it is striking that none of the scenes comes from Homer. In fact, we have to wait until well into the 7th century before we can identify any specific mythical episode with confidence. If the painters were influenced by epic at all, it was not Homer's (Sn . Second, archaeological. Almost | exception, Homer's heroes cremated then % putting the ashes in urns under mowed, Mycenaean tombs which hosted ath ae cults were nearly all inhumations, g suggests that this contrast ‘positive familiarity with Homer ~ or, at least, tion of the object of the cult with a hero” (1987: 161). Third, philological. The argument here is» once more complex and more important, The word heros was used in two ways in Greeh literature. In epic, it describes a living tan usually a warrior, with no special afterlife, Ih later writers, it refers to someone already dead often but by no means always from the leg endary past, who is now worshipped at his tomb. The warrior-hero is attested first, but this may merely be a function of changes in literary genre. West (1978: 370-3) identifies not chronological but a geographical division in meanings, with the warrior-hero dominant in Ionia, probably the main place where Dark Age epic poetry developed, and the cult-hero on the mainland, where the tomb cults are found. Nagy (1979: 114-17) adds that the cult-heroes were local figures, while the warrior-heroes were famous throughout Greece. Both scholars agree that the two senses of heros began to merge around 700 BC, and de Polignac (1984: 130) has argued that the panhellenic heroes were intruders at older shrines of local heroes. Snodgrass builds on this, suggesting not only that the beings worshipped at tombs did not belong to Homer’s list of heroes, but that at they may not even have been called heroes at® (1987: 164). When Homer refers to tombs, e calls the occupants ‘demigods’ (hemitheo! while Hesiod describes a Silver race of destroyed by Zeus, who ‘are called sa spirits under the ground (hypochthonia!) i mortals, and though they came second hen’) is due to them also’ (Works and days 1 The Silver race is distinct from the Heroes: are not said to receive honours ate) op deaths, but went straight to Hades or the) ‘The the Blessed (Works and days 166-73) in importance of this problem will link eve Y excludes identificg Homeric the next section, Is it misguided to attempt to from Homer, Hesiod and excav: pattern? I do not think so, butTOMB CULT AND THE _ since there is. a respected tradi- on si which emphasizes the incon- do Of feofearly Greek thought, even claiming sslenetipd’s stories ofthe five generations and ihatHesi ous and Pandora are a ‘jumble of us myths’ (Lovejoy & Boas 1935: 24; incon Dodds 1970: 50-9; Fonte 1974). a this underestimates the subtlety of early But [poetic thought. As Vernant comments, ‘I Cro fediliculties in the decipherment of the theo Hesiod] the reason will lie in a lack of tMrertanding in the reader rather than in miteadictions or carelessness on the part of the eithor (1983: 64). Vernant’s own attempt to see jar Dumézil’s model of three levels of Indo. Furopean society ~ kings, warriors and labour ps was not very successful, but working in ery different ways, Rudhardt (1981) and Quer- ach (1985/6) have shown how the various myths do work together to produce a consistent story explaining how the world came to be the ‘way it was, without reducing the Works and days and Theogony to nonsense or a garbled diffusion from the Near East Asecond objection might be that Hom said fo have come from Ionia and Hesiod from was: Boeotia, and so their poems cannot be expected tofit together, and certainly not to fit with tomb cults at Athens or Argos. This is also based on a naive reading of the texts. Homer and Hesiod were above all poets relevant to the whole of Greece, creating works suitable for all states but Specific to none, in spite of the elaborate textual mythology of Homer ‘the blind man, who dwells on rocky Chios’ (Hymn to. Pythian Apollo 172), or of Hesiod the shepherd son of an emigrant from fonia, learning from the Muses: while tending his flocks on Mount Helicon Hesiod’ is as muc a poetic sel-eflacing ‘Homer’, playing with the persona ofthe singer and passing easily in and out of his, tole. ‘Homer’ and ‘Hesiod’ were probably stock tiles which the pod seit songs, in much the same way that they a later with Theognis and Anacreon; ‘pouls very name has the suspicious meaning 1985; ae the voice’ (see Nagy 1980; 198: Hogiontberton 1988). There certainly were Count differences, and the poems were of Dlacoy, att as texts by real people in specific wore hort thei languages and their messaxe thought ppeanhellenic, part of a system of rom which we cannot arbitrarily device as the s could step into to create “GREEK RENAISSANCE? exclude the tomb cults as being ‘archaeological’ rather than ‘literary’. One final point. Since Hume's Natural his- tory of religion appeared in the 1750s, it has been normal for historians to divide religious beliefs into unhelpful categories of ‘élite’ and ‘popular’, the latter having great inertia and only dimly reflecting a debased image of the former (Brown 1981; 13 22). A chthonic tomb cult might be separated from the ‘superior’ religion of the poets, and again not directly ted to its categories. But this is a non- problem. The poets make it clear that Olympians, heroes and underworld spirits were all tied together, even by the literate minority. Heroes were to become an integral part of official state religion; the 8th-century develop- ments in tomb cult were closely linked to changes in the worship of the gods (de Polignac 1984); and, most interestingly, when the peopl of Argos built a temple to Hera around 700, they deliberately constructed its supporting terra wall in imitation of Mycenaean ‘Cyclopean’ rchitecture (Wright 1982), as if the easy access: which the tombs gave to the past could by this tactic be transferred to the gods Snod is strong. We cannot assume that hearing Homer's epics inspired people to begin tomb cults, since they may have associated the occupants of the tombs not with the heroes of the Trojan war, but with the still more dist to interpret this strikin, rass’ argument nt Silver race, So how are we cchaeological pattern? The rise of tomb cults FIGURE 2 shows the enormous increase in tomb cults in the 8th century. Snodgrass has argued that population growth caused much new land to be taken into cultivatiot ind that starting a cult at a local tomb helped the new commu nities to establish their claims to the soil. He also pointed out that tomb cults occur only in those parts of Greece where the polis ideology triumphed, and suggested that the cults func- tioned to buttress the rights of a free citizen peasantry (1980b: 34-7; 1982). As we have seen, though, the various types of cult had long histories, and they may have worked in more plex ways. Whitley (1988) has attacked the intry’ theory, drawing attention to the s between Athenian and Argive tomb interprets the Athenian cults not as ‘ement by new settlers in an empty cults. He. self-advertTAN MORRIS 756 40 35 30) Number of tomb cults ny 8 10 10th 9th ~~ Bth Century ac 7th 6th Ficur: 2. Number of ‘strong’ archaeologically- known tomb cults, countryside, but as the reaction of long- established communities to the threatening infilling of the landscape. The Argive tomb cults, concentrated at Prosymna, Mycenae and Argos itself, he sees as ‘a political act, if not directed at least encouraged by the state” (1988: 9), by which the Argives asserted a claim to dominate their weaker neighbours, Whitley draws attention to an important pat- tern, which deserves fuller discussion. FIGURE 3 shows the distribution of tomb cults against a ‘map of dialects of the classical Greek language, It was probably already believed in the 8th. century that the speakers of the Doric dialect — had only entered the Greek peninsula in ‘Dorian invasion’ during a period of chaog the Trojan war (Hooker (1976: 213-22) eo, the sources). Doric speakers did not consida, themselves to be descended from the Here, and possibly not from any ofthe other past rar, in the poems; yet the cults ignore the linguist. map. Tomb cults can hardly have meant the same thing to Dorian Greeks as to Athenians or Arcadians, who professed always to have ocey, pied the same land. By the 7th century the Athenians were claiming to be the oldest of the Ionians, the original inhabitants of Greece (Solon fragment 28). In spite of a strongly-held belief that they were not related to the ancient Ionian Heroes, the Spartans — the Dorians par excellence — insisted that their discovery of the bones of the non-Dorian hero Orestes had given them the power to win a war against Tegea around 550 BC (Herodotus 1.68). The most acute regional problem is in Messe- nia, The Doric-speaking Messenians were con- quered by the Spartans in two wars in the 8th and 7th centuries, and reduced to a serf-like status. There were 8th-century tomb cults at Volimidia, Koukounara and Nichoria, which soon died out, as we might expect if they were simply an expression of the Messenians’ now extinct claims to the land; but during the neti of Spartan domination, down to 371 BC, bran Fi new cults began at Papoulia, Nichoria, and possibly Dafni and Vathirema. Coulson & Wilkie plausibly suggest, ‘Perhaps this was 8 way of perpetuating local traditions in the : : of Spartan occupation’ (1983: 333). It is cleat that the functions of the Messenian cults as have changed radically between the sth century and the 4th; and it is also clear that they et have meant very different things to the a nian serfs and the Spartan overlords, who Cov oppose, ignore or reinterpret them in theif © favour. - The possibility of debate over ee within communities is at least as imperil.) variations between communities. Bérard ( ie and de Polignac (1984: 127-51) emphasize plurality of meanings in cults of the ly com dead. After 700, such cults were typically o. sidered to stand for the polis as a whole, U4 rich and poor as a community; yet the mare became a hero would normally have living in the polis, themselves powe In some Greek colonies, the‘TOMB CULT AND THE ‘GREEK RENAISSANCE? 787 artic Aeolic Thessalian/ Boeotian MY Doric j Arcadian North-West Greek © Hero/tomb cults ca Sven became a royal dynasty. In wor- “iitping the hero, then, the citizens of the polis mgianeeusly bonded together their com- the fran $2¥2 implicit semi-divine status to makina eas of some ofthe own aristocrats In Ta eihe tomb a source of power, they created mgr i8ed sword, which could ust the com- ly a5 well as protect it ime sort of ambiguity applies to cults al i tombs. Many noble families traced io eedigtees back to the heroic age and even fods. While tomb cults may well have Figure 3. Dialect regions and tomb cults. cemented the community, they could also act as a proclamation of the superiority of these privi- d beings. Herman (1987) has shown how such a ‘heroic’ aristocracy, antagonistic to polis ideals, survived throughout the history of the city state; the hero cult could well have been one of their main claims to legitimacy, as it apparently was for the Spartan kings (Cartledge 1987: 331-43; 1988). Homer's heroes were in some ways ambiguous, but the epic did justify aristocratic powers in the face of the rising polis (Morris 1986). The o of the MycenaeanIAN MORRIS. 758 tombs, if they were indeed seen as Dee ee the Trojan war petlod, Wort vmbols for the ciphers for the past, but vibrant symDo's i the present. Geen. suggestion that the aa ie reached out not to the Heroic race but to " s Silver generation may be important me Hesiod here, although the crucial passages in Hos are complex. Hesiod’s account of the Silver beings makes them sound distinctly non- human (Works and days 121-39), and they a probably the creation of Kronos, not Zeus. If, most classicists argue, lines 174-5 of the poem are later insertions, then no god is said to have destroyed the race of Heroes or created the Iron generation. Rudhardt (1981: 250-9) argues from this that the Iron race grew directly out of th Heroes, while the Silver and Gold races are utterly alien, homogeneous and distant groups Vernant (1983: 10-12) argued the opposite, that Hesiod identified the Gold and Silver races with the nobles of his own time in a subtle homology In the former case, worship at the tombs may have done the 8th-century nobles no good at ali’ in the latter, the tomb cults have a clear ideolo- gical value for the aristocracy. We do not need to treat all readings of the myth as equally valid to see that it can be understood in many ways at many levels, and no doubt was, even in early Greek history. The evidence from the tombs themselves is meagre. Discussing an analogous problem, Cherry (1978: 429) showed the similarities in iconography between objects found in the first Bronze Age palaces on Crete and in the earliest peak sanctuaries, arguing that the shrines helped to legitimate a new élite. At Athens in the ath century, large vases with scenes of horse and chariot processions or battles are associated mainly with aristocratic burials, and the appearance of some vases with similar pictures in a Mycenaean tomb at near-by Menidi (Wol. ters 1899: figures 17-19, 25-7) might indicate the recognition of links between the occupants and contemporary nobles. Outside Athens, aristocratic iconography is less easy to identity, and the scarcity of vases with horse scenes fron published tomb cults is therefore inconclusive (examples occur at Prosymna (Blegen 1939. 487) and Mycenae (Papadimitriou 1952: 470), The cults seem ambiguous, meaning different things to different people. They were also very varied — some tombs were visited only once, —_ ome countless times, and some locations Shrines built at them. Each cult probably fan own associations and special significance. y example, an iron sickle was dedicated in symna tomb IX (Blegen 1937: 378), which perhaps shows some concern with fertility ang robirth. We might expect this in a chthonic ritual, but the only parallel is a bronze plough. share from Sparta (Catling 1975/6: 14), although, the shrine to Glaucus at Knossos was probably linked to adolescent rites of passage (Callaghan, 1978: 24-6). The uniqueness of each cult spot is of course no bar to seeking an explanation valid for the whole of Greece, but the theories pro. posed so far are based on disturbingly uniform. tarian reconstructions of the worshippers’ attitudes. We do not have to be able to empa- thize with the 8th-century Greeks (cf, Morris 1987: 212-16), but we must look more closely at the plurality of readings of the rituals available to competing groups Conclusions Ihave emphasized the variety of forms of tomb cult in Greece, and some of the range of mean- ings which might have been given to it by different people, in different places, at different times. The cults cannot be reduced to a simple function in maintaining or undermining power. Historians and anthropologists of religion regu- larly come to such conclusions, and the recogni- tion of this led Hodder (1985: 9) to prefer to discuss archaeological evidence for ritual in terms of ‘negotiation’ rather than of ‘ideology’ However, in practice it is rarely possible to identify with any confidence conflicting schemes of meaning in the archaeologica! record, and only the richness of the evidence ~ particularly the literary sources—allows thers, I argued that the cults show the conflict of ideologies in the 8th century, fitting into the very centre of the struggles betwen the old, Dart Age aristocratic structures and the @! far polis . The distant past was probably never from people's minds as they moved among ruins of other ages, and when the soci came under pressure in the 8th centuly, i, turned instinctively for help to the men had peopled these other worlds, reaching 0, them where the past intruded most vividl¥ the present. Whether Heroes or @ SiIVE fan their bones became a source of power arena for conflict.strong weak al thc 1 - ofkandl wy (Athens) By s MuHymettos (Athens) — E ‘Gulls beginning ©. 750-700 we Medeon Skala - fi Eretria s Sounion 5 eS Athens a 2 Asine = a Sparta oh Cults beginning c. 700-500 Bc Thorikos Metaxata Skala Papoulia * Cave burial ‘Tame 1. Tomb cults known from excavations. Acknowledgements. | wish to thank Paul Cartledge and Bice eee for their comments on earlier drafts of Din Schad fralowingmeacess othe ests of the Kokoro txcavations; and James hie aowing ma torah foshei D ABRAMSON, H. 1979. A hero shrine for Phrontis at lion?, California Studies i ssical Antiquit 12:1-19. ifornia Studies in Classical Antiquity al ‘TOMB CULT AND THE ‘GREEK RENAISSANCE! Myconaean tomb cults other cults ?Mound of Pelops ?Toumba heroon Mitropolis heroon Context unclear ‘Possible cult ‘Agamemnoneion TMidle Bronze Age tombs surrounded by enclosure wall 2Shrine for Phrontis 20val enclosure {ircular enclosures Menelaion ‘Triangular enclosure Heroon for child graves ‘Altar under triangular enclosure 2Shrine of Glaucus ‘Old Menelaion’ shrine “Tomb of the Hyperborean Maidens’ S, 1934/5. Excavations in Ithaca, 111, Annual of British School at Athens 35: 43-73 ‘C1982. Récupérer la mort du prince: héroi- la cité, in G. Gnoli & |-P. BeRARD, sation et formation de. Vernant (ed), La mort, les morts, dans les société aeeennes, 69-105, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press. purcen, C. 1997. Post-Mycenaean deposits in chamber Tovnbs, Arkhaiologiki Ephemeris part A: 377-00, ‘Boch M. 1977, The past and the present in the present, ‘Man (1is.) 12: 278-92.eee IAN MORRIS ‘760 Brown, P, 1981. The cult of function in Latin Christian’ Fee dees the lation renaissance. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. 2nd edition. CALLAGHAN, P.J. 1978. KRS 1976: xcavations at a shrine of Glaukos, Annual of the British Schoo! at Athens aN 1987. Agesilaos and the crisis of Sparta. : Duckworth. Q reste Span kings were heroized, Liverpool sical Monthly 13: 43-4. ¢ CAMINO LW. 1975/6. Archaeology in Greece, 1 "Archaeological Reports for 1975-76: 3-9 3 1976/7. Excavations at the Menelaion, Sparta, 1973— 1976, Archaeological Reports for 1976-77: 2442, CHAMPION, T., C. GAMBLE, S. SHENNAN & A. WHITTLE. 1984. Prehistoric Europe. London: Academic Press. Cuexky, .F. 1978. Generalization and the archaeology of the state, in D. Green, C. Haselgrove & M. Spriggs {ed,), Social organization and settlement: 411-37 Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. Interna- tional Series 47 CounstReaM, J.N. 1976. Hero-cults in the age of Homer, Journal of Hellenic Studies 96: 8-17 Cook, J.M. 1953. The cult of Agamemnon at Mycenae, in Geras Antoniou Keramopoullou: 11218. Athens Etaireia Makedonika. Seira philologiki kai theo- logiki 9. CouLson, W.D.E. 1988. Geometric pottery from Voli- midia, American Journal of Archaeology 92: ‘4, Coutson, W.D.E., & N.K. Wikie. 1983. The site and environs, in W.A. McDonald, W.D.E. Coulson & J.J Rosser (ed,), Excavations at Nichoria in southwest Greece Ill: Dark Age and Byzantine occupation 332-50. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Dons, E.R. 1970. The ancient concept of progress. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Faawet, LR. 1921. Greek hero cults and ideas of immortality. Oxford: Clarendon Pres Farrar, C, 1988. The origins of democratic thinking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Finey, M.I. 1983. Politics in the ancient world. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press. FonTENROsE, J. 1974. Work, justice, and Hesiod’s five ages, Classical Philology 69: 1-16. FUSTEL DE COULANGES, N.D. 1864. La cité antique. Trans- lated as The ancient city. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press (1980) HapzisTeLiou-Price, T. 1973. Hero-cult and Homer, His- toria 22: 129-4 Hacc, R. 1983a. (ed.) The Greek renaissance of the eighth century B.C. Stockholm: Skrifter Utgvina i Svenska Institutet i Athen. 1983. Funerary meals in the Geometric necropolis at Asine?, in Hagg 1983a: 189-94, 1987. Gifts to the heroes in Geometric and Archaic Groece, in. Linders & G. Nordqvist (ed.), Gifts to the gods: 93-99. Uppsala. Boreas 15. Henmeyer, W-D. 1979. Olympische Forschungen Xi: rahe ‘Olympische Bronzefiguen. Berlin. “de sruyter. HeewAN, G. 1987. Ritualised friendship and the Greek city. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres the saints: its rise and sty. Chicago: University 975-76, , HV. 1962. Zur Hewiympia, Mitteilungen des deut schen Instituts: Athenische Abteilu Hopper, L 1985. Postprocessual Schiffer (ed,), Advances in archaeologic and theory vol.8: 1-26. New York: Academie p 1986. Heading the past. Cambridge; Cambridge Uni, versity Press. 1987, The contextual analysis of symbolic meanings in I. Hodder (ed.), The archaeology of co meanings: 1-10. Cambridge: Cambridge Unie Press. HooxeR, J.T. 1976. Mycenaean Greece. London: Roy, ledge and Kegan Paul. : JerreRy, L.H. 1961. The local scripts of Archaic Greece, Oxford: Clarendon Press. , Lanarre, W. 1971. Materials for a history of studies of crisis cults: a bibliographic essay, Curent Anthropology 12: 3-44. Lamberton, R. 1988. Hesiod. New Haven and London; Yale University Press. Lawpkinounaxis, V. & F. ZAPHEIROFOLOU. 1983. Anask- phi Naxou: Sangri, Praktika: 297-304. 1984. Naxos, Ergon: 77-9. 1985. Naxos, Ergon: 56-62. Lovejoy, A.O., & G. Boas. 1935. Primitivism and related ideas in antiquity. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted New York: Octagon Books (1965). MaLkin, I. 1987. Religion and colonisation in ancient Greece. Leiden: EJ. Brill. Mazarakis AINIAN, A. 1985. Contribution & l'étude de Varchitecture réligieuse des ages obscurs, L’anti- quité classique 54: 5-46. Morcan, C.A. 1986. Settlement and exploitation in the region of the Corinthian Gulf, c. 1000-700 BC Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University. Morais, I, 1986. The use and abuse of Homer, Classical Antiquity 5: 81-138. 1987. Burial and ancient society: the rise of the Greek city state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mytonas, G. 1975. To dytikon nekrotapheion tis Blef sinos. Athens: Vivliothiki tis en Athinais arkhalo- logikis etaireias 81. Nacy,G. 1979. The best of the Achaeans. Baltimore (MD) Johns Hopkins University Press. ies 1980. An evolutionary model for the text fixation ofthe Homeric epos, in J.M. Foley (ed.), Oral tradition? literature: 390-3. Columbus (OH): University © Ohio Pi a iters: 1982. Hesiod, in TJ. Luce (ed.), Ancient Wileh Greece and Rome: 43-73. New York: Scribner’. 1985. Theognis and Megara: a poet’s vision of his in T. Figueira & G, Nagy (ed.), Theognis of Meer ¢ 1. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins Uni ress, Nock, A.D. 1944, The cult of the heroes, Honey - Theological Review 37: 141-74. Reprinted ig Stewart (ed), A.D. Nock, Essays in rel the ancient world 2; 575-602. Press, Parapmmtreiou, 1. 1952. Anaskaphai en My! tika: 427-72, Picarp, C, 1940. L*hérodon de Phrontis Revue Archéologique: 5-28. .1984. La naissance de la cité grecque. ions de la découverte, ERE FE, TOULOUPA & L.H. SACKETT. 1982. The Porm of Lotkandli, Antiquity 96: 169-74 CW. 1985/6. Hosiod’s myth of the four races, jjoal Journal 81: 1-12. class Ca & J.F. CHERRY. 1986, (ed.) Peer polity ‘rion and the development of sociocultural Cambridge: Cambridge University inter complexity. Pres 990. Psyche. English translation from ath Ot ee 1025. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, er en ‘1981. Le mythe hésiodique des races et cel Ha sométhée: recherche des structures et des signi- fe tions, Cahiers Vilfredo Pareto: revue européene veaeiences sociales 19, n0.58: 245-1 somnagoy,D.U. 1975. Paros, report Il: the 1973 camps Mumma! of Field Archaeology 2: 83-96 arb. Anaskaphai Parou, Praktika: 287-94 1986, Paros, Ergon: 108-14. suoanass, AM. 1979, Poet and painter in eighth- Mentury Greece, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 205: 118-30. 19802, Towards the interpretation of the Geometric figure scenes, Mitteilungen des deutschen archdo: Iogischen Instituts: Athenische Abteilung 95: 51-8 Rut ‘TOMB CULT AND THE "GREEK RENAISSANCE’ ‘1enob Archate Greece: the age of experiment, London: lent. 1952. Les origines du culte des héros en Gréce antique, in G. Gnoli & J.-P. Vernant (ed.), La mort, les morts, dans les sociétés ancienne: 107-19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4807.4 ean od : the present state and luture scope of a discipline. Berkel : . __ sity of California Press, 1 ae STAVROPOULLOS, P. 1958. Anaskaphai arkhaias Akadi- aottit®, Praltika: 5-13. HOMPSON, H.A, 1968, Activity in the Athenian Aj 1960-1967, Hesperia 37: 36-72, nl PN. Ure, 1032, ‘The ‘Greek renaissance. London: Methuen. 7 ge VeRNANT, J.-P. 1983. Myth and thought among the Greeks. London; Routledge and Kegan Paul. West, M.L. 1978, Hesiod’s Works and days. Oxford Clarendon Press, Wurrizy, J. 1988. Early states and hero cults: appraisal, Journal of Hellenic Wouters, P, 1899. Vasen aus Meni¢ deutschen archdologischen Instituts 14: 101—35 Wricirr, J. 1982. The old temple terrace at the Argive Heraeum and the early cult of Hera in the Argolid, Journal of Hellenic Studies 102: 186-201 a re judies 108: 1-9. Il, Jahrbuch des The social context of literacy in Archaic Greece and Etruria SIMON STODDART & JAMES WHITLEY“ n lnrecent years much emphasis has been placed Upon the effects of literacy in the transformation ofthe Mediterranean World between 800 and {00 BE. Alphabetic scripts have been seen by many, archaeologists and classicists alike, as ne of the key factors that made many of the hievements of Mediterranean, particularly siwek-thought and culture possible. Alphabetic wide’ encouraged widespread literacy, and tion (ead literacy was the necessary condi- lot what remains distinctive in Ancient Jimon Stoddart, Magdalene College, Cambridge 3 04¢ 540676, Athens, Groce QUnY 62 (1988): 761-72. Greek culture, namely the development of His- tory, Philosophy and speculative Natural Science. Murray (1980: 96) is typical in his view that ‘Archaic Greece was a literate society in the modern sense.’ The work of Goody & Watt (1963) has done much to advance the view that many of the achievements of Mediterranean Society can be ascribed to, if not entirely explained by, this ‘technology of the intellect’. ‘Their ‘autonomous model’ however, as Cart- ledge (1978: 87) has observed, comes danger- close to. technological determinism. ously 52 Odos Souedias, Whitley, British School at Ather