Cultural Performances at the Beginning of the Bronze Age: Early Minoan I and II Cemeteries as Stages for Performance

This paper presents a performative approach to space and the built environment, arguing that performance is an underused yet informative tool which can aid us in understanding more subtle and nuanced areas of archaeology, such as ideology, ritual and social constructs. A discussion of the usefulness of this approach is followed by a case study from the cemetery sites of Early Bronze Age Crete.
Cemeteries are ideal areas to examine as sites of performance. Performances within the mortuary sphere are common occurrences, and cemeteries are often regarded as arenas for social and cultural interaction for the community of the living. This is especially prevalent in an analysis of Early Bronze Age Crete, where cemeteries are the primary architectural evidence, suggesting an investiture in the spaces of the dead not accorded to those of the living.
House Tombs were the prevalent burial custom of north-eastern Crete, while circular tholos tombs were common in the south-central region. The social realities – and differences – of these two areas are usually interpreted on the basis of material evidence deposited within the tombs and the energy invested in their construction. The purpose of this paper is to re-evaluate these interpretations by focusing on the use of space within the built mortuary landscape to decipher the performance of individuals within this constructed landscape. I argue that the arrangement of space, and of objects and structures within space, provides a separate category of data from which to draw conclusions about social structures within Early Minoan society. In particular, I will focus on tombs constructed in the EM I and II periods, and those from which kinesic interpretations can be discerned – namely the tholos tombs from Moni Odigitria, Hagia Kyriaki, Koumasa, and Platanos, and the house tomb from Mochlos. This approach can be used to illuminate the different ways various societies perceived themselves and reacted to the island-wide emergence of social hierarchies and differentiation.