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Mycenaean feasting on Tsoungiza at Ancient Nemea
Hesperia, Spring, 2004 by Mary K. Dabney, Paul Halstead, Patrick Thomas
An unresolved question, at this stage, is the fate of the parts of cattle not found in this deposit. As has already been noted, the range of parts missing does not favor destruction in a burned sacrifice, (10) nor does ongoing study of the rest of the LH III faunal assemblage from Tsoungiza indicate deposition elsewhere on the site. A third and intriguing possibility is that the feasts taking place at Tsoungiza involved drinking, sacrifice, and slaughter, followed by some consumption on-site (at least of bone marrow), but that most of the meat from the slaughtered animals was distributed to participants from other settlements for eventual consumption in their own communities. This tentative interpretation would imply that feasting at Nemea had political significance on a regional scale, a possibility further discussed below.
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CERAMIC EVIDENCE
The identification of ceramic remains resulting from feasting is a difficult task in the absence of a set of vessels or accompanying decorative motifs that are peculiar to that activity. This is true not only for Mycenaean Greece, but for other past cultures as well. (11) Although Stocker and Davis have identified a kind of miniature kylix as an indicator of ritual feasting at Pylos,12 for the most part Mycenaean feasts seem to have employed pottery that was also employed on an everyday basis. Since Mycenaean settlement deposits are in general dominated by precisely the sorts of serving vessels (such as kylikes) that would presumably be used in feasts, it is useful to attempt to develop criteria to identify ceramic remains from feasting. A combination of characteristics, not ceramic evidence alone, will probably be needed to identify such a deposit. In the case of the material from EU 9, for example, it is important to keep in mind the clear evidence for the butchering of large quantities of meat (see above).
An important preliminary question to ask is whether it is reasonable to expect to find large deposits of ceramics from feasts, since the vessels would retain their utility after the meal was completed, and might continue in use afterward. Deposition of intact vessels and even deliberate destruction of complete vessels are known practices associated with funerary meals, (13) but are not well established in other contexts. Although vessels might be deliberately destroyed during the course of a feast or afterward, as argued below, we need not insist on ritual breakage to suspect that a large feast will leave behind clear ceramic evidence. The presence of large numbers of people and the consumption of wine itself virtually guarantees a number of broken vessels. Moreover, if the participants traveled some distance to take part in the feast and were provided pottery by their host, many would probably discard the vessels before returning home.
As a first step in the development of a model, the sorts of vessels likely to be present in a deposit of ceramics resulting from feasting activities should be considered. It appears sufficiently settled that wine and meat were important components in Mycenaean feasting. The association of the kylix with feasting is agreed upon by virtually all writers; we ought, therefore, to expect that kylikes will compose a large percentage of such a deposit. Further, we can expect that jugs or other pouring vessels for the wine would be present. If ceramic vessels were used for cooking, cooking pots should be present as well, especially if meat was prepared in the form of a stew. (14) If pottery was used for serving meat dishes, an obvious possible form is the Furumark shape (FS) 295, a shallow angular bowl (SAB). Although Tournavitou has suggested that the SAB is well designed for serving hot foods, (15) the very large number of such vessels found in room 21, part of the suite of pantries at the palace at Pylos, has been little remarked on. With nearly 1,100 examples from this room alone, it is the second most common shape after the kylix in the pantries and a logical candidate as a serving vessel for meat dishes. (16) Evidence for the function of this vessel as a plate for meat is provided by a recent organic-residue analysis of a SAB from a LH IIIB context at Mycenae that indicated traces of fat. (17)
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