Cultural Interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Case of Minonaizing Frescoes
FLORIANI, Michela
This research investigates the phenomenon of Minonaizing frescoes, studying five sites located in the Levant and Egypt (Alalakh, Qatna, Tell el-Burak, Tell el-Dab’a, Tel Kabri). Past research on the archeological data and the technological studies on the plaster fragments have established that the fresco technique was developed in Crete by the Minoans and thence spread in the Near East as an elite production. Moreover, a strong connection between the Cretan frescoes and the eastern ones is demonstrated. Even if some scholars explain this as a homogeneous phenomenon, here I reconsider the idea of a cultural koiné and argue in favour of different explanations for the presence of these frescoes in each site. In particular, I propose a new explanation for the frescoes of Qatna, connecting them with the frescoes found in the House 39/a in Alalakh IV level. Since the frescoes at these two sites are similar in chronology, themes and peculiar location, but different from the other sites analyzed, I propose that the fresco technique during the Middle Bronze Age was a prestige production expressing power and political relations between different ruling elites inserted in the gift exchange system, whereas in the later phase was devalued and lost its political and ideological features. This change could be related to the sociopolitical transformations in the Aegean, where the Myceneans replaced the Minoans, who, until then, had probably kept control of this technique.
Session 4. Crafting Identity and Clusters through Material Culture, Iconography and Texts [info]