In the past, Bronze Age painted plaster in the Aegean and the Eastern
Mediterranean has been studied from a range of different but isolated
viewpoints. One of the current questions about this material is its
direction of transfer. This volume brings both technological and
iconographic (and other) approaches closer together: 1) by completing
certain gaps in the literature on technology and 2) by investigating how
and why technological transfer has developed and what broader impact
this had on the wider social dynamics of the late Middle and Late Bronze
Age in the eastern Mediterranean.
This study approaches the topic of painted plaster by a
multidisciplinary methodology. Moreover, when human actors and their
interactions are placed in the centre of the scene, it demonstrates the
human forces through which transfer was enabled and how multiple social
identities and the inter-relationships of these actors with each other
and their material world were expressed through their craft production
and organization.
The investigated data from sixteen sites has been contextualized within
a wider framework of Bronze Age interconnections both in time and space
because studying painted plaster in the Aegean cannot be considered
separate from similar traditions both in Egypt and in the Near East.
This study makes clear that it is not possible to deduce a one-way
directional transfer of this painting tradition. Furthermore, by
integrating both technology and iconography with its hybrid character, a
clear 'technological style' was defined in the predominant al fresco
work found on these specific sites. The author suggests that the
technological transfer most likely moved from west to east. This has
important implications in the broader politico-economic and social
dynamics of the eastern Mediterranean during the LBA. Since this
art/craft was very much elite-owned, it shows how the smaller states in
the LBA, such as the regions of the Aegean, were capable of staying
within the large trade and exchange network that comprised the large
powers of the East and Egypt. The painted plaster reflects a very
visible presence in the archaeological record and, because it cannot be
transported without its artisans, it suggests specific interactions of
royal courts in the East with the Aegean peoples. The painted plaster as
an immovable feature required at least temporary presence of a small
team of painters and plasterers. Exactly this factor forms an argument
in support of travelling artisans, who, in turn, shed light onto broader
aspects of contact, trade and exchange mechanisms during the late MBA
and LBA.
