Animal Sacrifice, Archives, and Feasting at the Palace of Nestor

The contexts of burned faunal assemblages from Blegen's excavations at the Palace of Nestor are examined in this paper. Special attention is given to a deposit of bones found in a corner of room 7 of the Archives Complex. It is argued that these bones, from at least 10 cattle, probably represen...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hesperia 2004-04, Vol.73 (2), p.179-195
Main Authors: Stocker, Sharon R., Davis, Jack L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Animal sacrifices
Archives
Archives & records
Bone industry
Bones
Bronze age
Civilization, Mycenaean
Excavations
Fossils
Generalities
Greek civilization
Historic artifacts
History
Kitchen-middens
Methodology and general studies
Organisation and history of research
Palaces
Political aspects
Prehistory and protohistory
Religious aspects
Rites & ceremonies
Sacred meals
Social archaeology
Social aspects
Social life & customs
Spearheads
Swords
Typology, technology and attribute analysis
Writing tablets
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The contexts of burned faunal assemblages from Blegen's excavations at the Palace of Nestor are examined in this paper. Special attention is given to a deposit of bones found in a corner of room 7 of the Archives Complex. It is argued that these bones, from at least 10 cattle, probably represent the remains of a single episode of burned animal sacrifice and large-scale feasting that occurred shortly before the palace was destroyed. Feasts of this sort are likely to have played a diacritical role in Mycenaean society. The bones may have been brought to room 7 in order to verify to palace authorities that a sacrifice had been completed.
ISSN:0018-098X
1553-5622
DOI:10.2972/hesp.2004.73.2.179