AbstractsAnthropology

It has been widely recognized that for many cultures the prominent display of wealth by an emerging elite is of fundamental importance to the expression and maintenance of social hierarchy. Participation in this practice of conspicuous consumption provides a vital means of creating and preserving the positions of power and authority held by the higher status members of society by demonstrating their access to superior resources. This approach has been successfully applied to the study of state formation in Bronze Age Greece, where great emphasis has been placed upon the role of the acquisition and production of luxury artifacts such as pottery, metal and stone vases, jewelry and weapons. Yet, these objects do not represent the only means through which this competition was engaged. Perhaps the most visible means of exhibiting wealth in a conspicuous manner is through large-scale public construction, which serves both to advertise the superior wealth and power of its builder(s) and to act as a mechanism that attracts labor and prestige away from the smaller social units with whom its owners are in competition. The present study examines the function of monumental architecture as an instrument of conspicuous consumption at Late Bronze Age Mycenae and evaluates its role as a driving force in the processes of social stratification and state formation. It demonstrates that the evolution of monumental building practices at the site in the Early Mycenaean period can be divided into three distinct stages, each of which is characterized by the adoption of a new type of monumental construction: the shaft grave, in the late MH-LH II period; the tholos tomb, in the LH II-IIIA:1 period; and the palace, in the LH IIIA:1-2 period. Each new building category is examined from a number of different qualitative and quantitative perspectives (e.g., function [funerary vs. non-funerary], location, materials and techniques of construction, amount of labor investment required), and on the basis of these analyses, it is argued that the changes evident in the application of monumental architecture at Mycenae both reflected and inspired corresponding changes in the socio-political system that produced them.