Figurines are a ubiquitous class of archaeological artifact. As a result, much has been written about them and, more importantly, what, if anything, they can tell us about the cultures that produced them. Anthropomorphic figurines, in particular, entice us with a promise of human self-awareness, encoding cognition in the modeling and representation of the human form (Hamilton 1996). In recent decades, since Ucko’s (1962) seminal article refuting the traditional interpretation of all female figurines in relation to a universal “Mother Goddess”, many scholars have addressed the issue of understanding figurines in their specific cultural-historical context. Indeed, as Bailey has written, “seen in terms of the relationship between humanity and the world, figurines are an institution for defining, expressing, claiming and legitimating one’s own identity or for suggesting and realigning the identity of others” (1996: 294). Most scholars, however, have focused on one or two aspects of figurine studies: the importance of specific contexts or their site-specificity (e.g. Marcus’ work with Oaxacan Formative period figurines (1996, 1998)), or issues related to the body, gender, identity, etc. What is left, though, when these approaches cannot take into account the associations with other data and the contingencies of recovery? My concern is with anthropomorphic figurines from extra-urban ritual sites on Crete in the Bronze Age. My question, given issues of associations and contingency in retrieval, is what can we do with them?

Anthropomorphic figurines (along with zoomorphic figurines and a suite of ‘ritual’ objects more generally) have been found in two important extra-urban ritual types of site – the so-called peak sanctuaries and sacred caves – on Minoan Crete. There is no understatement in stressing the Middle Bronze Age periods as crucial for understanding the emergence of socio-political complexity (i.e. the development of Minoan ‘palatial’ culture) on Crete. In this way, these sites provide a critical locus for addressing an island-wide ideology in a landscape that is increasingly understood as differentiated regionally with respect to other social, economic and political concerns.
Peak sanctuary interaction emerges at roughly the same time as the Minoan palaces were beginning to take on their monumental form: the beginning of the Protopalatial period (ca. 1925 BCE). The figurines associated with these sites are clay, modeled cursorily. Few, if any, can be singled out for specific idiosyncrasies (facial features, form, clothing, ornamentation, and body detail), and the most diverse characteristics of the class of figurines are the gestures, which have been interpreted variously as worship, adoration, and trance-inducing postures (Rutkowski 1991, Morris and Peatfield 2002).

By contrast, sacred caves achieve prominence at the beginning of the Neopalatial period (ca. 1750 BCE), although some were used modestly in the Protopalatial period. Anthropomorphic figurines from these sites were primarily made of bronze, although their modeling and attention to detail, along with the gesture and posture of the figurines, are very similar to their clay counterparts from the peaks. The loci of their deposition are also similar – many bronze cave figurines were discovered in the fissures in the stalagmites, whereas the clay peak sanctuary figurines were found in clefts in the rocky outcrops of the mountain peaks.
So what can be said about these two similar groups of anthropomorphic figurines? The assemblages from both caves and peaks suggest similarities in activity with attendant ritual paraphernalia, although the time period and loci have changed. Can the figurines indicate something about the content of ritual (referring here in a broad sense to formalized group activities including drinking and feasting), its performance, or the identity of its participants (Marcus 1996)? Do the differences and similarities between the peak and cave figurines afford a perspective on the differences and similarities between the associated rituals? What characteristics can be used to unpack these questions?
An initial, and perhaps obvious, answer relates to the respective materials of the figurines. The earlier, peak sanctuary figurines are made of clay, a readily available raw material. Production of these figurines was most likely local, and fairly simple (cf. Zeimbeki 2004 for her discussion of the organization of production of zoomorphic figurines from Jouktas). The later anthropomorphic figurines from the caves were made of bronze. A prepared material, while not necessarily scarce in the Neopalatial period, it was still associated with the elite classes, and likely produced together with objects signaling certain social and economic associations.
Is this explanation, an explanation of materials affording group stature, as simple as it appears? In other words, was a more definitively elite class in the later Neopalatial period signaling their group identity with bronze figurines (a more high status material), while maintaining their connection to the earlier ritual tradition established in the context of a less hierarchical system of organization? The context changed, from peak sanctuaries to caves, but did the identity of the ritual participants change? And if so, is this what they are signaling? To be sure, this same argument can be made using any of the classes of artifacts associated with peak sanctuary and cave assemblages. What of the aspects of human self-awareness and cognition that are unique to anthropomorphic figurines? Should we just pack up, problem solved; those visiting the caves had differential access to a material (not to mention, the labor) that expressed membership as an elite? Maybe so. But maybe it’s more complicated than that.
The anthropomorphic figurines from peaks and caves are only one piece of the puzzle that comprises the assemblages that are interpreted as ‘ritual’. Despite their allure, it is problematic to de-contextualize them as a separate field of study simply on the basis of form (Hamilton 1996, Bailey 2005), without taking into consideration the web of associations that established their significance. The methods of archaeological recovery employed have been driven by typologies, classification schemes which further disassociate the figurines from the activities that can only be fleshed out by understanding the full range and variety of material culture in any given assemblage. Moreover, this angle on material culture must incorporate the raw physicality of the objects and the ways in which that impacted the relations with those who created, used, handled, and deposited them (e.g. differential weights of bronze and clay, the ease with which clay figurines could, and were, broken – simply, how they felt in one’s hand). Yes, clay and bronze are different, but limiting an analysis of anthropomorphic figurines from peaks and caves in the Bronze Age on Crete to an assessment of differential access to raw materials prevents a deeper questioning of the role these material objects played in networks of ritual, significance, and associations. Ultimately, these connections are critical to an understanding of the construction, enactment, and transformation of ideologies and the negotiations of power relations (Tringham and Conkey 1998) on Minoan Crete.
References
Bailey, D. 1996. “Interpreting figurines: the emergence of illusion and new ways of seeing.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6(2): 291-5
2005. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and corporeality in the Neolithic.
London: Routledge.
Hamilton, N. 1996. “The personal is political.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6(2): 282-5
Marcus, J. 1996. “The importance of context in interpreting figurines.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6(2): 285-91
1998. Women’s Ritual in Formative Oaxaca. Figurine Making, Divination, Death
and the Ancestors. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
Morris, C. and A. Peatfield. 2002. “Feeling through the body: gesture in Cretan Bronze Age religion”, in I. Hamilakis, M. Pluciennik and S. Tarlow (eds) Thinking through the Body: Archaeologies of Corporeality. London: Plenum. pp. 105-20
Rutkowski, B. 1991. Petsophas: A Cretan Peak Sanctuary. Studies and Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology and Civilization, I.1. Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences.
Tringham, R.E. and M. Conkey. 1998. “Rethinking figurines: a critical view from archaeology of Gimbutas, the ‘Goddess’ and popular culture”, in L. Goodison and C. Morris (eds) Ancient Goddesses. Myths and the Evidence. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 22-45.
Ucko, P. 1962. “The interpretation of prehistoric anthropomorphic figurines.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 92: 38-54.
Zeimbeki, M. 2004. “The organization of votive production and distribution in the peak sanctuaries of state society Crete: a perspective offered by the Juktas clay animal figurines”, in G. Cadogan, E. Hatzaki, and A. Vasilakis (eds) Knossos: Palace, City, State. London: British School at Athens. pp. 351-61.