Burial of Late Bronze Age male statuettes

Burial of Late Bronze Age Male Statuettes
within the 12th century B.C. Abandonment Level at Enkomi

By V. E. Cook

References to myth and rituals in terms of human experience at the time they were elaborated are practically ignored in contemporary archaeological research. Certainly this approach has been neglected in Cypriot archaeology. Prior to the 1970’s a European cultural scientism insisted on the temporal and spatial exactitude of archaeological finds. Volumes were devoted to stratigraphy, location contexts and diachronic pottery styles. Then, computing technology gave rise to the possibility of statistical patterning. At present emphasis is on the repetitive material that patterns environmental adaptation, indigenous development and trade.

Perhaps because they are exceptional, and don’t loan themselves to quantification, very little attention has been paid to the purposeful burial of three bronze effigies: two seated El effigies and the horned god Reshef on the abandonment levels of Enkomi [1]. Although common in the Minoan civilization, all bronze figurines found in Late Cypriot and in Greek mainland Bronze Age contexts were associated with Mycenaean III C pottery on the late 13th century and 12th century B.C. destruction levels. These figurines representing Baal, Reshef, El, and Astarte belong to levantine myths : are otherwise absent in earlier Aegean contexts. Colin Renfrew remarks on the absence male effigies in the Mycenaean culture (Renfrew 1985, pp. 420-424). On the other hand such figurines were widespread in Anatolia and in the Levant until sites in these regions were definitively destroyed at the end of the 13th century.

The excavators of Enkomi, Claude Schaeffer and Porphyrios Dikaois, are unusual in having suggested reasons for the uncommon treatment of what are uncommon objects discovered in 12th century B.C. Cypriot contexts. But only Schaeffer (1971, 525 ff) attempted a developed understanding of the phenomenon. In his article devoted to the subject he concluded that the statuettes had been protectively hidden from floods.

Dikaios (1969, p. 199) assumed that the idol he had discovered must have fallen and been accidentally buried in the debris of a destruction that occurred on floor II. When the inhabitants returned “they placed the statue in a pit dug in the leveled debris in room 10″ rather than replacing it in the niche where it probably stood before. He suggests that the horned god was buried after an earthquake destruction that toppled it, in a pit dug into the debris of the final floor of the ashlar building in order to protect it from another such destruction (Dikaios, 1962, p. 26). However, being in bronze it had not previously been destroyed and this final level was abandoned with even household items left ‘in situ’, hence rapidly, although the destruction was not by an earthquake. The notion that men would “protect” their gods is germane to a modern mind beholding metal idols as “artefacts”. But to the pre-modern mind wasn’t it the role of the gods to protect men rather than men to protect gods?

As far as I know, the only other attention drawn to the insertion of these effigies underground has been very scant. Jennifer Webb in her study of ritual architecture and practices (1999) merely mentions the peculiar fact that the famous “horned god” (Reshef) effigy was discovered by Dikaios in a pit that left his horns exposed above ground. She concludes that the horns protruding above ground in the context of the Dikaios find means that these underground insertions were neither a ritual nor hidden, but she offers no answer as to why they were so positioned under such exceptional circumstances.

For Bernard Knapp (p.109-110) the position of these objects in “pits” has no more significance than the positions of the other terracotta statues that were simply abandoned on the floor. He writes that the burial of the statues, as well as the simple abandonment of others and the destruction of the surroundings may have ritually sealed the fate of an ideological system representing the authority of the managerial elite of the copper industry. If Knapp’s theory that these idols belonged in fact to a 13th century tradition what would explain their 12th century B.C. change of context ? The Area 1 building was a palace, until it was transformed into workshops and cult areas on the level where the horned god was found. The Enkomi sanctuary where the El figurines were found appeared during the 12th century. This suggests a new sacred area contextual ritual signifying a transfer of population versus Knapp’s inheritance or trade hypothesis.

An observation of the metaphysical traditions that have universally characterized human behavior in pre-modern times might add an enlightening perspective [2]. The above researchers seem to relate these figurines more to their own mentalities than what must have been the mentality of those who buried them.

Here it is proposed that these cult objects were not hidden from an enemy or protected from floods. Nor was this a ritual practice. It was a symbolic act. The life of the city was under stress: apparently from famine driven migrations and climatic disturbances that brought about the final destruction of Enkomi. According to cuneiform texts El is a god of justice, Reshef is a fertility god. These metal masculine gods who symbolize fertilizing rain, were inserted into the feminine earth principle to ensure regenerance: of the city and of the communal soul.

In a 1971 article D. Usshishkin discussed what he considered a ritual burial of Hittite stone lions. He notices that these statues, laid on their backs, seem to be buried according to human rites. In the case of human burials too, the insertion of the body into the ground signifies regeneration. Usshishkin signals several other underground “burials” of immuable stone or metal objects, all attributable to the Syro Palestinian area at the end of the Late Bronze Age.

The most interesting example, also mentioned by Dikaios (1969, note 161) is the burial of the statue of the king Idri Mi at the destruction level of Atchana which has been attributed to the same period as the destructions at Enkomi and Ras Shamra.

Even at present, in esoteric lore, there is a Himalayan tradition of a “hidden” male god, underground, who will revive to save the soul of mankind, and many, if not most, people bury deceased bodies in the ground. This notion seems so deeply rooted in the human psyche that there is little doubt that this must have been a motivating factor in the treatment of these Bronze Age divinities.

The Ritual Significance of Metals

A further insight into the significance of buried bronze effigies concerns the relationship of humans to metal itself in the early prehistoric experience. Stone and ceramic effigies were also known to be buried during this period but not in Cyprus, where copper mining and smelting was a fundamental economic factor.

Used in Europe as early as the mesolithic period gold may have been the earliest metal to have been drawn out of the earth. It’s untarnished shine and easy malleability allowing it to copy natural shapes and adorn the body appealed to the imagination. It had no practical use, but ritually permitted the fixation, or transmutation, of perishable life forms : notably in death masks.

Once the notion of transmutation of a lifeless cosmic given, gold, into life forms (a human act suggesting Reshef’s spiritual fertility) was experienced, further substances were experimented with and, unlike gold, found to suit practical activity as well, notably hunting and land grabbing warfare (war implies the “justice” of the winner protected by the spirit of “El”), as well as vessels to contain the food so acquired. Tin and copper were found and alloyed into the sturdiness of bronze. This transmutation of metal into the service of living was associated with divine power. Virtually all traditions associate the forgeron with divine manifestation (Pâques, 68). These buried metal human effigies may have served as an intermediary between earth as a given and the appearance of life which the worshiper’s imaginative spirit transferred to the immortal scale of the gods.

Returning a metal human effigy to its cosmic earth source (the earth womb that provides food to life) while other metallic objects are associated with the obtention of food, was very possibly a profoundly fertilizing ritual to the archaic mind. This would suggest that the Enkomi figurines were buried in the face of natural catastrophe as a prophylactic against famine, or perhaps as an energizing prophylatic against an enemy attack, in which case the horned god need only be placed within the ground, but not necessarily hidden from plunderers.

[1] Published examples: Hittite, Syria Palestine (Negbi 1976), Aegean (Renfrew 1985, pp. 303-310), Cyprus(Dussaud 1949, p. 324). For the Cypriot examples see my website illustrations here.

[2] There is undoubtedly a contemporary political taboo concerning the significance of traditional thought. Nevertheless the understanding of otherwise purely material cult remains deserves an awareness of comparative ancient linguistic textual and legendary evidence. Few scholars have been as erudite in this sense as René Guenon. His book Le Roi du Monde is particularly pertinent to the subject under study here.


Bibliography

Dikaios, P., 1969, Excavations at Enkomi, Mainz, Verlag Philippe von Zabern ; 1962, “The Bronze Statue of a Horned God from Enkomi”, Jahrbuch des deutschen archaölogisches Instituts, Archaologischer Anzeiger, Berlin, pp. 2-39.

Dussaud, R., 1949, L’art phénicien du IIe millénaire, Paris, Paul Geuthner.

Gallet de Santerre, H., 1958, Delos Primitive et Archaique, Paris, Boccard.

Knapp, B., 1986, Copper Production and Divine Protection : Archaeology, Ideology and Social Complexity on Bronze Age Cyprus, Göteborg, Paul Aströms Vorlag, SIMA pocketbook 42.

Guenon, R., 1958, Le roi du monde, Paris, Gallimard.

Negbi, O., 1976, Canaanite Gods in Metal, Tel Aviv University, Institute of Archaeology.

Pâques, V., in Aoun, A. (ed.), 1991, Afrique Noir , Amérique, Océanie, Mythes et Croyances du Monde, Paris, Brepols.

Renfrew, C., 1985, The Archaeoogy of Cult, the Sanctuary at Phylakopi, London, Thames and Hudson.

Schaeffer, C., 1971, Alasia, Tome IV, Paris, Klincksieck.

Usshishkin, D., 1970, “The Syro-Hittite Ritual Burial of Monuments”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 29, the University of Chicago Press, no. 2, pp. 124-128.

Webb, J, 1999, Ritual Architecture, Iconography and Practice in the Late Cypriot Bronze Age, Jonsered.

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