4/25/13 Minoan Honey : The Bull, The Mushroom And The Mistress Of The Dance

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:: Minoan Honey : The Bull, The Mushroom And The Mistress Of The Dance ::

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:: photo essay #3 - plazas from minoan sites ::

The main essay explores plazas as an important aspect of Minoan life. These public place were built apart from the cramped urbanspace of towns and villages, and judging by the fact that houses and doorways only rarely opened directly onto these plazas, it'sclear that they were intended to be conceptually apart too. They most likely functioned as threshing floors (and indeed all plazasprobably descended from this function), as well as market places to permit trade between villages. But their most important function isin their use of processional dances. A curious observation is that many of the plazas tended to be quite long, rather than a squareshape as might be expected: one can thus imagine long chains of interweaving dancers moving over the stones...

Central Plaza at KnossosA possible site of the taurokathapsia, or bull-leaping

Knossos West Plaza 1Built upon the original Neolithic site, note the circular formation at far left

Knossos West Plaza 2Note the circular configuration of some of the stones here: a place for a spiral dance?

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Royal Road at KnossosA processional avenue which terminates close to the West Plaza.

Photo taken in 2004: this area is now closed off to the public.

Gournia Theatral AreaSited directly in front of the villa, this area leads onto a long plaza space

West Plaza at Pyrgos, MyrtosA village site and in disrepair, the broad outline can still be seen

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West Plaza at Pyrgos, Myrtos from aboveTaken from a possible point where onlookers may have watched the dances:

from the roofs of the houses that backed onto the plaza space

Small Plaza at Pyrgos, MyrtosAgain sited in front of a villa, this plaza is too small for public dances but may have

been used for public meetings, for threshing or for private ceremonies

Modern Threshing Floor at NazarethNotice the circular formation

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'Minoan Honey: The Bull, The Mushroom & The Mistress of the Dance'Bruce Rimell, January 2009

Copyright (c) 2002-2013 Bruce Rimell : All images, artwork, and words on this siteare copyrighted to Bruce Rimell and may not be reproduced in any form unless stated otherwise.