Aoife Raney
A mainstay of most every archaeological museum we visited in Cyprus, spanning the island’s ancient history and varying widely in material, size, and style, was an incredible and delightful abundance of figurines. I was especially charmed by Cyprus’ earlier figurines, which tend to be simpler and less naturalistic. One example I was able to see at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia was the Vounous Bowl, a ceramic vessel uncovered in a tomb on Cyprus’ northern coast dating from 2400 to 1700 BCE.
The bowl is in the shape of an enclosed room with a doorway, filled with furniture and stylized figurines, nineteen human figures and four cattle. Most of the figures are huddled into two inward-facing groups, with a few exceptions including one figure affixed to the outer edge of the bowl, peering into the scene inside. The largest figure sits on four-legged chair with a distinctive back made up of three large pillars.
The scene is generally thought to be ritual in nature, bearing similarities to other Cypriot models of shrines and containing several figures who could be in prayer. The room’s resemblance of certain Cypriot tombs in its tripartite structure leads some to believe the scene is specifically a burial ritual. Ultimately, no certain interpretation of the Vounous Bowl can be made, as no clear examples of religious structures or items from this period of Cyprus’ past have been discovered. A 2019 paper by Andrew Sneddon puts forward an interesting piece of evidence in favor of the burial ritual interpretation of the Vounous Bowl: In the Alambra archaeological site of central Cyrpus, a mudbrick feature resembling a piece of the Vounous Bowl’s three columned chair was found in the context of a tomb, next to human remains.
While concrete interpretations of the Vounous Bowl are difficult, it leaves us with a lot to think about. Taking the scene as a burial ritual, are the animals there as offerings, to be buried with the deceased or maybe sacrificed during as part of the ritual? Or could their presence be a point against it being a burial ritual, perhaps indicating the scene is of regular life? I think the Vounous Bowl can also be read as indicating a degree of social stratification in the society that created it. The large figure sitting on the throne supports this idea, with scholars reading him as wearing a headdress. The figure on the outside of the bowl could also be a point towards this idea. Were some people excluded from participating in these sorts of rituals? Several figures are also tending to the cattle rather than congregating in groups. Could these two roles be of different prestige? Would tending to the cattle have been seen as low, manual labor? Or a prestigious role, being able to control a valuable resource? In her 2013 paper, Louise Steel argues that the bowl itself is also an indicator of social hierarchy, a luxury object whose owner would have had the wealth to own a non-utilitatian and intricately crafted object, and knowledge over religious rituals like the bowl depicts.
Works Cited:
Sneddon, A. (2019). “An Analog from the Prehistoric Bronze Age Site of Alambra Mouttes (Cyprus) for Adornments on the Enigmatic ‘Vounous Bowl.'” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 382, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1086/705485
Steel, L. (2013). The Social World of Early-Middle Bronze Age Cyprus: Rethinking the Vounous Bowl. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 26(1), 51-73. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v26i1.51