The Odyssey based on feast fact
2002-01-07 13:18
Philadelphia - Bones, vessels and writings found at a site in ancient Greece
suggest the historical accuracy of the huge feasts Homer described
centuries later in The Odyssey, archaeologists said.
The feasts at the Palace of Pylos, which gathered thousands of
people and offered vast quantities of alcohol and beef, served a
purpose similar to inaugural balls, community banquets and other
modern-day events, the scholars said.
"Providing a feast is a powerful way to expand political and
geographic power - one not lost on modern-day politicians and
lobbyists," Mary Dabney, a research associate at Bryn Mawr College,
said on Saturday at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute
of America.
The Odyssey was written about 750 BC, when massive feasts
and ritual sacrifices are known to have occurred, but the story is
set in about 1 200 BC. The remains suggest that Homer's account of
the feasts at what he called the Palace of Nestor in Pylos, while
fictional, accurately reflect the era, scholars said.
The remains unearthed from one feast show that it celebrated the
inauguration of a magistrate, while others probably repaid labourers
for bringing in the harvest, according to James Wright, a Bryn Mawr
professor who organised the symposium on the topic.
"People are much more willing to join your organisation or your
unit if it's fun, and feasting is fun. Feasting is a way in which
people get to participate," Wright said.
He said similar rituals are held in some communities today, when
friends help with farm chores or a barn raising and are treated to
a big meal.
"In contemporary African communities, feasting and providing
beer is a way to mobilise labour to harvest or plant land," Wright
said.
In the past few years, scholars have been re-examining remains
unearthed at Pylos in 1952 by archaeologist Carl Blegen, but never
fully studied. Based on drawings, written tablets, and the number
of pieces of pottery and cattle bones found, they have concluded
that some feasts may have served upward of 8 000 people, far more
than lived within the palace walls.
"It's also a way in which the rulers get to show their
beneficence, to show how wealthy they are, and how powerful. And
it's much more effective than using the sword," Wright said.
Dabney's research into another, later site near Mycenae also
shows evidence that rulers held feasts for people in smaller,
secondary villages, perhaps to build their power base.
"The social implications of these feasts, based on the cattle
and the ceramics, might have been that they would then take their
material wealth from a major development into a smaller
development, to solidify some sort of government relationship,"
Dabney said.
If the feasts served thousands, not everyone sat at the same
table.
According to Lisa Bendall, a research fellow at Cambridge
University, utensils, bowls and other remains found at Pylos show
three separate eating areas at one feast. The minions ate outside
the palace gate, where the cheapest ceramics were found; the
semi-privileged ate inside; and the elite few supped - from gold
and silver - in the throne room.
"Banquets were one of the major arenas for social manipulation,"
Bendall, who is studying written tablets found at Pylos, said. - AP
- SAPA