Politics of Feasting

Description

The goal of this thesis is to explore the role that civic (i.e. state-sponsored)
feasting and drinking played in early polis (pl. poleis), or city-state formation on Crete in
the Early Iron Age to Archaic transition, ca. 700-500 BCE. Using the two recently
excavated civic feasting structures at the site of Azoria as a model for both “inclusive”
and “exclusive” forms of civic feasting, this project compares and contrasts the role that it
played at a number of other sites in central and east Crete. In order to categorize the
structures as either inclusive or exclusive, all forms of published evidence were examined
including the buildings’ architecture and the socially valued goods and ceramics found
within the structures. Ultimately, this project demonstrates that in the 8th century BCE,
inclusive feasting rituals and association with the past were used as means of creating and
maintaining a strong group identity, which paved the way for the use of more exclusive
practices in the 7th century BCE, where sub-group identities and alliances were formed
amongst members of the larger group. However, at the sites where there was evidence for
multiple civic feasting venues it appears that by the 7th century BCE, the interplay of both
inclusive and exclusive forms of feasting was crucial to the process of identity formation
for the citizens of these proto-poleis.
Author Keywords: Archaic Crete, Commensality, Feasting, Identity Formation, Polis formation