Practice Slide Identification

Slide 1: Sample Answer

Bear in mind that in archaeology there is almost never one and only one answer. What I provide here is one way to approach the task of placing this object into its archaeological, social, historical, and / or cultural context. There are, of course, other equally valid ways of engaging this material. But note how this answer moves from specific details to a big picture.

• large bronze tripod cauldron
• late 9th or early 8th century BCE
• found at Olympia but very similar to examples from the Akropolis in Athens

This is one example of a common votive dedication found at Olympia in the 9th-8th centuries BCE. Very similar examples are also found on the Akropolis at Athens and in other Greek sanctuaries. These tripod cauldrons are not practical vessels though they are modeled on cauldrons that would be used in a kitchen (or at a sanctuary for cooking sacrificial meat). This and others like it are over 1.5 m. high and decorated with ornate relief-work. Clearly they were never meant to be placed over a fire but were instead the products of specialist craftsmen and were created to be dedicated at a sanctuary or some other public space to advertise the wealth, power, and status of the man dedicating it.

They belong to a large collection of metal dedications at sanctuaries that reveal that by the 8th century BCE the Greeks generally believed that one way to regulate the proper association between men and gods was to dedicate an increasing proportion of their metal wealth in sanctuaries. These metal dedications reveal that, at this time, generally, less metal is relegated to graves and more is making its way into sanctuaries, including those on the Akropolis in Athens. In other words, an increasing proportion of available wealth is being dedicated to gods.

At this time attention and wealth is being re-directed towards the communal sanctuary and away from individual grave. This suggests that this practice is part of the general paradigm shift that characterizes the 8th c BCE in Athens. In other words, the creation of the polis redefines how people express their relationship with the gods and the polis enters the equation as a new participant. The size of the sanctuary on the Akropolis and the quantity and quality of the votives dedicated there (e.g., pottery, sculpture, inscriptions etc.) also signal the status of polis and its citizenry.