Praxis Makes Perfect? The Archaeological Correlates of Social Failure in Minoan Crete

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Failure" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In a 2017 paper on architectural failures in Minoan Crete I suggested that these reflected a greater focus on signification than on engineering. Still failures, as drains that need refitting and paving that needs replacing cannot be seen otherwise; but a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the underlying purpose of these projects provides insight into sociocultural and political conditions. Likewise, ceramic failures—overproduction, malformed and misfired vessels, breakdowns in assembly—suggest the real “product” was not simply a sufficient supply of functional and aesthetically pleasing storage, cooking and table wares. Through the lens of Social Entanglement theory (Cunningham 2023) it becomes clear that these outcomes reflect the needs of the polity to entangle its constituents and prevent fissioning; economic production thus becomes social reproduction. A polity such as Minoan Crete, that depends upon entanglement for its survival, will also require social leveling to finesse status inequalities. For example, destroyed and/or abandoned buildings might also reflect punishment for transgression; and ritual abasement, lamentation, and atonement, as reflected in the iconography, may demonstrate the need for elites to publicly process social transgressions or failures of office, real or potential.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology of Failure   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39976.0