A SPEARED APHRODITE

FROM BRONZE AGE AUDEMOU, CYPRUS

*




!"#$%&' is an epithet of Aphrodite, meaning armed with a spear, lance or sword. N.
Serwint notes that, according to Hesychius, this epithet originates from Cyprus,
1
and provides
two examples in art that illustrate this insight: a statue of Aphrodite bearing a sword from
Paphos (late 2nd-early 3rd century AD)
2
and a second similar one from Soloi (mid-1st century
AD).
3
The author concludes that the Cypriot Aphrodite combined vigorous sexuality and
military accoutrement, resulting in an ambiguous gender identity, wherein perhaps her
special power resided. When I started working on this paper, a chain of related questions,
ideas and metaphors were brought to my mind by these comments. How can we apprehend
and understand properly past gender identities? Especially when we are not dealing with
goddesses, like Aphrodite, but with humans and much older than the statues of Paphos and
Soloi?
The skeletal remains of an anonymous woman have been discovered inside a
prehistoric tomb (Tomb 27) at Audemou-Kamares, in southern Cyprus (Pl. Va). She was not
sworded like our goddess, but speared: a spearhead was found close to her body. A
female burial accompanied by an artefact that is most often considered a male attribute
invites us to rethink established concepts of gender and its relevance to mortuary ritual and
social structure in Bronze Age Cyprus. This is what I intend to do in this paper, by further
examining contemporary Cypriot parallels and combining them with related evidence from
the settlements and the iconography of figurines and the vessels with plastic scenic
compositions, in the aim of placing the Audemou assemblage within the framework of
current research on gender in archaeology.
4



* I would like to thank the organisers of this symposium at the University of Crete, in Rethymno, and
particularly Katerina Kopaka, for providing the necessary academic and friendly context for a fruitful
discourse on Aegean and Mediterranean gender, from which this paper has largely benefited. Tomb 27 at
Audemou was excavated by the Department of Antiquities, under the supervision of the author and G.
Manginis. Demos Christou, then Director of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, has kindly granted
us permission to study and publish the archaeological assemblage. L. Karali has studied the human and
animal bones. I. Tzachili informed me on the possible male connotations of spindle whorls. A. Amanatidis
and K. Kopaka edited and reviewed the paper respectively. I wish to thank them all. Responsibility for the
views expressed here stays with me.
1 N. SERWINT, Aphrodite and her Near Eastern sisters: spheres of influence, in Engendering Aphrodite 342-
43.
2 W.A. DASZEWSKI, Aphrodite Hoplismene from Nea Paphos, RDAC (1982) 195-201.
3 A. WESTHOLM, The Temples of Soli: Studies on Cypriote Art during Hellenistic and Roman Periods (1936) 108,
n. 466.
4 For pioneering research on gender archaeology, see, among many others, Engendering Archaeology. For
the Aegean, see !(#)%&*&"+) ,)% ,&%-.-%,/ 0)102030) 0&1 45*&1; and for Cyprus: D. Bolger, The feminine
mystique: gender and society in prehistoric Cypriot studies, RDAC (1993) 29-41; Gender in Ancient Cyprus;
Engendering Aphrodite.
50 Giorgos VAVOURANAKIS
The excavation data from Audemou
5


The prehistoric cemetery of Kamares, in Audemou, on the southwest coast of Cyprus,
is known from surface surveys.
6
Irrigation works in 1994 disturbed part of the cemetery and
prompted thus a rescue excavation by the Department of Antiquities of four underground
rock-cut chambers with short dromoi, dated to PreBA 2.
7
The roughly circular chamber of
Tomb 27 (LM 1853) measured 2,66 m north-south x 2,35 m east-west (Pl. Vb), and was found
severely disturbed, with its roof collapsed because of the public works. The human remains
were also in an extremely fragmentary condition. Nevertheless, the combined archaeological
and anthropological study showed that it contained at least two individuals: an adult female,
represented by small parts of the skull, arms, hips and legs, occupied the eastern part of the
chamber (Pl. VIa), along the southwest (head)-northeast (legs) axis, although the exact flexed
or extended position of the body remains unknown;
8
while, a second individual of
unidentified age and sex was represented by very fragmentary remains. No other bone
fragments, human or animal, were found in this tomb, but its disturbed state makes it
difficult to completely exclude the existence of further interments.
Pottery dominated the funeral assemblage, which included sixteen complete or
fragmentary vases mainly for storage (two pithoi and four large jugs over 45 cm high) and
for serving (three small jugs and two small amphorae), and, less, for consuming (three bowls),
while two juglets might have been used as perfume containers perhaps the same with the
aforementioned small jugs and amphorae. All major representative wares were present in this
assemblage, namely Red Polished, both simple and mottled varieties, Black Polished and
Drab Polished Blue Core pottery. If the tomb contained only two interments, then to each
burial would have roughly corresponded one pithos, a couple of large jugs, a couple of small
jugs and amphorae, one or two bowls and a juglet but this is only a speculative hypothesis,
due to the disturbance of the assemblage.
The most prominent other artefacts are: a bronze spearhead of the usual hooked-tang
type,
9
which was found in situ next to the interred woman; a bronze knife, also of a
commonly found type,
10
which was found close to the spearhead; and a whetstone, which was
almost attached to the knife (Pl. VIb). These three items form a functional whole and can be
regarded as a group, rather than as individual depositions. A fourth artefact may or may not
be part of this group (Pl. VIc): a biconical object with a central perforation, made of
crystalline stone (6,5 cm long and 2,3 cm wide) was located near the bronze implements, and
was probably associated with the female burial. It is identical in shape to an unfinished
limestone mace-head from Early Bronze Age Sotira-Kamminoudhia
11
a site which has also
yielded pecking stones made of chalcedony and quartz.
12
The Audemou stone artefact could
thus be a mace-head, in which case our female burial was accompanied by a group of bronze

5 !. "#"$%&#'#()* +,- !. .#!!/')*, '.012+345-,+26 7892- 17: ;<1: #3=>?23-6)78($', RDAC (1995)
67-94; !. .#!!@')* +,- !. "#"$%&#'#()*, '.012+345-,+26 7892- 17: ;<1: #3=>?23-6)78($' 99, RDAC
(2004) 93-148; !. "#"$%&#'#()*, A. (#&#A), !. .#!!@')*, +,- #. B*#A/(), '$- 7892- 17: ;<1:
#3=>?23-6)78($': : 13?C2D> 7EF 1E17-+GF ,F,1+,9GF 17:F +,7,FH:1: 723 3D-+2I 42D-7-1?2I +,- 7EF -1725-+2-
+2-FEF-+GF =5E?<FEF 7:J 452K1725-+>J (I4523, RDAC (2004) 149-68.
6 S. SWINY, Bronze Age settlement patterns in southwest Cyprus, Levant 13 (1981) 53, fig. 2, 69-71, fig. 7.
7 In Cypriot prehistory, PreBA or Prehistoric Bronze Age defines the time span between the Early Cypriot I and
Middle Cypriot II periods (ca 2500-1750 BC). It is divided into two sub-periods, PreBA1 (Early Cypriot I-
IIIA, ca 2500-2025 BC) and PreBA2 (Early Cypriot IIIBMiddle Cypriot II, ca 2025-1750 BC). See A.B.
KNAPP, The Archaeology of Late Bronze Age Cypriot Society: The Study of Settlement, Survey and Landscape (1997)
35.
8 In the Early Bronze Age cemetery of Sotira-Kamminoudhia the skeletons were found in a flexed position
cf. S. SWINY and E. HERSCHER, The cemetery, in S. SWINY, G. (RIP) RUPP and E. HERSCHER (eds),
Sotira Kamminoudhia. An Early Bronze Age Site in Cyprus (2003) 143.
9 "#"$%&#'#()* +,- .#!!I')* (supra n. 5).
10 S. SWINY, The metal, in SWINY et al. (supra n. 8) 383.
11 ID., The ground stone ibid. 268:S275.
12 Ibid. 226.
A SPEARED APHRODITE FROM BRONZE AGE AUDEMOU, CYPRUS 51
and stone weapons, or, alternatively, a spindle whorl of an unusual type,
13
or some stone
weight, for a loom or for any other purpose. The tomb contained a second whetstone, found
higher up in the fill, and hence in an uncertain association with the female burial and its two
bronze implements and the first whetstone and the possible mace head. Several river
boulders in the top fill layer of the tomb suggest that the interments had been sealed at a
second stage of the funeral process.

Comparative material evidence: Audemou and Lapethos

The only known contemporary parallel to the Audemou burial comes from Tomb 322B
at Lapethos, on the north coast of Cyprus.
14
This included a female skeleton, aged 18-24
years, associated with bronze weapons, jewellery, clay spindle whorls, a clay plank-shaped
figurine, and the skeletal remains of a horse. These burials from Audemou and Lapethos
provide thus two exceptional case studies for Prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus, in which
specific types of funerary artefacts usually considered male are securely assigned to
individual skeletons of anthropologically specified female sex.
As J. Webbs work has shown, several previous attempts to link weapons to male
burials, and jewellery and spindle whorls to female burials

have been based on unilateral and
rather biased arguments, due to the lack of anthropological data.
15
Burials at the cemetery of
Vounous combine both types of funerary depositions for male and female individuals, and
cast additional doubt upon the relevance of certain types of mortuary offerings as secure
gender indicators.
But even if the Audemou and Lapethos tombs are exceptions to an assumed rule, the
former seems to be in sharper contrast to this rule than the latter. The Lapethos burial might
simply represent a way of honouring a woman of high social status, with several types of
prestigious gifts of both male and female types weapons and a horse, and jewellery and
spindle whorls. Similar offerings accompany other Lapethos burials, including big spearheads
(up to 45 cm long). P. Keswani has argued that such depositions were part of a more generic
strategic attempt to display status and authority through acts of conspicuous consumption.
16

Yet, Tomb 27 at Audemou is not a wealthy burial. It contains no jewellery or other
luxury items, and includes much less pottery than the other burials of the same cemetery.
17

This may suggest that the spearhead, the knife, the whetstone and the possible mace-head or
spindle whorl or weight were associated with the female skeleton in a closer and rather
individual manner. But were these items personal belongings of the interred woman,
18
or
mere funerary offerings to her by the living? Unfortunately, these can only be generically
described as items that were certainly associated with the dead body in contrast, e.g., to the
drinking vessels, which may have been used during mortuary ceremonials.
Funerary artefacts, no matter how personal they may have been in the lifetime of the
deceased, do not necessarily reflect his/her previous social persona in a direct and faithful
manner. As a rule, their deposition is the result of the livings decisions and actions. The
dead body is a relatively passive constituent of the funerary context, which often becomes an
arena of interaction and even competition between individuals or groups of the living
community. Through this agency, the social persona of the dead may be re-shaped in order

13 This object meets well Crewes criteria for spindle whorls (L. CREWE. Spindle Whorls. A Study of Form,
Function and Decoration in Prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus [1998] 26), but has no known typological parallels.
Besides, stone spindle whorls are as a rule rare in prehistoric Cyprus.
14 P.M. FISCHER, Prehistoric Cypriot Skulls: A Medico-anthropological, Archaeological, and Micro-analytical
Investigation (1986) 29.
15 J.M. WEBB, Funerary ideology in Bronze Age Cyprus: toward the recognition and analysis of Cypriot
ritual data, in G.C. IOANNIDES (ed.), Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis (1992) 90.
16 P.S. KESWANI, Death, prestige and copper in Bronze Age Cyprus, AJA 109 (2005) 341-401.
17 For a comparative analysis of the finds from the Audemou tombs, see .#!!/')* +,- "#"$%&#'#()*
(supra n. 5) 127, 46F. 3.
18 For weapons in female burials at Tell-el-Mazar (Persian period), see MLLER-CLEMM in this volume. The
author argues that these weapons may have been actually used during the interred womens lifetime.
52 Giorgos VAVOURANAKIS
to promote and disserve specific social goals of the living. Therefore, the discussion on the
finds in Tomb 27 would better be oriented towards the relationship between funerary ritual
and social structure in PreBA Cyprus.

Funerary ritual and social structure in PreBA Cyprus
19


In PreBA Cyprus, dead are buried in collective underground rock-cut chamber tombs
with dromoi, in extramural cemeteries and are usually accompanied by pottery, bronze
weapons and tools, jewellery and/or clay spindle whorls. Animal bones attest to deposition
and possible ritual consumption of meat. With every new burial, previous remains were often
pushed aside, and several older bones were grouped together, probably in the course of a
secondary treatment of the body.
PreBA funerary practices may be the combined offspring of traditions of, both, the
Late Chalcolithic period and the Philia facies. The latter cultural sequence represents major
social transformations in the mid-3rd millennium BC, which have heralded the influx of a
series of technological advances. These include the introduction of the cattle and the plough,
and the appearance of rectilinear architecture, of bronze working and the production of metal
weapons, tools and jewellery, of well levigated Red Polished pots mainly of drinking and
serving vessels of plank-shaped figurines, clay tripod cooking hobs, and spindle whorls, and,
finally, of new burial customs.
20

It is still debatable whether these Philia changes were due to a group, large or small, of
immigrants from Anatolia or they were triggered by internal social developments.
21

Whichever the case, they have undoubtedly permeated all aspects of Cypriot society, and cast
the place of the dead as crucial. Extramural cemeteries indicate that the dividing line between
the domain of the living and the sphere of the dead became clearer than ever before.
Secondary treatment shows a periodic reengagement of people with the deceased and an
increased emphasis on lineage and ancestors. It is reasonable to assume that the fluid social
landscape and the newly formed/transformed communities placed increased emphasis upon
the dead, because the latter symbolised descent, lineage and local history. Thus, the dead
anchored the identities of their respective groups, and secured claims upon the land made by
their descendants.
There have been several archaeological attempts to use funerary evidence as a marker
of the leading role of males within this new social status quo.
22
It was also put forward that
multiple burials could suggest the reproduction of specific types of social relations and the
possible predominance of a small, basic social unit, i.e. the household. On the other hand,
the frequent presence of bronze weapons, the predominance of new drinking habits, and the
use of bucrania as a key symbol within ritual activity are thought to be indicators of
asymmetric relations between men and women. A leading male identity is thought to have
risen out of the new socio-economic structures, since copper working is extremely
demanding in labour and time and implies a commitment that female pregnancy would
hamper significantly. The above views allow us to assume the authority of small communities
of patrilineal families in PreBA Cyprus.
The funerary consumption of metals may have been crucial for the socio-economic
structures of these communities. Keswani has stressed the importance of metals for funerary

19 A most recent review of the topic in P.S. KESWANI, Mortuary Ritual and Society in Bronze Age Cyprus (2004).
20 J.M. WEBB and D. FRANKEL, Characterizing the Philia Facies: material culture, chronology, and the
origin of the Bronze Age in Cyprus, AJA 103 (1999) 3-43.
21 Cf. D. FRANKEL, J.M. WEBB and C. ESLICK, Anatolia and Cyprus in the third millennium B.C.E. A
speculative model of interaction, in G. BUNNENS (ed.), Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Near East. Papers
Read at a Symposium held at the University of Melbourne, Department of Classics and Archaeology (29-30 September
1994) (1996) 37-50; A.B. KNAPP, Archaeology and ethnicity. A dangerous liaison. Archaeologia Cypria 4
(2001) 29-46.
22 D. BOLGER, Gender and mortuary ritual in Chalcolithic Cyprus, in Engendering Aphrodite 81-83; E.J.
PELTENBURG, Constructing authority: the Vounous enclosure model, OpAth 20 (1994) 157-62.
A SPEARED APHRODITE FROM BRONZE AGE AUDEMOU, CYPRUS 53
display and, consequently, for the affirmation or renegotiation of status and hierarchy in
PreBA Cyprus.
23
This would have created a constant need for an increased production and
circulation of bronze items, affecting thus, in a sense, the whole web of socio-economic
relations. Keswani does not explicitly see weapons as gender indicators. However, it is
possible to assume that these military paraphernalia might have carried implicit male gender
attributes/connotations, because they were products of a given socio-economic context of
pyrotechnological innovations concerning mainly the production of metals probably a male
dominated social arena.
It would be interesting to introduce the assemblage of Tomb 27 at Audemou in this
discussion. The spearhead and the knife may be considered straightforward attributes of
male gender; and, as bronze artefacts in an otherwise poorly furnished tomb, they would
have been relatively precious offerings. The whetstone fits well into this picture. The same
applies to the biconical stone artefact, which would point to a male/martial identity if it is
recognised as a mace-head, but could still have male connotations if seen as a heavy spindle
whorl, since ethnographic parallels from Cyprus show that heavy spindle whorls for twine
may be also used by men.
24
Such personal items would then imply that the deceased female
had risen to a status perhaps traditionally reserved to important males. Since it is not clear
if these artefacts were her own life-belongings or more neutral post-mortem gifts, it remains
uncertain whether she had achieved this status during her lifetime or she had been awarded
this honour after death. Whichever the case, it is plausible to say that the PreBA2 community
of Audemou used male emblems moreover insignia of men of relatively high status,
perhaps having even the traits of paterfamilias in association with a woman, apparently of
special status too. This insight endorses a more flexible local perception of gender divisions
of their times.

Social realities in PreBA Cyprus: life vs. death?

In order to better evaluate the significance of the Audemou burial, it would be useful to
run a broad-brush review of some relevant gender issues concerning life and death in PreBA
Cyprus. For some scholars, funerary practices reflect, more or less faithfully, the emergent
patrilineal families of the Philia culture.
25
For others, things are different. For example,
Webbs analysis of domestic activities at Marki-Alonia has revealed their homogeneous
distribution across the settlement: there is no hierarchy or prioritisation of specific types of
activities over others, which would point to different types of male and female occupations.
26

Furthermore, continuous rebuilding at Marki shows that there were no discrete
architectural units. If the previous Chalcolithic households had been rigidly defined via self-
sufficient round house units, such architectural rigidity must have been lost by the PreBA,
when borders between different, assumed patrilineal, households seem confused. The
emergence of patrilineal family structures, she argues, may be envisaged as a characteristic of
funerary ideology, but not really as a feature of actual social practice.
The contrast between the majority of PreBA Red Polished ceramic wares and the White
Painted pottery
27
can be another relevant example for our understanding of social realities
of that period. Red Polished wares are found in, both, settlement and funerary contexts, and
are characterised by a lack of standardisation. White Painted pottery is mainly found in
funerary contexts. D. Frankel has analysed the patterns of White Painted decoration and

23 KESWANI (supra n. 16).
24 CREWE (supra n. 13) 13.
25 BOLGER (supra n. 22).
26 J.M. WEBB, Engendering the built environment: household and community in Prehistoric Bronze Age
Cyprus, in Engendering Aphrodite 87-101.
27 The White Painted pottery is a characteristic feature of the Cypriot Middle Bronze Age or late Prehistoric
Bronze Age 2early Protohistoric Bronze Age 1.
54 Giorgos VAVOURANAKIS
concludes that the manufacture of this pottery was a household business.
28
Predominance of
both local and regional decoration styles, particularly on vases from central, western, and
northern Cyprus, has allowed him to argue that specific female potters had been moving
through the island as brides. The emergence of patrilineal family in PreBA Cyprus entails
that women were assumingly restricted to the cycle of household duties, among which was
domestic production of pottery less demanding in specialisation and labour input than
copper production. Furthermore, patrilineal families would allow brides rather than
bridegrooms its perceived main working force to leave the community. The knowledge
and fashion of pottery decoration would thus circulate along with these female potters.
This view has been criticised
29
of paying too much attention on decoration styles and of
lacking supporting evidence on manufacturing techniques and their diffusion across the
island. Furthermore, the presumption that the place of women in PreBA Cyprus was in the
house only has been seriously challenged by the results of settlement analysis and the study of
domestic activities. Finally, and even if the hypothesis on the circulation of skilled brides is
accepted, there is no basis for assuming that these women were inferior to male members of
their communities. It is equally possible to think that they were highly esteemed for their
talent, especially since this talent facilitated the production of pottery artefacts, which in turn
were prized for their significance. This significance was particularly high within the funerary
context and this feature probably fuelled both pottery production itself and, also, the
(re)production of economic and social relations in PreBA Cyprus.
Changes during the Philia facies may well have offered the opportunity of a shift in the
relations between male and female gender, but it is not certain whether this shift has actually
taken place. The fact that, unlike settlement evidence, funerary ritual seems to promote an
ideology of masculine predominance creates a contrast between the domain of the living and
that of the dead. Perhaps PreBA society perceived of a sphere of funerary cosmology which
was distinguished from the world of the living and, yet, actively involved in the
(re)production of social relations. Hence, the new pyrotechnologies were decisive for
everyday life i.e. for the production of bronze tools and Red Polished vases. If relevant
activities really entailed a heavier male involvement, then the deposition of metal and ceramic
products in their tombs may have been part and parcel of connotations of male identity,
being, intentionally or unintentionally, advertised within the funerary ritual.
These remarks cast a different sidelight upon the female deceased from Audemou.
Since social reality apparently allowed both men and women to acquire high status, there
would be no particular need for her to appropriate male attributes during her lifetime. The
spearhead, the knife, the whetstone and the possible mace-head could thus show her actual
high social status in life. This hypothesis can hold even if the bi-conical stone object is
identified as a spindle whorl bearing strictly female gender connotations: I. Tzachili has
pointed out that, in Homer, a few and high standing women used spindle whorls while the
others had to rely on their hands only.
30
Nonetheless, this possibly privileged situation of the
Audemou burial must not conceal the fact that, as a whole, funerary ritual promoted a
specific worldview, entailing different gender relations in the aim, perhaps, to advertise and
renegotiate the social order introduced during the Philia facies. This possible spindle whorl
was thus probably not sufficient to display the high status of our woman. There was need to
reinforce her funerary gifts with a martial kit of bronze and stone weapons, in order to
associate her more explicitly with contemporary male ideology.


28 D. FRANKEL, Middle Cypriot White Painted Pottery. An Analytical Study of the Decoration (1974); ID., Pottery
production in Prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus: assessing the problem, JMA 1.2 (1988) 27-55; ID., Color
variation on prehistoric Cypriot Red Polished pottery, JFA 21 (1994) 205-19.
29 G.A. LONDON, Women potters and craft specialization in a pre- market economy, in Engendering
Aphrodite 265-80.
30 :4)-0%,/ ,)% 148-0($' 136-42.
A SPEARED APHRODITE FROM BRONZE AGE AUDEMOU, CYPRUS 55
Plank-shaped figurines: androgynous forms and gender perceptions

The argument so far has stressed the importance of funerary ideology for the
perception of gender within PreBA Cyprus. There is, however, one more feature of funerary
ritual that may elucidate the issue: namely, plank-shaped figurines found in burial contexts,
31

one of the assumingly diagnostic types of artefacts used in gender research in prehistoric
Cyprus.
32
Most of the forty known examples of plank-shaped figurines come from well-
furnished tombs of the cemetery at Lapethos. L. Talalay and T. Cullen discuss the fact that, in
their majority, these figurines show no clear sex attributes, while at least two of them are
androgynous one from Agia Paraskevi, the other today in a private collection.
33
They
further argue that sexual ambiguity was deliberate and rendered these figurines a flexible
material involved in ritual activity, wherein a complex code of symbols facilitated the
renegotiation of roles and identities, and, by extension, the allocation of social and economic
resources.
Mixing of male and female sex attributes is, of course, not reserved to PreBA figurines.
Greek and Roman antiquity produced androgynous figures, like Aphrodite herself in her
speared version.
34
Among Cesnolas finds are a statue and several clay figurines of her
provided with a beard and female breast.
35
In prehistoric Cyprus, Neolithic and Chalcolithic
figurines often combine a phallic neck and head, which can even be bearded, with female sex
attributes.
36
While, in the neighbouring prehistoric Levant, the worshipers of Inanna the
powerful goddess of female nature, motherhood and love, but also of war and destruction
had to wear both male and female clothes at the same time.
37

In other words, a common tendency to transcend the basic male/female binary
opposition exists in different periods and cultures. B. Maclachlan suggests to conceive this
diachronic tendency in several ways:
38
as the union of the two genders in sexual intercourse
and procreation; or as an effort to trace back the origins of both genders from a common
divine creator: either male, like God who created Adam and Eve, or mixed male and female,
like Zeus as the world creator according to some Orphic texts. Furthermore, a turn to
Egyptian myths reveals that the universe was assumingly born either from a single lotus fruit
or from a single scarab egg or even by Atum, an androgynous divinity. Finally, Maclachlan
holds, androgynous figurines may express a certain teleological belief and aspiration, e.g., in
an ultimate union of man and woman after death, as the final ontological destination of
mankind.
Androgynous trends, particularly as reflected in funerary practices, may be associated
to behaviours that break away from established worldviews. As a rule, ritual activity aims to
help people exit from current social realities, override well-entrenched male/female
distinctions, and view them from a more distant standpoint in an effort to renegotiate them.
39


31 Unless otherwise stated, this chapter is based on: L.A. A CAMPO, Anthropomorphic Representations in
Prehistoric Cyprus: A Formal and Symbolic Analysis of Figurines, c. 3500-1800 B.C. (1994); V.
KARAGEORGHIS, The Coroplastic Art of Ancient Cyprus 1: Chalcolithic-Late Cypriot I (1991); Art of Ancient
Cyprus.
32 See e.g. the works of HAMILTON, MACLACHLAN, as well as TALALAY and CULLEN in Engendering
Aphrodite.
33 Sexual ambiguity in plank figurines 181-95.
34 DASZEWSKI (supra n. 2). See also S. SOPHOCLEOUS, LAphrodite en tant quandrogyne, Archaeologia
Cypria (1985) 79-96.
35 L. P. DI CESNOLA, Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs and Temples (1878) 132.
36 B. MACLACHLAN, The ungendering of Aphrodite, in Engendering Aphrodite 370; See also L.
.#'BM$%&#'), 'B2 ,F;5E4H?2592 0-=GD-2 ,4H 72 '02D-;-+H 2-+-1?H (,F72I-6&142;&1-&', RDAC (1994)
35, and Art of Ancient Cyprus 118-19.
37 SERWINT (supra n. 1).
38 MACLACHLAN (supra n. 36) 370-73.
39 To recall the Maenads, the female worshippers of Dionysus in religious hysteria, who held the thyrsus a
phallic symbol. Their masculine connotations, combined with their peculiar behaviour, created an
exceptional context that served, actually, to perpetuate established male dominance in ancient Greek
society (E.C. KEULS, The Reign of the Phallus. Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens [1985] 359-79). It has also

56 Giorgos VAVOURANAKIS
In the case of Tomb 27 at Audemou, the deliberate and possibly extraordinary combination
of a female body with male material attributes would bring the values of ordinary everyday
life in sharp relief. It would allow the living participants of the funerary ceremony to
metaphorically exit the web of their usual practice and, thus, re-view it through ritual activity
and reflect upon the significance of communal values that defined their way of life.

Scenic compositions:
40
faithful or ideal pictures of gender?

There is one more category of clay representations to consider here: scenic
compositions, either self-standing or fixed on vessels. The most famous of them all is
probably the Vounous bowl,
41
which is assumed to be an advertisement of the PreBA
Cypriot social status quo.
42
Interestingly, there is only one female figure, that of a child bearer
or kourotrophos, at the side in the bowl. The rest of the figures occupy central positions inside
the vase, where they participate in some ceremony involving bucrania. When their sex is
defined, these are male.
Other plastic compositions depict everyday activities like ploughing, working in
relation with basins (bread making? preparing clay for pots?), or holding babies and milking
deer and engaging in ritual activity. Attempts to discern any binary gendered division of
labour e.g. women restricted to domestic roles, such as child bearing and food processing,
and men involved in craft production and ritual activity are hampered, again, as in the case
of plank-shaped figurines, by the figures frequent lack of clear sex indications.
43
D. Bolger
suggests that the harmonious co-existence of men and women labouring together in various
scenic compositions may be an attempt to mask gender differences via funerary ideology.
44

This, however, would run against what has been argued above, that funerary rituals promoted
an ideology of dominating masculinity. Furthermore, the scene(s) in the Vounous bowl, and
the presence of bucrania in some other scenes, e.g., on the models from Kotchati,
45
do suggest
an overall predominance of male symbolisms. Were these compositions telling real stories
and describing actual social conditions? The plastic figurine of an outsider fastened on the
rim of the Vounous bowl, and, apparently, peeping into the indoors performances may
suggest that these were consistent with physical activities albeit somehow idealised.
With these scenic compositions in mind, several alternative interpretations may arise as
regards the Audemou burial. The predominance of male gender attributes on scenic
compositions may be slight, but it still suggests that the female deceased formed a social and
ideological exception. As such, it would have openly confronted, and maybe even provoked,
established PreBA gender attitudes. The male artefacts placed next to the dead woman were
not an attempt to override gender divisions, as I argued above, based on funerary habits.
Instead, the gender identity of the woman of Audemou would have resembled the much later
figures of Inanna or Aphrodite Anassa (meaning queen), and, why not, also Gorgo and
Baubo.
46
The gender identity of these female figures was a complex construct reflecting
deeper collective psychological feelings and attitudes of definitely men-dominated societies.
In their cases, female gender had an exceptionally active and even aggressive and militant
side, which combined with their explicit erotic femininity to cast them, sometimes, as a sexual

been argued that mixing of gender attributes in Greek myths primarily aimed to teach and consolidate
essential oppositions between male and female by stressing the dramatic endings of most of these stories
(G. DEVEREUX, Femme et Mythe [1982 -transl. 2005]).
40 KARAGEORGHIS (supra n. 31) 117-69; Art of Ancient Cyprus 264-90.
41 Khirokitia 118-25.
42 PELTENBURG (supra n. 22).
43 N. HAMILTON, Women in Cypriot prehistory: the story so far, in Engendering Aphrodite 386-87.
44 BOLGER (supra n. 22) 83.
45 KARAGEORGHIS (supra n. 31) 142-43. The presence of a female figure in front of the bucrania in one of
the two Kotchati models shows that women were not completely excluded from ritual activity but cannot
refute the male connotations of the bucrania.
46 G. DEVEREUX, Baubo, la vulve mythique (1983 -transl. 2006).
A SPEARED APHRODITE FROM BRONZE AGE AUDEMOU, CYPRUS 57
threat and menace.
47
This complex female gender identity was employed to represent the
dark and mysterious other the psychological opposite to the established male status
quo.
Could the deceased of Audemou be conceived within such a framework too as a
woman with an exceptional, but not male social biography, buried with masculine insignia,
such as a spearhead, a knife, a whetstone and, maybe, a mace-head? And may these items
show some male awkwardness vis--vis the active female personality of the dead, which
would have challenged established gender perceptions in her life and had, perhaps, even
prompted a re-evaluation of such concepts?
48


Conclusions

What would be the significance of the bronze spearhead and the rest of the
martial/weaving kit next to the female skeleton of Tomb 27 at Audemou? Was this rather
unusual find a sign of a woman with a mans social status or a symbol of a high female status
with strong male connotations? The influx of new technologies during the Philia facies may
have had encouraged, indeed, a distinct predominant male discourse which is reflected in
PreBA Cypriot funerary ritual. Yet, in the absence of supporting evidence of any serious
hierarchical sex differentiation in the settlements of that period, it is plausible to suggest a
constant and dynamic interplay of male and female gender attributes at different levels
economic, ideological, religious, cognitive, psychological and other. While main social trends
might have encouraged male discourse, Cypriot communities of the time were apparently
open enough to allow their female members to enjoy prestige, and, thus, to be buried with
relevant material insignia. PreBA funerary ideology in Cyprus seems to have been locked into
complex dialectic and certainly engendered relations with its contemporary social realities.

Giorgos VAVOURANAKIS

47 S.L. BUDIN, Creating a goddess of sex, in Engendering Aphrodite 320-21.
48 The possibility that the object accompanying the Audemou spearhead was a spindle whorl and not a mace-
head may also lead to meaningful connotations, since Greek Mythology provides examples where weaving
was a powerful action: Arachne used the cloth she made in order to lure people to her will; and Dieaneira
used Nessuss blood to dye the poisonous cloth that killed Hercules. These mythical women both reflect a
latent social fear of female gender, which is not completely tamed and remains thus potentially
uncontrolled a constant possible menace to male dominance (see also KEULS [supra n. 39] 233-35).
58 Giorgos VAVOURANAKIS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Pl. Va Map of Cyprus, with main PreBA sites mentioned in the text.
Pl. Vb Tomb 27 at Audemou. Plan, section and approximate location of finds (11. jug 18.
spearhead 19. knife 20. mace-head/spindle whorl 22. whetstone).
Pl. VIa Bone fragments of female skeleton in situ (Scale: 1 m).
Pl. VIb Spearhead, knife and whetstone (Scale in cm).
Pl. VIc Mace-head or spindle whorl (Scale in cm).