Christos Boulotis

Within the broad range of figurative motifs used for human imagery in Late Bronze age Aegean art, the theme of the head that turns back over one’s shoulder has been one of the most characteristic, primarily because of its expressive, narrative power. From the ‘Harvester vase’ from Ayia Triada to a Late Helladic IIIC larnax from the Mycenaean cemetery of Tanagra in Boeotia, this particular movement motif followed an iconographic trail of almost five centuries, paddling amongst the most diverse artistic genres and traditions. Most examples, extant on sphragistic documents (especially signet-rings), belong to two dominant iconographic cycles: on one hand, ‘baetyl’ and ‘tree-shaking’ scenes of obvious dramatic tension; on the other hand, processional or ‘dance’ imagery. in the particular case of processional syntheses, the ‘turned head’ motif is attested also on artefacts other than glyptic (the steatite ‘Harvester vase’, the ‘Meeting on the Hilltop’ scene from the Theran Flotilla fresco, the procession of mourners from the Tanagra larnax). Six examples of this motif among the Akrotiri frescoes (three in Xeste 3 and three in the West House [Flotilla fresco] in quite diverse narrative contexts) demonstrate clearly its broad diffusion in Late Minoan I/ Late Cycladic I painting and its diverse integration in the narrative strategies of at least two contemporary artists/ workshops.
With the exception of a few rare instances, where use of the motif might have been dictated for purely decorative reasons, its use was never void of significance and meaning, it never became a standardized figurative formula, but it was always convincingly placed within the narrative web of representations, while in some cases even the very reason that caused the sudden ‘turn of the head’ as a sensory reaction, is depicted. In the case of the ‘Harvester vase’ and the ivory ‘Bull Hunting’ pyxis from Katsambas, the turn of the head is highly indicative of flowing emotions: merriment in the former case, fear and distress in the latter. In the ‘dramatic’ glyptic representations, the turn of the head seems to reflect actual expressive gestures, emphasizing the mental tension of the ‘ritual participants’ themselves in a considerable number of cases, the turn of the head creates the illusion of oral communication, implying speech or conversation, especially when accompanied by gestures, as the obvious means of non-verbal communication. Among such gestures, most idiosyncratic is the backwards stretch of the arm: even when a single human form has been depicted, as in the case of the ‘official’ carrying a Syrian axe on the almond-shaped sealstone from Vatheia (Pedhiadha), we can be certain that we have a extreme case of pars pro toto from a much more extended processional composition.