Enthroned Upon Mountains: Constructions of Power in the Aegean Bronze Age

Abstract

The Bronze Age Aegean lacks a clearly discernible iconography of rulership, permitting widely contrasting speculation on the character of Minoan society – that it was egalitarian, heterarchical, gynocratic or a theocracy overseen by priest-kings. That elites did exist is amply attested by mortuary, iconographic and architectural evidence, including the Throne Room of the Late Minoan palace at Knossos in which a centrally oriented throne with a mountain-shaped back is incorporated into the architectural fabric of the room. Iconographic representations of human figures holding sceptres and standing upon mountains as well as evidence for the increased palatial control of cultic activity at rura..