Cultural biographies of Cretan storage jars (pithoi) From antiquity to postmodernity

In a short story entitled The Jar (La Giara, 1909), Luigi Pirandello narrates the cultural biography (making, breaking and mending) of a huge storage jar and the way it represents socio-political and economic realities in a traditional Sicilian village. Inspired by La Giara, and integrating material culture theory with ethnoarchaeological, art-historical and science-based approaches, this thesis treats the cultural biographies of Cretan pithoi from antiquity to postmodernity to reveal the intertwined lives of people and artefacts and the dynamics of a very powerful relationship, hinting at the many possibilities and stories which lie behind these vessels.
The body of material discussed includes published and unpublished Cretan pithoi and fragments thereof, which date from the second and the first millennia BC, especially ca. 800-500 BC. This material is examined primarily in the form of case-studies which contextualize the production, distribution and consumption of these vessels in their ancient and modern socio-cultural settings.
In viewing ancient Cretan pithoi as the protagonists in the various episodes of their lives as well as of the lives of the people who interacted with them, this study illustrates the shifting meanings and symbolism of objects and highlights the fluid and ever-changing agency of archaeological artefacts as they move through different contexts. Ultimately, this work hopes to encourage future investigations on other types of durable archaeological objects and to centre discussions on the socially-constituted processes that create meaning in the material world of people.