Marie N Pareja

University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Consulting Scholar

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Archaeologist and Art Historian with a penchant for plaster, monkeys, fierce female figures, and Indus-Aegean exchange.

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Talks by Marie N Pareja

Mythic Creatures: Origin Stories

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Join Dr. Pareja to explore the ancient origins and enduring significance of mythical creatures su... more Join Dr. Pareja to explore the ancient origins and enduring significance of mythical creatures such as dragons, unicorns, and mermaids. These beings appear in Bronze Age art, suggesting they were part of early oral traditions even before written records. As civilizations like Mesopotamia, Greece, and the Indus Valley developed, these creatures were incorporated into their mythologies, reflecting societal values and ideals. Through archaeology, art history, and anthropology, we uncover the earliest depictions and understand how these creatures symbolized concepts of power, heroism, and the supernatural. Importantly, the lecture examines how these mythical beings continue to influence contemporary culture, evolving in their symbolism and narratives over millennia, offering insights into human values, identities, and connections across time.

Problematic Patriarchal Perspectives: Saffron, "Fertility," and Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera

Presented at the University of Oxford Ancient Medicine Seminar, 2022

The Late Bronze Age wall painting program from Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera is traditionally consid... more The Late Bronze Age wall painting program from Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera is traditionally considered as showing animal and human attendants to a seated nature-/fertility goddess. As Andreas Vlachopoulos has shown, the wall paintings guide the building's visitors on a programmatic journey, along which many scholars believe the scenes show coming-of-age ceremonies related to fertility. Such theories engage and perpetuate (whether consciously or not) conventional patriarchal notions regarding childbirth and childrearing as necessarily pivotal to a woman's roles and identities. In the case of Xeste 3, the entire building is conventionally discussed in terms of coming-of-age-ceremonies related to menstruation (its onset, duration, and cessation). The depictions of saffron and crocuses depicted throughout the structure are typically considered references to healing, further supporting the notion of a fertile, healing, gentle nature deity.

Traditional scholarship overlooks a critical facet of the iconography within Xeste 3: no pregnant women, infants, or toddlers have been identified in the wall paintings. Such depictions in any media are rare in Bronze Age Aegean island iconography (beyond the Cave of Eileithya on Crete), which allows for the possibility that while the wall paintings do address fertility, modern patriarchal bias has reframed depictions of reproductive health in terms of the 'healthy' ability to bear children. This discussion highlights this inherently biased reading and reframes an examination of Xeste 3 in light of often-overlooked or ignored information. For instance, small doses of saffron can be healing, but slightly larger doses can induce menstruation and abortion, and even act as poison. When considered together with the iconography throughout Xeste 3 and the lack of pregnancy, childbirth, and children, it is possible that the herb supports women's reproductive health by helping women avoid pregnancy and subsequent childbirth. If one allows for such a reading, then a plethora of striking parallels emerge between the iconography and subsequent interpretation of the seated deity at Xeste 3 and a long-lived Mesopotamian deity of paradoxical duality: Inanna.

Technical Difficulties: Blue in Bronze Age Aegean Art

During the Aegean Bronze Age (ca. 3,200-1,100 B.C.), blue pigments are rendered from a myriad of ... more During the Aegean Bronze Age (ca. 3,200-1,100 B.C.), blue pigments are rendered from a myriad of different sources across distinct media: from naturally occurring minerals such as riebeckite and lapis lazuli to man-made compounds like Egyptian blue and even plant- and animal-based pigments, such as murex purple and indigo. The ways in which these colors are employed in wall painting, however, often leave modern viewers with more questions than answers. For instance, why render the shaved scalps of young individuals in blue? The fur of monkeys and cats and the feathers of birds are not blue in reality either. One might turn to color theory, which is well established in the art of neighboring regions (Egypt, Mesopotamia), yet no such over-arching theory exists for the Aegean. Traditional explanations for the choice to show a pictorial element as blue either regard Aegean artistic norms as mildly derivative of Egyptian artistic conventions or simply state that blue is more visually appealing than gray or brown. Rather than entertain reductionist notions, this study proposes a new, polyvalent understanding for the use of Aegean color. Not only might the pigments themselves serve as material references to the places from which they come (the east), but blue may also be considered a luxury pigment, perhaps evocative of inextricable notions of personal or regional identity, access to far-flung trade networks, and participation in or belonging to an elite, international lineage.

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/aegean-dyes/

Koh, A., V. Apostolakou, M.N. Pareja, A.M. Crandall, and P.P. Betancourt. 2020. “Organic Residue Studies,” in Alatzomouri Pefka. A Middle Minoan IIB Workshop Making Organic Dyes, V. Apostolakou, T. Brogan, and P.P. Betancourt, eds., pp. 111-118.

The Monkey as Hybrid in Minoan and Cycladic Bronze Age Art

Bronze Age (ca. 3,200-1,100 B.C.) Aegean art is renowned for its depictions of the natural world,... more Bronze Age (ca. 3,200-1,100 B.C.) Aegean art is renowned for its depictions of the natural world, particularly the detailed and nuanced renderings of plants, animals, humans, and geological features. Hybrid creatures appear as well, sometimes sharing pictorial space with natural figures, as can be seen in the Offering to the Seated Goddess wall painting in Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera. Although some of the hybrid creatures are adapted from or inspired by the east (Egypt, the Near East, Mesopotamia) such as the griffin or sphinx, others are uniquely Aegean in origin. Fritz Blakolmer’s (2016) extensive study of animal imagery proposes a dominance hierarchy based on depictions of conflict in Aegean art, which includes a subdivision between the human and divine realms. In his system, the monkey appears in the divine sphere, among the supernatural hybrid creatures. When Blakolmer’s system is paired with a new eco-social model for animals in Aegean island art (Chapin and Pareja forthcoming 2021), monkeys’ associations with or even roles as supernatural creatures become clear: one may consider them exotic animals from beyond the Aegean world, negotiating the boundaries of the natural and supernatural realms as a real, visible, tangible, and powerful animal-human hybrid.

Monkeys’ hybridity has far-reaching implications with regard to Aegean conceptions of lineage, identity, luxury, exchange, and access. Nevertheless, this shift in perceived identity also affords an opportunity to deconstruct and more deeply understand the complex relationships between supernatural hybrids. As such, this investigation contextualizes the monkey’s new compound identity together with the griffin and Minoan genius to offer a nuanced approach to possible Aegean cosmology – one in which the monkey serves as an agent of renewal or rebirth, the genius as a psychopomp or agent of death, and the griffin as an agent of chaos and destruction.

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

Blakolmer, F. 2016. “Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo? Character, Symbolism, and Hierarchy of Animals and Supernatural Creatures in Minoan and Mycenaean Iconography,” Creta Antica 17, 97-183.

Chapin, A.P. and M.N. Pareja 2021. “Betwixt and Between: An Eco-social Model for Understanding Minoan and Cycladic Animal Art,” ZOIA (Aegaeum series), T. Palaima and R. Laffineur, eds., Liège and Austin. Anticipated June 2021.

Bronze Age Monkeys And The Case For Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration (AIA Traveling Lecture Series)

The following talk was presented March 20 in Winnipeg; April 14 in Rochester, NY; and April 26 in... more The following talk was presented March 20 in Winnipeg; April 14 in Rochester, NY; and April 26 in Carlisle, PA.

Bronze Age Aegean wall paintings depicting monkeys from Crete and Thera show the animals in a variety of roles, from wild to possibly trained, to cultic or sacred. These images, while stylistically Aegean, are closely related to—and seem to be descendant from—Egyptian and Mesopotamian monkey and ape iconography. In order to better understand the relationships between the monkeys in Aegean wall paintings and those that live(d) in the Aegean, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, several primatologists were consulted to identify species-specific visual characteristics more accurately. This approach results in the recognition of a new region as a contributing source for monkey iconography: the broader Indus River Valley. Communication and collaboration with Indus and Mesopotamian specialists also prove critical for the art historical and archaeological component of this project, which facilitates the tracing of possible Indus-Aegean trade routes via the movement of iconography, raw materials, goods, people (through DNA analysis), while also considering textual documentation and color theory. With an emphasis on the primatological aspect and the growing corpus of Indus goods found in the Aegean, an image emerges of an even broader iconographic and socio-religious sphere of interaction. In this expanded system, Mesopotamia functions both as an independent source of iconography and as an intermediary that facilitated a dissemination of monkey iconography, related beliefs, and possibly the creatures themselves.

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2227146-ancient-monkey-painting-suggests-bronze-age-greeks-travelled-widely/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/painted-bronze-age-monkeys-hint-interconnectedness-ancient-world-180973789/

Pareja, M.N., T. McKinney, J. Mayhew, J.M. Setchell, R. Heaton, and S. Nash. 2019. “A New Identification of the Monkeys Depicted in Bronze Age Wall Paintings from Akrotiri,” Primates (Online First, Dec. 2019).

Pareja, M.N., T. McKinney, and J.M. Setchell. 2020. “Aegean Monkeys and the Importance of Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration in Archaeoprimatology: A Reply to Urbani and Youlatos (2020),” Primates (Online First, Sept. 2020).

Problematic Patriarchal Perceptions: Saffron and Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera (Ancient Greek Medicine Lecture; University of Oxford)

The modern understanding of Bronze Age Aegean medical practices is largely based on the study of ... more The modern understanding of Bronze Age Aegean medical practices is largely based on the study of three types of evidence: surviving physical remains; a sharing of knowledge from Egyptian, Near Eastern, and Mesopotamian texts; and iconography -- particularly the Seated Goddess wall painting from Room 3a of Xeste 3 at Akrotiri. Although saffron has been discussed ad nauseam in its role as "healing" herb, its harmful potential has neither been studied in detail by archaeologists and art historians, nor considered in light of the broader context in which the herb is so painstakingly painted at Akrotiri. This discussion seeks to address the ways that patriarchal interpretations of the Xeste 3 imagery as indicative of a fertility goddess and cult -- i.e., "coming of age ceremonies" related to childbearing -- are not supported by the imagery. Rather, the centrality of saffron, animal and vegetal fertility, as well as the absence of pregnant, breast feeding, and child-rearing women in the surviving imagery, together currently suggest that reaching child-bearing age is not the focus of this cult. Rather, the inverse may be exactly the point: that through skilled medical application of saffron, a rare and valuable herb potentially reserved for these women, women never need to bear children.

Marie N Pareja

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