Beyond Iconography: The Frescoes from the House of the Frescoes at Knossos

Excavated by Arthur Evans in 1923, the Neopalatial House of the Frescoes at Knossos owes its name to the rich deposit of elaborately decorated frescoes discovered within it. The frescoes were found stacked in layers at the end of a room within the building they once decorated. The popular image of the blue monkeys and the blue birds on a dark red background, the fragments depicting a lush natural environment, the field with crocus clumps: iconography can reveal important clues to interpret the function of the rooms and the building itself. But it cannot tell us why these frescoes were taken off the walls and stacked together; or whether the stack was a convenient method of trash disposal or a meaningful way to remove special objects. In this lecture, Professor Oddo explores these frescoes and their archaeological context to reconstruct the final moments in the life and afterlife of the House of the Frescoes.

 

About the Speaker:

Emilia Oddo is an assistant professor of Greek Archaeology in the Department of Classical Studies at Tulane University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and is an Aegean prehistorian, concentrating on the archaeology of Minoan Crete, particularly the so-called Neopalatial period (ca. 1750-1490 B.C.E.). She specializes in pottery analysis and has a special interest in stylistic regionalism. Her dissertation work on the pottery from Myrtos-Pyrgos in Southeast Crete has allowed her to identify the regional trends of Southeastern pottery, singling out previously unexplored patterns of stylistic consumption. In the last few years, she has worked on the Neopalatial House of the Frescoes at Knossos, and will publish her research in an upcoming British School at Athens Supplementary Volume.