One further element in domestic use which is more specific to the EIA and becomes less significant in Archaic to Classical times, when a more democratic society emerges, is the popularity of prestigious feasting vessels, cauldrons, especially of tripod-form. However these are rarely found before the time of spiraling prosperity in the eighth century BC. Is this because for much of the Dark Age, the general low level of bronze in circulation in society made large containers too expensive to use widely, or for the same reasons old vessels were recycled? We also have to bear in mind that most of our finds are votives from major sanctuary institutions and their deposits, which only take off in the Late Geometric era. In any case we can suspect that through the “Dark Age,” and perhaps especially at its end, with growing access to trade and a rising population, there was elite investment in such great display pieces to show off at the traditional banquets in their households. Bronze cauldrons, often showpieces in museums today, were large cooking and warming vessels for communal eating. They were often highly ornamented, sometimes decorated with appropriate symbols of the warrior elite, for example a warrior with raised spear, a gesture which as Papalexandrou (2005) has shown, is the most frequent one associated with Homeric warriors in the epics. Tripods were suitable gifts between elites and later became a common reward for victors in competitions at the international festivals in Panhellenic (interstate) sanctuaries such as Olympia. But in the LG and early Archaic period tripods were, as Papalexandrou has stated: “the symbol of authority. Possession of tripods and their circulation through gift exchange, dedication and prize or dowry giving were key to the networks of aristocrats whose members vied for material and symbolic time [wealth, honor] and social prestige.”
World History
