Movement in Xeste 3, Akrotiri and the Potential for Kinaesthetic Address (15 min)

Presenters

Hana Sugioka, University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

Mapping movement onto ancient architecture is easier said than done. Archaeologists rely on evidence like architectural plans or wear patterns to reconstruct ancient life in buildings. However, movement through ancient buildings is also where a modern archaeologist’s biases can go undetected as we contemplate what “makes sense” or not. With this in mind, I turn to building Xeste 3 from the site of Akrotiri, where I believe that one cannot understand movement through the building from its architectural plan alone. Instead, I approach Xeste 3 as an active agent that controls ancient movement through its rooms.

Preserved by a catastrophic volcanic eruption, Xeste 3 is the ideal case study for exploring movement with its multiple stories and frescoes. These frescoes primarily feature female figures wearing a dazzling array of adornments like flounced skirts and golden earrings as they participate in fantastical and mundane scenes. Such a complex collection of iconography has inspired a wide range of scholarship on Xeste 3’s connections to Minoan religious cults. In this paper, I present an alternative circulation pattern for Xeste 3 that reimagines movement in the building as the product of kinaesthetic address where the frescoes guide the viewer as if they were living cult members. The viewer’s relationship with these painted figures then further amplifies the emotional affect of the experience.

I specifically reimagine the ancient viewer’s movement through Xeste 3 during cultic initiation while contemplating how physical movement may impact one’s interactions with the frescoes. By emphasizing the viewer’s sensory experience, I argue that progression through the maze-like building was marked in stages by increasingly complex scenes. I propose that during cultic initiation in Xeste 3, the initiate would become similarly adorned that, when paired with my circulatory pattern, results in a dramatic presentation of the initiate’s physical and symbolic transformation.