Rituals as language: the archaeological evidence

Gestures, theatrical performances, face-to-face interactions, dances and any other symbolic activity that does not use material objects is often irremediably lost in the archaeological perspective. Anthropological studies can provide countless examples, but most importantly, the archaeological research confirms the importance of symbolism and rituality. For example, theatre for Greeks and Romans was an important cultural expression, which still survives in some magnificent literary writings. However, perhaps one of the best ways of approaching Greek and Roman tragedies and comedies is walking through the archaeological museum of Lipari, where so many theatrical masks as well as painted vases depicting performances are preserved. The masks particularly, in their simplicity and timelessness, provide a glimpse of what theatre really meant about two thousands years ago in the Mediterranean: a clever and sophisticated re-edition of ritualised gestures. We understand then how, on one hand, archaeology loses the greatest part of communication, eventually suggesting that certain behaviours were rejected by cultures that are more " advanced " and leading to ethically and archaeologically flawed interpretations of cultural superiority. We all know how such interpretations were ordinary before World War II (e.g. Kossinna 1912; for a discussion of the problem see Arnold 1990 and, specifically on Kossinna, Grünert 2002), how dangerous and wrong they are, but they still haunt us today when we talk of " great civilisations " or " primitive people ". On the other hand, when ritual performances are completed and no written accounts of the performance are available, archaeology allows us to infer the past event from the surviving materials. Yet, the dilemma within archaeology is that it is intrinsically incapable of understanding ritual gestures and yet the most powerful tool to understand rituals in the past, we set limits and possibilities of any archaeological contribution. Rituals and archaeology have a tragicomic relationship. It is inherently difficult to say what happened somewhere, at some time, when all that is available are ruined fragments, often altogether just a tiny part of any moment, and not all of them. We do not interact with all the objects that surround us at the same time. Yet, archaeologists baffled by the material evidence will often say, " it is ritual " , when they really mean, " we do not understand ". Barker (1999: 747) reports this is a consolidated caricature. How many times have you heard archaeologists accepting defeat in interpreting antiquity if not for …