The Chronology of Greek Bronze Tripods of the Geometric Type and the Possibilities of a Political-Historical Interpretation of the Find Distribution

Abstract

Bronze tripods were particularly suitable as a means of formulating social status since they were one of the most prestigious types of movable items and because of their character as a exchange-item with a value easy to assess. Offerings of bronze tripods occur by no means in all (Proto-)Geometric sanctuaries but only in a few selected ones, and there often in abundance. Many of theses sanctuaries in later are either principal urban-area sanctuaries of major population nuclei or poleis, or extra-urban central sanctuaries of ethnic groups (tribes), regions, islands or major poleis, or extra-urban Panhellenic sanctuaries. These results reveal furthermore that tripod dedications indicate the meeting point of an elite. The process of development of elite publics becomes now easier to date. In the transition from the late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age there was no break in tripod production; the so-called massive tripods with faceted rectangular or polygonal legs forming slight fronts facing the viewer, were produced already from the end of the 11th century. The known clay-mould fragments from Lefkandi, which are stratigraphically datable to the end of the Euboean late Protogeometric period (c. 900), come from the production of a Π-shaped leg of a so-called relief tripod. Olympia and Delphi, for example, must therefore have been regional centers from the late 11th or early 10th century.