RITUAL RELATIONS TEXT
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My explorations delve into ancient Cypriot cultural rituals, investigating the uses and creation of artefacts found in Cyprus from around 2000 BC. The artefacts tell the stories of cult ritual gatherings in ancient Cyprus and their importance in Cypriot history. These stories were left behind through the objects that were made, such as cylinder seals to ceremonial sacrificial terracotta pieces. The activities that took place in these cult rituals are intriguing. They were often performed in multi-purpose spaces, which included metal forging and oxen sacrificing. These rituals were believed to pay tribute to the ‘Ingot God’ or ‘Horned God,’ where only high members of society would be allowed to participate. A lot of the rituals involved masking ceremonies, where participants would wear ceramic and bucranium masks. The masks allowed them to take on a persona to either be an intermediary with their god, or to be spiritually closer to them.
I always felt a displacement from my Cypriot heritage growing up in London. The reinvention and celebration of these objects allows me to discover a part of my heritage that I have been removed from, whilst going back even further into these ancient practices to unknown and mysterious ‘spaces.’ The reinvention of some of these objects allows me to create faux ritual and religious objects that reflects a culture gone and remembered through the objects they made. Visual clues and associations to ritual in the work, allows one to believe they could be objects of ‘contemporary antiquity’ and ceremonially used by an unknown past or future culture. I want there to be a disconnect between the viewer and the sculptures, making the objects mysterious and slightly intimating, feeling like intruders on a ritual, thus reflecting my own personal displacement.
Whilst researching these ancient objects, it was evident that there was always an element of communication through the imagery, symbolism or the sculptural forms on the pottery. The geometric line pattern that has been present throughout my work draws relations to the ‘unknown language’ one would discover on hieroglyphs to a point where they stop communicating and turn into an aesthetic style. The indigenous language of Cyprus, that is present on some of the earliest ceramic vessels, is indecipherable. This language remains as a series of unobtainable line markings, making one focus on the beauty in the act of their creation. My personalised geometric ‘language’ that is present in the installation, aims to play on this same theme, as an unobtainable language that gives the impression of something trying to communicate but cannot, therefore drawing the focus further to the unknown. The ‘language’ that I have created pulls from the abstraction of the Cypro-Minoan mark marking, as well as an interpretation of cursive shorthand. It is carved onto the surfaces of the pedestals and the ‘skin’ of some of the pieces, reflecting the hand carving of glyphs on to objects in ritual spaces.
This body of work, more personally, battles with the concepts of displacement, but just as importantly, connections. The connections to past, heritage, culture and family. Growing up I would hear stories of my Bapou (Grandfather), who grew up in the village of Khirokitia next to one of the earliest Neolithic sites, being sent out into the fields as a child to find whatever fragments of archeological objects he could find, and, in turn was paid in pennies. Some of these items from the village are part of the Cyprus Museum’s permanent collections, being on display in Room 1. Seeing these in person amongst the vast array of other historical objects, and imagining the possibility of my grandfather collecting these and having a direct relationship with the object, allows me to be connected to Cyprus’ history personally.
Predominantly, the medium which I express this through is glass. Each piece requires close attention to craftsmanship and explores a combination of hot and cold glass techniques— from hot sculpting in the hot shop, to lathe cutting in the cold shop. There is a dialogue between the hot and cold processes within the work that, overall, adds to the narratives I create with my glass. Blown glass in ancient Cyprus was not as prevalent as ceramics, therefore, I was presented the opportunity with my research to translate some of these ideas and pieces into the medium of glass. This has been both inspiring and challenging. The act of working with blown glass itself, draws from a somaesthetic experience, where the body, mind and ‘spirit’ are activated through the use of fire, air, water and sand (silica) to create the work. Connections between these ancient rituals and working with glass can be made with ease, particularly the experience of physically being in the hotshop, as well as throughout the making process.
Working as a glassmaker also reflects on these themes of heritage, culture, linage and connections that are present in the work for me. As a glassmaker, when learning, you work under master glass blowers, learning how to manipulate this molten material. Apprenticing under glass makers, with a lifetime of experience and knowledge, inheriting their knowledge and skills of how to move and work with the glass. The relationship between master and apprentice has always been one that has fascinated me, especially when going to different parts of the world and seeing the different working styles. This feeds back into the work, whether it is aesthetic decisions, visual styles, or specific techniques of production. So, in the same way that I am looking back at my Cypriot heritage, I also feel there has been the inheritance of skill and aesthetic styles that is present in the show, connecting to the glass masters of the past.
Many of the sculptures in the installation are representative of the bull and the bird. The iconography and symbolism of these animals is something that was extremely prevalent on the items found in tombs and sacred places. There has been a lot of debate amongst art historians as to the actual uses and the associated beliefs that came along with the ancient artefacts. The relationship of the bull to the bird too, is something that seems to feature on much of the pottery. Besides having a symbiotic relationship in natural, their depiction definitely had a more symbolic meaning.
Birds were greatly associated with death and considered to reflect ‘the ancestral soul’. Migratory birds, that would come and go with the seasons, were symbolic of this ‘journey’ to the afterlife. Waterfowl were seen as apotropaic and able to fend off evil. They would be buried and sacrificed in funerary ceremonies, where their remains would be placed into ritual vessels, along with the deceased. Specifically in the Vounous region, a lot of bird bones were found in red slip ware vessels, either as sacrifices during the ritual, or as food offerings to the deities.
Also, evident in the installation, it is very apparent of the use of the bull, both as glass sculptures guiding you through the ‘ritual space' of the installation, and as an influence for the ritualistic vessels that are at the end of the display. In ancient Cyprus (and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean) during the Early Bronze Period, the bull was a
“universal expression of fertility... vegetation, death and rebirth” Jennifer Webb, (Quote 1).
The motif of the bull was used throughout the Assyrian rule, Independent City Kingdoms, Hellenistic and Roman periods. The use of bulls to plough the land had an economic benefit on the land. This lead to the bull becoming a symbol of wealth, power, strength and masculinity. However, during the Late Bronze Period, where the focus of my research was, the bull had transcended into a very different place of ‘use.’ In places such as Kition and Enkomi in Cyprus, oxen were being used as part of ritual mortuary ceremonies, where they were sacrificed in honour of horned deities. These ritual spaces were adorned with bull shaped ‘Askoi' and ‘Rhyta/Rhyton’ vessels, which played a part in these rituals in a variety of ways. They served both as pouring vessels during libation ceremonies and markers of the ritual space. These terracotta vessels, along with other bucranium and bull masks, would be displayed around the edges of the spaces and on the outside walls of tombs and houses, functioning as apotropaic objects. Another suggested role of these ceramic pieces, was their use as substitutes during the sacrificial ceremonies as a proxy for the oxen. Bovine were such an important part of survival during this time period and, for some, it could have been too large a sacrifice. So the use of replacement ceramic bull pieces that were destroyed could have been a sufficient sacrifice to the deities.
The glass bull and bird sculptures in the installation draw inspiration from this notion of acting as apotropaic objects, guardians and protectors of a ritual space. The formation of the display, forces the audience to proceed through the centre of the bulls, guiding you through the installation as well as letting you know you are being led to the more ‘sacred’ area of the installation. The physical act of walking in between two bulls facing each other, at nearly eye level, makes the participant in the installation feel surrounded by these guardians, as an intruder on the ritual or as if walking into one of these ancient spaces. This style of formation is evident in various ancient spaces around the world from sites such as Luxor or Karnak in Egypt, to Mandalay Hill Pagodas in Burma, as well as the ancient sites in Cyprus. The selection of this formation, allowed a more universal recognition to an ancient or ‘important’ space, relatable to religious spaces in churches or temples too.
It is important for me, both on a personal and contextual level, to recreate and reinvent these ritual objects from the past.
“Ritual artefacts embody abstract concepts, beliefs and ideas, and operate as material agents in the social world”. Remaking and reinventing these artefacts keeps the ideas alive and the rich history of Cyprus moving forward into the ‘new.’ Jennifer M. Webb
Through the research, I have realised the importance of ritual in our lives, and how rituals seem to be declining in this modern world. Creating the installation space, and making the viewer move through the space, forces them to interact with these sculptures and ‘ritualistic’ objects in a more direct way, connecting them to the history of Cyprus, as well as my own personal history. Exploring the connections back to Cyprus, and bridging this disconnect, for me has enabled me to understand the history of that line of my heritage in a deep fulfilling manner.
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