I never thought to question the so-called ‘Harvester vase’ from Ayia Triada. Excavated in 1902, the preserved upper half of the serpentine rhyton with relief decoration was first published by Robert Carr Bosanquet (1902: 389), who saw a ‘harvest-home festival’ being enacted by the 27 figures who surround the vase. Arthur Evans echoed this reading, calling it a ‘harvester’s dance,’ and ‘reapers’ rout’ (Evans 1928: 47), and John Forsdyke (1954) sealed its modern interpretation as ‘The “Harvester” Vase of Hagia Triada.’ Bobby Koehl elaborates on the harvest theme, seeing ‘a procession of youths setting out to harvest the community’s olive trees, perhaps under the supervision of a priest’ (2006:90), and Fritz Blakolmer (2007) further elaborates on the religious nature of the scene in relation to other processions evident in Minoan Neopalatial art, even hinting at the leader’s supreme status (2018: 44; 2019:74).
As one raised in the world of peace-loving Minoans, I accepted the ‘happy harvesters’ reading unquestioningly, despite the fact that the 21 uniformed male figures are clearly marching and saluting in a decidedly disciplined manner, and the other relief-decorated stone rhyton and cup associated with it in the Villa Reale are clearly linked to male athletic training and competition (Koehl 2006: 164–6), and perhaps even achieving military rank as the culmination of a rite of passage (Koehl 1986; 1997; 2016). It was upon reading Dieter Rumpel’s (2007) thoughtful re-evaluation of Luigi Savignioni’s (1903) original report that I began to reconsider the accepted interpretation. Savignioni’s suggestion that the 21 uniformed and saluting figures were marching in a military parade following a commanding officer dressed in a protective cuirass holding his staff of authority suddenly made perfect sense to me in the light of how I view events in Crete and the Aegean in the aftermath of the Thera eruption (MacGillivray 2009; 2013). So, in Bobby’s honour, I review briefly the elements represented on the vase and reconsider Savignioni’s original interpretation of the triumphal procession of mariners returning from a successful foray.
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