Previous Lecture
Dr. Erin Walcek Averett, Creighton University
Playing the Part: Masking Rituals in the Eastern Mediterranean
Monday, September 22, 2008, 7:30 PM
Room 15, Richards Hall, Stadium Drive, UNL Campus
The Lincoln-Omaha Society of the Archaeological Institute of America announces the first of six lectures on archaeology for the 2008 - 2009 season. Professor Erin Walcek Averett, from Creighton University, will be speaking on ancient masked rituals of ancient Greece and Cyprus.
Excavations on the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean have unearthed several interesting figurines depicting men wearing animal masks. Similar masking rituals are also attested to in the Near East and southern Greece. Depictions of animal-headed dancers, masked men, and animal masked deities have been dismissed as oddities of isolated regions, remnants of “primitive” cult practices. A broad survey of masking rituals, however, reveals that these ceremonies were not uncommon and are associated with both urban and rural sanctuaries. Dr. Averett’s talk reviews the evidence for Late Bronze Age and Iron Age masking traditions in the eastern Mediterranean, focusing on the unique masked creatures depicted in the art of Cyprus and southern Greece. She argues that these composite beings represent masked priests, performing rituals intended to heighten the religious experience of the participants. Animals represented the natural world and the cycle of life and death, and were associated with the supernatural realm through their close association with gods. Animals thus served as intermediary figures, mediating between the world of the mortals and the realm of the gods. In the regions with evidence for masks, deities were intimately associated with animals and the natural world and masking ceremonies served as a means of communication between worshippers and the divine.
Erin Walcek Averett earned her Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the Department of Art History and Archaeology in 2007. She specializes in early Greek archaeology, particularly on Cyprus, Greek religion, and points of contact between the Near East and the Aegean. Averett has excavated in Greece and Cyprus and currently is the Assistant Director of the Athienou Archaeological Project in central Cyprus. Dr. Averett is currently a Resident Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at Creighton University. Previously Dr. Averett taught at Lawrence University in Wisconsin and at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She also served as the Assistant Curator of Ancient Art at the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
