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THE CLOTHED BODY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
17-19 January 2002

Gina Muskett
The University of Liverpool

Mycenaean Female Dress And Identity: A Cognitive Approach

The majority of women in Mycenaean Greece would have been invisible in terms of representations. In addition, the few surviving images of women are found predominantly in palatial contexts, and are plausibly associated with cult. Many of the surviving images of this nature depict women wearing a form of dress characteristic of earlier representations of women from Crete, and thus conventionally referred to as "Minoan-style". This consisted of a short-sleeved bodice, able to be opened to expose the breasts, and ankle-length flounced skirt.

The objective of this paper is to explain the reasons for the retention of this style of dress, by adopting the unusual approach of considering whether the application of research into visual perception can help shed fight on these images. In particular, I shall take a cognitive approach, incorporating the effects of the viewer's acculturation. It is apparent that over and above the neural mechanisms within the human brain which form the basis of visual perception, the processing of information also depends on knowledge gained via experience. According to this approach, the viewer expects to find certain objects in certain places, and his or her knowledge of the location of such objects affects their identification.

The survival of Minoan-style dress is, I believe, an example of these processes. The viewer had no need to have the figures clad in such a costume to be individualised; he or she would have sufficient knowledge to be able to interpret the meaning of the image as a symbol of the identity of the wearer. Equally, I believe that the less frequent occurrence of representations of women in cult contexts wearing other forms of dress emphases the exceptional nature of the latter individuals.