T&F Proofs: Not For Distribution 3 Technologies of Sound across Aegean Crafts and Mediterranean Cultures Manolis Mikrakis Dedicated to the memory of Professor Yannis Sakellarakis, who had a profound love of music. INTRODUCTION Aegean cultures of the Bronze Age exploited sound intensively for a mul- titude of socio-politically meaningful purposes. Material, visual and lim- ited textual evidence indicates a broad range of sophisticated practices and implements revolving around the production, circulation and consumption of culturally organised sound (for music described as ‘humanly organised sound’, see Blacking 1973). The most obvious archaeological manifestation of the vital importance that auditory practices had for the Aegean ruling elite is the fact that profound changes in musical instruments and socio- political history match each other in their temporal and spatial distribution (Mikrakis 2006; Nakassis et al. 2010 provides a concise recent overview of socio-political changes in the Bronze Age Aegean). However, in the academic field of Aegean Prehistory, hardly any atten- tion has been paid to the role of music as a factor in social, political, economic and cultural processes, although musical instruments have been thoroughly explored in their own right (Aign 1963; N. Platon 1966; Wegner 1968; Younger 1998; the latter emphasises the socially consti- tuted nature of the evidence and the role of music in constructing gen- dered identities). The often-lamented ‘lack’ of evidence for ‘music itself’ and for sound-related verbal discourse is hardly responsible for this state of affairs, as the same ‘lack’ applies to several phenomena of meagre materiality that have nevertheless become highly regarded focal points for archaeological research over the past decades. In my view, the root of the problem is the absolute primacy that modernist ideas give to sound among the constituents of musical culture (see Morley 2009: 160 for a discussion in the context of archaeology; A. McCann 2010: personal communication, speaks of audiocentrism). Sonic artefacts are conceived as autonomous entities that have no practical worth (for Igor Stravinsky’s view of ‘the contour of the form’ as the only concern of a composer, see Stravinsky and Craft 1962: 115), whereas the audible is viewed as an immaterial and fleeting experience predestined to vanish the moment it is heard (Witmore 2006: esp. 272–76). Brysbaert 3rd pages.indd 48 Brysbaert 3rd pages.indd 48 9/14/2011 9:14:45 AM 9/14/2011 9:14:45 AM Published in: Ann Brysbaert (ed.), Tracing Prehistoric Social Networks through Technology: A Diachronic Perspective on the Aegean, Routledge Studies in Archaeology 3, Routledge: New York and Oxon 2011, 48–71.