A goodly feast … a cup of mellow wine: feasting in bronze age Cyprus

Hesperia, Spring, 2004 by Louise Steel

Feasts are major arenas for public display. They are visual pageants, occasions for music, dancing, recitation of epics, and shared consumption of the fruits of labor. The social and political functions of feasting are closely intertwined. Hospitality is used to establish and maintain social relations and to forge alliances, and feasts are frequently venues for the exchange of gifts. (20) Different modes of feasting are described in the ethnographic literature. At the basic level, food is shared within the household and with close kin. Some feasts incorporate the wider community. Not only do these feasts create shared sentiments of identity and belonging, but they are also occasions for social competition. Regular and lavish hospitality allows the host to accrue prestige and standing (symbolic capital) within a community. In effect, the enhancement of the host's standing within the community will "buy" influence over decisions made by the community. Hospitality may be reciprocal, with different individuals hosting feasts on a variety of occasions. Prestige and social standing are renegotiated in a continuous cycle of feasting--the so-called entrepreneurial, or empowering, feasts. (21) Such feasts might be used to create and maintain alliances within the community at different levels. Empowering, or work-party, feasts might also be used to mobilize labor. In effect a host will be able to mobilize a work force to complete a project, in return for which he or she provides food and drink. The more generous the reputation of the host, the greater the symbolic capital, and the more effective the work-party feast will be. (22)

Patron-role feasts are hosted by a single individual who asserts and maintains his elevated social position within the community, while the guests symbolically acknowledge their subordinate role through acceptance of the patron's hospitality. Effectively, patron-role feasts are used to proclaim and legitimize asymmetrical, hierarchical power systems. (23) Frequently, tribute of food and drink will be used to supply patron-role feasts. In the context of communal feasts, symbolic expression lies in the quantities of food and drink provided. In contrast to inclusive communal feasts, patron-role feasts allow hospitality to be manipulated to demonstrate exclusivity, such as social ranking, and also to facilitate alliance formation and demonstrate membership in social or political groupings (as illustrated by, e.g., the marzeah of Near Eastern sources and by the Greek symposium). (24)

Diacritical feasts are used as symbols of exclusive membership. These feasts are characterized by distinctive cuisine (exotic foods or complicated modes of preparation) and elaborate dining sets, and frequently make reference to specialized knowledge of external, exotic social practices as a means of demonstrating their exclusivity. (25) These elements of diacritical feasts make up a distinctive package of practices that are readily identifiable in the archaeological record. The symbolic force of the diacritical feast lies in its manipulation of an exclusive style that is closely guarded by the elite, through their privileged access to limited supplies of exotica. Even so, these practices are open to emulation on the part of groups aspiring to an elevated social status and we might expect a degree of fluidity in the choice of symbolic, ideological referents used by the elite. (26)