The 'Seated Woman' of the Adorants Fresco from Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera: Female Initiation or Non-Narrative Absorption?

Abstract

Beginning with Nanno Marinatos (1984) and Ellen Davis (1986), the Adorants Fresco from Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera, has long been interpreted as a depiction of a female rite of passage, or as a representation of different age stages of girls and adolescent females participating in an initiation ritual (Rehak 2007; Günkel-Maschek 2014, 2021). My critical view is based on three arguments. First, the rite of passage, as well as initiation into a cult, is transformative and thus a narrative-analytical model, which does not formally correspond to the non-narrative representative devices used on the Adorants Fresco. Second, even though initiation into adulthood is often assumed to be culturally universal, it does not correspond to some thematic restrictions present in Minoan visual culture: the absence of representation of male-female pairs, of women taking care of children, or of marriage. Third, the often-cited ‘historical’ evidence for the existence of Cretan rites of passage as preserved by Ephorus, which influenced Pierre Vidal-Naquet’s model of the Athenian ephebe as a Black Hunter (1986), follows the specific cultural agenda of the milieu of the Athenian Academy, and Vidal-Naquet’s method of structuralist substitution does not allow for assuming the historical existence of all the particular components. Based on these arguments, we cannot exclude the historical existence of Minoan rites of passage, but we can challenge their depiction on the preserved visual material, including the Adorants Fresco. As an alternative, I propose to focus more closely on representative devices, especially the impression of the Seated Woman’s absorption, and the suggested simultaneity of temporal relationships in the fresco.