Body-Techniques Between Anatolia and the Aegean: Towards a Comparative Gesturology

[fr]

– Jeudi 3 mai 2018 de 16h à 18h
Conférence et vidéo conférence de Ian Rutherford, Reading University
_ Sur place au CNRS d’Ivry sur Seine, 27 rue Paul Bert, métro Porte de Choisy/Porte d’Ivry, salle C en sous-sol
ou à distance par vidéo-conférence
[en]
– Thursday, May 3, 2018 4 p.m.-6 p.m.(Paris time)
A lecture by Ian Rutherford, Reading University
CNRS building, 27 rue Paul Bert, Porte de Choisy/Porte d’Ivry subway station, room C in the basement or by distance through video-conference


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[fr]
Cette conférence est la 18e séance mensuelle du séminaire interdisciplinaire :
“The Individual and his Body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin” organisé par Alice Mouton.

Résumé :
Like other aspects of human behaviour, gestures and bodily habitus are partly innate and partly determined by culture. Bodily habitus is thus at least to some extent learnt and politically determined. In this paper, I shall attempt to compare and contrast aspects of the gestural repertoire of ancient Greece with its Near Eastern Neighbours. There are many striking similarities, e.g. raising the hands in prayer, striking the thigh in anger or fear. It seems to be possible for bodily habitus to travel, as in the case of the Greek practice of reclining at the symposium which almost certainly comes from Assyria. On the other hand, in ancient Greek mentality there were significant differences between their own bodily habitus and those of other peoples: Greeks did not engage in “proskynesis” before monarchs, for example. A desideratum, if evidence allows, would be to map the distribution of a given bodily habitus in different ancient cultures. One case where this may be possible is the practice of holding on to another person’s knees in supplication, which is well attested in Greek and Hittite sources, but apparently not well represented in other parts of the Ancient Near East.