Exploring the Biography of Gaming Stones at Aredhiou, Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age

Abstract

This article explores the social lives of gaming stones, a significant number of which have been found at the Late Bronze Age farming settlement of Aredhiou Vouppes, Cyprus. The number of gaming stones found at the site is unprecedented within a Late Cypriot context. Comparatively few are found in the contemporary urban centers, and in general they appear to be more typical of the Middle Cypriot social world. The purpose of this article is to investigate the agency of these gaming stones, and to consider them as social mediators within the community of Aredhiou. It explores the social and cognitive lives of these objects, examining how they might be transformed and reimagined as they moved through myriad states of existence throughout their object-life, and thus the various ways in which they were entangled in the social life of the settlement.