Representing the anthropomorphic form in the Minoan world: Περιληψεισ Εισηγησεων abstracts

INTERNATIONAL CRETOLOGICAL CONGRESS
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Ellen Adams Representing the anthropomorphic form in the Minoan world Although the legendary figure of King Minos has cast a long shadow over Cretan studies, the concept of Minoan personal identity has received surprisingly little attention. I propose to redress this situation by reviewing questions of identity and difference through a variety of evidence, ranging from frescoes to burial practices and from seals to figurines. In recent years, wider social theory has been tackling the slippery notions of personhood and the body; building upon this, I aim to re-analyze how people are represented through art and burial and also in association with artefacts in Late Bronze Age Knossos, capital of Crete. Particular facets of Minoan identity, notably gender, have previously been explored, and scholars have sought the missing ruler the dominant male sovereign with limited success. I shall investigate how relationships between people are depicted in different media, such as the formation and representation of individual versus group identities. Phenomenological studies have permeated landscape archaeology, but they have been criticized for their inability to integrate the individual into his/her surroundings. An examination of the represented one and the many will explicitly address this problem. For example, both key individuals and crowd scenes are depicted in the frescoes, representing idealized single persons/elite few and the social body. I shall focus on Knossian figured iconography (frescoes and sealings), figurines and burials, charting the changes between the Neopalatial and Final Palatial periods. Some of this material is fragmentary both fragments of originals, and reconstructed fragments of archaeologists imaginations but there remains an appropriate range. I will analyze the two-way, dynamic relationships between audience and media, viewer and viewed, or agent and experienced, incorporating these various immobile and mobile, two- and three-dimensional sources. My methodology will highlight the correlations and tensions between these patterns of data, which will best reveal the myriad facets of identity. Points of comparison in the database include: date, context, material/medium, absolute size (miniature or life-sized), relative size (scale), overlapping or freestanding figures, patterns in compositions of figures, background, dress, gesture, pose and attributes. In addition, how do representations of anthropomorphic figures accord with mortuary practices? Is the treatment of the body in death a representation for the living? Regarding change through time, there is a shift from relatively invisible Neopalatial burial practices to major investment in this sphere, while fewer figured seals date to the Final Palatial period. Does this indicate changes in personal identity and, if so, what?
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Maria Emanuela Alberti Vessels in cooking fabric from Petras House I (LM IA) The focus of the present work are the vessels in cooking fabrics from Petras House I, dating to LM IA. At the moment, a general and systematic study of Minoan cooking ware is still missing. However, since many contributions on the evidence from various sites are available, the main technical, typological and functional characteristics of the class have been investigated, as well as major chronological and geographical distribution patterns. As for Petras in particular, the study of the vessels in cooking fabric from another Neopalatial structure, House II (LM IB), already completed, allowed a development of the established typology and some observations on chronological and regional factors. The analysis is now extended to the assemblage from House I (LM IA) where the percentage of various types of cooking pot is different and where various kinds of trays and trapezes (probably to be identified as pithos lids and/or drain-heads) are particularly abundant.
Lucia Alberti Continuit e discontinuit nellarchitettura funeraria di Cnosso fra Medio e Tardo Minoico Uno dei temi pi controversi dellarcheologia egea certamente la supposta presenza micenea a Cnosso nella fase successiva alle distruzioni del TM IB. La presunta discontinuit nellambito dei costumi funerari di Cnosso e dellarea immediatamente circostante nel TM II-IIIA1 una delle argomentazioni spesso citate a favore di tale presenza continentale. In questa fase, infatti, nuovi tipi di tombe monocamera, a fossa e a pozzo con nuovi corredi caratterizzati da armi e vasi in bronzo sembrano apparire allimprovviso. Tali tipologie funerarie sono state positivamente messe a confronto con tombe continentali cronologicamente precedenti o contemporanee, ma la loro interpretazione come tombe di personaggi provenienti dal continente risulta ancora oggi molto controversa e uno dei punti sensibili dellarcheologia egea. Uno degli aspetti non ancora del tutto approfondito e sul quale permangono una serie di incertezze la presunta continuit o discontinuit delle tipologie architettoniche in discussione. In queste sede verranno analizzate in particolare la tipologia della tomba a tholos e quella della tomba a camera. possibile parlare di continuit, anche solo ideale, fra le tholoi MM e quelle che compaiono a partire dal TM II? E per ci che concerne la tomba a camera, quali sono gli elementi comuni e le differenze fra le tombe a camera MM-TM I e quelle che compaiono dal TM II in poi nellarea di Cnosso? In che misura tali tipologie architettoniche possono essere considerate delle vere novit al momento della loro diffusione nellarea intorno al Palazzo? 11
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Eva Alram-Stern The network of the Kampos Group: Crete in context The Kampos Group is an Aegean cultural phenomenon dating to the end of Early Cycladic I. In its distribution and homogeneity it is a forerunner to the Early Bronze II cultural groups of the Aegean koine. However, its character differs considerably from this of the succeeding period by the emergence of culturally homogenous coastal settlements around the Aegean Sea. This paper intends to highlight their similarities and local traits and to compare them with the well known sites at the Cretan north coast.
Tomas Alusik Rural aspects of Minoan Crete This paper will focus on the research of rural aspects of Minoan Crete, which were considered to be marginal since the beginning of last century. Since the first systematic excavations in Crete, Minoan civilization has been interpreted mostly as a palatial civilization whose basic centres were large architectonic complexes with inner courtyard labeled palaces and similar, and smaller buildings labeled villas. These edifices had administrative, economic and religious functions. The research of such structures is still in progress and, especially on the basis of its results, Minoan Crete is presented as a well-developed palatial civilization with a dense network of palaces and villas. Much less attention has been paid to other, less attractive or minor features of Minoan civilization, and the possible contribution of small rural sites to the better knowledge of Minoan Crete was rather underestimated. Therefore, my attention will be centred on small rural or rustic sites, which formed the important economic hinterland of large settlements or palatial/villa centres. Since the World War II, up to several thousands of all kinds of prehistoric sites including the numerous group of small rural sites characterized mostly by remains of one or several buildings and terrace walls were discovered during surface survey projects. However, only a few of the sites in question were more closely described or surveyed. Only recently similar sites have been investigated in three regions. [SENSE? Moreover, in most cases [the] sites with a single building have been examined and only several/a few? of them have been excavated] What do you mean?. In this paper I will present several examples of such sites and, especially, try to understand their particular functions and place within the settlement hierarchy and pattern. Chronology, architectural typology (including topography) and social aspects belong, also, to the key points of this paper. Finally, the overall con-
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text of the sites in question and their relations to large settlements and palatial centres should be cleared up. Several appropriate model micro-regions will be designated within Crete (based on topography, number of sites and publications) and will be processed by detailed multistage analysis including GIS studies and 3D-software reconstructions in several different ways. A general picture and the contexts of Minoan rural sites in larger geographical units, even on the whole island, can be deduced eventually, based on the results of these analyses.
Maria Anastasiadou Seals with centred-circles in the Aegean Bronze Age The paper presents a group of seals which, on account of their very similar shape, material, cutting technique and iconography, are seen as the product of one workshop. Characteristic of these seals are round seal faces, the use of soft stones, engraving by hand tools, chaffing which creates soft, at times plastic intaglios, and a preference for the depiction of human and animal heads. On the basis of contextual evidence, the group is dated to MM Il/MM III (Middle Minoan). The majority of its representatives have been recovered at Knossos, which suggests that the workshop producing them was located in this area. A comparison of the iconography of these seals with other MM soft and hard stone seals shows that they fit well within the MM glyptic of Central Crete. Thus, not only do the ornamental themes on these seals find parallels to those met on MM II soft stone seals produced in the Mesara, but also some of the themes of the human and animal heads are easily comparable to those on impressions of hard stone seals from Knossos and Phaistos. As regards the development of Minoan glyptic, the group is of interest because its representatives combine ornamental themes, which are typical of the MM II glyptic, with naturalistic depictions of figural motifs, which can be seen as the first regular representatives of the naturalistic tendency on Minoan soft stone seals.
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Eva Andersson Strand, Joanne Cutler Textile production at three Middle Minoan centres
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A large number of loom weights of different types have been found in Middle Minoan contexts at Knossos, Phaistos and Malia, Quartier Mu. The presence of loom weights indicates the use of the warp-weighted loom, in these contexts associated with other than household production. In the past, variations in loom weight shape have generally been explained in terms of cultural, geographical and chrono13
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logical factors. In contrast, recent research has considered some aspects of shape as a direct indication of loom weight function. This new approach, which is based on extensive experimental archaeology, has made it possible to render textile craft visible, even if the textiles themselves are not preserved. In this presentation we will consider the evidence from Knossos, Phaistos and Malia, Quartier Mu, and discuss what light it can shed on the nature of textile production at these palatial sites during the Middle Minoan period.
Sabine Beckmann Middle Bronze Age mountain-farms in the area of Agios Nikolaos, Crete The slopes of Mount Katharo Tsivi, Agios Nikolaos, have provided evidence that the area was populated from the beginning of the Minoan Protopalatial period, in parts until LM III: Over 3 Minoan buildings occupied an area of ca. 3 square kilometers, at an altitude between and 1 m. These buildings are isolated, but not farther apart than ca. 4 m. Most of the structures were at least partly built with large blocks, occasionally employing stones of over tons in weight. The marginal agricultural region, today used for herding and, until recently, for small-scale mixed agriculture, has fortunately kept many of the Minoan structures well preserved (over 5 ruins still stand in parts up to 1,5 m). Identifiable remains include not only buildings, but also round structures (similar structures are called kouloures at the Minoan palaces) and long (7-1 m, occasionally longer) enclosure walls that surround nearly all of the structures. These peribolos walls, often constructed with large stones as well, associate the buildings with plots of land of various sizes (average ca. 3.4 hectares), suggesting that the installations were used as farmsteads. A. Evans and other archaeologists who saw several of the ruins near the ancient main road believed them to have been forts or watch towers. The sites and enclosures are interconnected by an unexpectedly well-planned network of paths and roads and are situated never more than ca. 5 m from some source of water, showing that this marginal area was systematically settled and structured from the Middle Bronze Age.
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John Bennet, Amy Bogaard, Eleni Hatzaki First view: The cityscape of Bronze Age nossos on Lower Gypsades
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After over a century of fieldwork at Knossos, our knowledge of the layout and organization of the Bronze Age city still relies heavily on the excavation of isolated plots, the result of systematic and rescue excavations, leaving the cityscape of the largest settlement in the Aegean largely unknown.
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This paper presents the results of a geophysical survey (magnetometry and resistivity) conducted on Lower Gypsades. The area, located south of the palace, beyond the Vlychia stream and along the northern half of the Gypsades hill, was chosen as the only part of the Bronze Age city which is not buried under extensive Greek and Roman occupation levels. The aim of the project is to provide an overview of the nature and density of the urban outer sett1ement in order to offer new information about the extent, nature, and organization of a major part of Knossoss southern suburbs. In addition, the results of the geophysical survey are analyzed in the context of previous archaeological discoveries in the Knossos area, and are also compared to the picture of the urban layout of other major centres in Bronze Age Crete.
Katrin Bernhardt Mycenaean imports to Crete: Some thoughts on the interrelations between the Greek mainland and Crete This paper investigates the interrelations between the Mycenaean mainland and Crete during LH/LM IIIA1 to LH/LM IIIB. My particular focus lies on imported Mycenaean pottery; however, the starting point for such a study, which needs clear assignments of vases to production centres, is problematic. Scientific research methods, such as petrographic and chemical analyses, have only been applied to a limited number of assemblages. In contrast, a much larger amount of pottery has been labeled as imports and assigned to production centres on stylistic reasons only. These assignments have to be discussed. On the basis of preliminary statistics, I will bring forward a detailed analysis of vessel shapes imported to Crete, which shows that in comparison to other regions of the Mediterranean, for example the Levant, different vessel shapes seem to have been preferred for import. This fact suggests close relations to the mainland which are on the one hand linked to the import of various goods. On the other hand this may also be an indicator for the social behaviour of the Minoans during this period.
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Philip P. Betancourt, Susan C. Ferrence Excavation of the LM I to LM III Farmstead at Chrysokamino-Chomatas
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The excavation of an isolated megalithic farmstead near Kavousi in East Crete uncovered an interesting building with two chronological phases. The architectural complex is near the earlier smelting site of Chrysokamino, and pottery from the same period as the smelting site there suggests this may be the settlement that sup15
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ported the copper smelting workshop at that location, but all of the architecture was later. The earlier of the two excavated building phases dated to LM IB, and it consisted of several rooms constructed on bedrock. The building went out of use in LM IB-Final, contemporary with the destruction at nearby Mochlos. The later phase, which was substantially larger, was from LM IIIA to LM IIIB. It had a massive external wall and an interior courtyard with several rooms opening off of the court. One room was a kitchen with a stone hearth. Many animal bones suggest that in LM III the building was a farmstead engaged in raising animals and in farming. The building yielded bronzes, sealstones, and substantial amounts of pottery.
Fritz Blakolmer Iconography versus reality: Goddesses and gods in Minoan Crete By studying the iconography of deities in the Aegean Bronze Age, we come across a multitude of fundamental difficulties of definition as well as across contradictions between the evidence of images and of written sources. Some of these problems are due to the history of research (e. g. the Minoan Snake goddess) or based on highly improbable conceptions of a Minoan monotheism. Since it seems reasonable to assign a highly pluralistic character to the Cretan divine kosmos at least from the Neopalatial period onwards, some basic methodological questions of how to define distinct gods and goddesses in the iconography of the Bronze Age Aegean are raised. Although scholars have defined a multitude of distinct male and female deities in the figurative art of Minoan Crete, the evidence appears rather ambiguous and seems to suggest a Pantheon without attributes. A possible key for a better understanding of the inconsistencies between iconography and reality in Minoan religion could be delivered by applying a diachronic perspective and by perceiving the functions of religion during the Neopalatial period as a dynamic process. Therefore, a model of a sociopolitical strategy will be proposed, which points to the creation of a standardized, uniform religious iconography coined by the Knossian elite in order to remove regional diversities and to realize political as well as social integration on the island of Crete and beyond.
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Elisabetta Borgna Metallurgical production and long-distance interaction: new evidence from LM III Phaistos Among the unpublished materials coming from the stratified deposits of the socalled Casa a ovest del Piazzale I at LM III Phaistos some objects point to metallurgical activities. Such evidence is useful both for exploring the industrial func-
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tion of some lowland major LM IIIC settlements in the context of the Mediterranean interaction at the close of the Late Bronze Age and for stressing in more detail the close relationships between Crete and central Mediterranean. The role of Crete within the Mediterranean metallurgical koin of 13th-1th c. B.C. will be discussed together with some chronological implications. Eventually the settlement pattern of Late Bronze Age Crete will be re-evaluated taking into particular consideration the interaction dynamics involving the lowland coastal sites on the one hand and the highland inner settlements on the other hand.
Maria Bttcher, Gerhard Plath The beginnings of bridge construction. The example of the Minoan road network After a short presentation of the Minoan road network and aspects in Trassenplanung (planning road courses) we will point to the crossing of Cretan rivers and rivulets. Natural fords: We will show evidence of natural ford-passages. The recognizing and the using up of natural facts are the essential pointers to talk about engineertechnical planning. The state of ground, the resistance of abrasion, all clefts, faults and gaps were to proof and the site was to recognize as suitable for a permanent crossing. Such ford-passages were also evidence of key-points of the road-course. The building of guardhouses was reflected to such sites, which were the essential points of the road layout. (f.e. Choiromandres) Artificial fords: Examples of first artificial ford-passages will be presented. They are stated at the same observance as for. But the lack of natural resources was now artificial repaired. Small abysses were filled by big blocks, all gaps, clefts and cavities were closed by stones until the sub-construction of the road. A dam-like construction was arising. The down-under hollows were kept free for water flowing through. (f.e. Lithoriako, Skafi) Sideropetra: Tests in compressive strength and experimental quarrying have given some characteristic facts of the broad spread of this stone in Crete. In considering this Cretan hard limestone, all aspects of static functions in walling will be analyzed. Examples of MM II buildings show techniques in spanning spaces. (f.e. Phourni, Platanos-Pobia, Choiromandres) The Vlychia viaduct: The graphic reconstruction of the Vlychia viaduct (under Sir A. Evanss direction) will be explained by examinig aspects of bridge-constructions in corbel technique. The static function of tholos-graves with their circular corbel construction will be analyzed. The development to linear corbel constructions will be shown. This change from circular to linear corbel techniques could be considered as a technological jump in bridge building construction. One can say that this was the beginning of constructive engineer planning. 17
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Gerald Cadogan Are there any patterns? The destructions, disasters, abandonments, establishments and resettlements of Bronze Age Crete This paper will attempt a summary view of the settlement history of Bronze Age Crete, through the destructions, disasters, abandonments, establishments and resettlements that appear to have punctuated this history. In particular, I shall look for any possible patterns, or recurrences of phenomena that may indicate similar causation, over the two millennia I shall examine. These factors will include: the impact of earthquakes; the identification of enemy action, whether from inside Crete or from overseas; changing environmental conditions; changing political conditions; defence as a reason for choosing sites to settle; and the implications of resettlements and/or entirely new settlements in the same district, whether including synoecisms (nucleations) or not. This will of necessity be a cursory survey, but it is essential to include a brief look at the island in both Neolithic times and in the Early Iron Age and later.
Ilaria Caloi Funerary rituals in the Protopalatial period (MM IB-MM IIB): he evidence from Kamilari and from the other Mesara tholos tombs The aim of this paper is to present the funerary rituals attested in those tholos tombs of the Mesara plain, in southern Crete, which were founded or re-used in MM IB-MM IIB. This paper aims at a deeper understanding of the funerary contexts of the Mesara plain in the Protopalatial period, focusing first on the chronology of the tholos tombs in use in the Protopalatial period, and then on their functions. In particular, this work will try to answer a series of important questions, such as: which tombs were founded in the Protopalatial period? In which phase of the Protopalatial period the Prepalatial tombs were re-used? Which tombs were used (or re-used) in the Protopalatial period for burials and which ones only for non-funerary rituals? Why this differentiation? The new definition of MM IB-MM IIB ceramic sequences that I have proposed for Phaistos have persuaded me to reassess the chronology of the Mesara tholos tombs in the Protopalatial period. In fact, new results from the study of the MM IB-MM IIB ceramic material at Phaistos, together with the investigations I carried out during the last years on the MM IB-MM IIB Kamilari material, have provided crucial support to understand the chronology of the ceramic material coming from those tholos tombs, which have revealed MM ceramic. Since previous studies have clearly demonstrated that centres like Phaistos,
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Kommos and Ayia Triada, as well as most of the tholos tombs of the Western Mesara shared the same ceramic tradition, I have used the ceramic sequence proposed for Phaistos to re-study the Protopalatial material from Kamilari. This study has allowed me to define the funerary rituals attested at Kamilari in the discrete phases of the Protopalatial period, that is MM IB, MM IIA and MM IIB. Indeed, at Kamilari it is possible to recognize a differentiation in the funerary rituals from the beginning to the end of the Protopalatial times. The same work can be done for the other Mesara tholos tombs used in the Protopalatial period. For example, the funerary rituals attested in MM IB at Kamilari, that are mostly based on libation rites rather than on food and drink consumption, can also be observed in the cemetery of Ayia Triada A as well as in the cemetery of Koumasa. On the contrary, from MM IIA until MM IIB, the funerary rituals are mostly based on drink consumption as the high quantity of drinking vessels has demonstrated not only for the cemetery of Kamilari, but also for those of Port and Platanos.
Tim Campbell-Green, Antonis Vasilakis The Prepalatial settlement of Trypiti: The view from the pottery The Prepalatial settlement of Trypiti is situated on a hill on the south coast in southcentral part of the island. Although a relatively small-scale settlement, its importance is derived in part from the fact that it represents a domestic counterpoint in an area that is, archaeologically, almost exclusively dominated by mortuary data, and has, then, the potential to tell us much about how the people occupying the Asterousia in the Early Bronze Age lived. Moreover, as the state of preservation was particularly good, the process of occupation and abandonment can be observed, and modes of use and reuse noted. This paper examines the domestic realm through the use and function of the pottery recovered from the site. At least two distinct phases of occupation are visible in the ceramic record. The first, dating to the later EM I period, is visible by the small, but significant, numbers of sherds from this period spread over the crown of the hill, and is presumed to mark the foundation date of the settlement. Furthermore, it is almost certainly the contributing settlement for the tholos tomb of Trypiti located some 5m to the south east of the settlement hill, and which seems to have been founded at the period. The later period, corresponding to the EM IIB/MM IA, makes up by far the greater part of the excavated material and witnesses the construction of at least four distinct housing units. Cooking pots and storage vessels are represented, as one would expect from domestic habitation, as are cups and bowls for eating and drinking, and spouted and larger vessels for pouring and serving. Furthermore, from the rubbish dumped in areas/rooms that went out use and were abandoned we can see not only patterns of pottery consumption, but also patterns of 1
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reuse in the pottery, providing a fascinating insight into the day-to-day existence of an Early Bronze Age settlement.
Angeliki Chrysanthi Walking in Minoan sites: a human centric approach to contemporary movement Planning interpretive walks constitutes an important aspect of archaeological heritage management and a critical part of the preventive conservation and enhancement of archaeological sites. In combination with other interpretative tools it constitutes the main vehicle through which an archaeological site is presented to the public. The introduction of specific paths is essential particularly in the cases of prehistoric sites where limited applicable interventions for the improvement of the sites readability are possible. The emergence of new technologies in the field of public archaeology is another key factor that needs to be considered towards this direction. The use of mobile and GPS technology, the virtual reconstructions, the applications of augmented reality and a wide range of computational research cannot be ignored from the planning process. This paper is part of an on-going research which attempts to introduce a hybrid model for investigating contemporary movement around archaeological sites. Drawing upon the case of Minoan sites, some key issues related to the current practices employed will be addressed while considering a human centric methodological approach in investigating visitors movement. Finally, the input of novel Information and Communication Technologies will be discussed in the context of interpretive walks.
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Nicola Cucuzza La villa minoica di Kanni presso Mitropolis Si espongono i risultati della revisione dei dati di scavo e dei materiali rinvenuti nel corso dellindagine archeologica che, sotto la direzione di Doro Levi, nel 15 port alla luce la Villa di Kanni presso Mitropolis. Lo stato di pubblicazione solo parziale dellimportante complesso (sostanzialmente limitato ad un solo articolo preliminare di Levi) ha spinto ad intraprendere dal un esame complessivo della documentazione disponibile e dei materiali rinvenuti in vista della edizione dei dati noti, con la sola esclusione dei materiali neolitici. Lo studio condotto consente di affermare che ledificio venne costruito sul sito di un vasto insediamento neolitico; i resti di alcuni muri indicano lesistenza di una fase architettonica pi antica della struttura neopalaziale; la presenza di ma-
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teriali del TM III anche nei vani occidentali indica che la frequentazione di quel periodo non si limit ai soli ambienti orientali, dove furono trovati i noti esemplari di statuette delle dee dalle braccia alzate. Il rinvenimento di un kernos fittile e quello di unurna-capanna indicano come larea fu oggetto di una frequentazione cultuale anche durante le fasi finali dellEt del Bronzo; qualche statuetta ed alcuni vasi fittili miniaturistici di epoca arcaica ed ellenistica testimoniano qualche saltuaria deposizione votiva anche in epoca storica, con la probabile costruzione di una piccola edicola.
Massimo Cultraro The Late Neolithic period at Prinias (north central Crete): Ceramic change and technological innovation This paper explores the unpublished pottery assemblage of the Late Neolithic/EM I period found in the area of the Geometric and Archaic Cemetery at Siderospilia, Prinias. The pottery complex was discovered during the archaeological explorations carried out by the University of Catania (prof. G. Rizza), in the years 1-175. The archaeological material comes from relatively well-stratified deposits, some of which were excavated beneath the floor of the Geometric burials. A pit dug in the soft calcareous rock gives us an additional assemblage of this phase important in order to classify the ware according to fabrics and forms. In this fill occur numerous mudbricks, some with plaster still adhering to their face, which could represent the debris of a demolished building with plastered walls. The pottery assemblage includes mostly the main fabric wares of the Late Neolithic II found in Central Crete, as Pattern-Burnished Decoration and a Coarse Red Fabric with large calcite inclusions, which has strong affinities with a comparable pottery group found in the Final Neolithic III at Knossos. The Late Neolithic pottery at Prinias is characterised by two interlinked ceramic traditions: one clearly rooted in a long history of ceramic development on Crete (e.g. Phaistos, Knossos), and the other marked by features such as the cheesepots, which shows strong links with the Late Chalcolithic of North Aegean and South-East Anatolia.
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Anna Lucia DAgata, Marie-Claude Boileau, Sara De Angelis
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Do Italians do it better? Handmade burnished ware from Thronos Kephala (ancient Sybrita) Handmade Burnished Ware (HBW) is one of the most debated ceramic classes of Late Palatial and Post Palatial Greece, whose chart of distribution includes the 171
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Mainland, Crete, Cyprus and the Levant. Recent studies have made clear that the main parallels for HBW may be found in the handmade production of Southern Italy and, to a lesser extent, Northern Greece. In the last study seasons carried out on the material from Thronos Kephala (ancient Sybrita) a group of sherds which may be referred to HBW was identified. Although a fragment of HBW was already known from the site, the circulation in the settlement of a few vases realized following a foreign tradition of pottery manufacture in the course of the 1th century BC deserves a deeper enquiry. It is the aim of this paper to present some preliminary results on this new archaeological evidence trying to assess its importance within the local context and in the wider world.
Sylviane Dderix Towards a Reassesment of the mortuary diversity in Bronze Age Crete The few Neolithic graves so far recongnized in Crete are simple inhumations in rock shelters and caves, or intramural sepultures (mostly of children). In contrast to the scarcity and low visibility of Neolithic funerary data, the Prepalatial evidence displays a strong increase in conspicuous forms of burial: as early as the beginning of the Early Minoan I period, formal cemeteries intending to host a large number of individuals were established and funerary architecture was developed. Early Minoan tombs are not only numerous; they also display an important investment of time and energy, as well as a great typological diversity. The various burial practices of the Prepalatial period are generally described as highly regionalized, stressing the cultural diversity of Early Minoan inhabitants. Indeed, while funerary caves are known to exist almost all over Crete, tholos tombs are prevalent in and around the Mesara plain, house tombs are most common to the Northeast and the East of the island, and Cycladic-type tombs occur sporadically along the northeast coast. Still, this pattern is not absolutely strict, some anomalies have to be explained, and chronological variations must be considered as well. Moreover, even if tholoi and house tombs were not abandoned by the end of the Prepalatial period, the dead became less visible as emphasized by the emergence of underground type of burials (pithoi, larnakes, chamber tombs) from the EM III phase and old cemeteries were gradually deserted. On the basis of an updated catalogue of Minoan tombs, this paper aims at a detailed reappraisal of the spatial and chronological distribution of burial types. Calling on GIS services, we will try to model the evolution of the Minoan funerary landscape from the beginning of the Prepalatial period until the fall of the Second Palaces. As further acknowledged by recent discoveries, such a reassessed overview is the needed preliminary step towards a better understanding of the funerary diversity in Bronze Age Crete.
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Maurizio Del Freo, Julien Zurbach La prparation du Supplment au Recueil des Inscriptions en Linaire A Cette communication a pour but de prsenter le travail entrepris, linvitation de Louis Godart et Jean-Pierre Olivier, pour constituer un volume de supplment au Recueil des Inscriptions en Linaire A dont le dernier volume (tudes Crtoises XXI/5, cole franaise dAthnes) est paru en 15. Il sagit, selon les principes tablis par les auteurs du Recueil, de prsenter une nouvelle dition de chaque texte publi, selon des critres et une mthode uniformes. Cela pose un certain nombre de questions, qui seront abordes ici, sur la nature et lampleur des index et des outils de travail qui seront prsents dans ce volume de supplment. Il ne sagit cependant pas seulement dun travail ddition mais aussi dune entreprise de recensement qui, grce laide prcieuse des autres pigraphistes et surtout des fouilleurs, amne complter notre connaissance du linaire A. Ce volume changera videmment notre apprciation de la rpartition gographique, sinon chronologique, de lusage de cette criture, et comprendra des inscriptions de tous types qui enrichissent considrablement certaines catgories. Ltablissement des textes, enfin, amne quelques nouveauts intressantes.
Serena Di Tonto The formation of identity and the organisation of a Neolithic community: Some evidence from Phaistos (Crete) A new cycle of stratigraphical excavations conducted at Phaistos (Crete - Greece) and a systematic re-evaluation of the known data have clarified the nature and extension of human occupation and activities on the hill during the Final Neolithic period. In particular they led to the identification of deposits and associated features that testify to a ceremonial and ritual frequentation of some parts of the site. These ceremonies, characterised by the consumption of food and drinks, involved the phaistian neolithic community and maybe members of the surrounding territory. The communal consumption is a way in which the society structured itself and it can be evidence for social integration or competition. These episodes of intra- and intercommunity commensality may have served to strengthen relationship between the competing local households and also to create obligations of hospitality with households from further afield in order to obtain mutual help or food and raw materials. Furthermore the memory of the ritual activity that occurred at Phaistos may have endowed the hill with a special status that contributed to its selection as the site of the successive occupations through the First Minoan Palace.
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Eleni Drakaki The Master with Lion motif of Bronze Age Cretan iconography: A comprehensive study The motif of a male figure accompanied by a lion, here conventionally termed Master with Lion, was conceived in the Neopalatial era, the most flourishing period of the Bronze Age civilization of Crete, and has thus far been witnessed exclusively on (a very small number of) works of glyptic (seals and sealings). Although it has attracted (some) scholarly attention, especially in respect to the identity and/or status of the Master and its/their (possible) implications for Cretan religion and the nature of rulership on the island, a comprehensive study of this motif is long overdue. To this purpose, the scope of this paper includes the following: 1) a careful examination of the available material that leads to the discovery of variations even if minor of this motif, which seem to warrant different identifications; ) a systematic analysis of the morphological characteristics and/or contextual associations of the seals and sealings in question, in an effort to shed some light on the identity of the selected few who owned them; and 3) a thorough investigation beyond the Aegean borders, in search of the motif s parallels in the iconographic traditions of the other great Bronze Age cultures of Egypt, Anatolia, the Near East and Mesopotamia. Considering the nature and extreme rarity of the Cretan artifacts which carry the Master with Lion motif as well as the fact that it was conceived at a time of intense interaction and contacts between Crete and the eastern Mediterranean, this undertaking is crucial for ascertaining the degree of independence and/or (possible) external influence involved in its formulation.
Jan Driessen
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The Bronze Age settlement on the Kephali at Sissi Since 7, a team of the Belgian School at Athens has been excavating the coastal site of Sissi (koinotita Vrachasiou), a hill settlement naturally defended by steep slopes and river valleys, located about 4 km east of the palace site of Malia. Strategically located near the sea but also close to important land routes, the hill seems to have been continuously occupied from at least the Early Minoan IIA period (if not earlier) and stayed in use till Late Minoan IIIB when it was suddenly abandoned, perhaps in favour of the refuge settlement located nearby on the Anavlochos. The cemetery, in use from EM IIA to MM IIB, illustrates a variety of burial practices (house tombs, ossuaries, pithos burials) and detailed anthropological examination allows to reconstruct certain social features. The settlement evidence dates primarily to Late Minoan I-II-III with a series of Neopalatial workshops, perhaps mainly concerned with textile production. During this same phase,
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the hill may have been protected by a Cyclopean wall. During LM III, only the summit of the hill seems to have been occupied by a large, almost monumental building with concerns for defence. This comprised a series of storage areas and workshops but also larger halls with central hearths and at least one shrine. Many floor deposits were preserved in situ. The importance of the site is discussed, especially by comparing it with contemporary Malia.
Yves Duhoux La Room of the Chariot Tablets du palais de Cnossos: cole scribale ou archives oublies ? La Room of the Chariot Tablets (= RCT) du palais de Cnossos fait lobjet de deux interprtations trs diffrentes. Chadwick y a vu une cole scribale. Par contre, dautres auteurs, dont le plus important est Driessen ont exclu cette analyse : aux yeux de Driessen, there is no evidence to support an interpretation of the RCT material as training documents. Pour lui, la RCT serait un dpt ordinaire darchives plus archaque que le reste des tablettes en linaire B. Je voudrais montrer que plusieurs particularits importantes des tablettes de la RCT sont typiques dune ambiance scolaire 1) Il est admis par tous que les textes de la RCT manifestent une uniformit dcriture remarquable, bien quils aient t crits par des auteurs diffrents. Ceci est sans parallle linaire B connu et suggre que la RCT fonctionnait autrement que les autres bureaux mycniens 2) Or, une srie dobservations faites par Driessen lui-mme suggrent que la RCT tait une cole scribale. Driessen parle de the inexperience of the writers; du fait que the RCT scribes felt uneasy with the writing material et du semiliterate environment in which the documents [of the RCT] were produced. Il ajoute que the scribes of the RCT acquired their writing-qualities together et quils did indeed acquire their abilities in school-like environments. 3) La tablette KN V(1) 114 est un document capital pour comprendre la fonction de la RCT. Ce texte contient les mmes quatre mots crits sur son recto et son verso (pa-ze a-mi-ni-so pe-da wa-tu). Or, ces deux faces ont t crites par deux mains diffrentes, dont lune est manifestement plus doue que lautre. Ceci a des parallles dans le monde proche-oriental, o lon trouve galement des tablettes dont lune des deux faces est crite par le matre et lautre par llve. La tablette KN V(1) 114 ne peut donc bien se comprendre que si lon y reconnat un authentique exercice scribal, avec la partie de llve et celle du matre. Conclusion : cet ensemble dlments invite penser que la RCT tait un lieu dapprentissage scribal. Ceci est valable quelle que soit la datation de la RCT, puisque ladministration palatiale devait rgulirement former de nouveaux scribes.
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Melissa Eaby Unit A.2 at Chalasmenos Excavations at the site of Chalasmenos (Monastiraki) were begun in 1 as a joint Greek-American project under the direction of Dr. Metaxia Tsipopoulou and the late Prof. William Coulson. The site is located on a relatively steep, rocky hill (4 m. above sea level) just south of the Ha Gorge on the eastern side of the Ierapetra Isthmus. Chalasmenos was a relatively large settlement, covering perhaps 7 acres, and was apparently founded in the middle phase of the Late Minoan IIIC period (approximately mid 1th c. BC). Although limited phasing, in the form of blocked doorways, multiple floor levels, and building repairs or additions, is visible in some structures, it is essentially a single period site, abandoned before the end of LM IIIC; very limited Protogeometric and Late Geometric activity has also been recorded. The Chalasmenos settlement shows a degree of urban planning: at least four distinct neighborhoods, separated by paved and unpaved pathways, have been identified on the site. While many buildings at Chalasmenos are of an agglomerative nature, consisting of a large room with one or two smaller rooms extending off of it (often creating a -shaped plan), at least six buildings of megaron type, including the shrine, have also been identified (as previously presented by Dr Tsipopoulou). Buildings of megaron type consist of two axially aligned rectangular rooms (typically a larger room with central hearth leading into a smaller one) with the entrance on the short side. This paper serves as a preliminary presentation of Unit A., a two-room building located on the southwestern edge of the site, immediately west of a series of rooms known as Coulsons House (House A.1). Unit A. appears to have been the first megaron type construction at Chalasmenos; it began as a single square room to which a long rectangular room with central clay hearth was added. In this paper, the architecture, pottery, and small finds from these two rooms will be examined: the finds from the building include vessels for storage, food preparation, drinking and food consumption, as well as stone tools and burned and unburned animal bones. The possible significance of the building will also be discussed; specifically, does this structure represent a typical house at Chalasmenos, or did it have a special function? It is hoped that the evidence from Unit A. will contribute to our knowledge of LM IIIC settlements in east Crete and also aid in better understanding the relationship between Chalasmenos and other nearby sites, such as Kastro, Vronda, Vasilike Kephala, and Vrokastro.
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Jason W. Earle Diminished Cretan influence in the Cyclades during Late Minoan IBLate Minoan II? Evidence from a ceramic perspective It is well established that Cycladic ceramics of the late Middle Bronze Age and early Late Bronze Age were deeply influenced by contemporary Cretan wares. Many Minoan shapes and styles were adopted and adapted by Cycladic potters, and there is even a possibility that itinerant Cretan potters were working in the Cyclades. To date, discussions of Cretan-Cycladic interactions have focused mainly on the late Middle Cycladic and Late Cycladic I periods (Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan IA in Cretan terms), and particularly on pottery from the sites of Akrotiri on Thera, Phylakopi on Melos, and Ayia Irini on Kea. Studies examining Cycladic responses to the Cretan Late Minoan IB and II styles, however, are lacking. Consequently, our understanding of Cycladic stylistic and cultural dynamics during these historically crucial periods, which witnessed the shift from Minoan to Mycenaean cultural hegemony in the Aegean, is dim. Did the strong Minoan influence seen in Late Cycladic I ceramics continue into Late Cycladic II (LM IBII)? Or did Cretan influence in the Cyclades diminish following the Theran eruption, as Mountjoy has suggested on the basis of imports? To address these questions, I present the findings of my examination of ceramic material from relevant Cycladic deposits, both published (House A at Ayia Irini on Kea, Grotta on Naxos, and unpublished Trenches A, C, S, K, PLa and KKd at Phylakopi on Melos). To my knowledge, no study has dealt exclusively with Late Cycladic II ceramics, let alone Minoan influence on Late Cycladic II ceramics. Limited (and often tangential) discussions of Late Cycladic II ceramics have appeared in excavation reports and studies of Late Cycladic I pottery, but interest has tended to focus instead on Minoan and Mycenaean imports to the Cyclades. While an understanding of the changing proportions of Minoan and Mycenaean imports is important, the relationship of these imports to local ceramic developments in Late Cycladic II has not been explored. Therefore, I pay particular attention to stylistic developments in local ceramics, discuss the relationships between Cycladic products and imports from the Greek Mainland and Crete, and highlight the similarities and differences in Cycladic responses to Minoan and Mycenaean pottery. In turn, this study enables us to understand better from a ceramic perspective the transitional period (Late Minoan IBII/Late Cycladic II/Late Helladic II) between Minoan and Mycenaean ascendancy in the Cyclades, and in the broader Aegean.
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Florence Gaignerot-Driessen From communal incorporated shrines to public independent sanctuaries in LM III Crete Characteristic of discovery of Cretan Postpalatial bench sanctuaries are large wheel made terracotta figures with upraised arms together with typical cultic equipment. Past and recent excavations on Crete illustrate a series of contexts that contain elements from this cultic equipment, particularly snake tubes, but lack such a Goddess with Upraised Arms. Most of these contexts date to Late Minoan (LM) IIIAB and form part of larger buildings with potential communal functions, this in contrast to contexts in which figures occur which are freestanding public buildings and date to LM IIIB-C. This evolution suggests the changing dynamics of the use of cult spaces. It is argued here that the LM IIIC figures with upraised arms are a later addition in what we could call LM IIIA-B Snake Tube Shrines and that they were not cult images, but symbolically represented votaries in context of elite competition.
Ioanna Galanaki, Evi Goroyanni Crete and the Cyclades reconsidered: Communication networks and processes during the Middle Bronze and the beginning of the Late Bronze Ages in the light of new evidence from Lefkandi and Keos At the apex of Minoanisation, Cretan influence seems to have been strongest on those nodes of the exchange network that are arranged along the western Cyclades (western string) and the Dodecanese and the western coast of Asia Minor (eastern string). The northernmost extent of this influence is where the Aegean sea is constricted at its narrowest, i.e., approximately at the latitude of Ayia Irini and Miletus. The reasons for this very specific geographic distribution have as yet not been addressed in the literature. The present paper attempts to fill this lacuna and address the reasons for this geographical discrepancy by comparing unpublished material from two sites, Ayia Irini on Keos and Xeropolis- Lefkandi on Euboea. These two sites, although in close proximity to each other and with established contact between them, participated in the exchange network connecting the Aegean with Crete in considerably different degrees, both quantitatively and qualitatively. At Ayia Irini, one can find the entire Minoan package complete with imported and minoanising pottery, Linear A, Minoan weights, measures, and artistic tropes, as well as the upright loom. However, at Lefkandi, not far from Keos along the Euboean coast, the amount of Minoan or minoanising pottery remains small throughout the Middle and early Late Bronze Age, even though the site was far from isolated from the rest of the Aegean, as the abundance of Cycladic and Aegine-
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tan fabrics makes evident. Thus, if interaction along certain routes existed and sites such as Lefkandi were part of these contact networks from the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age and on, what forces or choices in the communication patterns excluded Lefkandi from the sphere of Minoanisation? This paper proposes answers to this question through a diachronic and comparative study of the patterns of interaction between these two sites and Crete.
Geraldine Gesell The goddesses with up-raised hands at Kavousi: The relationship between potters, fabrics, technology, and appearance of the figure Although the goddess with up-raised hands is a standard type of goddess figure, most of which is thrown the same way on the wheel in the LM IIIB and C periods, the details of its construction and modeling vary from site to site and also on the same site. At Kavousi these variations appear to be connected with the choice of the fabric used in the individual figures. The goddesses from this site were made from five different types of coarse fabric and one of fine. The five coarse fabrics were studied by Peter Day, Louise Joyner, and Vassilis Kilikoglou and published in Hesperia 75 () 137-175. Very briefly, Group 1 is characterized by frequent low-grade metamorphic rocks set in a ground mass rich in silver mica laths and quartz grains. The firing temperature was relatively low, about 75 degrees C. Group has a red matrix which contains frequent inclusions of acid igneous rocks, mostly granite. The firing temperature was relatively low, 75 degrees C. or below. Group 3 is characterized by large well-rounded aplastic inclusions of low-grade metamorphic rocks (phyllite and slate), sedimentary rocks (sandstones and siltstones), and fine grain igneous rocks (basic volcanics?), set in a very fine-grained base clay. Its firing temperature was -5 degrees C. Group 4 consists of granodiorite inclusions in a calcarious matrix. It is easily recognized by its gold mica. Its firing temperature is 75- degrees C. Group 5 is characterized as the phyllite group. Its firing temperature was less than 75 degrees C. Groups 1,, and 5 are considered to be cooking vessel types and Groups 3 and 4 are common jar fabrics. The article claims that many workshops of potters, probably in the area of the Isthmus of Ierapetra along the south coast of the Bay of Mirabello and in the Kavousi and Mochlos areas, made the goddesses and the major ritual equipment, the snake tubes and plaques. The discussion in this paper builds on the article to discuss the differences in the figures of the goddesses made from these different types of fabric, particularly in the details of the construction of the figure, modeling the surface, and the final decorations. Most of the numbered goddesses ( out of ) were made from Group 3 material. The details of these will be considered the standard for Kavousi. The fabrics of Groups 1, , 4, and 5 were used in only one numbered god17
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dess apiece (two goddesses are of fine ware). These will show the variations based on fabric. There is the same relationship between the fabric and the snake tubes and plaques. The majority of the snake tubes (5 out of 34) and plaques ( out of 3) are also of Group 3 fabric. These, although they may be referred to, will not be discussed in detail in this paper.
Luca Girella The Kamilari tholos tombs project: New light on an old excavation The two largest tholos tombs, both about 1.5 km north of the village of Kamilari, were excavated by the Italian scholar Doro Levi in 15. A quite exhaustive preliminary report drew attention to the key-role of this pair of tombs. The larger of the two tombs, built in MM IB, was most intensely used during MM III, but there are also some deposits datable from LM I to LM IIIA. The smaller tomb was exploited almost uninterruptedly from MM IB to LM I. Thanks to the generous permission of the Italian Archaeological School, Prof. V. La Rosa, the Greek authorities, and the financial support of INSTAP, a project is currently focusing on the complete study and publication of the Kamilari material. The emerging picture is admittedly rather fragmentary, but the reading of excavations notebook and a study of a large body of the so far unpublished material allow us to present new information on the nature and amount of grave offerings. This paper seeks to understand formal and functional changes in the tombs through their periods of use. Firstly, by relating vessels shapes to specific areas of the tholos (the main chamber, annexes -, the external courtyard) it is possible to draw a clearer picture of vessel distribution. Such a distribution sheds new light on the ritual offerings and activities carried out within the tomb and in the external courtyard nearby. Secondly, by exploring diachronic changes in the tombs the paper aims to set properly the Kamilari cemetery in their region and to interpret differences in the use of the tombs as elements of the mortuary behaviour of the communities which used the cemetery through the centuries.
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Thibaut Gomre, Maia Pomadre
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The Pi Area at Malia: An exploration of a Prepalatial, Protopalatial and Neopalatial period Minoan town quarter The Pi Area, which is located between the House Delta alpha and the Hypostyle Crypt, is being excavated since 5. A Neopalatial building, the btiment Pi, has
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been discovered, and the excavations have revealed that the area had been inhabited over different periods. The building had been constructed upon Protopalatial and Prepalatial levels. The LM I material which has been collected suggests a mainly residential and domestic function of the building. In addition, various activities (such as textile production or obsidian manufacture) were taking place in the course of every-day life in the area of btiment Pi. Moreover, some artifacts of particular importance, such as seals, figurines and a cupule stone found in situ, indicate administrative as well as religious activities in the building. The house was finally abandoned during the late LM IA after having been destroyed and/or rearranged several times. This paper will present the spatial organization of this new building, btiment Pi, as well as the rich history of the area, which seems to have been inhabited, at least in part, without interruption as early as EM II. This Prepalatial level is of particular interest because the remains of that period, which have been discovered sporadically throughout the site, have provided us with little information about Malia during this period. The excavations on area Pi have provided new data concerning Neopalatial urbanism, as well as a valuable enrichment of our knowledge of the first occupation period in the site of Malia.
Lucy Goodison At deaths door: New evidence and new narratives from the Mesara-type tombs A new catalogue of the Mesara-type tombs compiled recently is based on field trips to all previously listed sites, including some not seen by any archaeologist for up to years and never published in visual form. This fieldwork raised new questions about the identity, location, architecture and ritual use of the tombs. In particular it drew attention to the significance both literal and symbolic of the tomb doors through which the living interfaced with the unknown world of death. The view and passage in and out of the tombs suggest a relationship mediated through physical and experiential elements including not only toasting but also: movement; handling of bones; intervisibility; situation in landscape; activities at special times of day and year; and engagement with the cardinal points. Archaeologists investigating the tombs also stand at the door of an unknown world of death, about which they have constructed a number of narratives. These have included generalized models of the funerary process based on: universalizing anthropological theories; analyses of mortuary rites as primarily a vehicle for social representation indicating wealth and status; and narratives of abstract anthropomorphic divinity. This paper suggests how such narratives have reflected a presentist privileging of the flight from corporeality to abstraction, and have pre-empted a thorough 11
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interrogation of the material. It highlights the need for the articulation of new narratives consistent with the physical evidence of the tomb users engagement with death and the body.
Lucy Goodison, Christine Morris The archaeology of the lived body in the Cretan Bronze Age Within archaeology and anthropology academic study of the body as a system of signs or as a passive surface to be inscribed has given way to an interest in the body as a product of lived experience. Bronze Age Crete offers an exceptional range of prehistoric representations of the human body, worked in a rich variety of materials/genres (such as seals and rings, figurines, stone vases and frescoes). This imagery shows the body in a variety of situations, postures and modes including social situations; nudity; interaction and fusion with animals; hieratic poses; and ecstatic dance. Beyond the field of imagery, treatment of the physical body is of course preserved through funerary practices. A further important dimension to the lived body is bodily engagement with and movement through different environments and landscapes. Rarely has this wide range of material been considered as a whole as a means of exploring how the body was represented and experienced by the inhabitants of Bronze Age Crete. The Round Table would welcome papers that engage with the theme of embodiment and lived experience in Bronze Age Crete from a wide range of perspectives including, but not restricted to, gender, costume, posture, performance and display, sensory experience, body modification, ritual practice and treatment of the dead body.
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Elpida Hadjidaki The first Minoan shipwreck: Eight years of study During an underwater survey conducted in the summer of 3 through the Greek Department of Maritime Antiquities and funded by INSTAP, a collection of Minoan transport vessels was found at a depth of 4-5 meters near the coast of Pseira, East Crete. An additional underwater survey in the summer of 4 provided evidence that the vessels might constitute the cargo of an ancient shipwreck. Thus excavation began in the summer of 5 and ended in the summer of . Around artifacts were recovered from the site, including around ones which are nearly whole and easily identifiable as types of amphorae and other large jars that would have carried liquids, probably wine or olive oil. All date to the same period, which is 117 BC, or Middle Minoan IIB. However, they are larger than corresponding ves-
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sels of the same period found so far on land. The large concentration of vessels in a single location, their similarity, and their size, all confirm the initial supposition that we have found the first Minoan shipwreck. Although no wood from the ship survived, we can conclude that transport ships of around 1-15 meters in length serving the local inhabitants were sailing the coasts of Crete by the Middle Minoan period.
Robin Hgg On spatial relationships in Minoan religious architecture After my paper on The bent axis approach in Minoan ritual presented at the th International Cretological Congress, I am continuing my investigation of various aspects of spatial relationships in Minoan buildings of religious or ceremonial function. Here, I will explore the relationship between dark indoor cult rooms and adiacent outdoor gathering places, between pillar crypts and columnar shrines, between lustral basins and their hypothetical superstructures, and between peak sanctuaries and palace shrines.
Brigitta P. Hallager A pictorial scene on a pyxis at Khania Pictorial scenes on Minoan larnakes are not uncommon, but they are not very oen depicted on vases. Birds and horns of consecration, oen with double axes or branches, appear on shapes like cups, bowls, pyxides, stirrup jars, kraters, amphoroid kraters and incense burners, but pictorial scenes involving human beings are indeed rare. ree pictorial scenes from Khania have so far been published: a chariot scene on an LM IIIA: alabastron, another chariot scene on an LM IIIB: krater and a unique cult scene on an LM IIIA: 1 broad-legged stand. e rst was found in a tomb, the other two in the Greek-Swedish Excavations at the Agia Aikaterini Square. Here another pictorial scene from these excavations will be presented. It adorns a small side-handled pyxis which was found in an LM IIIA: 1 well and depicts a somewhat chaotic scene involving human beings.
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deposits. Five of the seal stones were found stacked together and found on a floor. They were all lentoids in soft stone and with figural motifs. One small seal stone, a lentoid in soft stone with a stylish design, came from a pit of LM IIB:1/ date, while th last seal, an amygdaloid in rock crystal with a talismanic motif was found between two floors of the LM IIIB:1 period. The seven seals shall be sortly presented and their chronological significance and importance shall be discussed.
Kostas alikias, Stavroula Apostolakou Settlement patterns in the Ierapetra region: A case study of the island of Chryssi The landscape of the south Ierapetra Isthmus has changed dramatically over the past few decades affecting the way we interpret settlement patterns and past human activity in the area. The island of Chryssi is one of the few exceptions, and recent archaeological investigations there by the 4th Ephoreia have provided significant evidence for the exploitation of this small island through the centuries and, in turn, the broader changes in settlement patterns that occurred along the south coast of Crete. Islands are ideal case studies because of their isolated environment which suffers minimal human impact. The colonization of small islands around Crete since the Neolithic period constitutes a pattern that is well documented for Gavdos, Kouphonisi and Pseira. So far, the archaeological fieldwork on Chryssi has focused mainly on recording past human activity and understanding human choices on settlement location and land use. Research there has recorded a number of sites that date from the Final Neolithic to the Venetian period. The occupation on Chryssi demonstrates the particular importance of this small island community during the Neopalatial, Hellenistic and Roman times and suggests the existence of a thriving and complex network of settlements in the opposite coast of Crete, some of which have not even been discovered (i.e., Neopalatial).
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Haralampos V. Harissis, Anastasios V. Harissis Apiculture in the prehistoric Aegean: Minoan and Mycenaean symbols revisited The scenes on Minoan and Mycenaean rings, seals and clay sealings have been often conceived as the key for an understanding of prehistoric Aegean religion. The views of Evans, Nilsson, and many others over the past century have dominated the various theories about the nature of this religion. The aim of this article is to suggest an alternative view for some of the most important gold rings that have led to these theories. By applying a naturalistic context of interpretation instead of a religious one, it is possible to recognize in these rings some apiculture para-
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phernalia and practices instead of the established religious symbols. It is further suggested that these rings and seals were used by overseers of beekeeping, a highstatus and highly valued industry of prehistoric Aegean as it can be deduced by the finds of hives, smoking pots, honey extractors and so on that indicate systematic Minoan apiculture.
Eleni Hatzaki Urban transformations: The Little Palace North Project and the urban landscapes of Late Bronze Age Knossos This paper presents the results of the Little Palace North Project (LPN), a twoseason excavation aimed to provide a diachronic picture of urban activities in the core elite sector of urban Late Bronze Age Knossos. The emerging picture from combining new and old excavation data suggests that the urban landscape of Knossos underwent drastic changes in the Neopalatial, Final Palatial and Postpalatial periods. This analysis, therefore, challenges Arthur Evanss vision of an unaltered urban layout for Late Bronze Age Knossos (regularly used as a pan-Cretan model) and prompts the re-examination of urban development in other Cretan settlements with long and complex occupation sequences.
Gran Henriksson, Mary Blomberg The results of the Uppsala project on Minoan astronomy The project has had as its main objectives the definition of Minoan astronomy, the uses of that astronomy by the Minoans, and its possible influence on Mycenaean and Greek astronomy. As far as we are aware, this subject has not been studied systematically before. An obvious impediment is the lack of written sources surviving from the Minoans. However, the development of archaeoastronomical methods to determine the orientations of ancient structures and the profiles of the landscape opposite them, as well as our computer programs that exactly recreate the positions of the celestial bodies as they were in the far distant past have made the study feasible. In addition, statistical analysis, iconographical studies of Minoan artifacts, and the study of Mycenaean and Greek documents for possible Minoan influence were also part of our method. The project is a pilot study of representative examples of Minoan peak sanctuaries, palaces, manor houses and shrines. In the case of large monuments, we measured the most likely places for astronomical activity, for example generally accepted religious or ceremonial areas. Of the peak sanctuaries we chose: Chamaizi, Juktas, Modi, Petsophas, Philioremos (Gonies), Pyrgos and Traosta15
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los; the palaces at Knossos, Malia, Phaistos and Zakros; the manor houses at Agia Triada, the Southeast House at Knossos, Tylissos A and C and Vathypetro: the bench shrine, portico and west shrine at Gournia, the tripartite shrine at Vathypetro and the oblique shrine at Malia buildings in all. We measured the orientation of foundations, walls, and the horizon profiles opposite them with a digital theodolite. In the case of foundations, we measured each stone on both sides and computed the orientation by least squares fit. Although we have not yet completed our analysis of three of the buildings, the manors at Agia Triada and Tylissos A and C, the results of the remaining 1 give a clear picture of Minoan focus on motions of the celestial bodies and some of their achievements in astronomical knowledge. Seventeen buildings were oriented to major celestial events: sunrise and sunset at the equinoxes and solstices, major standstill of the moon, heliacal rising and setting of bright stars. Most of these had deliberately arranged artificial or natural foresights. Eleven buildings had one such orientation, four had two orientations, one had three, and one had four. The other two, as well as one of the seventeen, had orientations to sunrise at the times of year that would make it possible to identify the beginning of the months not signified by the other orientations. The analysis of the orientations of these buildings has helped to define the Minoan calendar and has also indicated that three of the shrines were probably made by or for the Mycenaeans, thus sharing light on a thorny problem in Late Minoan history. A brief presentation of the results will be presented.
Carol R. Hershenson The expression of social differentiation across time: A diachronic study of Minoan halls Minoan halls have been extensively discussed in scholarship on Minoan architecture, examining their plans, circulatory connections, distribution among Minoan houses, and diachronic changes in fashion. This study compares the expression of social hierarchy through different forms of Minoan halls in Neopalatial and Prepalatial houses, with brief consideration of Protopalatial examples, and speculates on the architectural technology whose introduction into Minoan domestic architecture may have enabled the invention of the familiar Neopalatial forms of halls from their Prepalatial counterparts. Three types of halls have been recognized in Neopalatial Minoan houses, with different arrangements of columns and other supporting structures: polythyra, rooms with a column, and Palaikastro-style halls. The plans of these rooms are sharply differentiated, as are the materials, building methods, and decorative techniques of the first two; these three types of rooms are similar largely in their re-
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lationships to other rooms and their positions within the circulatory systems of their houses. Two types of halls have been documented in Prepalatial Minoan houses: high style and vernacular. In contrast to the strong distinctions among Neopalatial halls, Prepalatial high style and vernacular halls are differentiated at the ground-storey level only by their synchronic sizes, exterior shape, and details of construction and plan; they are similar not only in the same elements shared by all types of Neopalatial halls (relationships with other rooms and circulatory position) but also in most aspects of plan, building materials, and most techniques of construction. Indeed, the degree of socioeconomic distinction expressed in Minoan halls during the Prepalatial and Neopalatial periods is a microcosm of the differences among their houses. Similarities, especially those common synchronically to all Prepalatial halls, are also shared diachronically by Pre- and Neopalatial Minoan halls, without regard to socioeconomic or typological differentiations in either period. There are further detailed similarities of Neopalatial rooms with a column and polythyra to Prepalatial halls -especially but not exclusively to vernacular and high style ones, respectively in their plans and functions, in structural supports for the former rooms, and in associated spaces and possibly control of exposure to outside weather conditions for the latter. Prepalatial halls thus present architectural structures and arrangements that might have inspired the characteristic halls of both vernacular and high style Neopalatial Minoan houses. Introduction of a single additional technology to Minoan domestic architecture during the later Prepalatial period the reduction of supports for ceiling and roofbeams at the ground-storey level from two-dimensional walls to one-dimensional points such as columns or piers enables many of the differences in plans visible between Pre- and Neopalatial halls. From the rather similar forms of Prepalatial vernacular and high style halls, differential application of columns and piers can create all three quite diverse plans of Neopalatial halls. This study thus suggests both the inspiration and mechanism for the invention on Crete of these distinctively Minoan rooms, and traces the sharpening of the socio-economic distinctions expressed in Minoan domestic architecture.
Louise Hitchcock All the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites: A current assessment of the evidence for the Minoan connection with the Philistines
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The co-occurrence of the ethnic designations Cherethite and Pelethite and the association of the Philistines with Caphtor in the Old Testament point to a specifically Cretan origin or affiliation for at least some of the Philistines in literary tradition. This identification, although bolstered by the discovery that the Philistines produced their own version of Mycenaean IIIC pottery, has rightly come under 17
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criticism from those reluctant to simplistically associate pots with peoples. However, additional categories of archaeological evidence indicating an Aegean origin for the Philistines are well-rehearsed and include the reel-style of loom weights, drinking habits, consumption of pork, Aegean-style cooking pots, use of hearths and bathtubs, temple architecture, and megaron-style buildings. Yet, in contrast to the strong identification of the Philistines with Crete in the literary tradition, these Aegean characteristics of Philistine culture point to Mycenaean Greece. This paper examines the current state of our understanding of the specific connections between Crete and Philistia with regard to recent discoveries and interpretations of Philistine culture, with particular reference to the authors excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath and study of other Philistine material in Israel. Among the categories of evidence examined in this paper are architectural features, particularly hearths, but also spatial syntax, plaster, and tool use; the spatial manipulation of artifacts such as the practice of curating animal head cups and seal use, ritual action, and recently discovered inscriptional evidence. It is argued that key features of Minoan culture survived in Philistine culture, embedded among other cultural practices that can be associated with the Mycenaeans, Cypriots, and Canaanites, and that they form an important record of the Cretan and Minoan contribution to human civilization.
Martin Hoffmeister Early Minoan II construction technology: Vasiliki and Myrtos Phournou Koryphi A detailed analysis of the walling components such as the thickness and height, mortar, chinking, stone surface finishing, stone size and distribution and stone origin, bonding, outside and inside treatment, uniformity and variety, finishes, treatment of openings and of foundations, ceilings, floorings, stairs, pillars and pillars bases[,] provides comparative data, [does not make sense!!!: not only on the refinement level of pottery typology, but has also a disclosure value in diachronic geographic, cultural and phasing/chronological? assessments]. In the transition from EM I (e.g. Mochlos, Ellenes Amarion, Myrtos Pyrgos, Phaistos) to EM II (e.g. Vasiliki, Palaikastro, Phournou Koryphi), the building technology reflects an increase in awareness of the properties of materials and sophistication in the use of available resources, as a result of the process of nucleation and increased availability of food resources. From the roughly worked stones of EM I Phaistos with small cobbles embedded in their core, uncoursed anon clay foundations. The EM I structures at Phournou Koryphi show an increase in structural awareness in the composition of the antae, jambs and corners. The use of chinking emphasises the lessened reliance on mud fillers, and the placement of heavier stones
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on top shows the use of anchoring properties of weight. The use of available flat stones permits very rough coursing and increases vertical bonding. While the stones remain unworked, a selection of suitable units permits flat faces of the walls. The almost total lack of running joints may be accidental, due to the flat shape of available materials. Free standing walls are consciously composed to sustain the lack of lateral support. The inlined shape of the hill and the presence of exposed outgrowth of the bedrock are used to increase the stability of the all-rock walls. The presence of second floors remains unknown, but, if they existed, it is safe to assume that they were made of light materials, like mud or wattle-and-daub, because of the relative thinness of the rock walls. The variety of shape and composition of the stones suggests their casual collection from the nearby fields. The use of grinding stones is a proof of phasing or gradual growth of the settlement and of architectural additions. The chinking, again, shows the care for solidity of the walls when contrasted to boulder/clay assemblages. While the appearance of the walls is extremely rustic, their technology has a long history, which is apparent in the selection and construction of the materials and the structural integrity of different components of the walls. Indeed, the duration of the walls is a proof of the long tradition of building trials and errors. On the hamlet of Vasiliki House on the Hilltop, a conflation of houses of different dates includes the Red-House, roughly contemporary with Myrtos. This building introduces us to urban sophistication, with its paving, its two stories, its red painted walls and floors, its mudbrick and pise superstructure, and its storerooms and its well. It is worth noting that other Minoan settlements of the same period are architecturally less advanced than Vasiliki. Rough stones are used for the walls, but abundant mud mortar compensates for their uneven shapes. The available material has dictated such an arrangement, in contrast to Myrtos where the flatness of local stones allowed for tighter joints. The doorjambs and thresholds use flat elements enhancing thus stability. The thick plaster played a crucial role in consolidating the cobble/mud walls. The monumentality of later ashlar walls is here contrasted to the almost concrete-like appearance of the heterogeneous mass used to fill the walls. The random collection of the rocks is compensated by the copious use of soft mud and reflects the care for experimentation which is characteristic of the period. The amorphous shape of some of the steps shows the lack of building rules. On the other hand, double walls cobble fills result from the search of stability, especially to support loads of the second floors. The expenses of selecting, collecting and later shaping the stones reflect directly the appearance and, thus, social significance of the structure. The complexity of the buildings of Vasiliki and Myrtos reveals the communitys effort required to accomplish these settlements. It may be argued that technological sophistication goes step by step with social, intellectual and cultural sophistication, but, in reality, the quality of inhabited space is driven by increased demand, and the real and perceived need for quality in life styles, which are also retraced in food, clothing, travel and other life strategies.
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Bernice R. Jones The Minoan peak-back robe: An investigation of Middle Minoan dress The elegant womens costume that emerges at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age on Crete is a fitting match for the grand palaces that appear contemporaneously. Topped by a tall headdress, a dress with a high peaked back, breast baring front, and flair skirt exudes the refinement and sophistication of the burgeoning Minoan civilization. Portrayed on a corpus of small, crudely carved terracotta figurines found mainly at peak sanctuaries, however, we are presented with a mere hint of its original finery. Nevertheless, despite the lack of details, certain elements of the costumes construction manifest themselves when examining the remnants of dress on each and every figurine, some photographed in the round for the first time. Comparisons with representations of clothes from the Near East and preserved garments from Egypt provide us with new evidence for contemporary construction technology in the Eastern Mediterranean. This paper evaluates previous suggestions and new evidence for construction and presents a modern cloth replication of the garment on a live model who imitates the pose of the figurines. This new methodology in research and analysis results in a better understanding of the early elegant Minoan costume that is no longer preserved and ultimately brings it to life. It discerns how it contrasts in some respects, and looks forward in others, to the luxurious Minoan dress design of the Late Bronze Age.
Amalia G. Kakissis Knossos online: The BSA Excavation Records and the Stratigraphical Museum collection The Archives of the British School at Athens is the principal repository for all Excavation Records associated with projects of the School from its foundation in 1. One of the largest sections of the BSA Excavation Records is the archival records from BSA excavations in Knossos. The aim of this presentation is to show how the online resources of the British School at Athens new Museum and Archives Online (BSA-MAO) programme (specifically the Archive Records and the Stratigraphical Museum artifacts) will facilitate research about Knossos. The Knossos Excavation Records collection contains material from all the British archaeological excavations conducted in Knossos and its environs beginning in the late 1s to the present day. Some of the Knossos sites represented in the records include: Ailias Cemetery, Ayios Ioannis Cemetery, Fortetsa, Fortetsa Fork Cemetery, Graeco-Roman Cemetery, Gypsades Aqueduct, Gypsades Cemetery, House of the Frescoes, Kephala Tholos Tomb, Medical Faculty, Minoan Unexplored Man-
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sion, Monasteriako Kephali, North Cemetery, Roman Agora, Sanctuary of Demeter, Sellopoulo, Spilia, Unexplored Mansion, and Venezelion Hospital. The bulk of the records consist of contributions of excavators who worked on projects in the 1s-1s, several of which are now published. The Knossos Excavation Records Collection is an open collection in which new records are added after publications of sites and materials are completed. Various British excavators who worked at Knossos produced documents. Among them are Sir Arthur Evans, Duncan Mackenzie, John Pendlebury, Sinclair Hood, Hugh Sackett, Mervyn Popham, and Hector Catling. The material in the collection includes notebooks, original drawings, photographs, catalogue cards of finds, correspondence, manuscript/printers proofs and various pamphlets and publications. In 3-4, the Knossos Excavation Records were re-catalogued under a new classification system following the international standardized archival description. This new data was added to an electronic database for future migration into an online searchable database. Additionally, a few notebooks and plans were digitized during this project. Simultaneously, the Statigraphical Curatorial Museum Project was undertaken to record all the artifacts in the Knossos Stratigraphical Museum. This data, along with images, was also put in an electronic database. In , the BSA purchased KE Softwares EMu programme to create a unified and cross-searchable digital catalogue of our holdings, with a web interface to enable worldwide access for research and teaching. In the first migration the catalogue of the Stratigraphical Museum catalogue was uploaded and is now searchable online. The next step will be for the Knossos Excavation Records catalogue to be migrated into the BSA Museum and Archives Online and more of the collection to be digitized. These two collections once linked on BSA-MAO will be an indispensable online research tool for scholars. The aim then is to link other collections in the BSA Archives associated with Knossos such as the Personal Papers of Mark Cameron, Nicolas Coldstream, and Vincent A. Desborough as well as linking to online catalogues of other institutions holding information on Knossos like the Sir Arthur Evans Archival Project of the Ashmolean Museum who have started digitizing the collection.
Athanasia Kanta, Alexia Spiliotopoulou Hollow animal votives in Cretan sanctuaries. The case of the Sanctuary at Symi Viannou
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Hollow animal votives are a distinct feature of Cretan sanctuaries in Prehistory and in the Early Iron Age and later times. Large hollow animals are already present in peak sanctuaries. Some of them are obvious rhytons, while others do not seem to have had this function. From LM IIIC onwards they become fashionable 11
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votives in open air sanctuaries of various types and in caves. The sanctuary at Symi Viannou has produced a great number of such votives dating from the LM IIIC onwards. The present paper examines the evidence for their form and construction. It also examines the reasons that led to the introduction of this kind of offering in Cretan sanctuaries of various types at this period, e.g. the Patsos cave or the Piazzale dei Sacceli at Hagia Triada and elsewhere, together with their great longevity in Crete. Matters of function and symbolism are also taken into consideration.
Froukje Klomp Vasiliki Kephalaki revisited: A reassessment of its Early Minoan architecture Preliminarily it should be stated, that the general background of my paper is formed by research concerning the development of architecture from the Neolithic to the mature phases of the Bronze Age. The palaces of Crete have been characterised, by some, as being the principal ceremonial places of Minoan religion, which grew gradually around a court that formed the focus of ritual activities since the Early Minoan IIB period. Others have suggested that, by the Late Bronze Age, the symbolic and social practices of village settlements in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age were gradually monumentalized, transformed, politicized and brought under control of the central authority of the Minoan palace system. Since I would like to follow this train of thought at least partly, as it might reopen the debate as to how long and how endemic and in what shape, in fact, the pre-palatial foundation of the palaces manifests itself, the central questions posed in my investigations may be formulated as follows: which religious concept may initially, and basically, have governed the architectural creation of the palaces? And why is mortuary practice singled out from explaining the emergence of the palaces? Obviously, the monumental tombs of the third millennium BC are the most potential architectural candidates for being the forerunners of the palaces. To shed some light on these issues I would like to deal here with some intensively debated architectural phenomena of the Early Bronze Age, in particular with those of the excavations in Vasiliki, on the Isthmus of Ierapetra. During the EBA the first tombs, constructed in stone, appeared. Often single or doubled as for example the tholoi tombs in the Mesara, or structured like houses in groups resembling a settlement, as is the case in the east of Crete. The creation of built cemeteries for the first time in Crete reflects a growing concern for the deceased and consequently a cult of the ancestors, the remembrance of whom must have been closely bonded to that of the living. In the archaeological record, however, we are faced with the problem that different regions show divergent histories. To put it bluntly, in the Mesara we have many circular tholoi, without properly built settlement layouts, and in the east, in Fournou Korifi and
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Vasiliki, it seems that we have squarely built settlements, without cemeteries. Does this discrepancy reflect excavation bias or a different emphasis on basic cultural and hence architectural traditions? It has been recognized, that during the Neolithic it was practice to bury at least some of the deceased, for example infants, inside the habitation walls of settlements. And recently, on account of more careful investigation of habitation debris, this practice is becoming more detailed and also confirmed for adults. If this Neolithic burial tradition of inhumation in houses has been retained somehow during the Early and later Bronze Age, it seems reasonable to expect that it may show up in the devise and innovation of the architectural environment. As it does, for example, in the house tombs. On account of the above stated meditations, and on examining the architecture in the reports, and by myself on site, it will be proposed that the core of the EBA settlement of Vasiliki, as represented by the Red House, in all probability was a monumental tomb, which, together with the contemporary architecture, such as the great pavement, formed an early monumental building, like perhaps a sanctuary or early palace, and that the subsequent building phases and occupation of the site reflect a modest but lasting preoccupation with this very important ancient beginning.
Anna Klys The Afiartis Project: Current survey results on Karpathos with special reference to Minoan penetration The Afiartis Project constitutes the final stage of an ambitious diachronic programme on a marginal island environment, at the SE fringe of Europe. The project involves an intensive and systematic surface investigation of the region of Afiartis, including the integrated area to the NW now officially belonging to the municipal district of Arkassa. This is a more or less even and relatively fertile coastal area on the southern and SW part of the island of Karpathos in the Dodecanese. The survey is designed to cover the ancient times, with some emphasis on the prehistoric remains. But the now irretrievably vanishing and methodologically invaluable material ethnography and ethnoarchaeology of the area are also included. Closely linked with archaeology and ethnography are matters of geology, geography and ecology, and these are being studied as well. During four research seasons, new sites were found: one Prehistoric with no pottery associations, 13 Neolithic, 5 Neolithic/EBA, EBA, 44 Minoanizing and 31 Roman. Among the pottery collected from these sites are small scatters of Mycenaean, Classical and Hellenistic date. Most of the new Minoanizing sites represent a single household, a farmstead, including arable land and farming installations. The material remains of a typi13
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cal household assemblage are of Minoan style and include tripod cooking pots, jars (hole mouthed, oval mouthed, bridge-spouted), pithos jars of various types, bowls and cups, beehives etc. Minoan imports, usually fine decorated pots and stone vases, do not occur very often. This kind of economic system, which appears to survive until recently, is called by the locals stavlos. In a few instances, concentrations of such sites form small nucleated settlements, that is to say hamlets. Two sites, both on a low hill slope, seem to represent traditional local shrines, whose ceremonial repertoire appears to have been enhanced by Minoan traits, as is shown by the plentitude of conical cups. An essential conclusion can be drawn from the survey results: there seems to have been, in the course of Minoan palatial times, an impressive settlement expansion, population and wealth increase, and cultural elaboration in this, relatively fertile part of Karpathos, a fact that must be associated with a significant impulse from Crete in the form of technology accompanied by acquisition or imitation of Minoan prestige objects.
Carl Knappett, Gerald Cadogan Pre- and Protopalatial pottery from Myrtos Pyrgos For those interested in the political geography of Crete in the early nd millennium BC, ceramic regionalism is probably the most important strand of evidence available. The pronounced differences between the centre and the east of the island in pottery styles have often been used to argue for distinct geopolitical entities at this time, that is to say the late Prepalatial and Protopalatial periods. Yet relatively few sites have been included in the discussion, other than the palatial centres of Knossos, Phaistos and Malia, each of which has substantial ceramic assemblages from the periods in question. Very few non-palatial sites have been considered, although among these it is probably Myrtos Pyrgos that has figured most prominently, largely due to the abundance of its deposits, and the striking similarities of its finewares to those of Malia. However, these comparisons have come before the full publication of the Period II and III (late Pre- and Protopalatial) pottery, which is now imminent thanks to a series of study seasons. In this paper, then, we conduct a detailed assessment of the corpus and its regional comparanda, further facilitated by new evidence from other non-palatial sites in east Crete, such as Petras, Palaikastro, Sissi, Mochlos and Pefka near Pacheia Ammos. This new level of detail in the ceramic evidence allows for the elaboration of a more richly textured story of early geopolitical complexity on the island of Crete.
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Olga Krzyszkowska Seals from Petras, Siteia: New insights for MM II hard stone glyptic Excavations in the cemetery of Petras, Siteia have yielded important new examples of MM II seals made of hard semi-precious stones agate, carnelian, blue chalcedony and jasper decorated with ornamental, pictorial and hieroglyphic devices. Shapes represented are a Petschaft (loop signet), a rectangular bar, and three-sided and four-sided prisms. The association of prisms, whether made of steatite or hard stone, with eastern Crete has long been recognized. Hitherto, however, virtually all extant hard stone prisms have been stray finds, and none has been discovered in a context likely to be more or less contemporary with manufacture date. The new examples from Petras are of exceptionally high quality, matching if not exceeding the very finest known and thus helping to reinforce earlier observations regarding the role of Petras as an emerging regional centre in this period. From a purely glyptic perspective, the seals now encourage a thorough reappraisal of the interplay between script and contemporary trends in ornamental and pictorial motifs in MM II hard stone engraving.
Charlotte Langhor with Emanuela Alberti A preliminary examination of the Neopalatial pottery from Area Pi at Malia In terms of ceramic consumption and relative chronology, we still lack a good definition of Neopalatial Malia in the perspective of other contemporaneous Cretan sites. Indeed, the Neopalatial ceramic sequence available today for Malia is still largely based on the one suggested by Pelon for Quartier Epsilon explored in the 1, although partially refined in the course of the stratigraphical excavations conducted in front of the North-East Entrance of the Palace (A. Van de Moortel, P. Darcque). One of the aims of the recent archaeological project of Btiment Pi was to better understand the occupational sequence of the Neopalatial settlement. Thanks to detailed stratigraphical observations we have initiated a definition of the ceramic phases of this building. Moreover, this pottery analysis aims to provide a simultaneous examination of the production and consumption of both fine and coarse wares, the latter being particularly missing from the published ceramic corpus of Neopalatial Malia. Several elements suggest that Btiment Pi was violently destroyed, perhaps by earthquake, a short period before its abandonment. Massive and particularly compact deposits of broken pottery and building material have been revealed, sometimes covering entire rooms, sometimes pushed aside in the corners of the rooms. There is even a large pit, dug through previous levels, which was filled with largely complete domestic pots that were discarded. The preliminary examination of 15
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this pottery suggests that it is a stylistically homogenous assemblage of mature LM IA date. This may imply that a major catastrophe hit at least this part of the settlement, an event maybe contemporary to that identified at Knossos (Macdonald 1). The scarcity of primary floor deposits and the thick deposits encountered in secondary position in the two small storerooms 1 and 11 also suggest that a cleaning and leveling operation of the building and perhaps its surrounding area was undertaken following this destructive episode. Stratigraphical traces of a reoccupation of the Pi Area are very limited, partly complicated by the proximity of the modern surface. The analysis of the pottery found in some of the more superficial levels does not exclude a late LM IA or LM IB occupation and at least some frequentation of the area during this specific period, still sparsely evidenced at Malia.
Valeria Lenuzza Rain-water management in Minoan Crete Despite the rising attention to subsistence strategies and environmental management in Bronze Age Crete, the development of techniques related to the run-off and the use of rain-water in Minoan sites is still a neglected subject within Minoan archaeology. The need of managing the drainage and the storage of rain-water is indissolubly connected with climate, with the cycles of rainfall and drought which characterize the whole course of Minoan civilization and have been partially reconstructed with the support of palynological data and archaeological evidence. Documents pertaining to rain-water drainage mainly occur in the Neopalatial period. This could just reflect the fragmentary nature of archaeological investigations, but could also indicate a growing technical knowledge or the emergence of new needs connected to climatic changes towards more and more unstable conditions and an increasing rainfall. The excavations yielded different kinds of items which could be classified as fragments of eaves gutters, rain-pipes or receptacles for the water falling from the roof. They allow to follow at least a part of the rain-water course, from the roof of the buildings to its final discharge out of the structure or to its collection inside cisterns. Fragments of drains with -section found in the collapse of the roof at different sites could be interpreted as part of eaves and, in some cases, still preserve the end, in the form of a drain widening in a semicircular shape. From the eaves, the water pelts down freely to the ground, falling inside rectangular limestone or circular clay receptacles, which are the starting point for horizontal conduits that lead water to the main drainage system of the buildings. In some cases, rain-water is conducted to the ground through vertical drainpipes. Indeed, the limestone receptacle discovered in the Area of the Stone Drainhead, in the NE wing of the Knossos Palace, still preserves fading traces of plas-
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tered clay on the top surface. These traces could pertain to a vertical drain-pipe descending from either the roof top or from an open area at the upper floor towards the drainage system of the sector, which ends at the blind well inside the verandah on the N side of the Court of the Stone Spout. Vertical drains also ensure the drainage of water from terraces and balconies, as in the oval house at Chamaizi, still belonging to the Protopalatial period. A distinctive architectonic element related to rain-water management is the so-called impluvium, a hollow rectangular basin often consisting in a simple depression of the pavement framed with columns, in connection with an open area, which gathers rain-water and discharges it through a drain. Evidence concerning the rain-water management, mainly belonging to the Neopalatial period, does not allow to glimpse, for this period at least, an urgent need of keeping and storing water. Water, even if surely a precious natural resource, does not seem to represent in this phase a rare good, but a quite abundant resource on the island. In other words, architectural evidence, mirrored in the flourishing landscapes of the contemporary wall-paintings, sheds some light on the knowledge of the climate in the Neopalatial period, confirming the scarce information obtained by the scientific analysis. For the Protopalatial period, the picture is quite different, with more documents pertaining to the collection and the storage of rainwater, such as the cistern in the inner court of the building at Chamaizi, that receives the water descending from the inward-sloping roof, or the cistern on the slopes at Myrtos Pyrgos, possibly related to fragments of pipes found in the immediate surroundings.
Colin F. Macdonald The Period XV (later 14th century BC) pottery of Building 4 at Palaikastro, East Crete The last main phase of Building 4 at Palaikastro was one when almost every room was in use, several of them filled with a wide range of pottery, mostly in local fabrics, including many medium-sized transport amphorae (with trickle decoration in imitiation of split liquids) concentrated in just a few rooms in the north and west. Large primary deposits of pottery were recovered during excavation by the British School at Athens, directed by Hugh Sackett and Alexander MacGillivray, and supervised first by Colin Macdonald and then Sean Hemingway. The paper will summarize the results of the recent ceramic study and make some suggestions as to the function of the building in the later 14th century B.C. In the past labelled LM IIIA/B, the pottery of Period XV at Palaikastro can now be more confidently placed in the LM IIIA even though it has little in common with developments in the centre and west of the island.
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Photini McGeorge Intramural Infant and Child Burials in Minoan Crete The Minoans normally buried their dead extramurally. Thus intramural burial appears to be a rather un-Minoan custom. Apart from one Early Minoan example, most intramural infant burials begin to occur from LMIA in East Crete and at Knossos. There are now a sufficient number of them to attempt a review and interpretation. This paper also reviews the custom in neighbouring geographical areas: Mainland Greece, Anatolia, North Syria, Mesopotamia, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt. Inspiration may have come to Crete directly or indirectly from the Near East where intramural burial was practised by the earliest sedentary communities and continued, in spite of the establishment of extramural cemeteries, through the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. Continuance of the practice for infants and children may have had some connection with natal customs and ceremonies, procedures that needed to be performed before a childs integration into society. Some of the Minoan burials appear to convey funerary symbolism which reflects eschatological beliefs and echoes Levantine mythology, while there is also evidence of fusion with local customs and ideas.
Christofilis Maggidis Divine politics: Cemetery and sanctuary as arena for political domination and social transformation in Minoan Crete Religion can be highly effective as a control mechanism due to its powerful social effect, integrative force, and inherent conservatism. The strong emotive and socially bonding force of religion reaffirms collective identity and forges communal solidarity through beliefs and ritual, while sanctuary and cemetery function like territorial markers, sanctifying community rights on land and natural recourses. Apart from the reality of societal unity, however, cult or funerary ritual creates and promotes yet another reality, that of difference in the form of internal divisions (inclusion/exclusion, active/passive participation, type/level of involvement, quantitative and qualitative differences of offerings) which reflect socioeconomic differentiation and define social ranking. Furthermore, by being highly impervious to change, religion preserves not only its own traditional beliefs and rituals, but also the intertwined social structures which support them. The appropriation, therefore, of religion by political hierarchies can effectively paralyze social resistance, integrate diverse populations into a homogeneous culture and centralized socio-political structure, and consolidate the power of the dominant hierarchy by legitimizing its authority and the social order.
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Competing elite factions and emerging palatial hierarchies in Minoan Crete gradually asserted control and gained restricted access to both cemeteries and sanctuaries by systematically re-organizing and standardizing burial and sacred space, by formalizing and regulating ritual, crystallizing a coherent ideology, and ultimately by claiming a mediator role and monopolizing a privileged physical and ideological connection to gods and ancestors through mythical and lineage ties, thereby complementing their physical and socioeconomic separation from the mass with another, cognitive level of differentiation. This paper attempts to study diagnostic cases of religion appropriation for political domination in Minoan Crete, outline their spatial distribution and temporal development, and trace patterns of variation and uniformity; the ultimate aim is to reveal mechanisms employed by controlling hierarchies and to conglomerate a complex process of social morphogenesis which is based on the dynamics of a constant dialogue and interplay of politics and religion. The socio-political process of gradual appropriation of religion by ruling elite groups and later by palatial hierarchies can be documented by tracing schematically the temporal and spatial development of five distinct patterns in the course of the advanced Prepalatial, Protopalatial, Neopalatial, and Final-Palatial period (EM IILM IIIA1): (i) typological standardization of sacred and funerary architecture; (ii) metastasis of sacred space, involving relocation, diffusion and centralization of cult; (iii) systematic spatial organization, formalization, and institutionalization of ritual, including emergence of organized priesthood and organic association of calendar and production with religion; (iv) increasing social ranking; and (v) emergence of individualism in cemeteries and sanctuaries. The comparative examination of these variables reveals how emerging palatial hierarchies manipulated, appropriated and eventually monopolized both funerary and cult ritual, thereby consolidating their power and legitimizing their political authority in an admirable symbiosis and interplay of politics and religion.
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idem Maner Across the sea: Minoan building techniques at the end of the MBA and in the LBA in southeastern and central Anatolia The Minoans were indeed very good architects. For them, the esthetic as well as the steadiness of a building were very important. The technique of attaching beams with pins to stone was applied by the Minoans on Crete in the Middle Minoan III period. Craftsmen were drilling holes in stones to attach the wooden beams of the framework. This technique was also applied at the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Tilmen Hyk and Alalakh VII in Southeast Anatolia. The Hittites (ca. 1511 BC), were using these building techniques as well. Hundreds of dowel holes on building stones in Hittite sites indicate that they were using the same building technique as the Minoans. In this paper the building techniques of the Mi1
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noans and the MBA and LBA Anatolian sites will be compared. It will also be discussed whether Minoan building techniques have travelled across the sea to Anatolia or if these building techniques have travelled from Anatolia to Crete.
Manolis Melas The politics of colonization: Continuity, change and acculturation in the Minoan periphery The notion of ideology pervades modem archaeological theory and more specifically Marxist and post-processual schools of thought. Ideology is here taken in a Marxian sense of using ideas and other facts of discourse as a means of creating and consolidating social boundaries. As a matter of fact, in archaeology this kind of approach employs material culture as a social and political strategy employed by past agents or present interpreters. From its outset, Minoan archaeology has been developed along ideological premises. Evans himself interpreted his discoveries on the basis of a Victorian model of imperial grandeur (cf. Palace of Minoans) and colonial expansion (cf. Minoan thalassocracy). Greek mythology was called forth to support such explanations, which dominate literature till today (cf. Minoan colonization). Exceptions are few (e.g. Melas 1, 11). These draw attention to a misinterpretation of data, which led among other biased inferences, to the identification of pots with people, that is to say that imported goods, craft, and other ideas are necessarily accompanied by incoming people (= colonists). A current archaeological survey on Karpathos appears to discourage colonial interpretations. What is undeniable is that during the formative period of the first palaces on Crete radical changes occur in the South Aegean, culminating in the second palace period. Those changes originate from Crete, a major cultural centre, and spread to its periphery. Technology seems to form the first more significant change in Karpathos and elsewhere, including the plough. This led to another most important change, population movement from rocky coastal heights to inland cultivable lands: fertile plains and valleys. Other changes involve crafts, such as the potters wheel and associated kiln, Minoan culture traits, such as artistic trends in vase painting, and ceremonial practices in festival occasions involving massive use of conical cups. On the basis of various forms of contact and social theories and anthropological analogies, all these changes may well be accounted for as borrowings effected through mechanisms such as trade and exchange of services, as well as by the sporadic presence of Cretan residents. This model appears to be aided by two major cultural aspects that remained unchanged: architecture and religious topography and customs. On Karpathos, small local hill-shrines continue, whereas peak sanctuaries of Minoan type are absent.
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Flora Michelaki Mortuary architecture and depositional behaviour in the tholos cemeteries of south-central Crete, 3000-1700 BC: The case of Kephali Odigitrias at Skaniari Lakkos A substantial amount of evidence for Prepalatial and Protopalatial Cretan societies derives from the mortuary record of the tholos tombs, found mainly in southcentral Crete. Despite the severe looting of most of these sites, important architectural elements along with significant quantities of material culture have survived. The longevity of these monuments due to their repeated use, repair and elaboration through time, stresses their significance to the burying groups, symbolising lineality and stability in the face of significant changes in society. A few recent site publications and synthetic studies have recognised that the development of individual cemeteries is complex, with new buildings added and others going out of use, accompanied by changes in the way the dead and artefacts were deposited in these changing spatial contexts through time. The site at Kephali Odigitrias, at the location of Skaniari Lakkos is an unpublished complex tholos cemetery comprising several mortuary buildings. The site was initially excavated in 1 by Dr C. Davaras, following the thorough looting of the main tholos. Further looting destroyed sections of additional funerary buildings in the unexcavated area of the cemetery, as well as disrupting deposits. Further rescue excavations by Dr A. Vasilakis took place during 14-5. This material is being studied as component of broader research on complex tholos cemeteries. The present study will present an overall picture of the architectural development and changing patterns of use and deposition during the long history of use of the mortuary complex.
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Soledad Mara Miln Quiones de Len A theoretical model for the design of the palatial territory of Malia The purpose of this paper is to introduce a theoretical approach to the possible palatial territory of the Minoan palace of Malia through the application of the Spatial Archaeology models and the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) that consist primarily in a methodological tool to organize, analyze and visualize the combined information of archeological, topographical, environmental and statistical data. During the last decade, the use of digital cartography and GIS has been one of the principal technical revolutions for the study of the landscape in Archaeology. During the Middle Bronze Age, in the Protopalatial period, a number of architectural monumental buildings sharing several features arise in different parts 1
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of Crete and are generally known as palaces. The appearance of these monumental structures implies the existence of a special form of political, economic and social power with a specific functionality. Probably, the Minoan palace was a centralized redistributive center for a wider hinterland and that is why some scholars identify its emergence with the origin of a centralized state in Crete. Thus, the palatial system, for its maintenance and development, needs a territory for its support that exceeds the exploitation of its immediate environment. We start from what we are certain of, and that is the existence of the three main Minoan palaces that are evidenced in the Protopalatial period, Knossos, Phaistos and Malia, and we apply the two models borrowed from the disciplines of Spatial Analysis and Ecology, that are very much suitable for our objectives: the site catchment analysis related to the exploitation areas from a site in relation to its distance; and the nearest neighbor analysis that allows us to obtain the grouping or dispersion of a distribution of points. The analysis is also based on the fact that the establishment of settlements is not a matter of chance but the result of the application of certain rules of human behaviour that determine the settlement of groups within a certain area. In addition, we analyze and evaluate the currently available archaeological data, paying special attention to the distribution of ceramics and their different styles. The combination of the spatial analysis approach, GIS tools, and the available ceramic studies allows, under a theoretical point of view, to design this territory, measure it and outline a possible hierarchical settlement model.
Pietro Maria Militello An einer Stange hngende Gefsse. Notes on a seal motif One of the motifs known on MM seals from Crete shows a series of circular objects linked by two or, sometimes, three strips to an elongated rectangular object. Since Evans analysis, this motif has been interpreted as vases hanging from a pole, and described as such in CMS (an einer Stange hngende Gefsse). Nevertheless, two different hypothesis have been also proposed, according to which the motif should represent a series of potters wheels linked to a wall, seen from above (Branigan), or a series of loom-weights hanging from the inferior bar of a loom (Burke). Our paper will try to analyze this motif first from a strictly iconographical and iconological approach in order to check the three interpretations, and secondly through their historical inferences.
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Emily Miller Bonney A phenomenological analysis of the tholos tombs at Lebena, Crete Analyses of the tholos tombs of the Asterousia and the southern Mesara Plain have focused on the evidence they provide for the formation and function of networks of power and trade leading to the centralization of authority at Phaistos. Recent work at Trypiti and Moni Odighetria has expanded our appreciation for the role that the Asterousia communities played in the evolution of social hierarchies in the Old Palace period. This paper adopts a different strategy and examines the social dynamics within these communities as revealed by a phenomenological consideration of the tombs, their location, construction and use. The cemetery of Gerokampos, on the south coast of Crete, is one of the most completely published of these mortuary complexes and provides a unique opportunity to examine the social structure of these prepalatial communities. Preserved from serious damage by tomb looters, the tholoi at Gerokampos were essentially intact and provided a record of depositions from the very end of the Neolithic through the MM I ceramic phase. The tombs situation relatively close to but not dominating the settlement reflects the ambiguously intimate relationship between the respective communities of the living and the dead. Unlike the monumental tombs which are characteristic of other early cultures, the tholos at Gerokampos would have appeared a natural part of the already rocky and mountainous environment. Construction of the tomb would have forged significant kinesthetic memories among the participants who importantly decided to work only the exposed interior and exterior surfaces of the larger blocks and who acquired and transported the exceptionally large blocks for the trilithon entry and the blocking stone. Both the expenditure of physical labour and the duration of these activities over time would have become part of the shared narrative of the tomb itself. The evidence for steady and apparently uninterrupted use of the tomb over the centuries emphasises the importance of the associated sensory experiences. Each removal and replacement of the bloc king stone required physical exertion s not part of daily life. The repeated entries involved all the senses sound, sight, smell, taste, touch as skeletons were rearranged, flesh scraped off bones as necessary and the stack of skeletons and burial debris constantly rose. These encounters were part of the lived experience of the survivors. The burial parties encountered pottery the semiotic significance of which was a lost to them as the identities of the long desiccated bones, and the constant rearrangement belies the preferential treatment of any particular set of remains. The evidence for wealth and status is minimal. Instead the grave goods, like the burial practices themselves, imply a heterarchically ordered society. The absence of clear indicia of power associated with individual bodies and the burial process itself by which body after body was simply inserted in to the tomb reflect an essentially egalitarian culture. Individual power and wealth were contingent so that within the larger society all the dead once safely decomposed were reintegrated into the entire community of the living. 3
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Maria Mina Minoan metal objects on Cyprus: Evidence for the construction of social identity and ethnicity Scholars have studied the metallurgy of prehistoric Cyprus intensively and successfully, mainly regarding aspects of technology, typology and economy. However, there has been little debate of the role that metal products played in the construction, embodiment and communication of social identity in Bronze Age Cyprus. This paper focuses on the final stage of metallurgical production, that is, the finished metal product. The discussion concentrates on the circulation and use of metal objects and in particular imported Minoan metal objects in Bronze Age Cyprus. The evidence discussed for the purposes of the paper is restricted to metal objects of personal use, such as weapons, jewellery, attire-related accessories and toilet articles. Objects of personal use are considered anthropologically as an extension of the physical and social body, a thesis that has been employed successfully in archaeology. It is now accepted in archaeology that material forms are shaped intentionally by people, but can also have an effect on human agents through their mutually shaping relationship. Objects of personal use prove ideal candidates for the study of social identity and ethnicity, as they constitute an extension of the physical body. The chronological parameters of the discussion also provide an interesting framework for the study of ethnicity on Bronze Age Cyprus. The possible movement of populations in the Philia phase in the Early Bronze Age and the subsequent apparent isolation of Cyprus in the Middle Bronze Age periods, present an interesting backdrop against which we can investigate the presence of Minoan metal imports. Though the number of such imports on Cyprus is limited, we can nevertheless explore the impetus behind their circulation and use in a non-Minoan cultural context. The discussion ultimately explores how Minoan metal products of personal use were involved in the expression, embodiment and communication of social, gender identity and ethnicity and their significance in the prehistoric cultural context of Cyprus.
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Nicoletta Momigliano Minoan Crete and the stage Since its rediscovery, the material culture of Minoan Crete has offered a rich source of inspiration to modern writers and artists (such as painters, sculptors, and even architects), but its impact on the performative arts has largely been neglected. This paper explores the connections between Minoan Crete and early th-century performative arts, especially dance and drama, examining works by artists such as Vaslav Nijinsky and Gabriele DAnnunzio.
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Barbara Montecchi Minoan feasting: An epigraphic perspective From ethnographic studies we learn that feasts occur in every society and in every time and that they can be performed by every social group, from the family to an entire society. The occasions include any event, throughout the year, that people choose to celebrate: from birth to death, to mark the harvest, for purification, and so on. In Mycenaean times feasting is documented by palaeobotanical and zoological remains, pottery deposits, iconographic representations and archives documents written in Linear B (tablets and sealings). On the contrary, while Minoan processions and feasting are archaeologically well documented, it is not, or at least not yet, at the epigraphic level, because Linear A is not deciphered. Aegean feasts were performed for religious reasons and for practical and social benefit, as mechanisms for holding together the fabric of the society and for redistribution of foodstuff. The texts obviously provide us only with the central administration point of view and focus on feasting that was economically significant to be recorded. The aim of the paper is to compare the tablets in Linear B that record equipments, agricultural commodities and animals intended for feasting and the tablets in Linear A that show similarities, to explore whether the latter played analogous functions. For example, it was suggested that the purpose of the Ta series from Pylos is to record an audit of the palaces equipment for banqueting, including cooking equipments (tripod cauldrons) and table-ware. On the other hand, the Linear A tablet from Haghia Triada HT 31 is an inventory of vases of different shapes: tripods, probably bronze lebetes, 371 conical cups (skoutelia), 1 piriform jars without handles, 1 piriform amphoras, at least 4 vases not marked with ideograms and/or whose ideograms are now lost. The aim of this record might be the preparation of an official feast, keeping in mind that the Lebetes and the other bronze vessels found in the Villa at Haghia Triada were interpreted as cultural equipments for religious activities held under the control of the Villa administration. Other Linear A tablets possibly related with the organization of ceremonial banquets are HT 7a, , 4a and 1. These tablets record personnel in the first section and agricultural commodities in the second (*303, corresponding, in our opinion, to Linear B *121/HORD, figs, wine and olive oil). The commodities are not in fixed and precise proportions and I would rule out that they were records of substantial rations. Rather, because of the amount and type of the commodities, above all the wine, a luxury product, I suggest that the commodities were distributed during the religious ceremonies, as the commodities recorded in the Linear B tablets of the Fn series from Pylos and, perhaps Av, from Thebes. Evidence for state-organized banquets in the Mycenaean world is provided also by the Wu sealings from Thebes and by Un and Un 13 at Pylos. These documents deal with the animals provided for feasting. Minoan nodules cant be related to this topic, but we can recognize some registration of small number of animals, for example PH(?) 31, that might have a similar function. 5
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Kathrin Mller n search for criteria: Minoan cult rooms in the architecture and art of the Palatial period Recognizing and identifying cult rooms in Minoan Crete has 1ong been a topic of research in Bronze Age archaeology. The exact definition of a room as cu1tic has often been based only on the objects found in it, whereas the scientific foundation of this interpretation has been neglected. My paper aims at questioning the usual approach and examines ways of identifying cult rooms other than those solely based on the objects found within them. It covers the time span of the O1d and the New Palace periods. By means of giving some significant examples, will discuss the conditions that can lead to the identification of a so-called cult room. Are investigated: the topographical setting of a room or a series of rooms, the architectural form, furnishings and decoration, the impression of the whole establishment and also the rooms adjoining or annexing the particular cult room. It can also be examined whether sometimes a so-called temenos area existed around specific cu1t rooms. The main aim of my lecture is to show ways of identifying and defining Minoan cult rooms on the basis of architectural remains and, in a second step, with regard to iconographic representations. Before analysing the archaeological material, will discuss the criteria which are important for identifying a cu1t room. This part is mainly based on the investigations of C. Renfrew (The Archaeology of Cult, 15). Although some of his criteria are overlapping or too specified, they are in a modified form convenient as a methodological basis for every research in the field of cult rooms. In the following, some characteristic rooms are selected as examples of cult rooms and investigated in terms of the above criteria. second aspect of my lecture treats the problem of identifying cu1t rooms or cult areas in iconographic representations. small assemblage of potential depictions and models are examined regarding their ways of indicating cultic rooms. If an action is depicted in the image or model, a brief insight into the sphere of ritual is also ventured. The depictons are then connected and compared, formally and functionally, as far as possible with the real archaeological remains of cult rooms. This inestigation forms a more cautious way of identifying cult rooms that also allows other interpretations. Finally, my lecture attempts to refocus on the critical interpretation of a room as cultic and create a new basis for the identification of cult rooms applicable for future research.
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Walter Mller The multiple function of Minoan and Mycenaean seals and signet rings Most Aegean seals were used for securing containers or documents. Ample evidence for this most probably primary function is provided by ancient clay impressions. However, the archaeological contexts and the state of preservation provide indications that the seals and the signet rings were also used in other ways and were of significance in non-sphragistic contexts. The research, which also takes into account peculiarities of shape and material, provides an overview of the multiple use of seals, from Neolithic stamps to the extremely worn lentoids of the end of the Bronze Age. In order to take into consideration statistical aspects, the contribution is also based on the database of the whole Corpus of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals available online at ARACHNE, the object database of the German Archaeological Institute and the University of Cologne.
Cline Murphy A study of gesture in Minoan iconography: Towards the recovery of messages lost in time Classified as a means of non-verbal interaction, gesture is often relegated to the back row in the arena of communication studies. Mostly regarded as an attribute secondary to speech or writing, gesture has not been exploited to its full, especially in the interpretation of Minoan iconography. By carefully studying the contexts in which gesture appears in Minoan wall paintings and Minoan peak sanctuary clay figurines, new light can be shed on the social significance of this material, and on their original meaning once lost in time. This paper presents a study-in-progress of the gestures produced by the figures in the wall paintings of Thera, and by the clay anthropomorphic figurines from the peak sanctuary of Gonies-Philioremos in north-central Crete. It is clearly a deliberate choice on part of the Minoan artists and potters to have frozen their characters in specific positions. Why so? Do the depicted gestures best epitomise the subject of the scene, or represent an expressed feeling in the most accurate manner? My approach to the study of gesture in Minoan iconography is twofold: I shall consider both the communication occurring between the artefact and the onlooker, and the communication between the depicted figures themselves. Associations between certain gestures and contexts, genders, types of dress, or colour will appear. The interpretation of the data, accompanied by a hermeneutical discussion, may tell us more about the nature of human relationships in the Minoan world. Certain Minoan practices of exchange or mimics may even be recognised. This approach may reveal an aspect of the material which has not been previ7
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ously addressed. Less presumptuous and simple meanings may emerge from the paintings and figurines, questioning the validity of the commonly accepted ritualistic and religious interpretations. It is important to remember that wall paintings and figurines are artefacts, bearing no superior informative qualities than pottery, tools and jewellery. They existed in Minoan daily life too. Could these representations of gesticulating anthropomorphs have served as vehicles in the formation of individual and communal identity, which vocal communication could not render so powerfully?
Argyro Nafplioti Mortuary variability, social and biological status in Middle Bronze Age Crete: The case of Alias (Knossos) The study of organisation of past societies has been demonstrated to greatly benefit from analysis of mortuary practices, as reflected in funerary architecture, intra- and/or inter-cemetery spatial patterning, grave goods or archaeologically inferred rituals of the given communities. The relationship, however, between status in life and treatment at death is not straightforward, as it may be conditioned by factors such as ideologies of the community pertinent to death and identity, circumstances of death, or competitive display and agency of the funerary group. Thereby, a contextual reading of archaeological material culture data from cemetery sites is needed in order to reliably reconstruct social structure of past communities. Moreover, analysis of the skeletal biology of past populations can provide an insight into actual living conditions of these people and thereby, deepen our understanding of social ranking and stratification. This paper uses the results of the study of the human skeletal collection from the Middle Minoan cemetery at Alias (district of Knossos) on Crete in order to deepen our understanding of the nature of the Middle Bronze Age society on the island. In particular, kinship and issues of intra-population biological variation in this cemetery are explored through metric and non-metric morphological analysis of the cranial and dental remains from this site. In addition to any kinship connotations of mortuary variability in the Alias cemetery, this paper also investigates the relationship between mortuary variability and biological status. The biological status and the quality of life of the individuals examined will be assessed through analysis of dental and skeletal health, and the level and type of activityrelated stress on the musculo-skeletal system. Finally, in addition to indirect dietary evidence, the results of stable isotope ratio analysis will be discussed as part of a reconstruction of the quality of living conditions for the Alias population. In conjunction with material culture data these results will be used to further investigate into intra-population variation in living conditions and the relationship between social and biological status in Middle Bronze Age Crete.
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Lucia Nixon Investigating Minoan sacred landscapes of the Mesara Plain This paper will look diachronically at the Minoan sacred landscapes of the Mesara Plain. Thanks to the work of numerous scholars, we now have good analyses for the different kinds of Minoan cult site, such as caves, peak sanctuaries, and the structures associated with town, palace, and house cults. Though there have been some recent studies of Minoan religion focusing on more than one type of sacred site, we still do not really know much about how these different cult places functioned together, period by period. Archaeological survey in Crete has shown us the value of looking both synchronically and diachronically at areas that include a number of sites. Combining these two approaches means that it is now possible to to investigate Minoan sacred landscapes, as well as the individual sites of which they are composed, and to compare Minoan sacred landscapes with those of other times and places. Focussing on the Mesara Plain will enable us to clarify the nature of the sacred landscape here in the Palatial period, and also to recognise characteristics of Pre- and Post-palatial sacred landscapes in this area. The Plain includes a wide range of Minoan palatial and post-palatial cult sites, such as the Kamares Cave, the peak sanctuary at Kophinas, and cult areas at major sites like Phaistos and minor ones like Koumasa. The EM tholos tombs provide abundant evidence for ritual behaviour for the pre-palatial period. The publications of extensive fieldwork in the Mesara Plain, both excavation and survey, have made much useful evidence available for the study of sacred landscapes in this area. In this paper I shall draw on concepts developed in my own work on Cretan sacred landscapes of later periods, relating to work on the Iron Age, and also to my study of outlying churches and eikonostasia in Sphakia (A.D. 1-). Although there are inevitably many gaps in evidence and analysis, there is enough information to suggest that different religious systems do use similar types of locations and explanations in order to construct and account for their sacred landscapes. Because the same factors recur examples are visibility and coincidence of sacred structures it is possible to compare the different systems, and as a result to learn more about the Bronze Age. I shall consider the evidence for religious activity in the Mesara Plain, from EM to LM, in order to see how the sacred landscapes here changed and developed over time.
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Krzysztof Nowicki Lasithi before Karfi: The history of settlement in the Bronze Age Tha Lasithi Plateau and the mountains around it constitute a unique Cretan landscape with a unique history of settlement. The area has been archaeologically investigated since the late nineteenth century and, as a result, a general pattern of prehistoric settlement has been reconstructed, with a major cult cave-site at Psychro, an important LM I-III settlement at Plati, burial caves at Tzermiado Trapeza and Agios Charalambos, and perhaps the best known of all Lasithian sites, that of a LM IIIC settlement at Karfi. However, more thorough and intensive field work undertaken in the last few decades, in particular in the mountains which encircle the plateau, has brought to light many new sites, among which several are of key importance for the understanding of early Cretan history. This paper focuses on some of the problems, mainly on the changes in location of main settlements in the plateau from the Final Neolithic through the Bronze Age, and the possible borders between the territories of the Lasithi inhabitants and their lowland neighbours. The settlement pattern which was established somewhere between the end of the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age survived until some moment in the late MM II period. Afterwards it was substantially modified, though the largest LM settlements continued in general at or below the main Protopalatial centres. Such was the case of the Plati settlement which went down from the cemetery hill nearby. It has been long accepted that Plati was the main LM settlement in this region, but the size and history of other extensive LM I-III settlements at Mesa Lasithi, Agioi Apostoloi and Tzermiado Agia Anna indicate that the social and political organization of Lasithi was more complex. The surface material from these and from other little known sites will be presented in this paper.
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Brandel Ossi Nisch An ivory pyxis from the Fosse Temple at Lachish, Israel A remarkable ivory pyxis with a lid was found in 13 at the Fosse Temple at Lachish, Israel. In the 1's, additional fragments of this pyxis were found in the storage rooms of the Israel Antiquities Authority at the Rockefeller Museum. After performing restoration work in the conservation labs of the Israel Museum, we were able to add important pieces to the sequence of the scene of the box. The pyxis is a fine example of the international style typical of the later Bronze Age. Through this vessel we can see that the Canaanites were influenced by the cosmopolitan world during the later Bronze Period. The vessel was probably made by a local artisan who was familiar with styles and motifs from throughout the region: Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Crete.
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In this lecture, I intend to present, for the first time, the results of the lab work and my understanding of the scenes depicted on the pyxis.
Nikos Panagiotakis, Charalabos Fassoulas, Doniert Evely, Marina Panagiotaki Quarries in the Pediada region in Central Crete The Pediada Survey Project, directed by Nikos and Marina Panagiotaki has recorded a large number of quarries of all periods in the Pediada region. Most Bronze Age settlements took advantage of the nearest bedrock outcrops; the same economy prevailed during later antiquity too. There are, however, some instances, when stones were transported to a site from a distance, because of their special qualities. The basic visible bedrock in the Pediada is limestone (the marly Neogene and the Mesozoic Tripolitsa limestone). As marly Neogene limestone is easier to work, it was used extensively during the Bronze Age, as well as later. In this paper we shall present a series of quarries. We shall discuss the quality of their stone and make an attempt to put them in a chronological perspective. The last is done on the nature of the visible quarrying marks, the debris around them (especially the pottery sherds present) and their proximity to well-dated sites.
Constantinos Papadopoulos, Yannis Sakellarakis The Ceramics Workshop at Zominthos Revisited: Archaeology, Ethnography and Computer Visualisation
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Zominthos was discovered in 1, when Professor Yannis Sakellarakis was excavating the Idaean Cave. The excavation which is still in progress has revealed a monumental Central Building that covers an area of 1, square meters, developed from the 17th century onward. At the northeast corner of the so-called Central Building, Room 13, which has been characterised as a ceramics workshop, was unearthed in 1. It is a 15-square-meter area with more than 5 vessels for everyday use, some bronze and stone tools (including a knife, blade, and tongs), a basin in the middle of the room and a potters wheel. Ceramics had been placed on two benches running along the northern and southern walls, some of which were found in situ. Conventional methods, such as architectural drawings and photographs, only offer a bi-dimensional depiction of the excavated data, and as a consequence a great part of the debate regarding their interpretation remains untouched or not perceived. Virtual archaeology provides multiple ways of manipulating the archae11
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ological data that not only produce engaging imagery but also provide direct answers to research questions. A three-dimensional visualisation of the so-called ceramics workshop at Zominthos has provided experimentation opportunities regarding several issues that occurred during the interpretative process. An illumination analysis, with natural and flame means, was undertaken to approach the absence of any openings that would have facilitated the potters work. Alternative (re)constructions, based on archaeological and ethnographic correlates were also produced to overcome the interpretive leaps that should be made when the excavated data are not sufficient to clearly support an argument. Lastly, it was tried to reach a conclusion concerning the potential uses of this space as revealed through the decision making process and the resultant virtual products. This paper will discuss the results and the constraints of this research. It will also address problems and innovative components, suggesting potential solutions and recommending additional work for the future.
Thanasis Papadopoulos Minoans in western Greece and Italy. An overview of the archaeological evidence In recent years considerable information is available by new excavations and archaeological finds for the presence and activities of Minoans in Western Greece and Italy and continuous research in both areas reveals steadily new evidence. In this paper an effort is made to present and briefly overview the available archaeological evidence.
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Lena Papazoglou-Manioudaki A stags head rhyton from Pylos. The Minoan connection The study of the fragments of an animal pot, found in Tholos tomb III at Pylos and summarily published by C.W. Blegen, lead to the identification of an animal head rhyton in the shape of a stags head, dated in the 14th century BC. Animal head rhyta were introduced from Crete to the Greek Mainland at the time of the Shaft Graves. Their distribution is mostly limited to Mycenae and to the islands (Cyclades, Dodecanese) while isolated specimens are found in Tiryns or the sanctuaries of Methana and Delphi. The stags head is added to the repertoire which comprises specimens in metal, stone or clay, predominantly in the shape of bull, but also of lion, ram, hog or even fish. While stags are well represented in ycenaean pictorial pottery, seal engravings and wall paintings, they are extremely rare in clay. The presence of a unique stags head rhyton in Messenia, where
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one of the locations in the province of Pylos, is mentioned in the Linear B archive as e-ra-po ri-me-ne, -the port of the deers, seems quite appropriate.
Katia Perna Materiali del TM IIIC dal deposito sul margine orientale della Patela di Prinis Nel 1, durante una campagna di scavo condotta dalla Missione Archeologica dellUniversit di Catania sulla Patela di Prinis, Dario Palermo scopr, allinterno di un anfratto roccioso sul margine orientale della spianata, un deposito di materiali con diversi frammenti di statue di divinit dalle braccia levate e di ceramica databile ad un periodo compreso tra il TM III C e let arcaica. Tali rinvenimenti, che andavano ad aggiungersi ai materiali votivi rinvenuti in quellarea da Federico Halbherr allinizio del secolo scorso e ai frammenti di ceramica TM III C trovati in superficie o in strati post-minoici, contribuirono ulteriormente a definire la fisionomia del pi antico insediamento sulla Patela, che si presentava del tutto simile agli abitati montani dello stesso periodo, in gran parte caratterizzati dalla presenza di un sacello della dea dalle braccia levate. Oggi, il quadro della prima fase di vita dellabitato reso pi chiaro dallindividuazione dei livelli TM IIIC, messi in luce durante le campagne di scavo del 3 e del 5. Contestualmente, lesame dei materiali rinvenuti nellanfratto roccioso, che si intende presentare in questa sede, assume un nuovo significato. Lanalisi tecnica e tipologica della ceramica ha rivelato, infatti, che a differenza di quanto constatato negli altri gruppi di materiali rinvenuti sulla Patela e sempre caratterizzati da unalta percentuale di ceramica fine, nellanfratto roccioso i frammenti del TM IIIC appartengono esclusivamente a vasi di fattura grossolana e a forme tipiche dei contesti di culto del periodo. Ci, oltre a confermare che loccultamento dei materiali votivi nellanfratto non fu casuale, consente di mettere meglio a confronto il complesso votivo di Prinis con gli altri contesti sacri coevi.
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Ingo Pini Divergent developments of the iconography of soft and hard stone seals in the Late Minoan period Following studies on the iconography of Late Minoan soft stone seals which I presented at the Marburg seal Conference in October , I intend to extend my studies to other groups of motifs. The already existing results point to a divergent development of soft stone versus hard stone glyptic art.
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Santo Privitera Staple storage in Late Minoan IIIA2 Hagia Triada on Crete: The House of the decapitated rooms This paper deals with an unpublished building that has been excavated in the northern sector of Hagia Triada in the western Mesara (Crete): the House of the decapitated rooms (HDR). It consists of an L-shaped corridor that divides two groups of square, door-less rooms built with broad walls and founded directly on the bedrock. Its peculiar name is due to its walls having been razed when this area was completely transformed in ripe LM IIIA and new structures were built in the Northern sector of the settlement. In this period, the palace of Knossos was destroyed. Linear B documents of its archives confirm that the western Mesara was dependent on Knossos up until LM IIIA. Thanks to comparison with storage areas discovered at Mycenae and Hattusa, which were comprised of several door-less spaces, it is possible to suggest that HDR contained a range of six silos for long-term storage of cereals, and functioned as a facility for the local storage of crops prior to the collapse of the Knossos palace. The later construction, in ripe LM IIIA, of buildings which replicate the layout of the demolished structure on a larger scale, seems to underscore an enormous increase in the space devoted to storage in LM IIIA-IIIB, which hints at a substantial shift in the local management of arable land after the collapse of the Knossos palace.
Dario Puglisi Ritual performances in Minoan lustral basins: New observations on an old hypothesis
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The lustral basin in Xest 3 at Akrotiri shows strong architectural analogies with some other similar devices in Cretan villas and palaces. This evidence, supported by the magnificent frescoes from Xest 3, strengthens the hypothesis that these lustral basins were used for performing a female rite of passage and allows new observations about the way of execution of the ceremony.
Arianna Rizio
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Agricoltura e culti agrari nellEgeo e a Creta nel II Millennio a.C. Le conoscenze acquisite attraverso le ricerche e gli studi di carattere archeologico certamente oggi non ci consentono di delineare un quadro esaustivo dellagricoltura e dei culti connessi al mondo agrario nellEgeo ne tantomeno a Creta.
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Tenteremo tuttavia un raffronto tra alcune categorie di dati e di trarre alcune riflessioni da queste analisi. Certamente trattare dellagricoltura in ambito egeo implica 1analisi di diversi tipi di dati archeologici: da un lato quelli archeobotanici, dallaltro quelli epigrafici. Diversa e per certi versi pi complessa e labile e lanalisi connessa a eventuali culti agrari che si basa sullinterpretazione di materiali archeologici svariati, i quali soprattutto sulla base della tipologia potrebbero essere interpretati come utensili di carattere agrario, ma che per traslazione potrebbero essere intesi come testimonianze di carattere cultuale qualora il contesto di rinvenimento lo consenta. Lo studio di eventuali culti legati allagricoltura o, meglio, a determinate fasi del ciclo agrario, implica inoltre la riflessione su aspetti etno-antropologici che vanno confrontati con quelli archeologici e che consentono talvolta di individuare eventuali sopravvivenze nel contesto attuale. Si tratta dunque di uno studio a tutto campo che prevede un plesso di fonti di informazione che vanno integrate tra loro. Per quanto riguarda i dati archeobotanici va rilevato che essi si limitano soltanto ad alcuni siti e che il lasso temporale a cui si riferiscono e circoscritto. Relativamente a Creta, verranno analizzati dei siti paradigmatici dellEt del Bronzo e si tenter di tracciare un quadro delle principali produzioni e delle testimonianze di carattere agrario riferibili allambito cultuale. I dati epigrafici si riferiscono per lo pi alla circolazione di prodotti agricoli, a determinate offerte rivolte a determinate divinit, hanno fondamentalmente un carattere inventoriale e lasciano ampio spazio allinterpretazione. Le informazioni che esse ci offrono sono tuttaltro che esplicite e possono essere desunte soltanto in maniera indiretta sia per quanto riguarda le applicazioni agricole in senso lato che per quanto concerne i culti stagionali a cui sembrano far riferimento alcune offerte rivolte a divinit di cui si riferisce nelle tavolette in Lineare B. Frumento, ulivo e vite, la cosiddetta triade mediterranea, si impone a partire dalla Media Et del Bronzo ma orzo e grano risultano essere anche sulla base delle testimonianze epigrafiche i prodotti pi diffusi, a cui si aggiungono le colture di vite, ulivo e fico a completare il quadro della base alimentare dellEt del Bronzo Recente.
Laura-Concetta Rizzotto Sounds from the sea: Conch shells in the Bronze Age on Crete Different species of conch shells have been found in Crete and on other Aegean sites, in burial as well as in cult contexts. The best known is the triton shell, Charonia nodifera and Charonia sequenzae, in scientific terms a Mediterranean species, which was also often imitated in clay, faience or stone. Already Evans and later Renfrew and Younger proposed to see the triton shell as a natural musical instrument, which functioned in the Bronze Age as a trumpet. This interpretation has often been debated and recently rejected, one of the 15
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arguments being that the shells were rather used as rhyta. I do not agree with limiting conch shells to one exclusive function and I will instead take into account that by handling conch shells, different senses are stimulated and, consequently, that several uses derive from different sensory perceptions. In fact, reconsidering the testimonies from Aegean Bronze Age ritual and funerary contexts as well as comparative ethnographic evidence, I suggest to regard conch shells as objects with manifold functions. They could have been used as rhyta, containers or ladles, but they were mainly linked to the sense of hearing. Based on different evidence, I intend to support the theory that considers conch shells musical instruments. Furthermore, I will focus on the acoustic phenomenon called the sound of the sea: no matter how far away from the sea, holding a conch shell to your ear, you will hear the roar of the waves rolling onto the shore. In the archaeological record no attention has been paid to this important natural phenomenon, which could indeed provide some insights into the relationship between Aegean Bronze Age people and their world as well as on synesthetic implications and ritual performances.
Harriet B. L. Robinson Specialization in pottery production during the Minoan Palatial era Interest in the beginning of specialization in pottery production has led some scholars to believe that ceramic specialization began in the Neolithic. This paper will explore whether there were specialties within pottery production in MM II-LM III. Some archaeologists have suggested that pithoi were made by separate specialists. What about cooking pottery vs fine wares vs ceramic figurines? Linear B texts show us that there were different specialized jobs associated with textile production in LM III. Unfortunately the tablets do not help us understand pottery manufacture. Using evidence from ceramic fabrics, manufacturing techniques, and firing information, the author concludes that each general class of pottery was made by different specialists.
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Dieter Rumpel Homer und die Schnittervase (Harvesters Vase)
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Bei Homer kommt die Zahl zwanzig verhltnismig hufig vor, evtl. zur generellen Charakterisierung einer mittelgroen Menge und/oder als Rudiment eines indogermanischen Vigesimalsystems. Spezifischer ist wo die Verwendung der Zahl bei Schiffen zu sehen: Ruderer hatte in der Ilias das Schiff, das Chryseis zurckbrachte.
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In der Odyssee rt Athene dem Telemach fr die Schiffsreise nach Sparta zu Gefahrten, und er beantragt ein rstiges Schiff mit zwanzig Gefahrten. Zwanzig tapfere Mnner nehmen die Freier an Bord des Schiffes, das dem Telemach auflauert. Der Keulenrohling des Kyklopen erscheint dem Odysseus geeignet als Mast fr ein zwanzigrudriges Schiff. Normalerweise werden die schwrzlichen Schiffe aber apostrophiert als Ruderschiff, meerdurchwallend, schnellgerudert, langberudert, aber dann auch als viel gerudert, zwiefachrudernd (Di-ere), gleichberudert, fnfzig [Mann] in jedem, bemannt mit zweiundfnfzig Jnglingen (Phaken). Bei den Zwanzigruderern dagegen scheint es sich um eine Klasse von kleinen schnellen Schiffen zu handeln. Das Reliefband der in Hagia Triada gefundenen Schnittervase wurde in der Originalverffentlichung von Luigi Savignoni als militrischer Aufmarsch interpretiert, aber bereits ein halbes Jahr vor deren Erscheinen hatte N.M. Bosanquet in einem Bericht die Vase kurz erwhnt und als landwirtschaftliche Erntefeier (Harvesters Vase) gedeutet. Letztere friedfertige Deutung hat sich unglcklicherweise durchgesetzt und zu krampfhaften, anachronistischen und technisch unbrauchbaren Vorschlgen gefhrt, wie die auf der Vase abgebildeten Dreizacks als landwirtschaftliche Gerte zu nutzen wren. In diese Reihe gehrt auch die unsinnige deutsche Benennung Schnittervase, obwohl berhaupt keine schneidenden Sensen oder Sicheln im Relief zu erkennen sind. Auf der Vase sind 7 Personen zu sehen. Fr die Gruppe von 4 Sngern hat F. Blakolmer nachgewiesen, da sie seitlich vom Marschzug stehen und somit nicht dazugehren bleiben 3. Drei Personen fallen im Zug durch Ihre exponierte Stellung auf: Der voranziehende Chef im Kra, und nach drei Vierteln des Zuges in der ansonsten in Zweierreihen marschierenden Formation ein einzeln marschierender Mann, der sich herumgedreht hat und anscheinend keinen Dreizack trgt, sowie einen geduckten oder gestolperten Mann, der kein Uniform-Barett trgt. Bleiben brig . Folgen wir der Savignioni-Interpretation, so lt sich die Szene leicht deuten: Die Besatzung eines -rudrigen Schiffes kehrt nach erfolgreicher Mission heim und wird von einer Sngergruppe begrt. Neben den Ruderern sind an Bord: Der Chef (und Steuermann?), ein 1. Offizier und ein Gefangener. Die hakentragenden Dreizacks sind stachelbesetzte Enterhaken, die wo beim Kampf zwischen offenen Booten eine hnliche Rolle gespielt haben, wie spter bei gedeckten Schiffen die Enterbrcken (corax) der rmischen Marine. Auch weitere Details fugen sich zwanglos in diese Interpretation ein und werden besprochen.
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Anna Sacconi, Massimo Cultaro Un fragment de vase avec inscription en linaire B de Prinias Nous prsentons un fragment de vase porteur de deux traces de signes en linaire B provenant de la ncropole ouest de Prinias. Le fragment fait partie dun groupe de cramiques (TM IIIB III C1) trouv dans un coin de la ncropole de Siderospilia dans les annes 7.
Vasif aholu Ceme-Balararas: A western Anatolian harbour settlement with Minoan links Ceme-Balararas is a recently discovered Bronze Age site excavated by Ankara University Research Center for Maritime Archaeology (ANKSAM) within the framework of the Izmir Region Excavations and Research Project (IRERP). The site is located at the westernmost tip of the Urla Peninsula in the modern town of Ceme, facing Chios. The site had been inhabited from the Early Bronze Age until the later part of the Late Bronze Age with substantial chronological gaps in stratigraphy. The reason behind the gaps should be sought in the horizontally shifting location of the settlement due to changes in the coastline and the riverbed adjacent to the settlement. Future investigations are expected to fill in these gaps and give us a fuller picture of the settlement history at this important Bronze Age harbour settlement. Ceme-Balararas acted as one of the gateways of the Anatolian Trade Network opening to the Aegean during the later Early Bronze Age II. Following a gap, the site reflects an extremely well preserved settlement with insulae of houses divided by streets during the Middle Bronze Age. The Middle Bronze Age settlement reflects close contacts with the Minoan civilisation during the MM III-LMIA period. Imported Minoan/Minoanising Cycladic and Eastern Aegean pottery and other objects found in sealed contexts indicates that Ceme-Balararas was an important trading post involved in the Minoan Sea Trade Network. The site also reflects close contacts with the Central Anatolian cultures of this period and, in this respect, offers us a unique chance of investigating the chronological correlations and cultural contacts among the important Anatolian and Aegean cultures of the nd Millennium BC.
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Ann-Louise Schallin Wall coating in LM II and IIIA1 Chania: Evidence from the Greek-Swedish excavations at Kastelli This paper presents the plaster and fresco evidence from LM II and LM IIIA1 levels from the Greek-Swedish excavations at Chania. The material in Level 5 from GSE Kastelli belongs to a phase immediately after the great catastrophe in LM IB, when large parts of the Minoan town were burned and destroyed. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, when the inhabitants tried to get a new grip of their situation and habitation was recommenced at the site, there is evidence of refurbishing and cleanups. During this phase, the old architecture was sometimes reused, but much of the old was torn down and put in big rubbish dumps. And among this rubbish, there are quite a lot of fragments from old wall coatings. The plaster material in Level 5 is thus a mixture of old and new, reflections of a Late Bronze Age town with a formidable history and great hopes for a new beginning.
Norbert Schlager Livari in context: EM Mesara-type tholos tombs and their respective settlements The EM Mesara-type Tholos Tomb I at Livari, Skiadi in SE Crete appears to be an alien in a more extensive Bronze Age cemetery with different forms of burial. Regarding chronology, of three early settlements in the near neighbourhood, FN Katharades, MM/LM Cheromylia and EM Kastrokephalaki, only the inhabitants of the latter site or a certain number of them would plausibly have been responsible for the erection of Tholos Tomb I. By comparing EM tholos tombs and their respective settlements in south central Crete and elsewhere on the island, this paper intends to clarify the specific role of the Livari Tholos Tomb as related to the accompanying settlement, and assess its social importance in a wider regional context.
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Martin Schmid Architecture minoenne Malia: Restitutions Plusieurs monuments de Malia ont fait lobjet dtudes de restitution : le Palais, le Quartier Mu, la Crypte Hypostyle, le Sanctuaire aux Cornes, la Maison Da. Des maquettes ont t ralises pour le Palais et le Quartier Mu ; ce dernier monument a aussi t restitu en images 3D prsentant les volumes intrieurs et extrieurs. Ltat de conservation des monuments, lidentification des objets tombs de 1
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ltage et lidentification descaliers rendent possible une restitution assez vraisemblable des espaces et volumes dun niveau suprieur, voire de plusieurs niveaux dont les restitutions sont cependant plus hypothtiques. Les comparaisons de vestiges conservs sur dautres sites dont Thra ainsi que de reprsentations de constructions ont contribus aux choix des restitutions proposes.
Manuel Serrano, Michal Bzinkowski , . . . (Marcin Czerminski), , , . .
Marsia Sfakianou Bealby Through Egyptian eyes: Processional scenes of Aegeans in the Theban Tombs of the Nobles. A macroeconomic approach This paper aims to briefly discuss a number of processional scenes depicting groups of Aegean porters bearing their wares, as seen on the wall paintings of some early and mid Eighteenth Dynasty elite Theban Tombs. Among the most characteristic Aegean processional displays, one should mention the ones in the richly-decorated tombs of the Pharaohs officials Senenmut, Puimre, Useramun, Mencheperresonb and Rekhmire. The Aegean emissaries are represented carrying luxurious commodities of Minoan and foreign production in order to offer them as a generous gift to the Egyptian Court, in acknowledgement of the Egyptian power in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the relevant hieroglyphic inscriptions, which accompany the scenes, these gift-bearers are designated either as Kft(j)w (vocalised as Keftiu, a name generally identified with Crete and its inhabitants) or as Iww hryw-ib nw W3d-wr, i.e. people from the Isles in the Midst of the Great Green (customary taken to mean the Aegean Islands under Minoan influence). The fact that the majority of the Aegean processions appear in the tombs of officials who are linked to the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, should not be considered as just a coincidence. The depiction of Aegeans in the Theban tombs has been widely discussed, from both the archaeological and artistic point-of-view. Particular attention has been paid to the wares of the Keftiu and the Aegean Is-
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landers, as well as their physical characteristics, clothing and hairstyles, which have all been widely examined by previous scholars. To avoid repetition, this paper will not focus on the artistic details of the Aegean processions; rather, it will retouch upon the historical reality of these scenes and how they can illustrate Aegean-Egyptian relations under a macroeconomic and world trade system approach.
Maria Shaw The Labyrinth fresco .
Evi Sikla The authority of the bull: Beyond Knossian ideology as legitimization It has been convincingly argued that one aspect of the symbolism of the bull in Bronze Age Crete was the ideological function it had for the socio-political authority whose seat was the Palace of Knossos. The argument is primarily based on the large number of wall paintings with bull-related iconography that decorated exclusively the walls of the Knossian palace. It has often been discussed that the authorities of Knossos appropriated religion and ritual in order to propagate and legitimate Knossian supremacy over the island, at least during the Neopalatial period. The semantic content of the relevant bull iconography has been studied extensively along those lines. In this paper, I suggest to explore further what the appropriation of the religious symbol of the bull by the Palace of Knossos in the MM IIIB-LM IB period referred to and how this was done, so as to deepen our understanding of the nature of the Knossian ideology. I submit that we can do so by investigating the use contexts of objects with bull representations in more detail. This is because the ideological and religious meaning of the bull, as any cultural meaning for that matter, does not consist only of ideas and concepts, but also of social practices. As a result, the bull as a symbol gains meaning through context. The study of the use contexts of two classes of objects, the Knossian wall paintings with bull iconography, elite objects par excellence and, the rhyta with bull representations, some of which are also elite objects, reveals certain patterns of social practices. It also reveals how these contexts are related via the symbol of the bull, which shows that aspects of its meaning expressed in different types of objects were interconnected. These interconnections strongly indicate that the socio-political authority of Knossos did not just appropriate religious symbolism for ideological purposes. Instead, it actively constituted new meanings for the bull 1
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through the interplay of new and old symbolism. I suggest that the scope and influence of Knossian ideology derived from the fact that, on the one hand, it reproduced existing, important social traditions, and, on the other hand, it modified them and used them as platforms on which novel meanings were created. It seems that the authority and power of the Knossian palace was materialized in bull iconography at least as much as the authority of the bull formed a constitutive part of the Knossian power.
Anna Simandiraki-Grimshaw Pots as people, people as pots: Minoan anthropomorphic vessels This paper explores anthropomorphic vessels from Bronze Age Crete not simply as ritual equipment, objects dart or representations of personages. Instead, it uses a combination of three lenses which has to date been relatively underused for the examination of such vessels: pottery-regionalism-the human body. Through the investigation of temporally and spatially situated anthropomorphic vessels as corporeal reconfigurations, I aim to shed new light on their ontological significance. Consequently, what emerges more clearly is the micro-relationship between pots and people, as well as the shifting conceptualisations of vessel and human bodies through Minoan phases and regions. Furthermore, the otherwise mundane interaction between a person and a pot can be recast as a mode of corporeality that fuses user and used, container and contained, consumer and consumed.
Thomas F. Strasser, Eleni Panagopoulou, Curtis Runnels The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods on Crete: Chronostratigraphic evidence from the Plakias survey The Plakias Survey identified archaeological sites from both the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods in southwest Crete, and can provide concomitant Pleistocene and early Holocene geologic and chronostratigraphical contexts for both periods. The survey employed a site-location model used to identify Mesolithic sites on the Greek mainland. It was originally a directed survey aimed at environments that Mesolithic peoples would have exploited and where their artifacts would be visibly preserved. The survey focused on fresh-water estuaries associated with southfacing limestone caves and steep bathymetric descents close to the modern shoreline. The areas of Plakias and Ayios Pavlos in the Rethymnon Nomos, on the southwest coast, were chosen because they fulfilled those environmental criteria. During the - seasons the survey discovered over 1 Mesolithic lithic artifacts from locations. An unexpected discovery was evidence for Lower
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Palaeolithic occupation in the form of Acheulean artifacts from nine locations. The Mesolithic artifacts were primarily made of milky quartz as well as small amounts of red and black chert similar to known assemblages on the mainland. The Mesolithic assemblage from Plakias has many features common to the Mesolithic industry from the mainland and islands of Greece, and is probably contemporary with them. The sites are found on the present day coast at elevations that were below sea level during most of the Pleistocene based on our understanding of uplift rates and using correlations with algal reefs that formed underwater but are not exposed. The sites appear to belong to the early Holocene. The Lower Palaeolithic artifacts, including bifaces and cleavers, are also made from quartz and have affinities with the Acheulean technocomplex (sensu lato). Several approaches were used to date the Palaeolithic sites to the Pleistocene. At Preveli, two artifacts are associated with marine terraces at different elevations (4 and masl) dated to ca. kyr and 11 kyr based on the rate of uplift of local rock anchored by a radiocarbon date of ca. 45-5 kyr from marine shells from a terrace at ca. masl. At Preveli, seven artifacts were found sealed in paleosols (fossil soils) with maturity rates indicating an age of greater than 13 kyr. The contexts and radiometric dating confirm the Middle Pleistocene age for the Lower Palaeolithic assemblage. Evidence for the Mesolithic (5-7 BC) on Crete is important, but not a surprising fact in light of the Mesolithic sites reported from Cyprus, Kythnos and the Sporades islands. The implication of the Lower Palaeolithic artifacts is that the history of seafaring in the Mediterranean is much older than previously imagined. Crete has been an island since the Messinian Event that occurred over 5 million years ago. Consequently, Palaeolithic artifacts represent seafaring in the Middle Pleistocene and indicated that the radiation out of Africa of early forms of the genus Homo involved transpelagic movements.
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Amalia Synodinou Minoan cats: Revealing their secrets Felines have often been incorporated in the symbolic and artistic toolkit of many cultural entities, both in prehistoric and historic times. Unlike lions, the most powerful representatives of the family, which have therefore received the appropriate attention by scholars, cats, apart from the egyptian ones, have remained on the margins of archaeological interest. The aim of this paper is to shed more light on various aspects of the iconography of cats in the inoan world, in an attempt to investigate their religious, social and other possible roles. Inevitably, references to Egyptian cats will be involved, to the extent that the subject imposes a comparison.
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Annette Teffeteller Ahhiyawa, Akhaia, a-ka-wi-ja Ahhiyawa, the ethno-toponym found in the Hittite documents referring to the land of the Mycenaean Greeks, occurs first as Aiya in a text dating from the late 15th century (the Indictment of Madduwatta), in which reference is made to the ruler of Aiya, Attarissiya, who commanded an army of infantry and one hundred chariots on the Anatolian coast, and was of some concern to the Hittite king. In a subsequent document, the Tawagalawa letter, sent in the mid-13th century by Hattuili III, the ruler of Ahhiyawa is addressed in terms which accord him status as an equal of the Hittite king. But some years later (half a century perhaps) the Aiyawan ruler of the day is apparently no longer in favour in Hattua; on the draft tablet of the Hittite treaty of Tudaliya IV with augamuwa of Amurru in the latter years of the 13th century, the king of Aiyawa was initially listed as a Great King of equal rank with the Hittite king, along with the kings of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, but the title was erased by the scribe, leaving us in perplexity as to the import of both the listing and the erasure. It was first suggested by Emil Forrer in 14 that the people of the region or the political entity known to the Hittites as Ahhiyawa in fact were the people known to us as the Mycenaeans, in the form of the name familiar from Homeric epic and subsequently: Akhaioi (Akhai(w)oi / Achaeans). We know from the ancient writers of many places with the Greek name Akhaia in the first millennium BC, from the Peloponnese to Crete, Rhodes, Anatolia and the east shore of the Black Sea. And since 17, when a bilingual inscription in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician was found at ineky in southeastern Turkey, we also know that a form of the Hittite term was used in Anatolia in the early first millennium for the region of classical Cilicia: Hiyawa, with aphaeresis of the initial vowel typical of Luwian dialects. In addition, we can now link the forms of the toponym used in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age though our first attestation of the term in Akkadian: Hiyawa, used of Hiyawa-men in the Lukka lands of the late second millennium. What is missingor was until the Linear B tablets came to lightis an attestation of the Greek form of the name from the second millennium. And this is what the tablets from Knossos give us: our only attestation from the Bronze Age of the Greek ethno-toponym Akhaiwia ( F). On the tablet KN C 14 we have a record of a shipment of fifty rams and fifty he-goats (a sacrificial hecatomb?) sent by a certain Pallantios to a-kawi-ja, with the -de suffix marking the form as a place-name, as already noted by Ventris and Chadwick (): a-ka-wi-ja-de. As V&C also note, the designation may be of a place in Crete, or it may be a location overseas since there is no reason why sheep and goats should not be carried by sea. Crete, as mentioned above, had a city named Akhaia in the later period, attested to by the scholiast to Apollonius Rhodius (4.175). Whether or not the Akhaiwia of the tablet is the same,
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the attestation is invaluable, giving us the missing link in the temporal and geographical distribution of the ethno-toponym Akhaiwia/Ahhiyawa. Simona Todaro Prepalatial Phaistos from a diachronic perspective: The formation of a Cretan tell L. Pernier, working in the area that was later occupied by the palace, thought that the Prepalatial deposits at Phaistos had been mostly swept away from the hill by the levelling activity that took place during its long occupation, while the Neopalatial and Post-palatial stratigraphies were characterised by in situ re-building. His excavations at the site revealed several structures attributed to the Greek period that were built above the ruins of the Second Palace, which had in turn been constructed c. 1.5 m above the ruins of the First Palace. Levis excavations clarified that in situ re-building was also attested during the Protopalatial period, and revealed so many cases of this that it is not surprising that he eventually interpreted the remains of the south-west block of the first palace as three superimposed palaces that were destroyed and, each time, sealed by astraki fill and used as a platform for the palace of the new phase. The resumption of excavations at the site in , in the area of piazzale I and on the western slope of the hill, have clarified that in-situ rebuilding had been a distinctive characteristic of the stratigraphy of the site since the Neolithic period, and seems to set Phaistos apart from the other sites of the region that, when not occupied for just a single phase, were characterised by a frequent shifting in the locus of habitation, thus preventing the formation of continuous stratigraphies. This paper seeks to explore the reasons that led to the adoption of this particular building practice at Phaistos, and in particular aims to ascertain whether it reflected continuity of occupation, or was rather the outcome of a periodic re-visiting of the same location, with resumption of activities at a higher level.
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Helena Tomas Development of the Cretan palm-leaf shaped clay tablet On several occasions, including the past Cretological Conference, I have argued that tablets should not be treated secondary to sealings in our comparisons between Minoan and Mycenaean administrative systems, and consequently I presented similarities and differences between Minoan and Mycenaean page-shaped tablets. Since this was not the only type of tablet used, this conference provides a good opportunity to address the other principal Aegean tablet-type, the palm-leaf shaped tablet. It is generally understood that the introduction of this latter type, unknown 5
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to LM IB Linear A, was the main Linear B pinacological innovation. But we must not forget that MM II Linear A had knowledge of palm-leaf shaped tablets, as did the contemporary Cretan Hieroglyphic. Not only were these different from later Linear B examples, but palm-leaf tablets underwent significant transformations even within the Mycenaean administrative system. For example, in the RCT deposit most palm-leaf shaped tablets are extremely small and have a minimal amount of text; they are larger and textually more complex in the other Knossian deposits, and then largest and most rich in text in the Pylian archive. This shows that the document went through numerous changes in its size, quantity of text, and in its administrative function. My paper will present a diachronic study of the Aegean palm-leaf shaped tablet from its earliest modest examples in the MM II period on Crete to the latest numerous and complex examples on the LH IIIB mainland.
Evangelia Tsangaraki Human figures vis--vis bovines: A quantitative and qualitative statistic comparison of two naturalistic motifs on neopalatial sealings Human figures and animals have inspired Minoan engravers more than any other pictorial theme in Neopalatial Crete. They are among the most favourite naturalistic motifs in the glyptic repertoire of the Neopalatial period and those that have mostly captured the attention of modern scholars. Here, I focus on figural motifs as well as on depictions of bovines attested on neopalatial sealings. Through a close comparison of these two sphragistic designs, I am trying to investigate the divergences and/or convergences that mark their use in the neopalatial administrative system, paying attention on a vis--vis statistic analysis of parameters such as: their frequency of appearance in sealing practices, their geographical and intra-site distribution, their archaeological contexts, the types of sealings on which they appear, the types of seals being used for their impression, their relation to the so-called Multiple Sealing System and to the bureaucratic practice of inscribing sealings with Linear A signs, etc. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether human figures did indeed have a special significance and a more prominent role than other motifs in the neopalatial sealing administration, as is usually argued, or not.
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Loeta Tyree
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The significance of pottery from Minoan sacred caves Renewed interest in Minoan sacred caves including recent publications of previously excavated material suggests the need to analyze both older and newer pub-
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lications to learn more about these ritual places. Pottery from Minoan sacred caves will be assessed both typologically and chronologically. The range of forms will be compared by periods to determine if any particular set is present during the same chronological period and whether that ritual set of vessels changes in the different periods when the caves were used Protopalatial, Neopalatial, and Late Minoan III, from ca. 1 to 11 BC. The size and quality of the vessels will also be taken into consideration. Comparisons will enable, both contemporaneously and diachronically, the suggestion of hypotheses concerning the role of pottery in cave rituals.
George Varoufakis Copper Minoan statuettes and their contemporary iron seal rings The present metallurgical study (conducted in association with archaeologist Dr Efi Sapouna-Sakellarakis) of 45 Minoan statuettes and of two iron seal rings leads to the interesting conclusion that Minoan artisans were excellent metallurgists. The art and skills involved in the actual casting were, paradoxically, better advanced in the Early Minoan period than in the Middle or Late Minoan eras (17th-15th centuries BCE). This is confirmed by the authors comparison of statuettes dating to these periods. The skills of the artisans of the first two periods are, thus, admirable given that they had no alternative but to work with a bronze alloy with very little tin. In contrast, the Mycenaeans, although they had the technical ability to add more tin in the alloy, therefore endowing the liquid alloy with better castability (which ensured easier dissemination into every nook and cranny of the mould), produced statuettes of inferior quality and artistic value. Generally, we notice a certain decline in the quality of copper statuettes during the 15th century BCE. The paper also reports on the study of a seal ring whose bezel forms a figure of eight shields, as well as of a smaller one discovered by archaeologist Yannis Sakellaris in Arhanes, Crete. The examination of these two seal rings yielded results which were then compared, by this author, with similar results of earlier research in seal rings of the same period unearthed in the Peloponnese, and studied by archaeologist Agni Sakellariou. The above demonstrate that iron was known even to the Minoans, at least in the context of jewelry making. Of course, this does not mean that they were producing iron in that remote time, and it is most probably that raw material used to produce those iron seal rings was meteorites. However, a question is still begged: Why did it take almost .5 years before iron production was developed, given that the iron ore deposits were more abundant all over the Greek mainland, than their equivalent copper deposits? Why such a delay in the coming of a metal that was to cause such great tumult in social, economic and cultural relations, that Hes7
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iod was moved to curse his birth during the Iron Age? ...I wish I did not live among people of the fifth generation, but to have perished earlier or to have been born later; now, we are a generation of iron, and people get no respite from fatigue and sadness.... The paper concludes with the effects of this magical metal in speeding up the flow of both technological innovation and of history itself.
Andrea Vianello Minoan foundation deposits of Palatial period Some deposits found in Minoan palaces are occasionally labeled as foundation deposits. This definition is however loosely applied and foundation deposits are not sharply recognized as it is the case for Egypt or the ancient Near East. In some cases (e.g. Kommos) this type of deposits is so common that the generic term of floor deposit is employed, while in other cases (e.g. Knossos) several terms are used haphazardly. Focusing on some of the oldest such deposits in palatial contexts, it is often possible to determine the practices that lead to their creation and, less frequently, their meaning can be recognized. The goal of this paper is to present recent research that should help in correctly identifying and understanding foundation deposits, and provide a first step towards some coherent definition of the various types of deposits found under the floors of Minoan palaces and other palatial structures. These deposits may have had utilitarian, religious and social significance in a varying combination depending on their location, historical time and context. Genuine foundation deposits appear to have been much more rare than in Egypt, and probably were adapted to local practices. They are therefore not a good source of information to assess the relationship between Minoan polities and eastern ones. However, they can reveal much more on the social structure of the Minoan society since evidence of hierarchy can be occasionally recognized. Many deposits are probably a rare manifestation of Cretan beliefs among the population (the builders) rather than evidence of formal ceremonies and the paper will compare formal and non-formal manifestations of beliefs linked to such deposits in chronologically similar contexts in an attempt to reveal some of the differences in how religious practices and beliefs played within different social classes.
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Maria Vlasaki, Louis Godart
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Two new Linear Inscriptions from Kastelli Khania Maria Vlasaki in a recent excavation in Kastelli Khania made the discovery of two new linear tablets: a linear A document written by a scribe who is also respons-
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able of other linear A documents from Odos Katre and from Aghia Aikaterini square and a linear B tablet which gives a mans name known from Mycenae.
Constance von Riiden The Prince of the Lilies in Egypt. The relief paintings from Tell el Dabca in the eastern Nile Delta At the site of Tell el Dabca in the Eastern Nile delta a huge amount of wall paintings have been brought to light since the beginning of the 1s. Beside numerous fragments of flat plaster decorated with Aegean motives and painted in fresco technique, the site of Tell el Dabca produced a big amount of relief paintings. Like the former, they adorned Palaces F and G in the palace district of the Tuthmoside Period, at the western edge of the Ancient site of Avaris, on the eastern bank of the former Pelusiac branch of the Nile. Composition and technique of these hardly known pieces reflect those of their Cretan counterparts remarkably closely. The motives also seem to find their closest parallels in the relief plaster and small finds of the island of Crete. A man with a staff in his right hand and the legs of bulls remind us of the reliefs formerly displayed in the palace of Knossos. The aim of my paper is to present and discuss the largely unpublished material from Tell el Dabca and compare it with the material from Crete. In doing so, I will at first discuss technological aspects in order to better comprehend transfers of technology between Crete and Egypt and afterwards turn to considerations of iconography to retrace possible ways of the adoption of Cretan motives and stylistic elements in Tell el Dabca. Apart from the well-known question of who produced the relief paintings in Tell el Dabca, I will place particular emphasis on how these Aegean paintings were perceived in the Egyptian palaces, which particularly with respect to the strong axiality of their layout differed markedly from those architectural contexts in which Aegean wall-painting had originally developed; this will provide a starting point for considering their possible meanings within the framework of the material culture of Egypt.
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Saro Wallace Collapse landscapes: A case study at Karfi, Lasithi
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Recent years have seen the frightening collapse of complex economies, with related social and political upheaval, across the world. While events at the end of the Late Bronze Age were more directly catastrophic in their effects, recent occurrences cause us to wonder how inevitable collapse and crisis are in human societies, how far they follow a predictable pattern, and in which ways their dev
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astating effects can be avoided or averted. Developments in Crete were clearly drastic enough to permanently dislocate existing ways of life for the entire population settlement, cult and subsistence systems were all re-orientated. This strategy seems to have been effective in keeping populations secure in a dangerous and unstable environment, but must have involved deep disturbance to social norms and concepts. Karfi is one of the best known settlements established during these radical changes and occupied for only about years following them. Seventy years after its first excavation, following the discovery of numerous contemporary sites sharing some of its characteristics, it remains in the largest size category and is the only site in this category to be excavated. The 13s excavations focused only on one district of the town (approximately a fifth of the total area) and produced a record which was, by modern standards, limited in detail. Thus, returning to study the site in its wider landscape context, in a research perspective centred on understanding the social and cultural transformations involved in collapse, seems worthwhile. The results of new pilot excavations in , presented here, confirm the value of the Karfi record in elucidating how Cretans responded to and worked through collapse.
Peter Warren A Minoan shrine on Gypsadhes, Knossos The lower, northern slopes of Gypsadhes, overlooking the palace of Knossos, formed the southern part of the Bronze Age city from MM I to LM IIIA, with MM tombs on higher ground to the south. Excavations by Hogarth (1) and by Hood (155) revealed LM I ashlar masonry buildings (Hogarths Houses) and there have been surface finds over many years, culminating in the survey of the current Knossos Urban Landscape Project. The recently started Gypsadhes Project will certainly reveal much more. Among the discovered material there is a remarkable number of (fragmentary) stone rhytons. Several of the fragments with relief decoration are well known as individual pieces, but the evidence has not previously been assembled for discussion as a group. Of no fewer than ten pieces four have relief decoration, three others are fragments of bulls heads, two are marble and one Egyptian alabaster. The paper proposes that the material will originally have formed one or more shrine treasuries like those of the Central Treasury in the palace of Knossos and the Shrine Treasury in that of Zakros. Such a treasury or treasuries would have been located in an important LM I building, or more than one, on Gypsadhes, and they thus indirectly indicate a shrine. Whether such a shrine was located inside a building such as one of Hogarths Houses or in a more important construction, or whether the treasury was a store for rhytons to be carried in procession to an external sanctuary remains unknown.
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Judith Weingarten A test of measurement William Flinders Petrie discovered two wooden measuring rods in a 1th Dynasty rubbish dump at Kahun in Egypt. The gradations on the rods indicated a foreign measuring system which he believed had been adapted to imitate the Egyptian standard cubit. He assumed that such rods had been used by foreigners living at Kahun presumably by those residents whose pottery is now recognized as Aegean and Syro-Palestinian wares, both imported and locally-made imitations. These people(s) may have formed a significant proportion of the workmen and artisans involved in the construction of Sesostris IIs pyramid complex at nearby Lahun (c. 1 - 17/15 BCE). The foreign nature of the two measuring rods (now Petrie Mus. UC 1747 and Science Mus. 135.41) is disputed: it has been argued that the exceptional units do fit an unusual Egyptian measure, the /nbi/. A Test of Measurement suggests, however, that Petrie was correct and the rods are Aegean in concept, having demonstrable links with measurements on Minoan Crete. At the same time, we present the results of microscopic analyses (done by Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) of the wood from which the rods are made.
Todd Whitelaw, Maria Bredaki, Andonis Vasilakis Prehistoric Knossos: racing its long-term history through its surface record The Knossos Urban Landscape Project, a synergasia between the British School at Athens and the 3rd Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, conducted an intensive surface survey of the urban site of Knossos (.5 sq. km) and the surrounding cemeteries (another 1 sq km), involving fieldwork in 5, 7 and . Some 4, sherds of all dates were recovered, all located on a m grid, the vast majority from the city site. The systematic collections have produced substantial and spatially well-controlled samples which allow detailed studies of the spatial development and differentiation of the community through all periods of occupation. While subject to intensive investigation for over a century, major excavations have concentrated in the area of the Minoan palace, while the numerous rescue excavations have rarely penetrate below Roman remains and have been limited to the areas under threat from recent development. As a result, very considerable areas of the Prehistoric site, now documented as extending over more than a square kilometre, have never previously been investigated. Initial study of the ca. 3, Prehistoric sherds recovered allows a comprehensive reconstruction of the development of the centre from the Neolithic through 31
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the end of the Bronze Age, particularly when the new surface data are used to contextualise and reinterpret over a century of investigations.
Assaf Yasur-Landau with Eric H. Cline, Nurith Goshen New Aegean-style painted plaster from the Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri The excavations at Tel Kabri, the capital of a Middle Bronze Age Canaanite kingdom located in the western Galilee region of modern Israel, lasted from 1 June to 3 July . A highlight of the season was the discovery of numerous fragments of painted plaster, from both a previously unknown Minoan-style wall fresco with figural representations and a second Aegean-style painted floor. These are, to date, the first wall paintings with blue background found either at Tel Kabri or in all of Israel. This unusual blue background or large solid blue fields is not typical of Cycladic wall paintings, nor is it common in Middle Kingdom or early New Kingdom Egypt, but is more frequently found in the approximately-contemporary Neopalatial frescoes at Knossos (e.g. The Sacred Grove and Dance, the Toreador fresco, the Ladies in Blue) and the Minoan Toreador fresco from Tel el Daba, as well as in later frescoes at Mycenae on the Greek mainland. Moreover, they may contribute to a resolution of the chronological question for these paintings, for the fragments which form only a small portion of the original fresco can only have arrived at the secondary context in which they were found via human agency, such as being reused as temper in mudbricks which subsequently fell onto the crushed lime floor during the final destruction of the palace or being reused to patch the floor of the final palace (set face down into the floor, only the white back of the fragments would have been visible). As such, they would seem to support our previous suggestion (Cline and Yasur-Landau 7) that the Aegean-style paintings adorned the penultimate palace of Kabri and were removed during the subsequent renovation phase which resulted in the final, undecorated, phase of the palace at the site.
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Evgenia Zouzoula The Bird-ladies of Minoan iconography: Artistic fancy or religious icons? The winged female figure with the bird-head in place of a human head is listed among the range of composite imaginary beings of Minoan iconography. Depicted on Aegean LBA sealstones, the figure was identified by V.E.G. Kenna as a birdgoddess. J. Younger, in a brief discussion of the Aegean monsters in glyptic art, included in his study of The Iconography of Late Minoan and Mycenaean Sealstones and Finger Rings (1), very accurately pointed out that types other than the grif-
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fin, the sphinx and the Minoan genius have been relatively understudied, citing the so-called lady-eagle among those minor monsters. The situation has not been remedied in the ca. twenty years since his observation. Accordingly, this report is an attempt to achieve a deeper understanding of the motif and the way it was used within the Minoan repertoire. The corpus of extant representations of the bird-lady figure is by no means as extended as that of the better known imaginary beings and presents therefore limited opportunities to the researcher. Nevertheless, it is still worthwhile to examine it closely with the intention of ascertaining whether the motif represents a merely decorative artistic creation or, conversely, offers insight into the beliefs and ideology of the period. In order to realise this, more recent archaeological finds need to be looked into, together with the context(s) within which the type in question and its illustrations were created. The study of the particular iconographic traits of the figure may also prove fruitful, especially in association to gender issues. Finally, since the griffin, the sphinx and the Minoan genius, all constitute imported figures in Aegean art, the Near Eastern connection is not to be ignored either in the case of the bird-lady. On the contrary, it will be sought after, so as to assess whether this figure represents a transferred motif or an indigenous Cretan creation.
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Dieter Rumpel Homer und die Schnittervase (Harvesters Vase)

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