Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:30:54.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The perpetuated past: re-use or continuity in material culture and structuring of identity in Early Iron Age Crete1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Saro Wallace
Saro Wallace
Affiliation:
British School at Athens
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some re-uses of Bronze Age remains in Early Iron Age Crete and mainland Greece have been identified as attempts at legitimation and/or identity construction which operated at various social levels and were instrumental in the rise of the polis. This paper enlarges the scope of analysis in assessing the meaning of references to material remains of early EIA (Late Minoan III C/SM), as well as Bronze Age, date during the Protogeometric to Archaic periods in Crete. This was a time at which major spatial and social readjustments were taking place, themselves ultimately rooted in transformations occurring c. 1200 BC. The wealth of settlement data now available for EIA Crete adds an important new dimension to the discussion, which recognizes nucleation through PG–A at a significant number of sites established in the 1200 BC defensible settlement movement. The paper's conclusions are that this, and other elements of continuity and reuse in settlement, cult and mortuary practices, both reflected and helped to create a sense of history and of local regionally-based community early in the EIA.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 98 , November 2003 , pp. 251 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I started writing this paper in August 2001, and later that summer had my first chance to see the (at that stage still unexamined) Ph.D dissertation by Lena Sjögren (University of Stockholm). This impressive work, which collates much of the site data from C–A Crete, provided me with much to think about when considering the issues addressed here, and I am indebted to it for many of the sources I have cited on C–A material. Thanks are due also to Valasia Isaakidou for her help with Greek editing. A version of this paper was presented at the Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference (Dublin, 2001), in a session on ‘Settling the past: exploring re-occupation and the evolution of anthropogenic places’.

Abbreviations:

Πεπραγμένα ΣΤ ́= Πεπραγμένα του ΣΤ ́ Διεθνούς

Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου, Χανιά (Iraklio, 1990).

Πεπραγμένα Ζ ́ = Πεπραγμένα του Ζ ́ Διεθνούς

Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου, Pέθυμνο (Iraklio, 1995).

Πεπραγμένα Η ́= Πεπραγμένα του Η ́ Διεθνούς

Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου, Ηράκλειο (Iraklio, 2000).

Πεπραγμένα Θ ́́ = Πεπραγμένα του Θ ́ Διεθνούς

Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου, Ελούντα 2001 (forthcoming).

References

2 Qviller, B., ‘The dynamics of the Homeric society’, Symbolae Odenses, 56 (1981), 109–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Snodgrass, A. M., ‘Archaeology and the study of the Greek city’, in Rich, J. and Wallace-Hadrill, A. (eds), City and Country in the Ancient World (London, 1991)Google Scholar; id., ‘The rise of the polis. The archaeological evidence’, in M. H. Hansen (ed.), The Ancient Greek City-State. Symposium on the Occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. July 1–4, 1992 (Copenhagen, 1993), 30–41; Morris, I., Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar; id., ‘Circulation, deposition and the formation of the Greek Iron Age’, Man (n.s.) 23 (1989), 502–19; id., ‘The early polis as city and state’, in Rich and Wallace-Hadrill, 25–59; id., ‘An archaeology of equalities?’, in D. L. Nichols and T. H. Charlton (eds), The Archaeology of City-States: Cross-Cultural Approaches (Washington, 1998), 91–107; Whidey, J., Style and Society in Dark Age Greece: The Changing Face of a Pre-Literate Society 1100–700 BC (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar [1991 a]; id., ‘Social diversity in Dark Age Greece’, BSA 86 (1991), 341–65 [1991b]; Donlan, W. and Thomas, C., ‘The village community of ancient Greece: Neolithic, Bronze and Dark Ages’, SMEA 31 (1993), 61–71 Google Scholar; Sjögren, L., ‘Sites, Settlements and Early Poleis in Crete (800–500 BC)’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Stockholm, 2001)Google Scholar.

3 Morris 1987 (n. 2); Whidey 1991a (n. 2).

4 Coldstream, J. N., ‘Hero cults in the age of Homer’, JUS 96 (1976), 8–17 Google Scholar; Bérard, C., ‘Récupérer la mort du prince’, in Gnoli, G. and Vernant, J.-P., La Mort, les morts dans les sociétés antiques (Cambridge, 1982), 84–105 Google Scholar; A. Snodgrass, ‘Les origines du culte des héros dans la Grèce antique’, in Gnoli and Vernant, 107–19; Whitley, J., ‘Early states and hero cults: a reappraisal’, JHS 108 (1988), 173–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Polignae, F. de, Cults, Territory and the Origins of the Greek City-State, tr. Lloyd, J. (Chicago, 1995), 128–49Google Scholar; Antonaccio, C., An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece (Lanham, 1995)Google Scholar; Morris, I., ‘Tomb cult and the Greek renaissance: the past in the present in die eighth century BC’, Antiquity, 62 (1988), 750–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., Archaeology as Cultural History (Oxford, 2000), 267–73.

5 Particular attention has been paid to the area of cult practice—see de Polignac (n. 4); Mazarakis-Ainian, A., From Rulers' Dwellings to Temples: Architecture, Religion and Society in Early Iron Age Greece (1100–700 BC), (SIMA 121; Jonsered, 1997)Google Scholar; Snodgrass 1993 (n. 2); Morgan, C.; ‘The origins of pan-Hellenism’, in Marinatos, N. and Hägg, R., Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches (London, 1993), 18–44 Google Scholar—and of goods exchange or consumption: e.g. Winter, I., ‘Homer's Phoenicians: history, ethnography, or literary trope? A perspective on early orientalism’, in Carter, J. B. and Morriss, S. P., (eds), The Ages of Homer: A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule (Austin, Tex., 1995), 260–1Google Scholar; Morris 2000 (n. 4), 195–257; Morgan, C. and Whitelaw, T. M., ‘Pots and politics: ceramic evidence and the rise of the Argive state’, AJA 95 (1995), 79–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Morris 1998 (n. 2).

7 For the latter see e.g. Nowicki, K., ‘The West Siteia Mountains at the turn of the Bronze and Iron Ages’, Aegaeum 6 (Liège, 1990), 161–80Google Scholar; id., ‘A Dark Age refuge centre near Pefki, east Crete’, BSA 89 (1994), 235–68; id., Defensible Sites in Crete, c. 1200–800 BC (LM IIIB/C through Early Geometric) (Aegaeum, 21; Liège, 2000); Haggis, D., ‘Intensive survey, traditional settlement patterns, and Dark Age Crete: the case of Early Iron Age Kavousi’, JMA 6/2 (1993), 131–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Watrous, L. V., ‘The isthmus of lerapetra in east Crete and the Dark Age “refuge settlement” of Profitis Elias: diaspora or local population change?’, in Karageorghis, V. and Morris, C. (eds), Defensive Settlements of the Aegean and East Mediterranean after c. 1200 BC. Proceedings of an International Workshop held at Trinity College, Dublin, 7–9 May 1999 (Nicosia, 2001), 85–95 Google Scholar, and discussion below.

8 Whitley 1991 b (n. 2), 384.

9 Approaches of this restricted type to the analysis of EIA society have been recently criticised by Shanks, M., Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of the Discipline (London, 1996), 142 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Haggis (n. 7); id., ‘Some problems in defining Dark Age society in the Aegean’, in P. Betancourt, V. Karageorghis, R. Laffineur, and W. D. Niemeier, (eds), Meletemala. Studies in Aegean Archaeology Presented to Malcolm H. Wiener as he enters his 65th Year (Aegaeum, 20; Liège, 1999), 303–8.

11 Whitley 1991 b (n. 2).

12 See references in n. 7.

13 Hayden, B., ‘Fortifications of postpalatial and Early Iron Age Crete’, Archäologischer Anzeiger Heft I (1988), 1–21 Google Scholar; Nowicki, K., ‘Fortifications in Dark Age Crete’, in van Maele, S. and Fossey, J. M. (eds), Fortificationes Antiquae (Amsterdam, 1992), 53–76 Google Scholar.

14 Wallace, S. A., ‘Socioeconomic Change and the Meaning of Settlement in the Early Iron Age of Crete, 12th-7th centuries Bc,’, (unpublished PhD diss. University of Edinburgh, 2001)Google Scholar; ead., ‘Case studies of settlement change in Early Iron Age Crete (c. 1200–700 BC): economic models of cause and effect reassessed’, Aegean Archaeology, 4 (1997–2000), 61–99 Google Scholar; ead., ‘Subsistence and hinterland as factors in settlement location and sociopolitical change through the Early Iron Age of Crete’, in Πεπραγμένα Θ ́ (forthcoming).

15 Nowicki 2000 (n. 7).

16 See for general reference Kanta, A.,The Late Minoan III Period in Crete: A Survey of Sites, Pottery and their Distribution (SIMA 58; Göteborg, 1980)Google Scholar; Driessen, J. and Farnoux, A. (eds), La Crète mycènienne. Actes de la table ronde internationale organisée par l'École française d'Athènes (BCH Supp. 30; Paris, 1997)Google Scholar. Little is known about some of these sites in the LM IIIA-B period, but they were certainly sizeable setdements. The geopolitical organization of LM III Crete is still a subject under discussion, but it seems most likely that the largest centres existed at Knossos and Chania, with the other regional nucleations acting as collection or subsidiary-administration centres in the redistributive economy which the tablets reflect. See Bennet, J., ‘The structure of the Linear B administration at Knossos’, AJA 89 (1985), 231–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Knossos in context: comparative perspectives on the Linear B administration of LM II–III Crete’, AJA 94 (1990), 193–211; J. P. Olivier, ‘La collecte et la circulation de l'information économique dans la Crete mycénienne’, in Driessen and Farnoux, 391–407.

17 See Wallace 1997–2000, 2001 (n. 14); D. C. Haggis, ‘A Dark Age setdement system in East Crete and a reassessment of the definition of refuge settlements’, in Karageorghis and Morris (n. 7), 41–59.

18 Boyd, H. A., ‘Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, in 1900’, AJA 5 (1901), 125–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haggis (n. 7), 151.

19 Demargne, J., ‘Les ruines de Goulas ou I'ancienne ville de Lato en Crète’, BCH 25, (1901), 282–307 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Fouilles à Lato en Crète, 1899–1900’, BCH 27 (1903), 206-32; Hadjimichali, V., ‘Recherches à Lato, III: Maisons’, BCH 95 (1971), 167–222 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ducrey, P. and Picard, O., ‘Recherches a Lato, I: Trois fours archaïques’ BCH 93 (1969), 792–822 Google Scholar; iid., ‘Recherches à Lato, II: Le grand temple’, BCH 94 (1971), 567–90; Demargne, J., ‘Recherches sur le site de l'Anavlochos’, BCH 55 (1931), 365–407 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farnoux, A. and Driessen, J., ‘Recherches sur l'Anavlochos’, BCH 115 (1991), 749–50Google Scholar; Xanthoudides, S., ‘‘ ̓Αρχαιολογικὴ Περιφέρεια (Κρήτνς). Περιοδεῖαι, περισυλλογὴ ἀρχαίων, ἔρευναι άρχαιολογικαί, Μουσεῖα καὶ συλλογαὶ κατὰ τὸ 1916̓ ,in Παράρτημα του Αρχαιολογικόυ Δελτίου, A. Delt. 4(1918), 23–32 Google Scholar; ‘ ̓Αρχαιολογικὴ Περιφέρεια (Κρήτης). Ἔρευναι, σκάφαι καὶ ευ̍ρήματα κατὰ τὸ ἔτος 1920’, in Παράρτημα του Αρχαιολογικόυ Δελτίου, A. Delt. 6 (1920-1921), 154–7Google Scholar; Whitley, J., Prent, M. and Thorne, S., ‘Praisos IV: a preliminary report on the 1993 and 1994 survey seasons’, BSA 94 (1999), 405–28Google Scholar. For up-to-date summaries on all these sites, see Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 119, 167–70, 171–3, 190–1.

20 Hood, M. S. F. and Warren, P. M., ‘Ancient sites in the province of Agios Vasilios, Crete’, BSA 61 (1966), 163–91Google Scholar; Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 206–14; Nixon, L., ‘Late Minoan III–Early Iron Age sites in Sphakia’, Περίληψες του Η’’ Διεθνούς Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου, 9—14 Σεπτεμβρίου 1996 (Iraklio, 1996)Google Scholar.

21 Although the site of Koxare Koulé, spanning the LM III-Roman periods, is quite sizeable by C–A (J. A. Moody pers. comm.).

22 Rocchetti, L. (ed.), Sybrita: la vaUe di Amari fra bronzo e ferro: Ricerche gréco-italiane in creta occidentale II (Incunabula Graeca, 96; Rome, 1994)Google Scholar; Hood, S., Warren, P. M. and Cadogan, G., ‘Travels in Crete, 1962’, BSA 59 (1964), 70–1Google Scholar; Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 197–9.

23 Among the few sizeable central Cretan sites abandoned after the 12th/early 11th c. are one at Kastrokefala Almyrou and another just north of Mires. See Platakis, E., ‘Yστερομινοϊκά-υ̍πομινοϊκά κτίσματα εις Καστροκεφάλα ̔Αλμυρο̃υ ̔ Ηράκλειου’, Kr. Chron. 22 (1970), 511–14Google Scholar; Alexiou, S., ‘Chronika’, A. Delt. 29, B3 (1973–1974)Google Scholar, Chr. 900–1; Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 42–4; and pers. comm. Others must exist, but are probably much fewer here than in other regions of the island. The high number of sites in this region which continued through the PG–A period must have meant that opportunities for expansion quickly became limited: the long-lasting inter-polity conflicts known from the Archaic–Classical periods may have started early here.

24 See Gesell, G. C., Day, L. P. and Coulson, W. D. E., 1985, ‘Kavousi 1982–1983: the Kastro’, Hesp., 54 (1985), 327–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coulson, W. D. E., ‘The Early Iron Age on the Kastro at Kavousi in east Crete’, in Cavanagh, W. G. and Curtis, M. (eds), Post-Minoan Crete (London, 1998), 40–5Google Scholar; Hall, E., ‘Excavations in eastern Crete: Vrokastro’ (University of Pennsylvania, The Museum Anthropological Publications, 3; Philadelphia, 1914), 79–185 Google Scholar; Hood et al. (n. 22), 84; A. S. Vasilakis, ‘Ανασκαφαί πρωτογεωμετρικού οικιομού στη Γρία Βίγλα Πιγαϊδακιών—Πόμπιας Καινουργίου’, in Πεπραγμένα Η ´, 71–82; Chatzi-Vallianou, D., ‘ Σμάρι Πεδιάδας: ἕνα άπομονομένο κέντρο ῾Yστερομινοϊκοῦ—Πρωτοελληνικοῦ πολιτισμοῡ στὴν Κρήτη’,, AAA 13 (1980), 20–60 Google Scholar; ead., ‘‘Σμάρἰ,’, A. Delt. 44 (1989)Google Scholar, Chr. 441–7; Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 103–5, 135–6, 139, 216–17. In the northern Lasithi foothills, PG–A defensible settlements (Krasi Kastello, Kera Kastello) replaced similarly sized LM III C settlements at Krasi Siderokefala and Krasi Armi, and were undoubtedly related politically to the nucleated settlement at Papoura, which had replaced Karfi. They may have functioned partly as economic satellites, but their citadel-type locations suggest they had a role similar to the other sites mentioned above. See Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 152–70; Watrous, L.V., ‘J. D. S. Pendlebury's excavations in the plain of Lasithi. The Iron Age sites’, BSA 75 (1980), 269–83Google Scholar.

25 Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 247.

26 In fact, the spread of really small, non-defensible rural or satellite settlement in many regions of Crete from the Archaic period onwards seems to demonstrate the opposite: that dispersed setdement only properly grew up after the establishment of a secure framework of political integration.

27 See Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 55–6.

28 In this case, the main nucleation seems to have been Oleros (earliest date of occupation unclear, but probably not before Classical), in the inland Meseleroi valley, from which Vrokastro is not visible. The same area sees, from Archaic onwards, the appearance of a number of fairly defensible ridgetop settlements of moderate size, a phenomenon probably connected with the desertion of Vrokastro. The late development of a single large settlement focus contrasts with the pattern seen in many odier areas. See Hayden, B., ‘Rural settlement of the Orientalising through Early Classical period: the Meseleroi Valley, eastern Crete’, Aegean Archaeology, 2 (1995), 93–144 Google Scholar.

29 Snodgrass (n. 2), 8. While the widespread movement to defensible sites in Crete and the Cyclades c. 1200 BC does seem best explained by a context of insecurity (including, according to Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), piracy and/or seaborne warfare), the establishment/continued use of defensible settlements in PG–A can be less easily explained in this way, since it constitutes a much more limited phenomenon. Many of the major PG–A nucleations actually had quite defensible locations, and by means of their size could have operated a different kind of defensive strategy. As I have tried to show, the main change of settlement priorities (which did probably reflect a lessening of threat) took place in the PG period; the very selective continuing use of defensible sites through to Archaic must relate to several different factors, of which physical threat was only one.

30 Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 64–7, 73–8, 113, 123, 201–4, 204–6; J. A. Moody pers. comm.

31 Bender notes that among the people of Santa Clara in eastern Peru, there exist ‘mental maps’ of gardens and fields which, although now re-used in various ways, have their original associations preserved through oral traditions with a strongly kin-based structure. See Bender, B., ‘Subverting the Western gaze: mapping alternative worlds’, in Ucko, P. J. and Layton, R., The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: Shaping your Landscape (London, 1990), 31–45 Google Scholar.

32 K. Paschalidis, Στοιχεία μυκηναϊκού χαρακτήρα στην Ανατολική Κρήτη κατά το τέλος της εποχής του Χαλκού; Νεα μέγαρα στο Χαλασμένο Ιεράπετρας’, in Πεπραγμένα Θ ´; Coulson, W. and Tsipopoulou, M., ‘Preliminary investigations at Halasmenos, Crete, 1992–1993’, Aegean Archaeology, I (1994), 65–98 Google Scholar.

33 On feasting as a form of competitive display and social bonding at intra-and inter-community level in EIA Crete (prefiguring the syssitia of the Classical Cretan polis), see J. B. Carter, ‘Thiasos and marzeaḩ: ‘Ancestor cult in the age of Homer’, in Langdon, S. (ed.), New Light on a Dark Age: Exploring the Culture of Geometric Greece (Columbia, Mo., 1997), 9–43 Google Scholar; D'Agata, A. L., ‘Ritual and rubbish in Dark Age Crete. The settlement of Thronos Kefala (ancient Sybrita) and the pre-Classical roots of a Greek city’, Aegean Archaeology, 4 (1997), 45–61 Google Scholar. There is also evidence of PG–G material, in very mixed dump-like deposits, in an area of what seems to have been open space in the centre of the LM III C settlement of Monastiraki Chalasmeno. This, too, could represent periodic feasting activity at the site (as with the re-use of the ‘megara’, the material does not include obvious cult-related elements). What was probably a built tomb of PG–G date cut an LM III C building in the same area; this feature has an obvious parallel at Kavousi Vronda, discussed below.

34 M L. P. Day, ‘The Geometric cemetery at Vronda, Kavousi’, in Πεπραγμένα Ζ′, 789–97. The earliest burials in this cemetery seem to belong to latest PGB/early G (late 9th/early 8th c. BC). Day notes that other types of burial (in tholoi and chamber tombs) were used at the same period around the nearby setdement of Kastro. The contrast would seem to support the notion of deliberate self-distinction on the part of the group living at the latter ‘citadel’-type site.

35 See Haggis (n. 7).

36 J. Barrett, ‘Chronologies of landscape’, in Ucko and Layton (n. 31), 20–30; id., ‘The mythical landscapes of the British Iron Age’, in W. Ashmore and A. B. Knapp (eds), Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives (Oxford, 1999), 253–69; T. Darvill, ‘The historic environment, historic landscapes, and space-time-action models in landscape archaeology’, in Ucko and Layton (n. 31), 104–16; P. van Dommelen, ‘Exploring everyday places and cosmologies’, in Ashmore and Knapp, 277–86.

37 See Bourdieu, P., Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 For example, see Morris 1987 (n. 2), 89–92; Polignac (n. 4); Morgan (n. 5). Of course, Cretan cult practice also developed over the course of the EIA, so that Cretan public sanctuaries of the 8th c. shared new functions with their mainland counterparts. Increased metals deposition at cult sites from at least the 9th c. onwards suggests the growing displacement of competitive display onto a depersonalized plane. See Boardman, J., The Cretan Collection in Oxford. The Dictaean Cave and Iron Age Crete (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar; Lembessi, A.,Το ιεπό του Ερμή και της Αφροδίτης στη Σύμη Βιάννου, Ι: Χάλκινα κρητικά τορέματα (Βιβλιοθήκη της εν Αθηναις Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας, 102; Athens, 1985)Google Scholar; Sakellarakis, I., ‘Some Geometric and Archaic votives from the Idaean Cave’, in Hagg, R., Marinatos, N., and Nordquist, G. C. (eds), Early Greek Cult Practice (Stockholm, 1988), 173–93Google Scholar; Hoffmann, G., Imports and Immigrants: Near Eastern Contacts with Iron Age Crete (Ann Arbor, 1997), 24–38, 53–65, 109–36, 147–8, 153–89Google Scholar; Watrous, L. V., The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro. A Study of Extra-Urban Sanctuaries in Minoan and Early Iron Age Crete (Aegaeum, 15; Liège, 1996), 65–70 Google Scholar.

39 Day, L. P., Coulson, W. D. E. and Gesell, G. C., ‘Kavousi, 1983–1984: the settlement at Vronda’, Hesperia 55 (1986), 355–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Tsipopoulou, ‘Discovery of a shrine at Chalasmenos’, in L. P. Day, J. D. Muhly and M. S. M. Mook (eds), Crete 2000. Proceedings of a conference held al the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 11–12 July 2000 (forthcoming); Rutkowski, B., ‘The temple at Karphi’, SMFA 26 (1987), 257–80Google Scholar; Eliopoulos, T., ‘A preliminary report on the discovery of a temple complex of the Dark Age at Kefala Vasiliki’, in Karageorghis, V. and Stampolidis, N. C. (eds), Eastern Mediterranean: Cyprus-Dodeamese-Crete, 16th–6th cent. BC. (Athens, 1998), 301–3Google Scholar.

40 Many aspects of 12th–10th c. public cult had parallels in LM III A–B, but there were fundamental differences in the wider context of cult activity. See Boardman (n. 38); Watrous (n. 38), 101–11; V. Sakellarakis, Ανασκαφαί στο Ιδαίο ′Αντρο’, PAE (1983), 415–500; ‘Εκατό χρόνια έρευνας στο Ιδαίο ´Αντρο’, AE 126 (1987), 239–63Google Scholar; Alexiou, S., “‘ ‘Τσόυτσουρος’ ’, in ‘Αρχαιόητες καὶ μνημεῖα (Νομοὶ Ἡρακλείου καὶ Λασιθίου): σκαφικαὶ ἔρευναι καὶ περισυλλογαί ἄρχαιοτήτων’’’’’’ , A. Delt. 18 (1963)Google Scholar, Chr. 310–11; Schäfer, J., ‘Das Problem der Kultkontinuität im Falle des Heiligtums des Zeus Thenatas’, in Musti, D. et al. (eds), La transizione dal miceneo all'alto arcaismo: dal palazzo alia città. Atti del Convegno Intenazionale, Roma, 14–19 Marzo 1988 (Rome, 1991), 349–59Google Scholar; Schäfer, J. et al. Amnisos (Berlin, 1992)Google Scholar; Lembessi (n. 38); A. Kanta, ‘Cult, continuity and the evidence of pottery at the sanctuary of Syme Viannou, Crete’, in Musti et al., 479–505.

41 It is important to note that most of the cult sites mentioned had seen very long-term use during the Bronze Age (continuing after major periods of sociopolitical or economic destruction like that at the end of LM I B). The distinctive landscape character of some of these places, as well as their weight of historical associations, must partly explain their very long-term use, and thus this does not alone constitute decisive evidence for deliberate reference to the past as a means of constructing and consolidating identity in the EIA. However, it may be that the continued use of these sanctuaries through earlier periods of hiatus in sociopolitical organization during the Bronze Age had a partly similar kind of meaning.

42 Alexiou, S., ‘Ιερὸν παρὰ τὸ Καβοῡαι ῾Ιεράπετρας’,, Kr. Chron. 10 (1956), 7–19 Google Scholar; Faure, P., ‘Nouvelles recherches sur trois sortes de sanctuaires crétois’, BCH 91 (1967), 122, 129 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sakellarakis, J., ‘Τὸ μινοϊκὸν ὀρεινὸν ἱερὸν τοῦ Θύλακα’, AAA 3 (1972), 252–9Google Scholar; Watrous (n. 38), 104; Mazarakis-Ainian (n. 5), 212.

43 A. L. D'Agata, ‘Changing patterns in a Minoan and post-Minoan sanctuary: the case of Ayia Triada’, in Cavanagh and Curtis (n. 24), 19–26. For a brief commentary on the meaning of the re-uses discussed in the following section, see L. Nixon, ‘Minoan settlements and Greek sanctuaries’, in Πεπραγυένα ΣΤ´ 59–67.

44 Morgan, C. M., Isthmia VIII. The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary (Princeton, 1999)Google Scholar. However, there is no monumental LBA architecture here to act as a re-use focus, and there seems likely to have been settlement on the site right up until the PG period, making it a rather different case from those cited here. Morgan's argument against the notion that the cult activity at Isthmia makes deliberate reference to the LBA past of the site is based on the following grounds: (a) she expects a focus on specific monumental pieces of LBA architecture; (b) she states that such references are usually confined to the mortuary sphere; (c) she argues they rarely occur before the 8th c. BC. The present analysis for Crete shows neither an 8th c. starting or take-off point for symbolic references to the past, nor their restriction to the mortuary sphere. While the BA remains re-used at Ayia Triada are of monumental type, those at Kommos and Palaikastro (see below) are not. It seems that, in Crete at least, we are dealing with a rather broader range of symbolic references to the past than Morgan suggests in excluding Isthmia from this category of meaning (see the end of this paper for further comment on the mainland). Morgan's discussion of other LBA mainland sites used for EIA cult beautifully outlines the difficulties of separating accidental/pragmatic from symbolic re-use (ibid., 245–96, 376–86). She recognizes the need to allow for great selectivity over which elements of a site's past were symbolically referred to, and for the existence of different symbolic systems operating contemporaneously at various spatial and political scales. The overall impression from this analysis is that some deliberate reference to the past in the sphere of cult was occurring in central Greek areas by PG.

45 Shaw, J. Shaw, M., ‘Phoenicians in southern Crete’, AJA 93 (1989), 165–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Negbi, O., ‘Early Phoenician presence in the Mediterranean islands: a reappraisal’, AJA 96 (1992), 599–615 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , J. and Shaw, M., Kommos: an Excavation on the South Coast of Crete by the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum under the Auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, iv: The Greek Sanctuary (Princeton, 2000)Google Scholar.

46 Bosanquet, R. D., ‘Excavations at Palaikastro IV. The temple of Diktaean Zeus’, BSA 11 (1904–1905), 298–308 Google Scholar; id., ‘Dikte and the temples of Diktaean Zeus’, BSA 40 (1945), 60-77; M. Prent and S. M. Thome, ‘The sanctuary of Diktaean Zeus at Palaikastro: a re-examination of the excavations by the British School in 1902–1906’, in Πεπραγμένα Η ´, 169–79. The groups originally interacting here could have come from any of the sites of Itanos, Lithines Adromyloi Anginares, Sfakia Kastri and Praisos; see Greco, E. et al. ‘Travaux menes en collaboration avec l'Ecole française en 1998’, BCH 123 (1999), 515–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D. Viviers, ‘Transformation de la structure urbaine d'une cité cretoise à l'époque archaīque: à propos du secteur de la Nécropole Nord d'ltanos’, in Πεπραγμένα Θ´ for Itanos; Nowicki 2000 (n. 7), 218 for Lithines.

47 D. Chatzi-Vallianou, ‘Η λάτρεία της Αθήνας στην Ακρόπολη Σμαριού’, in Πεπραγμένα Η′, 505–37. The building lies inside the impressive wall surrounding the summit and covers part of the LM III C–G deposits–perhaps even adapting a Geometric building. The many unusual aspects of the evidence from Smari in the Geometric period make it unclear whether it should be classed as a full residential settlement for a segmentary group, of the type already discussed, or already as a place used only for ritual or feasting by inhabitants of other settlements, marked out by its highly visible position, its few structures (of large ‘megaron’ type), and its wall.

48 Chatzi-Vallianou (n. 47) 519, notes evidence for an Archaic and later settlement in the valley below the Smari hill, on die site of the modern village, but this is not sizeable enough by comparison with contemporary sites at nearby Lyttos and Maza to suggest (on the pattern of Gortyn) that the temple on the hill was a civic shrine for an immediately adjacent polis. In Archaic Paros, D. U. Schilardi, ‘The temple of Athena at Koukounaries’, in Hagg et al. (n. 38), 41–50, notes the duplication of cults of Athena both within the main polis setdement and out in the territory, on the abandoned EIA site of Koukounaries. The polis cult is of Athena Polias, and he suggests that the Athena worshipped at Koukounaries and at other territorial temples of Archaic date had the same attribution, which would have connected such shrines overtly to the polis unit. It is possible that a similar case existed at Lyttos and Smari.

49 On the role of cult places as territorial boundary markers for the expanding poleis in C–H Crete, see van Effenterre, H. and Bougrat, M., ‘Les frontieres de Lato’, Kr. Chon. 21 (1969), 9–53 Google Scholar.

50 Schilardi n. 48; Cambitoglou, A., Birchall, A., Coulton, J. J. and Green, J. R., Zagara 2: Excavation of a Geometric Town on the Island of Andros (Athens, 1998), 167–78Google Scholar; Boardman, J., Excavations in Chios, 1952–55. Greek Emporio (BSA supp. vol. 6; London, 1967)Google Scholar. A paper by A. Mazarakis-Ainian (‘Early Greek temples: their origin and function’, in Hagg et al. (n. 38), 105–19) tries to bring together these sites and others in a discussion of changes in cult buildings and their sociopolitical role over the course of the EIA. For the present discussion, the distinctions it makes between G–A temples established just within the lifetime of a settlement and those built after abandonment, those built as new architectural foundations and those reusing an earlier sacred area, seem less relevant than the fact that all represent (together with the some of the other examples I have discussed for Crete) a new, much more focused or limited use of what had until then been a general setdement area, starting at around the same time as the consolidation of large-scale political and religious institutions based off the site.

51 The pits contained pottery and burnt organic remains, including many animal bones. See N. Prokopiou, ‘Sybrita Amariou: first indications for a new LM III C site’, in Musti et al. (n. 40), 371–400; ead., ‘Late Minoan III pottery from the Greek–Italian Excavations at Sybritos Amariou’, in Hallager, E. and Hallager, B. P. (eds), Late Minoan III Pottery Chronology and Terminology: Acts of a Meeting Held at the Danish Institute at Athens, August 12–14, 1994 (Danish Institute at Athens Monograph 4; Aarhus, 1997), 371–401 Google Scholar; Rocchetti, L. et al. , ‘Missione greco-italiana a Sybrita, campagne di scavo 1993 e 1994’, SMEA 34 (1994), 141–2Google Scholar; iid., ‘Missione greco-italiana a Sybrita, campagne di scavo 1995’, SMEA 36 (1995), 147–8; L. Rocchetti, ‘Scavi greco-italiani a Sybrita’, in Πεπραγμένα Η′, 811–14; A. L. D'Agata, ‘Excavations of the pre-classical settlement of Thronos Kefala (ancient Sybrita); exploring the social identity of a Cretan community throughout the Dark Age’, in Πεπραγμένα Θ′ ead. 1997 (n. 33); ead., ‘Public versus domestic? A Geometric monument building at Thronos/Kefala Amariou (Ancient Sybrita)’, in Πεπραγμένα Η′, 327–41.

52 D'Agata (n. 51) points out that the nature of the ritual seems to have changed between period of the use of the pits and that of the use of the building—from the preparation and consumption of ritual meals to their consumption only, associating this change with the development of a more institutionalized, larger-scale practice.

53 There is evidence for the existence of a 12th c. cult place somewhere within the settlement, and the use of the area may even have become substantially focused on cult at some point within the PG period (in view of the large number of PG–G figurines published from the site). See Watrous (n. 38), 102.

54 N. Allegro, ‘Gortina; l'abitato geometrico di Profitis Ilias’, in Musti et al. (n. 40); A. Di Vita, ‘Gortina in etá geometrica,’ in ibid., 309–21.

55 Rizza, G. and Scrinari, V. S. M., Il santuario sull'acropoli di Gortina, i (Rome, 1968)Google Scholar. Construction of a massive stone altar took place outside the temple building somewhere in the A–C period.

56 Settlement layout changed considerably at Gortyn in the Archaic and later periods, becoming mostly focused on the plain. The use of the Acropolis for cult may have had much to do with the wish to place the temple on a high point above the rest of the settlement. This position probably had its own symbolism, apart from any connection to the material past. See Schilardi (n. 48). Given the context discussed here, it seems likely that the two kinds of symbolism could have overlapped (perhaps also illustrated by the case of Prinias).

57 Pernier, L., ‘Templi arcaici sulla Patella di Prinias’, ASAtene 1 (1914), 18–111 Google Scholar; id., ‘New elements for the study of the Archaic temple at Prinias’, AJA 38 (1934), 171–7; S. Alexiou, ‘Μικραί ανασκαφαί και περισυλλογοί αρχαιοτήτων’, PAE (1968), 184–5. Along with 12th to 11th c. settlement material, wheelmade goddess figurine fragments and snake tubes, typical of I.M III C shrines, were found very near to the temple area. See Gesell, G. C., ‘The Minoan snake tubes: a survey and catalogue’, AJA 80 (1976), 253 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ead., Town, Palace and House Cult in Minoan Crete (SIMA 67; Göteborg, 1985), 46 Google Scholar; G. Rizza, ‘La città arcaica sulla Patela’, in Musti et al. (n. 40), 342; id., ‘Scavi e ricerche a Prinias dal 1992 al 1996’, in Πεπραγμένα Η′, 158.

58 Rizza, G. and Rizzo, O., ‘Prinias’, in Ancient Crete: A Hundred Years of Italian Archaeology: 1884–1984 (Italian School of Archaeology of Athens; Rome, 1984), 227–56Google Scholar; Rizza, G., ‘Prinias nelle fasi geometrica e orientalizzante’, AS Atene, 61 (1983), 45–51 Google Scholar.

59 G. Rizza, ‘Scavi e ricerche a Prinias dal 1987 al 1991’, in Πεπραγμένα Ζ′, 807–9.

60 Di Vita (n. 54); id., Gortina, I (Roma, 1998), 165–7.

61 Bosanquet, R. D., ‘Excavations at Praisos I’, BSA 8 (1901–1902), 231–70Google Scholar.

62 Evans, A. J., PM ii (London, 1928), 5–7 Google Scholar (see Evans, A. J., ‘The palace of Knossos: the campaign of 1904’, BSA 10 (1903–1904), 51 Google Scholar, for the first published argument that non-re-use of the palatial remains indicates that a sacred status applied to them during the EIA); Callaghan, P., ‘Excavations at a shrine of Glaukos, Knossos’, BSA 73 (1978), 1–30 Google Scholar; Coldstream, J. N., ‘Evans's Greek finds: die early Greek town of Knossos, and its encroachment on the borders of the Minoan palace’, BSA 95 (2000), 259–301 Google Scholar; Pernier, L., ‘Lavori eseguiti a Festds dalla missione archeologica italiana’, Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale dei Linei 5th ser., 10 (1901), 262–7Google Scholar; Rosa, V. La, ‘Per la Festòs di età arcaica’, in Picozzi, M. G. and Carinci, F., Vicino Oriente, Egeo-Grecia, Roma e mondo romano: tradizione dell'antico e collezionismo di antichità: studi in memori di Lucia Guerrini (Rome, 1996), 68–87 Google Scholar. See also Cucuzza, N., ‘Considerazioni su alcuni culti nella Messarà di epoca storica e sui rapporti territoriali fra Festòs e Gortina’, in Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionak dei Lincei, 9th ser., 8 (1997), 63–93 Google Scholar. A small quantity of material of SM date was present in one room of die ‘Shrine of Glaukos’ building, which, as noted above, is in an area of the site generally without occupation deposits of this date (Callaghan, 1). There is thus at least a remote possibility that cult connected with reference to the BA past was established quite soon after die major disruptions in the organization of the setdement in die 12th c.

63 See Coldstream (n. 62) for a summary and discussion of this evidence.

64 Watrous (n. 38), 101, notes that the general avoidance of the areas, and their very restricted type of re-use, shows how radical a disjunction in sociopolitical organization had occurred at the end of the LBA. For him, the fact that the earliest EIA shrine in the area, the LM III C–PG Spring Chamber, was established at the edge of the palatial ruins marks the early date of this wholesale shift in meaning. This strong spatial distinction seems to enhance/extend the radier short chronological distance between the last period of use of the palace and the sanctuary's establishment. I shall return later to the question of die 12th c. as a structural turning-point, in which many aspects of EIA mentalités were rooted.

65 At Knossos, the other known civic sanctuary was positioned well away from, though overlooking, the palace remains. See Coldstream, J. N., Knossos: The Sanctuary of Demeter (BSA supp. 8; London, 1973)Google Scholar. It is worth noting that two drinking vessels of SM and PG date were found in a secondary deposit at this site, raising the (very slim) possibility of early cult practice here, as well as at the Glaukos shrine (P. Callaghan pers. comm.). At Phaistos, a possible G civic sanctuary is at Phalandra, 300 m W of the abandoned palace. There seems to have been another Archaic temple on the ‘Acropoli Mediana’, where a significant part of the LM III C–PG settlement had been located. This seems closely to parallel developments at Gortyn and Prinias. See La Rosa 1996 (n. 62), and (for LM III G-SM remains on the hill), Hayden (n. 13); Borgna, E., ‘Central Crete and the Mycenaeans at the close of the Late Bronze Age: the evidence of the “Acropoli Mediana” at Phaistos’, in πρατικά του Α ´ Διεθνού Διεπιστημονικού Συμποσίου, Λάμια1994. Η Περιφέρεια του Μυκηναϊκού Κόσμου (Athens, 1994), 353–70Google Scholar.

66 In examining the mortuary record, these criteria are some of the most commonly used to identify lineage as one basic social or status division. See Wason, P., The Archaeology of Rank (Cambridge, 1994), 98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Morris, I., 1986, ‘Gift and commodity in Archaic Greece’, Man (ns.) 21 (1986), 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., 1987 (n. 2); Whitley 1991 a (n. 2), Social diversity…; Wallace 2001 (n. 14); Qyiller 1981 (n. 2); J. Crielaard, ‘Surfing the Mediterranean web: Cypriot long-distance communications during the eleventh and tenth centuries BC.’, in Karageorghis and Stampolidis (n. 39). 187–207.

68 Haggis (n. 7).

69 Whidey, J. A., ‘Style, Burial and Society in Dark Age Greece: Social, Stylistic and Mortuary Change in the two communities of Athens and Knossos between 1100–700 BC.’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1986), 275–7Google Scholar; Coldstream, J. N. and Catling, H. W., Knossos North Cemetery: Early Greek Tombs (London, 1996)Google Scholar; A. Di Vita, ‘Gortina in età geometrica’, in Musti et al. (n. 40), 317; Coldstream, J. N., Geometric Greece (London, 1979), 48–9Google Scholar; A. J. Evans, contributions to The Academy, 20 June 1892, 513, 4 July 1896, 18; Gesell, G. C., Day, L. P. and Coulson, W. D. E., ‘Excavations and survey at Kavousi, 1978–1981’, Hesp. 52 (1983), 410–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Davaras, C., ‘ ̓Αρχαιότητες καὶ μνημεῖα τῆς κεντρικῆς καὶ άνατολικῆς Κρήτης’, A. Delt. 27 (1972)Google Scholar, Chr. 650–1; M. Tsipopoulou, ‘Phatsi Droggara: Un dépôt de céramique de la fin de l'Âge du Bronze et du début de l'Âge du Fer provenant de Crète orientale’, in Driessen and Farnoux (n. 16), 455–84; Coldstreara and Catling (n. 69). Phatsi seems to have been the cemetery for an I.M III C–A/C defensible site at Chamaizi Liopetra.

71 Gesell el al. (n. 69); Halbherr, F., ‘Three Cretan necropoleis; report on the researches at Erganos, Panaghia, and Courtes’, AJA 5 (1901), 271–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I have already discussed the significance of burial patterns at post-abandonment Kavousi Vronda. At Erganos the situation may be very similar, with people living at the established large nucleation of Arkades (Afrati Profitis Elias) going back to use tombs near the highly visible and historically important settlement of Erganos Kefali, in order to claim an identity with the regional past. The very limited later finds in the tombs suggest that these were a few very deliberate, specific actions (along the lines described below for the re-use of Bronze Age tombs in Geometric Crete)–not a wholesale, convenience-orientated re-use of a cemetery.

72 See Coldstream and Catling (n. 69); Rizza and Rizzo (n. 58), 152; Rizza 1991 (n. 57), 334–5. At Prinias, tombs of the EIA were constantly cut, recut and built over each other within a confined area. Clear examples of re-use of the same tomb after a gap seem rare here (although the site is largely unpublished). However, the building of an LG enclosure with cremations against a large PG tholos seems to have been in a similar vein—a deliberate, chosen, rather than accidental or convenient, re-use of an old funerary monument. The use of an enclosure—a building-like complex containing numerous cremations—is paralleled elsewhere in Geometric Crete, e.g. at Vrokastro, Eleutherna, and Prinias. The re-use of the Vronda settlement for cist graves seems to be a variation on it, combining contemporary forms of mortuary practice with reference to the past. See E. Hall (n. 24); Rizza and Rizzo (n. 58); Stampolidis, N., ‘Eleutherna on Crete: an interim report on the Geometric-Archaic cemetery’, BSA 85 (1990), 375–40Google Scholar.

73 Hutchinson, R. W., ‘A tholos tomb on the Kephala’, BSA 51 (1956), 74–81 Google Scholar; Cadogan, G., ‘Late Minoan III C pottery from the Kephala tholos tomb near Knossos’, BSA 62 (1968), 257–65Google Scholar. Results of a recent restudy of the Kefala tomb material by Preston suggest that the tomb was used for at least one burial in the PG period (Preston, pers. comm).

74 Evans, A. J., ‘The prehistoric tombs of Knossos. I. The cemetery of Zafer Papoura. II. The royal tomb of Isopata’, Archeologia, 59 (1906), 140–1Google Scholar. See Tsipopoulou, M. and Vagnetti, L., Achladia: Scavi e ricerche della Missione greco-italiana in Creta orientale (1991–1993) (Rome, 1995), 99 Google Scholar.

75 Hood, M. S. F. and Coldstream, J. N., ‘A Late Minoan tomb at Ayios Ioannis near Knossos’, BSA 63 (1968), 206–18Google Scholar.

76 Coldstream and Catling (n. 69), 718–19; J. N. Coldstream, ‘Minos Redivivus: some nostalgic Knossians of the ninth century BC (a summary)’, in Cavanagh and Curtis (n. 24), 58–61; id., ‘Knossos: Minoan larnakes found in Early Iron Age contexts’, in Πεπράγμενα Η ´, 271-83. Coldstream suggests that the positioning of the larnakes in niches in the dromoi (where child burials were often placed), the association of one with the remains of a child, and the scaled-down character of a 9th c. imitation larnax deposited in another tomb, mean their EIA use was mostly connected with infant mortuary ritual. The practice is likely to represent a form of conspicuous consumption of a limited quantity of old (and therefore valued) artefacts, rather than a direct claim of ancestral associations with the original users of the tombs or artefacts, since it occurs fairly suddenly, in a group of tombs all close to each other. However, deliberate association with elements of the local past would have been an effective way to enhance lineage standing, at a period when this was becoming increasingly important.

77 There may be a link in meaning between the re-use, or in some cases imitation, of Minoan larnakes in the North Cemetery (see n. 76) and the reshaping of—i.e. deliberate physical reference to—an in situ LM larnax during the G reuse of LM Tomb 17 (among others) at Mavrospelio (see below). The fact that physical reference to the same type of earlier artefact appears on two separate areas of the Knossos site during the later EIA suggests the practice had a recognised and fairly well-established social meaning (the practice of reusing or imitating LM larnakes in the North Cemetery lasted from the late 9th to the 7th c).

78 See Coldstream and Catling (n. 69), 718–19, Coldstream (n. 76); id., ‘Urns with lids: the visible face of the Knossian “Dark Age”’, in Evely, D., Hughes-Brock, H. and Momigliano, N., Knossos: A Labyrinth of History. Studies in Honour of Sinclair Hood (Oxford, 1994), 105–22Google Scholar; id., ‘Some Minoan reflections in Cretan Geometric art’, in J. H. Betts, J. R. Green, and J. T. Hooker (eds), Studies in Honour of T. B. L. Webster, ii (Bristol, 1988), 23–32.

79 Coldstream and Catling (n. 69), 718–19. The attempt to make this kind of distinction in meaning between various types of re-use at various periods is very much in line with the aim of the present paper, and with Whitley's recent recommendation to distinguish more clearly between perceptions by societies of their pasts as ‘alien’ (to be referred to only in very specific, symbolic ways) and references to a continuous direct ancestral line, or something perceived as such. See Whitley, J., ‘Too many ancestors’, Antiquity, 76 (2002), 119–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An understanding of broader context is crucial in identifying such nuances, however, and the Coldstream and Catling account makes no reference to evidence from outside Knossos to support the meanings it attributes to cultural practices in the two different periods. Taking the other evidence I have presented here into consideration, I would find it difficult to argue that LM III C–SM Knossians had a very different agenda from those of the 9th c. in their re-use of old tombs; the fact that not everybody was able to do this, and that one of the re-use burials (at Ayios Ioannis) was clearly of high status, suggests that the appropriation of the visible past was an élite activity at this period too, and that it helped in building and consolidating new identities in a period of great social and political change. As I have shown, although the same type of reference is not seen in the period between SM and PGB at Knossos, practices which are apparently parallel in meaning occur elsewhere at this time, and the continuous use of tombs at Knossos between SM and PGB shows a concern with perpetuating these newly established identities. What happened in the 9th c. did constitute some kind of a change: references to the past in mortuary practice became more elaborate and diverse, as well as more widespread, than those of the 12th and 11th cc. The new establishment of a number of long-lived tombs, with their earliest deposits seeming to make reference to the BA past, suggests a need to better root and define the status of extended kin units within an increasingly complex political structure.

80 L. Sjögren(n. 2); ead., ‘Early Archaic and Archaic activities at Minoan archaeological sites’, in Πεπραγμένα Θ ´; D. Lefèvre-Novaro, ‘Les offrandes du VIIIe–VIIe siècle av. J.C. déposeés dans la grande tombe de Kamilari (Messará)’, in Πεπραγμένα Θ´.

81 As Morris notes, these mostly 8th c. activities were fore shadowed by actions like the use of a large building as a burial monument for an elite couple at 10th c. Lefkandi. In this case, the monument had a highly visible form, perpetuated and altered by succeeding generations through the creation of a tumulus. See Catling, R. W. V. and Lemos, I. S., Lefkandi II: The Protogeometric Building at Toumba. Part I: The pottery (BSA supp. vol. 22; London, 1990 Google Scholar); Popham, M. R., Calligas, P. G. and Sackett, L. H., with Coulton, J. J. and Catling, H. W., Lefkandi II: The Protogeometric Building at Toumba. Part 2. The Excavation, Architecture and Finds (BSA supp. vol. 23; London, 1993 Google Scholar); Morris 2000 (n. 4), 218–38.

82 Soles, J., ‘Reverence for dead ancestors: four cases from the Minoan, Mycenaean and Greek Dark Ages’, in Potnia: divinités et religion en Égée à l'Age du Bronze (Liège, forthcoming); Sjögren 2001 (n. 80)Google Scholar.

83 Lefèvre-Novaro (n. 80).

84 Tsipopoulou and Vagnetti (n. 74), 125.

85 Forsdyke, E. J., ‘The Mavro Spelio cemetery at Knossos’, BSA 28 (1926–1927), 243–97Google Scholar; Hartley, M., ‘Early Greek vases from Crete’, BSA 31 (1930–1931), 56–115 Google Scholar.

86 Davaras, C., ‘‘Πρωτομινωϊκὸν νεκροταφεῖο Αγίας Φωτιάς Σιτείας’’, AAA 4 (1971), 396 Google Scholar.

87 Coldstream (n. 4), 13–14; Snodgrass (n. 4), 111.

88 V. Lambrinoudakis, ‘Veneration of ancestors in Geometric Naxos’, in Hägg et al. (n. 38), 235–46; V. Lambrinoudakis and O. Philaniotou-Hadjianastasiou, ‘The town of Naxos at the end of the Late Bronze Age; the Mycenaean fortification wall’, in Karageorghis and Morris (n. 7), 157–71.

89 Bosanquet, R. D., ‘Inscriptions from Praesos’, BSA 16 (1910), 281–9Google Scholar; Duhoux, Y., L'Étéocrétois. Les textes, la langue (Amsterdam, 1982 Google Scholar); Hall, J. M., Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge, 1997), 177–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whidey, J., ‘Cretan laws and Cretan literacy’, AJA 101 (1997), 635–61Google Scholar; id., ‘From Minoans to Eteocretans: the Praisos region 1200–500 BC’, in Cavanagh and Curtis (n. 24), 25–39.

90 Whitley 1997 (n. 89).

91 Hom. Od. xix. 176; Hdt. vii. 170–1 (the latter does not refer directly to Eteocretans, but to an old Cretan group surviving at Praisos in the post-Trojan War period). The latest reference is in Strabo, to Praisos and the ‘southern part’ of Crete as occupied by Eteocretans. (Strab. x. 4. 6).

92 Strab. x. 4. 13; x. 4. 16, citing Ephorus.

93 de Polignac (n. 4), 143–9, shows the importance of foundation myths—often centred around a particular individual—in creating and maintaining the ideological structure of the polis. However, broader (regional) frameworks of allegiance, linked to more generalized genealogical origins, seem more characteristic of the Cretan poleis. Distinction of one polity from the others around it (necessary in a context of so many contemporaneously-expanding units) was made in a different way, through reference to material aspects of the local past. The semi-monarchical figure of the hero-founder seems to have been unnecessary in the context of stable social institutions arising early in the Cretan EIA. Indeed, over-concern with individual ancestries might potentially have held back the construction and acceptance of unifying foundation myths.

94 M. Parker Pearson et al., ‘Ancestors, forests and ancient settlements: Tandroy readings of the archaeological past’, in Ucko and Layton (n. 31), 397–410. For the Andriamañare group, it is noted (409): ‘Perhaps one of their most important resources is the past, in terms of defining genealogical distance from other clans, access to certain land, control of certain sacred forests, and access to the blessings of the most powerful ancestors.’

95 In the Tandroy case, where migrations of people had recently taken place into a region, ‘ancestral“ claims to sites were based on the identity of the groups who first used them after the migration period, not their original builders or users, who often belonged to a different tribe altogether. The making of these ancestral claims was crucial in gaining political legitimacy in the region. In the Cretan EIA, where considerable cross-regional movement of people had taken place in the 12th c. it seems to have mattered little what die original links of the Palaikastro settlement, or the Mochlos or Kamilari tombs, were: they were appropriated in the EIA by the inhabitants of their local areas. In a similar way, the large shared regional sanctuaries were reappropriated by greatly changed communities.

96 Bérard (n. 4), 96, notes the conflation of EIA and LBA pasts in the development of hero cult in mainland Greece: the Homeric epics show examples of the same conflation. It thus seems unwise to reconstruct too absolute a distinction in meaning between the appropriation of LBA and of early EIA material remains, a point which the Cretan data illustrate best of all. Additionally, whatever the date of the remains being culturally referred to, it seems wrong to assume that a real or even a perceived direct line of descent was ever the main focus of concern. Whitley (n. 79) argues that recognition of, and reference to, real ancestors in ancient societies may have been rarer than is suggested in the literature. For the Greek EIA, he emphasizes the distant, alien character of the past apparently being referred to in tomb cult, for example. In PG–A Crete, we see regular elements of close identification with fairly recent (LM III C) traditions, as well more occasional, and perhaps more specialized, distanced reference to the BA past. However, litde evidence is seen in either case to show that the reference was to real or perceived direct ancestors, as opposed to very generic ones.

Thinking in existence about references to the past in ancient societies is often unimaginative because too loose (as Whitiey observes): it can also be unimaginative because too rigid. Discussion after the paper given by Sjogren in the 2001 Cretological Congress (n. 80) showed very inflexible structures of thinking about what could or could not constitute deliberate reference to the past; a strong but unfounded starting assumption that the BA only, and not the early EIA, constituted ‘the past’ referred to symbolically by G–A communities; and the consistent isolation of mortuary, cult, and settlement spheres from each other (the latter scarcely mentioned at all) in a way not conducive to greater under standing of EIA mentalities.

97 Whitley (n. 79), following others, notes that a substantial degree of reinterpretation often occurs in symbolic re-use, and that the practice only sometimes constitutes the respect–laden incorporation of aspects of a continuous, familiar and celebrated past into contemporary culture.

98 For example, by the residents of the continuing defensible citadels, which I have characterized as something like lineage bases subsumed within a wider community structure. Sjögren 2001 (n. 80) has noted a higher proportion of ‘personal’ votive types deposited at these extra-settlement cult sites than at other (settlement and territorial) ones through out the G—A period. From Archaic, this seems to rise even further, suggesting (perhaps as with the spread of smaller settlement from this time) that sociopolitical institutions were well enough established at the main nucleations, with their own ‘official’ civic temples and other forms of established, systematized political and economic infrastructure), to permit the less-attached, freer use of extra territorial or rural sites.

99 See Willetts, R., The Law Code of Gortyn (Kadmos Supp., 1; Berlin, 1967 CrossRefGoogle Scholar); id., The Civilization of Ancient Crete (London, 1977).

100 Bosanquet 1945 (n. 46); id. 1901–2 (n. 61); S. Marinatos, ‘Le temple géometrique de Dreros’, BCH 60 (1936), 214–84.

101 It will be noted that much of the evidence dealt with in this paper comes from the south central Crete/Mesara region, where the excavation, over the last 100 years, of three major PG–A settlements and contemporary cult sites, plus an intensive regional survey (in what is an exceptionally fertile and always well-settled part of the island), have combined to produce a database full of scope for cross-comparisons within and outside the region. The Prinias, Gortyn, and Phaistos material provides a richer base for interpretation, for example, than that so far excavated and published from Lato and Dreros. Strategic excavation of other polis sites in conjunction with regional surveys seems necessary to produce a more accurate general picture of the island between the PG and Archaic periods.

102 Morgan (n. 44), 376–7, discusses the problem. See Alcock's critique of Hutchinson's comment on Classical use of the Kefala tholos at Knossos ( Alcock, S., ‘Tomb cult and the post-Classical polis’, AJA 95 (1991), 450–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and assumptions like that of Coldstream (n. 4), 11, about accidental intrusion by a Geometric grave on a Middle Helladic burial at Eleusis, and an ‘apology’ for it in the form of a ritual deposit; even Polignac (n. 4), 141, suggests there is no symbolic meaning (although one actually seems quite likely) for the Geometric enclosure built around the Bronze Age tombs at the same site. Accidental intrusions on earlier sites must have occurred in the Geometric period, as in others, but it is difficult to believe those; in a structural context where the material past had a symbolic significance regularly referred to through burial ritual, accidental finds made during funerary activity would not be somehow appropriated into the same reference system. It seems wisest not to use accident as the explanation for re-use unless the circumstances appear very isolated or unusual in relation to the kind of broad patterns discussed here.

103 At a variety of scales (as discussed above).

104 Antonaccio (n. 4) gives examples of re-uses of BA tombs occurring between LH III C and Geometric; the rise of regional public sanctuaries (some on or near BA sites) was clearly underway by PG in some areas of central Greece.

105 See Morgan (n. 44), particularly 245–96; 376–86, for a detailed analysis.