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The Topography of Minoan Peak Sanctuaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

A. A. D. Peatfield
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Abstract

Minoan peak sanctuaries share certain topographic features. They are usually situated on or close to the summits of prominent mountains throughout Crete. Each peak sanctuary is closely associated with the surrounding settlement area, the relevant mountain being chosen for its domination of the local landscape. It is notable that the shrine sites are not always on the actual highest point of the massif, but on what appears to be the highest, most visible point from the valley below. Equally striking is the view from the sanctuary: it seems to have been important to be able to see the local settlements from the shrine itself. Significant too are the numbers of other peak sanctuaries visible from each site; perhaps this network united the country via a common peak sanctuary festival night (given the evidence for bonfires).

Accepting the close association between peak sanctuaries and settlements, it is argued that the apparent decline of those sanctuaries after LM I is a decline of numbers, not of cult importance. Evidence for this is quoted from the Iouktas shrine. Further, it is suggested that the ‘Mountain Mother’ sealing from Knossos was produced as a piece of religious propaganda to justify a change of rule there.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 78 , November 1983 , pp. 273 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1983

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References

This paper is adapted from a dissertation submitted to the University of London in 1980 as partial fulfilment of an M.A. degree in Aegean Archaeology. The dissertation was a study of Minoan peak sanctuaries based primarily on the published sources. My research is continuing with a doctoral thesis examining all available evidence for Minoan rural shrines; that is, peak sanctuaries, sacred enclosures, and cave shrines. I wish to thank the many archaeologists who have helped me; particularly I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor J. N. Coldstream, and to Professor Bogdan Rutkowski for their advice and encouragement. In addition I am grateful to my fellow student Christine Morris for reading through my script and for help with the distribution map.

1 Possible sites such as the Mycenaean shrine at Apollo Maleatas near Epidaurus or Troullos on Kea may strictly be classed as hill shrines, but they do not reflect the same cult system as the Minoan peak sanctuaries that I argue for here.

2 The first sites to be investigated and classed as peak sanctuaries were Petsopha, and Iouktas, , published respectively in BSA 9 (1902–1903) 356–87Google Scholar and PM 1 (1921) 153–9. Even Platon's general study in KrChron 5 (1951) 96–160 only identified eleven sites. Since 1956, however, Paul Faure's field-work has identified more than fifty possible peak sanctuaries. See BCH 80 (1956) 95–103; 82 (1958) 485–515; 84 (1960) 189–220; 86 (1962) 36–56; 87 (1963) 493–508; 89 (1965) 27–63; 91 (1967) 114–150; 93 (1969) 174–213; 96 (1972) 389–426; 102 (1978) 629–40. Faure's surveys have been followed up by the excavations of Davaras. The latter's excavations of many sites is complemented by Mrs. A. Karetsou's long-term excavation of Mt. Iouktas; see PAE (1974) onwards. Rutkowski's general study of peak sanctuaries, Cult Places in the Aegean World (1972) 152–88, came a little too early to include the work of Davaras and Karetsou. Nevertheless, his work provides a solid foundation for all future study of Minoan shrines; many of his conclusions have been confirmed by the later excavations.

3 Rutkowski, op. cit. 321–3.

4 In my thesis I shall reassess evidence for the claimed sites and from that produce a revised catalogue and distribution map. In the key to the map here I have asterisked the sites which I feel to be definite or probable peak sanctuaries.

5 Faure, , BCH 93 (1969) 174–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 96 (1972) 389–426 passim; Rutkowski, op. cit. 184–5.

6 Faure, , BCH 96 (1972) 402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Rutkowski, op. cit. 185.

8 Rutkowski, op. cit. 153–5.

9 Philippson, A., Das Klima Griechenlands (1948) 157 ff.Google Scholar

10 Platon, , Zakros (1971) 165.Google Scholar

11 Ibid. 167.

12 Faure, , BCH 91 (1967) 121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Davaras calls this site Prinias, but to avoid confusion with the Iron Age site in Central Crete, I shall follow Faure in referring to this site as Zou.

14 Blackman, and Branigan, , BSA 72 (1977) 13–84.Google Scholar

15 Bintliff, , Natural Environment and Human Settlement in Prehistoric Greece (British Archaeological Reports, Supplementary series 28, 1977) 145–70.Google Scholar

16 Ibid. 151.

17 The Ayiopharango model is an inspired idea. There is, however, reason to doubt the identification of the five hill sites as peak sanctuaries. My own arguments will be fully presented in my thesis, but briefly: the sites are chronologically too early; they are too low in relation to the high mountain walls of the narrow valley; there are no figurine finds; none of the hills is visible from any other. In consultation Professor Branigan has agreed that they do not fit the proposed definitions of Minoan peak sanctuaries, but insists that they must be shrines, perhaps some form of EM sacred enclosure.

18 Myres, , BSA 9 (1902–1903).Google Scholar

19 Modhi, : ADelt 27 (1972) B2 652Google Scholar; Traostalos, : KrChron 17 (1963) 405–6.Google Scholar

20 Karetsou, , PAE (1974) 228–39Google Scholar, (1976) 408–18, (1977) 417–42. (1978) 232–58, (1979) 280–1.

21 Karetsou, , PAE (1974) pl. 179c.Google Scholar

22 Karetsou, , PAE (1976) 408–18.Google Scholar

23 Those best substantiated are Petsopha, Traostalo Modhi, Pyrgos, Gonies, Kophinas, Vrysinas, and Iouktas.

24 Rutkowski, op. cit. 186.

25 Rutkowski, , ‘The Decline of the Minoan Peak Sanctuaries’, Atti e Memorie del I Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia (Rome 1967) i. 163–8.Google Scholar

26 Thera and the Aegean World (1978). In particular see the article by Cita and Ryan, ‘The Deep-Sea Record of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Last 150,000 Years’ 45–60. This amends the earlier arguments of Ninkovitch, and Heezon, , ‘Santorini Tephra: Submarine Geology and Geophysics’, Proc of the 17th Symposium, Colston Research Society (1965) 413–53.Google Scholar

27 Popham, , Antiquity (1974) 58.Google Scholar

28 Hood, , ‘Traces of the Eruption Outside Thera’, Thera and the Aegean World (1978) 681–90.Google Scholar

29 Popham, , BSA 75 (1980) 163 8.Google Scholar

30 Karetsou, , Ergon (1978) 62.Google Scholar

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Rutkowski, op. cit. (1972) 173.