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Three Neopalatial deposits from Palaikastro, East Crete1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

C. Knappett  and
T. F. Cunningham
C. Knappett
Affiliation:
University of Exeter, UK
T. F. Cunningham
Affiliation:
Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
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Abstract

Although the MM III B and LM I A ceramic phases of the Neopalatial period have in central Crete recently been subjected to refinement and revision, some of it controversial, in the east of the island they are still not very clearly defined. It is often argued that these phases see important changes in Minoan political geography, with Knossos seemingly extending its influence farther afield than ever before. Thus closer definition of these phases in east Crete in relation to the centre of the island represents an important step. It is in this light that three deposits from Palaikastro are here fully presented and discussed, with a view to clarifying the nature of the MM III B and LM I A phases in east Crete. The deposits in question were excavated during the recent programme of British School excavations conducted between 1986 and 1996. They are from three different contexts, in Building 6, Area 6 and Building 2 respectively, and contain abundant pottery (447 catalogued pots in total). The pottery from these deposits consists largely of cups, stored in some quantity in what seem to be small storerooms or ‘pantries’. Although east Cretan Neopalatial pottery does exhibit its own stylistic and typological traits, there are sufficient comparisons with material in central Crete to assign the deposits from Building 6 and Area 6 to MM III B, and the one from Building 2 to LM I A. It is hoped that the publication of this material will serve as a clear basis for future discussions of these significant phases in east Crete.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 98 , November 2003 , pp. 107 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2003

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Footnotes

1

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Nikos Papadakis and Stavroula Apostolakou of the 24th EPCA (East Crete) in facilitating this study, particularly with regard to the whole pots stored in Siteia Museum. Our thanks also go to INSTAP for funding the project. We should like to express our gratitude to the excavation directors, Hugh Sackett, Sandy MacGillivray, and Jan Driessen, for entrusting this material to us. Their comments on a previous draft helped to improve the text substantially, and in this regard we are also most grateful to Peter Warren and Colin Macdonald for numerous important observations. The authors also benefited from discussion of the pottery with Sandy MacGillivray. The pottery was drawn and inked by Don Evely, Maren Keuther-Ullberg, and Delia Riccardi-Percy, and photographed by Kathy May of the INSTAP East Cretan Study Centre. Pottery conservation at Palaikastro was undertaken by Nikos Karanikolas and Efi Anaplioti. Building 2 Room 2 was excavated by S. Thorne in 1986; EP 87 by L. Tabac in 1990, and Building 6 R 1/3 by T. F. Cunningham in 1996. Assistants were T. Davis and E. Sackett; workmen supervised by N. Daskalakis.

Special abbreviations:

PK III = ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, III’, BSA 10 (1903–4), 192–231.

PK IV = ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, IV’, BSA 11 (1904–5), 258–308.

PK VI = ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, VI’, BSA 60 (1965), 248–315.

PK VII = ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, VII’, BSA 65 (1970), 203–42.

PK 1987 = J. A. MacGillivray et al., ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, 1986’, BSA 82 (1987), 135–59.

PK 1990–1 = J. A. MacGillivray et al., ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, 1990’, BSA 86 (1991), 121–47.

PK 1994/6 = J. A. MacGillivray et al., ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, 1994 and 1996’, BSA 93 (1998), 221–68 (esp. 240–1).

PKU = R. C. Bosanquet and R. M. Dawkins, The Unpublished Objects from the Palaikastro Excavations 1902–1906, Part I (BSA supp. Paper 1; London, 1923).

References

2 Cf. PK III, 192–216; and PK IV, 275–6, 286–90.

3 PKU 18–39.

4 PK IV, 275–6, 286–90.

5 PKU 19.

6 Dawkins, R. M., ‘Pottery from Zakro’, JHS 23 (1903), 248–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Warren, P. M. and Hankey, V., Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol, 1989), 76–8Google Scholar.

8 PK VI, PK VII.

9 MacGillivray, J. A., Sackett, L. H., et al. , ‘An archaeological survey of the Roussolakkos area at Palaikastro’, BSA 79 (1984), 129–59Google Scholar. For the description of ‘Deposit A’ and its MM III/LM I material, see pp. 140–1, fig. 6. 1–9, and pl. 11.

10 Warren and Hankey (n. 7); Warren, P. M., ‘A new deposit from Knossos, c. 1600 BC, and its wider relations’, BSA 86 (1991), 319–40Google Scholar. For an earlier use of a similar term—MM III B/LM I A— see Popham, M., The Minoan Unexplored Mansion at Knossos (BSA Suppl. Vol. 17; London, 1984), 158 Google Scholar. Popham's term was not meant to suggest a transitional stage, a point discussed further in the conclusions below.

11 Warren and Hankey (n. 7), 76–8.

12 PK 1990–1. Further confusion resulted from the use of the term ‘MM III B–LM I A transitional’ to describe the character of the deposits, rather than to specify the relative date of their deposition.

13 Bernini, L. E., ‘Ceramics of the early Neo-palatial period at Palaikastro’, BSA 90 (1995), 55–82 Google Scholar.

14 The confusion potentially caused by Bernini's article is demonstrated in the recent publication of a Neopalatial kiln from Kommos: Shaw, J. W., Van de Moortel, A., Day, P. M. and Kilikoglou, V., A LM I A Ceramic Kiln in South-Central Crete (Hesp. supp. 30; ASCSA, 2001). On pp. 92–4Google Scholar Van de Moortel uses Bernini to establish synchronisms with East Crete, stating that ‘Bernini's two MM III B deposits from Palaikastro correspond best to early LM I A deposits at Kommos’ (93). However, our present study shows that Bernini's MM III B deposits do not in fact belong to the same phase: one (EP87) is MM III B, the other (Building 2 Room 2) is LM I A.

15 See PK 1994/6, 240–1.

16 Referred to by Bernini (n. 13) as ‘Building 6’. This confusion stems from the fact that, unlike Buildings 1–5 and 7 from the new excavations, Area 6 is a ‘Block’ in the sense of the old excavations (it was known then as Block M) and while we can identify a discreet building in the SE corner of the block (what we now call ‘Building’ 6) the old style terminology of a lettered block with numbered rooms would have perhaps been more suitable, had it been realized at the time. Though the block structures are concentrated along Main Street, they persist to the south and east while dropping away quickly to the north and west.

17 PK 1994/6, 238–61.

18 PK 1994/6, 239; also in MacGillivray, J. A., Sackett, L. H. and Driessen, J. M., ‘“Aspro Pato.” a lasting liquid toast from the master-builders of Palaikastro to their patron’, in Betancourt, P. P. et al. (eds), Meletemata: Studies in Aegean Archaeology Presented to Malcolm H. Wiener (Aegaeum, 20; Liège, 1999), 465–8Google Scholar.

19 PK 1994/6, fig. 15.

20 This event may be in some way indirectly related to the climatic maximum suggested by Jennifer Moody for the mid to late 17th c. BC, and possibly with some of the dendrochronological evidence for a major climatic event at this time, but not, obviously, with the later eruption of Thera. See J. Moody, ‘Little Ice Age Climates in Crete and their Impact on Cretan Cultural Development during the Neolithic, Bronze and Medieval Ages’, in Πεπραγμένα Διεθνόυς ΚρηΤολογιΚού Συνεδρίου, ΕλούνΤα2001 (forth-coming).

21 With two major horizons prior to the final destruction it makes sense to call at least the first phase (post-flooding) MM III B, despite the similarity of ceramic styles.

22 That there was activity of some sort in I.M I A following this seismic event is certain; however it is not clear of what sort, and seems unlikely that the building was ever fully rebuilt. The evidence suggests partial clearance and limited reuse of some areas followed by a final demolition and dismantling operation, and deposits of LM I A conical cups were found placed upside down above MM III B destruction layers in some rooms but no new floors were laid in these rooms.

23 Pk 1994/6, 241.

24 S. Thorne, pers. comm.

25 See Hood, M. S. F., ‘Back to basics with Middle Minoan III B’, in Evely, D., Lemos, I., and Sherratt, S. (eds), Minotaur and Centaur. Studies in the Archaeology of Crete and Euboea presented to Mervyn Popham (BAR S 638; Oxford, 1996), 10–16 Google Scholar.

26 Shaw et al. (n. 14), 92.

27 Although we must bear in mind that a full discussion of the conical cup types at Kommos is not yet published.

28 As argued by Van de Moortel, in Shaw et al. (n. 14), 66. See also ead., The Transition from the Protopalatial to the Neopalatial Society in South-Central Crete: A Ceramic Perspective (PhD dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1997), 266–7Google Scholar.

29 Driessen, J. and Macdonald, C., The Troubled Island: Minoan Crete Before and After the Santorini Eruption (Aegaeum, 17; Liège, 1997), 19 Google Scholar. See also Popham (n. 10), 156 and pl. 144.

30 P. M. Warren, ‘LM I A: Knossos, Thera, Gournia’, in Betancourt et al. (n. 18), 893–903.

31 Note too its presence on bridge-spouted jars at Palaikastro during this period. This type shares a number of other similarities with the straight-sided cups: it has a dark slip, often with white-on-dark bands too.

32 P. Darcque and A. Van de Moortel, ‘Late Minoan I architectural phases and ceramic chronology at Malia’, in Πεπραγμένα (n. 20).

33 Popham (n. 10), pl. 141, 15–16. See also Catling, E. A., Catling, H. W. and Smyth, D., ‘Knossos 1975: Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I houses by the acropolis’, BSA 74 (1979), 1–80 Google Scholar, especially fig. 16. 4.

34 e.g. Popham (n. 10), pl. 144. 3–4; Catling et al. (n. 33), fig. 19. 107–9.

35 Macdonald, C. F., ‘Ceramic and contextual confusion in the Old and New Palace periods’, in Cadogan, G., Hatzaki, E. and Vasilakis, A. (eds), Knossos: Palace, City, State. Proceedings of the Conference in Herakleion organised by the British School at Athens and the 23rd Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities of Herakleion, in November 2000, for the Centenary of Sir Arthur Evans's Excavations at Knossos (BSA Studies CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in press).

36 Warren (n. 26), pl. ccvi.

37 Shaw et al. (n. 14), fig. 63 no. 62, where it is identified as LM I A.s8

38 Van de Moortel notes in Shaw et al. (n. 14), 92, that ‘all the lustrous dark-on-light painted vases in early LM I A, and atleast some of those in advanced LM I A, are thought to come from outside the western Mesara’. If one considers these phases as she conceives them to be broadly equivalent to our MM III B, then we observe a similar phenomenon: the rare lustrous dark-on-light vessels that occur in MM III B contexts, such as the bridge-spouted jar 166 and the ewer 176, tend to be imports (from the Mirabello region).

39 Compare PKU pl. xiii b. Another interesting parallel for this motif comes from Akrotiri on Thera, where it is found in combination with wavy lines rather than tortoiseshell ripple. The jug bearing this decoration is described as an import from Crete, in S. Marinatos, ‘Excavations at Thera, III’, (1970), 60–1, and pl. 50. 3. The motif is also found in Warren's Pit VI deposit (n. 10), fig. 10 i, albeit on a hemispherical cup.

40 Georgiou, H. S., ‘Minoan “Fireboxes” from Gournia’, Expedition 15 (1973), 7–14 Google Scholar; ead., “Keos VI, Ayia Irini: Specialised Domestic and Industrial Pottery (Mainz, 1986)Google Scholar. Georgiou refers to examples both from the early excavations at Palaikastro and from Zakros.

41 PKU 24.

42 See comment above in n. 38.

43 PKUpl. XIII b.

44 This last motif is hardly present in the predominantly LM I A rubble fill from Building 1: only 1 sherd drawn, no. 101 in Bernini's catalogue. So maybe this style belongs to MM III B as much as to LM I A.

45 As seen in the sherd material from the rubble fill of Building 1.

46 PK IV, fig. 6a.

47 Hood, M. S. F., The Arts in Prehistoric Greece (Harmondsworth, 1978). On p. 18 Google Scholar he notes: ‘the use of the same terminology for periods and for pottery styles has given rise to curious illogicalities of expression and thought, with periods conceived as overlapping time’. See also Dawkins, R. M. and Laistner, M. L. W., ‘The excavation of the Kamares Cave in Crete’, BSA 19 (1912–1913), 1–34 Google Scholar.

48 Shaw et al. (n. 14).

49 Warren (n. 10), 331.

50 Hood (n. 27), Macdonald (n. 35), Knappett, C., ‘Middle Minoan III at Knossos —was Evans right?’, BICS 44 (2000), 230–1Google Scholar.

51 Macdonald (n. 35); Knappett (n. 50).

52 See PK 94, 221 for the classification of Area 6 into three sectors; here Building 6 is used only to refer to the ‘South-East Building’.

53 See PK 1990–1, 135–6.

54 e.g. Popham (n. 10), pl. 145. 4.

55 The intricate and lavish use of subsidiary white paint on dark-on-light decorated vases of LM I A is considered to be a feature characteristic of east Crete: see Popham, M., ‘An East Cretan LM I A Vase at Knossos’, OJA 20 (2001), 285–91Google Scholar. However, a mixture of dark-on-light and white-on-dark can be found on an East Cretan amphora in a MM III B context at Knossos: see C. Macdonald, ‘Notes on some Late Minoan IA contexts from the Palace of Minos and its immediate vicinity’, in Evely–Lemos–Sherratt (n. 27), 17–26. The vase in question is shown on pl. 3 a, furthest to the right. Macdonald also notes (pers. comm.) that another vase with combined dark-on-light and white-on-dark in a MM III B context (Temple Repositories) may also be an East Cretan import: see Panayiotaki, M., The Central Palace Sanctuary at Knossos (BSA supp. 31; London 1999), 177–8, and fig. 36 (no. 331)Google Scholar.

56 The shape is illustrated in PKU pl. XXII a.

57 PK 1987, 151.

58 PK video notebook trench FD92 no. 1014.

59 PK 1987, 151.

60 Note again Van de Moortel's argument (see above, n. 30), that conical cups in LM I A are similar island-wide. Also interesting is her identification of a standardized volume for LM I A conical cups of approximately 60–65 ml, which is very close to the 70 ml of these Palaikastro examples.

61 Dawkins (n. 6), 251, fig. 14.

62 Poursat, J.-C., Artisans minoens: Les Maisons-Ateliers du Quartier Mu. Fouilles Executées à Malia: Le Quartier Mu III (Études Cretoises 32; Paris, 1996), pl. 24 a Google Scholar.

63 Georgiou (n. 40).

64 See Popham, M., ‘Late Minoan pottery, a summary’, BSA 62 (1967), 337–51Google Scholar.

65 Dawkins (n. 6), 251. For dark-on-light foliate scroll see also Popham (n. 64), pl. 78 b. The reader might note that Popham describes all the sherds on plate 78 as coming from Zakros. However, some of them, particularly those on plate 78 d, are originally published by Bosanquet and Dawkins in PKUas ‘LM I A from the Palaikastro district’. They appear in PKU on plate XV as sherds a-e, while sherds f-j are from the Zakros Pits. The combination on this single plate of material from both the Palaikastro district and the Zakros Pits probably led to some confusion, and might have meant that the material was boxed together by Bosanquet. This mixing may account for Popham's subsequent confusion when he came to restudy the material and assign it all to Zakros (1967, pl. 78 d).

66 PK IV, fig. 6 a. Foliate scroll is referred to as ‘tendril pattern’ in these early accounts.

67 Bernini (n. 13).

68 PK IV, 272–86; Warren and Hankey (n. 7), 76–7.

69 a Some additional clues can be found in the 1905 Excavation Daybook (notebook 17), 374–6. Here Bosanquet describes the excavation of X31, in which were found numerous cups and saucers, his sketches of which strongly resemble our typical MM III B conical cups (with faint S-profile) and ledge-rim bowls. These shapes, described as intermediate between MM II and LM I examples, are thus assigned by Bosanquet to MM III. Moreover, a sketch on p. 375 appears to equate or compare X31 with X43.

70 e.g. PK IV, fig. 6 a-b.

71 Warren and Hankey (n. 7), 76–7.

72 PK III, 210.

73 Another question to consider is whether it is a similar kind of deposit, that is to say some kind of closet. A rather good example comes from Block N from a slightly later period, that is to say LM I B. Here in Room 18 a group of 394 plain vases was found, of which 349 were ogival cups. The room is interpreted as a pantry: see PK VI, 266, and PK VII 221.

74 Popham (n. 10), 158: ‘… deposits have been classified here as MM III B/LM I A, to express continuing indecision, rather than to suggest that they belong to a transitional stage’.

75 Warren (n. 10).

76 Cf. also Warren and Hankey (n. 7).

77 This terminology has been used in recent years at Palaikastro (PK1990–1).

78 e.g. Hood (n. 27), Macdonald (n. 35), Knappett (n. 50).

79 , Y. and Sakellarakis, E., Archanes: Minoan Crete in a New Light (Athens, 1997)Google Scholar.

80 Shaw et al. (n. 14); also Wright, J. C. and McEnroe, J., ‘The central hillside at Kommos’, in Shaw, J. W. and Shaw, M. C. (eds.), Kommos I: The Kommos Region and Houses of the Minoan Town (Princeton, 1996), 139–242 Google Scholar.

81 Bernini (n. 13).

82 PKU 21.

83 Warren (n. 26), 893.