Abstracts Workshop ‘Back to the Beginning’

--------Genesis of a Minoan Palace. Space, Place and Ceremony on the Kephala Hill at Knossos (FN-MM)

P. Tomkins

This paper explores the changing organisation of space on the Kephala Hill at Knossos between the Neolithic and the Middle Bronze Age, drawing on an opposition between communal/ritual space, on the one hand, and domestic/inhabited space on the other. It is argued that the basic collection of spatial components (internal court, building complex, external courts), collectively known as a Minoan ‘palace’ did not emerge simultaneously and fully formed in MM I, as Evans and many others since have held, but piece-meal and in stages, rooted in a much deeper history of settlement and ceremony. The pre-MM III dataset from Knossos, consisting as it does of fragments or palimpsests of past projects and practices, subsequently superseded, removed, eroded or unexplored, presents many challenges to interpretation. New insights have, however, emerged during the recent study of a large body of unpublished material from the excavations of Arthur Evans and Duncan Mackenzie (1900-1924), John Evans (1957-1960; 1969-70) and several others.

Past approaches to the pre-MM III dataset have generally been in the form of ‘mining’ and ‘bridging’ exercises, filling in gaps by projecting data forwards or backwards, not always on the basis of secure criteria, resulting more often than not in a picture of relatively homogeneous and static development. A more cautious approach is preferred here, where evidence, both old and new, is presented and discussed primarily within its immediate chronological, social and economic context. From this, elements of continuity and change in the form and structure of ceremonial and domestic space on the Kephala Hill emerge over time, which may be directly related to the contemporary social, economic and spatial development of the settlement as a whole, from large later Neolithic village to Middle Minoan urban centre. It is tentatively suggested that a ‘grammar’ of domestic-ceremonial spatial organisation emerges at a very early stage, perhaps as early as the end of FN, and that subsequent development may in part be understood in terms of a scaling up process commensurate with urban growth. 

--------The urbanisation of prehistoric Knossos: demographic and comparative perspectives on Minoan state formation.

Todd Whitelaw

As stressed by the organisers, throughout over a century of Minoan archaeology, the nature and complexity of Minoan society has been assessed largely through fairly intuitive assessments of the architectural evidence of the palaces.  Given their histories of continuous rebuilding, often destroying or obscuring their earlier phases; understandable reticence to excavate extensively under the floors of the best preserved latest phases; and the early, large-scale and rapid excavation, with only limited documentation and partial publication, of the major palaces, they can provide only partial and problematic evidence for the development of Minoan polities and political structure.  The recent surveys of the immediate hinterlands of several palatial centres, will eventually provide a welcome alternative database, far less subject to the vagaries of preservation and partial investigation, though not without its own considerable interpretive ambiguities.  The broader evidence from the palatial centres themselves is an under-utilised resource, in part because of the biased focus of excavations on elaborate structures close to the palaces, providing only limited evidence for the character of the communities as a whole; in part because of the limited and piece-meal publication of such investigations in isolation from considerations of their context.  There is considerably more evidence which can be built upon, particularly when viewing the process of Minoan state formation in a comparative perspective, drawing comparisons with polity formation and urbanisation in other early states.  This contribution will focus on the evidence from Knossos, largely from excavations over the past century, complemented by very preliminary information from the intensive survey of the site presently being undertaken.  Comparisons with other sites will be drawn where relevant and feasible, to put the Knossian evidence in its island-wide context.

--------Oranges on lemons: grafting a palace onto a well-rooted knossian stock

Colin F. Macdonald

The paper develops ideas first set out in a Minoan Seminar in Athens in 2005 – http://www.minoanseminar.gr/abstracts/200405.pdf – which tried to show that the general lines of the Knossian palace were laid down in Middle Minoan IB and IIA. The skeleton did not change, over the next centuries, as much as has been suggested in a number of articles written over the last 20 years. (cf. Macdonald and Knappett 2007, BSA Supplementary Volume 41 for MM IB and IIA.)

This paper discusses the character of the different elements that allow us to talk of a palace (in the Near Eastern sense of the term) in the 20th and 19th centuries B.C., notably architecture and administration, together with developments that characterize the material culture of Knossos as a whole. Instead of searching for ‘first appearances’ of new elements and tracing their origins far and wide, it is more useful to consider ‘rooted change’ where new ideas, whether home-grown or grafted from abroad, become characteristic of the local material culture. The apparent east Mediterranean features of early palatial Knossos can be seen as grafts onto a mature Minoan stock which already had much in common with east Mediterranean cultures, except for palatial material culture. The new palatial cultivar brought changes both to the root systems of Knossian society as well as to the fruit it bore over the next five hundred years.     

--------A regional network approach to Protopalatial complexity

Carl Knappett

Regional palace-based polities are usually considered a key defining feature of ‘complexity’ in Protopalatial Crete, irrespective of the debate over their status as centralised or decentralised ‘states’. But when do these polities emerge? Are they only characteristic of the end of the Protopalatial period, in Middle Minoan IIB?  Or are they already taking shape at the beginning of the period, i.e. in Middle Minoan IB? At the level of individual sites, such as Malia, palatial origins are now being traced back as far as Early Minoan IIB, and yet at the regional level it is not suggested that regional polities exist this early.  Thus in this paper I examine the evidence for the emergence of regional polities through time, using ceramic evidence from sites in east Crete such as Malia, Myrtos Pyrgos, Petras and Palaikastro. Notwithstanding the methodological difficulties inherent in linking material culture and political geography, both ceramic imports and imitations are traced with a view to charting the development of regional networks of exchange and affiliation.

--------This (is)land is our (is)land: Social Organisation in Prepalatial Crete

Jan Driessen

Do the existing prepalatial data allow for a reconstruction of social structure and practice of third millennium BC Crete? This paper attempts to integrate settlement, funerary, pottery and sphragistic evidence to detect meaningful social patterns at the same time attempting to detect the impact and result of local and regional interaction. Noting the importance of locus bound establishments during the Prepalatial period, the Levi-Straussian concept of the House is explored as a useful explanatory model to elucidate both regional differences as well as the origin of the more monumental integrative mechanisms that characterise the subsequent periods on the island.

--------The emergence of elite groups at protopalatial Malia. A biography of Quartier Mu

Jean-Claude Poursat

The emergence of elite groups is clearly attested at Malia during the protopalatial period, by the presence of large buildings such as Villa A, the Crypte Hypostyle, Quartier Mu buildings A and B (see Schoep 2002, 2004, etc.).

When and why did these buildings appear ? We know only their final stage at the end of MM II. In Quartier Mu, however, two main phases at least are visible in the architectural development of building A. Its initial core was a unit with large ceremonial rooms (polythyron, sunken room), an ashlar façade on the west side, a main entrance from the south. In a second phase, a large extension was built on the south side, with new entrances on the west and east sides, and substantial modifications of the west façade. The functional changes (storerooms, archives) indicate a growing economic power of the elite group in charge of this building.

The craft activities in the nearby artisans’ houses (the so-called “workshops”), as well as “domestic” industries, may indicate the sources of this increased wealth. Two points will be stressed : 1) The development of metal working, with the addition of two “workshops” on the south side of building A. 2) The importance of textile production (more than 700 loomweights).

Both activities could be related to a growing involvement of this elite group in maritime trade (on behalf of the palace, or as private entrepreneurs ?) during the MM II period, associated with land exploitation and interregional contacts.

--------New Evidence for Lasithi's Interconnections during EM III-MM IA

Philip P. Betancourt

The Minoan ossuary at Hagios Charalambos in Lasithi was excavated by Costis Davaras between 1976 and 1983 and by Davaras, Philip Betancourt, and Eleni Stravopodi in 2002 and 2003. The cavern furnished evidence for Minoan funerary rituals as well as for many other aspects of Minoan history. Artifacts from EM III to MM IA, just before the building of the Middle Minoan palaces, show that Lasithi enjoyed contacts with several different parts of Crete. Six examples of the sistrum from the cave are similar to a MM IA instrument from Archanes. Hippopotamus ivory seals have parallels from the Mesara in their material, methods of manufacture, and style. The EM III-MM IA pottery made in a local Lasithi-Pediada clay fabric is derived from the East Cretan White-on-Dark Ware of the region of the Gulf of Mirabello, copying both the shapes and many of the simpler stylistic motifs. These diverse influences and artifacts must have entered the Lasithi region by different routes. They show that Lasithi participated in complex exchange networks that operated within Crete at this time, and that its residents were free to trade with and accept influences from several different regions. This situation during EM III to MM IA contrasts with the much closer ties Lasithi had with specific sites in later periods: Malia in MM II and Knossos in later times. 

--------Regional elite-groups, seal production and consumption at the end of the pre-palatial period in the example of a regional context at Asterousia mountains

Kostas Sbonias

Views of centrality are being challenged lately as far as the old palatial period is concerned on the basis of indications from Malia that show the parallel existence of economic and administrative activities in contexts outside the palace. Also recent developments in research draw attention upon concepts of heterogeneity, contingency and competition among different interest groups rather than of homogeneity and centrality at all levels. The paper focuses at the late prepalatial period and, on the example of seal-production at Moni Odigitrias in the Asterousia Mountains, discusses indications for heterogeneity and existence of a less hierarchical framework visible in the pattern of seal production and use. Seals from Moni Odigitrias and the other regional centres of Mesara with the possibility they offer to focus on the micro regional level offer indications for the presence of multiple nodes of power whose interactions and relations formed a complex system of power legitimation at the regional level. Their status was more unstable and competitive in the earlier part of the late prepalatial period, with crystallisation of several nodes of power at the regional level at the end of the period. Considering the evidence from the seals, Moni Odigitrias seems to have been an important community within this pattern throughout the prepalatial period, with an even more active role as an agent of change and innovation at the end of the prepalatial period, a period during which there are signs of abandonment and nucleation in the settlement pattern of the Asterousia region.

--------The Social Arenas of Tradition. Investigating Corporate and Individual Social Strategies in Prepalatial and Protopalatial Mesara

Maria Relaki

In Minoan archaeology, the study of change has been intimately related with the emergence of the Palaces, with the comparison between the Prepalatial and Palatial periods usually characterised by ‘dramatic’ transformations. However, as this conference seeks to underline, recent research points to greater continuity rather than disruption in the social patterns that characterise the two periods. This paper seeks to explore the nature of change in Prepalatial and Protopalatial Mesara, from the point of view of social traditions.

Although the long-term comparison between different periods may give the impression that changes are abrupt and dramatic, the way that change is felt and appreciated in everyday life is more gradual. Also, changes are more likely to happen ‘implicitly’, with a view not to upset the existing social order in any blatant way. For these reasons, the concept of tradition is most beneficial to the study of change. Traditions are established through the structured repetition of particular social interactions. In this respect, they represent practices that are central in the reproduction of social life. Traditions provide an established framework and a set of material and symbolic resources for the negotiation of change. The study of traditions, thus, highlights the dialectic relationship between continuity and change. However, such processes can also be highly contentious, capable of inspiring integration as well as generating animosity. So, the study of traditions provides a view of change grounded as much on uninterrupted development as on conflict and confrontation.

The particular focus of this paper is on the interplay between collective and individual social agendas in the Mesara, as these emerge and transform from the Prepalatial to the Protopalatial period. I argue that specific traditions of social interaction provided the framework in which collective and personal social strategies unfolded and changed through time. By looking at the built environment, the practices of craft production and consumption and the use of means of representation, such as seals, I investigate the ways in which more individual aspirations and goals were allowed to surface through the largely collectively-focused social practices that dominated the Mesara in both Prepalatial and Protopalatial periods.

--------Craft production and social practice at Prepalatial Phaistos: the background to the first palace

Simona Todaro

The nature and extent of Prepalatial Phaistos has been a matter of controversy. Some scholars have focused on settlement size and variation in settlement patterns, and have argued that the site had been the largest settlement of the region since its foundation in the FN, with a population size that might have exceeded the threshold of egalitarian organization by EM IIA if not already in the FN period (Whitelaw 1983; Watrous 2004). Others have focused on the drinking practices through which the communities of the Mesara seemingly negotiated their social identity, and have argued that Phaistos, although important in the FN as a regional focus for ceremonial activity, could not subsequently find its way in the competition for status that was initiated in the region in EM II with the acceptance of the tholos tomb and of the new social practices performed in the funerary sphere (Relaki 2004). There has, however, been a general agreement about the late Prepalatial period, in which other sites are thought to have held a more significant status while Phaistos went through a period of decline, if not temporary abandonment, only to revive at the beginning of the MM IA (Watrous 2004) or MM IB (Warren 1987; Relaki 2004) with the foundation of the palace.

The resumption of excavations at Phaistos in 1994, and the systematic campaign carried out from 2000 to 2004, have shown that the large area located immediately to the west of the west court of the palace was continuously occupied from FN to MM III, and was re-organised through large-scale terracing and levelling operations during a late phase of the EM IIA period that led to the establishment of an artisans’ quarter that was active in the production of pottery and stone vases until the end of the MM IIB period (Todaro forthcoming). This area, therefore, provides a unique opportunity to re-assess the role and status of Phaistos from Prepalatial through Protopalatial, by focusing on the continuities and changes documented in (a) the technology, style, and typology of the vessels produced over time, (b) the relationship with activities performed in other parts of the hill, (c) the operational schedule and social status of the artisans. In this paper particular attention will be paid to the relationship between the artisans’ quarter and the area of the west court of the palace, which since the FN period was periodically frequented for large events of conspicuous consumption that might have included people from the surrounding territory. The distinct depositional patterns identified in the production and consumption areas, which alternate activity-abandonment-activity with repetition of features such as floors, paving and structures in the same location but at higher levels, suggests that cycles of production at Phaistos were actually prompted by specific occasions of ceremonial consumption that marked a new occupation phase in the history of the site, after a destruction or an abandonment, and periodically led many people from several locations to gather together on the hill.

--------Emerging Authority: a functional analysis of the MM II settlement of Festòs

P. Militello

After the standard publication by D. Levi and F. Carinci (Levi 1978-1980; Levi-Carinci 1988), the MM  settlement of Phaistos has been the focus of a systematic research by a team under the direction of V. La Rosa and with the collaboration of F. Carinci.

The researches, which included also 5 years excavations (2000-2004) are still in progress, but the first results show clearly that it is no more possible to read the development of Phaistos on the base of a dichotomy between a prepalatial and a protopalatial phases divided by the rise of the palace. Instead, the settlement and the palace had, during MM I-II, a  more complex history than previous thought before they reach their final appearance in MM II.

The aim of our paper is twofold. After giving a brief summary of the results of current investigations (Speziale 1996, 2001; La Rosa ed. 2001; La Rosa 2002; La Rosa Carinci 2007-2008; Caloi 2007; Palio 2007) our paper will focus upon the major and better known phase of the “protopalatial” settlement, which can now be dated to a mature MM IIB period (the so called Fase Ib Levi). The distribution of architectural features and of different classes of finds (pottery, stone tools, textile related tools, stone vases, luxury objects, seals) within the settlement will be analysed in order to reconstruct patterns of use and consumption, and to distinguish, when possible, storage and working areas,  public and domestic spaces. Already in a preliminary phase of study, it is possible to adfirm that architectural changes in the palace during MM II (Tomasello 2001),  seem to be due to changes in the relations between palace and territory, following a progressive formalization of the leading role of the major building, partly under the influence of near eastern palatial models of lifestyle (controlling devices, iconographical motifs, luxury objects etc.). Conspicuous consumption probably during ritual actions seems also to be one of the main way of action inside the palace. At the same time, there seems to be  no difference in the use and consumption of pottery and other goods between the palace and the surrounding “houses”, suggesting a strict connection between both and casting doubts about the roles traditionally  attributed to them. This complex relationship can be perhaps explained as the result of a long history having its root in the communal origin of the palace (see e.g. observations made by M. Relaki). On the other hand, however, a pure evolutionary approach does not take into consideration the many elements pointing toward the existence, in MM II, of a true central authority (see e.g. tablets and sealings). Discontinuities must be admitted, in Foucaultian terms, and the data at our disposal seem to confirm that the one of the major gaps in the history of the settlement happened just during MM II with the probable emergence of one group at the expenses of the others. The detail of the process escape us, and possibly will be never recovered, but this belongs to the limits of the archaeological research.