Crete is a large island in the Eastern Mediterranean. Here we consider the phase of its history best known as the Neopalatial Era. This period followed a series of conflagrations at the end of the Old Palace era (1700 BCE), which affected almost all Cretan sites. Little agreement exists about the causes of these destructions. Although it has been generally argued that these were possibly caused by earthquake, the senario of war conflicts among major political centers of the period cannot be excluded.
[1]
[2]
The Neopalatial era ended, in 1450, in a similar way to the previous phase: the central complexes (except for the one at Knossos), many important buildings and whole settlements were violently damaged by fire and abandoned, and the Cretan presence in the Aegean and the Near East came to an end. The causes of these destructions have also been a topic of vivid debate: a massive natural disaster (earthquake), war, internal disruption or system collapse have all been suggested as possible explanations
[3]
, though perhaps human rather than natural causes are more likely
[4]
.
Population and Political Organization
Some scholars argue that, during the Neopatial period, the island was divided into small independent "states" centered upon large monumental complexes generally known as "palaces"
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
Others favour the notion of a Knossian hegemony, that is, the notion that Crete was politically unified under the control of the ruler at Knossos
[9]
[10]
[11]
Yet other have favored the idea of independent political formations emulating Knossos
[12]
[13]
[14]
The population of Crete at this time has been estimated at 242,000
[15]
, 216,000-271,000
[16]
and 260,000
[17]
. As for Knossos, the largest urban centre in the whole of Prehistoric Greece, Whitelaw estimated Knossian population to 25,000-30,000 people replacing his previous estimate of 14,000-18,000 individuals
[18]
[19]
[1]: (La Rosa 1999, 81-89) V. La Rosa. 1999. "Πολιτική εξουσία και σεισμικές καταστροφές στη Μινωική Κρήτη: η περίπτωση της Φαιστού" in Κρήτες Θαλασσοδρόμοι, edited by A. Karetou. Heraklion
[2]: (Cadogan 2014, 43-54) G. Cadogan. 2014. "War in the Cretan Bronze Age: the realism of Stylianos Alexiou". Kritika Chronika 34: 43-54.
[3]: (Driessen and Macdonald 1997, 106-109) Jan Driessen. and Colin F. Macdonald. 1997. The Troubled Island. Minoan Crete Before and After the Santorini Eruption. Liège: Université de Liège, Histoire de l’art et archéologie de la Grèce antique; Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory
[4]: (Christakis 2008, 144-146) Kostis S. Christakis. 2008. The Politics of Storage. Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete. Philadelphia, Pa.: INSTAP Academic Press.
[5]: (Cherry 1986, 19-45) John F. Cherry. 1986. “Polities and palaces: some problems in the Minoan state formation,” in Peer-Polity Interaction and Socio-Political Change, edited by Colin Renfrew and John F. Cherry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[6]: (Bennet 1990, 193-211) John Bennet. 1990. "Knossos in context: comparative perspectives on the Linear B administration of LM II-III Crete." American Journal of Archaeology 94: 193-211
[7]: (Christakis 2008, 2-7) Kostis S. Christakis. 2008. The Politics of Storage. Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press.
[8]: (Bevan 2010, 27-54) Andrew Bevan. 2010. "Political geography and palatial Crete." Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23: 27-54.
[9]: (Betts 1967, 15-40) John H. Betts. 1967. " New light on Minoan bureaucracy. A reexamination of some Cretan seals." Kadmos 6: 15-40
[10]: (Hallager and Hallager 1996, 547-556) E. and B.P. Hallager. 1996. "The Knossian bull-political propaganda in Neo-palatial Crete," in POLITEIA. Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 5th International Aegean Conference, Heidelberg, 10-13 April 1994, edited by Robert Laffineur and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier. Liège: Université de Liège, Histoire de l’art et archéologie de la Grèce antique; Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory
[11]: (Wiener 2007, 231-242) M.W. Wiener. 2007. "Neopalatial Knossos: rule and role" in Krinoi kai Limenes. Studies in Honor of Joseph and Maria Shaw, edited by Philip Betancourt, Michael Nelson and Hector Williams. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press
[12]: (Schoep 1999, 201-221) Ilse Schoep. 1999. "Tables and territories: reconstructing Late Minoan IB political territories throughout undeciphered documents." American Journal of Archaeology 103: 201-21
[13]: (Soles 1995, 405-414) J.S. Soles. 1995. "The function of a cosmological center: Knossos in palatial Crete" in POLITEIA. Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 5th International Aegean Conference, Heidelberg, 10-13 April 1994, edited by Robert Laffineur and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier. Liège: Université de Liège, Histoire de l’art et archéologie de la Grèce antique; Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory
[14]: (Knappett and Schoep 2000, 365-371) Carl Knappett and Ilse Schoep. 2000. "Continuity and change in Minoan political power," Antiquity 74: 365-71.
[15]: (Branigan 2000, 38-50) Keith Branigan. 2000. "Aspects of Minoan urbanism," in Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age, edited by Keith Branigan. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
[16]: (Rackham and Moody 1999, 97) Oliver Rackham and Jennifer Alice Moody. 1999. The Making of the Cretan Landscape, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
[17]: (Renfrew 1972, 249) Colin Renfrew. 1972. The Emergence of Civilization, London: Oxbow Books
[18]: (Whitelaw 2004, 147-158) Todd Whitelaw. 2004. "Estimating the population of Neopalatial Knossos" in Knossos: Palace, City, State: Proceedings of the Conference in Herakleion organized 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, edited by Gerald Cadogan, Eleni Hatzaki and Adonis Vasilakis. London: British School of Athens.
[19]: (Whitelaw 2014, 143-144) Todd Whitelaw. 2014. "Political formations in Prehistoric Crete". BICS 57: 143-144.
| Cretan Broze Age Civiliazation or Minoan Civilazation |
| Monopalatial Crete |
| continuity |
| UNCLEAR: [continuity] |
| quasi-polity |
| Year Range | New Palace Crete (gr_crete_new_palace) was in: |
|---|---|
| (1700 BCE 1451 BCE) | Crete |
Neopalatial Crete is divided into territorial entities centered upon large urban centers that served as the main political and economic centers of their region; these are Kastelli-Chania in West Crete, Knossos, Hagia Triada (and Phaistos), and Galatas in Central Crete, Malia in East-central Crete, and Gournia, Petras and Zakros in East Crete. [1] [2] [3] The high degree of homogeneity characterizing the material culture of the period has been interpreted as indicative of a large, island-wide integrating political structure - that was argued to be Knossos - with dependent political centers emulating the "capital." [4] Recent studies, however, have shown that the evidence, on which the theory of the assumed Knossian hegemony was based, is insecure. [5] Knossos was the most important cultural and ideological centre of Crete, but not its administrative “capital”.
[1]: See the various contributions in Driessen, J. Schope, I. and Laffineur, R. 2002. Monuments of Minons. Rethinking the Minoan Palaces (Aegaeum 23), Liège
[2]: Christakis, K.S. 2008. The Politics of Storage. Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete (Prehistory Monographs 25), Philadelphia, 2-7
[3]: Bevan, A. 2010. "Political geography and palatial Crete," Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23, 27-54.
[4]: e.g. Wiener, M. W. 2007. "Neopalatial Knossos: rule and role," in Betancourt, P.P., Nelson, M. C., Williams, H. (eds), Krinoi kai Limenes. Studies in Honor of Joseph and Maria Shaw (Prehistory Monographs 22), Philadlphia 231-42.
[5]: Schoep, I. 2002. " The state of the Minoan palaces or the Minoan palace-state?," in Driessen, J., Schoep, I., and Laffineur, R. (eds), Monuments of Minos. Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the International Workshop “Crete of the Hundred Palaces?” Held at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, 14-15 December 2001 (Aegeaum 23), Liège, 15-33.
The Neopalatial era is divided in Middle Minoan III (1700-1600 BCE), Late Minoan IA (1600-1500 BCE) and Late Minoan IB (1500-1450 BCE) periods. [1]
[1]: Shelmerdine, C. W. 2008. "Background, sources, and methods," in Shelmerdine, C. W. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age, Cambridge, 4.
Some scholars see the island divided into small independent "states" centered upon large monumental complexes generally known as "palaces". [1] [2] [3] Others favours Knossian hegemony implying that Crete was politically unified under the control of the Knossian ruler [4] [5] [6] Yet other have favored the idea of independent political formations emulating Knossos. [7] [8] [9]
[1]: Cherry, J. F. 1986. “Polities and palaces: some problems in the Minoan state formation,” in Renfrew, C. and Cherry, J. F. (eds.), Peer-Polity Interaction and Socio-Political Change, Cambridge, 19-45
[2]: Bennet, J. 1990. "Knossos in context: comparative perspectives on the Linear B administration of LM II-III Crete," American Journal of Archaeology 94, 193-211
[3]: Christakis, K.S. 2008. The Politics of Storage. Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete (Prehistory Monographs 25), Philadelphia, 2-7
[4]: Betts, J.H. 1967. " New light on Minoan bureaucracy. A reexamination of some Cretan seals," Kadmos 6, 15-40
[5]: Hallager, E. and B. P. 1996. "The Knossian bull-political propaganda in Neo-palatial Crete," in Laffineur, R. and Niemeier, W.-D. (eds), POLITEIA. Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 5th International Aegean Conference, Heidelberg, 10-13 April 1994 (Aegaeum 12), Liège, 547-56
[6]: Wiener, M. W. 2007. "Neopalatial Knossos: rule and role," in Betancourt, P.P., Nelson, M. C., Williams, H. (eds), Krinoi kai Limenes. Studies in Honor of Joseph and Maria Shaw (Prehistory Monographs 22), Philadelphia 231-42.
[7]: Schoep, I. 1999. "Tables and territories: reconstructing Late Minoan IB political territories throughout undeciphered documents," American Journal of Archaeology 103, 201-21
[8]: Soles, J. S. 1995. "The function of a cosmological center: Knossos in palatial Crete," in Laffineur, R. and Niemeier, W.-D. (eds.), POLITEIA. Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (Aegaeum12), Liège, 405-14
[9]: Knappett, C. J. and Schoep, I. 2000. "Continuity and change in Minoan political power," Antiquity 74, 365-71.
Information of the spoken and written language of Bronze Age Cretans during the Neopalatial period is scant due to the limited number of written documents. The few preserved documents were written in Linear A script which is still undeciphered. [1] [2] What language was recorded in Linear A documents is an issue of vivid debate. Some consider it part of the eastern family of Indo-European languages and have attempted to connected it to Luwian or Hittite while others connected to Semitic, Phoenecian, Indo-Iranian, or Tyrrenian. [3] [4] [5] It is possible however that Linear A express a pre-Hellenic Aegean linguistic substrate "which was enriched over time throughout possible migrations to the island, as well as various extra-Cretan contacts with other linguists elements, including Greek world. Thus, we could speaking of an age-old indigenous ’Minoan’ language that survived in some parts of Crete until the first millennium B.C. and appears as "Eteocretan" on inscriptions such as those from Praisos and Dreros." [6]
[1]: Tomas, H. 2010. " Cretan hieroglyphic and Linear A," in Cline, E.H. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3000-1000 BC), Oxford, 340-55
[2]: Boulotis, C. 2008. "The art of Cretan writing," in Andreadaki-Vlazaki, M., Rethemiotakis, G., and Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki, N. (eds), From the Land of the Labyrinth. Minoan Crete, 3000-1100 B.C., New York, 67-78.
[3]: Nagy, G. 1963. "Greek-like elements in Linear A," Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 4, 181-211
[4]: Owens, G. 1999. "The structure of the Minoan language," Journal of Indo-European Studies 27, 15-56
[5]: Owens, G. 2007. Η Δομή της Μινωικής Γλώσσας, Heraklion
[6]: Boulotis, C. 2008. "The art of Cretan writing," in Andreadaki-Vlazaki, M., Rethemiotakis, G., and Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki, N. (eds), From the Land of the Labyrinth. Minoan Crete, 3000-1100 B.C., New York, 70.
inhabitants. Knossos is the largest site of Neopalatial Crete. The estimated site size is about 60-80 hectares making Knossos the largest urban centre of Prehistoric Greece. [1] Whitelaw estimated Knossian population to 25,000-30,000 people replacing his previous estimate of 14,000-18,000 individuals [2] [3] [4]
[1]: Whitelaw, T. 2001. "From sites to communities: Defining the human dimensions of Minoan urbanism," in Branigan, K. (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age (SSAA 4), Sheffield,15-37.
[2]: Whitelaw, T. 2000. "Beyond the palace: a century of investigation in Europe’s oldest city," BICS 44, 223-26
[3]: Whitelaw, T. 2001. "From sites to communities: defining the human dimensions of Minoan urbanism," in Branigan, K. (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age (SSAA 4), Sheffield, 15-37
[4]: Whitelaw, T. 2004. "Estimating the population of Neopalatial Knossos," in Cadogan, G., Hatzaki, E. and Vasilakis, A. (eds), Knossos: Palace, City, State: Proceedings of the Conference in Herakleion organized 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 12), London, 147-58
The area of Crete is 8,336 square kilometres. However, according to the most widely accepted narrative Crete, was divided into regional polities controlled by political factions residing in monumental court-centered building compounds, generally known as "palaces", built in large urban centers. How many regional polities were there? Expert input may be needed to code this variable.
people. Rackham and Moody argued that the population of palatial Crete (Middle Minoan II-Late Minoan I or 1800-1450 BCE) was about 216,000-271,000. [1] For population estimates see also Branigan. [2] Expert input may be needed to produce a figure for the population of a typical regional polity in this period.
[1]: Rackham, O. and Moody, J. 1999. The Making of the Cretan Landscape, Manchester and New York, 97.
[2]: Branigan, K. 2000. "Aspects of Minoan urbanism," in Branigan, K. (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age (SSAA 4), Sheffield, 38-50.
levels. Excavated testimonies supplemented with information from systematic survey projects provide a sound starting point for the reconstruction of settlement hierarchies during the New Palace period. [1] [2] [3] According to the most widely accepted narrative Crete was divided into regional polities controlled by political fractions residing in monumental complexes, generally known as "palaces", built at the center of large urban centers. These large towns -their extend is 25 ha or more- were the "capitals" of the regional quasi-polities dominating the political landscape of Crete. Small towns, their size varies from 10 to 4 ha, were scattered in the hinterland. They were provided with substantial central buildings which in their architectural layout emulate these of the capital towns. Villages, hamlets and farmhouses were in the periphery of these towns and even in remote and marginal areas.
[1]: See the various contributions in Branigan, K. (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age (SSAA 4), Sheffield. See also Cherry, J. F. 1986. “Polities and palaces: some problems in the Minoan state formation,” in Renfrew, C. and Cherry, J. F. (eds), Peer-Polity Interaction and Socio-Political Change, Cambridge, 19-45
[2]: Driessen, J., and Macdonald, C.F. 1997. The Troubled Island. Minoan Crete Before and After the Santorini Eruption (Aegaeum 17), Liège
[3]: Bevan, A. 2010. "Political Geography and Palatial Crete," Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23, 27-54
levels. Male and female figures depicted in various iconographic media were often identified as priests and priestesses. [1] The frequency of such depictions during the New Palace period has been interpreted as " a need for a more pronounced identity arose as a result of the greater consolidation of the ruling class." [2] The sacerdotal figures were dressed with sumptuary adorned robes and dresses, have special hairstyles and hold insignia of their authority (curved axes, double-axes, stone maces, and ritual objects). They were also often accompanied by certain symbolic images: animal heads (scarified victims), winged creatures, and animals attacker/predators. All evidence points to a division between priest and priestess: priest were associated with hunting and perhaps in the daily administration while priestess to pouring of libations, processions, bringing offerings and performing dances. The most important ritual performed by priestesses was the impersonation of the goddess. According Marinatos "Minoan priesthood was a permeant profession and not a stage in the "career" of the nobility". and "I would think that the priesthood in palatial Crete formed a strong corporation from the ranks of which the priest-king and the goddess impersonator were chosen." [3] It should be noted, however, that because of the absence of sound information all these are speculations.
[1]: See the discussion in Marinatos, N. 1993. Minoan Religion. Ritual, Image, and Symbol, Columbia, 127-46.
[2]: Marinatos, N. 1993. Minoan Religion. Ritual, Image, and Symbol, Columbia, 127.
[3]: See the discussion in Marinatos, N. 1993. Minoan Religion. Ritual, Image, and Symbol, Columbia, 145-46.
levels. [1-5] 1: village heads; 2: town heads; 3: district heads; 4: regional governors; 5: central government. As for many other facets of Neopalatial societies, evidence for administration is limited and consists mostly of clay archival documents. [1] [2] [3] We may assume that villages and town were controlled by local leaders whose in their turn were under the administration of high ranking government officials. It seems likely that the control was local and related to small territorial units. Texts deal mostly with agricultural staples (cereal crops, olive oil and olives, wine, figs and some other unidentified goods) and occasionally with dependent work-force, livestock, craft products, wool, and pottery. [4] The cornerstone of political economies was the exploitation of agricultural wealth. Staples were kept in central stores and were used for the needs of a limited number of individuals [5] [6] They sustained elite and dependent craftsmen and laborers, financed state enterprises, and were consumed in large-scale ceremonial events in order to project political and social power and reaffirm social status. Archival data shows that goods were collected thought taxation. Whether they were produced in land owned by the central administration or land that was privately owned cannot be determined. [7] The preserved documents only record the transactions in which the central administration was directly interested, and thus do not provide a complex picture of all economy and administrative aspects of a given sociopolitical setting. The juxtaposition of archaeological material excavated in sites where archival documents were found with goods recorded in the tables shows that Linear A tablets cover only part of the administrative concerns [8] Important craft goods and raw material (ingots, tusk of ivory, steatite ext.) used for the production of precious artifacts whose possession and display were critical to the state’s ability to clay legitimacy and stored in the stores of the central administration [9] [10] [11] were not mentioned in tablets. According to Schoep "the absence of any reference to such goods in the tablets is surprising and cannot be explained in terms of lack of interest on the part of administration in the production and/or aqcuisition of craft goods, since this is contradicted by the archaeological evidence. The possibility that documents other than tablets were concerned with craft goods must be seriously considered." [12] The variety of sealed documents (single-holes nodules, two-hole hanging nodules, roundels, noduli and flat-based nodules) used for sealing perishables documents highlight the importance of documents written in perishable materials in the Neopalatial administration. Officials surveyed the countryside and brought back information to the central administration. Clay tablets "were dealing with one kind of obligations, which mainly concerned agricultural commodities, while sealed documents related to other kind of transactions, involving a different, perhaps wider geographical scale and commodities and/or matters of a different administrative status. At the end of the administration cycle the information from the tablets was copied onto documents in perishable materials, to which single-hole hanging nodules may have been attached." [13]
[1]: e.g. Hallager, E. 1996. The Minoan Roundel and Other Sealed Documents in the Neopalatial Linear A Administration (Aegaeum 14), Liège
[2]: Schoep, I. M. 2000. The Administration of Neopalatial Crete. A Critical Assessment of the Linear A Tablets and Their Role in the Administrative Process (Minos Supplementary Volume 17), Salamanca
[3]: Weingarten, J. 2010. " Minoan seals and sealings," in Cline, E.H. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3000-1000 BC), Oxford, 317-28
[4]: Schoep, I. M. 2000. The Administration of Neopalatial Crete. A Critical Assessment of the Linear A Tablets and Their Role in the Administrative Process (Minos Supplementary Volume 17), Salamanca, 178-89.
[5]: Christakis, K. S. 2008. The Politics of Storage. Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete (Prehistory Monographs 25), Philadelphia
[6]: Christakis, K. S. 2011. "Redistribution and political economies in Bronze Age Crete," American Journal of Archaeology 115, 197-205.
[7]: Schoep, I. M. 2000. The Administration of Neopalatial Crete. A Critical Assessment of the Linear A Tablets and Their Role in the Administrative Process (Minos Supplementary Volume 17), Salamanca, 190.
[8]: c.f. Schoep, I. M. 2000. The Administration of Neopalatial Crete. A Critical Assessment of the Linear A Tablets and Their Role in the Administrative Process (Minos Supplementary Volume 17), Salamanca, 191.
[9]: e.g. Halbherr, F., E. Stefani, and L. Banti. 1977. “Haghia Triada bel period tardo palaziale,” ASAtene 55, 1-296
[10]: Watrous, L. V. 1984. “Ayia Triada: A New perspective on the Minoan villa,” American Journal of Archaeology 88, 123-34
[11]: Platon, L. 1993. " Ateliers plateaux minoenes: use nouvelle image," BCH 117, 103-22
[12]: Schoep, I. M. 2000. The Administration of Neopalatial Crete. A Critical Assessment of the Linear A Tablets and Their Role in the Administrative Process (Minos Supplementary Volume 17), Salamanca, 191.
[13]: Schoep, I. M. 2000. The Administration of Neopalatial Crete. A Critical Assessment of the Linear A Tablets and Their Role in the Administrative Process (Minos Supplementary Volume 17), Salamanca, 197.
Male and female figures depicted in various iconographic media were often identified as priests and priestesses. [1] The frequency of such depictions during the New Palace period has been interpreted as " a need for a more pronounced identity arose as a result of the greater consolidation of the ruling class." [2] The sacerdotal figures were dressed with sumptuary adorned robes and dresses, have special hairstyles and hold insignia of their authority (curved axes, double-axes, stone maces, and ritual objects). They were also often accompanied by certain symbolic images: animal heads (scarified victims), winged creatures, and animals attacker/predators. All evidence points to a division between priest and priestess: priest were associated with hunting and perhaps in the daily administration while priestess to pouring of libations, processions, bringing offerings and performing dances. The most important ritual performed by priestesses was the impersonation of the goddess. According Marinatos "Minoan priesthood was a permeant profession and not a stage in the "career" of the nobility" and "I would think that the priesthood in palatial Crete formed a strong corporation from the ranks of which the priest-king and the goddess impersonator were chosen." [3] It should be noted, however, that because of the absence of sound information all these are speculations.
[1]: See the discussion in Marinatos, N. 1993. Minoan Religion. Ritual, Image, and Symbol, Columbia, 127-46.
[2]: Marinatos, N. 1993. Minoan Religion. Ritual, Image, and Symbol, Columbia, 127.
[3]: See the discussion in Marinatos, N. 1993. Minoan Religion. Ritual, Image, and Symbol, Columbia, 145-46.
The central complexes of large urban centers may have served for governmental purposes. [1] [2]
[1]: See the various contributions in Hägg, R. and Marinatos, N. (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 10-16 June, 1984 (SkrAth 4o, 35), Stockholm
[2]: Driessen, J., Schoep,I. and Laffineur, R. (eds), Monuments of Minos. Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the International Workshop “Crete of the Hundred Palaces?” Held at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, 14-15 December 2001 (Aegeaum 23), Liège.
"Gradually, during the Early Modern period (3000-2200 BC), the Cretans evolved all the characteristics that we think of as being distinctively Minoan. Only the ’palaces’ remained unbuilt. The ’palace’ society (c.2000-1380 BC) was clearly very advanced in its orderly and bureaucratic organization, showing a strongly rational and practical side with highly developed craft technologies, and yet it also possessed all the imaginative power and childlike freshness of a very young culture." [1]
[1]: (Castleden 2002: 4-5) Castleden, R. 2002. Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. Routledge Press.
The existence of markets in the Aegean did not enjoy scholarly support for many decades, mostly due to the wide and uncritical acceptance of the Polanyian paradigm of ancient economies. Palatial institutions were seen as the only regulators of any economic transaction. Acting as redistributive agents, they were thought to draw upon raw materials and labour from the hinterland in order to produce and distribute specialized artisanal goods. In recent years, however, new perspectives have effectively challenged not only the redistributive role of governing institutions but also the negative attitude towards the existence of market and market-like systems in the Aegean. Once people started looking for them, markets have begun to appear in much earlier chronological horizons, shaping the emergence of state administrative institutions. [1] ( Garraty and Stark 2010). Although there are some constrains in recognizing and understanding markets in prehistoric societies, the market is an economic process which should developed further in Bronze Age Crete.
[1]: see various contributions in Garraty, C. P. and B. L. Stark (eds). 2010. Archaeological Approaches to Market Exchange in Ancient Societies. Boulder, University of Colorado Press.
The only known free-standing storage complexes are the Northeast House at Knossos [1] and the the Bastione at Hagia Triada. [2] [3] Although there is no doubt for the storage function of these complexes, their "public" character is entirely uncertain. [4] Might the Northeast House have been a communal storehouse under the control of the community or of an elite group independent of that residing within the palace, or was it under the control of the central palace authority? A convincing answer to this question cannot be given; it would depend, to a certain extent, on the theoretical context adopted by each scholar in the approach to the Neopalatial polities. Those who see political organization under a heterarchical interpretative scheme would be in favor of a scenario according to which the wealth stored in the complex would be in the hands of the community or a powerful faction competing with the central administration. On the contrary, those who assign an important role to the ruling group residing within the palace, would see government officials as the managers of the stored goods within the setting of the highly specialized Knossian economy. It is highly unlikely that the Northeast House, built close to the palace, the seat of a ruling group that would have controlled many aspects of the daily life of the inhabitants of the city and other centers, would have been an independent storage unit under communal or factional control. The same arguments apply in the case of the Bastione at Hagia Triada.
[1]: Evans, A. 1928. The Palace of Minos at Knossos, II, London, 414-30
[2]: Privitera, S. 2010. I granai del re. L’immagazzinamento centralizzato delle derrate a Creta tra il XV e il XIII secolo a.C., Venezia, 104-5
[3]: Privitera, S. 2014. Long-term grain storage and political economy in Bronze Age Crete: contextualizing Ayia Triada’s silo complexes,” American Journal of Archaeology 118, 429-49.
[4]: Christakis, K. S. 2014. "Communal storage in Bronze Age Crete: re-assessing testimonies," Κρητικά Χρονικά ΛΔ, 201-18.
"The hieroglyphs include bows, arrows, spears and daggers, Molloy wrote. As the script is untranslated, these hieroglyphs may not represent literal spears, daggers and weapons, he said, but their existence reveals that weaponry was key to Minoan civilization."EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: http://www.livescience.com/26275-peaceful-minoans-surprisingly-warlike.html
"For example, weapons such as daggers and swords show up in Minoan sanctuaries, graves and residences, Molloy reported in November in The Annual of the British School at Athens."EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: http://www.livescience.com/26275-peaceful-minoans-surprisingly-warlike.html
"Preserved seals and stone vessels show daggers, spears and swordsmen. Images of double-headed axes and boar’s tusk helmets are also common in Cretian art, Molloy reported."EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: http://www.livescience.com/26275-peaceful-minoans-surprisingly-warlike.html
"For example, weapons such as daggers and swords show up in Minoan sanctuaries, graves and residences, Molloy reported in November in The Annual of the British School at Athens."EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: http://www.livescience.com/26275-peaceful-minoans-surprisingly-warlike.html
"Preserved seals and stone vessels show daggers, spears and swordsmen. Images of double-headed axes and boar’s tusk helmets are also common in Cretian art, Molloy reported."EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: http://www.livescience.com/26275-peaceful-minoans-surprisingly-warlike.html
"Hunting scenes often featured shields and helmets, Molloy found"EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: http://www.livescience.com/26275-peaceful-minoans-surprisingly-warlike.html