Crete is a large island in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Archaic Crete (7th-6th centuries) is divided in the following periods: Orientalizing or Daedalic or Early Archaic (710-600 BCE) and Archaic Archaic (600-500).
There was no capital city as Crete was divided into territorial entities, each one centered upon a city that served as the main political and economic centre of its well-defined region. Political, military and religious control was exercised by the Kosmoi, a board of 3 to 10 annually elected nobles.
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No information could be found in the sources consulted regarding the polity’s overall population, however the largest settlement, Knossos, is estimated to have housed about 4,000 people.
[1]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
| none |
| Archaic Greece |
| Classical Crete |
| continuity |
| Succeeding: Classical Crete (gr_crete_classical) [continuity] | |
| Preceding: Geometric Crete (gr_crete_geometric) [continuity] |
| quasi-polity |
| Year Range | Archaic Crete (gr_crete_archaic) was in: |
|---|---|
| (710 BCE 501 BCE) | Crete |
Crete is divided into territorial entities each one centered upon a city that served as the main political and economic center of its region. The most important city-stateswere these of Knossos, probably the largest urban centre of the period, Axos, Krousonas, Phaistos, Gortys, Lyktos, Arkades, Prinias, and Eltyna in central Crete, Lato, Dreros and Praisos in east Crete, and Aptera and Kydonia in the west. None of these centers thought was seat of a political authority that controlled the island.
The Archaic Crete (7th-6th centuries) is divided in the following periods: Orientalizing or Daedalic or Early Archaic (710-600 BCE) and Archaic Archaic (600-500).
Knossos was the largest urban center, with a population of roughly 4,000 in this period. [1]
[1]: 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.
Km2. In this period Crete was divided into regional city-states that controlled well-defined regions. [1] [2] ’For Crete, [Hansen and Nielsen] make a quick calculation: having said that there were 49 contemporary cities in Crete, and the island having 8200 km2, the average territory of a Cretan city was of 167km2’. [3]
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 56-75
[2]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
[3]: (Coutsinas 2013) Nadia Coutsinas. 2013. "The Establishment of the City-States of Eastern Crete from the Archaic to the Roman Period." CHS Research Bulletin 2 (1). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:CoutsinasN.The_Establishment_of_the_City-States_of_Eastern_Crete.2013. Coutsinas is citing An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis by Mogens Herman Hansen and Thomas Heine Nielsen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
People. In this period Crete was divided into regional city-states that controlled well-defined regions. [1] [2] ’For Crete, [Hansen and Nielsen] make a quick calculation: having said that there were 49 contemporary cities in Crete, and the island having 8200 km2, the average territory of a Cretan city was of 167km2’. [3] Expert input may be needed to suggest a population estimate for a typical Archaic Cretan city-state.
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 56-75
[2]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
[3]: (Coutsinas 2013) Nadia Coutsinas. 2013. "The Establishment of the City-States of Eastern Crete from the Archaic to the Roman Period." CHS Research Bulletin 2 (1). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:CoutsinasN.The_Establishment_of_the_City-States_of_Eastern_Crete.2013. Coutsinas is citing An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis by Mogens Herman Hansen and Thomas Heine Nielsen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
1-2, 5 levels. Crete is divided into regional city-states which controlled a well defined region. The settlement hierarchy within these states is simple. It was centered upon the city where all the government, public and religious buildings were located and villages and hamlets scatted throughout its rural countryside. City-states were independent of their neighbors and there was a political unity among the urban centre and the rural settlements. [1] [2]
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 56-75
[2]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
levels. Religious control was exercised by the Kosmoi, a board of 3 to 10 annually elected nobles -their number varies from 3 to 10- elected by the Ecclesia, the body of free male citizens. [1] [2] Cult was performed by priests annually elected by the Ecclesia.
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 56-75
[2]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
levels. Military control was exercised by the Kosmoi, a board of 3 to 10 annually elected nobles -their number varies from 3 to 10- elected by the Ecclesia, the body of free male citizens. [1] [2]
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 56-75
[2]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
levels. Political, military and religious control was exercised by the Kosmoi, a board of 3 to 10 annually elected nobles -their number varies from 3 to 10- elected by the Ecclesia, the body of free male citizens. The council of elders, the Gerousia, whose members were chosen among the best Kosmoi, had legislative and juridical authority. The most senior member of the Kosmoi bore the title of "protokosmos". [1] [2]
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 56-75
[2]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
Μilitary control in city-states was exercised by the Kosmoi , a board of 3 to 10 nobles, annually elected by the Ecclesia, the body of free male citizens. One of them was the president of the board (he was called πρωτόκοσμος, στραταγέτας, κόσμος ο επί πόλεως). [1] [2]
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 56-75
[2]: Lembesi, A. 1987. "Η Κρητών Πολιτεία," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 166-72.
Bureaucratic control was exercised by ippis, a board of free-citizens.
The council of elders, the Gerousia, whose members were chosen among the best Kosmoi, had legislative and juridical authority. [1] [2] Officials appointed by the state, they are called dikastai (δικαστές), acted as judges; they deal mostly with cases involving inheritances and pledges. Special judges, the hetaireai, deal with matters of tribal law and custom, others, called orfanodikastes (ορφανοδικαστές) were appointed to supervise the affairs of orphans or minors, the ksenios Kosmos (ξένιος κόσμος) had important duties connected with the foreigners living in the city, and finally the cosmos hiarorgos (ιαροργός) was responsible for matters related to the religion.
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Torondo, 77
[2]: Chaniotis, A. 1897. "Κλασική και Ελληνιστική Κρήτη," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 203.
Codes of laws and regulations were recorded in inscriptions (commonly incised on stone). Legal inscriptions, the oldest are dated to the 7th century BCE, were found so far in the city-states of Gortyn, Axos, and Dreros. [1] [2] Many inscriptions were displayed on sanctuaries, a tangible expression of the intersection of law and religion. The texts are fragmentary and provide a very cloudy picture on the legal systems adopted by the Archaic city-states. [3] [4] The codes primarily deal with issues of ownership and pledges. The most important inscription, the longest inscription of the Greek world, is the famous Gortyn Code or the Great Code. [5] [6] [7] Although the inscription is dated to the first half of the 5th century BCE, it is argued that echoes Archaic legislative systems.
[1]: Guarducci, M. 1950. Inscriptiones Creticae IV, Rome, 1-40
[2]: Perlman, P. J. 2004. “Writing on the walls. The architectural context of Archaic Cretan laws,” in Day, L. P., Mook, M. S., and Muhly, J. D. 2004. Crete Beyond the Palaces: Proceedings of the Crete 2000 Conference (Prehistory Monographs 10), Philadelphia,181-97.
[3]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Torondo, 76-84
[4]: Chaniotis, A. 1897. "Κλασική και Ελληνιστική Κρήτη," in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 200-03.
[5]: Guarducci, M. 1950. Inscriptiones Creticae IV, Rome, n. 72
[6]: Willetts, R. F. 1967. The Law Code of Gortyn, Berlin
[7]: Di Vita, A. ed. 1984. Creta Antica. Cento anni di archaeologia italiana (1884-1984), Rome, 73-9
Legal disputes were tried in the agora (the central gathering place) of the city.
The oldest written record is an inscription incised on a large storage jar at Phaistos and dated to the end of 8th century BCE. [1] . All written records are inscriptions incised on stone and contain religious texts or cities laws. Others are votive and were incised on pieces of armor. They are dated to the mid 7th century and 6th century BCE.
[1]: Bile, M. 1988. La dialect crétois ancient, Paris, 29
Phonetic alphabetic writing was introduced to the Greek World during the 10th or 9th century BCE when Greeks adopted the earlier Phoenician alphabet and used it to write the Greek language.
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Sound data indicates that the alphabet was first introduced and developed in Crete and not at Euboea, as some scholars had argued.
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This theory has fully confirmed by the recent find of a Cretan inscription at Eltyna (Central Crete).
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The Doric Cretan alphabet was very close to its Phoenician model. The Doric Cretan alphabet was also used to express an unknown language that is believed to be the language of the Minoans that was preserved and spoken by some groups in the isolated mountainous regions of east Crete.
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These inscriptions date from the late 7th or early 6th century down to the 3rd century BCE.
[1]: Guarducci, M. 1953. "La culpa dell’alfabeto greco," in Γέρας Αντωνίου Κεραμοπούλλου, Athens, 342-54
[2]: Willi, A. 2005. "Κάδμος ανέθηκεν. Zur vermittlung der alphabetschrift nach Griechenland," Museum Helveticum 62, 162-71.
[3]: Guarducci, M. 1967. Epigrafia greca I, Rome, 189-81
[4]: Kritzas, X. 2010. " ΦΟΙΝΙΚΗΙΑ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ: Νέα αρχαϊκή επιγραφή από την Έλτυνα," in Rethemiotakis, G. and Egglezou, M. Το Γεωμετρικό Νεκροταφείο της Έλτυνας, Heraklion, 3-23.
[5]: Duhoux, Y. Les Étéocrétoise et l’origine de l’alphabet grec," Ant. Clas. 50, 287-94.
"Significantly, however, the oral transmission of the traditions of the past allowed Greek culture to survive this loss [the loss of writing] by continuing its stories and legends as valuable possesions passed down thought time. Storytelling, music, singing, and oral performances of poetry, which surely had been a part of Greek life for longer than we can trace, transmitted the most basic cultural ideas of the Greeks about themselves from generation to generation." [1]
[1]: Martin, T. R. 1996. Ancient Greece. From Prehistory to Hellenistic Times, New Haven and London, 37.
Minting in Greece was introduced around 6th century BCE. Before that period economic transactions were based on a barter system of spits, precious artifacts and metals, animals, food, and services. [1] [2]
[1]: e.g. Seaford, R. 2004. Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge, 125-46
[2]: Tejado, R. and Guerra, G. 2012. "From barter to coins: shifting cognitive frames in Classical Greek economy," in Herrero-Soler, H. and White, A.(eds.), Metaphore and Milles. Figurative Language in Business and Economics, Berlin/Boston, 27-4.
Minting in Greece was introduced around 6th century BCE. Before that period economic transactions were based on a barter system of spits, precious artifacts and metals, animals, food, and services. [1] [2]
[1]: e.g. Seaford, R. 2004. Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge, 125-46
[2]: Tejado, R. and Guerra, G. 2012. "From barter to coins: shifting cognitive frames in Classical Greek economy," in Herrero-Soler, H. and White, A.(eds.), Metaphore and Milles. Figurative Language in Business and Economics, Berlin/Boston, 27-4.
Cretans started minting around 470 BCE perhaps as a response to the reduced supple of new Aiginetan coinage. [1]
[1]: Stefanakis, M. I. 1999. "The introduction of coinage in Crete and the beginning of local minting," in Chaniotis, A. (ed.), From Minoan Farmers to Roman Traders. Sidelights on the Economy of Ancient Crete, Stuttgart, 247-68.
Epigraphic evidence from many regions of the island and archeological finds attest to the use of monetary values from at least the turn of the 6th century. The first coins to be used were the Aiginetans as result of the close relations between Aigina and the Cretan city of Kydonia (West Crete). [1]
[1]: Stefanakis, M. I. 1999. "The introduction of coinage in Crete and the beginning of local minting," in Chaniotis, A. (ed.), From Minoan Farmers to Roman Traders. Sidelights on the Economy of Ancient Crete, Stuttgart, 247-68.
Minting in Greece was introduced around 6th century BCE. Before that period economic transactions were based on a barter system of spits, precious artifacts and metals, animals, food, and services. [1] [2]
[1]: e.g. Seaford, R. 2004. Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge, 125-46
[2]: Tejado, R. and Guerra, G. 2012. "From barter to coins: shifting cognitive frames in Classical Greek economy," in Herrero-Soler, H. and White, A.(eds.), Metaphore and Milles. Figurative Language in Business and Economics, Berlin/Boston, 27-4.