A Sardinian Askos from Crete

Abstract

An askos (BSA 49 [1954] 222, pl. 25:111) found by R.W. Hutchinson in Tomb 2 at Khaniale Tekke near Knossos is recognized as an export from nuragic Sardinia; similar askoi are common there in the same chronological range, c. 850–680 B.C., as that represented by the Cretan context. Although other good parallels have also been found outside Sardinia, notably at Vetulonia in Etruria, the Tekke piece is the first Sardinian artefact of the Early Iron Age to be identified in the Aegean. Its presence there is related to the Phoenician element in the complex pattern of long distance trade that preceded the arrival in Italy of the first Western Greeks.

Wealth and Status in Iron Age Knossos

“…Although the tomb chamber was found disturbed and robbed, several local vases, including at least 19 urns – the human remains from which were not studied, were identified (Hutchinson and Boardman 1954, 222). The chamber also produced a vase from Sardinia (Vagnetti 1989) and various objects of Near Eastern origin or pedigree – a faience vase and beads, pieces of ivory and fragments from an ostrich egg – and some gold items, including a pendant, a figurine of a ‘mistress of the animals’ and a pin (Boardman 1967, 69–70). Furthermore, the scraping of the floor revealed two holes dug in the virgin soil just inside either door‐jamb.…”

“…11 11 Balmuth 1971, 4–5; Higgins 1980, 108; Whitley 1986, 312–13. Vagnetti 1989; Morris, S.P. 1992, 157–8; Osborne 1996, 51; Morris, I.…”

Patterns of Production and Consumption of Coarse to Semi-Fine Pottery at Early Iron Age Knossos

“…Levantine interest in Sardinia (particularly in its metal ores) is the one constant in Mediterranean exchanges during the EIA, exchanges which begin to quicken and deepen in the years after 850 BC. The most economical explanation for the presence of both the Sardinian askos (Vagnetti 1989) and Kytheran cooking wares in Knossos is that they were brought to there in Phoenician ships. And Kythera makes eminent sense as the next stopping-off point for Levantine traders moving further west: it has several decent harbours and a tradition of early Phoenician presence on the island (Hdt i.…”

“…It has long been recognized that Knossos's external links increased markedly in the course of the ninth century BC. The Sardinian askos in a PGB context from the Khaniale Tekke tombs (Vagnetti 1989), and the bronze bowl inscribed in Phoenician characters from Tekke tomb J in the North Cemetery (Snycer 1979;Coldstream and Catling 1996, 27-30 no. Jfi) are both eloquent testaments to the range of Knossos's links in this period.…”