Knossos, the Little Palace North Project, Part I: the Early Greek Periods

Seventy years after its first investigation, Karphi (Karfi) on Crete was the subject of a new pilot excavation in 2008. The main aim was to provide the first up-to-date detailed contextual records for the site across a representative area, thus filling in interpretative gaps left by the original extensive excavation. This paper presents and analyses these records with the aim of investigating the likely complexity of social systems at one of the largest new communities founded in Crete after the collapse of Bronze Age states c.1200 bc. Recent research has tended to focus on small villages, or on sites which later developed into poleis, meaning that crisis-period remains are poorly preserved. Occupied only between the crisis horizon of c.1200 bc and an important nucleation of Cretan communities at large ‘proto-polis’ settlements occurring in the early tenth century, the large Karphi site offers insight into the special challenges of creating large, potentially diverse new communities in crisis circumstances. It has one of the most dramatic of the new settlement locations, on steep-sided peaks 1100 m above sea level in an area which had never previously been settled. The social and economic adjustments needed here were particularly sharp and urgent, and the paper examines the structures which enabled them, using preliminary analyses of bioarchaeological data from the new project to assist reconstruction of the economy. The site has had other, highly specialised uses in its history, on which the new excavation has thrown light. The results highlight not only the resonance of this landscape in ancient consciousness, but also the ways in which such resonance could be exploited, both in the socially volatile post-collapse period and in the context of enhanced social and economic complexity as polis states started to come into being. Finally, a first set of radiocarbon dates from the new excavation is presented and assessed with regard to the dating of the Cretan Bronze to Iron Age transition and its wider ramifications.

Section: Scientific Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5.9). Use of the detailed octopus design is seen through Late Minoan IIIA–B (especially on large fine jars, kraters and amphorae: Hatzaki 2005, 131, 181, fig. 4; Hallager and Hallager 2003, pl.…”

Section: Building A1 (Figs 2–6)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Surviving Crisis: Insights From New Excavation at Karphi, 2008

Wallace

Mylona

2012

“…Pottery of Cypriot origin postdating 700 BC and deriving from settlement contexts has rarely been recognised at Knossos, but two exceptions exist: two Black-on-Red II juglets, one from the Little Palace and one from the Unexplored Mansion. The former was found in a scrappy Orientalising layer (Hatzaki et al 2008, 247, no. B5.19, pl.…”

Section: Comparable Materials From Knossosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overseas Connections of Knossos and Crete in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries Bc: Insights From the Unexplored Mansion

Paizi

2023

In relation to previous periods, Archaic and Classical Crete presents a contraction in the material record and the evidence for overseas connections. This phenomenon has attracted wide-ranging attention in the scholarship, much of which focuses upon the major Cretan city of Knossos. The present article reviews the evidence from Knossos which suggests a decline in overseas connections and revisits the problem in the light of Archaic and Classical pottery from abroad found at the settlement site of the ‘Unexplored Mansion’. On the basis of these finds, I argue that the impression of decline has been exaggerated, and has been partly shaped by methodological problems in the study of ceramics.

“…While the fine buff, dark-on-light lustrous pattern-decorated rounded cup was consumed in staggering numbers in the town of Knossos ( e.g . Popham 1970; 1984; Warren 1997; Hatzaki 2005), in the palace it is found in relatively small numbers (Hatzaki 2007c), but nevertheless in larger quantities than the bell-shaped cup. To sum up, one can argue that the bell-shaped cup had a markedly low production among Knossian tablewares, and, at Knossos at least, a restricted circulation, probably exclusive to the palace.…”

Section: The Cultural Context Of the Late Minoan Iiia1 Cups At Knossomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is widely acknowledged that little ceramic material from the palace at Knossos survives today, and that much was thrown away. What is kept largely consists of pattern-decorated pottery, especially rim or elaborately decorated body sherds (hence the paucity of handles and bases; see Popham 1970, 12–13; Hatzaki 2005, 101–2). Therefore, while the sample is biased, the small number of such cups so far identified remains meaningful, especially when compared with other Late Minoan IIIA fine tableware from the palace, town and cemeteries of Knossos.…”

Section: The Cultural Context Of the Late Minoan Iiia1 Cups At Knossomentioning

confidence: 99%

Knossian Gifts? Two Late Minoan Iiia1 Cups From Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel

Bunimovitz

Lederman

Hatzaki

2013

Two Late Minoan IIIA1 cups were recently found in the excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel. They were part of a larger assemblage of local Late Bronze IIA (first half of the fourteenth century bc) drinking and eating vessels sealed under a destruction layer in one room of a large edifice, presumably a ‘palace’. A commemorative scarab bearing the name of Amenhotep III and related to the first Jubilee (Sed festival) in his thirtieth regnal year was found alongside the cups, providing further chronological evidence. This article examines the Late Minoan IIIA1 cups from Beth-Shemesh within their Aegean context and emphasises their close affinity with comparable cups from the palace of Knossos, catalogued and republished here. The Tel Beth-Shemesh cups are the second occurrence – after Sellopoulo Tomb 4 – of Knossian Late Minoan IIIA1 pottery found together with Amenhotep III's scarab. This new evidence strengthens the likelihood of some chronological overlap between Late Minoan IIIA1 and the reign of this Pharaoh. The article also considers the biography of the two Minoan cups, as social agents within the intricate network of the Late Bronze Age palatial gift exchange in the eastern Mediterranean. While it is possible that the cups came to Beth-Shemesh directly from Knossos, another viable option is that they arrived as a gift from the Egyptian court. The two rare Late Minoan IIIA1 Knossian cups could have reached Egypt on the occasion of Amenhotep III's much-discussed official embassy to the Aegean – including Knossos – and then been sent as royal gifts to the ruler of Beth-Shemesh.