Jan Driessen

Peter Tomkins

Ilse Schoep

Ever since their first discovery, more than a century ago, the Minoan Palaces have dominated scholarship on the Cretan Bronze Age. Opinion long held that their first appearance, seemingly at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, marked a pivotal transformation point, during which the simple, egalitarian societies of the Early Bronze Age were transformed into something significantly more complex, hierarchical and civilized. Over the last three decades, however, theoretical developments, together with new research and discoveries, have so thoroughly undermined this conceptualization of the Early and Middle Bronze Age that it seemed advisable to go back to the beginning, reevaluate our theories and models and ask anew what we really know about social and political complexity on Crete from the end of the Neolithic to Middle Minoan II (c.3600-1750/00 BC). Back to the Beginning explores this theme through fifteen papers. They cover both the principal central Cretan urban centuries of Knossos, Malia and Phaistos and the smaller communities that lay beyond them in central and eastern Crete. Many present significant new bodies of settlement and cemetery data, whether recently acquired or reinterpreted from older excavations. All place a clear and concerted emphasis on breaking down complexity into different social processes and relations and building up an understanding of society, from the bottom up, as a host of interacting and potentially conflicting agents or scales of identity. All too are concerned with addressing long-standing and fundamental research questions. When, in fact, does the Bronze Age begin in real terms? How did socioeconomic diversity play out across the Cretan landscape? When and where did the monumental Court Complexes, which convention terms Palaces, emerge; how did they function and how did this vary? Were the Court Complexes entirely new phenomena or were they rooted more firmly in preexisting traditions and practices? What happened in MM I and how, more generally, might we frame and explain the Early and Middle Bronze Age in more inclusive terms? How were different communities structured and how did this vary? Is it appropriate to talk of urbanism and state formation during this period and if so, when and where? By taking us significantly closer to resolving these questions, Back to the Beginning ushers in a new era of understanding for the Early and Middle Bronze Age on Crete.

Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete During the Early and Middle Bronze Age

Back to the Beginning

Colin F. Macdonald

Our thesis is that the archaeological evidence suggests a severe economic dislocation during the Late Minoan IB ceramic period in Crete. This appears to have been triggered, first by a tectonic earthquake and shortly afterwards by the eruption of Thera early in the Late Bronze Age (Late Minoan IA) after which the situation gradually worsened, accompanied by a general feeling of uncertainty caused by the eruption and its effects. The tectonic earthquake led to abandonments at some sites or an effort to rebuild in attempt to re-establish normal economic and social life. The result of these two natural disasters gave local centers greater independence from the traditional "Palaces". This fragmentation of Minoan Crete brought about the end of the most highly developed economic system in the Aegean although it was somewhat resurrected in the following "Mycenaean" period. The natural events which proved to be the catalysts for change, presaged the end of the traditional ruling elites which appeared to have lost their assumed divine support. They tried in vain to maintain their special status, but with major problems in food production and distribution, the existing system disintegrated resulting in a process of decentralisation with an increase in the regional exploitation of land chiefly for local consumption; numerous lesser elites may well have prospered in this environment. However, as in the Hellenistic period, the fragmentation of Crete into many small centres may have led to internal Cretan conflict and a massive wave of fire destructions in Late Minoan IB, indicating a state of anarchy by the end of the period. That Mycenaeans from Mainland Greece arrived on the island at some stage during the Late Bronze Age is clear, although precisely when they arrived is a matter of fierce debate. The "crisis years" of LM IB-II, in the fifteenth century B.C., appear the most likely and opportune. During the succeeding "Mycenaean" period, only the Palace at Knossos seems to have functioned as a major centre. During LM II-III, there was a gradual but general decrease in the sophistication of architecture and arts. The LM II period may perhaps be regarded as the final phase of decline which began in LM IB, with some major centres suffering destructions once again. By Late Minoan II, a new Knossian elite or dynasty appears to have taken control and installed a modified socio-political and economic system. The dynasty relied heavily on administration and bureaucraty to maintain its position. The Santorini eruption is here given the role of a precipitant or catalyst, which began an entire series of changes which eventually resulted in the absorption of Minoan Crete into the Mycenaean, and ultimately, the Greek world.

Minoan Crete Before and After the Santorini Eruption

The Troubled Island

Since 2007, the Belgian School at Athens has undertaken excavations on the Kefali or Buffo hill, east of the village of Sissi, on the north coast of Crete where a Minoan site was occupied approximately between 2500 and 1200 BC. This volume is the follow-up of an earlier one on the 2007-2008 excavations (published as 'Aegis 1') and presents a preliminary report on the excavations carried out in 2009 and 2010. It concentrates on the different zones examined within the cemetery and settlement. There are also reports on the Late Minoan pottery, site conservation and environmental analysis as well as a paper on the use of GIS at Sissi.

Preliminary report on the 2009-2010 campaigns. II

Excavations at Sissi

Robert Laffineur

Foreword; Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces; Introduction; List of abbreviations; Jan DRIESSEN, 'The King Must Die.' Some Observations on the Use of Minoan Court Compounds; Ilse SCHOEP, The State of the Minoan Palaces or the Minoan Palace-State?; Colin F. MACDONALD, The Neopalatial Palaces of Knossos; Giorgos RETHEMIOTAKIS, Evidence on Social and Economic Changes at Galatas and Pediada in the New-Palace Period; Vincenzo LA ROSA, Pour une revision preliminaire du second palais de Phaistos; Joseph SHAW, The Minoan Palatial Establishment at Kommos. An Anatomy of its History, Function, and Interconnections; Olivier PELON, Contribution du palais de Malia a l'etude et a l'interpretation des "palais" minoens; Jeffrey S. SOLES, A Central Court at Gournia; Metaxia TSIPOPOULOU, Petras, Siteia: The Palace, the Town, the Hinterland and the Protopalatial Background; Lefteris PLATON, The Political and Cultural Influence of the Zakros Palace on Nearby Sites and in a Wider Context; Maria ANDREADAKI-VLASAKI, Are We Approaching the Minoan Palace of Khania?; Clairy PALYVOU, Central Courts: The Supremacy of the Void; Yannis HAMILAKIS, Too Many Chiefs?: Factional Competition in Neopalatial Crete; Peter M. WARREN, Political Structure in Neopalatial Crete; Philip P. BETANCOURT, Who was in charge of the Palaces?; J. Alexander MACGILLIVRAY, Memories of a Minotaur; Peter M. DAY and Maria RELAKI, Past Factions and Present Fictions: Palaces in the Study of Minoan Crete; Klaas VANSTEENHUYSE, Minoan Courts and Ritual Competition.

Rethinking the Minoan Palaces

Monuments of Minos

Quentin Letesson

Between 2007 and 2011, the Belgian School at Athens undertook excavations on the Kefali or Buff o hill, east of the village of Sissi, on the north coast of Crete, only a few kilometres east of Malia. The project has revealed the remains of a settlement and cemetery, used during diff erent phases of the Bronze Age (2500-1200 B.C.). This volume details the results of the 2011 campaign, the last in our first 5-year programme. The work in the different zones is described and reports on Late Minoan pottery, petrographic analysis, shells and ground stone tools are attached.

Preliminary Report on the 2011 Campaign

Excavations at Sissi III

During 2007 and 2008, the Belgian School at Athens undertook its first ever excavation on Crete, at the Minoan site of Sissi on the north coast of the island. Located at a few kilometres from the palatial site of Malia, the Sissi settlement presents a unique test case to examine the relationship between a palace site and its hinterland during the Bronze Age (2600-1250 BC). This volume gives some preliminary results of the two first excavation campaigns as well as an introduction on earlier explorations at Sissi, a report on the topography and some of the techniques used during the work. There is also a report on the Late Minoan pottery. The excavations were carried out by the Université catholique de Louvain under direction of prof. Jan Driessen in collaboration with a team of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven under direction of prof. Ilse Schoep.

Preliminary Report on the 2007-2008 Campaigns

Alessandro Vanzetti

The aim of this volume is to measure acceptance of, and resistance to, outside influences within Mediterranean coastal settlements and their immediate hinterlands, with a particular focus on the processes not reflecting simple commercial routes, but taking place at an intercultural level, in situations of developed connectedness.

Acceptance of and Resistance to Foreign Influences in the Connected Ancient Mediterranean

Communication Uneven

Destruction remains a relatively unexplored and badly understood topic in archaeology and history. The term itself refers to some form and measurable degree of damage inflicted to an object, a system or a being, usually exceeding the stage during which repair is still possible but most often it is examined for its impact with destructive events interpreted in terms of a punctuated equilibrium, extraordinary features that represent the end of an archaeological culture or historical phase and the beginning of a new one. The three-day international workshop of which this volume presents the proceedings took place at Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium, from November 24 to 26, 2011 and was organized by CEMA – Centre d'Étude des Mondes Antiques – one of the research centres within INCAL – Institut de Civilisations, Arts et Lettres. Our aim with organising this gathering was to seriously engage with destruction as a phenomenon and how it is perceived by archaeologists, historians and philologists of the ancient world. The volume is similarly structured to the workshop which it reflects, with first a series of more theoretical papers and then following a chronological and geographical order.

Archaeological, Philological and Historical Perspectives

Destruction

Karel van Lerberghe

Joachim Bretschneider

The idea that societies and rulers express their power through monumental architecture is not a new one, but this collection of essays, the result of a 2002 conference in Leuven, takes the arguement back to the very beginnings of monumental architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean, to ask if this process can be linked to a particular ...

Jan Driessen

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