Creta Antica (E-Journal - Università di Catania)
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GIUSEPPE GEROLA’S STRANGE CRETAN BAGNI
Full text linkIn his seminal work I Monumenti Veneti Dell’Isola di Creta (parte IV Opere Idrauliche), Giuseppe Gerola supplied a two-page report on five structures he considered being possible bagni. La Rosa and Portale’s more recent work on an Early Byzantine bath near the church of AghiosPavlos, on the outskirts of the village of Aghios Ioannis, near Phaestos confirmed the existence of one of Gerola’s bagni (which he had located «presso la chiesa di S. Paulo a S. Giovanni Priotissa»), thereby lending credence and weight to Gerola’s overall report. On the basis of these findings I decided to locate, and photograph, the remaining structures mentioned by Gerola and was granted kind permission to do so through the auspices of the 13th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, conducting fieldwork in June 2013. While all four sites (which have not been cited by any scholar since Gerola) were recorded in the field and are presented here, the compact Early Byzantine bath at Aghios Giorgios Koulourida at Phournopharango proved to be of particular importance with standing elevations surviving in the field to a height of 2 m
ANTHROPOMORPHIC VESSELS AS RE-IMAGINED CORPOREALITIESIN BRONZE AGE CRETE
Full text linkAnthropomorphic vessels form a special subcategory of the material culture from Bronze Age Crete. In previous studies, especially for Early Minoan specimens, emphasis was placed on their potential ritualistic/theological significance and/or gender. This paper offers a complementary approach to Minoan anthropomorphic vessels. Firstly, it brings together for the first time all published specimens, therefore drawing conclusions regarding their regional and diachronic characteristics. Secondly, it considers their potential and instrumental boundaries, agency and consumption. Thirdly, such vessels are recast as (re)conceptualised human bodies. In this way, they emerge as more than symbols, raising issues of locality, corporeality, as well as human and artefact corporeal entanglements
AN EINER STANGE HÄNGENDE GEFÄSSE. NOTA SU UN MOTIVO SFRAGISTICO
Full text linkOne of the motifs known in MM seals in Crete shows a series of circular objects linked by two or, sometimes, three strips to an elongated rectangular object. Since Evans’analysis this motif has been interpreted as “vases hanging from a pole”, and as such described in CMS (an einer Stange hängende Gefässe). Nevertheless, some more different hypotheses have been proposed, according to which the motif should represent a series of potter’s wheels linked to a wall, seen from above (Branigan, Todaro), a raft (Basch), or a series of loom-weights hanging from the inferior bar of a loom (Burke). Our paper analyzes these seals from a strictly iconographical and iconological approach demonstrating how this motif can be split in many different themes, corresponding to different possible interpretation, according to only apparently secondary elements of the iconography (number of disks, presence or absence of strings, protruding objects etc). These elements were in fact fundamental, for the ancient viewer, in his/her interpretation of the different scenes
PROBLEMS OF ROOFING OF EARLY MINOAN THOLOS TOMBS: THE CASE OF KAMILARI A THOLOS TOMB IN THE WESTERN MESARA PLAIN
Full text linkDue to their reduced state of preservations, the argument of a stone vault for Minoan tholos tombs has been discussed in the past years with open or not unanimous conclusions.Thanks to a special survey carried out during summer 2009 on Kamilari A tholos tombs and the good state of preservation of many architectural parts, the present article wants to explore under a new perspective the issue of the vault system. After the presentation of the problem of roofing of Minoan tholos tombs through archaeological and ethnographical examples, the second part of the paper deals with the discussion of the false and the true vault systems and the analysis of possible roof profiles and collapse mechanisms of the vault. It will be argued that: 1) the true vault behaviour cannot be excluded for Kamilari tholos A; 2) among the possible causes inducing this structure to collapse there is an earthquake hitting the structure along the South East-North West alignment.Finally, further considerations about the relation between Minoan and Mycenaean tholos tombs are stressed
ΓΙΑ ΤΑ 100 ΧΡΟΝΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΙΤΑΛΙΚΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΚΗΣ ΣΧΟΛΗΣ ΑΘΗΝΩΝ
Full text linkPer i cento anni della Scuola Archoelogica Italiana di AteneFor the centenary of the Italian School of Archaology at Athen
HAGHIA TRIADA: I SAGGI DI SCAVO NELL’AREA DELLA NECROPOLI (1997-1999)
Full text linkThe paper presents the result of the soundings carried on in Ayia Triada in 1997-1999, starting from the data of old excavations and notebooks. The abundant graphic and photographic documentation reveals the complex history of the area due to ancient and modern activities. Our research concerned the following areas: A) In the area of the tomb of the Painted Sarcophagus the funerary building was brought to light, and reexamined, allowing us to date its construction to early LMIIIA2. Some decades after, the tomb was robbed as a consequence of a damnation memoriae within the framework of a strong competition among elites. B) In the nearby of Tholos B, the ossuary has been cleaned, and an entrance door in its western side has been identified, closed in MMII. C) In the area to the South of Tholos A, the small funerary chambers 1-10 have been analytically surveyed. A small pottery deposit and the reexamination of the walls has allowed the attribution of the complex to a mature phase of MMIA, and the identification of three architectonic phases. D) In the area to the West of chambers 1-10, the three rooms a-c, found empty by earlier excavators, have been investigated, and dated after our study to MMIA. They were probably built immediately before chambers 1-10, and had the same function. An eleventh room has been identified. The back wall of Rooms a-c included two baetyls, determining a kind of ceremonial door with its sill, looking towards Tholos A. In a later phase, the two baetyls had been incorporated in a small paved room, which can be dated to MMII and which represented a cultic space, as demonstrated by the presence of a slab/kernos. The entrance of this space was no more oriented towards the tomb (as in the betyls wall), as a consequence of changes in the funerary sphere. E) In the area of Tholos A, a small portion not yet excavated has been investigated along the northern side. F) Moreover a small sounding has been made in the so called Cyclopean wall, already brought to light in the ‘70es. The wall was built in the protogeometric period, and its eastern part overlapped the wall of Tholos A, already as a ruin. The wall delimited a ritual space linked with the tomb, probably used for the cult of the ancestors. G) Finally, a rich dump of MMIA pottery has been discovered in an ellipsoidal pit behind the wall of the baetyls. The vases were probably part of the original furniture of the nearby chambers 1-10, removed in MMIB to make room for the new depositions found in earlier excavations. In the final chapter a summary of the most important results is proposed. The profanation of the tomb of the Painted Sarcophagus is set against the framework of the urban phases identified in the new excavations; the event is furthermore interpreted in the perspective of the political relations between the centres of Knossos and AyiaTriada: the damnatio memoriae would echo the destruction of the palace of Knossos and the changes in the relations among the settlements of Crete. Second, the frequent uses in the area of Tholos A have been highlighted , especially in MMIA, with some insights in the nature of religious liturgies linked with the tomb. A short paragraph in the end attempts the reconstruction of a diachronic sequence of the whole area of the necropolis
MYRTOS AND MALIA: MIDDLE MINOAN ENTENTE CORDIALE? OR UNITARY STATE?
Full text linkIn the light of close cultural links in pottery and other crafts, and probably in administrative practices, this paper re-examines the nature of the relationship between Malia and Myrtos-Pyrgos at the end of the Protopalatial period in MM IIB, and the possibility of an unitary state in east-central Crete under the control of Malia. While it is clear that Pyrgos is a second order site, occupying perhaps 2 per cent of the estimated size of Malia at the time, there are striking similarities in the culture at the elite level. These should be considered in the wider context of what has been seen as a Malia-Lasithi cultural zone, or even a state.In the region, which may perhaps be better called the Lasithi-Mirabello zone, MM IIB was a time of flux, with plentiful evidence for defence measures; it came to an end with destructions with fire and/or abandonments at many sites. As there is no evidence for a close administrative relationship, or economic control, or indeed religious influence, between Malia and Pyrgos (or Gournia), the most likely explanation is an entente cordiale between (the elite of) Pyrgos and Malia (or parts of Malia, where there seem to have been disparate clusters of authority at the time)
THE MIDDLE MINOAN III BUILDING COMPLEX AT ALONAKI, JUKTAS. ARCHITECTURAL OBSERVATIONS AND POTTERY ANALYSIS
Full text linkThe building complex at Alonaki is investigated here, and patterns of pottery production and consumption in particular, due to the belief that an overview of the pottery and architecture sheds light on the role that Alonaki played in the Middle Minoan III period. The site should be viewed in connection with the Anemospelia building and the peak sanctuary with which it forms a unique triad. The evidence of the pottery shows that the bulk of the assemblage should be placed chronologically in the mature MM IIIA period. A unit is also devoted to the ‘great South Road from Knossos’, as Evans calls it, a branch of which meets the Minoan road from Junktas