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Knossos 1993: excavations outside the south front of the Palace1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Nicoletta Momigliano  and
David E. Wilson
Nicoletta Momigliano
Affiliation:
Balliol College Oxford/University of Bradford
David E. Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
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Abstract

This report presents the results of excavations in 1993 in the area of the Early Houses and Early Paving by the South Front of the palace at Knossos. It adds to and further clarifies the results of earlier excavations in this area, and provides much-needed new evidence for the history of the Prepalatial and Protopalatial settlements. Principal findings of the 1993 investigation include (1) an EM II B pit deposit, which has important implications for our understanding of this ceramic phase at Knossos; (2) no fewer than three building phases in EM III, comprising the Early Houses including the substantial South Front House; and (3) the dating of the Early Paving and associated structures to MM I B.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 91 , November 1996 , pp. 1 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1996

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References

2 DM/DB 1907, 35–89, and 1908, 53–7; Hood, M. S. F., ‘Archaeology in Greece, 1957’, AR (1957), 21Google Scholar; Kret. Chron. 11 (1957), 338; id., ‘Archaeology in Greece 1960–61’, AR (1960–1), 27; Hood and Cadogan, forthcoming.

3 Evans, A. J., PM i. 71, 73–5, 108 and fig. 40.Google Scholar Some of the pottery from the levels above the EM II B deposits, which is mostly EM III as defined in Cadogan et al. 1993 (see also n. 47 below), has been published by Momigliano (1991, esp. 198–204 and 242–5), who used the term EM III/MM I A not to indicate that the material covered the chronological span traditionally assigned to these two pottery phases, but to indicate that this material had been traditionally used to illustrate Evans's ‘polychrome’ MM I A phase, whereas, following Hood's suggestion, it might in fact be called EM III at Knossos; the term EM III/MM I A was also used to express the difficulties in relating deposits from Evans's excavations to Evans's and Hood's definitions of EM III and MM I A; Hood, Cadogan, Wilson, and Day are preparing detailed studies of the EM II B material (Wilson and Day, in preparation; Hood and Cadogan, forthcoming).

4 Cf. Evans, , ‘The Palace of Knossos: provisional report of the excavations for the year 1902’ BSA 8 (1901–1902), 1–124, pl. 1Google Scholar, and DM/DB 1907, 35 with sketch opposite and Ibid. 41. The South Porch was cleared in 1907.

5 See DM/DB 1907, 35–89.

6 Cf. DM/DB 1907, 39–60. Mackenzie gives a very detailed, stone by stone, description of these excavations.

7 Mackenzie's sketch (Fig. 2), a photograph taken during the 1907 excavations (Plate 1), and photographs taken during Platon's cleaning operations show that the ninth westernmost slab visible today—hatched in Figs. 4–5—was added in 1957 or later.

8 DM/DB 1907, 73–4.

9 Ibid. 85; KP no. 11.

10 PM ii.1. 363–4; ii.2. 759–62.

11 DM/DB 1907, 86.

12 See also Wilson, D. E., ‘Knossos before the palaces: an overview of the Early Bronze Age (EM I–III)’, in Evely, D., Hughes-Brock, H., and Momigliano, N. (eds), Knossos: A Labyrinth of History. Papers in Honour of Sinclair Hood (London, 1994), 33.Google Scholar

13 Numbers in square brackets refer to pages in Mackenzie's 1908 daybook and to figures in the present text.

14 DM/DB 1908, 53–7. The excavations, however, continued southward and brought to light the House(s) E of the South House (KP no. 3).

15 See n. 2 above.

16 The full report of these important soundings will appear in Hood and Cadogan, forthcoming. We are most grateful to Sinclair Hood and Gerald Cadogan for allowing us to make reference to their discoveries here.

17 See Cadogan et al. 1993, 24: Early Houses, Upper Deposit. The uppermost floor was very near to the modern surface, and so the 1960 excavations did not produce evidence to date the occupation level(s) above it.

18 See Momigliano 1991, 198–204, and n. 3 above.

19 Paving stones removed during the excavations were later cemented back in place. We should like to thank Dr Alexandra Karetsou (Herakleion Museum) for arranging this conservation work for us.

20 This was excavated as level no. 5 (#3–4).

21 This was excavated as levels nos. 6 (#5–13, 16a) and 9 (#34, 58).

22 MM I B as defined in Cadogan et al. 1993, 25: Royal Road South, Basements, Middle Floor group.

23 More of the fill upon which walls 10 and 11 were built was exposed—but not excavated—in trench III (see below). Both walls rest on neolithic towards their N end, and on MM I B fill at their S end.

24 Excavated as levels 6 (#17) and 10 (#35). Total weight = 4·3 kg. About 6% of this fill is neolithic; the rest can be assigned to EM III and MM I A, including one or possibly two fragments with polychrome decoration.

25 Only one fragment from this possibly earlier level was selected for publication, the drain P 55.

26 I, 6 #12. The ware composition of this ‘zembil’ (in terms of weight) is as follows. Drab ware = 30% of the deposit (amongst the diagnostic sherds we counted 31 goblet bases and 19 straight-sided cup bases); Coarse plain = 29%; Coarse decorated (including Monochrome and Dark-on-light) = 23%; Cooking ware = 5%; Red Burnished ‘Lamp’ ware = 4%; Fine Red Slipped ware = 3%; Fine Black Slipped ware = 3%; Neolithic–MM I A = 2%; Fine Polychrome = only 5 small fragments, of which 2 are probably imports from east Crete (P 7, 10). (Fine Plain, Fine Barbotine, and Coarse Polychrome not attested in this ‘zembil’.)

27 No systematic and comprehensive study of MM wares from Knossos has yet been undertaken, though some deposits have been published by ware groups: see e.g. Andreou, S., ‘Pottery groups of the Old Palace period in Crete’ (Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Cincinnati, 1978)Google Scholar, ch. 1; Catling, E. A., Catling, H. W., and Smyth, S., ‘Knossos 1975: Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I houses by the acropolis’, BSA 74 (1979), 1–80 at 21–56Google Scholar; see also MacGillivray, J. A., ‘Pottery of the Old Palace period at Knossos and its implications’ (Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Edinburgh, 1986).Google Scholar Results of a programme of petrographic analyses by P. M. Day of the EM II B–MM I B pottery from these excavations will appear elsewhere.

28 Cf. Foster, K. P., Minoan Ceramic Relief (SIMA 64; Göteborg 1982).Google Scholar

29 Cf. Momigliano 1991, 260: Fabric II.

30 This must be what Mackenzie described as ‘pale clay bedding’ and ‘clay mortar of a greenish yellow colour’ (see above). This yellowish stratum was excavated as levels 2, 8, and 11.

31 All the pottery illustrated comes from level 8.

32 Evans's backfill was excavated as levels 1–2; the neolithic was excavated as level 3.

33 Excavated as level 5. The sherd material from this level can be compared to the deposits from the Central Court-Stratum I (Evans, J. D., ‘Excavations in the neolithic settlement at Knossos 1957–60, part I’, BSA 59 (1964), 132–240Google Scholar). Our thanks to Katya Mandeli for suggesting this date to us.

34 See S. Hood and G. Cadogan, forthcoming.

35 Excavated as level 16.

36 Excavated as level 13.

37 Excavated as level 12.

38 Excavated as levels 2, 3, and 8.

39 For EM II B material see above and Wilson and Day (n. 3 above); for EM III see trenches IV and V below, and Momigliano 1991.

40 The fill was excavated as level 11.

41 The fill was excavated as level 9.

42 Excavated as level 4.

43 Excavated as levels 3 and 8.

44 Excavated as level 14.

45 Neolithic levels were left unexcavated, except for the removal of a very small portion in trench IV (excavated as level 4).

46 Samples of the red-painted floor were collected from both trenches (samples 12, 19).

47 Momigliano 1991, 198–201; Cadogan et al. 1993. A few fragments of polychrome ware were found in the Early Houses in 1908, but the character of the deposit as a whole appears to be different from the Royal Road South Rubbish Levels deposit, which defines MMI A at Knossos (Cadogan et al. 1993). See also n. 3 above.

48 Excavated as levels 2, 3, 6, 7.

49 Excavated as level 5.

50 Excavated as level 3.

51 Excavated as level 1.

52 Portions of these floors are still preserved in the small area w of the 1960 trench A.

53 No internal dividing walls survive now in the NW area of the building, but these were illustrated in Mackenzie's 1908 sketch (cf. Figs. 3 and 4) and must have been removed to reach the underlying EM II B deposits (cf. Introduction above).

54 For a recent summary and discussion of the EM II B and EM III periods at Knossos see Wilson (n. 12).

55 Detailed publication of these deposits is now in preparation and should be consulted to place the 1993 finds in their larger context.

56 Results of a programme of petrographic analysis by P. M. Day of the EM II B–MM I B pottery from this excavation will appear elsewhere.

57 MacGillivray's schematic plan of the Old Palace at Knossos, though an improvement on Evans's (PM i, fig. 152), is still largely based on conjecture (J. A. MacGillivray, ‘The early history of the palace at Knossos (MM I–II)’, in Evely, Hughes-Brock, and Momigliano (n. 12), 47 Fig. 1, 50 Fig. 2).

58 See Warren, P. and Hankey, V., Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol, 1989), 176Google Scholar, and Warren, , Myrtos: An Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete (London, 1972), 344Google Scholar; Manning, S. W., The Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: Archaeology, Radiocarbon and History (Sheffield, 1995), 145–9, 172.Google Scholar We should like to thank S. W. Manning for discussing the results of these analyses with us.