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The Knossos Frescoes: A Revised Chronology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Extract
The special nature of the material makes peculiar difficulties for any attempt to place the Knossos frescoes in a chronological series. In theory, a lower bracket is set by the stratigraphic associations with which the work is found; an upper bracket is determined by the date at which the building or room which the frescoes decorated was constructed; within the brackets refinements are made where they are suggested by stylistic comparisons with other material. For a large number of our examples, however, including most of the fragments from the Palace at Knossos, the stratigraphie evidence is indecisive, the structural phases are conjectural, and the stylistic considerations open to doubt.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1976
References
1 The Palace of Nestor ii (1969) (henceforward, Pylos ii) 221 f.
2 Atkinson, T. D., Bosanquet, R. C.et al. Excavations at Phylakopi: BSA Suppl. Paper iv (1904)Google Scholar (henceforward, Phylakopi) 262; Evans, A. J., The Palace of Minos (henceforward, PM) i, 547 and n. 1.Google Scholar
3 Phylakopi 77.
4 PM ii, 378.
5 PM ii, 436; Cameron, M. A. S., BSA 1968, 15 f.Google Scholar
6 PM ii, 380, 431; S. Marinatos, Prelim. Reports Thera, v.
7 PM ii, 391; M. R. Popham, The Destruction of the Palace at Knossos (1972) (henceforward, DPK) 31–3; BSA 1903, 3–13.
8 A. J. Evans (edd. M. S. F. Hood and M. A. S. Cameron), Knossos Fresco Atlas (KFA) 22.
9 Coleman, K., AJA 1973, 286.Google Scholar
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12 Alexiou, , Praktika 1955, 314, 318 fig. 2Google Scholar; Furumark, Ialysos and Aegean History, 177.
13 Unfortunately there are errors and obscurities in the various accounts of this area, (a) The lower filling shown in Plan D (in pocket PM iii) includes both the Loom Weights Deposit, dated MM II, and the MM III stratum above it. The floor level above this, also shown filled, is that on which the tripod pots were found, just beneath the ground surface at the time of excavation. (b) This floor level continues that of the Corridor of the Bays, the Magazine of the Medallion Pithoi, and the ‘Olive Press’ area, adjacent to and at the same height as the Middle East-West Corridor to which there was access, (c) The Ground plan (PM i, fig. 278; iii, fig. 338) is therefore not strictly in the horizontal plane; it gives information from two levels, the level of the Corridor of the Bays on the west, but the lower level of the MM IIIA deposits down the original slope to the east.
There are also discrepancies in the reported location of the Deposit of High Reliefs. The BSA report places them in the basement compartment to the south of that containing the MM IIIA deposits, including the Spiral Fresco and Bull Relief, while the remaining plans show them beyond this complex to the east. The theory that there were two successive East Halls, the first MM IIIA and the second MM IIIB, above the basements in this area, requires that the latter location is correct. The account of their discovery suggests that the wall to the east was not clearly defined at this stage and that the deposit was scattered over both compartments. Their depth, relative to the slab which marked the upper floor above the northern continuation of the Lower East-West Corridor, is not made clear, though later they are said to have been about on a level with it.
14 PM iii, 481 f.
15 PM i, figs. 190, 191.
16 As originally implied by Evans, , BSA 1902, 23.Google Scholar
17 PM i, fig. 187b; cited by Pendlebury (Arch. Crete, xxxii) as an example of a pure MM IIIA stratum.
18 Arch. Crete, 204–5.
19 PM ii, 356; PM iii, 189 f.
20 PM iii, 167 i.
21 PM iii, fig. III; cf. KFA, Key to Provenances, 42.
22 PM i, 217; 411.
23 PM ii, 301 f., 310.
24 The Minoans, 156, n. 16.
25 PM iii, 38; for other examples, PM i, 375, n. 1.
26 The BSA report (1900, 44–5) attributes the fragments of the Saffron Gatherer and some miniatures to the same deposit as the stone lamps in the Room of the Saffron Gatherer, i.e. on the highest floor level c. 1 m. from the surface. In the later, revised, account (PM iii, 21 f.) they are placed somewhat hesitantly on the floor beneath (cf. Platon, KrCh. 1947,511). It is clear from the parts of Mackenzie's notebooks now published that the deposit underlying the highest floor level was not cleared until the year after the Saffron Gatherer had been found (Palmer, The Find Places of the Knossos Tablets (FPKT) 123, entry for 8. iv. 1901). The latest floor in the Room of the Saffron Gatherer was dated MM 11 IB by Evans; the conclusion was reached by comparison with the levels over the knobbed pithos in the adjoining compartment (PM iii, 23 f. and fig. 12). In view of the record of a deposit of tablets beneath this floor (Boardman, The Date of the Knossos Tablets (DKT), 44, it is impossible to give it a MM IIIB date.
27 Arch. Crete, 131; Platon, , KrCh., 1947, 507.Google Scholar
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30 BSA 1967, 198, n. 22.
31 PM iv, 381.
32 PM iii 401 f.
33 PM iii, 33 f. and fig. 16; iv, 802 and n. 2.
34 PM i, 547.
35 PM ii, 590 f.; iv, 222; cf. Warren, loc. cit.; Boardman, DKT 15, n. 2.
36 Stevenson Smith, Interconnections, fig. 114; The Chronology of Mycenaean Pottery, 82, 85.
37 PM iii, 34.
38 PM ii, 665 f., 670, 672, 679, 683.
39 Ibid. 735.
40 Ibid. 674.
41 Ibid. 679–81.
42 Proceedings of the Third Cretological Congress,113.
43 ‘The Knossos Tablets: a Reconsideration’, Kadmos xiv (1975) 125–31.
44 AR 1972–3; DPK 93–4.
45 Ibid. 57–8.
46 PM ii, 373; 751, fig. 485.
47 Ibid. 735–6.
48 Cf. PM ii, 680.
49 Quoted by Popham, DPK 58–9.
50 PM ii, 703–4.
51 DKT 15, n. 2.
52 Pendlebury, Arch. Crete 249.
53 PM iii, 358–9, PM iii, 331; PM i, 351.
54 PM iii, 281; 367.
55 PM iii, 295.
56 BSA 1902, 48; cf. Palmer, FPKT AE/NB 15. iii. 02; PM iv, 888 f.
57 Scripta Mima i, 53.
58 Popham, DPK 22 f.
59 Ibid. 28; Boardman, DKT 56, n. 3; PM iii, 385 (dated LM II).
60 Boardman, DKT 58.
61 Popham, DPA 29; cf. DM/Pot II 1902 40 (Palmer, FPKT 142).
62 BSA 1902, 60.
63 Ibid. 48; Palmer, FPKT 144, entry for 11. iii. 02.
64 Popham, DPK 28–29.
65 Palmer, FPKT 142, 144, entries for 4,14. iii. 02.
66 PM iii, 377.
67 Ibid. 376; cf. Boardman, DKT 58.
68 Palmer, FPKT 142–3, entries for 6. iii. 02 and 8. iii. 02.
69 PM i, 543, n. 2 hardly seems decisive in view of AE/NB 1902, 27 (22. xi. 02) (FPKT, 140). A wall of a like kind, buttressing the west wall of the S. Propylaeum, contained LM IIIB bowl fragments (Popham DPK, 56–57).
70 BSA 1901, 108; Popham, DPK 22 f.; PM iii, 301–2.
71 PM iii, 330–1.
72 PM ii, 373; Popham, DPK 58 f.
73 PM iv, 785, n. 1; 881.
74 PM iv, figs. 870, 871; PM iv, 892.
75 PM iV, 895.
76 e.g. the Argonaut Frieze and parallel striations of imitative rockwork, Pylos ii pi. R; Spiral Bands, pl. Q.
77 PSA 1901, 19; PM, 767; ibid. 768.
78 DKT 20.
79 Alexiou, , AA, 1964, 785–803.Google Scholar
80 Cameron, , AA 1967, 300–4.Google Scholar
81 PM iii, 210.
82 DPK 40–1.
83 Cf. PM iii, 211.
84 PM ii, 605; iv, 396.
85 Cf. Popham DPK, 44–5; 490.
86 Ibid. 53. Cf. Palmer, , Kadmos 1973, 60.Google Scholar
87 P. Warren, BSA 1967.
88 PM iv, 891–3.
89 Boardman, DKT 32.
90 The stratigraphic evidence is discussed by Palmer, FPKT 109 f.; Boardman, DKT 29–32. It is consistent withmy suggested date. See also Popham, DPK 56.