² See Hood, M. S. F. and Smyth, D., Archaeological Survey of the Knossos Area (BSA Supp. 14; London, 1981), 34 n. 1Google Scholar.

³ For the Isopata Royal Tomb, see PTK 136–72. For the LM II chamber tomb located a few metres to the south, see Fyfe's report ibid. 561.

⁴ TDA.

⁵ In a report dated 21 Sept. 1947, detailing the condition of the archaeological remains in the Knossos area following the Second World War, R. W. Hutchinson wrote that ‘The Isopata Cemetery does not exist. It is impossible, without excavation, to discover whether the Tomb of the Double Axes has been destroyed or merely filled in’ (in the BSA archives: ‘Knossos Correspondence 1940–1949’, Folder ‘1947’). Hood, however, noted in the second Knossos Survey that Tomb 1 was still partially visible, ‘in the south-west corner of a field 150 m. north of the northern border of the map’ (Hood and Smyth (n. 2), 34; see also Hood, M. S. F. and de Jong, P., Archaeological Survey of the Knossos Area (Oxford, 1959), 24Google Scholar no. 166 for the identification of this tomb in the first Knossos Survey).

⁶ The mixed material in this box included two fingerbones and an associated bronze spiral ring, and so presumably derives from a mortuary context. However, the pottery ranged from a body sherd of a LM II Palace Style jar, through LM III B–C kylix and bowl fragments, to post-Bronze Age material, and its provenance is unclear.

⁷ Heraklion Museum has no record of skeletal material from the Isopata cemetery among its holdings (I am grateful to Argyro Nafplioti for this information). A box of material from an ‘Isopata tomb’ was studied by Charles Hawes in February 1910 at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; however, the associated labels record that the context was ‘the S recess in the forehall’, which indicates that these bones were from the Isopata Royal Tomb (see PTK 140–1) rather than the cemetery group discussed here. Hawes's report on these bones is held in the Ashmolean Museum archives.

⁸ Presumably ‘Musée Stratigraphique, Knossos’.

⁹ In all catalogue entries in the main article and the Appendix, artefacts are made of clay unless otherwise indicated; all measurements are given in centimetres.

¹⁰ See TDA 2–5; Mackenzie's notes on this deposit are in DB 09, 1 and 3, and DB 10, 1.

¹¹ Sandars, N. K., ‘Later Aegean Bronze Age swords’, AJA 67 (1963), 117–53 at 146CrossRefGoogle Scholar and pl. 23.12.

¹² Ibid., at 270 FIG. 12, and 275.

¹³ Popham, M., Catling, E., and Catling, H., ‘Sellopoulo tombs 3 and 4, two Late Minoan graves near Knossos’, BSA 69 (1974), 195–257 at 226–9Google Scholar, FIG. 16.

¹⁴ PTK 84, FIG. 94.

¹⁵ Sandars (n. 11), 149–50 and pl. 25.30.

¹⁶ TDA 4 FIGS. 7, 8a.

¹⁷ TDA 3, FIG. 3; see also Warren, P., Minoan Stone Vases (Cambridge, 1969), 112, no. P 614Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Several uncatalogued Neolithic and Hellenistic/Roman sherds also in this box were probably retrieved during the exploratory trenching.

¹⁹ See TDA 6, 8–13; Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 09, 2, 4–10, and DB 10, 1–4.

²⁰ TDA pl. 1, opp. p. 6.

²¹ See TDA 6–7; Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 09, 2, 7–10, and DB 10, 1–4.

²² TDA 5 FIG. 9. Although Evans's description implies that more than three bronze arrowheads were found, it seems that there were in fact only three in total: TDA 6; see also PM iv. 841.

²³ See TDA 33–59; Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 10, 6–9, 26–9.

²⁴ A bull's head was encased within the blocking wall sealing the side-chamber of Tholos Alpha, following a primary (and subsequently undisturbed) LM III A2 burial in the side-chamber; see Sakellarakis, Y. and Sapouna-Sakellaraki, E., Archanes: Minoan Crete in a New Light (Athens, 1997), 264–5Google Scholar.

²⁵ DB 10, 9. As Evans noted in his catalogue of objects for this tomb, ‘In the cases(s) of broken objects, the fragments of which were somewhat scattered, the position given is that occupied by the principal portion’: TDA 58 n.1.

²⁶ PM iv. 257 and 840 respectively.

²⁷ See TDA 46 FIG. 60, 58.

²⁸ See TDA 58, and 49 FIG. 64.

²⁹ TDA 59.

³⁰ TDA 53–4 and FIG. 71, 58. Heraklion Museum does have two double axes (cat. nos. 1751, 1752), though the latter is recorded as deriving from Tomb 3.

³¹ TDA 52–3, FIG. 70, 59.

³² Wachsmann, S., Aegeans in the Theban Tombs (Leuven, 1987), pl. 35 B no. 4Google Scholar.

³³ Little Palace: PM ii. 529 FIG. 332 a; Zakro: Platon, N., Zakros: The Discovery of a Lost Palace (New York, 1971), 2Google Scholar.

³⁴ Both pieces were identified as silver by K. Hall using the INSTAP portable Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Unit.

³⁵ Popham, M., ‘Notes from Knossos, Part II’, BSA 73 (1978), 179–87 at 183–4Google Scholar no. 3, pl. 25 c. This is catalogued in the SM as SMP. 2066. It is recorded in the SM Book III SMP 1990–3118 as ‘K.10 Tomb of the Double Axes (almost certain)’.

³⁶ Pendlebury, J., A Guide to the Stratigraphical Museum (London, 1933), 28Google Scholar.

³⁷ An unsigned report, but probably written by R. W. Hutchinson, dated May 1947. Held in the Knossos Logbook (BSA archive index no. KNO 1678).

³⁸ Panagiotaki, M., ‘The Temple Repositories of Knossos: new information from the unpublished notes of Sir Arthur Evans’, BSA 88 (1993), 49–91 at 63–5Google Scholar, FIG. 4 b; TR 90 nos. 193. 1–5. I am very grateful to Dr. Panagiotaki for her observations on the Box 1672 material.

³⁹ TR 118–9.

⁴⁰ TR 90, 104 for a number of the Temple Repositories faience inlays; PM iv, 928–30 for the Throne Room material. Karo 115–16 nos. 555–6, 568, 574–5, and PM i, 482–5, for Shaft Grave IV and PM i. 471–80 for the Knossos Palace ‘Draughtboard’.

⁴¹ See TDA 14–18; Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 10, 10–12, 22–23.

⁴² Mackenzie writes that, ‘The tomb itself had the whole of its top gone and it was clear that the process of denudation only left us the bottom of the tomb’. (DB 10, 10).

⁴³ TDA 14 FIG. 19.

⁴⁴ Katsambas, 41, 42, pl. 3 b, d.

⁴⁵ TDA 12 FIG. 17 c–d, 13.

⁴⁶ MUM pl. 94 e.

⁴⁷ This pictured sherd has not been located among the Isopata boxes in the SM collection.

⁴⁸ TDA 15.

⁴⁹ See TDA 18–20; Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 10, 13–15.

⁵⁰ TDA 19 FIG. 27.

⁵¹ TDA 19.

⁵² TDA 20 FIG. 28.

⁵³ See TDA 21–30; Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 10, 16–21, 30–3.

⁵⁴ DB 10, 18.

⁵⁵ Mackenzie does state that the ritual vessel sherds were found ‘1 m further on and about 1 m further down’ from the Geometric vase (DB 10, 16), but as the dromos was presumably sloping down towards the tomb entrance, the differential depth does not preclude their deposition being contemporary.

⁵⁶ See TDA 30–3; Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 10, 34–5.

⁵⁷ TDA 31 FIGS. 44 and 45, p.33.

⁵⁸ Katsambas, pls. 7 a–b, 9 a.

⁵⁹ TDA 32–3.

⁶⁰ TDA pl. 4.

⁶¹ Mackenzie's notes on this tomb are in DB 10, 24–5, 34.

⁶² MUM 75 and pl. 160.

⁶³ MUM 48 L 63, 74 N 47, pl. 150. 6–7; Hood, M. S. F. and de Jong, P., ‘Late Minoan warrior-graves from Ayios Ioannis and the New Hospital Site at Knossos’, BSA 47 (1952), 243–77 at 262Google Scholar no. I. 2, and 263 FIG. 9.

⁶⁴ For this observation I am indebted to Dr V. Isaakidou.

⁶⁵ Although Popham and Furumark have proposed a LM III A date (Popham et al. (n. 13), 217–9, 223 J8; Furumark, , MP 173Google Scholar n. 10). See also W.-D. Niemeier, ‘Probleme der Datierung von Siegeln nach Kontexten’, in id. (ed.), Studien zur minoischen und helladischen Glyptik (Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel, Beiheft 1; Berlin, 1981), 91–103 at 98–9; and Pini, I., ‘Chronological problems of some Late Minoan signet rings’, Temple University Aegean Seminar, 8 (1983), 39–49Google Scholar, regarding the difficulties of dating this tomb using the glyptic evidence. Krzyszkowska proposes that the gold ring in Tomb 1 is a LM I heirloom (Aegean Seals, 127, 194). LM II parallels for the floral net decoration of the sherds d and e illustrated in TDA 12, fig 17, are illustrated in MUM, pls. 153. 4, 154. 4. The iris cross motif, on the top of the stirrup jar (TDA FIG. 17, sherd a) is also a canonical LM II design (see MUM pl. 167 nos. 94–98).

⁶⁶ TDA 7 FIG. 11. For bridge-spouted jars, see MUM 168–9. See also MacGillivray, J., Sackett, H., Driessen, J., MacDonald, C., and Smyth, D., ‘Excavations at Palaikastro, 1987’, BSA 83 (1988), 259–82 at 272Google Scholar; also MacDonald's, C. comment in response to MacGillivray, J., ‘Late Minoan II and III pottery and chronology at Palaikastro: an introduction’, in Hallager, E. and Hallager, B. (eds), Late Minoan III Pottery: Chronology and Terminology (Monograph of the Danish Institute at Athens 1; Aarhus, 1997), 193–207 at 206Google Scholar. Krzyszkowska also advocates a LM III A1 date for the tomb on the basis of the ceramics (Aegean Seals, 203 n. 35).

⁶⁷ Evans assigned the jug 2m to LM II (PM iv. 353, FIG. 297 c), having noted both LM I B and LM II parallels for the jug 2l (PM iv. 309). Furumark dated most of the pottery from this tomb to LM III A1 (CMP 104), while Pini dates the assemblage to LM II–III A1 (BMG 84). Popham, finally, dates the jug identified as 2s as LM III A, although ‘more on grounds of context… than because of any marked stylistic change’ (Popham, M., ‘Late Minoan pottery, a summary’, BSA 62 (1967), 337–51 at 345Google Scholar and pl. 84 b). The Palace Style jars 2n, 20 and 2q are stylistically consistent with a LM II dating.

⁶⁸ CMP, 104; BMG, 84.

⁶⁹ In PM iv. 356, Evans states that ‘Chronologically it [the squat alabastron] may actually come within the limits of the Palace period’, which corresponds with the phase that we currently term LM II.

⁷⁰ CMP 105.

⁷¹ TDA 27–30.

⁷² This is also the date given by Evans and Pini: PM ii. 881 and BMG 84 no. xxi. 5 respectively.

⁷³ BMG 84 no. xxi. 6. See also MP, 171.

⁷⁴ PM iv. 845–7.

⁷⁵ Most of the Final Palatial tombs beyond the Isopata cemetery which are considered in the present discussion are listed in Preston 2004a, 332 table 2. To these should be added the deposit in the Temple Tomb pillar crypt (PM iv. 1001–11), the Kephala Tholos (Hutchinson, R. W., ‘A tholos tomb on the Kephala’, BSA 51 (1956), 74–80Google Scholar; Preston 2005) and Katsambas tombs A–Г and Z–H (Katsambas).

⁷⁶ See PTK.

⁷⁷ DB 09, 1–3, DB 10, 10, 13, 16; TDA 2.

⁷⁸ Correspondence in the BSA archives shows that Dr Claude Schaeffer, the excavator of Ugarit from the 1920s to the 1960s, intended to carry out excavations near the Isopata Royal Tomb to search for more tombs in 1939–40 and 1950, although this project never took place. Several letters in the BSA archives dating between 26 Apr. and 7 July 1939 concern Schaeffer's application, and the School's agreement, to carry out this excavation in 1939–40. Negotiations seem then to have lapsed, before being revived in 1949 for a proposed 1950 excavation; the reasons why the excavation did not finally take place are unclear. The letters are stored in ‘Knossos Correspondence 1930–1939’: 1939 folder (correspondence between Hutchinson and Young); ‘Knossos Correspondence 1940–1949’: folder 1939–50, relating to Schaeffer's Isopata dig (1939 correspondence between Schaeffer, Myres, the School Director and Secretary, Hutchinson, and Dunbabin; 1949 correspondence between Cook and Schaeffer).

⁷⁹ Preston 1999; ead. 2004a, 2004b.

⁸⁰ For an overview of the Final Palatial period on Crete, see Rehak, P. and Younger, J., ‘Review of Aegean prehistory VII: Neopalatial, Final Palatial, and Postpalatial Crete’, in Cullen, T. (ed.), Aegean Prehistory: A Review (Boston, 2001) 383–473Google Scholar (though note that these authors extend the Final Palatial period to LM III B, in contrast to the present study, which places its end in LM III A2 early).

⁸¹ See e.g. Driessen, J. and Macdonald, C., ‘Some military aspects of the Aegean in the late fifteenth and early fourteenth centuries BC’, BSA 79 (1984), 49–74Google Scholar and Kilian-Dirlmeier, I., ‘Noch einmal zu den “Kriegergräbern” von Knossos’, Jahrburh des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz, 32 (1985), 196–7Google Scholar.

⁸² Preston 1999.

⁸³ Preston 2004b, 330 table 1 for Tombs 1, 2 and 5. Isopata Tomb 6 can also be added to this list, with its buttress projection imitating that of Tomb 2.

⁸⁴ Its chamber area was 10.2 m² as opposed to 48 for the Royal Tomb, and 24 for the Kephala Tholos.

⁸⁵ Preston 2005, Table 1 and 72 n. 42.

⁸⁶ Cf. Treherne, P., ‘The warrior's beauty: the masculine body and self-identity in Bronze-Age Europe’, Journal of European Archaeology, 3 (1995), 105–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁷ Alberti, L., ‘The Late Minoan II–III A warrior graves at Knossos’, in Cadogan, G., Hatzaki, E., and Vasilakis, A. (eds), Knossos: Palace, City, State (Athens, 2004), 127–36Google Scholar Kilian-Dirlmeier 1985 (n. 81).

⁸⁸ This method was employed for Late Bronze Age Mycenaean burials by Voutsaki, S., ‘Society and Culture in the Mycenaean World: An Analysis of Mortuary Practices in the Argolid, Thessaly and Dodecanese’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge: 1993Google Scholar); it has also been applied to Post-Palatial Crete (Preston 2004a, 338–42).

⁸⁹ This should also be highlighted particularly for the Ayios Ioannis tomb, the Gold and Silver Cup Tomb, Katsambas Г, and Sellopoulo 3.

⁹⁰ The Royal Tomb, Kephala Tholos, and Katsambas H are included in this analysis, although all have Post-Palatial use also and it is not certain that later objects have not been incorporated in these counts. However, for the Royal Tomb only objects which Evans thought belonged to the earliest burials have been included (PTK 144–61); in the Kephala Tholos, all but two of the materials represented (ivory and schist) were found in the lowest levels of the chamber fill or in the shaft graves themselves (see Preston 2005, 79–80, 112–13).

⁹¹ Neopalatial artefacts do occur elsewhere, though very infrequently, e.g. the gold seal ring in Sellopoulo Tomb 4 (Aegean Seals, 194 n. 8).

⁹² See Preston 1999, 136–7.

⁹³ TDA 9, 30. The Kephala Tholos and Royal Tomb also have mason marks.

⁹⁴ The cups and goblets catalogued above from Isopata, particularly from Tombs 6 and 7, add notably to the total corpus of such vessels known from the cemetery, bringing the total from 2 (both in Tomb 2) to 17. Such vessels may be residues of liquid consumption by participants within the funerary rituals, although if so, this seems not to have been a large-group activity, either here or at other Final Palatial cemeteries, given the limited quantities present in individual tombs.

⁹⁵ TDA 53–6.

⁹⁶ As argued by Peatfield, A., ‘Palace and peak: the political and religious relationship between palaces and peak sanctuaries’, in Hägg, R. and Marinatos, N. (eds), Function of the Minoan Palaces (Stockholm, 1987), 89–93Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ e.g. Niemeier, W.-D., ‘On the function of the “Throne Room” in the palace at Knossos’, in Hägg-Marinatos (n. 95), 163–8Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ See Connerton, P., How Societies Remember (Cambridge, 1989CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

⁹⁹ Briault, C., ‘Making mountains out of molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean: visibility, ritual kits, and the idea of a peak sanctuary’, World Archaeology, 39. 1 (2007), 122–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ See Alberti (n. 87) at 132–4.

¹⁰¹ PTK 2, TDA 2.

¹⁰² Compare the paucity of primary interments at the cemetery of neighbouring Archanes in the preceding Neopalatial period, despite clear evidence of mortuary-related rituals there: Y. Sakellarakis and E. Sapouna-Sakellaraki (n. 24), 220–1, 223–9.

¹⁰³ PM i. 477–8, FIG. 342.

¹⁰⁴ Katsambas, 57–8 nos. 36 and 47; pl. 28 a.

¹⁰⁵ TR 119 no. 286 c, and FIG. 28.

¹⁰⁶ PM i. 472–5, pl. v.

¹⁰⁷ Karo 145 no. 819, pl. cxlvi.

¹⁰⁸ PM i. 496 and FIG. 354 b; TR 172 no. 290, 121 FIG. 28, pls. 19, 20 e.

¹⁰⁹ TR 158 no. 189, 88, 95 FIG. 24, pl. 11 e.

¹¹⁰ TR 156 no. 179, 85–6 and FIG. 20. This and several other objects held in three boxes labelled ‘1878’ in the SM were identified with the Temple Repository material by Panagiotaki because of their close stylistic affinities (TR 74).

¹¹¹ PM i. 481 FIG. 344 b 1; TR 160–1 nos. 207–8, 95 FIG. 24, pls. 11 e, 16 b.

¹¹² PM i. 481, FIG. 344; TR 157–8 nos. 185, 186, 188, 88–9, FIG. 21, pls. 11 e, 13 a.

¹¹³ PM i. 482–3, FIG. 346; Karo 115 no. 556, pl. clii.

¹¹⁴ TR 157 no. 187, 88–9, FIG. 21, pls. 11 e and 13 d.

¹¹⁵ TR 158 no. 193, 90–1, pls. 11 e and 14 d.

¹¹⁶ TR 81, 155 no. 157, pl. 11 d.

¹¹⁷ TR 66 nos. 123 a–b, 36 FIG. 14, 41, pl. 8 f.

¹¹⁸ PM i. 473, pl. v.

¹¹⁹ Evans, A., ‘The palace of Knossos’, BSA 9 (1903), 1–153 at 47Google Scholar; PM i. 470; TR 174 no. 308, 123£4. See also TR 123–5, 174 no. 307, pl. 22.

¹²⁰ Karo 116 no. 574, pl. cliii.

¹²¹ Karali, L., Shells in Aegean Prehistory (BAR S761; Oxford, 1999), 130Google Scholar.

¹²² TR 128–9, 175 no. 311, pl. 17 back left.