Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T09:49:36.379Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Palaikastro Shells and Bronze Age Purple-Dye Production in the Mediterranean Basin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

David S. Reese
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The 1963 excavation at Palaikastro-Kastri in eastern Crete produced about 150 marine shells. The species preserved are listed in Table 1, and their date and context in Table 2. Significant shells from the collection are compared with other Minoan examples in Part I. The shell evidence for purple-dye production at Palaikastro is studied along with the other evidence from the Bronze Age Mediterranean in Part II.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 82 , November 1987 , pp. 201 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acknowledgements. I thank L. H. Sackett for allowing me to study the 1963 shells in 1980 at the Stratigraphic Museum at Knossos and for providing information on their date and context. The study was undertaken while the 1980–1 recipient of the Harriet Pomerance Fellowship of the Archaeological Institute of America, to which I extend my grateful thanks. I thank J. L. Davis, C. M. Edens, C. Pulak, R. R. Stieglitz, and I. Ziderman for comments, references, and information.

1 Shackleton, N. J. in Warren, P., Myrtos (Oxford 1972) 32–4.Google Scholar

2 Pendlebury, H. W., Pendlebury, J. D. S., and Money-Coutts, M. B. in BSA 36 (1935–1936) 126 fig. 27.Google Scholar

3 Evely, D. in Popham, M. R. et al., The Minoan Unexplored Mansion at Knossos (Oxford 1984) 246, 256, and personal analysis.Google Scholar

4 Hazzidakis, J. in Ark. Eph. (1912) 232 fig. 41 nos. 4, 12Google Scholar; Tylissos a l Époque Minoenne (Paris 1921) 79 fig. 41 nos 4, 12.

5 Pernier, L., Il Palazzo Minoico di Festòs I (Rome 1935) 87 fig. 27, bottom right.Google Scholar

6 Evans, A., The Palace of Minos at Knossos i (London 1921) 517–19 figs. 377–8Google Scholar; iv/i (London 1935) 110 n. 1, 118. On display in the Herakleion Museum, Room VI, Case 50.

7 Reese, D. S. in BSA 79 (1984) 237–8.Google Scholar

8 Evely (above n. 3) 246 pl. 222 no. 9, top right.

9 Sackett, L. H. and Popham, M. R. in BSA 60 (1965) 276 pl. 80g.Google Scholar

10 Currelly, C. T. in BSA 10 (1903–1904) 202.Google Scholar

11 Dawkins, R. M. in BSA 10 (1903–1904) 197.Google Scholar

12 Bosanquet, R. C. in BSA 8 ( (1901–1902) 296, 308.Google Scholar

13 Dawkins, R. M. in BSA 9 (1902–1903) 291.Google Scholar

14 MacGillavray, J. A. and Sackett, H. in BSA 79 (1984) 129 pl. IIg.Google Scholar

15 Reese, D. S. in Karageorghis, V., Excavations at Kition V/II (Nicosia 1985) 353–64.Google Scholar

16 Chevallier, H. in Etudes Crétoises xx (Paris 1975) 159 pl. xlix no. 2.Google Scholar

17 Evely (above n. 3) 246, 296 n. 164 pl. 222 no. 9, left.

18 Hazzidakis (above n. 4) fig. 41 nos. 8, 13.

19 Pernier (above n. 5) fig. 27, centre left and in the Neolithic here; Mosso, A., The Dawn of Mediterranean Civilization (London 1910) 71–4 fig. 36.Google Scholar

20 Sackett and Popham (above n. 9) 303–4 fig. 20 no. 19.

21 Reese, D. S. in BSA 77 (1982) 249.Google Scholar

22 On Mediterranean shell purple-dye in general see Reese, D. S. in Libyan Studies II (1979–1980) 79–93Google Scholar; Bruin, F. in Mollat, M. (ed.) Sociétés et compaignes de commerce en Orient dans l' Océan Indien (Paris 1970) 73–90Google Scholar; Jensen, L. B. in JNES 22 (1963) 104–18Google Scholar; Forbes, R. J., Studies in Ancient Technology iv (Leiden 1956) 112–21Google Scholar; Born, W. in Ciba Review 4 (1937) 106–23Google Scholar; Moatsou, P. G., The Porphyra (Alexandria 1932, in Greek).Google Scholar

23 Bosanquet, R. C. in BSA 9 (1902–1903) 276–7Google Scholar; JHS 24 (1904) 321.

24 Hood, S., The Minoans (London 1971) 94.Google Scholar

25 Platon, N.Zakros (New York 1971) 251.Google Scholar

26 Above n. 23 and Rep. Brit. Ass. (1903) 817.

27 Chapouthier, F., Demargne, P., with d'A. Dessenne, Fouilles Exécutées a Mallia (Paris 1962) 11 pl. xxxixGoogle Scholar; Pelon, O. in BCH 90 (1966) 584 fig. 32 no. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chevallier (above n. 16) 157–8 pl. xlviii.

28 Shackleton, N. J. in BSA 63 (1968) 266 and personal analysis.Google Scholar

29 Evans (above n. 6, 1935) 111 n. 3.

30 Hutchinson, R. W., Prehistoric Crete (Harmondsworth 1962) 239.Google Scholar

31 Ibid.; Jenson (above n. 22) 106; Bruin (above n. 23) 75; Milgrom, J. in BAR 9/3 (1983) 62.Google Scholar

32 Ventris, M. G. F. and Chadwick, J., Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge 1956) 321, 405.Google Scholar

33 Hazzidakis (above n. 4) fig. 41 nos. 2, 19.

34 The Minoan deposits have not produced evidence for purple-dye production, but there is good evidence for the use of trunculus to produce the dye in the late seventh century BC.

35 Zois, A., Anaskaphe Vryson Kydonias i 1974 (Athens 1976) pl. 40aGoogle Scholar, top right (in Greek).

36 Marinates, Sp. in Proc. Brit. Acad. 57 (1971) 361Google Scholar; Vermeule, E. in AJA 85/1 (1981) 94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doumas, C., Thera (London 1983) 117.Google Scholar

37 Huxley, in Coldstreara, J. N. and Huxley, G., Kythera (London 1972) 36–7, 282 fig. 3e.Google Scholar

38 Walter, H. and Felten, F., Alt-Ägina iii/1 (Mainz am Rhein 1981) 179 pl. 128 no. 529,X (eight trunculus).Google Scholar

39 Mylonas, G., Aghios Kosmas (Princeton 1959) 58, 10, 148 fig. 37nos. 1–3, 4–9.Google Scholar

40 Schliemann, H., Ilios (London 1880) 115, 318.Google Scholar See also van Martens, in Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic 22 (1890) 470.Google Scholar

41 Blegen, C. W. in AJA 41 (1937) 582Google Scholar; Gejvall, N. G. in Bulletin de la Societe Royale des Lettres de Lund 1937–38, ii (1938) 54Google Scholar; Blegen, G. W., Caskey, J. L., and Rawson, M., Troy iii The Sixth Settlement (Princeton 1953) 268.Google Scholar

42 Rapp, G. and Gifford, J. (eds.), Troy Supp. vol. 4 (Princeton 198?).Google Scholar

43 Demetropoulos, A. in Hala Sultan Tekke 5 (Göteborg 1979) 137–8Google Scholar; Olofsson, M. S. in HST 3 (Goteborg 1977) 63, 65Google Scholar; Hult, G. in HST 4 (Göteborg 1978) 4–5 fig. 19.Google Scholar

44 Hult, G. in HST 7 (Göteborg 1981) 3, 5, 8–10 fig. 43.Google Scholar

45 Schaeffer, C. F. A. in Syria 10 (1929) 290, 12 (1931)?CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Les Annales Archeologiques de Syria 1 (1951) 188–92, Palais royale de Ugarit ii (Paris 1957) xxvi; Thureau-Dangin, F. in Syria 15 (1934) 37–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Reinhold, M., History of Purple as a Status Symbol in Antiquity (Brussels 1970) 9–12.Google Scholar

47 Pritchard, J. B., Recovering Sarepta (Princeton 1978) 126–7 figs. 121–2Google Scholar; and personal analysis.

48 McGovern, P. E. and Michel, R. H. in MASCA Journal 3/3 (1984) 67–70Google Scholar and in Analytical Chemistry 57/4 (1985) 1514A–22A.

49 Wilde, W. R. in Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. 1 (1839) 293–4Google Scholar and Narrative of a Voyage to Madeira, Tenerife, and along the shores of the Mediterranean (Dublin 1844) 379–80; Lenormant, F., La Grande-Grèce i (Paris 1881) 107Google Scholar; Tristam, H. B. in Wilson, C., Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt ii (New York 1883) 61Google Scholar; Lortet, L., La Syrie d'aujourd'hui (Paris 1884) 102, 105Google Scholar; Jidejian, N., Tyre through the Ages (Beirut 1969) 142–59 pls. 136–42.Google Scholar

50 Gaillardot, C. in Bull. Soc. d'Anthropologie, Paris 2ième serie v. 8 (1873) 750–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Saulcy, L. in Revue Archéologique (NS) 9 (1864) 216–18Google Scholar and Voyage en Terre Sainte 2 (1865) 283–6; Anonymous in Globus 26 (1874) 237–8; Cooke, A. H. in Proc. Malax. Soc. Land. 8 (1909) 341–2Google Scholar; Contenau, G. in Syria 4 (1923) 275–6.Google Scholar