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Trial KV (1969), A Middle Minoan Building at Knossos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Extract

The excavation to be described below was an emergency undertaking and no more than a test in size and purpose. The finds, though by no means spectacular, were considerable in number and, being mostly contemporary, deserve publication despite the provisional nature of the excavation.

A villager planting tomatoes at Knossos brought to light a mass of plain pottery in the field of Michaelis Phrondarakis, situated in plot no. 2173 on the Greek Economic Survey (1950) Plan of the village; the locality is called Sochara and lies on the rising ground above the village coffee-shops, almost due west of the Palace. The discovery was reported to the Greek Archaeological Service which, after a little digging, collected much pottery and some plaster objects. Considering the site deserved fuller investigation, the Ephor, Dr. St. Alexiou, invited the School to carry out this work as a matter of urgency.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1974

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References

1 The material from Trial KV (an abbreviation for Knossos Village) is now housed in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos. The excavation lasted nine days and was carried out by two workmen under the supervision of the author assisted towards the end by Mr. L. H. Sackett and Mr. K. McFadzean. Col. de Quincey kindly made the plan and architectural sections upon which those published here are based. The photography is by the author as are most of the drawings; FIGS 8, 2 to 11 are the work of Miss S. Bird.

2 Mr. K. McFadzean made a field plan on which were plotted all the trials, walls, and surface indications. This is not reproduced here but may be consulted in the archives of the British School at Athens.

3 A catalogue of selected vases will be found at the end of this article; some references to comparative material are quoted there.

4 On these tables of offerings, or tripod hearths, see Evans, PM ii 283, and Nilsson, Minoan-Mycenaean Religion 103, who list instances of their occurrence and agree that they could have a cult, domestic, and funerary use. Their manufacture must have required specialist skill in which, perhaps, the artisans of Nirou Chani excelled in LM IB since the forty to fifty found in the mansion there seem excessive for anything other than a store intended for sale or export. In our case, a cult use is perhaps supported by the large number of sea-shells and possibly the human skeleton found in the same deposit.

5 Mavrospelio Tomb XVII (plt) is published by Forsdyke, in BSA xxviii (19261927) 278Google Scholar and pl. xxiii; note the small tripod vase: the group is repeated by Evans in PM ii 558 fig. 353 and called MM IIB: so repeated by Pendlebury AC 139.

6 See note 3.

7 Examples of ‘thorn filling’ are many: e.g. Annuario xxvii–xxviii (1965–6) 367 fig. 64c from Vano XCVII–III, pl. ii from Vano XCIV; ibid, xix–xx (1957–8) pl. xxv from Grota M, and Bolletino d' Arte xli (1956) pl. iia from Stanza LV. For palmette terminals see Annuario xix–xx (1957–8) 282 fig. 121 and pl. xxiiia–A, some with red angle filling, Zona M; Bolletino loc. cit. fig. 23a–, pl. iiib, Stanza LV.

8 Mr. M. S. F. Hood has kindly drawn my attention to the absence of cups with horizontal ribbing which may turn out to be a characteristic of MM IIIA. If so, this would give added weight to a MM IIB date for this large deposit, which is clearly not MM IIIB as defined at Knossos.

9 This is not at all certain, however. The tiny lug preserved below the rim at one point would normally be at right angles to any wick cutting, for which there is room here at the right place on the preserved top of the rim. But no wick cutting appears here or elsewhere. Hence it is very possible that the whole rim was plain and that the vase was a libation table.

10 Warren, , Minoan Stone Vases (Cambridge, 1969) 50–2Google Scholar, henceforth MSV.

11 MSV pls. P292–P293.

12 MSV 52, HM 211 and one in the Phaestos Stratigraphical Museum.

13 Levi, , Bolletino d' Arte xl (1955) 146Google Scholar fig. 8a.

14 MSV 145.

15 Warren, BSA lx (1965) 154–5.Google Scholar

16 Cf., however, motif 8 in J. Schäfer's Studien zu den griechischen Reliefpithoi 57 and Beilage II.

17 A square metal seal, however, comes from a context at Poliochni dated to its red phase, Poliochni i 663 pls. 170, 4 and 175, 4.

18 Cf. CMS ii I 65 and 62 from Ayia Triada Tholos A; 230 from Marathokephalo with simple linked S-spirals; 253? from Platanos Tholos A with wave decoration; 289, 327, 329, 339, 340, all from Platanos Tholos B; 374 from Siva's South Tholos; 381 from Archanes; and 400 and 401 from Gournes.

19 Boardman, Island Gems 112–16, discusses and describes this shape of seal; rectangular impressions are also known on pithos fragments from Knossos which may date to c. 700 (BSA lvii (1962) 31–2 no. 1).