University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2008 Gold Before the Palaces: Crafting Jewelry and Social Identity in Minoan Crete Jane Hickman University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Hickman, Jane, "Gold Before the Palaces: Crafting Jewelry and Social Identity in Minoan Crete" (2008). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1540. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1540 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1540 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Gold Before the Palaces: Crafting Jewelry and Social Identity in Minoan Crete Abstract During the period c. 2000 – 1800 BC, the first civilization was established in urE ope, as illustrated by the development of palace-centered societies in Minoan Crete. However, the extent to which stratified society existed before the second millennium BC is unclear. This study focuses on the development of ranked society in prepalatial Crete, as evidenced by the manufacturing, use, and deposition of gold and silver jewelry. Indications of social stratification are also explored in the material remains of sites where jewelry was recovered. Research objectives include an investigation of where, how, and why new forms of jewelry appeared in Crete and the impact jewelry had on the forging of individual and group identities. Jewelry is evaluated utilizing contextual, formal, technological, and functional analyses. In addition, human agency and instances of individual decision-making are revealed in association with the production and use of these objects. To place prepalatial Minoan jewelry in perspective, a comparison of this material with jewelry recovered from sites in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans is conducted.