DOCSLIB.ORG

Structuralism and Myth in Minoan Studies

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Structuralism and Myth in Minoan Studies ANTIQUITY, LVIII 1984 PLATES III & IV Structuralism and myth in Minoan studies JOHN L. BINTLIFF John Bintliff writes to us: 'If we archaeologists cannot honestlv support the conscious rôle of social pedagogue, perhaps more fruitfully we may turn to the competing subjectivities of archaeological interpretation to seek insights into ourselves and our own age. ' This article is an attempt to analyse archaeological interpretations of the bronze age Minoan society for such insights. Dr Bintliff is a Lecturer in the School of Archaeological Sciences, Bradford University, Yorkshire. He further asserts that this article is 'a very long gestation from your [the Editor's] own courses at Cambridge, 1968-71, in the history of archaeology!' Nick Humphrey, of King's College, Cambridge, in Ian Hodder, as the acknowledged leader of a recent broadcast on Human Evolution, made the 'Structuralist Archaeology', has recently raised the following comments (slightly paraphrased from my stimulating issue of the neglect by archaeologists of notes of the radio broadcast) : 'Man, in comparison this symbolic filter in their interpretation of past to the chimp is a forgetful ape. Chimps in societies. For example, a collection of animal bones experiments have a remarkable visual memory, of a particular species from an archaeological site, recalling for example 25 complex patterns. Some need not represent valid evidence for its local humans can do the same, but rarely, and often dominance in the economy, since the culture where there is a brain malfunction as with epilepsy concerned may utilize the differential disposal of or damage to the parietal lobes. In effect it is bones from separate species to emphasize certain characteristically pathological. Why was this facil- belief structures shared by the community. ity suppressed? In order to replace this means of Whilst pointing out that I do support the general storing knowledge with a new way of thought. Not principle of seeking to identify the symbolic filter in one of counting objects or observations as parti- activity debris and physical structures uncovered cular, but instead ordering such data into general by the archaeologist, we must also take account, models of things and situations, as with the Platonic first and foremost, of the constraints on our overall Ideal forms. This was the birth of symbolic interpretations imposed by the nature of the thought.' archaeological record: namely, that we have at any I would now like to develop this theme further. one point in time a highly biased palimpsest of the In this shift from empirical accumulation to con- past. Of course we are continually pushing back our trolled comparison and cataloguing, the goal of the knowledge in matters of detail, and the advent of symbolizing mind to reduce novelty to order must hypothesis-testing as a principle (though hardly yet lead inevitably to oversimplification. Moreover, the in practice!) will doubtless improve the consistency desire for a smooth functioning of everyday social of our performance in shedding light on aspects of and emotional life tends to call forth a set of basic the past previously considered unapproachable by categories to define other people, one's relationship archaeology. Nonetheless I don't think I am to them, and to define activities and aims. It is here preaching to the unconverted when I claim that that the more specific sense of Structuralism there will almost certainly always be a gap in our appears, where the vast mass of experience that one knowledge, preventing us from drawing definitive meets is conquered by the operation of a set of conclusions as to the nature of past ideologies, cataloguing principles, whereby one can coordinate political authority, social interactions of other one's path amidst the world and its infinite units of kinds, and further complex aspects of early societ- animate and inanimate objects. ies. 33 34 ANTIQUITY For the still unconverted may I offer a chastening tal advance. The study of Gordon Childe's illustration of this truism. Recently an award for archaeological theories in the context of his Socialist Amateur Archaeology in Britain was given to a beliefs has demonstrated very important interac- study of World War II invasion defences or tions between a personal stance and the interpreta- 'pillboxes' (Wills, 1979). The amateur archaeolo- tion of ambiguous pre-historic data, as Peter gist concerned was worried that so many were being Gathercole has shown (Gathercole, 1971). destroyed, and wished to record them for posterity. To stand Structuralist Archaeology on its head, it You might think that a series of standing monu- may be necessary therefore not only to investigate ments of the 19405 would best be approached via patterning in the archaeological record, with a view official records. But it soon became apparent that to obtaining evidence of symbolic structures in past only the most general directive survives ordering behaviour, but also to study the patterns inferred by local authorities to see to their defences. At a the archaeologist in terms of the symbols and district level civil defence groups set to work, in structures he wishes to identify in the rarely ways unrecorded in official files, erecting a system clear-cut archaeological record. When I hear, for of these concrete keeps and their associated lines of instance, that a Structuralist study has been con- anti-tank pyramids. The essential task of the ceived, in order to compare and contrast the King's archaeologist was to plan all surviving units of such and the Queen's Apartments in Minoan palaces, I systems in each area, with the assistance of a host of am very conscious that the initial structure of 'King' present-day local informants, then to interpret for versus 'Queen' is a hypothetical distinction from himself, on the basis of detailed local maps and mute groundplans, originating primarily in a set of locational inferences, what specific strategy had semi-myths about Minoan society—a wished-for been intended for the defence of each segment of structure imposed long ago upon the excavated landscape. The same general point has been data. The raw truth about the strength of the stressed in recent discussions of the art of drama- evidence identifying Minoan rulers can be revealed tized reconstructions of history ('faction') in the by quoting from Gerald Cadogan: 'I am much less media, such as the BBC television series on the life certain that the rulers of Minoan Crete until 1450 of Charles Darwin, where the deficiencies of the were men, whether kings, priests or gods, or any or sources required imaginative leaps to complete a all combined, rather than women.' He also suggests coherent narrative, even for this well-documented that the key Priest-King Fresco might be a woman period and career (Railing, 1980). and a priestess! (Cadogan, 1976, 9 and 54). As archaeologists then, we shall have to continue Let us take this approach and apply it in a brief in the foreseeable future, as in the past, to bridge discussion of the social and historical context of that gap between what the data permit us to infer Minoan archaeology. as strict scientists, and what we would like to be able In terms of the general history of Archaeology we to pronounce on as historians or 'social analysts'. can broadly categorize the nineteenth century as an We do this by the use of Models or generalizations era of 'stages'. Human development as revealed by about what we think is going on. These models tend the nascent discipline was to be set into the however to become somewhat rigid from scholar to framework of the consecutive great ages of Stone scholar. It is my belief and experience that it is not and Metal, and their detailed subdivisions, which only worthwhile, but indeed necessary, to view the were correlated in their turn with distinct forms of major theories and interpretations of scholars social structure that had been derived from a hazy producing general syntheses from archaeological ethnography and a mixture of historical and data, in the context of their authors' social and mythical sources. The broad belief in the primacy educational background, and philosophical and of the tracing of 'stages' reflected the optimistic emotional stances—for possible elucidation of repe- mood of 'Progress' towards the affluent industrial titive themes in their work. To take an obvious society of Victorian Western Europe, a path which example, scholars of my generation have frequently imperialism was meant to hasten and history to drawn attention to a potential PhD topic in underline. By the end of the century the individual comparing the political speeches and known sympa- features of local cultures were being recognized, thies of Professor Colin Renfrew, with the stress in allowing distinct culture histories to be written, and his archaeological writings on competitive elites and setting the broad approach for much of this century private-enterprise entrepreneurs as stimuli to socie- (i.e. that of Culture History, as described and STRUCTURALISM AND MYTH IN MINOAN STUDIES 35 condemned by Lewis Binford, 1968). The History Arthur Evans in Crete, and thereby of our domi- and Classics training of most archaeological nant images of ancient Mmoan society. For as his 'synthesizers' within this tradition has combined half-sister Joan comments appositely: 'He was a with personal belief structures to influence the kind romantic who needed escape from the present.' She of historical events and forms of society which they further states, that by 1904: 'He had set out to find a have claimed to recognize in the archaeological script; he had found four and could read none of data. Details of how societies worked and what them. But Time and Chance had made him the ideologies were held have been obtained from discoverer of a new civilization, and he had to make analogy with other, better-documented societies it intelligible to other men.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Contacts: Crete, Egypt, and the Near East Circa 2000 B.C
    Malcolm H. Wiener major Akkadian site at Tell Leilan and many of its neighboring sites were abandoned ca. 2200 B.C.7 Many other Syrian sites were abandoned early in Early Bronze (EB) IVB, with the final wave of destruction and aban- donment coming at the end of EB IVB, Contacts: Crete, Egypt, about the end of the third millennium B.c. 8 In Canaan there was a precipitous decline in the number of inhabited sites in EB III— and the Near East circa IVB,9 including a hiatus posited at Ugarit. In Cyprus, the Philia phase of the Early 2000 B.C. Bronze Age, "characterised by a uniformity of material culture indicating close connec- tions between different parts of the island"10 and linked to a broader eastern Mediterra- This essay examines the interaction between nean interaction sphere, broke down, per- Minoan Crete, Egypt, the Levant, and Ana- haps because of a general collapse of tolia in the twenty-first and twentieth cen- overseas systems and a reduced demand for turies B.c. and briefly thereafter.' Cypriot copper." With respect to Egypt, Of course contacts began much earlier. Donald Redford states that "[t]he incidence The appearance en masse of pottery of Ana- of famine increases in the late 6th Dynasty tolian derivation in Crete at the beginning and early First Intermediate Period, and a of Early Minoan (EM) I, around 3000 B.C.,2 reduction in rainfall and the annual flooding together with some evidence of destructions of the Nile seems to have afflicted northeast and the occupation of refuge sites at the time, Africa with progressive desiccation as the suggests the arrival of settlers from Anatolia.
    [Show full text]
  • RACHEL MAXWELL-HYSLOP Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop 1914–2011
    RACHEL MAXWELL-HYSLOP Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop 1914–2011 RACHEL MAXWELL-HYSLOP, the doyenne of specialists in Ancient Near Eastern jewellery and metalwork, passed away in 2011 at the age of ninety- seven. Her book on Western Asiatic jewellery, published in 1971, remains a standard work of reference after more than forty years. Rachel was born on 27 March 1914 at 11 Tite Street, Chelsea, London. She was the eldest of the three daughters of Sir Charles Travis Clay (1885–1978) and his wife Violet, second daughter of Lord Robson, Lord of Appeal. Charles Clay was appointed assistant librarian to the House of Lords in 1914 and fol- lowing active service in the First World War he was appointed librarian to the House, a post he retained until his retirement in 1956. He became an authority on medieval charters and published widely on this subject. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1950 and was Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries 1934–8.1 Clay’s father, J. W. Clay, had also been a historian and genealogist, and although her grandfather died in 1918 when Rachel was a small child there was a strong family tradition of antiquarianism which Rachel evidently inherited. Rachel was educated at Downe House School near Newbury in Berkshire and at the Sorbonne in Paris where she studied French. This later stood her in good stead when together with her husband, Bill Maxwell- Hyslop, she translated from French the book by Georges Contenau that appeared in English in 1954 as Everyday Life in Babylonia and Assyria (London).
    [Show full text]
  • A Classical Archaeologist's Life: the Story So
    A Classical Archaeologist’s Life: The Story so Far An autobiography John Boardman Archaeopress Archaeological Lives Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Summertown Pavilion 18-24 Middle Way Summertown Oxford OX2 7LG ISBN 978-1-78969-343-0 ISBN 978-1-78969-344-7 (e-Pdf) © John Boardman and Archaeopress 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners. This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com A Note to the Reader I started writing this some ten years ago, since I had still vivid recollection of growing up in a London suburb and of school during wartime, and I wanted to share the experience, primarily with my family. But becoming an ‘academic’ and life at university, then in Greece, seemed no less worth recall since so much has changed. The exercise was habit-forming and I continued into closer inspection of experiences overseas, distant travels (more than just Mediterranean cruises) and the many other things that can happen in a longish life. I have not been much helped by diaries since they have been more aides- memoires than deliberate records, and the best, wartime, are missing. I am now nearly 92 and my memory is fading for both the past and even the recent present. So it has seemed desirable to try to ‘finish’. The order of chapters is not strictly logical. Part I deals with family life, travelling, excavation, personalia.
    [Show full text]
  • Excavations at Kommos (Crete)
    EXCAVATIONSAT KOMMOS (CRETE)DURING 1976 (PLATES 49-55) JD URING eight weeks of the summerof 1976 excavationswere initiated at the prehistoric Minoan site of Kommos, situated along the shore of the Messara Plain bordering the Libyan Sea (P1. 49: a).1 The chief archaeological aim of the 1 The excavations at Kommos are being carried out by the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The cooperation and help of the Greek Antiquities Service, especially that of the late Dr. Nicholaos Kondoleon and of Dr. Dimitrios Lazarides, former and present directors of the Service, is most appreciated. The advice and support of Dr. Stylianos Alexiou, Ephor of Crete and Director of the Archaeological Museum of Herakleion, was especially crucial from the earliest stages of the excavation. Generous financial support for the initial stages of the project has been supplied by the chief sponsoring institutions and the Canada Council (Grants S 74-0460 and 1930), as well as the SCM Corporation of New York. Other corporations (Kodak Canada, Ltd.; Keuffel and Esser of Canada; Olivetti Canada, Ltd.; Polaroid Corporation of America; Staedtler-Mars, Ltd.) provided much-needed drafting, photographic, and office equipment. Individual help and encourage- nment,especially that of Leon Pomerance (in cooperation with the American Institute of Nautical Archaeology), Mrs. Edgar Stone, Luther Replogle, and Rue Shaw, have been most appreciated. The staff for the first season consisted of the director, The University of Toronto and The Royal Ontario Museum; Professor Philip Betancourt, Temple University; Professor L.
    [Show full text]
  • Mercy Money-Coutts Seiradaki (1910-1993)
    MERCY MONEY-COUTTS SEIRADAKI (1910-1993) By Elizabeth Schofield The Hon. Mercy Money-Coutts, daughter of an English aristocrat, was of much of her life linked to Crete. She worked there in the 1930s, later married a Cretan, and lived there for many years. Her archaeological mentor was John Pendlebury, whom she assisted in organizing the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos, in excavating and publishing sites in the Lasithi Plain, and in researching and illustrating his most important book. Her particular area of expertise was Minoan pottery. During World War II she worked for British Intelligence, then for the Red Cross, and returned to Crete in 1944. There she joined UNRRA, and acquired almost legendary status for her heroic exploits. She met and married Michaeli Seiradakis, also a worker for UNRRA, and had two children. They lived in Western Crete, then moved to Athens in 1962. For several years she worked part-time as a library assistant in the British School at Athens. In 1991 they moved to Thessaloniki, where their son is a professor in the University. She died there in 1993.* The Hon. Mercy Money-Coutts was born 16 April 1910, the youngest child (and only daughter) of Hester Frances (née Russell) and Hugh Burdett Money-Coutts, landowner and gentleman farmer. Two years after her birth her paternal grandfather, Francis Money-Coutts, laid successful claim to the ancient title Baron Latymer, which had fallen into abeyance for more than 300 years. Hugh Money-Coutts succeeded his father as sixth Baron Latymer in 1923.1 Her family lived for several years at Stoodleigh Court, in Devon.
    [Show full text]
  • Koukouni Text.Indd
    Chios dicta est… et in Aegæo sita mari Historical Archaeology and Heraldry on Chios Ioanna N. Koukouni Archaeopress Archaeology Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Summertown Pavilion 18-24 Middle Way Summertown Oxford OX2 7LG www.archaeopress.com ISBN 978-1-78969-746-9 ISBN 978-1-78969-747-6 (e-Pdf) © Ioanna N. Koukouni and Archaeopress 2021 Cover: Cristoforo Buondelmonti, Liber Insularum Archipelagi (1420), Chios island, Aegean Sea All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners. This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com TO THE REVERED MEMORY OF MY FATHER AND OF MY GRANDPARENTS, AND ALL OUR NORTH-CHIOT ANCESTORS FOR THEY PLOUGHED THIS LAND WITH THE TEARS OF THEIR TOIL. I PAY THIS TRIBUTE Contents List of Figures, Maps and Plates ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������v Acknowledgements �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii Abbreviations ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiv Introduction �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1
    [Show full text]
  • Neopalatial and Mycenaean Knossos: Urban Expansion and Collapse*
    Joanne Cutler, Todd Whitelaw Neopalatial and Mycenaean Knossos: urban expansion and collapse* Abstract While occupied as a major centre for almost eight millennia, the phase most thoroughly investigated, and for which Knossos is best known, both academically and popularly, is the Late Bronze Age. The earlier phase, the Neopalatial period, includes also the final phase of the Middle Bronze Age, beginning to receive more attention but still not as well known as its LM I successor. For this period, the survey data now documents that the site extended over approximately a square km. expanding considerably on recent estimates. This is twice the extent of any other Aegean Bronze Age centre, and on a par with very large contemporary urban centres in the East Mediterranean and Middle East. At documented LM I occupation densities, this should represent a population of around 25,000 individuals, representing a unique and challenging social environment within the prehistoric and early historic Aegean region. The later Bronze Age phases at the site are not documented in the same detail, and the study of the survey data is still at an early stage. But our preliminary analysis suggests a considerable reduction in the extent of the site in the LM II-IIIA Final Palatial period, contemporary with the development of the mainland Mycenaean centres, and probably a further significant reduction in the LM IIIB-IIIC Postpalatial period. Yet even in this late phase, with some evidence of occupation over a minimum of 20 ha., the site would still have been a major centre, roughly comparable to contemporary mainland palatial centres.
    [Show full text]
  • JOHN D. EVANS John Davies Evans 1925–2011
    JOHN D. EVANS John Davies Evans 1925–2011 JOHN D. EVANS was one of the leading British prehistorians of the later twentieth century. His early research on Malta transformed Maltese pre- history, culminating in The Prehistoric Antiquities of the Maltese Islands, which established the culture sequence of prehistoric Malta and provided a definitive account of the great monuments of Malta, including the ‘tem- ples’, fully sustained by later work. His excavations in the neolithic levels at the great settlement mound at Knossos in Crete, in five seasons between 1958 and 1970, established this as one of the earliest farming settlements in Europe, and his published papers illuminated a number of aspects of Mediterranean prehistory. Appointed Professor of Prehistoric European Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology in London at the early age of 31 and succeeding to the position of Director in 1973, he oversaw much of its gradual transformation from a small graduate research institute (and the re-organisation which made it part of University College London), to what by the time of his retirement in 1989 had become the largest depart- ment of archaeology in the United Kingdom. A Fellow of the British Academy from 1973, he was President of the Prehistoric Society from 1974 to 1978, President of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 1984 to 1987, and President of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences from 1981 to 1986. His kindness and his unassum- ing manner are fondly remembered by many generations of Institute graduates and by many fellow prehistorians. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, XIV, 141–163.
    [Show full text]
  • Nancy Sandars
    NANCY SANDARS Nancy Katharine Sandars 29 June 1914 – 20 November 2015 elected Fellow of the British Academy 1984 by HELEN HUGHES-BROCK Nancy Sandars (1914–2015) was an archaeologist and prehistorian, the author of original and well-written books and articles examining cultural contacts and inter- actions of peoples in Bronze and Iron Age western and south-eastern Europe, Greece and the eastern Mediterranean as suggested by artefacts and technological develop- ments, particularly in swords and other metalwork. She wrote on European prehis- toric art from Palaeolithic to the Iron Age. She published English versions of poems from ancient Mesopotamia and Syria, notably an influential version of theEpic of Gilgamesh. She was also a poet whose work, mostly published late in life, was highly regarded. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, XIX, 105–128 Posted 9 June 2020. © British Academy 2020. NANCY SANDARS Nancy Katharine Sandars was one of two women Fellows of the British Academy, near contemporaries, who packed distinguished achievements in a number of separate fields in their very long lives without the advantages of a long-term academic post or support from an institution. Unlike her contemporary Beatrice de Cardi FBA,1 Sandars started without even a BA—FBA but not BA, a rare species.2 She had private means to live on and took full advantage of her freedom to pursue her interests unen- cumbered by professional duties or any need to compete with male colleagues. She worked alongside them as one archaeologist-prehistorian among others and in some cases as a close friend.
    [Show full text]
  • Redefining a Mediterranean “International Style,” 1400–1200 B.C.E
    The Art Bulletin ISSN: 0004-3079 (Print) 1559-6478 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcab20 Luxurious Forms: Redefining a Mediterranean “International Style,” 1400–1200 b.c.e. Marian H. Feldman To cite this article: Marian H. Feldman (2002) Luxurious Forms: Redefining a Mediterranean “International Style,” 1400–1200 b.c.e., The Art Bulletin, 84:1, 6-29 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2002.10787009 Published online: 09 May 2014. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 58 View related articles Citing articles: 5 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rcab20 Download by: [UCL Library Services] Date: 21 August 2017, At: 12:49 Luxurious Forms: Redefining a Mediterranean "International Style," 1400-1200 B.e.E. Marian H. Feldman Scholars have postulated the existence of an international able diversity of documentary material: archaeological, epi­ style for the arts of the eastern Mediterranean of the four­ graphic, and artistic. The broad range of evidence permits a teenth and thirteenth centuries B.C.E. because they exhibit multifaceted reconstruction of the social, political, and eco­ shared formal features that cut across cultural and geopolit­ nomic systems that overlapped and interconnected with one ical boundaries. In particular, easily portable luxury objects another during this period. Ugarit, in particular, offers a rich made of ivory, gold, alabaster, and faience defy attribution to body of material by which to refine the application of the anyone cultural region because of extensive hybridism in term international style.
    [Show full text]
  • Crafting Jewelry and Social Identity in Minoan Crete
    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.
    [Show full text]
  • Sinclair Hood Α Baetyl Ατ Gournia?
    SINCLAIR HOOD Α BAETYL ΑΤ GOURNIA? In the Spring of 1948 Ι visited Gournia for the first time and was impressed by a large rough slab of stone set upright οη edge in the paved stretch of road flanking the south­ west corner of the palace (Α οη Fig. 1, Plate 1, 2). Ιη my notebook Ι recorded my impression that this might be a baetyl. The stone is marked, but without comment, οη the original plan of the excavations1. The appearance of the stone, and the way that it has been set in the middle of a paved space at a different angle to the main lines of the adjacent palace, suggest that ίt was in some way sacred and connected wίth cult. Ι am still inclined to think that it was a baetyl in the strict sense of the term: that is, a λίθος εμψυχος, regarded as the dwelling place of a god or spirit2. It is a pleasure to offer this suggestion to Professor Stylianos Ale­ xiou, who has contributed much to our understanding of the religion of Bronze Age Crete, and whom Ι met in the company of the late Mr and Mrs Piet de Jong at Knossos not long after my first visit to Gournia. Ιη the Sumrner of 1983 with the kind permission of Dr Costis Davaras, who was then in charge of the antiquities of eastern Crete, Ι spent a day at Gournia with the architect, Mr Wil\iam Taylor. Mr Taylor ob\iged ιne by drawing the basic plan and elevation which are published here as Fig.
    [Show full text]