The vat room deposit at knossos: The unpublished notes of sir arthur evans

The Annual of the British School at Athens

Volumn 93, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 167-184

  Panagiotaki, Marina ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

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EID: 85009578749     PISSN: 00682454     EISSN: 20452403     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0068245400003415     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. M. Panagiotaki, BSA 88 (1993), 49-91.
2. The notebook (1903 [35]) is in the Ashmolean Museum; it consists of 30 leaves. Folio Ir-v is devoted to the NE House; fos. 2r-5v to the Vat Room Deposit; fos. 6r-25r are blank; 25V-30 are devoted to miscellaneous notes.
3. BSA 9: 94-5.
4. S. Andreou, ‘Pottery Groups of the Old Palace Period in Crete’ (unpublished PhD thesis; Cincinnati, 1978), 180, 187, gave some vases a MM II A date; M. S. F. Hood, ‘Knossos: the palace’, AR (1973-74), 20, 34, saw Part of the deposit as MM I B. N. Momigliano, BSA 86 (1991), 167-71, agreed with Andreou, while later G. Cadogan, P. M. Day, C. F. MacDonald, J. A. MacGillivray, N. Momigliano, T. M. Whitelaw, and D. E. Wilson, ‘Early Minoan and Middle Minoan pottery groups at Knossos’, BSA 88 (1993), 21-8, agreed on a MM I B date.
5. Cadogan et al. (n. 6).
6. BSA 9: 94.
7. Pendlebury, A Guide to the Stratigraphical Museum in the Palace at Knossos (London, 1933-1935), fig. 9.
8. For more details on the vases see N. Momigliano, ‘MM I A pottery from Evans’ excavations at Knossos: a reassessment’, BSA 86 (1991), 167-75; and for the Vat Room deposit objects as a whole see M. Panagiotaki, The Central Palace Sanctuary at Knossos (BSA supp. vol. in press).
9. Identified by the author, see n. 11
10. On the double axe as a Linear A sign see Evans PM i 643, fig. 474 c; as a ‘mason's mark’ see M. S. F. Hood, ‘Masons marks in the palaces’ (also W. Helck, in the discussion, who speaks of the same sign used in Egypt on Early Dynastic vases) in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces (Stockholm, 1987), 205-12, fig. 5; as a religious symbol see M. P Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion (Lund, 1927), 204-12; and G. Gesell, Town, Palace and House Cult in Minoan Crete (SIMA 67; Göteborg, 1985), 62.
11. A. Brown, Arthur Evans and the Palace of Minos (Oxford, 1986), pl. 31.
12. HM 4495 and 5753 may be the same vase recorded twice. The description of both vases in the HM register is identical; moreover HM 4495 has not been found. HM 5753 has been recorded together with some Temple Repositories vases but it was stored with two vases from the Vat Room Deposit: HM 4496 and 4497.
13. Brown (n. 15), pl. 31
14. This vase has been recorded in the KSM register as coming from the shrine area; however, the number of one of the boxes containing the Vat Room Deposit objects is written on it (‘F II3 box 751’) suggesting that the vase belongs to this deposit. Only its lower part is preserved but there is no doubt that it is a necked jar like the other ones from the same deposit.
15. M. R. Popham, ‘Notes from Knossos, Part I’, BSA 72 (1977), 185-95, at p. 185; also Momigliano (n. 11), 174.
16. Brown (n. 15), pl. 31 (the smaller jug, which has been restored).
17. Momigliano (n. 11), 173-4 (17-25), pls. 23-5.
18. Momigliano., 174 (33-4), pls. 24-6.
19. Brown (n. 15), pl. 31.
20. Brown.; Momigliano (n. 11), 175 (most of the fragments come from lids).
21. PM i. 166 and fig. 118 b3.
22. PM iv. 88-91.
23. R. L. N. Barber, ‘A tomb at Ayios Loukas, Syros: some thoughts on Early-Middle Cycladic chronology’, in N. Xirotiris and B. Ottaway (eds), Journal of Mediterranean Anthropology and Archaeology, 1 (1981), 167-79, at p. 174.
24. J. A. MacGillivray, ‘The relative chronology of Early Cycladic III’, in J. A. MacGillivray and R. Barber (eds), The Prehistoric Cyclades. Contributions to a Workshop on Cycladic Chronology (Edinburgh, 1984), 74.
25. J. A. MacGillivray, P. M. Day, and R. E. Jones, ‘Dark-faced incised pyxides and lids from Knossos: problems of date and origin’, in E. B. French and K. A. Wardle (eds), Problems in Greek Prehistory (Bristol, 1988), 91-4.
26. P. Warren and V. Hankey, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol, 1989), 21.
27. On similar pyxides with flanged bases and feet but not incised decoration see P. M. Warren, Myrtos: An Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete (BSA supp. vol. 7; Oxford, 1972), fig. 84 (p 642-3); and E. H. Hall, Excavations in Eastern Crete-Sphoungaras (Philadelphia, 1912), fig. 21. Pyxides with incised decoration were found at Koumasa, S. Xanthoudides, The Vaulted Tombs of Mesara (London, 1924), pls. xviii. 4195, 4196, 5035; and Patema near Palaikastro, R. C. Bosanquet and R. M. Dawkins, The Unpublished Objects from the Palaikastro Excavations 1902-1906, Part I (BSA supp. vol. 1; London, 1923), fig. 2.
28. Momigliano (n. 11), 175 (49), pl. 24. Similar lamps were found in the recent excavations of C. F. Macdonald, inside the palace and to the west of it, which he sees as typical MM I B-II; I am grateful to him for this information.
29. Momigliano (n. 11), 174 (31), pl. 23.
30. Momigliano., 172 (5).
31. Momigliano., 173-4 (16, 28-30).
32. For this and item e, see Momigliano., 172-3 (8, 9).
33. For this and item e., 172 (3).
34. Brown (n. 15), pl. 31; Momigliano (n. 11), 175 (48).
35. Momigliano (n. 11), 173 (14).
36. Joined by J. A. MacGillivray, see Momigliano (n. 11) 171 and n. 109.
37. Cadogan et al. (n. 6).
38. On the different shapes of beads see H. C. Beck, ‘Classification and nomenclature of beads and pendants’. Archaeologia, 77 (1927), 171.
39. PM i, fig 120.
40. It was published together with the annular beads PM i.
41. It was published together with the annular beads PM i. (in the bowl).
42. K. P. Foster and A. Kaczmarczyk, ‘X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis of some Minoan faience’, Archaeometry, 24 (1982), 157 10.1111/j.1475-4754.1982.tb00996.x.
43. Samples from the beads have been submitted to NCSR Demokritos for analyses.
44. P. Warren, Minoan Stone Vases (Cambridge, 1969), 99.
45. PM i, fig. 120.
46. PM i. bottom right.
47. Panagiotaki (n. 11).
48. The analysis was done by Dr P. Northover of the Department of Metallurgy and Science of Materials in Oxford. Permission was given by the Ashmolean Museum, for which I am grateful. Lead isotope analysis is now scheduled to find out the provenance of the copper.
49. PM i, fig. 120.
50. PM i.
51. C. Renfrew, ‘Obsidian in the Aegean’, BSA 60 (1965), 226-47, at p. 239 n. 63. What Renfrew calls ‘prominent phenocrysts’ are in fact round cavities lined with crystals.
52. Renfrew (n. 56), 239.
53. S. Xanthoudides, The Vaulted Tombs of Mesara (London, 1924), 105 had found two such blades at Platanos; see also Renfrew (n. 56).
54. PM i, fig. 119 a.
55. PM i, fig 119.
56. I am deeply grateful to Professors I. Pini and W. Müller for this identification and for the photographs of the sealings.
57. Warren (n. 49), 231-4.
58. PM i, fig. 120.
59. Evans (PM iv, 93) suggested that they may be of tridachna; specialists who have seen the pieces were unable to identify the shell.
60. I thank Dr F. Poplin for his confirmation of the material of these plaques and for explaining to me how the shell was polished.
61. The standard and the harp, E. Strommenger, The Art of Mesopotamia (London, 1964), pls xii-xiv; also H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (New Haven, 1996) figs. 64-5, 69, 77.
62. PM i, 170, fig. 120.
63. PM i, fig. 120.
64. Warren (n. 49), 68.
65. P. Warren, ‘A stone vase maker's workshop in the Palace at Knossos’, BSA 62 (1967), 200 n. 35, 50.
66. See Momigliano (n. 11), 172.
67. Momigliano (n. 11), 167.
68. Panagiotaki (n. 11).
69. M. Panagiotaki, ‘Archaeology in Greece 1996’, AR 42 (1995-1996), 39-40 also ‘Recent work in the Central Palace Sanctuary’, paper presented at the Eighth Cretological Congress, Heraklion, September 1996 (forthcoming).
70. An analogy is offered by the Myrtos Pyrgos shrine, see G. Cadogan, ‘A probable shrine in the country house at Pyrgos’, in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds), Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age (Stockholm, 1981), 169-72, at p. 169-70.
71. The best-known burial of objects with ritual significance has been reported from Tell Asmar, in Mesopotamia, where cult statues were buried ‘under the floor beside the altar’, Frankfort (n. 69), 46. The practice of burying shrine objects, either when they are worn or when the shrine is renovated, has been witnessed in the Near East as early as the seventh millennium BC; see Y. Garfinkel, ‘Ritual burial of cultic objects: the earliest evidence’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 4:2 (1994), 159-8810.1017/S0959774300001062 S0959774300001062.
72. On trade in the Old Palace period see K. Branigan, ‘The economic role of the First Palaces’, in Hägg and Marinatos (n. 14), 245-9; also M. Wiener, ‘Trade and rule in Palatial Crete’, The best-known burial of objects with ritual significance has been reported from Tell Asmar. 261-7; H.W. Catling, ‘Bronze Age trade in the Mediterranean: A view’, in N. Gale (ed.), Bronze Age Trade in the Mediterranean (SIMA 90; Göteborg, 1991), 1-13 and G. F. Bass, ‘Evidence of trade from Bronze Age shipwrecks’, The best-known burial of objects with ritual significance has been reported from Tell Asmar. 69-82; see also P. Warren, ‘Minoan Crete and Pharaonic Egypt’, in W. V. Davies and L. Schofield (eds), Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant (London, 1995), 1-18 and E. H. Cline, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea (Oxford, 1994).
73. On contact and exchange between royal courts see S. Alexiou, ‘Minoan palaces as centres of trade and manufacture’, in Hägg and N. Marinatos (n. 14), 251-3.
74. D. S. Reese, ‘Shells, ostrich eggshell and other exotic faunal remains from Kition’, in V. Karageorghis, Kition V (Nicosia, 1985), app. viii; also D. Conwell, ‘On ostrich eggs and Libyans; traces of a Bronze Age people from Bates’ island, Egypt’, Expedition, 29:3 (1987), 25-34.
75. J. Sakellarakis, ‘The fashioning of ostrich-egg rhyta in the Creto-Mycenaean Aegean’, in D. Hardy (ed.) Thera and the Aegean World, iii (London, 1990), 285-308.
76. H. Frankfort (n. 69).
77. M. S. F. Hood, ‘Knossos: the palace’, AR 20 (1973-1974), 34. Dr C. F. MacDonald has also found evidence for an MM IB or IIA destruction immediately SW of the palace. I thank him for allowing me to use this information.