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New pottery from the Psychro Cave and its implications for Minoan Crete1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2013

L. Vance Watrous
L. Vance Watrous
Affiliation:
Department of Art History, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
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Abstract

Recently discovered pottery from David Hogarth's 1899 excavation in the Psychro Cave is published in this study. The great majority of these vases can, on the basis of their fabric and decoration, be traced to Malia, Knossos and the Lasithi Plain. During the MM I-LM I A period most of the fine ware pottery dedicated at the Psychro came from Malia. The monumental size of the sanctuary and the large number (and the elite character) of the votives indicates that during MM I B-LM I A Psychro was the main extra-urban sanctuary for the polity centred at Malia. During LM I B-III A1/2 virtually all of the decorated vases from Psychro are Knossian. This change suggests that Mycenaean Knossos assumed control of the sanctuary during this time, and that some of these vases are those referred to in the Linear B tablet from Knossos KN. Fp 1 that lists dedications of oil sent to Dictaean Zeus.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 99 , November 2004 , pp. 129 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2004

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References

2 Hogarth.

3 Psychro.

4 Hogarth, D., ‘Knossos. Early town and cemeteries’, BSA 6 (1899–1900), 70–84Google Scholar. Hogarth's excavations at Psychro (1899) and at Knossos (1900) were both published in volume 6 of the BSA and so may have been studied in Herakleion at the same time. The large amounts of (uncatalogued) Knossian LM I A pottery in Γ 5 also points to this conclusion. Driessen–Macdonald 164 suggest that box Γ 6 contains pottery from Hogarth's 1900 excavation at Knossos. This is incorrect (see above).

5 Hogarth 96, 97, 99 describes strata within the cave as consisting of a black mould mixed with ashes, pottery and other artefacts.

6 This survey was published in my monograph, Lasithi: A History of Settlement on a Highland Plain in Crete (Hesp. Supp. 18; Princeton, 1982Google Scholar).

7 Carl Knappett was helpful in suggesting that several MM II–III vases in the catalogue above were of Maliote production.

8 Of course this leaves open the possibility that a number of the Knossian MM III–LM I sherds in Γ 5 might have come from Psychro. There is no way to test this possibility directly because the pottery in Γ 5 is mixed. However, in Γ 6, where all the pottery is from Psychro, I was unable to recognize any Knossian vase earlier than LM I B, except for a single late LM I A piece (76). This pattern suggests that the situation in Γ 5 may have been the same.

9 Hogarth, 115.

10 Psychro, pls. xxv c, xxvi e–f.

11 Driessen–MacDonald, 181–6.

12 Hogarth, 96.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., 115.

15 Psychro, nos. 2–6; above, 1–5.

16 Several scenarios explaining how these vases got to Psychro are possible, but the most likely one seems to me to be the simplest, that is, the Maliotes regularly visited the cave and left their locally made vases there.

17 Hogarth, 96–9; Psychro, 47–52. Hogarth, p. 101, records finding many hundreds of whole conical cups. The total number of conical cups left at the cave must have been in the thousands.

18 Hogarth, 99.

19 Votives of the MM I–LM I period are collected in Psychro, 49–52.

20 Driessen–MacDonald.

21 Farnoux, A., ‘Malia au Minoen récent II–IIIA1’, La Crète mycénienne (BCH Supp. 30; Paris, 1997), 135–47Google Scholar; id., ‘Quartier Gamma at Malia reconsidered’, in E. and B. Hallager (eds), Late Minoan III Pottery (Århus, 1997), 259–7.

22 Kanta, A., The Late Minoan III Period in Crete (Göteborg, 1980), 50–2Google Scholar.

23 Driessen–MacDonald, 138–70.

24 Ibid., at large. This is one of the central conclusions of this valuable book.

25 Ibid. 201–4, and M. Cameron, Fresco: Passport into the Past (Athens, 1999), 242.

26 Cucuzza, N., ‘Mason's marks ad Hagia Triada’, Sileno, 19 (1993), 53–65Google Scholar.

27 La Rosa, V., ‘La “Villa Royale” de Hagia Triada’, in Hägg, R. (ed.), The Function of the Minoan Villa (Stockholm, 1997), 79–89Google Scholar; Militello, P., ‘Riconsiderazioni preliminarie sulla documentazione in Linear A ad Hagia Triada’, Sileno, 14 (1988), 233–61Google Scholar.

28 Platon, L., ‘The Workshops and Working Areas of Minoan Crete. The Evidence of the Palace and Town of Zakros’ (University of Bristol, Ph.D., 1988), i. 394–419Google Scholar; id.,“Ανυπόγραφα ‘έργα τέχνηζ’ σταχέρια ιδιωτών ϰατάτη νεοαναϰτοριϰή περίοδο οτην Κρήτη”, in Eliten in der Bronzeit (Mainz, 1999), i. 37–50.

29 Platon, L., ‘The political and cultural influence of the Zakros Palace on nearby sites and in a wider context’, in Driessen, J., Schoep, I., and Laffineur, R. (eds), The Monuments of Minos (Aegaeum, 23; Liège, 2002), 145–55Google Scholar.

30 Watrous, L. V., ‘The Economic Organization of Minoan Crete’, paper delivered at the NYU. Aegean Symposium, New York, 15 Oct. 2001Google Scholar.

31 Pace Driessen–MacDonald, 70–83.

32 Pyschro, 57–72, 98–9 summarizes the evidence.

33 Ibid., 52–3.

34 Chadwick, J., Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge, 1973), 305–6Google Scholar. Most recently, H., and van Effenterre, M., ‘Amnissos et la tablette mycénienne KN. Fp (1)’, in Bohm, S. and von Eickstedt, K.-V. (eds), Ithaki: Festscrift fur Jörg Schäfer zum 75. Geburtstag (Mainz, 2001), 53–6Google Scholar. The tablet KN. Fp 1 lists offerings of oil made at various shrines, including at Amnissos and at one belonging to Dictaean Zeus. For the identification of the Psychro Cave as the sanctuary of Dictaean Zeus, see Pyschro, 18–19 with earlier bibliography.

35 de Polignac, F., La Naissance de la cité grecque (Paris, 1995Google Scholar). This practice could also be extended to urban shrines, as Herodotus (v. 73) informs us that Dorians were forbidden to enter the temple of Athena on the acropolis at Athens.

36 J. and M. Shaw, ‘Mycenaean Kommos’, in Driessen and Farnoux (n. 21), 423–4; V. La Rosa (n. 27), 91–8.

37 Ibid.

38 Psychro, no. 124.

39 Ibid., nos. 112, 114, 115.