Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T05:29:27.294Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Geophysical Investigations at Palaikastro1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Michael J. Boyd ,
Ian K. Whitbread  and
J. Alexander MacGillivray
Michael J. Boyd
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, and Fitch Laboratory, British School at Athens
Ian K. Whitbread
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester
J. Alexander MacGillivray
Affiliation:
British School at Athens
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since 1902 archaeological investigations at Palaikastro in eastern Crete have sought evidence for two architectural structures: a palace located amongst the substantial remains of Minoan settlement and the temple and sanctuary of Zeus Diktaios referred to by Strabo. In 2001 a geophysical survey was conducted in the Roussolakkos valley to the south-east of the excavated Minoan remains. Previous studies had recorded this as an archaeological ‘nil’ zone owing to the complete absence of cultural surface debris. Seven geophysical zones, covering a total of 20,960 m2, were surveyed using a combination of electrical resistance and magnetometry methods. Anomalies attributed to anthropogenic activity were found in six of these zones. They probably reflect substantial Minoan architecture based on the shape of some anomalies, a comparison with geophysical results from a previously excavated area (Block X) and the occurrence of no pottery later than Minoan on the ground. On this basis the geophysical survey has approximately doubled the known area, of the Minoan settlement. The anomalies may belong to a large urban block though their scale and orientation are also comparable to plans of palatial structures from other sites. Anomalies that could reflect architecture were found in Zone 7, situated in the area of earlier finds of Iron Age votives and Archaic architectural fragments and may therefore be related to the Diktaion.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 101 , November 2006 , pp. 89 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Myers, J. W.. Myers, E. E., and Cadogan, G., The Aerial Atlas of Crete (Berkeley, 1992), 222–31Google Scholar give a good visual introduction to the site and the colour photograph on p. 223 gives the condition of Zone 7 (Block X) in October 1987. It shows it to have been recently ploughed and sown with wheat.

3 MacGillivray, J. A., Minotaur (London and New York, 2000), 129Google Scholar; Brown, Ann, Before Knossos … Arthur Evans's Travels in the Balkans and Crete (Oxford, 1993), 50Google Scholar; 2001.

4 Xanthoudides, S., ‘Ancient moulds from Siteia in Crete,’ Arch. Eph. 1900, 25–200Google Scholar.

5 Evans, A. J., ‘Mycenaean tree and pillar cult,’ JHS 21 (1901), 99–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Guarducci, Margarita, I. Cret. iii: Tituti Cretae Orientalis (Rome, 1942), 4. 9Google Scholar.

7 PK IV, 300; Halbherr, F., ‘Researches in Crete II.–Palaekastron of Sitia,’ The Antiquary, 25 (1892), 115–81 at 117–18Google Scholar.

8 Bosanquet, R. C., ‘The Palaikastro Hymn of the Kouretes,’ BSA 15 (1909), 339–56Google Scholar; Harrison, J. E., ‘The Kouretes and Zeus Kouros,’ BSA 15 (1909), 308–38Google Scholar; Murray, G., ‘The Hymn of the Kouretes,’ BSA 15 (1909), 357–65Google Scholar; Guarducci (n. 6), 2. 2.

9 PK VI and VII.

10 PK Survey.

11 Reported in PK 1986–96.

12 AR 46 (2000), 143–4Google Scholar; 47 (2001), 136–8; 48 (2002), 111.

13 PK Survey, 134 fig. 3.

14 Ibid.

15 For a review of recent work see Sarris, A. and Jones, R. E., ‘Geophysical and Related Techniques Applied to Archaeological Survey in the Mediterranean: A Review,’ Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 13 (2000), 3–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Clark, A., Seeing Beneath the Soil (London, 1990), 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Boyd, M. J., and Brodie, N. J., ‘Identifying burned mud brick buildings using fluxgate gradiometry,’ in 4th Symposium of the Hellenic Society for Archaeometry (in press)Google Scholar.

18 Interpolation is a process of creating a smooth surface between measured points, thus creating the continuous colour of the images used in this paper.

19 http://www.bsa.gla.ac.uk/fitch/research/geo/geo_pk.htm

20 PK Survey, 152–4.

21 See e.g. Boyd, M.J., ‘Rural settlement architecture on the Lower Danube at the transition to Late Antiquity,’ in Poulter, A. G. (ed.), The Transition to Late Antiquity (in press)Google Scholar.

22 al Hagrey, S. A. and Meissner, R., ‘Botanical problems studied by applied geophysics,’ Mitteilungen der Deutschen Geophysikalischen Geselkchaft e.V., 2004/2, 2–8Google Scholar.

23 PK V, Pl. 10.

24 PK Survey, fig. 2; PK 1987, pls. 42 a, 43 e, f.

25 PK 1986, 141 fig. 2.

26 One of the current owners, Iannis Mavrokoukoulakis of Palaikastro, informed us of this in 2001.

27 PK Survey, 135 fig. 3.

28 PK IV, pls. 10, 12.

29 The passage leading from Main Street in Block M/Building 6 re-excavated in 1991 was found back-filled with stone rubble from the 1902–5 excavations, PK 1991, 125 fig. 1 trench EP 83.

30 PK IV, 274–83, fig. 13, pl. x.

31 PK Survey, 134 fig. 3, 157–8 pl. 11 c–g.

32 Platon, L., ‘The political and cultural influence of Zakros palace on nearby sites and in a wider context,’ Monuments of Minos, 145–56Google Scholar; J. Soles, ‘A Central Court at Gournia?,’ ibid. 123–32.

33 Peter Tomkins informs us that the majority of the Neolithic stone axes reported from Palaikastro come from Roussolakkos.

34 The early excavators, PK II, 278, noted that these ‘kinks,’ which they called ‘setbacks,’ were placed at the junction of a load-bearing partition wall with the main façade.

35 See papers in Monuments of Minos for the most recent reassessment of these buildings.

36 Shaw, J. W., ‘The orientation of the Minoan palaces’ in Antichità cretesi: studi in onore di Doro Levi, (Catania, 1973), i, 47–59Google Scholar.

37 Palyvou, C., ‘Central courts: the supremacy of the void,’ Monuments of Minos, 167–77Google Scholar, Pl. 56.

38 Marinatos, Spyridon, ‘Le temple géometrique de Dréros,’ BCH 60 (1936), 214–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beyer, Immo, Die Tempel von Dreros und Prinias A (Freiburg, 1976)Google Scholar.