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Knossos: an Early Greek Tomb on Lower Gypsadhes Hill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

P. J. Callaghan ,
J. N. Coldstream  and
Jonathan H. Musgrave
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Extract

In the summer of 1975 the owner of a small estate on the eastern slopes of Lower Gypsadhes decided to build a private road upslope to a belvedere overlooking the palace area. In the course of grading, several archaeological features were damaged before work was halted by the intervention of the Antiquities Guard. The Ephor of Antiquities at Herakleion then asked the British School to undertake rescue excavations in the area, and the Director of the School requested that I investigate the most important of the damaged constructions, an Iron Age chamber tomb.

About half-way along the course of the new road was a large area covered with the shattered remains of Geometric and Orientalizing vessels, but no sign of a tomb remained above ground. Preliminary excavation revealed the cause of this pattern.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 76 , November 1981 , pp. 141 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1981

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References

Acknowledgements. We thank the British School's Managing Committee for facilities of study at Knossos, and for meeting the expenses of research and publication. Mr. L. H. Sackett, who supplied the excavation photographs (Plate 16), gave valuable help not only in the field, but also in the preliminary sorting and treatment of finds in the Stratigraphical Museum, Knossos. Further help in sorting the pottery was given by Miss Lesley Fitton and Miss Mary McEvoy in 1977, and by Miss Fiona Cawsey and Miss Sally Johnson in 1979. The tomb plan and section are by Mr David Smyth; the other drawings are the work of Mrs. Nicola Coldstream, and Miss Emma Faull prepared the final tracings. Dr. H. W. Catling and Mr. T. G. H. James kindly gave advice concerning the iron weapons and the scarab 122 respectively.

Abbreviations, other than those in general use:

AR = Archaeological Reports (Journal of Hellenic Studies)

Arkades·D. Levi, ‘Arkades, una città cretese’, Ann. x–xiii (1927–9)

Atsalenio = Davaras, C., ‘Two Geometric tombs at Atsalenio near Knossos’, in BSA lxiii (1968) 133 ff.Google Scholar

Ay. Paraskies = Platon, N., ‘Geometrikos taphos Ayion Paraskion Herakleiou’, in AE 1945–1947, 47 ff.Google Scholar

F. = Brock, J. K., ‘Fortetsa: Early Greek Tombs near Knossos’, BSA Suppl. 2 (Cambridge, 1956).Google Scholar

GG = Coldstream, J. N., Geometric Greece (London, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

GGP = Coldstream, J. N., Greek Geometric Pottery (London, 1968).Google Scholar

Kn. Survey = M. S. F. Hood, Archaeological Survey of the Knossos Area.

Mastamba = Lembesi, Angheliki, PAE 1970, 270 ff.Google Scholar

Payne = Payne, H. G. C., ‘Early Greek Vases from Knossos’, in BSA xxix (1927–1928) 224 ff.Google Scholar

SCE = Swedish Cyprus Expedition (Stockholm, in progress).

Teke tholos = Hutchinson, R. W. and Boardman, J., ‘The Khaniale Tekke Tombs’, in BSA xlix (1954) 215 ff.Google Scholar

1 Kn. Survey square E 8, between Hogarth's Houses and the Temple Tomb. See Catling, H. W., AR 1977, 3 fig. 1Google Scholar no. 10 (location) and 17 f. figs. 39–45 (preliminary report).

2 Payne 233 ff.; F. 143 ff.; 147 ff.

3 I follow Brock's chronological phases and their abbreviations as given in F. xvi, with a slight modification of his absolute chronology as set out in GGP 330.

4 Here I include a brief transitional LG/EO stage as defined in GGP 245 f.

5 Cf. Snodgrass, A. M., Archaeology and the rise of the Greek State (Cambridge, 1977) 10 ff.Google Scholar; id., Archaic Greece, the Age of Experiment (London, 1980) 22 ff.

6 e.g. GG 26 ff. fig. 1e f; cf. Bouzek, J., Sborník xiii (1959) 136 f.Google Scholar

7 F. 150 class V.

8 Kn. Survey 21 f., sites 141, 146; Evans, , PM iv 21016Google Scholar, north-west of Temple Tomb, whence a pyxis (PGB?) is illustrated by Pendlebury, , Archaeology of Crete 313 pl. 42, 1.Google Scholar

9 Payne 231: ‘the necropolis of early Greek Knossos’ (my italics).

10 Catling, H. W., AR 1977, 11 ff.Google Scholar, Teke; 1979, 43 ff., Medical Faculty.

11 Alexiou, (KChiv (1950) 296)Google Scholar, following Arist. Pol. 1252b28, thought that all early Greek cemeteries of Knossos belonged to scattered komai before the formation of the polis. No clear traces of contemporary settlement, however, have yet been found outside the central area.

12 Hood, M. S. F., AR 1959, 19.Google Scholar

13 The nearby sanctuary of Demeter always remained an isolated shrine, and never became the nucleus of an outlying settlement; see Knossos: the sanctuary of Demeter (BSA Suppl. 8, 1973. 1 ff., 181).

14 BSA lxvii (1972) 78; lxviii (1973) 35.

15 See below, p. 161.

16 F. 143 f.

17 Coldstream, J. N., ‘Some new tomb vases from Early Hellenic Knossos’, in Stele N. Kontoleontos (Athens, 1979) 408 ff.Google Scholar

18 F. 148 class II, a close group formed by nos. 426, 452, 530, 596, 608, and 837; add Arkades fig. 580, Teke tholos no. 11, and Atsalenio B 6 with horse panels.

19 Followed in LG by the tapestry pattern, F. motif 5ap, on the pithoi nos. 748 and 827.

20 Cf. especially Karageorghis, V. and des Gagniers, J., La céramique chypriote de style figuré, Suppl. (Rome, 1979) 95 ff.Google Scholar, SXXV a2, 5, 6, 8.

21 There is no trace in this tomb of the kalathos-lid (e.g. F. no. 691) which often covers ninth-century cremation pithoi.

22 F. 163, C (iv).

23 F. 164, E (ii), nos. 401, 488, 664, 676; Teke tholos no. 44.

24 e.g. F. nos. 458, 476, 663, 711; Payne no. 70.

25 F. 155, B (i).

26 Among Brock's numerous varieties of ‘oinochoai’ and ‘small jugs and aryballoi’ (F. 154–60) I distinguish as lekythoi all those with round mouth, tall narrow neck, and handle from neck to shoulder, i.e. ‘Oinochoai’ II E, F; ‘small jugs and aryballoi’ IIA (ii), (iii), (v), and II E (i)–(iv).

27 F. 158 f., II E (iii).

28 BSA lxvii (1972) 91, G 57, pl. 26; for context see p. 77.

29 Cf. GGP 269, 246 f., pl. 59b, c; GG 68 fig. 20c.

30 GGP 250.

31 BSA viii (1901–2) pl. 9d.

32 e.g. the import F. no. 668; GGP 242.

33 F. 158, II C. MG context: Payne pl. 8, 4. LG contexts: F. nos. 759, 825–6; Atsalenio A 61.

34 Cf. Boardman, , BSA lvi (1961) 78 ff.Google Scholar

35 F. 166 f. B (ii), ‘rough and heavy with stringmark’, PGB–MG, cf. 79–81 (PGB), 45–6 (MG); B (iii), ‘deeper, usually thinner fabric’, LG–O, cf. 47–8.

36 F. 166.

37 F. nos. 1340, 1346, 1542; Ay. Paraskies nos. 84–6.

38 Greek Pins 17 ff.

39 BSA lxii (1967) 57 ff.

40 F. nos, 1076–8; BSA lviii (1963) 43 fig. 15.

41 As Mr. T. G. H. James has kindly informed me.

42 I should like to thank Professor Nicolas Coldstream for inviting me to report on these interesting remains; Mr. Jonathan Clark for assisting me in the field; and the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust Fund for contributing towards the cost of visits to Knossos in 1975 and 1977 to complete this study.

43 Breitinger, E., in Kerameikos i (by Kraiker, W. and Kübler, K., Berlin, 1939) 223–61Google Scholar; Robinson, D. M., Excavations at Olynthus xi (Baltimore, 1942)Google Scholar; Weiner, J. S. in Excavations at Dorchester, Oxon. (by Atkinson, R. J. C., Piggott, C. M., and Sandars, N. K., Oxford 1951) 129–41Google Scholar; Wells, C., Antiquity xxxiv (1960), 29–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spence, T. F., PPS xxxiii (1967) 70 83Google Scholar; Lisowski, F. P., in Anthropologie und Humangenetik (ed. Bielicki, T., Stuttgart, 1968) 76–83Google Scholar; Gejvall, N. G., in Science in Archaeology (ed. Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E., 2nd edn.London, 1969) 468–79Google Scholar; Van Vark, G. N., Some statistical procedures for the investigation of prehistoric skeletal material (Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen 1970)Google Scholar; Van Vark, G. N., Ossa i (1974) 63–95Google Scholar; J. H. Musgrave, in Lefkandi i (in press).

44 AR 1972–73, 10–11; Musgrave, J. H., BSA lxxi (1976) 40–6.Google Scholar

45 Angel, J. L., The People of Lerna (Princeton 1971) 72, 100–1.Google Scholar

46 These figures differ from those given for comparison in my report on the Lefkandi cremations, in Lefkandi i, which was written before I had reweighed the Knossos Eph/75 cremations and had decided to exclude the weights of 90 and Disturbed Bones as statistically unreliable.

47 Paidoussis, M. and Sbarounis, Ch. N., Opuscula Atheniensia xi (1975) 129–59.Google Scholar

48 J. H. Musgrave, in Lefkandi i (in press).

49 Denston, C. B., PPS xxxi (1965) 49–57Google Scholar; Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland xcix (1966) 73–5, c (1968) 96–9, civ (1972) 59–61, 133–4; Trans. Dumfriesshire & Galloway nat. Hist. & antiq. Soc. xlvi (1969) 84–90; Archaeol. J. cxxxi (1974) 22–7, 27–9, 93–7; J. Northamptonshire Museums and Art Gallery xi (1974) 56–7.

50 Lisowski, F. P., in Barclodiad y Gawres (by Powell, T. G. E. and Daniel, G. E., Liverpool 1956) 62–9Google Scholar; Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland lxxxix (1956) 83–90, xcvi (1963) 34–5; J. R. Soc. Antiq. Ireland lxxxix (1959) 26–9; in The West Kennet Long Barrow (by Piggott, S., London 1962) 90–4.Google Scholar

51 Spence, T. F., Trans. Birmingham archaeol. Soc. lxxxi (1964) 139–40.Google Scholar

52 J. H. Musgrave, in Lefkandi i.

53 Gejvall, N. G., in Science in Archaeology (ed. Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E., 2nd edn.London 1969) 468–79.Google Scholar