² Most earlier publications dealing with this site have referred to it as ‘Karphi’ in the style of Greek transliteration current at the time of its discovery and excavation. I follow more recent styles, replacing Greek φ with f.

³ Pendlebury et al.

⁴ Desborough, V. R. D., The Greek Dark Ages (London, 1972), 57–63, 120–9Google Scholar; Kanta 2001, 14; Nowicki 1987; Nowicki 2000, 157–64; Osborne, R., Greece in the Making, 1200–480 BC (London, 1996), 30–1Google Scholar; Snodgrass, A. M., The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh, 1971), 42, 371Google Scholar; Watrous, L. V., ‘Aegean settlements and transhumance’, Temple University Aegean Symposium, 2 (Philadelphia, 1977), 2–6Google Scholar; Whitley, J., Style and Society in Dark Age Greece (Cambridge, 1991), 348–52Google Scholar; id., The Archaeology of Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2000), 77–8.

⁵ The condition assessment carried out in 2002–3 found that 39% of walls at the site had deteriorated by more than 50% since excavation; 19% were entirely or almost entirely deteriorated or obscured, 7% in imminent danger of complete collapse, and 12% of complete obscurement. Of 234 architectural joints, 133 were obscured or destroyed, seriously restricting the reconstruction of building sequences.

⁶ I have discussed the management-related aspects of the study in another article: Wallace, S., ‘Bridges in the mountains: structure, multivocality, responsibility and gain issues in filling a management gap in rural Greece’, JMA 18. 1 (2005), 55–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ead., ‘Study towards the development of 21st-century management and research strategies at the archaeological site of Karfi, Lasithi, Crete’ (unpublished archive report, 24th Ephorate of the Greek Archaeological Service/British School at Athens, 2003)Google Scholar. The study's recommendations included preparation of a full management plan, pilot conservation of the best preserved and most interpretatively significant complexes, and the institution of a condition monitoring programme for the site. It was advised that all buildings be recorded at 1: 50 before any clearance or consolidation work takes place on them. A conservation plan is needed to define the acceptable limits of restoration, particularly in cases like those of the Megarons and Great House, where the original positions of large fallen blocks are clear. Intervention along the above lines seems vital both to preserve Karfi's research significance, and develop and promote it to public advantage.

⁷ L. P. Day, The Pottery from Karphi: A Reappraisal (forthcoming); Day and Snyder; G. C. Gesell, Cult Finds from Karphi (forthcoming).

⁸ I have benefited from close contact and discussion with the primary investigators of eight recently excavated or restudied sites of this type, viewed excavated material from five, and taken part in the excavation of three. This close contact with the primary data helped partly to overcome the shortcomings of the published record.

⁹ See especially Mazarakis Ainian.

¹⁰ The excavation report on Karfi was published under the names of John Pendlebury, his wife Hilda, and Mercy Money-Coutts. J. Pendlebury, the project's formal director, was by far the best-established scholar and excavator. Neither of the co-authors took responsibility for publishing the site in more detail after Pendlebury's death in 1941, though Money-Coutts published a brief summary of the pottery in 1960 (see below). The archives clearly show that Pendlebury was mainly responsible for architectural recording and interpretation, as well as for the overall research strategy: much of Pendlebury's notebook text is word-for-word directly that of the published report. Thus we can legitimately read the published discussion on architecture as authored by Pendlebury, though he rightly paid credit to other team members for their interpretative contributions. It is for the above reasons, as well as for convenience, that I refer in the text to ‘Pendlebury’ as the primary author of the observations published in Pendlebury et al.

¹¹ Nowicki 1987, 242–4, notes that only about one-fifth of the settlement has been excavated, on the basis of surface material: ‘less than a third’ was estimated by Pendlebury et al., 58.

¹² Seiradaki, M., ‘Pottery from Karphi’, BSA 55 (1960), 1–37Google Scholar.

¹³ Rutkowski, 258, 270.

¹⁴ In a letter of 22 May 1938 (BSA Archive JP/L/766), he wrote: ‘We are going to get a sort of robber baron's Amarna—one of the first connected town plans ever found—or rather dug—in Greece.’

¹⁵ The name ‘Barracks’ for rooms 2–7 was adopted because workers saw this block as ‘guarding’ the entrance to the site from the south, and because its plan resembled that of the Barracks block at Amarna. Pendlebury et al., 64. Pendlebury initially interpreted the architecture in this area as the remains of a palatial building, explaining his use of ‘Magazines’ to designate a block of smaller rooms to the west. He quickly gave up the idea of a palace as the site was explored further (letter of 31 May 1938, BSA Archive JP/L/767). Other names laden with interpretative preconceptions include the ‘Baker's House’ (with a circular structure thought to be a bread-oven), the ‘Priest's House’ (where an attached small room held some cult material), and the ‘Great House’ (the final plan of which seemed exceptionally large and impressive (see Nowicki 1987, 238 contra this view). A similar practice of naming by Evans at Knossos is discussed by Koudounaris and L. Hitchcock, ‘Virtual discourse: Arthur Evans and the reconstructions of the Minoan Palace at Knossos’, in Hamilakis, Y. (ed.) Labyrinth: Rethinking Minoan Crete (Oxford, 2000), 51–2Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Only Kavousi Kastro (then thought to date only in the Geometric period), Kavousi Vronda, and Vrokastro, all in east Crete, had been excavated to any significant extent. Boyd, H. A., ‘Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, in 1900’, AJA 5 (1901), 125–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, E., Excavations in Eastern Crete: Vrokastro (University of Pennsylvania, The Museum Anthropological Publications 3; Philadelphia,). 79–185Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Pendlebury et al., 140.

¹⁸ Nowicki 1987; 1990; 1999, 158, 164, 167; 2000, 157–64, 247–9; Wallace 2002; Whitley, A.J., Prent, M., and Thome, S., ‘Praisos IV: a preliminary report on the 1993 and 1994 survey seasons’ BSA 94 (1999), 215–64Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Coulson and Tsipopoulou; Day 1997; Day et al. 1986; Gesell et al. 1988. Vronda is estimated to have had only 100–25 people (15–20 houses) against the 750–1000 (125–50 houses) postulated by Nowicki for Karfi. Nowicki 2000, 157–64. See also Nowicki 1990.

²⁰ Exchange of grain or shepherding products for oil (olives probably were not cultivable at the altitudes around Karfi) might have taken place between Karfi's inhabitants and people at the surrounding foothill settlements of contemporary date (none excavated): Nowicki 1995; 1999. Haggis, D. C., ‘Intensive survey, traditional settlement patterns, and Dark Age Crete: the case of Early Iron Age Kavousi’ JMA 6/2 (1993), 131–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wallace 2002; ead., ‘The changing role of herding in Early Iron Age Crete: implications of settlement shift for economy’, AJA 107 (2003), 601–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pendlebury et al., 139–40 also suggested the use of locally based cultivation to sustain Karfi's population, an argument supported by recent soils and geomorphology studies. See too Morris, D., Soil Science and Archaeology: Three Test Cases from Minoan Crete (Philadelphia, 2003)Google Scholar.

²¹ Pendlebury et al., 140. See also Pendlebury, J. D. S., The Archaeology of Crete (London, 1939), 303–9Google Scholar; Desborough (n. 4), 128.

²² Watrous, L. V., Lasithi. A History of Settlement on a Highland Plain in Crete (Hesp. Supp 18; Princeton, 1982), 68Google Scholar; id. (n. 4); Nowicki 1987, 249.

²³ Pendlebury et al., 136–41.

²⁴ Hayden 1987, 199–201; Darcque. These authors expose problems with the way ethnic/status significance has been attributed to ‘megaron’ plans in the Aegean by demonstrating problems with denning the term, the variable and repeated appearance of structures designated in this way throughout the LM II–III period in Crete, and the diversity of settlement contexts in which they are found. Of the term Darcque (p. 31) notes: ‘Il est employé pour faire pencher la balance en faveur de thèses diffusionistes. La raisonnement proposé, de façon plus ou moins explicite, se présente de la façon suivante: là où il y avait un «mégaron» les Mycéniens ètaient présents, ils exerçaient le pouvoir.’

²⁵ For example, the sites of Chondros Kefali and Malia Quartier Nu, offering important angles on this question, had not been excavated. The LM III A-B record outside Knossos is still under-researched and under-published. Hayden 1987, 199–201; Darcque, 29; Cucuzza, 80.

²⁶ An assumption which is only now really starting to be deconstructed in Aegean archaeology: e.g. Preston, L., ‘Mortuary practices and the negotiation of social identities at LM II Knossos’, BSA 94 (1999), 181–43Google Scholar; van Wijngaarden, G.-J., Use and Appreciation of Mycenaean pottery in the Levant, Cyprus and Italy (1600–1200 BC) (Amsterdam, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Sherratt, S., ‘Sea Peoples and the economic structure of the late second millennium in the eastern Mediterranean’ in Gitin, S., Mazar, A., and Stern, E. (eds), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition (Jerusalem, 1998), 292–307Google Scholar; ead., ‘Potemkin palaces and route-based economies’, in Voutsaki, S. and Killen, J. (eds.), Economy and Politics in the Mycenaean Palace States: Proceedings of a Conference held on 1–3 July 7999 in the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (Cambridge, 2001), 214–39Google Scholar.

²⁸ Although migrationist models of the island's LM III C population based on isolated, supposedly ethnically diagnostic aspects of material culture have continued to be influential: e.g. A. Kanta and A. Karetsou, ‘From Arkadhes to Rhytion. interactions of an isolated area of Crete with the Aegean and the East Mediterranean’, in Karageorghis and Stampolidis, 161; Kanta 2001, 13; V. Karageorghis, ‘Patterns of fortified settlements in the Aegean and Cyprus c. 1200 BC’, in Karageorghis and Morris, 1–12; Popham, M. R., ‘Some LM III pottery from Crete’, BSA 60 (1965), 335Google Scholar; Nowicki 2000; id., ‘Sea raiders and refugees: problems of defensible sites in Crete c. 1200 BC’, in Karageorghis and Morris, 23–39.

²⁹ Day and Snyder.

³⁰ Mazarakis Ainian, 275–96; Morris, I., ‘Gift and commodity in Archaic Greece’, Man (NS) 21 (1986), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whitley, J., ‘Social diversity in Dark Age Greece’, BSA 86 (1991), 341–65Google Scholar.

³¹ Rutkowski.

³² Day 1997; Day et al. 1986; Eliopoulos 1998, 301–3; 2004; Gesell, G. C., Day, L. P., and Coulson, W. D. E., ‘Excavations at Kavousi, Crete’, Hesp. 60 (1991), 162CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gesell et al. 1988, 289–90; Klein, N., ‘The architecture of the Late Minoan IIIC shrine at Vronda, Kavousi’, in Day et al. 2004, 91–100Google Scholar; Tsipopoulou, M., ‘A new late Minoan IIIC shrine at Halasmenos, East Crete’ in Laffineur, R. and Hägg, R. (eds), Potnia: Deities and Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 8th International Aegean Conference, Göteborg, Göteborg University, 12th–15th April 2000, Aegaeum 21, (Liège, 1999), 99–103Google Scholar.

³³ Mazarakis Ainian, 218–20, 314.

³⁴ Desborough, V. R. D., The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors (Oxford, 1964), 172–3Google Scholar; Tsipopoulou, M., ‘“Myceneans” at the isthmus of Hierapetra: some (preliminary) thoughts on the foundation of the (eteo)Cretan cultural identity’, in D'Agata, A. L. and Moody, J. (eds.), Ariadne's Threads: Connections between Crete and the Mainland in the Post-Palatial Period (Late Minoan IIIA2 to Sub-Minoan). Proceedings of a Conference held at the Italian Archaeological School at Athens, 2004 (Athens, 2005)Google Scholar; Darcque.

³⁵ Pendlebury et al., 71, 77.

³⁶ Darcque, 29. The complex is now quite often referred in the literature to as ‘the Megarons’ so I have chosen to keep this term here, although Pendlebury never referred to it in this way. Nowicki 1987, 238; 1999, 147; Tsipopoulou 2004, 127.

³⁷ Mazarakis Ainian, 219–20.

³⁸ Nowicki 1999, 147–8.

³⁹ Preziosi, D., Minoan Architectural Design: Formation and Signification (Berlin, 1983), 187CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁰ Nowicki 1987, 238.

⁴¹ Pendlebury et al., 65.

⁴² Nowicki 1987, 242–6; 2000, 157–64.

⁴³ Nowicki 1999.

⁴⁴ Nowicki 1987, 237; 2002.

⁴⁵ Citing the frequent evidence of multiple building phases in the western saddle (including the ‘remains of wooden structures’ assumed to have represented some of the earliest on the site) as suggesting the longest occupation there. Pendlebury et al., 38; Mazarakis Ainian, 219.

⁴⁶ Nowicki 2000, 247–9; Wallace 2003, 258–9; 2004.

⁴⁷ Day (pers. comm.).

⁴⁸ Wallace, ‘Study’ (n. 6). The report includes a multifaceted assessment of the significance of the site and its component parts, in the expectation that defining and rationalizing significance will be highly relevant to future conservation decisions.

⁴⁹ Pendlebury et al., 94–6.

⁵⁰ Nowicki 1987, 239.

⁵¹ BSA Archive MCS–2 5–8.94.

⁵² Day et al. 1986, 373.

⁵³ Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71; Day et al. 1986, 373, 386. Pendlebury et al., 88 suggest that this feature could as easily be a ‘fireplace’ as a jar-stand. This explanation is less convincing in room 139, which already has a hearth. However, such features could also conceivably represent the bases of small ovens. Some mainland EIA examples contain charred foodstuffs. Fagerström, 131–2. Similar features had appeared in LM III A-B main rooms at Kefali Chondros Viannou and Kommos: Platon, 362; Shaw, 238–9, who notes, p. 238, that these ‘bins’ at Kommos sometimes contained cooking pots, and closely resemble hearths at the site, as do enclosures at Chondros Kefali; Hayden 2002, 210.

⁵⁴ Pendlebury et al., 77–9.

⁵⁵ I think the latter should be treated as a room, not a courtyard, given its uniformly heavy and careful construction, self-contained character, and the fact that it possesses a single, monumental entrance accessed from a street.

⁵⁶ Nowicki 1987, 238; 1999, 148–9.

⁵⁷ Benches at the contemporary Chalasmeno and Vronda sites are 0.6–0.9 m wide (Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 76–7).

⁵⁸ Pendlebury et al., 77.

⁵⁹ BSA Archive MCS–2 5–8.94.

⁶⁰ Pendlebury et al., 77.

⁶¹ Ibid., 85. The extensive incorporation of bedrock in architecture appears at most excavated EIA defensible sites: Gesell et al. 1985, 353; Hatzi-Valliano 2004; Hayden 1983, 374. Gesell 1985, 45–6, suggests this feature was a bench.

⁶² Pendlebury et al., 70–2.

⁶³ The unaltered plan of these rooms, and of the whole block, has frequently been reproduced to support interpretations: e.g. Mazarakis Ainian, Table X; Darcque, 29; Nowicki 1999.

⁶⁴ Nowicki 1999, 151–2. Assuming room 138 to have been a specialized storage area, he reconstructs 137's hypothetical back room in the same way. There are parallels at Vronda Building I, and Smari Building 2, where the small back room had storage evidence: Glowacki 2002, 41; Glowacki 2004, 41; Hatzi-Vallianou 2004, 114.

⁶⁵ Hayden 1987, 203 suggests such a plan at Chondros Kefali Building A-B, with an inner anteroom only 1.6 m wide. However, lack of published stratigraphy makes it unclear whether this was in contemporaneous use with the main room.

⁶⁶ Pendlebury et al., 71. Pendlebury may have beenmisled by the erroneous final plan (the original sketch plan shows the correct position) and in fact have seen hatchway(s) only between rooms 139 and 143: he refers to the second hatch as located in the NE corner of 139. Another external storage area reached via a hatchway appears east of room 2. It is possible that the wall between rooms 143 and 144 was placed to extend the building's south façade, making it look more impressive.

⁶⁷ Pendlebury et al., 77–9.

⁶⁸ Use of a similar technique may appear in the stepped rebuild of 71–73's east walls when 70 was constructed: Mook, 47. At the LM III A–B hilltop settlement of Chondros Kefali, double walls were used fairly regularly. Platon, 365.

⁶⁹ Pendlebury et al., 53; Alexiou. Its door opens to the street, but is also adjacent to the house's entrance corridor: some domestic connection is likely.

⁷⁰ Full-width porches at Karfi are mostly associated with otherwise-distinguished buildings, but narrower anterooms, not directly connected to the main rooms, appear in other buildings, like the Cliff House, discussed above. At Vronda, full-width anterooms appear in apparently ordinary buildings, such as Block I. See Part 3 of this paper.

⁷¹ Pendlebury et al., 81.

⁷² Day et al. 1986, 375–6. The remains of a recent small drystone building may obscure the ancient wall line on the west side of the summit. Earlier use of the spine technique appears in a perimeter wall supporting agglutinative architecture at Chondros Viannou. Platon, 358–60. A more complex structural role for such walls existed by the Archaic period at hilltop settlements: see Haggis et al. At 6th-c. Azoria, a massive wall c. 250 m long acts as a terrace retaining the whole summit, as well as a building spine. Haggis et al., 349–51, note parallel examples at unexcavated Archaic settlements in the Meseleri valley, and the use of ‘spines’ at individual building level in the settlements of Lato and Onithe Gouledianon. Fagerström, 114.

⁷³ Nowicki 1987, 243; 1999, 147.

⁷⁴ Brown, A. (ed.), with Bennett, K., Arthur Evans's Travels in Crete, 1894–1899 (BARS 1000; Oxford, 2001), 219, 337–8Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ Building on, and filling some gaps in, the discussion in Pendlebury et al., 66–8.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 81–2, 84. The original report suggests room 44 was added late to this block, but the solidity and size of the structure suggest otherwise. Wall joints are not currently well-preserved enough to make certain.

⁷⁷ Fagerström, 113–15, notes the difficulty of wall bonding in uncoursed rubble architecture.

⁷⁸ Hayden 1983, 375; Nowicki 1999, 152.

⁷⁹ Pendlebury et al., 66–7.

⁸⁰ Mudbrick building on stone socles is the main technique at Vronda and Chalasmeno (with evidence for second storeys at the former site). Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 80; Day et al. 1986, 366, 385. LM III A–B buildings in small to medium-sized villages were of either worked rubble or mudbrick. On former Neopalatial settlements, they often re-used ashlar blocks or whole walls. Boyd 1905, 23; Fotou, V., ‘New light on Gournia: unknown documents of the excavation at Gournia and other sites on the isthmus of the Ierapetra by Harriet Ann Boyd’, Aegaeum, 9 (Liège, 1993), 82, 96Google Scholar; Dawkins, R., ‘Excavations at Plati in Lasithi, Crete’, BSA 20 (1914), 1–18Google Scholar. Mud mortar is used at the EIA sites of Chalasmeno, Vronda, Kavousi Kastro (all periods), and Vrokastro. Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 73; Day et al. 1986, 385; Mook, 51.

⁸¹ Fagerström, 119–20. At Chalasmeno and Vronda, walls rarely exceed 0.7 m in thickness. The walls of sizeable LM III A-B buildings average about 0.75–0.8 m. In the Priest's House, the walls of room 61–60 (c. 0.75 m) contrast with the thinner examples in room 80, suggesting the latter room was built second. The walls of 16–17, at 0.88 m, and 9, at 0.75–0.88 m, contrast with the walls in 12/11 (0.63 m) and the addition 14 (north wall 0.69 m). The walls of 106–115 (0.8 m) and 120 (0.7–0.83 m), are thicker than those in room 113, a probable later addition.

⁸² W. D. E. Coulson, ‘The Late Minoan IIIC period on the Kastro at Kavousi’, in Driessen and Farnoux 1997, 64, 71; Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71, 76–7; Hallager, E. and Hallager, B. P., The Greek-Swedish Excavations at the Ayia Aikaterini Square, Kastelli, Khania, 1970–1987, ii: The Late Minoan IIIC Settlement (Acts of the Swedish Institute at Athens, 47: 2; Stockholm, 2001)Google Scholar; iid. The Greek-Swedish Excavations at the Ayia Aikaterini Square, Kastelli, Khania, 1970–1987, iii: The Late Minoan IIIB Settlement (Acts of the Swedish Institute at Athens, 47: 2, Stockholm, 2003), 30–1Google Scholar; Day et al.; Glowacki 2002, 42. Similarity between LM III A-B and LM III C hearth forms appears at sites with continuous occupation between the periods, as at Chania. On new LM III C sites, the role of local cooking traditions is clear: all hearths on a site tend to be of the same type and pattern from the start. However, there is considerable variability between sites. For example, wall/corner hearths appear at Chalasmeno but not at Vronda; Karfi has very few hearths in general. These facts undermine any notion that widespread, novel cooking traditions accompanied major immigration in the 12th c.

⁸³ The Great House may have produced evidence for a hearth which was not directly reported (Pendlebury et al., 137). The excavators reported a small stone-built oven in the south corner of room 89 (D. 0.7 m) and ‘fireplaces’ in rooms 68 and 113 (ibid., 88–90). The poor record and the currently bad preservation of room 89 makes it unclear at what stage the oven was built, or how it was used.

⁸⁴ Glowacki 2002, 42; 2004, 129–30; Yasur-Landau forthcoming; L. Day, K. Glowacki, and N. Klein, ‘Cooking and dining at LM IIIC Vronda, Kavousi’, in Πεπραγμένα 2000, 117–18. Vronda ovens are characterized as too small to have contained the cooking dishes found at the site, and thus were probably used for cooking bread or other containerless food items. They seem to have been regularly cleaned out after use.

⁸⁵ Pendlebury et al., 86–7.

⁸⁶ Shaw.

⁸⁷ Driessen and Farnoux 1994, 60. A separate kitchen seems to have existed in the largest building at Chondros Kefali (Platon, 360). The ‘stoa’ at LM III Kommos contains five hearths, suggesting a very concentrated cooking function (Shaw, 251). By the late 6th c. at Azoria, the development of separate household-level kitchens seems indicated at Azoria: small houses at B100 and B300 seem to have a dedicated space for cooking and food processing. Haggis et al., 352–61. A grouping of two ‘kitchens’, with corner hearths and food storage and preparation evidence, occurs near and possibly in association with a public dining and storage complex on the site's west slope (A600). Haggis et al., 368, 378, 383–4. The coexistence of domestic and public cooking in both the LBA and Archaic periods suggests it also occurred in the EIA. Yasur-Landau forthcoming.

⁸⁸ Room 81, probably a storeroom (see below) is an exception. At Vronda, benches are sometimes located in subsidiary/store rooms, but mostly in main rooms. Glowacki 2002, 41–2. They appear in storerooms at LM III B-C Katsambas and Archaic Azoria (B400, A1200). Alexiou; Haggis et al., 363, 368, 375. Recesses for pithoi at Geometric Zagora point to use of benches as shelves in storeroom contexts. Fagerström, 133–5.

⁸⁹ Gesell et al. 1985, 340–2; Pendlebury et al., 75; Rutkowski, 260.

⁹⁰ This width is comparable with Vronda and Chalasmeno doorway width. Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 77, 82; Glowacki 2002, 38. In LM III A-B buildings of medium to advanced size and complexity, doorway widths paralleled or exceeded the exceptional 2 m-wide example in Karfi 16–17. The entrance in the north building at Plati is 2 m wide; in Goumia Building He the main doorway is 3.4 m wide and the second largest 1.2 m. Doorways seem to become generally more modest in Early Iron Age architecture, and this pattern continues into the Archaic period. At Archaic Azoria, the 1.1 m doorway to A800 (interpreted as a public dining room) is unusually wide. A further decline in the use of broad, slabthreshold doorways by this period may relate to the fact that as social status had become less vested in personal, house-based competition with the development of more complex civic centres, domestic rooms had become more evenly sized and specialized in use. The smaller size may have made it important to maximize activity space. Haggis et al., 380–1; Hayden 1983, 376.

⁹¹ A LM III C house at Smari illustrates well the use of a hatch to communicate with a rear storeroom. Hatzi-Vallianou 2004, 109.

⁹² Pendlebury et al., 85.

⁹³ Ibid., 68. Reconstructing a door between 11 and 12 relies on the reinterpretation of the bench on the east wall of room 12. The assumption of a bench here almost certainly encouraged Pendlebury to suggest other means of access to the room.

⁹⁴ Glowacki 2004; id., ‘House, household and community at LM IIIC Vronda, Kavousi, Crete’, in R. Westgate, N. Fisher, and J. Whitley (eds.), Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond (forthcoming); Gesell et al. 1985, 331.

⁹⁵ Pendlebury et al., 73.

⁹⁶ Ibid., 75–6.

⁹⁷ Ibid., 68. He cautioned that this might only appear to be the case because walls were not preserved high enough.

⁹⁸ Ibid., 73.

⁹⁹ Ibid., 80.

¹⁰⁰ Day, L. P., ‘A Late Minoan IIIC window frame from Vronda, Kavousi’, in Betancourt, P., Karageorghis, V., Laffineur, R., and Niemeier, W. D. (eds), Μελετήματα: Studies in Aegean Archaeology Presented to Malcolm H. Wiener As He Enters His 65th Year (Aegaeum, 20; Liège, 1999), 185–91Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ Pendlebury et al., 67.

¹⁰² At Vronda, the storeroom B3 is entirely paved, as is the storeroom in the Katsambas house. At Azoria, the probable storeroom in B 100 was paved. Partial paving in main rooms appears in LM III A-B at Buildings A/B, P, and Θ at Chondros Kefali, and in LM III C at Vronda (E1), Chalasmeno (B1). Flat stones may sometimes represent groups of potstands rather than continuous paving. Alexiou; Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71, 76–7; Day et al. 1986, 366, 373; Haggis et al., 358–9; Platon, 362.

¹⁰³ Day et al. 1986, 360; Tsipopulou 2004, 127. Paved streets, courts and squares appear at LM III A-B Chondros Kefali. Hayden 2002, 204; Platon, 358–61.

¹⁰⁴ Pendlebury et al., 79, 93.

¹⁰⁵ The effects of architectural space on social structuring are noted by Barrett, J. C., ‘The mythical landscapes of the British Iron Age’, in Ashmore, W. and Knapp, A. B. (eds), Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives (Oxford, 1999), 257Google Scholar; Lane, P., ‘Reordering residues of the past’, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Archaeology as Long-Term History (Cambridge 1987), 57Google Scholar; Donley-Reid, L. W., ‘A structuring structure: the Swahili house’, in Kent, S. (ed.), Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: an Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Study (Cambridge, 1990), 114–27Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁶ Wallace 2003; 2004.

¹⁰⁷ See author s in n. 32 and Prent, M., Cretan Sanctuaries and Cults: Continuity and Change from Late Minoan IIIC to the Archaic Period (Leiden, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latter was published while this paper was already in press and I regret that it could not be fully referenced here: it develops at greater length some of the ideas and issues raised in this discussion.

¹⁰⁸ I discuss the two spheres and their relationships in more depth in a forthcoming monograph, S. Wallace, From Successful Collapse to Democracy's Alternatives: A Cultural History of Crete in its Mediterranean Context Between the 12th and 5th centuries BC.

¹⁰⁹ For example, Carter, J. B., ‘Thiasos and marzeah. Ancestor cult in the age of Homer’, in Langdon, S. (ed.), New Light on a Dark Age: Exploring the Culture of Geometric Greece (Columbia, 1997), 9–43Google Scholar; D'Agata, A. L., ‘Ritual and rubbish in Dark Age Crete: the settlement of Thronos Kefala (ancient Sybrita) and the pre-Classical roots of a Greek city’, Aegean Archaeology, 4 (2002), 71Google Scholar; Day and Snyder, Hatzi-Vallianou 2004; D. Hatzi-Vallianou and O. Evthimiou, ‘Κεραμειϰή απο την Αϰρόπολη Σμαριού’, in Πεπραγμένα 2000, 537–57; Mazarakis Ainian; Sherratt, ‘Feasting in Homeric epic’, in Wright, J., The Mycenaean Feast (Princeton, 2004), 181–27Google Scholar; M. Tsipopoulou, ‘Myceneanising or not at the end of the Bronze Age? A comparative study of the Megara A2 and A3 and the Houses B1 and B2 at Halasmenos, Ierapetra’, in K. Glowacki and Vogeikoff-Brogan (eds), Στέγα: The Archaeology of Houses and Households in Ancient Crete from the Neolithic Period through the Roman Era (forthcoming); ead. (n. 36); Yasur-Landau forthcoming; Wallace 2003.

¹¹⁰ Day and Snyder; Mazarakis Ainian, 218–20; Nowicki 1999; Pendlebury et al.

¹¹¹ Herodotus i. 65; Strabo x. 4. 16–20; Plato, Laws viii. 842 B, 847 E-848 C; Aristotle Politics 1272^a 16–21; Athenaeus iv. 143 A-D; Haggis et al., 380–1, 387–90.

¹¹² Nevett, L., House and Society in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge, 1999)Google Scholar. In LM III A-B Crete there are only partial indicators of anything like a common house template. Hayden 1987, 217. The similarity of plan—a corridor with a main axial room and storage rooms located off it—between Ayia Triada's monumental ‘North-West Building’ and large houses at sub-regional centres suggests there was a recognized LM III A-B standard for elite dwellings which had relationships to mainland tradition, but also drew on LM I plans, often literally adapting LM I structures. The popularity of the corridor element is reflected even in the small house at Katsambas (Alexiou; Cucuzza). Nonetheless, considerable variability in house plan is notable within and between sites. The corridor disappears, perhaps mostly for reasons of space restriction, in the new LM III C settlements, but other elements of existing plan types remain in use. Even by the fifth century in Crete, standard house forms do not seem to have been used across settlements, as the Azoria excavations show. Haggis et al.

¹¹³ Alexiou; Driessen and Farnoux 1994, 62. At Quartier Nu, stone tools, including querns, also cluster in the subsidiary rooms X5 and X12, behind main room X11, suggesting a more complex distribution of activities in large structures.

¹¹⁴ Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71–7. Glowacki 2002, 42; 2004,130–2; id. (n. 94). Hatzi-Vallianou 2004, 110. Cooking pots (not always quantified in the original records) seem only slightly, if at all, concentrated in Karfi main rooms.

¹¹⁵ Glowacki 2004, 130–2. Hayden 1987, 201–2, 223–4 cites LM III A-B examples, though some (Malia IVA and XV IIII; Palaikastro Block X 54) seem too small for households. The one-room house seems to occur more often in LM III C.

¹¹⁶ Mazarakis Ainian.

¹¹⁷ The tomb record of the period, with a strong emphasis on small family or couple groupings, partly supports this idea. The fact that as families grew, children moved out of the parental home, may have limited the scale of investment in the same building over time. Blanton, R., Houses and Households: A Comparative Survey (New York, 1994), 189–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Glowacki 2004, 134; 2002, 38.

¹¹⁸ Day et al. 1986, 357, 360; Glowacki 2004.

¹¹⁹ Smari is of special interest because it is the only other 12th–11th-c. settlement excavated to any significant extent in the east central Cretan/Lasithi region: Karfi can be seen from it. Hatzi-Vallianou 2004, 106–12. However, a huge amount of work still remains to be done in order adequately to publish the results of the excavation.

¹²⁰ The size of the main room in Gournia Building Eh is 34.3 m², and in Building He, 30.2 m². The main room in Plati Building A is 29.5 m², and the large eastern hall of Malia Quartier Nu (X11), 26.5 m².

¹²¹ The pattern of room use within a household had apparently altered by this time, possibly becoming differently specialized. For example, following a new subdivision of space at Azoria in the late 6th c, B300 has a hearth in its slightly smaller room, two pithoi in the other; in B100, the hearth is again located in the smaller room; suggesting a limited, specific kitchen space. Cambitoglou, A., Birchall, A., Coulton, J. J., and Green, J. R., Zagora 2: Excavation of a Geometric Town on the Island of Andros (Athens, 1998), 154–7Google Scholar; Haggis et al., 352–61; Mook; G. Rizza, ‘Scavi e ricerche a Prinias dal 1992 al 1996’, in Πεπραγμένα 2000, 162. In Crete the largest single rooms of G-A date, like Vrokastro 16–17 or Azoria building 1300, are in structures likely to have had semi-public functions.

¹²² Alexiou; Pendlebury et al., 83, 90. Karfi room 81 contained fragments of a larnax which might have been used as a bath.

¹²³ M. Tsipopoulou, ‘Halasmenos: destroyed but not invisible. New insights on the LM IIIC period in the isthmus of Ierapetra. First presentation of the pottery from the 1992–1997 campaigns’, in Day et al. 2004, 103–25; ead., forthcoming (n. 109); A. Yasur-Landau, ‘Halasmeno fagito: burnt dishes and scorched pots. Some preliminary observations on LM IIIC cooking ware’, in Πεπραγμένα του Θ´ Διεϑνούς Κρητολογιϰού Συνεδρίου, Ελούντα, 2001 (forthcoming); id., forthcoming; Day et al. (n. 84).

¹²⁴ Hinting at a specialization of settlement zones along the lines suggested by Yasur-Landau forthcoming, who argues that the ‘Megarons’ at Chalasmeno were mostly a specialized dining area, served by concentrated cooking facilities in another part of the site.

¹²⁵ Day and Snyder.

¹²⁶ Pendlebury et al., 77–9.

¹²⁷ E. Tsoukala and D. Hatzi-Vallianou, “Πανίδα ϰαι διατροφιϰές συνηθέιως στην Αϰρόπολη Σμαριόυ ϰατά τη Γεομετριϰή/Ανατολίζουσα ϰαι παλαιοαναϰτοριϰή εποχη”, in Πεπραγμένα 2000, 399; Hatzi-Vallianou and Evthimiou (n. 109); Hatzi-Vallianou.

¹²⁸ For a discussion of how feasting can be theorized and identified in the prehistoric Aegean see J. Wright, chs. 1 and 2 in Wright (n. 110), 1–58; Tsipopulou 2004, 136–8; Tsoukala and Hatzi-Vallianou (n. 127), 404.

¹²⁹ Like Chondros Kefali Building O–D (Platon, n. 53). Driessen and Farnoux 1994, 62–3, note the storeroom cluster II2, II3, II5 at Quartier Nu. Platon, 362 notes a group of small unattached rooms beside the largest and most complex building at Chondros Kefali. Similarities in layout and size with LM III C storage complexes should be viewed in the broader context of changes in building scale after c. 1200 BC. In the Ayia Triada North-West Building, for example, individual storerooms dating to LM III A are similar in size to LM III C examples (and larger than those in small III A-B buildings) In aggregate, however, they provided more dedicated storage than those in any LM III C structure (Cucuzza). The volume of storage-type rooms at Gournia Building Eh roughly parallels the B complex at Vronda (Day et al. 1986, 357). But Vronda A/B cannot be treated as representative, being the largest building on any LM III C site, and almost certainly possessing a special social role. Some of the small rooms in the B complex probably had other functions, like cooking, while the Gournia house had additional subsidiary rooms beyond the storage group. In sum, storage space per household seems generally more modest at LM III C settlements than in those of LM III A–B.

¹³⁰ Room 80 contained cooking pots and lekanai; room 121 included a tripod cooking pot. Household ceramics appeared alongside pithoi in probable storerooms at the LM III B Katsambas house, in Malia Quartier Nu room II2, and in B300 at Archaic Azoria. Alexiou; Haggis et al., 352–6; Driessen and Farnoux 1994, 63.

¹³¹ Bennet, J., ‘“Collectors” or “owners”? An examination of their possible functions within the palatial economy of LM III Crete’, in Olivier, J.-P. (ed.), Mykenaika: Actes du IX^e Colloque International sur les textes mycéniens et égéens, organisé par le Centre de l'Antiquité grecque et romaine de la Fondation Hellénique des Récherches Scientifiques et l'École francaise à Athènes (Athènes, 2–6 octobre 1990) (Paris, 1992), 65–103Google Scholar; Driessen, J., ‘Centre and periphery: some observations on the administration of the kingdom of Knossos’, in Voutsaki and Killen (n. 27), 96–113Google Scholar, Olivier, J.-P., ‘La collecte et la circulation de l'information économique dans la Crete mycénienne’, in Driessen and Farnoux 1997, 391–407Google Scholar.

¹³² Nowicki 1995; 2000, 147–70.

¹³³ Day, L. P.., Coulson, W. D. E., and Gesell, G. C., ‘A new Early Iron Age kiln at Kavousi, Crete’, Rivista di archeologia, 13 (1989), 103–6Google Scholar; Gesell et al. 1988, 290–3; Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 77.

¹³⁴ A building apparently used for fabric dyeing is located at Kolonna, probably associated with the settlement on Papoura. Watrous, L. V., ‘J. D. S. Pendlebury's excavations in the plain of Lasithi: the Iron Age sites’, BSA 75 (1980), 277–81Google Scholar. Azoria building A 1300 contained evidence for wine-pressing at a considerable scale, and another area (A900–1100) had concentrated evidence for textile manufacture in the form of loomweights. Haggis et al., 369–72.

¹³⁵ Haggis et al., 352–6.

¹³⁶ Pendlebury et al., 81–3.

¹³⁷ Glowacki 2004; Pendlebury et al., 72, 89.

¹³⁸ Possible cult-related items were found in domestic contexts at Vronda and Chalasmeno. Gesell, G. C., Day, L. P., and Coulson, W. D., ‘Excavatations at Kavousi, Crete, 1989 and 1990’, Hesp. 64 (1995), 70–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tsipopoulou (pers. comm.). They might be interpreted as indicating the existence of ‘household shrines’.

¹³⁹ Rutkowski, 262.

¹⁴⁰ There are some parallels for this kind of change of ‘narrowed’ use during the course of the EIA period in Crete. Feasting-centred reuse of abandoned LM III C Megaron A at Chalasmeno occurred by Late Geometric. The Smari Megarons block became a cult/feasting location from at least the LG period, after the abandonment of much of the earlier settlement. Tsipopulou 2004; D. Hatzi-Vallianou, “Η λατσεία της Αθήνας στην Αϰρόπολη Σμαριόυ”, in Πεπραγμένα 2000, 71–82; Wallace 2003.

¹⁴¹ Though there are cases—e.g. in room 58—where cult finds are reported as coming only from the uppermost deposit. Pendlebury et al., 85. If these did represent a secondary use of the room, my interpretation here of the reasons for constructing the room would have to be revised. Unfortunately the recorded stratigraphy provides no further insight.

¹⁴² Pendlebury et al., 77–9, 81–7, 91–2, 95–6; Gesell 1985, 81–2.

¹⁴³ Pendlebury et al., 77–9, 81–2, 91–2, 95–6. There is a concentration of animal figurines in buildings on the upper western saddle, but it is likely that many of these come from the Middle Bronze Age sanctuary on the Karfi peak. The votive bronze axes found in room 106 and elsewhere on the site may have the same origin.

¹⁴⁴ Boardman, J., The Cretan Collection in Oxford. The Dictaean Cave and Iron Age Crete, (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar; Lembesi, A., Το ιερό του Ερμή ϰαι της Αφροδίτης στη Σύμη βιάννου. Χάλϰινα ϰρητιϰά τορεύματα (Athens, 1985)Google Scholar; Watrous, L. V., The Cave Sanctuary at Psychro: A Study of Extra-Urban Sanctuaries in Minoan and Early Iron Age Crete (Aegaeum, 15; Liège, 1996)Google Scholar; Gesell 1985, 46.

¹⁴⁵ Eliopoulos 2004; Platon, 361–2; Boyd 1905, 22, 43, 48; Gesell 1985, 42–3, 82; Farnoux and Driessen 1994, 63. See recently, for Palaikastro, T. Cunningham, ‘House, shrine, or house-shrine? Assessing cultic vs. domestic function in Late Bronze Age Crete’, in Glowacki and Vogeikoff-Brogan (n. 109). Each situation is different and needs a different explanation: I do not attempt here to model LM III A-B cult practice in detail.

¹⁴⁶ Rutkowski, 259.

¹⁴⁷ Nowicki 2002, 158–61. The lack of clear dating difference is confirmed by Day's restudy of the ceramic finds (Day, pers. comm.).

¹⁴⁸ Pendlebury et al., 77; Nowicki 1987, 238.

¹⁴⁹ There is some degree of alteration over time in the eastern sector—room 142 is probably an addition to the Megarons block. Conversely, some buildings on the western side, like the Magazines, seem to have altered rather little over time.

¹⁵⁰ Day 1997, 394; Glowacki 2004, 129–34.

¹⁵¹ Tsipopulou 2004.

¹⁵² Preucel, R. W., ‘Making Pueblo communities: architectural discourse at Kotyiti, New Mexico’, in Canuto, M. A. and Yaeger, J. (eds), The Archaeology of Communities (London, 2000), 58–78Google Scholar.

¹⁵³ Day and Snyder; Mazarakis Ainian. Hatzi-Vallianou 2004 has recently interpreted the large complex at Smari, with its associated feasting evidence, as the residence of a ‘Homeric’ ruler between the LM III C and LG periods.

¹⁵⁴ Mazarakis Ainian, 333–7.

¹⁵⁵ It is still unclear what connection this block had with the ‘Barracks’ buildings or to the exceptionally large but poorly preserved building 146 to the east.

¹⁵⁶ Day and Snyder.

¹⁵⁷ Darcque; Gesell et al. 1985, 352–3; Tsipopulou 2004; Hatzi-Vallianou 2004; Nowicki 1987; Mazarakis Ainian, 207–31, 286–305.

¹⁵⁸ Thus Building D at Vronda is larger than the individual units of the Karfi and Chalasmeno ‘Megaron’ blocks, which I argue may have had a special role. Yet it almost certainly lacked the status of Building A/B on the same site, given the concentration of distinctive features in the latter building.

¹⁵⁹ Chalasmeno and Vronda had several buildings in the range 30–50 m², and Karfi, by its final stage, had a number of buildings above 50 m². For LM III A-B, building sizes range much more widely according to site type and history. At Chondros Kefali, sizes are mostly between c. 20 and 40 m², with the largest central building being 62.5 m², The largest LM III building at Tylissos is 54 m², and at Katsambas 63.9 m². Some Plati and Gournia buildings are above 100 m² in size, Ayia Triada's North-West Building 168 m²; Quartier Nu 1116 m². Alexiou; Dawkins (n. 80); Driessen and Farnoux 1994; Hayden 1987, 203; Platon.

¹⁶⁰ Mazarakis Ainian,

¹⁶¹ Like other elements of mainland material culture. Hayden 1987, 205–9; ead. (n. 40), 210; Darcque, 24; Preston (n. 26). It seems they may have became more ‘democratized’ in form and distribution over time, a process paralleled in the case of tholos tombs by the LM III C period.

¹⁶² e.g. at Plati (Building A), Malia Quartier Nu (rooms X11–13) and Chondros Kefali (Building A-B). Hayden 2002, 210.

¹⁶³ Nowicki 1999, 149–50. Anterooms narrower than the full width of the building appear in a number of Karfi houses (rooms 58, 60, 114). These look too small for kitchens, though in the Cliff Houses the large, late anteroom 113 did contain a hearth. Nowicki's suggestion is undermined by the fact that hearths are located in main rooms at most LM III C settlements. In Vronda building I, for example, food preparation was concentrated in the main room 13, not the anteroom 14, though use of outdoor areas for food preparation is evidenced in the court E7 and outside Building I, and in Chalasmeno court B7. Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 82; Gesell et al. 1988, 287; Glowacki 2004, 133; Hayden 2002, 204; Yasur-Landau forthcoming. At Kavousi Kastro, jar-stands and charcoal deposits appear in or near the anterooms of the summit buildings. Day et al. 1986, 335. For LM III B examples, see Hallager and Hallager 2003 (n. 82), 81–3.

¹⁶⁴ Mazarakis Ainian, 219–20.

¹⁶⁵ Such as Gournia Building Eh and Malia Quartier Nu. Boyd 1905; Driessen and Farnoux 1994.

¹⁶⁶ Day et al. 1986, 373. I excavated in this building in 2000–1, and noted differing interpretations of the features among excavation staff.

¹⁶⁷ Tsipopulou 2004.

¹⁶⁸ The largest building at Chondros Kefali had evidence for feasting in its main room (D1) and substantial additional space for domestic activities. It had its own kitchen (I1), and an adjacent room dedicated to storage of fine ceramics. Platon, 361–2.

¹⁶⁹ Eliopoulos 1998, 305; Nowicki 1999, 50; Mazarakis Ainian, 219. LH III mainland hearths were mostly rectangular in form.

¹⁷⁰ Hayden 1987, 203, 216, writing prior to the investigation of Malia Quartier Nu, where they appear in main rooms, argues that central hearths were rare on LM III A-B Crete, except at Chania.

¹⁷¹ Nevett (n. 112), 154–75; Mazarakis Ainian, 375–96; Yasur-Landau forthcoming; Whitley 2000 (n. 4), 296–300, 309–10, 341–65, 361–2. Civic dining rooms in city centres, ritual dining complexes at temples and sanctuaries, small dining rooms for invited guests in private households, and the tradition of the common meal in Crete and Sparta indicate both the continued importance of this mode of social interaction, and its multiplied nuances in Classical Greece.

¹⁷² Day et al. 1986, 365–6, 371, 373; Rutkowski, 259.Tsipopoulou. The Smari Megarons were also isolated by the LG period, but discovering whether or not this was the case during LM III C would require excavations under the paved courts surrounding them. Hatzi-Vallianou 2004.

¹⁷³ Fagerström tends to the lumping approach. Mazarakis Ainian, 42, defends a generalizing treatment of preselected ‘special’ buildings across sites and regions, with little or no attention to site context, as helpful in modelling long-term social developments.

¹⁷⁴ Barbara Hayden's idea, that these features represent the peak of intensity or ‘culmination’ of Myceneanization of Cretan culture, sidelines the evidence for strongest, widest-ranging acculturation occurring in LM II–III A, focusing on the architectural evidence only, Hayden 1987, 217–18.

¹⁷⁵ D'Agata (n. 109).

¹⁷⁶ Preucel (n. 152), 70.

¹⁷⁷ Nowicki 2000, PG-A sites: Wallace 2003.

¹⁷⁸ Eliopoulos 1988.

¹⁷⁹ Mazarakis Ainian, 290; J. Shaw, ‘Kommos in southern Crete: an Aegean barometer for east-west interconnections’, in Karageorghis and Stampolidis, 13–29; Marinatos, S., ‘Le temple géometrique de Dréros’, BCH 60 (1936), 214–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pernier, L., ‘Templi arcaici sulla Patella di Prinias’, ASA 1 (1905), 18–111Google Scholar.

¹⁸⁰ Eliopoulos 2004, 88.

¹⁸¹ See n. 171.

¹⁸² Haggis et al.

¹⁸³ Hayden 1987, 371; Hayden, B., ‘Terracotta figures, figurines and vase attachments from Vrokastro, Crete’, Hesp. 60 (1991), 103–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mazarakis Ainian, 296, 341.

¹⁸⁴ Though Pendlebury et al., 64, noted the making of a field in this area during excavation, suggesting major disturbance, it could provide the last chance to explore in detail a similar stratigraphy to that found in the rest of the saddle.

¹⁸⁵ Morris (n. 20).

¹⁸⁶ Gesell et al. 1985, 405–10; 1988, 280 describe a similar operation at Vronda.

¹⁸⁷ Nowicki 1995.

¹⁸⁸ Karfi's other prehistoric occupation phases need investigation. Pendlebury et al., 89–92, 96 recorded a number of probably Neolithic stone axes, obsidian flakes and an obsidian core, stone vessel fragments and numerous pierced stone disks, in the excavation, suggesting use of the site in the Neolithic to Early/Middle Bronze Age periods. The Middle Bronze Age peak sanctuary was never properly investigated. Nowicki, K., ‘Some remarks on the pre- and protopalatial peak sanctuaries in Crete’, Aegean Archaeology, 1 (1994), 35–7, 43–4Google Scholar.