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Minoan storage capacities (1): graffiti on pithoi in the Palace Magazines at Knossos1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Anton Boskamp
Affiliation:
Berlin

Abstract

Evidence of the Minoan Linear A script in the West Magazines at Knossos is surprisingly thin. Whereas at other important Minoan sites bookkeeping is fairly well attested, and at Hagia Triadha abundantly so, nothing has appeared from Knossos. Of the few graffiti and texts on pithoi published so far, only two are well documented. The others were published by Brice after drafts by Evans. As the latest publication (1982) still relies on Evans's drafts, it seemed reasonable to assume that the pithoi had not been examined for signs since their discovery in 1900–1. In this short article the first, and still tentative, results of such a study are published.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1996

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References

2 BSA 6 (1900) and 7 (1901), passim; DM/NB for 1900 and 1901, passim. Mackenzie is quoted at length in OKT.

3 The excavators discovered a fair amount of hieroglyphic texts in a room just E of the Long Corridor, near to Magazine XVIII and in some cases within the magazines themselves.

4 ILA II 6 i, published by Raison, and Pope, in Kadmos, 14.2 (1975), 102–6.Google Scholar The jar is registered by them under KN Z 34 in Corpus t.n and as KN Zb 35 in GOR iv.

5 KN Zb 34. It would be a great boon if different authors could agree upon the assignation of numbers to the texts.

6 A list of rejected material, previously published by Brice, and by Raison, and Pope, as examples of script, appeared in GOR iv, p. xxi.Google Scholar The distinction between ‘script’ and ‘nonscript’ is in my view somewhat arbitrary.

7 The present situation in the roofed magazines, if these were built over in Minoan days as Evans, supposed (BSA 6 (1900), 20)Google Scholar, implies that the graffiti must have been without any practical value by that time.

8 The authorities of the National Museum in Athens informed me in 1988 that the registration had changed since the publication of GOR iv in 1982. The correct number is now EM 6435A.

9 The authors of GOR iv were informed by Prof.Sakellarakis, of the existence of this wine graffito, whose interpretation is debatable (GOR iv, p. xix n. 2).Google Scholar The ‘Concordance Générale’ in GOR iv (pp. xxxii–xxxiii nn. 69, 70) led me astray: Haussoullier did make mention of pithoi, though not of a graffito. He was obviously unaware of the number of magazines destined to be excavated by Evans twenty years later. The graffito did not ‘reappear’: it apparently suddenly turned up.

10 BSA 6 (1900), 21.

11 Generally accepted, though doubts should remain, as explained in my forthcoming paper on storage and capacities.

12 In Kadmos, 14.2 (1975). The publication in ILA shows the best-preserved part.

13 The reasons are plausible. There were no intact pithoi surviving in this particular room, though the sherds found here justify the name. Evans and Mackenzie certainly wanted to show what the room once looked like, having no idea how many tourists would turn up every year later in the century.

14 Brice, ILA 15, mentions ILA II 6 ii on the fifth pithos from the NW corner of the room and the others as ‘from the West Magazines’. GOR iv does not add anything new to our knowledge.

15 GOR iv, p. xxi.

16 Godart and Olivier apparently came to their decision because of lack of adequate information. KN 065, with its double inscription, should have made them suspicious.

17 IXTLA 41, 57, 288 for 633 and 34, 54, 256 for 126a.

18 That is, not recorded for Knossos by Raison and Pope.

19 According to early photographs, this particular jar is apparently still in its original position.

20 At one edge the sherd is quite thick, as if broken off at the bottom. The decoration, however, is somewhat problematic. Normally the lowest panel remained undecorated. This pot was obviously an exception to the rule, both in decoration and in fabrication. Pithos walls are normally smooth on the inside.

21 These may well have been found in this room.

22 These sherds were apparently not part of the inventory of the rooms as excavated. Presumably they originate either from the kasellas or from test probes made under the pavement.

23 IXTLA 54, line 4, sign 1 from left.

24 The position upon the rim is probably unique for a single sign on a pithos. A longer inscription, also concerning wine, is known under KN Zb 27 (HM 5194) from the Temple Repositories.

25 This is a lesson I learnt even outside the magazines. In the sunlight of early spring (or late winter) I thought to have traced a very archaic Linear A inscription and published it in Kadmos, 28.2 (1989), 11–15 and pls 1–2. But during a summer stay at Knossos I could see by the light of the sun that I was in error: the picture was quite different at that time (see Plate 25 a, b). I hereby withdraw my speculations on this particular object, though I adhere to the rest of what I say in Kadmos.

26 Because of what Evans termed the ‘enclaving’ of Magazines IV–XIII by means of two cross-walls (at Magazine IV and Magazines XVI–XVIII) at a rather late date, Magazine III would have been the only storeroom with pithoi outside this ‘enclave’. This makes Evans's statement difficult to understand. It was based upon a hearsay account given by Kalokairinos in 1894, sixteen years after the initial excavation (Ann Brown, Arthur Evans and the Palace of Minos (Oxford, 1986), 55). Evans, made mention of 12 pithoi found in this magazine (BSA 6 (1900), 21)Google Scholar, though the number of jars was apparently higher: see Hood, , ‘An early British interest in Knossos’, BSA 82 (1987), 8594.Google Scholar

27 Fully discussed in my article on capacities and organization.

28 The reorganization of the position of the pithoi at the entrance is proven by early photographs.

29 Also in my article on capacities.

30 Raison and Pope are well aware of this (Corpus t.n. 240):

Corpus t.n. OIL = 3, Figs = 2

GOR iv OIL = 100, Figs = 2

31 The pithoi have changed their position more than once.

32 IXTLA 256.

33 Ibid. 388.

34 GOR v, pp. xxii ff., 114 ff.

35 I believe that there are strong reasons for thinking that the West Magazines once formed a sort of general storehouse, divided into well-defined sections. The northernmost section, occupied by Magazines XIV–XVII, in which Evans found no pithoi, was apparently given up as part of the storehouse at a fairly late date. It was cut off from the remaining part further south by a cross-wall between Magazines XVI and XVII. This wall was set upon the Last Pavement (of advanced LM III A date) of the Long Corridor. It seems quite possible that the pithoi bearing workmanlike graffiti originated from this particular section, to which (as will be discussed separately) I assign the area of preparation and distribution of the wages in the form of rations for the staff of the Palace.

36 Also in my forthcoming paper on storage and capacities.

37 AJA (1960), 335 ff., and Palaces of Crete (Princeton, 1961), 222 ff.

38 GOR iv ZA Zb 3. This particular jar attracted my interest because of its vague capacity of 556 cu dm ± 11%, the source of my theory on capacities and standard units.

39 Corpus t.n. 38–9.