Recognising polities in prehistoric Crete

Abstract

Foundation to the Legacy of Minoan Society. (Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology.) Oxford: Oxbow Books. I. Reconsidering polities in prehistoric Crete. For most of the first century of Minoan archaeology, a reconstruction of the political structure of palatial period Crete, structured around the three major palaces identified at Knossos, Phaistos and Malia, was universally accepted. This picture became naturalised, generating the expectation that the agrarian Minoan states were necessarily centred on the major lowland basins, in what are today prime agricultural zones (e.g. Renfrew 1972: fig. 14.4). This led to the further expectation that additional palace centres might be discovered in only a few comparable locations, such as the major coastal plains near the medieval and modern centres of Rethymnon and Khania in the archaeologically under-explored west of the island (e.g. Younger and Rehak 2008a: 150; 2008b: 178). Anomalies to these expectations were explained as subordinate centres (Haghia Triadha, Gournia), or exceptional (Zakros) (e.g. Warren 1985: 74; Younger and Rehak 2008a: 150-2).