Changes [Feb 08, 2008]
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Changes [Feb 08, 2008]
HomeSir Arthur Evans, the first excavator of Knossos, devised a relative chronology based on stylistic changes in pottery found at the site, which he then used to date the destruction of the last occupation to the Late Minoan II period (LMII). Evans was able to assign absolute dates to his chronology after he uncovered a deposit of pure Middle Minoan IIB (MMIIB) sherds associated with an Egyptian diorite statuette created during the XI or XII Dynasty (see Evans 1964). In the early 20th century, Egyptologists already had a comprehensive understanding of absolute time in ancient Egypt, and so, based on this statuette, Evans dated LMII and the final destruction of Knossos to ca. 1400 BC (Warren 1971). However, the ambiguities of Evans’ records have allowed other researchers to argue for a different interpretation and to reach different conclusions concerning the date of the final occupation at Knossos.
Leonard Palmer famously dedicated a large portion of his academic career to criticizing Evans’ dating of Knossos, suggesting that the published accounts of his excavations are misleading at best. Palmer took issue with the two claims upon which Evans’ absolute chronology rests: the location of the Egyptian statuette and the homogeneity of the MMIIB sherds with which it was found. According to Palmer and his study of the original field notes from Evans' excavation, the statuette was not found, as Evans and other scholars have claimed, under the pavement of the palace's central courtyard, but instead in the deposits just above the pavement. His argument is therefore that the statuette's use as a dating tool (albeit dubious to begin with) is extremely limited since the artifact only entered the site after the palace's destruction and is most likely intrusive. Palmer further asserted that the stratum of "pure" MMIIB sherds found with the statuette was in fact heterogeneous, as numerous test pits uncovered LMIII material from under the pavement in this region of the central courtyard.
In constructing his own absolute dating scheme, Palmer began by exploring an idea first articulated by Carl Blegen, an early excavator at Mycenaean Pylos. Blegen noticed that the Linear B scripts found on tablets in both Minoan contexts on Crete and in Mycenaean contexts on the mainland are extremely similar, exhibiting little variation in character form or style. He went so far as to assert “that one can hardly avoid reaching the conclusion that the documents are more or less nearly contemporary products of a homogeneous society” (Blegen 1958: 61-62). Blegen’s idea contradicted conventional scholarship, however, as the Mycenaean tablets had been dated to the Late Helladic (LH) IIIB/C period, ca. 1200 BC, 200 to 250 years after the date Evans had proposed for the Minoan tablets. Like Palmer, Blegen suggested that the contexts of Knossos are not only difficult to interpret, but also that Evans was not careful enough in his excavations to be able to date his Linear B tablets so securely to the end of the 15th century BC. Blegen further argued that, in contrast, the contexts in which the mainland Mycenaean tablets were found are much simpler, much easier to interpret, and thus more securely dateable than those from Knossos. His conclusion was therefore that the Linear B tablets at Knossos should be re-dated to the end of the LH/LMIIIB period and that the last rulers of the great Cretan palace were not Minoan, but Mycenaean usurpers instead.
Palmer latched onto Blegen’s argument and fleshed it out, writing multiple books on the subject. He proposed that at least two destructions of Knossos occurred: one in LMIIIB caused by invading Mycenaeans, and a final conflagration occurring later that resulted in the abandonment of the palace. However, many scholars disagreed with Palmer’s and Blegen’s ideas, and accusations of misrepresenting the data were hurled back and forth while the debate raged for a quarter of a century.
To resolve this controversy, a number of researchers went back to the original field notes from both Evans’ excavations and those of other archaeologists. Careful interpretation and examination of the recorded stratigraphy and of the artifacts originally found within the palace, as well as new evidence (e.g. Hallager 1987), have provided the basis for a general consensus concerning the dating of the last Bronze Age occupations at Knossos. In agreement with Evans’ original assessment, it appears that the palace did experience a destructive episode at the end of LMII (ca. 1400 BC), but that this was not the final occupation. The palace was rebuilt at the beginning of LMIIIA1 in the first quarter of the fourteenth century BC, only to be destroyed again in LMIIIA2 (ca. 1360 BC). Afterwards, the palace ceased to be used as administrative center, even though there is some evidence of squatters inhabiting Knossos’ ruins.
But did Mycenaeans actually invade and conquer Knossos? Although, beginning in LMII, there is an increasing Mycenaean “presence” in Minoan ceramics, art, and burial practices, it is difficult to tell whether Mycenaeans were actually ruling at Knossos or Minoans were simply adopting mainland ideas. Current scholarship is, however, leaning towards that idea that Mycenaeans were actively ruling in Knossos.
So what of Palmer’s and Blegen’s alternative chronology? It is relatively clear that Palmer ignored archaeological data that did not support his claim (see Overbeck & McDonald 1976). Without the backing of the archaeology, Palmer and Blegen only have the epigraphical similarities of the Linear B tablets to bolster their claim for a late LMIIIB abandonment of Knossos. As Blegen himself noted (1958: 62), scripts used primarily for administrative records are known to be highly invariant; perhaps that is why Greek mainland and Cretan Linear B appear so uniform.
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