An Archaeological Palimpsest in Minoan Crete: Tholos Tomb a and Habitation at Apesokari Mesara (Prehistory Monographs, 70) 9781931534352, 9781623034405, 1931534357

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An Archaeological Palimpsest in Minoan Crete Tholos Tomb A and Habitation at Apesokari Mesara

PREH I STORY MONO GR A PH S 70

An Archaeological Palimpsest in Minoan Crete Tholos Tomb A and Habitation at Apesokari Mesara

By

Georgia Flouda

With contributions by Maciej Chyleński, Sylviane Déderix, Doniert Evely, Anna Juras, Olga Krzyszkowska, Argyro Nafplioti, Michael Nelson, Niki Papakonstantinou, Sevi Triantaphyllou, and Basilios Tsikouras

Published by INSTAP Academic Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2023

Design and Production INSTAP Academic Press, Philadelphia, PA Printing and Binding Integrated Books International, Dulles, VA

INSTAP Academic Press, a part of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP), was established to publish projects relevant to the history of the Aegean world, in particular from the Paleolithic to the 8th century b.c. It is a scholarly nonprofit publisher specializing in high-quality publications of primary source material from archaeological excavations as well as individual studies dealing with material from the prehistoric periods—exemplified by its Prehistory Monographs series of volumes. INSTAP is committed to engaging a variety of audiences by disseminating knowledge through its scholarly publishing program, which produces award-winning monographs that are both academically and popularly acclaimed.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Flouda, Georgia, 1974- author. Title: An archaeological palimpsest in Minoan Crete : Tholos tomb A and habitation at Apesokari Mesara / by Georgia Flouda ; with contributions by Maciej Chyleński [and 9 others]. Description: Philadelphia : INSTAP Academic Press, 2022. | Series: Prehistory monographs ; 70 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This publication presents the archaeological evidence from two associated Minoan sites situated at Apesokari in the Mesara Plain of south-central Crete, Tholos Tomb A and the neighboring free-standing domestic complex on Vigla Hill. It thoroughly reconstructs the natural and social landscape of this Cretan community from the late Prepalatial to the early Neopalatial periods through its interdisciplinary character; this includes photogrammetric two- and three-dimensional models of the architectural remains, viewshed analysis of both monuments and of the earlier Tholos Tomb B, as well as A-DNA and stable isotope analysis of the bones. The study of the burial dataset provides insights into the social construction of collective memory and identity by the burying social group, whereas the habitational deposits from the building on Vigla Hill establish the longevity and function of the site as a node of the southern Mesara communication and exchange networks”-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022036191 (print) | LCCN 2022036192 (ebook) | ISBN 9781931534352 (hardback) | ISBN 9781623034405 (adobe pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Minoans--Greece--Mesara Plain. | Tombs--Greece--Mesara Plain. | Mesara Plain (Greece)-Antiquities. | Excavations (Archaeology)--Greece--Mesara Plain. | Mesara Plain (Greece)--Buildings, structures, etc. | Crete (Greece)--Antiquities. Classification: LCC DF221.C8 F57 2022 (print) | LCC DF221.C8 (ebook) | DDC 939/.18--dc23/eng/20220815 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036191 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036192 Front cover: view of Tholos Tomb A and its surroundings from the west, with Vigla Hill in background; photo G. Flouda. Jug from Tholos Tomb A; photo C. Papanikolopoulos, © Herakleion Archaeological Museum. Back Cover, left, top to bottom: view of Vigla Hill from the south; photo G. Flouda. Portrait of the author; photo FotoMaris Studio. Right, top to bottom: stone tumbler, stone idol, and pitharaki from Tholos Tomb A; photos C. Papanikolopoulos, © Herakleion Archaeological Museum. Copyright © 2023 INSTAP Academic Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii List of Figures ................ .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. ..... ix List of Plates .................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... xv Acknowledgments ............................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... xxi List of Abbreviations ........................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii PART I. THOLOS TOMB A 1. Introduction and Scope, Georgia Flouda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......3 2. A Local Burial Landscape: Theoretical Premises and Methodology, Georgia Flouda.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3. History of Excavation, Georgia Flouda... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 11 4. Architecture of Tholos Tomb A, Michael Nelson and Georgia Flouda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5. Placing Tholos Tomb A in the Visual Landscape of Apesokari, Sylviane Déderix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 21 6. Clay and Stone Finds from Tholos Tomb A, Georgia Flouda.................................................... 31 7. Evidence from Human Remains, Sevi Triantaphyllou and Niki Papakonstantinou. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 49 8. A  ncient DNA Analysis of the Human Skeletal Assemblage: A Pilot Study of Prepalatial and Protopalatial Southern Mesara in Crete, Anna Juras, Maciej Chyleński, and Argyro Nafplioti.. . . . . . . . . . ..... 59

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PART II. BUILDING ON VIGLA HILL 9. Introduction, Architecture, and Layout, Georgia Flouda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 65 10. Stratigraphy and Clay Finds from the Vigla Building, Georgia Flouda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 75 11. A Survey by Space: Pottery Sequences and Diachronic Use, Georgia Flouda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 127 12. Stone Objects and Shells, Doniert Evely. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 133 PART III. LIVING WITH THE DEAD: LANDSCAPE, ANCESTORS, AND AGENCY AT APESOKARI 13. Finds and Space as Evidence for Function and Use of the Domestic Areas at Vigla, Georgia Flouda. ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 141 14. Mortuary Practices: Burial, Curation of Human Remains, and Identity, Georgia Flouda.. . . . . . . . . . .... 149 15. Conclusions: Notions of Identity and Agency at Apesokari, Georgia Flouda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 163 Appendix A. Seals in the Giamalakis Collection Attributed to Apesokari, Olga Krzyszkowska . . . . . . . . . ... 169

Appendix B. Petrographic Classification of Stone Objects from Apesokari by Raman Spectroscopy, Basilios Tsikouras. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 177 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Tables Figures Plates

List of Tables

Table 1.

Widths of individual walls of Tholos Tomb A.

Table 2.

Distribution of individuals in Tholos Tomb A by age and sex group.

Table 3.

Element zones present in Tholos Tomb A by side.

Table 4.

Inventory of minimum number of elements and minimum number of individuals by age group from Tholos Tomb A.

Table 5.

Minimum number of elements recovered from Tholos Tomb A compared to number of bones expected for 13 individuals.

Table 6.

Bone representation index of the cranial elements found in Tholos Tomb A.

Table 7.

Elements from Tholos Tomb A that provided measurements for estimation of stature.

Table 8.

Mean stature of individuals found in Tholos Tomb A.

Table 9.

Carbon and nitrogen isotope data for bone samples from Tholos Tomb A that yielded efficient collagen.

Table 10.

Provenance and description of the analyzed aDNA samples from Tholos Tomb A.

Table 11.

Sequencing results for analyzed individuals from Apesokari Tholos Tomb A and Porti Tholos Tomb P.

Table 12.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 1.

Table 13.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 1b.

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Table 14.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 2.

Table 15.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 2b.

Table 16.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 2c.

Table 17.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 3.

Table 18.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 4.

Table 19.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 5.

Table 20.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 6.

Table 21.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 7.

Table 22.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 8.

Table 23.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 9.

Table 24.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 10.

Table 25.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 11.

Table 26.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 12.

Table 27.

Statistical analysis of pottery from Deposit 13.

List of Figures

Figure 1.

Map of the Mesara Plain with sites mentioned in the text.

Figure 2.

 ontour map of the Apesokari area showing Tholoi A and B and the building on Vigla C Hill.

Figure 3.

 lan of Tholos Tomb A showing the burial chamber (A), annex rooms (B–G), spaces (H, J), P entrance (K), and altar (L).

Figure 4.

Elevation of Tholos Tomb A (burial chamber and annex rooms).

Figure 5.

Size-sensitive viewshed of Tholos Tomb A.

Figure 6.

Size-sensitive viewshed of Tholos Tomb B.

Figure 7.

Size-sensitive viewshed of a target located 50.00 m east of Tholos Tomb A.

Figure 8.

Visibility from the two tombs (left) and of the two tombs (right) at Apesokari.

Figure 9.

Cumulative viewsheds of tholos tombs in the Hagiofarango Valley.

Figure 10.

 ierarchical communication network based on the location of tholos tombs in SouthH Central Crete.

Figure 11.

Optimal paths around Apesokari.

Figure 12.

S ize-sensitive viewshed of Tholos Tomb A in relation to the optimal path connecting the Mesara Plain and the central Asterousia Mountains through Apesokari.

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Figure 13.

S ize-sensitive viewshed of Tholos Tomb A (in relation to the optimal path between the Mesara Plain and the central Asterousia Mountains), if its burial chamber had been constructed in place of the annex rooms.

Figure 14.

 lay finds and stone finds from the burial chamber (Room A) of Tholos Tomb A: juglet C (P1), cup (P2), jug (P3), pedestaled lamp (P4), cup lamp (P5), bird’s-nest bowl (SV1), bowl (SV2), lid (SV3).

Figure 15.

C  lay finds from Room D: cups (P6, P8, P9, P12, P13, P15, P18–P25, P40), teapot (P7).

Figure 16.

Clay finds from Room D: cups (P41, P48, P86, P93–P95, P102–P104, P106, P107, P110, P113, P115).

Figure 17.

 lay finds from Rooms E and G: clay wine-press model (P118), collar-necked jar (P119), lid C (P120).

Figure 18.

 lay finds from Room G: larnax (P121), larnax lid (P122), elliptical larnax (P123), elliptical C bathtub larnax (P124), pithos (P125).

Figure 19.

S tone finds from Room G: tumbler (SV4), bird’s-nest bowls (SV5–SV8), bowls (SV9, SV10), stone idol (SI1). Clay finds from the paved area of Tholos Tomb A: teapot (P126), jug (P127).

Figure 20.

 lay finds from the paved area of Tholos Tomb A: bowl (P128), jugs (P129, P130), cups C (P131–P133).

Figure 21.

Clay and stone finds from the paved area of Tholos Tomb A: cup (P134), pitharaki (P135), tumblers (SV11–SV14), bowls (SV15, SV16), alabastron (SV17).

Figure 22.

S tone finds from the paved area of Tholos Tomb A: bird’s-nest bowls (SV18–SV27).

Figure 23.

B  one representation index of the human remains from Tholos Tomb A.

Figure 24.

B  one representation index of the human remains from Tholos Tomb A by bone category.

Figure 25.

B  one completeness of the human remains from Tholos Tomb A.

Figure 26.

P  reservational status of the skeletal elements from Tholos Tomb A.

Figure 27.

H  uman collagen δ13C and δ15N values from Tholos Tomb A.

Figure 28.

Two-dimensional state plan of the Vigla Building.

Figure 29.

Longitudinal cross-section A–A' of the Vigla Building (east–west).

Figure 30.

Cross-section B–B' of the Vigla Building (north–south).

Figure 31.

Pottery from the pottery group of Deposit 1: pitharaki (P136), closed vessel (P137), basin (P139), tripod cooking pot (P142), drainpipe or gutter fragment (P143), scored basin (P144), pithos rim (P145), bridge-spouted jar (P146), ewer (P147).

Figure 32.

 ottery from Deposit 1b: closed vessel (P153), askoid jug (P154), pithos (P156), oval-mouthed P amphora (P159), ledge-rim bowls (P160–P163).

Figure 33.

 ottery from Deposit 1b: pithos (P164), closed vessels (P165, P166), ledge-rim bowl (P169), P fruitstand (P170), ledge-rim bowl/fruitstand (P171), spouted basin (P172), kalathos (P173).

Figure 34.

Pottery from Deposit 1b: oval-mouthed amphora (P174), tubes (P176, P176a, P177).

Figure 35.

Pottery from Deposits 1b and 2: tubes (or stands) (P178, P179), bridge-spouted jars (P184– P190), oval-mouthed amphora (P191), oval-mouthed amphoriskos (P192), pithos lid (P196).

LIST OF FIGURES

xi

Figure 36.

 ottery from Deposit 2: stamnoid pitharaki (P198), pithos (P201), bridge-spouted jars P (P202, P203), basin (P207), cooking jar (P210).

Figure 37.

Pottery from Deposits 2 and 2b: cooking jug (P211), saucer (P212), tripod cooking tray (P214), cooking dishes (P216a–P216f), bucket jar (P221).

Figure 38.

Pottery from Deposits 2b and 2c: pithos (P222), teapot (P227), closed vessel (P228), pitharakia (P229, P230), juglet (P231), pitharaki (P233), globular jar(?) (P234), bridge-spouted basin (P237), goblet (P238).

Figure 39.

 ottery from Deposit 2c: handleless cups (P240, P242, P245), S-profile cups (P243, P P246, P250, P251), tripod vessel (P247), tripod cups (P248, P249), conical bowl (P252).

Figure 40.

 ottery from Deposit 2c: S-profile cup (P253), handleless cups (P254, P258, P259), S-profile P or ogival cups (P255, P256), bell cup (P257), pulled-rim bowls (P260, P261), kylikes (P262– P265).

Figure 41.

 ottery from Deposits 2c and 3: pedestal-footed bowl (P270), pithoi (P271, P280), juglet P (P272), bull or other bovid figurine (P273), loomweights (P274, P275), trapezoidal box (P276), hand lamp (P278).

Figure 42.

Pottery from Deposit 3: collar-necked jar (P281), jar (P282), pithoi (P284, P285).

Figure 43.

Pottery from Deposits 3 and 4: slab-shaped object (P287), oval-mouthed amphora (P289), S-profile cup (P290), closed vessels (P291, P299), open-spouted jars (P292, P294), lid (P296), trefoil-mouthed jug (P298).

Figure 44.

 ottery from Deposit 4: oval-mouthed amphora (P300), handleless bowl (P303), openP spouted jar (P305), closed vessels (P306, P308), beak-spouted jug (P307), spouted piriform jar (P309), basin (P316).

Figure 45.

Pithos (P319) from Deposit 4.

Figure 46.

 ottery from Deposit 4: pithoi (P320, P322, P324), jug (P327), tripod cooking pots (P328, P P329).

Figure 47.

Pottery from Deposit 5: closed vessel (P331), lid (P332), bridge-spouted jar (P333).

Figure 48.

Pottery from Deposit 5: basin (P336), pithoi (P340, P342), pithos lid (P341).

Figure 49.

Pithos (P343) from Deposit 5.

Figure 50.

 ottery from Deposits 5 and 6: slab-shaped objects (P344, P345), oval-mouthed amphora P (P346), bridge-spouted jars (P347, P350), pitharaki (P352).

Figure 51.

Pottery from Deposit 6: tubular-spouted jar (P353), bowl (P354), oval-mouthed amphorae (P357, P358).

Figure 52.

 ottery from Deposits 6 and 7: closed vessels (P359, P375), bowl (P360), handleless cups P (P362, P363), loop-handled bowl (P365), hand lamp (P366), firebox (P367), pyxis (P368), spouted cup (P371), ring-shaped kernos (P372), straight-sided cup (P373).

Figure 53.

 ottery from Deposits 7 and 8: basin (P376), juglet (P378), handleless cups (P380–P382, P P384–P386), bell cup (P383), teacup (P387), kados (P388), wide-mouthed jar (P389).

Figure 54.

 ottery from Deposits 8 and 9: jar (P390), pithoid jar (P391), bridge-spouted jars (P395– P P397, P399, P400).

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Figure 55.

 ottery from Deposit 9: bridge-spouted jar (P402), closed vessel (P403), hole-mouthed jar P (P406), fire box (P407).

Figure 56.

 ottery from Deposit 9: oval-mouthed amphora (P408), jug with cutaway spout (P409), P basin (P411), S-profile cups (P412, P412a [base], P413), handleless cup (P414).

Figure 57.

 ottery from Deposit 9: straight-sided cups (P415, P420), S-profile cups (P416–P418, P421, P P423, P424), bowl with flattened rim and lugs below rim (P422), handleless cup (P425).

Figure 58.

Pottery from Deposit 9: handleless cups (P426, P427), pithoid jar (P429), jars (P433, P434).

Figure 59.

 ottery from Deposit 9: milk jug (P436), cooking dishes (P437, P438), rectangular pyxis P (P440).

Figure 60.

 ottery from Deposit 9: handleless cup (P441), oval-mouthed amphora (P442), closed P vessel (P443), beak-spouted jug (P444), bowl (P445), basins (P446, P447a–P447c).

Figure 61.

 ottery from Deposits 9 and 10: handleless cup (P448), basin (P449), pithos (P453), closed P vessels (P454, P455), S-profile cups (P456, P457), collar-necked jar (P458), bridge-spouted jars (P459, P460).

Figure 62.

 ottery from Deposit 10: oval-mouthed amphora (P461), lid or “spinning-bowl” (P463), P cooking dish (P469), ledge-rim handleless cup (P471), basin (P472), straight-sided cups (P473, P481, P484, P485), amphoriskos (P475), pyxis (P477), jug(?) (P478), strainer jar (P480).

Figure 63.

 ottery from Deposit 10: large-handled cup or bell cup (P486), spouted pithoid jar (P487), P closed vessel (P488), pithos (P489), pithoid jar (P490), hole-mouthed jar (P491).

Figure 64.

Pottery from Deposit 10: basin (P493), straight-sided cup (P494), basin (P495), biconical weight (P496), open-rim jar (P497), wide-mouthed jug (P498), bridge-spouted jar (P499), askoid jug (P500).

Figure 65.

Pottery from Deposit 10: oval-mouthed amphora (P501), bridge-spouted jars (P502, P503), miniature bridge-spouted jar (P504), hemispherical basin (P505), handleless cup (P506).

Figure 66.

 ottery from Deposit 10: pithoi (P508, P510, P512–P514), fruitstand (P509), jug (P511), P ledge-rim bowl (P515).

Figure 67.

 ottery from Deposit 10: lid (P516), shallow cup (P518), oval-mouthed amphora (P519), P pithos (P522).

Figure 68.

P  ottery from Deposit 10: pithoi (P531, P532), basins (P533, P534).

Figure 69.

 ottery from Deposits 10 and 11: basins (P535, P539), bowl (P536), hand lamp (P537), P pithoid jar (P538), pedestaled baking plate (P540), narrow-necked jug (P541).

Figure 70.

 ottery from Deposit 11: miniature closed(?) vessel (P542), pitharaki handle (P543), bridgeP spouted jar (P545), oval-mouthed amphora (P546), beak-spouted jug (P547), ledge-rim handleless cups (P548–P553).

Figure 71.

Pottery from Deposit 11: ledge-rim handleless cups (P554–P556, P562–P566), handleless bowls (P557–P559, P567, P568), saucers (P560, P561), handleless cup (P569).

Figure 72.

 ottery from Deposit 11: S-profile cup (P570), jar (P571), ledge-rim bowl (P575), juglet P (P574), pithos (P576), pithoid jars (P581, P582), pithoid jar or basin (P589).

Figure 73.

 ottery from Deposits 11 and 12: ledge-rim handleless cups (P591), large-mouthed jar P (P592), cooking tray (P594), spouted cooking tray (P595), pyxis (P597), wide-mouthed jar (P599), pitharaki (P602), bridge-spouted jar (P604).

LIST OF FIGURES

xiii

Figure 74.

 ottery from Deposit 12: pyxis (P605), handleless cups (P607, P608, P612), skyphoid cup P (P609), spouted cup (P610), carinated cup (P611), bowl (P613), straight-sided cup (P614).

Figure 75.

 ottery from Deposit 12: kalathos or “basket” cup (P615), straight-sided cup (P616), P S-profile bowl (P617), teacup with offset base (P618), handleless cup (P619), stamnoid jar (P621, P621a), bridge-spouted jar (P623), bowl (P627), saucer (P628).

Figure 76.

P  ithos (P629) from Deposit 12.

Figure 77.

 ottery from Deposit 12: kados (P630), pithos (P631), footed tray(?) (P633), slab-shaped P object (P635).

Figure 78.

 ottery from Deposit 13 and without established provenance: beak-spouted jug with scoop P (P637), oval-mouthed amphoriskos (P638), pithos (P642).

Figure 79.

Pottery without established provenance: pithos lid (P647), handleless wide-mouthed jug (P648), miniature jug (P649).

Figure 80.

 ottery without established provenance: kados or pithos (P650), angular teapot (P653), jar P (P654), wide-mouthed jar (P656), pithoid jar (P658), bottle (P661), pitharaki (P662).

Figure 81.

 ottery without established provenance: bridge-spouted jar (P663), closed vessel (P664), P deep bowl (P668), two-handled bowl (P669), basin (P670), carinated cups (P672, P674), side-spouted straight-sided cup(?) (P675), straight-sided cup (P676).

Figure 82.

 ottery without established provenance: tall-rimmed carinated cups (P677, P678), tumbler P (P680), bowl (P681), S-profile bowls (P683, P684, P687, P689–P690), S-profile cups (P685, P686, P688).

Figure 83.

Pottery without established provenance: S-profile cups (P691, P695, P697, P705, P706), straight-sided cups (P693, P698, P699), basins (P694, P700), handleless cup (P696), rounded bowl (P707).

Figure 84.

 ottery without established provenance: two-handled hemispherical cup (P711), S-profile P cups (P712, P716, P720), handleless bowl (P713), bowl (P714), basin (P718), open vessel (P719), teacup (P721), in-and-out bowl (P723), ledge-rim bowl (P724).

Figure 85.

 ottery without established provenance: ledge-rim basin (P725), handleless rounded cups P (P727, P728), S-profile cups (P729–P732, P734), in-and-out bowls (P735, P736), blob cup (P737).

Figure 86.

Pottery without established provenance: hemispherical cups (P738, P740), hemispherical bowl (P739), pithoid jar (P743), pithoi (P744, P745), stand or fruitstand (P747), wide-necked jar (P749).

Figure 87.

 ottery without established provenance: tripod cooking trays (P755, P756), basins (P757, P P769), pithoi (P762, P763, P766, P770), clay spit rest (P767).

Figure 88.

Stone objects from the Vigla Building: grinder-pounder (S1), polisher (S2), grinder (S3), grinder-crushers or pounders (S4–S6), polisher-burnisher (S7).

Figure 89.

S tone objects from the Vigla Building: “pestle” (S8), grinder-crusher or pounder (S9), weight (S10), burnisher or whetstone (S11), door-socket or mortar (S12), working surface (S13).

Figure 90.

S tone objects from the Vigla Building: quern (S14), grinder-crusher (S16), pebble (polisher?) (S17), stalagmite (S18), pecking tool (S19), blade (S20).

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Figure 91.

S tone objects from the Vigla Building: lump of pumice (S21), vase (SV28), bowl (SV29), fragment of table or base (SV30).

Figure 92.

Simplified tectono-stratigraphic section of Crete.

Figure 93.

Raman spectra from SV2, SV10, and SV16

Figure 94.

Raman spectra from selected stone vessels of diabase from Tholos Tomb A at Apesokari

Figure 95.

Raman spectra from SV5, SV7, and SV23.

List of Plates

Plate 1.

Three-dimensional model of Tholos Tomb A.

Plate 2A.

View of Tholos Tomb A and its surroundings from the west, with Vigla Hill in background.

Plate 2B.

View of Vigla Hill from the north.

Plate 3A.

 ugust Schörgendorfer, wearing the Wehrmacht uniform, along with his team during the A excavation of Tholos Tomb A in 1942.

Plate 3B.

 ocal villager and child who participated in Schörgendorfer’s excavation of Tholos Tomb L A in 1942.

Plate 4A.

Tholos Tomb A annex and the paved area in 1942, from the north.

Plate 4B.

View of the burial chamber in Tholos Tomb A from the southeast.

Plate 5A.

The burial chamber in Tholos Tomb A from the southeast.

Plate 5B.

Tholos Tomb A annex from the southeast.

Plate 6A.

Tholos Tomb A annex from the north.

Plate 6B.

Detail of Rooms C, D, and G with cuttings in the bedrock, from the southeast.

Plate 7A.

Room G and cuttings in the bedrock east of Rooms C and D, from the west.

Plate 7B.

 oorway of Tholos Tomb A showing the shallow step into the circular chamber, from the D east.

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Plate 8A.

 ow scarp east of Tholos Tomb A from where the building material was probably quarried, L from the southeast.

Plate 8B.

Local limestone deposits east of Tholos Tomb A, from the northeast.

Plate 9.

 xterior face of the north wall of Tholos Tomb A showing the protruding wedgelike stone, E from the north.

Plate 10A.

 etail of the east facade of Tholos Tomb A with Doorway K in the foreground, from the D east.

Plate 10B.

Circular pivot hole of Doorway K, from the east.

Plate 11A.

View of Room G showing the pillar in 1942, from the west.

Plate 11B.

Rooms C and D with detail of the bedrock, from the south.

Plate 12A.

External rubble face of Wall 1 from the east.

Plate 12B.

External rubble face of Wall 1 from the west.

Plate 13A.

Detail of the point where the west end of Wall 1 abuts the tholos wall, from the north.

Plate 13B.

Entrance to the burial chamber from the east.

Plate 14.

 lay finds and stone finds from the burial chamber of Tholos Tomb A: juglet (P1), cup (P2), C jug (P3), pedestaled lamp (P4), bird’s-nest bowl (SV1), bowl (SV2), lid (SV3).

Plate 15.

Clay finds from Room D: cups (P6, P8–P19), teapot (P7).

Plate 16.

Clay finds from Room D: cups (P20–P39).

Plate 17.

Clay finds from Room D: cups (P40–P58).

Plate 18.

Clay finds from Room D: cups (P59–P79).

Plate 19.

Clay finds from Room D: cups (P80–P98).

Plate 20.

Clay finds from Room D: cups (P99–P117).

Plate 21.

 lay finds from Rooms E and G: clay wine-press model (P118), collar-necked jar (P119), lid C (P120), larnax (P121).

Plate 22.

Clay finds from Room G: larnax lid (P122), elliptical larnax (P123), pithos (P125).

Plate 23.

S tone finds from Room G: tumbler (SV4), bird’s-nest bowls (SV5–SV8), bowls (SV9–SV10), stone idol (SI1).

Plate 24.

 lay finds from the paved area of Tholos Tomb A: teapot (P126), jugs (P127, 129), bowl C (P128), cups (P131–P134), pitharaki (P135).

Plate 25.

S tone finds from the paved area of Tholos Tomb A: tumblers (SV11–SV16), alabastron (SV17), bird’s-nest bowls (SV18–SV27).

Plate 26A.

 lmost complete cranium K7 from Tholos Tomb A, which provided more accurate age A determination based on the degree of cranial suture closure.

Plate 26B.

 emur diaphysis from Tholos Tomb A showing modification from insect activity: subF parallel striations and etching of the periosteal surface.

Plate 27A.

 orotic hyperostosis in the form of small and large scattered foramina on the frontal bone P of cranium K6 from Tholos Tomb A.

LIST OF PLATES

xvii

Plate 27B.

Cribra orbitalia in the left eye orbit of an adult female individual found in Tholos Tomb A.

Plate 28A.

R ight frontal bone from Tholos Tomb A showing a possible healed depressed fracture.

Plate 28B.

 andible from Tholos Tomb A showing severe antemortem tooth loss and alveolar bone M resorption throughout the mandibular arch.

Plate 29A.

 iew of Vigla Hill, the Psiloritis mountain range, and the western Mesara Plain, from the V south.

Plate 29B.

The Vigla Building, from the south.

Plate 30A.

 iew of the karst landscape of Vigla Hill, southeast of the steep rocky mass at Oksys, from V the north.

Plate 30B.

Detail of Vigla Hill’s limestone beds, from the northwest.

Plate 31A.

Waterfall at Oksys, from the north.

Plate 31B.

 iew of the Vigla Building and the modern road to Miamou and Lendas, from the north, V in 2010.

Plate 32A.

Traces of a possible wall on the hilltop in 2010, from the northeast.

Plate 32B.

 etail of Vigla Hill’s bedrock, which has been carved out to accommodate foundations, D from the north.

Plate 33A.

Course, terrace, or retaining wall on the northwest slope of Vigla Hill, from the northwest.

Plate 33B.

View of the limestone quarry west of Vigla Hill, at the site of Laganás, from the east.

Plate 34.

Perspective-view model of the Vigla Building.

Plate 35A.

Orthographic longitudinal cross-section A–A' of the Vigla Building (east–west).

Plate 35B.

Orthographic cross-section B–B' of the Vigla Building (north–south).

Plate 36A.

View of Rooms A, B, and D and Space C in 2014, from the north.

Plate 36B.

 etail of the southeast corner of the Vigla Building, east of elongated Space III, in 2015, D from the south.

Plate 37A.

 igla Building: view of north part of Room D with Room B in the background, in 2014, V from the east.

Plate 37B.

Vigla Building: view of Rooms A and Β in 2014, from the north.

Plate 38A.

Vigla Building: view of Room A in 2014, from the east.

Plate 38B.

Vigla Building: detail of the worked bedrock cliff face in Room D in 2014, from the west.

Plate 39A.

Vigla Building: Rooms A, B, and D and Storeroom I in 2014, from the north.

Plate 39B.

Vigla Building: Storeroom I in 2015, from the east.

Plate 40.

Vigla Building: Space III in 2015, from the south.

Plate 41.

Pottery from Deposits 1 and 1b: pitharaki (P136), trefoil-mouthed jug (P149), pithoid jar (P152), askoid jug (P154).

Plate 42.

Pottery from Deposits 1b and 2: miniature tray (P157), jug (P167), fruitstand (P170), cylindrical tubes (P176, P176a, P179), miniature teapot (P182), jug (P194).

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Plate 43.

 ottery from Deposits 2, 2b, 2c, and 3: askoid jug (P200), jar (P209), cooking trays (P213, P P225), bridge-spouted basin (P237), kylix (P266), bull figurine (P273), lamp (P278).

Plate 44.

 ottery from Deposit 3: collar-necked jar (P281), jar (P282), pithoid jar (P286), and slabP shaped object (P287).

Plate 45.

 ottery from Deposits 3 and 4: pithoid jar (P288), closed vessel (P291), open-spouted jars P (P293, P305), lid (P296), hole-mouthed jar (P301, P301b), hand lamp (P302), jar (P304).

Plate 46.

 ottery from Deposit 4: jug (P307), closed vessels (P308, P311), spouted basin (P315), P pithoi (P319, P322), spouted tripod cooking pot (P329).

Plate 47.

 ottery from Deposit 5: closed vessel (P331), lid (P332), bridge-spouted jar (P333), pithos P rim and base (P334, P335).

Plate 48.

Pottery from Deposit 5: pithoi (P342, P343), slab-shaped object (P345 [profile and front]).

Plate 49.

 ottery from Deposits 5 and 6: oval-mouthed amphorae (P346, P357), bridge-spouted jar P (P350), jug (P351), bowl (P354).

Plate 50.

 ottery from Deposits 6–9: bridge-spouted jars (P361, P394, P402), straight-sided cup P (P373), closed vessels (P374, P403, P405), Palace Style vase (P375), hole-mouthed jar (P406), and firebox (P407).

Plate 51.

 ottery from Deposit 9: oval-mouthed amphora (P408), jug with cutaway spout (P409), P S-profile cup (P413), straight-sided cups (P419, P420), bowl (P422), handleless cup (P425), pithoid jar (P429).

Plate 52.

 ottery from Deposits 9 and 10: cooking dish (P437), handleless cup (P441), ovalP mouthed amphorae (P442 [before full restoration], P461), basin (P449), lid or “spinning bowl” (P463), cooking tray (P468), cooking dish (P469), ledge-rim handleless cup (P471), straight-sided cup (P473), hole-mouthed jar (P491).

Plate 53.

 ottery from Deposit 10: spouted bowl or jar with horizontal side handles (P492), clay weight P (P496), wide-mouthed jug (P498), askoid jug (P500), oval-mouthed amphora (P501), jar (P520).

Plate 54.

 ottery from Deposits 10 and 11: basin (P535), bowl (P536), pitharaki (P543), miniature P juglet (P574), pithos (P578), basin (P587), cooking trays (P594, P595), pyxis (P597), bridgespouted jar (P600).

Plate 55.

 ottery from Deposits 12 and 13: cup (P612), kalathos or “basket” cup (P615), stamnoid jar P (P622), pithos (P629), footed tray(?) (P633), slab-shaped object (P635), beak-spouted jug with scoop (P637), closed vessel (P639).

Plate 56.

 ottery from Deposit 13 and pottery without established provenance: closed vessel (P640), P pithoi (P641, P642), beak-spouted jug (P643), closed vessel (P644), tripod cooking pots (P645, P646), pithos lid (P647).

Plate 57.

 ottery without established provenance: conical kados or pithos (P650), open-spouted P bowl (P651), miniature teapot (P653), bridge-spouted jars (P655, P663), skyphos (P679), Vapheio cup (P710), S-profile cup (P733), stand or fruitstand (P747), pithos (P768).

Plate 58.

S tone finds from the Vigla Building: grinder-pounder (S1), polisher (S2), grinder (S3), grinder-crushers/pounders (S4–S6, S9), polisher-burnisher (S7), “pestle” (S8), weight (S10), burnisher/whetstone (S11), door socket or mortar (S12).

Plate 59.

S tone finds from the Vigla Building: working surface (S13), saddle quern (S14).

LIST OF PLATES

xix

Plate 60.

S tone and shell finds from the Vigla Building: stone polisher (S15), grinder-crusher (S16), polisher(?) (S17), stalagmite (S18), pecking tool (S19), pumice (S21), vase (SV28), bowl (SV29); shell (Sh3).

Plate 61.

Stone table or base (SV30) from the Vigla Building.

Plate 62.

 ultiple views and impressions of each seal in the Giamalakis Collection attributed to M Apesokari (SS1–SS4).

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank warmly Gerlinde Schörgendorfer† for her permission to study the relevant photographic and archival material that belonged to the excavator, August Schörgendorfer, without which many aspects of interpretation would be impossible. Funding from the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP) and the Mediterranean Archaeological Trust (2010) supported this project, and they are gratefully acknowledged. Many thanks also are due to Stavros Amanakis, chief guard of the Herakleion Ephorate of Antiquities, and Vasso Marsellou, former curator of the Herakleion Archaeological Museum, for their help in tracing most of the finds from Tholos Tomb A and all the material from the Vigla Building. Several people kindly enabled the study of the material from 2010 through 2014, and I owe my warmest thanks to them: the former directors of the Herakleion museum, Athanasia Kanta and George Rethemiotakis; the former Knossos curators, Doniert Evely and Matthew Haysom; as well as the chief guards of the Herakleion museum, Antonis Kafousis and Dimitris Apostolakis. Research for this book started during my Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellowship in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University in 2011. A fellowship and several visits to the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University in 2014 facilitated writing the manuscript; many thanks therefore are given to its director, Gregory Nagy, the staff, and particularly the librarians Lanah Koelle and Temple Wright. The restoration and study of the material presented in this book are the result of collaborative work by many specialists, to all of whom my warmest acknowledgments are given. Conservators Irene Krasagaki, Eleutheria Giatromanolaki, Yiannis Rogdakis, and Efi Tsitsa worked on the restoration of the clay finds; Katharine Hall, conservator at the

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INSTAP Study Center for East Crete (SCEC), masterfully restored the large pithoi from the Vigla Building. Archaeologists Andreas Lyrintzis, Ourania Sepsa, and Michella Zambanini assisted with the preliminary sorting of the ceramic material. Colleagues Alexia Spiliotopoulou, Kaiti Archontaki, Ilaria Caloi, Eleni Gerontakou, Luca Girella, Flora Michelaki, Carl Knappett, Mimika Kriga, Kostis Christakis, and Ioanna Venieri generously provided valuable suggestions. Simona Todaro contributed her expertise on Prepalatial Mesara pottery through a tour of the excavation storeroom at Phaistos in 2013. Tristan Carter contributed his expertise on lithics. The following specialists collaborated with the author: Sevi Triantaphyllou and Niki Papakonstantinou studied the osteological material from Tholos A and undertook stable isotope analysis, while Anna Juras, Maciej Chyleński, and Argyro Nafplioti undertook the aDNA study. Doniert Evely studied the stone finds and shells from the Vigla Building; Sylviane Déderix contributed a geographic information system (GIS)–based visibility analysis of the Apesokari landscape as a postdoctoral fellow of the National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S-FNRS) at the Catholic University of Louvain (Institute for the Study of Civilisations, Arts, and Letters/Center for the Study of Ancient Worlds/Aegean Interdisciplinary Studies Research Group [INCAL/CEMA/AEGIS]); and Apostolos Sarris and the Laboratory of Geophysical-Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeoenvironment at the Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas (FORTH) kindly provided the digital elevation models. Finally, Olga Krzyszkowska and Basilios Tsikouras contributed Appendices A (seals) and B (Raman spectroscopic analysis of the stone finds), respectively. Thomas Ganetsos and Thomas Katsaros are warmly thanked for acquiring the Raman spectra of the stone finds from the Vigla Building. Michael Nelson collaborated with Georgia Flouda on the architectural study of Tholos A, and Petros Charamis provided invaluable scientific expertise and interpretation by creating photogrammetric models of Tholos A and the Vigla Building as well as the three drawings of the building. Special thanks also go to Miriam Clinton for re-exporting these drawings from AutoCAD. I am also grateful to John McEnroe for reading the chapter on the architecture of the Vigla Building and offering feedback. Many warm thanks go to Thomas Brogan, director of INSTAP SCEC, and also to Chronis Papanikolopoulos, chief photographer at INSTAP SCEC, who photographed the finds from Tholos Tomb A; I am responsible for the rest of the photos unless otherwise credited. Kleanthis Sidiropoulos offered invaluable guidance with Photoshop and graphic design. Most of the finds were drawn with exquisite care by Giuliano Merlatti†, to whom a great debt is owed, except for a few by Doniert Evely, Pepi Stefanaki, and Vasilios Tsikouras. Pepi Stefanaki, Doniert Evely, and I digitally processed all drawings of finds. Doniert Evely, Olga Krzyszkowska, Giuliano Merlatti†, and I compiled the figures and plates of the finds. Credits for individual photos and figures with topographic maps and architectural drawings are given in the captions. Finally, I would like to express my warmest thanks to Philip Betancourt, who supported the publication of this volume by INSTAP Academic Press; to Susan Ferrence (Director of Publications, INSTAP Academic Press) for her feedback and support throughout the publication process; to the copyeditors Madeleine Donachie and Sarah Peterson, who kindly gave the manuscript the benefit of their careful reading; and to the two anonymous peer reviewers who made valuable suggestions. Many friends and my brother, Charalampos Floudas, provided encouragement, especially during the late stages of the project; to all of them I owe a great debt of thanks. Last, but not least, this book is dedicated to my parents, Stavros and Eugenia, with gratitude for their love and unfailing support throughout the years.

List of Abbreviations

A AEGIS aDNA app. avg. BRI C ca. CEMA cm cm-1 CMS C:N dia. DEM dim. DOL EM est.

adenine Aegean Interdisciplinary Studies Research Group a ncient DNA appendix average b  one representation index c ytosine circa Center for the Study of Ancient Worlds centimeter(s) r eciprocal centimeter C  orpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel (Berlin 1964– 2000; Mainz 2002–present) c arbon-to-nitrogen ratio diameter d  igital elevation model d  imension Dark-on-Light E  arly Minoan estimated

F FM FN FORTH

 gurine fi F  urumark Motif F  inal Neolithic Foundation for Research and  Technology, Hellas F.R.S.-FNRS Fund for Scientific Research Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique g gram(s) G guanine GIS g eographic information system ha hectare(s) h. h  eight HM Herakleion Archaeological Mu seum accession number HNM Archaeological Museum of Hagios Nikolaos accession number INCAL Institute for the Study of Civilisations, Arts, and Letters INSTAP Institute for Aegean Prehistory INSTAP SCEC Institute for Aegean Prehistory Study Center for East Crete int. i nterior inv. no. i nventory number

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kg km L. LM LOD m m2 M1 M2 mm m asl max. min. mL mm MM MNE MNI MNV MSM MSV mtDNA mW NA

A N A RC H A E O L O G I C A L PA L I M P S E S T I N M I N OA N C R E T E

k ilogram(s) k ilometer(s) length L  ate Minoan Light-on-Dark meter(s) square meter(s) fi  rst molar s econd molar millimeter(s) m  eters above sea level maximum minimum milliliter(s) millimeter(s) M  iddle Minoan m  inimum number of elements m  inimum number of individuals m  inimum number of vessels m  usculoskeletal stress markers stone vessel type from Minoan  Stone Vessels (Warren 1969) mitochondrial DNA m  egawatt(s) n  ot analyzed

n/a no(s). nm P PL-Grid pres. rCRS RKE S SciLifeLab Sh SNIC SS SI SV T th. UPPMAX VPDB w. wt.

not applicable number(s) nanometer pottery P  olish Grid p  reserved revised Cambridge Reference  Sequence rotative kinetic energy stone tool Science for Life Laboratory shell Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing seal or “white piece” stone idol s tone vase thymine thickness Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science V  ienna Pee Dee Belemnite w  idth w  eight

Part I Tholos Tomb A

“By creating and modifying a landscape of natural and built forms, groups construct a setting that gives concrete, permanent expression to relationships and identities.” —Julia Hendon (2000, 50)

1

Introduction and Scope Georgia Flouda

The burial of the deceased cross culturally is a social practice that creates the most powerful memories because of the emotional content with which it is charged. In addition to diverse strategies for treating and disposing of the dead body, funerary ritual entails secondary mortuary and commemorative practices through which the participating community recalls the deceased, crafts social memories, reinstates order, and transmits social codes to its members through mnemonic performances (Chesson 2001, 100; Mills and Walker 2008, 4; Nilsson Stutz 2010, 34–37; Hamilakis 2013, 127). In SouthCentral Crete, the custom of burial in collective tholos tombs built above ground was a prominent feature of social life from the early Prepalatial to the Protopalatial period (EM I–MM II ceramic phases; see Manning 2010). With the exception of the Kamilari Tholos A and B tombs (Novaro 1999, 151; Girella 2018, 127–129; Girella and Caloi 2019, 17, 22), all of these tombs went out of use by the end of the Protopalatial period. Although these intergenerational burial monuments are no longer considered a regionally specific phenomenon of the fertile

Mesara Plain and the marginal zone of the Asterousia Mountains (Papadatos 2014, 207, 215–218, figs. 1, 7; 2015, 21–23; Glaraki 2018), the standardization of their architectural form for about 14 centuries and the energy invested in their construction imply that they may have conformed to a significant element of the metaphysical beliefs of the society (Murphy 2003, 243–244). The circular chamber, or tholos, was used for successive burials. The deceased were usually carried in through a small doorway and laid directly on the floor. Repeated access to the funeral contexts and the concomitant lack of space inside the burial chambers often resulted in complex practices of secondary manipulation of the human remains (Crevecoeur, Schmitt, and Schoep 2015; Triantaphyllou 2016). The reconstruction of these practices and the proximity of tholos tombs to potential habitation sites support the view that tholos cemeteries were “places of return, of repetition, of citation, of recollection” (Hamilakis 2013, 132). The study of these places thus has special value, as we otherwise have very little evidence about the Early

4

GEORGIA FLOUDA

and Middle Bronze Age settlements in the Mesara Plain. The latter are mostly known from field surveys and brief excavation reports (Branigan 1993, 109–111; Watrous et al. 1993, 224), or they have been partly explored and only selectively published. In the Asterousia zone that borders the southern Mesara Plain, the clustering of small-scale sites at short distances from one another has been interpreted as reflecting successive short-lived installations rather than synchronic habitation (Relaki 2004, 179). This may especially account for the wide distribution of tholos tombs in the Hagiofarango Valley as established through a systematic survey project (Blackman and Branigan 1977). The distribution of these burial monuments across this marginal landscape has been associated with efforts by particular kin groups to establish bonds with the land they exploited and to demarcate territorial rights over the local resources based on lineal ties to the ancestors (Bintliff 1977, vol. 2, 633–637). The reconstruction of the practices and rituals established in connection with tholos tombs inevitably arises as a key theme in archaeologists’ efforts to explain how the social memory of Mesara communities was formed, negotiated, and perpetuated. At the same time, if we are to overcome past interpretive trends, such as evolutionism or empirical reductionism (Catapoti 2014, 526) and island-wide models (Legarra Herrero 2009, 31; Schoep 2018, 167–169), we must shift the focus from the macro- to the microscale. To do this, we must acknowledge that different dynamics and patterns were involved in the spread and use of tholos tombs in a rather culturally homogenous region such as the Mesara (Relaki 2004, 176–182). However, we should venture first to deduce local developments from a review of published sites before we study regional trajectories. This study aims to contribute to the literature by presenting and synthesizing the empirical evidence from two sites excavated southwest of the modern village of Apesokari: a tholos tomb used as the diachronic locus for burial over time, and a multiperiod habitation site that probably once formed part of the larger settlement in the area (Figs. 1, 2). Both sites are located on the border between the rich agricultural hinterland of the southwestern Mesara Plain and the northern rocky foot of the central Asterousia Mountains, 3.00 km southwest of Platanos. They are part of a socially constructed landscape in which people appropriated the natural

environment through their material culture and embedded their social and ideological narratives in it (Barrett 1990; Knapp and Ashmore 1999, 10; Murphy 2011b, 25–27). The two sites were excavated in 1942 by Austrian archaeologist August Schörgendorfer, who served on Crete as an officer of the Art Protection Unit of the Wehrmacht. Schörgendorfer published two brief excavation reports in 1951; the material remains from Tholos Tomb A were presented selectively (Schörgendorfer 1951b), and those from the domestic complex were not studied by him at all (Schörgendorfer 1951a). For this reason, an interdisciplinary study project was initiated in 2010 to reconstruct aspects of the excavation to assess the multiple dimensions of funerary ritual and explore life at the settlement. The goal was to place the two sites in their local “cultural” landscape, which, according to the latest research, emerges as more diversified than originally thought. The consideration of Tholos Tomb A and the wellconstructed building on neighboring Vigla Hill as interrelated sites through their material assemblages enables a diachronic perspective. The study of the pottery established that the tomb was systematically used from the late Prepalatial to the end of the Protopalatial period (EM III Late–MM IIB). The building on Vigla Hill was also constructed in the late Prepalatial period, but it continued to be inhabited after the tomb ceased to be used for burial (Flouda 2011, 2012a, 2014). The built environment and the material culture from these two sites thus provide points of departure for approaching the social dynamics of the population inhabiting Apesokari from the late third to the mid-second millennium b.c. Tholos Tomb A is situated about 130.00 m northwest of the settlement (Figs. 2–4; Pl. 1), on a rocky, uncultivated hillside (Pl. 2A) known locally as “Plakoura” or “Plakouria” (Lenakakis 2012, 183), which offers a good view of the fertile plain as far as the Mesara Bay and Kamares Cave. The entrance of the tomb faces the southeast and away from the settlement. This spatial arrangement conforms to a marked trend whereby doorways of tombs look away from habitation areas (Branigan 1998, 19). Whether this choice for Apesokari Tholos A was dictated by technical considerations relating to the suitability of the ground for building the circular chamber is a question that is addressed in this study. The first part of this book is dedicated to the architectural study of Tholos Tomb A and the systematic

INTRODUCTION AND SCOPE

analysis of the finds and human remains recovered from it. The ceramics show that the tomb was used concurrently with the earlier EM I–MM III Tholos Tomb B (Fig. 2), situated 220.00 m to the east and excavated in 1963 by Costis Davaras† (1964, 441). Tholos B and its assemblage currently are being studied by Giorgos Vavouranakis (2016), and it will not be discussed in depth in this study. A comparison of the two tombs, drawn from the architecture and preliminary studies of the Tholos B finds (Vavouranakis 2012, 2015; Vavouranakis and Bourbou 2015), offers perspectives on the social groups using those burial grounds. The examination of the unpublished habitation remains on Vigla Hill (Fig. 2; Pl. 2B) in the second part of the book addresses site-level specifics. The lack of primary field data documenting the excavation poses a serious impediment to an unambiguous and conclusive reconstruction of stratigraphic sequences. The main objective, nonetheless, is to establish the chronology and determine the size and the nature of occupation. The key research focus here is the question of what actions in the past have produced the material residues under study (Barrett 1994, 4). The discussion then places the domestic deposits at Apesokari within the broader Mesara region in the late third to mid-second millennium b.c.

5

The synthetic discussion at the end of the book focuses on a reassessment of the archaeological correlates of burial and commemorative practices associated with Tholos A. It is anticipated that this will help to evaluate the suggestion that South-Central Cretan tholos tombs generally represent the burial places of a specific kinship unit (for a comprehensive summary of past studies, see Legarra Herrero 2014, 35–36). The analysis of the data from the excavated building on Vigla Hill is correlated with this discussion in order to review otherwise a priori assumptions on the mortuary practices of Middle Minoan communities inhabiting the Mesara Plain. This approach will particularly help to explore the role of mortuary rituals in reinforcing a sense of community and expressing shared identity. This multidimensional perspective leads to insights into the agency of the household that resided in the Vigla Building and the social group that buried their deceased ancestors in Tholos A. On the whole, the approach is “relational,” as it seeks to provide an understanding of how people and things worked relative to each other to produce further sets of relationships that constituted a “locality” (see, e.g., Geismar and Horst 2004, 5–6; Witmore 2007, 547, 549, 558–559; Thomas 2015).

2

A Local Burial Landscape: Theoretical Premises and Methodology Georgia Flouda

Past assumptions, which were related to an evolutionary model, have given ground in the last decade to a more nuanced understanding of social conditions in the Early and Middle Minoan periods (Schoep and Tomkins 2011, 2). In the late stages of the Prepalatial period (EM IIB–MM IA, or ca. 2400–1900 b.c.), competitive strategies emerged in the Mesara. These were mainly manifested in the way social groups and/or communities negotiated their identity and symbolically demarcated their territories through architectural enhancement of tholos tombs (Murphy 1998, 30–31; Relaki 2004, 181). Tholoi builders took advantage of the natural topography and often constructed paved forecourts or enclosed areas that were occasionally equipped with built or mobile altars. In contrast to the narrow and cramped annexes and burial chambers of earlier Prepalatial tombs, the open-air spaces outside tholos tombs were now used as focal points for the commemoration of the deceased by larger numbers of people, as supported by the relevant ceramic deposits (Branigan 1970, 134–138). Ritual dances have been proposed as a major component

of nonfunerary ceremonies associated with fertility and the agricultural cycle and performed on the paved forecourts (Branigan 1998, 21–23). In reality, though, the cemetery at Moni Odigitria is the only case that provides enough space for dance performances. The paved street leading to a forecourt at Myrtos Pyrgos and the architectural articulation of two ceremonial areas through streets, tomb entrances, and courtyards in the Kephalas Petras cemetery suggest that the performance of open-air rituals was a wider Cretan phenomenon. Both cases open up new perspectives for the social structure of ritual behavior at individual sites (Haggis 2017, 429, 431–432). The habit of building altars outside Mesara tholoi during the late Prepalatial period has been interpreted as an attempt to limit the number of people involved in the ritual of the burial (Murphy 2003, 273). This constriction was initially interpreted as a sign of a reorganization of religion emanating from changes in social hierarchy, mainly deduced from an increase in wealth and competitive display. Still, instances whereby pairs of tholos

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tombs, such as the tholos clusters at Lebena, do not project any hierarchical differences in power or status among the burying groups discussed (Murphy 2011b, 35–36). Following a shift in emphasis from detecting social hierarchy to recognizing heterarchy in the archaeological literature (Brumfiel 1995, 125; Crumley 1995, 3; Parker Pearson 1999, 74–75), a series of specialized studies on the late Prepalatial period have gradually underlined the notion that the network of relationships within local Mesara communities was not structured hierarchically. Rather, diverse social groups interacted as equals, and identities were probably fluid and dynamic (Schoep 2002; Schoep and Knappett 2004; Miller Bonney 2005–2006, 44–45; Tomkins and Schoep 2010, 75). Following limitations of using the relationship between the display of wealth in the funerary record and social ranking as an analytic category, a focus on inferring horizontal social differentiation and membership of a burial group has recently been suggested (Papadatos 2018, 96–99). The question of social complexity has even been addressed at an intersite level; Hamilakis (2013, 174) thus explains the “monumentalisation of locality and its long-term history” attested in Central, South-Central, and East Crete toward the end of the Prepalatial period as a conscious reaction of diverse social groups to the intensified external contacts of certain social agents with the eastern Mediterranean after navigational technology had improved (Manning 2008, 115). An alternative approach attempts to trace the social dynamics behind the creation of the Mesara and Asterousia tholoi to the intrasite level. Along these lines, it has been argued that the wish to accentuate different groups within each community and their claims over natural and symbolic resources mobilized social agents (Murphy 1998; 2011b, 41–42; Relaki 2004, 179; Legarra Herrero 2011). Alternatively, the domestic affinities of late Prepalatial tholos tombs may have been reinforced to denote specific symbolic connotations (Vavouranakis 2011, 113) or, more precisely, to symbolically project communal rights over land property (Papadatos 2012, 81–82 n. 40). The latter notion is based on analogical patterns derived from seminal anthropological studies (Saxe 1970) that demonstrate that establishing formal areas for deceased community members is a means to legitimize control of critical resources (cf. Parker Pearson

1999, 136–139 for summary and critique; see also Déderix, this vol., Ch. 5). Ultimately, these suggestions bring us to the fundamental question of whether we can define more closely the social groups involved in the building and monumentalization of burial structures in the Early Minoan and Middle Minoan Mesara. How can we infer and assess the presence of these groups through the archaeological record, given clusters of tholos tombs have rarely been published together with their associated settlements? In most cases, the time span of habitation in these settlements can be estimated only from limited rescue excavation or survey data. With diachronic evidence for the appearance of sedentary settlements and their corresponding tholoi in the Mesara being so vague, it has been hypothesized that the relationship between population and cemeteries probably had a very different character than in the Asterousia zone (Legarra Herrero 2014, 37). This view is hard to sustain, especially given the recent evidence for continuity of habitation in this fertile landscape (Watrous and Hadzi-Vallianou 2004), as well as in the marginal Asterousia region (Vasilakis and Sbonias 2018). The current picture of inconsistent interconnections between Mesara settlements and burial sites may be due to the vagaries of preservation and the lack of published systematic research. It should be reconsidered in the future, after the completion of rigorous fieldwork undertaken by the Ephorate of Antiquities at Herakleion and by different study projects. The few excavated Pre- and Protopalatial settlements in South-Central Crete have been traditionally considered as subdivided into small-sized individual “household units” accommodating a few people, probably nuclear families of five to six individuals (Marinatos 1931–1932, 167–168; Whitelaw 2001, 18, 21; 2007, 73). Following this, Keith Branigan suggests that most Prepalatial and Protopalatial tholoi with numerous burials were used by two to four nuclear families (1993). After the systematic exploration of the Moni Odigitria mortuary record, he revised this view by deducing that the tholos cemetery was serving two “extended families” or “kingroups” (Branigan 2010, 263). Other estimates of base populations using the rest of the tholos tombs have also been expressed based on the hypothetical size of the relevant communities (for a review and a

A LO CAL BU R I AL LA N DSCA PE: T HEORET ICAL PREM I SES A N D MET HODOLO GY

cautionary note, see Evely 2010, 182; see also Alexiou and Warren 2004, 12; Murphy 2011b, 36–37). Recent studies of skeletal assemblages also substantiate low estimates of skeletal remains deposited per 100 years in several sites, including Apesokari Tholos A (Triantaphyllou, Nikita, and Kador 2015, 8–9, table 2). This fact stresses the urgent need for a systematic investigation of kinship ties and potential exogamous networks in South-Central Crete for the temporal framework involved. The research needs to assess both cultural and biological parameters that may point out intracommunity distinctions (see, e.g., Triantaphyllou, Nikita, and Kador 2015, 17–19; see also Meyer et al. 2012, 12–16 on methodological considerations). As the construction of kinship in society has been shown by cultural anthropologists to manifest itself in diverse forms, whereby social and biological kinship are not always overlapping (Holy 1996; Carsten 2004, 41–45) and bioarchaeological research into Early and Middle Minoan populations is just emerging, more nuanced research designs are needed (e.g., Johnson 2019, 218–220). It has been stressed, with reason, that the complex and fragmentary burial assemblages of most tholos groups do not straightforwardly indicate the identity of the population units involved (Soles 1992, 251). From a sociocultural point of view, it seems more plausible to equate the societal segments represented by the tholos groups either with smallscale kin-groups, such as a clan (Renfrew 1972, 388), with an extended family (e.g., Branigan 1993, 84–89; Warren 2004, 191; Murphy 2011b, 37; on the Myrtos Pyrgos house tomb: Legarra Herrero 2015, 80; on Sissi house tombs: Schoep and Tomkins 2016, 246), or with corporate groups within communities. These corporate groups could be factions (Hamilakis 2013, 186) or, most probably, “Houses,” namely intergenerational, locus-bound, extended social units organized by a shared residence and mode of production (Driessen 2010b, 36–41). The latter refers to genealogical and economic social units, thus expanding the notion of “House societies” originally conceived by Claude Lévi-Strauss (1979; Driessen 2017, 81) to include more competitive social formations (Kuijt 2018, 565–567, 572). The concept of “Houses” lends itself very well to addressing our case study, Apesokari, because it focuses on the use of bounded space that was repeatedly

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reused by generations (Driessen 2010b, 43; Letesson and Driessen 2020, 13) and thus formed a focal unit that was possibly connected with ancestral practices (Driessen 2017, 81–82). Moreover, it is compatible with recent attempts to consider identity questions through practice that is informed by notions of place (Tilley 2006, 7, 9), collective traditions (Souza 2016), and shared material forms involved in shaping social connections (on ceramic feasting wares, see Haggis 2007; Anderson 2013, 131–136; see also Anderson 2016, 81–83, 91–93, 95, 99–101 on the EM III–MM IA “Parading Lions” seals as linked to social identity and as a means of interaction). As Naoíse Mac Sweeney asserts about communities associated with a specific geographic locale, identity stems from a conscious sense of collective belonging; this sense is rooted in the experience of residential proximity and the participation of a significant proportion of group members in what she calls “enactments of community” (Mac Sweeney 2011, 28–29, 32–34, 44–48). Tholos A and the long-lived neighboring habitation site at Apesokari provide an exceptional opportunity to ascertain whether permanence of residential and burial spaces and participation in group-strengthening rites of the mortuary sphere can be examined at both a synchronic and a diachronic level. Our study of funerary practice shows the role of mortuary rituals in reinforcing a sense of community. Aiming at an integrative and contextual methodology, we integrate the evidence for the duration of the tomb’s use with an analysis of the chronological period of the Vigla Building. This approach will help not only to assess issues such as synchronicity of use but also to explore diachronically the character of the habitation site and any other nodes in the network of Apesokari occupation. Estimates of the size of the social group buried in Tholos Tomb A are compared with inferences on the social unit using the Vigla Building. Questions of biological kinship are approached through the study of the human skeletal remains (see Triantaphyllou and Papakonstantinou, this vol., Ch. 7) and ancient DNA extracted from them (Juras, Chyleński, and Nafplioti, Ch. 8). Questions of landscape and the use of natural resources address the embodied principles through which the users of Tholos A and the residents of the Vigla Building improvised their way through life and social interactions (notions

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explored by Harris and Robb 2013, 3; see also Tilley 2006). The choice of building Tholos Tomb A as an individual unit in the landscape, rather than close to Tholos Tomb B, is also encountered in the Kamilari tholos at Grigori Koriphi, in certain other tholos tombs in the Mesara, and in the house tomb at Myrtos Pyrgos (Legarra Herrero 2015, 81). Because this

choice was meaningful, a systematic study of the location of Tholos Tomb A (on a highly visible spot relative to the other tomb and the settlement) through a geographic-information-system–based (GIS) visibility analysis plays a vital role in addressing notions of identity shared by the social groups at Apesokari (see Déderix, this vol., Ch. 5).

3

History of Excavation Georgia Flouda

Every excavation is inevitably a by-product of the excavator’s agency, and Apesokari provides no exception to this rule. As the study of the excavation finds unfolded, it became obvious that the objectives of the project should be twofold: (1) to dig up the archaeological history of the Minoan site; and (2) to raise from oblivion its Austrian excavator, who served as a military officer and a cultural attaché in Crete. An introduction to the history of research at Apesokari therefore can illuminate not only the historical background but also the lack of excavation notebooks and proper provenance indications, both of which pose significant limitations to a multidimensional study of the finds. August Schörgendorfer (1914–1976), a young Austrian academic from Graz, undertook the excavation in his military capacity without proper authorization and supervision by the Greek Archaeological Service. After he earned his Ph.D. in June 1939 with a dissertation that initiated the study of Roman artifacts from the eastern Alps region (SchindlerKaudelka 1997, fig. 106, pl. 35), he was called for service on August 17, 1939, as is demonstrated by

his army passbook, and he followed a military career (Flouda 2017, 347–348, cf. “Wehrstammkarte,” no. 563, dated August 17, 1939). During his military service in 1940, he was upgraded to an academic assistant in the archaeological department of the University of Graz. An agreement reached between his academic supervisor, Arnold Schober, and the Austrian Major General of the 5th Mountain Division (5. Gebirgs-Division), Julius Alfred Ringel (1889–1967), led to Schörgendorfer’s assignment to an infantry regiment of the Wehrmacht in Crete. The military documents kept at the Austrian State Archives specify that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in October 1941. At the instigation of Schober, Ringel summoned Schörgendorfer as an officer of the Referat Kunstschutz, namely the Art Protection Unit, of the Wehrmacht. Schörgendorfer served in Crete from October 14, 1941 until December 15, 1942 when he was transferred to Cilli (Celje) in modern Slovenia (Flouda 2012b, figs. 1a, 1b; for an exhaustive discussion of his activity, see Flouda 2017, 349–350, 353–366, fig. 7; forthcoming; Koiner and Dourdoumas 2020, 243–244).

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Seeking a site to start an excavation on behalf of the Kunstschutz and his new commander, Alexander André, Schörgendorfer probably chose to excavate the tomb and the settlement after reading a report by John Pendlebury, Mercy Money-Coutts, and Edith Eccles (Pendlebury, Money-Coutts, and Eccles 1932–1933, 88). According to the report, in 1934 the three had visited the site of a tholos tomb where the latest interments had been partially looted by local tomb robbers (Zois 1998, 162). A few Early Minoan sherds were scattered around the tomb, and traces of a settlement were visible in the area to the south. Pendlebury (Pendlebury, MoneyCoutts, and Eccles 1932–1933, 88) notes: the villagers had [already] grabbed up a great many of the latest interments, fortunately without discovering any objects. They were persuaded to desist from their enthusiastic operations and steps have been taken by Mr. Marinatos the Ephor to conduct systematic work.

Both Pendlebury and Money-Coutts documented the looting by producing two very similar photos that are kept in the archive of the British School at Athens. The caption for the image in Pendlebury’s album is “Ossuary at Vigla above Apesokari” (1934; PEN 7/2/6 no. 66, old no. P-1443). The caption for the respective photo in Money-Coutts’s album (Money-Coutts 1934, photo MCS-32; Flouda 2017, fig. 11), namely “New tholos at Vigla above Ploura” (pers. comm., A. Kakissis, 23 January 2017), is apparently a misnomer for Plora, the village near Apesokari. In 1939, Nikolaos Platon visited the site and found that the tholos had been completely looted (1939, 490). In his 1947 report, which provides the most important published testimony, he also stresses that a few finds from Apesokari were delivered to the Herakleion Archaeological Museum before Schörgendorfer’s excavation started (Platon 1947), but they cannot be attributed to the tomb with certainty. This fact attests to Schörgendorfer’s statement that some of the finds had already found their way to the Herakleion illicit trade market before 1942. To conduct the excavation, Schörgendorfer appropriated the house of a local teacher, Michalis Hassourakis (it still stands today at the south entrance of the modern village of Apesokari), and started digging in May 1942 (Flouda 2017). With the help of two Wehrmacht soldiers and a local villager and his son, Schörgendorfer excavated the

burial chamber and intact built annex of Tholos Tomb A (Pls. 3A–4A). His carefully filed and annotated personal photos from Crete preserve a record that, along with revealing the breadth of his activity on the island, helps us to reconstruct aspects of the excavation and the surrounding landscape. The plan of the tomb was drawn by the draftsman of the German Institute at Athens, Nikolaos Zografakis, and the excavation was visited by German military officials, including archaeologists, as well as locals. Although, Schörgendorfer started excavating the Minoan settlement in September 1942 (1951a), his request to prolong his stay in Crete was rejected by Josef Foltmann, the military commander of the Fortress Crete, because he had not yet completed active military service. He was immediately sent to Celje and then to the Russian front in March 1943. In October 1943, he was seriously injured, decorated with the Iron Cross medal, and sent back to Germany. At the end of the war, Schörgendorfer was taken captive by the British Occupation force. After he was released, he was deprived of his institutional affiliation at the University of Graz and was thus forced to start anew as an accountant in Ried im Innkreis (Flouda, Pochmarski, and Schindler Kaudelka 2020, 228). Because of postwar problems, he published only a preliminary report in the volume of collected studies, Forschungen auf Kreta, which was commissioned by the military authorities and edited by Friedrich Matz (1951; for a review, see Hood 1953). Schörgendorfer’s report on the tholos tomb contains four plates of color drawings by the artist Thomas Fanourakis (Schörgendorfer 1951b), as noted in its unpublished version, which is held in the archive of the University of Graz (dated September 1942). The text, pictures, and plans were ready for publication by early 1945, when the whole of the letterpress and part of the illustrations were destroyed in the war. The published report includes stone vessels and a few clay pots that had been restored between 1942 and 1947 by Herakleion museum conservator Zacharias Kanakis (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 13). The finds were not exhibited but were kept in storage and formed part of the so-called Scientific Collection along with numerous boxes of unpublished finds from the habitation site (Platon 1947, 630). In sum, the biography of the material assemblage from Apesokari provides many interesting insights

H I S T O R Y O F E XC AVAT I O N

concerning aspects of modern archaeological practice that are imbued with political meanings that interfere with archaeological documentation and interpretation. In the 1980s, the material from Apesokari was washed for the first time. After the Scientific Collection at the Herakleion museum was reorganized, the contents of the large wooden boxes used by the excavator in 1942 were stored anew in a large number of smaller plastic boxes. By 2001, when the storerooms of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Herakleion (at that point constituting an administrative entity with the museum) were reorganized, most labels had been erased, and indications of the provenance of the material were lost except for a few almost illegible paper labels. In 2010, when a systematic study of the material was initiated, two plastic boxes with the ceramic material and a group of stone vessels from Tholos Tomb A were all that remained in the storerooms. Two boxes of human remains were finally traced to the Storeroom in the Industrial Region of Herakleion, along with 74 plastic boxes labeled “Of unknown provenance—possibly German excavation.” The latter comprised three boxes containing fragments of a few unrestored clay burial containers along with a stone idol from Tholos Tomb A published by Schörgendorfer as “Konkretstein” (1951b, 19). The rest of the boxes contained a collection of Mesolithic Norwegian lithics (Flouda 2020) as well as all sorts of clay and stone finds from the habitation site mixed without differentiation of size, material category, or shape. Our only guide in sorting

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this material were 15 paper notes written in Schörgendorfer’s Old German calligraphic handwriting (Kurrentschrift), as shown by his manuscripts and photo album (Flouda 2017; Flouda, Pochmarski and Schindler Kaudelka 2020, 225, fig. 9; Koiner and Dourdoumas 2020, 242, fig. 4). These notes were used to point out the exact findspots of the material recovered from the settlement when it was delivered to the Herakleion museum in 1942. Despite that the material may have been partly confused in the post– World War II era, the systematic study of the finds has shown that Schörgendorfer paid close attention to the empirical data. Although he was a relatively inexperienced excavator, he adhered to the German tradition of meticulous excavation sampling and therefore collected all artifact types, including stone objects, shells, and a pumice stone. Moreover, he recovered human skeletal remains, notably the parts he could remove, since skulls and bones were comingled in great disarray (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15, 18). An unpublished study, entitled “Die Rundgräber des minoischen Kreta” and submitted as a Habilitationschrift thesis to the University of Graz in May 1944, while Schörgendorfer was still in military service in Germany, also indicates his strong interest in Minoan archaeology. It suggests that he had visited and studied many of the Mesara tholoi he discusses in order to address the controversial issue of a corbeled vault (Flouda 2017, 366–367). Unfortunately, he did not supply any additional details about his Tholos Tomb A excavation, thus making a fresh look at the site inevitable.

4

Architecture of Tholos Tomb A Michael Nelson and Georgia Flouda

State of the Remains The potential of digital media to promote engagement with funerary projects has recently reached the forefront of archaeological research. For this reason, a three-dimensional photorealistic model of Tholos Tomb A was developed by Petros Charamis using photogrammetry (Pl. 1). The outcome is much more than a visualization tool to engage the viewer; it documents the actual state of the conservation of the tomb in 2014. This approach has ensured a precise rendering of the bedrock and the irregular stone courses of the tomb. It has also allowed for a detailed visualization of the following structural elements: (1) the entrance to the circular tholos from both sides, (2) the stone facing of the tholos, and (3) the stone facing of the rectangular annex. As shown by the photorealistic model, the terrain where Tholos Tomb A was founded has indirectly shaped the architectural choices of its builders (Fig. 2; Pl. 1). In particular, the steep slope of the natural rock toward the north and northwest of the hillside was chosen for building the burial chamber, which

has a diameter of 4.85 m (Pls. 4B, 5A). This diameter is similar to those of other tholos tombs that were constructed in EM I (Legarra Herrero 2014, 38): Hagia Kyriaki Tholos A (4.50–4.70 m; cf. Blackman and Branigan 1982, 1), Moni Odigitria Tholos A (4.50–4.60 m; Vasilakis 2010a, 60), the northern tholos tomb at Sivas (max. dia. 4.58 m; cf. Paribeni 1913, cols. 13, 14), and Lebena Gerokampos Tholos II (5.10–5.15; Alexiou 2004, 15). Tholos Tomb A at Apesokari was built at the western edge of a broad limestone shelf with the natural contours dropping from east to west. The long axis of the tomb, through the burial chamber and the annex (Pl. 5B), has a bearing of S 68°34'32" E, which aligns more or less perpendicular to the contours. Thus, the elevation of the tholos proper is 224.58 m asl, while that of the annex is 226.07 m asl. The alignment of the neighboring Tholos Tomb B is similarly oriented perpendicular to the contours, bearing S 73°20'1" E. For the study of Tholos Tomb A and its contents, the architecture of the tomb was surveyed and drawn in 2012, and two new illustrations were prepared: a plan and an elevation (Figs. 3, 4). The latter

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shows the dramatic elevation change of the bedrock. A state plan of the remains as Schörgendorfer uncovered them is no longer possible because of the reconstruction of the tomb walls with concrete mortar by the Greek Archaeological Service in 1963 (Alexiou 1963, 411; Alexiou 1964, 445). Accordingly, a decision was made to focus on drawing the inner and outer outlines of the walls as they look today. The size and shape of each stone were copied from the plan of the excavation report and integrated into the 2012 drawing, as the size and shape of stones to use were conscious decisions by the tomb builders. Three aspects of the 2012 plan, in comparison to that by Schörgendorfer (1951b, pl. 16), require comment. First, not every stone was drawn in 1942, and as a result, the excavator’s plan displays large gaps in the walls where stones should be represented. The question arises, then, whether portions of the walls were missing when the excavator uncovered them or whether he and his draftsman, for unknown reasons, did not draw all the stones. A further complication is that no such gaps are visible today, which raises further questions about the extent of the consolidation in 1963 and how faithful the conservators were in preserving the state of the remains. It is possible that for stability reasons, some portions of the tholos chamber were reconstructed by the conservators. Second, Schörgendorfer’s plan shows planar, or vertically flat, wall faces, indicated by straight and continuous lines. Some of the stones used in the tholos doorway were partially hammerdressed to near planar surfaces, but Schörgendorfer reports no other similar stone faces, and none were observed in the 2012 field survey. Consequently, the published drawing does not truly indicate the state of the remains. Third, Schörgendorfer’s drawing presents the walls of the annex as parallel and perpendicular to one another, whereas the 2012 survey of the tomb shows that neither alignment was the case. Here, too, it is worthwhile to ask whether the state of the remains had been faithfully drawn in 1942 or whether the walls were altered by the later consolidators in 1963. Accordingly, the reader must exercise some caution in assessing the new state plan and elevation published here as well as the following description of the architecture. Every attempt has been made to synthesize the information published by Schörgendorfer with the present state of the remains as they were recorded in 2012.

Today, the entire footprint of the tomb, including the tholos and the annex, measures 114.96 m2, while that of the burial chamber alone is 50.47 m2. Schörgendorfer’s plan delineates a circular footprint for the interior of the burial chamber, but no similar and corresponding outline for the exterior wall face. In his drawing, the southwest quadrant bulges out from the circumference (Schörgendorfer 1951b, pl. 16). The drawing also shows additional stones tacked onto the protruding portion of the wall, which indicates a later remodeling or reinforcement of this section of the wall. Schörgendorfer suggests that the topography prompted the builders to alter the exterior face to direct rainwater away from the base of the wall and subsequently prevent erosion (1951b, 14). He also assumes that the wall was reinforced with an extra, low stone ring to prevent the wall from “slipping” down the steep topography, and notes that individual stones, meant to bind the two walls together, were encased in the wall of the tholos (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 14). However, the two phases of construction are no longer evident today. Structurally, neither type of reinforcement was necessary to have maintained the integrity of the tholos. Regardless, the tomb builders certainly intended the burial chamber to have a circular footprint and no doubt laid it out with a simple string compass, but the result was not quite perfect. Its outer and inner diameters measure ca. 8.13–8.16 m and 4.85–5.00 m, respectively. The walls were built without any kind of foundation and laid directly on the limestone bedrock. In some places, the bedrock had been crudely leveled with chiseling, while in other places it was necessary to fill in natural depressions with packed earth (Pl. 6A). A similar founding method was employed in the construction of the circular wall of Tholos Tomb B at Moni Odigitria (Vasilakis 2010a, 61). Cuttings in the floors of the annex rooms show that some of the bedrock had been partially worked, both to level these surfaces and to remove any sharp protrusions for building the inner annex walls (Pls. 6B, 7A). The bedrock in the doorway of the tholos also seems to have been partially worked to provide a shallow step down from the annex into the circular chamber (Fig. 4; Pls. 2A, 7B). All the tomb walls were built of rubble masonry composed of locally gathered unworked stones from local limestone deposits, as was most often the

A RC H I T E C T U R E O F T H O L O S T O M B A

case in Minoan masonry (Shaw 2009, 13). The underlying bedrock is limestone and is easily accessible throughout the area, and therefore the builders probably quarried very close to the tomb, perhaps even along the low scarp ca. 7.00 m to the east (Pls. 8A, 8B). According to Schörgendorfer, the outer and inner faces of the walls were formed of large unworked stones and clay mortar laid in irregular courses, with mortar visible in some of the published photographs (1951b, 14, pl. 17:1); the space between the two faces was filled with smaller stones (1951b, 14). Because of the consolidation, it is not possible to observe this building method for the annex walls, but sections of the tholos wall were built in such a manner. Larger stones, some with their longest dimension exceeding 1.20 m, were used in the construction of the inner face of the tholos wall, a feature that also characterizes the Lebena Gerokampos II (Warren 2007, 11) and Kamilari Tholos A tombs (Girella and Caloi 2019, 33). Some coursing is evident but only in the jambs of the tholos doorway (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 14, pls. 17:3, 17.4). The tholos wall is better preserved than those of the annex; the larger-sized stones and subsequently their greater weight contributed to the wall’s preservation. At the south jamb of the doorway, the wall was consolidated to a height of ca. 1.30 m (Pl. 7B); the greatest preserved height reported by Schörgendorfer is 1.35 m (1951b, 14, pls. 17.2, 17.3). The builders probably intended a uniform thickness throughout the course of the tholos wall, but the result was not so; it varies from ca. 1.32 to 1.64 m. The wall was built with an inner and outer face of large stones. The largest stones were used predominately on the interior wall face, while smaller stones filled the core (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 14). At least one stone located in the southwest quadrant, was laid as a parpaing (cinder block), although it does not appear in Schörgendorfer’s drawing. If the consolidation of this section of the wall is correct the parpaing indicates a concern by the builders to tie the two faces of the wall together. Similar parpaings were used in the annex walls. The tholos wall does not show any sort of inward curvature or corbeling (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 14). When originally excavated, four rectangular or wedgelike stones protruded from the exterior face of the tholos wall: three on the north side (Pl. 9) and one on the south (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 14–15, pl.

17

17.1). In the 1963 consolidation, only the south stone and two of the north stones were preserved in their original positions. The stones were apparently randomly placed in the wall, and they protrude from its outer face at seemingly random lengths (ca. 0.20– 0.30 m). Schörgendorfer suggests that the stones were used to secure a flat roof against the constant strong winds from the south (1951b, 14), but this theory does not seem plausible. The narrow doorway faces east–southeast and measures ca. 0.80–0.90 (w.) x 2.10 (th.) x 1.30 m (pres. h.). On Schörgendorfer’s plan, the doorway is slightly narrower on the inside, but today it is of uniform width. The south jamb was consolidated to three courses in height, the north to two courses. When Schörgendorfer uncovered the south jamb, four courses still stood, and in the north jamb three to four courses remained. The original height of the tholos doorway is unknown. As seen in his photographs, small stones (ca. 3.00–10.00 cm) and mud filled the interstices between the larger stones. The walls of the annex were founded at a higher elevation than the burial chamber because of the sloping bedrock. The 1942 photos show that they were initially preserved only up to one or two courses in height (Pl. 4A). In 1963, they were consolidated to two or three courses of masonry, and so they now rise to slightly higher than 0.35 m. They are also quite narrow in comparison to the tholos wall. For ease of description, wall numbers were assigned in 2012, and Table 1 lists the widths of the individual walls. The sizes of the stones vary quite a bit (ca. 18.00–80.00 cm), with the larger stones laid at the wall faces or occasionally as parpaings, for example in Wall 1. Walls 1–4 bond with one another as do Walls 6–8. Walls 4 and 7 formed the east facade of the tomb (Pl. 10A), which was pierced by Doorway K (w. 1.68 m). A circular pivot hole had been carved in the bedrock, ca. 16.00 cm from the north jamb (Pl. 10B) and may have served for holding an upright (wooden) doorpost. It is now a smoothly worn, hemispherical hollow with a diameter of 0.17 m and a depth of 0.07 m, and so far it finds no parallel among the published tholos tombs. Pivot holes were quite common in Minoan architecture of all periods; there are too many known examples to list here, but EM II–MM I pivots were found in the built house tombs at Gournia

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MICHAEL NELSON AND GEORGIA FLOUDA

(Soles 1992, 20) and Mochlos (Soles 1992, 108) and in the settlement at Myrtos Phournou Koriphi (Warren 1972, 218–219). Although most surviving examples were cut into shaped threshold blocks, this simple contruction device would have easily transferred to bedrock. Moreover, the pivot hole of Tholos A is very similar to those found in the Early Cycladic settlement surrounding the acropolis of Panormos at Naxos (Angelopoulou 2014, 326 n. 54 [with extensive bibliography], figs. 4.7:3, 4.7:4). Judging from the significant diameter of the hole, when compared with the concavities of three (rectangular) pivot stones from Dhaskalio, Keros, which range from 7.50 to 5.50 cm in diameter (Rowan, Dixon, and Dubicz 2013, 588–589, fig. 29.20:11612), it can be suggested that the entrance was closed with a heavy door. Walls 3 and 6 do not align with each other, and therefore the passageway between them was probably open. In approximately the center of Room G, Schörgendorfer excavated a pillar with a roughly square footprint (Fig. 3; Pl. 11A). It had been built of large, partially worked limestone slabs, and based on the published photographs (Schörgendorfer 1951b, pls. 18.1, 18.2), it appears to have stood three courses high. He suggests that the pillar was needed to support the flat roof of the annex (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 18). Today, only a single slab remains; it is heavily eroded and appears to have been pushed out of its original position. Schörgendorfer also notes a clay floor in Room G, but no trace of it survives. In the 1942 photographs (Pl. 11A; Schörgendorfer 1951b, pl. 18.2), the clay floor clearly runs beneath the first course of the pillar. If indeed it was a floor, then the pillar was added later. Near the west end of Room G, the bedrock had been uniformly trimmed across the width of the annex to create a shallow step. A second trimming a little farther to the south demarcates the division between Rooms C/D and G (Pl. 11B). The cutting curiously returns twice and perhaps indicates a missing wall or other built feature. Walls 1, 4, 7, and 8 were thickened with the addition of an external rubble face (Pl. 12A). Schörgendorfer (1951b, 16) misinterpreted the thickening as foundations or earlier walls. To him, the thicker foundations were laid first, with the thinner walls (1, 4, 7, and 8), serving as the superstructure, placed on top. The stones of his suggested foundations,

however, do not extend beneath any of the stones of any of the four walls and offer no support, as foundations must do. Instead, the stones abut the exterior faces of these outer walls (Pls. 9, 12A, 12B). Τherefore, it is clear that the four walls were built first and then for some reason thickened. Perhaps the thickening and the addition of the pier in Room G reveal a concern for the structural integrity of the annex’s roof. The same case can be made for the south wall that may have closed off the initially open-air Room 2 of Tholos B (Vavouranakis 2015, 221). On the north wall (Wall 1) of Tholos A, a gap in the thickening (labeled “α” in Schörgendorfer 1951b, pl. 16) corresponds with the position of Wall 3 (Fig. 3). The gap was no doubt intentional, but its function is not immediately obvious. Perhaps a now-missing feature stood in this particular spot. Outside and just off the east corner of the annex, Schörgendorfer notes a built feature (L) that he posits served as an open-air altar (Fig. 3; Pls. 4A, 11A; Schörgendorfer 1951b, 20). In 1942, the dimensions of the altar were 0.80 x 0.90 m. Unfortunately, the feature no longer survives, but its location is noted on the plan (Fig. 3).

Architectural Phasing of the Tomb The west ends of long Walls 1 and 8 abut the tholos wall to either side of Entrance B (Fig. 3; Pl. 13A). The abutment does not appear on Schörgendorfer’s plan, but he describes this important detail in his narrative description (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 18). Thus, there were two building events, with the first represented by the tholos proper and the second by the addition of the annex. The consolidation of the annex walls makes it impossible to unambiguously deduce different architectural phases for this portion of the tomb. So the precise amount of time, whether a day or hundreds of years, between each event cannot be established solely based on the preserved architecture, but the recovered artifacts and their findspots offer some clues (the chronology of the tomb will be discussed further in this vol., Ch. 6). Finally, a third building event was possibly the thickening of the external annex Walls 1, 4, 7, and 8.

A RC H I T E C T U R E O F T H O L O S T O M B A

Architectural Layout and Comparanda In the Mesara tholoi, the thickness of the wall of the tholos was usually proportional to the diameter of the burial chamber. In particular, the average thickness:diameter ratio of a sample of 48 tholos tombs is 3.9:1, with a median of 3.7 (Branigan 1993, 42–43). Measuring 1.32–1.64 m, the thickness of the wall of the burial chamber of Tholos Tomb A exceeds the thickness of the initial tholos wall of the larger Apesokari Tholos Tomb B (ca. 1.00 m), which could probably support a corbeled vault 2.90 m high (Vavouranakis 2015, 217). In this respect, it is remarkably similar to the wall of the tholos at Hagios Kyrillos (Sakellarakis 1968, 51, fig.1) and the northern tholos tomb at Sivas, which has a a diameter of 4.40–4.58 m and a maximum wall thickness of 1.70 m (Paribeni 1913, 13). The orientation of the burial chamber’s entrance to the east (Pl. 13B) was similar to that of nearby Tholos B (Fig. 2). The abrupt rise of the terrain at this point made it necessary to carve two steps into the bedrock, which helped to provide easy access to the tholos and maneuver the burials into place. Schörgendorfer does not report finding a lintel stone, and no suitable stone was noticed in the 2012 survey of the site. No cuttings or rebates, either on the jambs or on the threshold indicate a closable door. It is nevertheless possible that the doorway was closed with a heavy slab, as was typical in other tombs (Branigan 1998, 25). The jambs were built with flat, worked stones on the facade of the entrance and with larger unworked stones on the side of the burial chamber, with mud as the binding material (Schörgendorfer 1951b, pls. 2, 3). The construction of the entrance resembles that of the Hagios Kyrillos tholos, which still preserves its monolithic lintel (Sakellarakis 1968, 51, fig. 1). The entrances of most tholos tombs dating to the earlier Prepalatial period usually carried a trilithon lintel (Panagiotopoulos 2002, 11–12). Moreover, the preserved height of the tholos wall does not permit us to surmise whether the tomb had a corbeled vault, as no curvature is evident as reported by Schörgendorfer (1951b, 14). The use of large stones in the first course of the wall has so far been considered a structural feature that probably enabled the tomb to withstand a heavy stone superstructure and perhaps a fully vaulted roof (Papadatos 2015, 23). Although this practice also occurs in

19

tholos tombs that offer clear evidence for a vaulted roof, such as Archanes Tholos Tomb Gamma (Papadatos 2005, 6), and also in modern shepherds’ huts (mitata) on Mount Ida (Warren 2007), each tholos tomb presents a unique case, and the hypothesis for a stone vault has to be tested according to several criteria. The few transverse rectangular stones that protrude from the north and south parts of the wall of Tholos A can hardly be compared with a similar phenomenon characterizing other tholos tombs, such as Apesokari Tholos B (Vavouranakis 2015, 217–218, fig. 1), the tholos at Hagios Kyrillos (Branigan 1993, 51), Archanes Tholos Tomb Gamma (Papadatos 2005, 6), and Kamilari Tholos Tomb A (Levi 1961–1962, 12, 16, fig. 9; Girella, Marini, and Palmieri 2013, 78, fig. 6). As more stones of this type are widely scattered among the debris to the north of the Apesokari Tholos A, one can speculate that they initially followed the full course of the tholos wall, as in Apesokari Tholos B and Kamilari Tholos A. However, they should be differentiated from the protruding stones of the Kamilari tholos, which have been roughly worked into the shape of a wedge and were placed at more or less regular intervals from one another along the stone courses of the wall. Placed randomly in plan and elevation, they may represent an unsuccessful attempt by the Apesokari builders to imitate what in Kamilari constituted an important structural element. It has further been suggested that this structural element possibly served to alleviate the thrusts (Warren 2007, 11, 14, fig. 2.11). The systematic study of Kamilari Tholos Tomb A, though, has rejected this possibility and has led to the conclusion that they possibly helped to sustain a thick coating layer at the base of the tomb (Girella, Marini, and Palmieri 2013, 78, 85–86, fig. 6). This theory highlights the need for new studies in order to reach definitive conclusions. As indicated by the abutting annex walls, it is possible that in its first phase of use, Tholos Tomb A consisted solely of the circular chamber. Then in a second phase, the annex rooms were added; EM III Late vessels stacked in Room D provide a terminus ante quem as is discussed in Chapter 6 (Flouda, this vol., p. 46). It should be stressed that the annex rooms were not added one after the other, as was usually the case in many tholos tombs after the EM

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MICHAEL NELSON AND GEORGIA FLOUDA

IIB period. The annex was instead laid out according to a well-established tradition of a rectangular compartment that abutted the east tholos wall and aligned along the axis of the tomb’s doorway (for an isometric reconstruction drawn by M.E. Weaver, see Hood 1971, fig. 27). The extensive flat surface of the bedrock at this point facilitated this layout. The plan of the annex and its internal layout most remarkably resemble the annex complex of the Hagios Kyrillos tholos, probably constructed in EM III (Sakellarakis 1968, 51, fig. 1; Legarra Herrrero 2014, 180), the only difference being the internal thresholds of the Hagios Kyrillos annexes. A general similarity between the Apesokari Tholos A annex and the annexes of the tholoi at Sopata Kouse (Chatzi-Vallianou 1979, 384, pl. 191a) and Miamou (Legarra Herrero 2014, 186–187; Alušík et al. 2019, 123, figs. 1, 6, 7) is also notable, although detailed drawings of the other tholoi have not been published. The arrangement of the rectangular room that abutted Kamilari Tholos Tomb C and the position of the entrance of the tomb is uncertain (Branigan 1993, 63). Elsewhere, the annex rooms of Kamilari Tholos Tomb A, which was founded in MM IB, were added gradually (Girella, Marini, and Palmieri 2013, 77), so they do not follow a unified concept as in Apesokari Tholos A. It is plausible to hypothesize that the Apesokari Tholos A builders intended to construct an annex from the moment they chose this location for the tomb (Flouda 2011, 113), possibly emulating the gradual addition of rooms to the earlier Tholos B that may have served as the prototype (Vavouranakis 2015, 220). According to a preliminary report, the addition of Rooms 1–3 and 5–6 to Tholos B during the late Prepalatial period may predate the construction of the Tholos A annex (Vavouranakis 2015, 220); still, it is hard to assess this hypothesis before the full publication of Tholos B and its assemblages. Moreover, the long and initially unroofed Room 2, which may have been constructed as an extra ossuary at the south side of Tholos B (Vavouranakis 2015, 221–222), modifies the rectangular plan of the annex that characterizes Tholos A. The mud floor of the main Room G of Tholos A was perhaps similar to the earth floor with small kouskouras inclusions and worn sherds that were laid over the bedrock surface in Tholos Tomb A at Moni Odigitria (Vasilakis 2010a, 60). The fill under the lower part of a central stone-built pier, which

is shown in the 1942 photo (Pl. 11A), provides a clue to the possible level of this floor. This support and the wide partition wall between Rooms E and G corroborate the suggestion that the annex carried a permanent flat roof (Flouda 2011, 113). It has been suggested that part of the Apesokari Tholos B annex was also roofed, as indicated by a clay lamp from Room 5 (Vavouranakis 2015, 220). The circular pivot hole carved into the bedrock at Entrance K indicates a closable door, which is so far unique among the corpus of published tholoi. According to the new architectural plan, the west wall of the antechamber Room J/H (w. 0.90 m) did not block fully the view to the outside from the doorway of the burial chamber, as originally suggested (Branigan 1998, 19–20, fig. 1.5). Moreover, a 65.00 cm long polygonal limestone slab was fixed under the long walls at the east side of the antechamber (Space J), but it was not preserved in situ. The excavator notes that a small stone “idol” was found fallen in front of this stand (not an “offering table” as stated by Legarra Herrero 2014, 169), which he characterizes as an “altar” (Schörgendorfer 1951b, 19, pl. 16:J). This previously unpublished find (SI1) recently was recovered from among the stored material, and it provides useful insights into burial ritual, as discussed in Chapter 15 (Flouda, this vol., pp. 165–166). With regard to the external tomb space, the level upper surface of the thickening of Wall 1 (shown in the 1942 photographs) may have served as a low bench (h. 0.25–0.60 m; Fig. 3; Pl. 9; cf. Schörgendorfer 1951b, 16, pl. 18.2). This arrangement may be related to the open-air paved area with a low built “altar” (L) east of the annex (Fig. 3), which was fully explored and photographically documented by Schörgendorfer (1951b, 16, pls. 16:L, 17.4). An analogy may be provided by the bench excavated along the entire width of the east facade of House Tomb 2 at Petras (Betancourt 2012, 108–109, fig. 1; Tsipopoulou 2012, 121, fig. 3), on which offerings, especially plates, had possibly been deposited. This architectural arrangement faced Ceremonial Area 1, a spacious open area to the east dedicated to ceremonies (Tsipopoulou 2017, 112); this use can also be postulated for the open-air paved area at Apesokari Tholos A, as is discussed in Chapter 15 (Flouda, this vol., p. 166).

5

Placing Tholos Tomb A in the Visual Landscape of Apesokari Sylviane Déderix

Three Bronze Age sites have so far been discovered southwest of the modern village of Apesokari: two tombs (Tholos A and Tholos B) and a settlement. The proximity of the three sites raises the question of possible connections. Were the inhabitants of the settlement buried in one of the two or in both tholoi? The answer is far from straightforward, as hinted at by chronological evidence. The tombs were constructed on the hillside known locally as “Plakoura” or “Plakouria” (see Flouda, this vol., Ch. 1, pp. 4–5), 220.00 m apart, at a time interval of at least five centuries. Tholos Tomb B (Fig. 2) was built in EM I (ca. 3100–2650 b.c.; see Manning 2010, 23) and gradually enlarged during the late Prepalatial and Protopalatial periods (Vavouranakis 2012, 2016). Its open court was still used for ceremonial purposes in the Neopalatial period, but no burials were made after MM II (ca. 1875/1850–1750/1700 b.c.). Tholos Tomb A, however, was probably constructed at some point before EM III Late (ca. 2200–2100/2050 b.c.) and used until MM IIB, and its paved area continued to be sporadically visited in MM III (ca. 1750/1700–1700/1675 b.c.; Flouda 2014;

this vol., Ch. 14, p. 161). The contemporary burial use of Tholos A and Tholos B hence covered the EM III to MM II phases, a period of approximately four centuries. The settlement (Fig. 2) is located higher, on the hill of Vigla, ca. 200.00 m south-southeast of Tholos A and ca. 250.00 m southwest of Tholos B. The extent of its occupation is uncertain, but houses are believed to have existed to the north, west, and south of the large rocky outcrop that dominates the area (see Flouda, this vol., Ch. 9, pp. 66– 67). Ceramic data from the small sector excavated by Schörgendorfer (1951a) support a construction date in EM III (even though a few EM IIA sherds, probably residual, were found; see Flouda, this vol., Ch. 13, pp. 141–142) and make it tempting to draw a link with the construction of Tholos A. Admittedly, however, there is no evidence that the inhabitants of the Vigla Building were buried in Tholos A—let alone that the settlement was the only place of residence used by the community of Tholos A. The nature of the connections (or the lack thereof) between the settlement and Tholos B is even

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S Y LV I A N E D ÉD E R I X

less evident, as the construction of Tholos B predates the foundation of the Vigla Building. Even if it could be demonstrated that the burial community of Tholos B lived in the settlement from EM III onward, the question of its place(s) of residence would remain open for EM I and II unless future excavations on Vigla Hill reveal the existence of an older occupation phase related to the few EM IIA sherds collected by Schörgendorfer. And, conversely, archaeological evidence is lacking regarding the burial practices of the village community after the abandonment of the two tholoi. Far from being specific to Apesokari, the difficulty of pairing tholoi and settlements is in fact recurrent for Prepalatial Crete. Settlement remains have been recorded close to approximately 30 of the 56–70 cemeteries of tholos tombs known to date (Fig. 1; see, e.g., Branigan 1998; Déderix 2014, 193–222). But as is the case at Apesokari, there is no evidence in the form of roads or joining artifacts that link a tomb to a particular settlement. Moreover, the occupation of cemeteries and nearby settlements often overlaps only partially (as noted for Apesokari), and the incompleteness of the settlement record further hinders our understanding of the association between burial and habitation sites. It must also be emphasized that the relationship between tholos tombs and habitation sites is a different issue from that of the social unit associated with tholos tombs (for a discussion, see Legarra Herrero 2014, 35–37). Even if a connection could be drawn between a particular tholos and one or several settlement(s), it would not imply that all the inhabitants of said settlement(s) were entitled to burial in the tomb. Indeed, selection criteria other than place of residence (e.g., kinship, age) probably defined who had the right to be buried in a tomb. The possibility must therefore be considered that burial communities may have coincided little with settlement communities. Despite these uncertainties and the limitations of the archaeological record, current evidence points to the existence of different patterns of spatial relationships between tholos tombs and settlements in Prepalatial South-Central Crete. The most detailed data cover the southwestern part of the Asterousia Mountains: archaeological surveys conducted in the lower catchment of the Hagiofarango Valley (Blackman and Branigan 1977), along the south coast (Blackman and Branigan 1975), and around

Moni Odigitria (Fig. 1:6; Vasilakis and Branigan 2010) located nine (or perhaps even 10) cemeteries of tholos tombs and two dozen habitation sites. Most of these habitation sites are farmsteads and hamlets dispersed over the landscape. Rather than contemporaneous settlements sharing the same tholos tombs (Blackman and Branigan 1977, 71), farmsteads and hamlets are perhaps more convincingly interpreted as “short-lived installations succeeding each other in the same area, demarcated by the presence of the tholoi” (Relaki 2004, 179; also, La Rosa 2010, 505–506; Todaro 2013, 276). In this sense, the tombs would have functioned as stable focal points within a landscape of unstable, shifting habitation (Relaki 2004, 179). The cemeteries of Megaloi Skinoi East and Lasaia, however, may testify to different spatial patterns. The two tholoi of Megaloi Skinoi East (Fig. 1:8) are located near the eastern edge of a plateau (ca. 260.00 x 125.00 m) bordered on the north, west, and east by an enclosure wall, and also on the east by steep rising slopes. Wall remains, scattered stones, and potsherds suggest that the plateau was occupied by “a large EM I– MM I settlement” (Blackman and Branigan 1977, 41) associated with the cemetery. There is of course no evidence that burial in the two tholoi of Megaloi Skinoi East was reserved only for inhabitants of the settlement, or that all inhabitants of the settlement were buried in these two tombs, but it is striking that the cemetery could only be reached by crossing the settlement. In this way, the inhabitants of the plateau of Megaloi Skinoi controlled access to the tombs and, by extension, to the dead members of the burial community. Yet another pattern seems to characterize Lasaia (Fig. 1:10, 11), where possible settlement remains were recorded between two tholos tombs built only 200.00 m apart (Blackman and Branigan 1975, 33). If confirmed, this pattern suggests that members of at least two spatially distinct burial communities cohabited in the Prepalatial settlement of Lasaia. This brief overview of the data available in the southwestern Asterousia illustrates that the archaeological record is inconsistent with respect to the idea of a strict and stable one-to-one association between habitation sites and burial sites. Different spatial configurations were apparently possible, and regional as well as chronological variations may also have existed. Where Apesokari is concerned, available data thus prevent us from either claiming

P L AC I N G T H O L O S T O M B A I N T H E V I S UA L L A N D S C A P E O F A P E S O K A R I

or denying an association between habitation and burial sites based only on proximity and chronology. Therefore, this chapter aims to address the question of the relationship between Tholos A, Tholos B, and the settlement through an analysis of patterns of visibility, intervisibility, and invisibility. To test whether the two tombs were intervisible during the Bronze Age, GIS was used. The discussion then extends to the broader issue of the visual criteria at play in the decision-making process that guided the placement of Tholos A in the landscape of late Prepalatial Apesokari.

Testing Intervisibility between Tholos A and Tholos B at Apesokari Put simply, GIS-based visibility analysis determines whether or not two points in the landscape are intervisible (for details, see, e.g., Wheatley and Gillings 2002, 204–209; Conolly and Lake 2006, 225–233). The calculation relies on a digital elevation model (DEM) and works by projecting a line of sight between a viewpoint and a target cell. The two locations are intervisible if all intervening cells of the DEM fall below the line of sight. Building on this basic principle, viewshed analysis draws multiple lines of sight between a viewpoint and every cell of the DEM. The end product is a binary raster map with cells marked as “in sight” or “out of sight.” By default, the area visible from the viewpoint is considered to be identical to the area from which the viewpoint is visible, but visibility is no longer reciprocal once the size of the human observer and the height of the target are taken into account. Significant disparities may thus exist between the view to and the view from a given feature. Today, the ruins of Tholos A and Tholos B are not visible from each other. The low ridge that rises to the east of Tholos A obstructs the view. However, the original height of the burial structures should be taken into account to assess whether this absence of intervisibility already characterized the Bronze Age landscape of Apesokari. Adding an offset accounting for the size of the target is simple from a GIS point of view, but estimating the original height of Tholos A and Tholos B is challenging, especially because the construction technique used for the

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roofing of tholos tombs remains a debated topic (see, e.g., Pelon 1976, 55–63; Branigan 1993, 41–56; Warren 2007; Papadopoulos 2010; Girella, Marini, and Palmieri 2013). It is therefore unavoidable to rely on a series of assumptions to test whether Tholos A and Tholos B could have been intervisible during the late Prepalatial period. With an inner diameter of less than 6.00 m and a comparatively thick circuit wall, the two circular burial chambers of Apesokari are among the examples considered by Pelon as likely candidates for a full stone vault (Pelon 1976, 55–63; 1994, 173–183). The proponents of the stone vault hypothesis often draw inspiration from traditional shepherds’ huts, known in Crete as mitata (μιτάτα), to reconstruct the appearance of Minoan tholos tombs (e.g., Xanthoudides 1924; Warren 1973, 2007; Branigan 1994; Papadopoulos 2010). Traditional mitata are covered by a corbeled vault but when seen from the outside take the shape of a truncated cone topped by a low stone mound (Syrmakezis 1988). Their inner diameters range from 3.50 to 6.50 m, and the largest known examples are 4.50 m high. Two mitata were studied in detail by Warren (1973) and Branigan (1994). The first had an inner diameter of 4.00 m and peaked at 3.60 m, whereas the second had a diameter of 2.20 m and a height of 2.00 m. Even though the first was almost twice as large as the second, the ratio between the inner diameter and the height remained ca. 10:9 in both cases. This ratio of course does not apply to all mitata but is nevertheless of interest to obtain a guesstimate of the original height of the two tholoi at Apesokari, if they were indeed even covered by a corbeled vault. With an inner diameter of 4.85 m, Tholos A can in this way be assigned an estimated height of 4.40 m, whereas Tholos B (dia. 5.70 m) would have been ca. 5.10 m high. Based on these assumptions, a cumulative viewshed was calculated for each of the two tombs to test their intervisibility. A cumulative viewshed is “the map algebraic sum of two or more binary single viewshed maps” (Conolly and Lake 2006, 227). The analysis conducted at Apesokari did not make use of multiple viewpoints spread across the landscape as is generally the case in cumulative viewsheds. Instead, the center of each circular chamber was used as a single viewpoint, with the viewer offset being gradually increased from 0 to 4.40 m for Tholos A and from 0 to 5.10 m for Tholos B (increment

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interval 0.10 m). A total of 45 viewsheds thus were calculated for Tholos A, while 52 viewsheds were generated for Tholos B. The goal was twofold: (1) to define the maximum extent of the viewshed based on the estimated height of the tomb; and (2) to propose the minimum height that the stone vault must have reached to be visible from each cell forming part of this viewshed. In this way, the cumulative viewshed analysis provides information as to how much of the tomb was visible and from which locations in the landscape. To obtain realistic results, a landscape offset of 1.50 m was added to account for the position of the eyes of an average-sized Minoan adult (McGeorge 1988; Triantaphyllou 2012) moving in the surroundings and looking toward the tombs. The analyses were carried out in ArcGIS 10.3, using a 5.00 m resolution DEM created from stereo aerial photos. The results of the cumulative viewshed analyses (Figs. 5, 6) leave little doubt as to the absence of intervisibility between the two tombs. With a height of 4.40 m, Tholos A cannot be seen from Tholos B (Fig. 5). In fact, according to the result of the aboveground-level analysis, Tholos A should peak at no less than ca. 6.00 m in order to be visible to an individual standing next to Tholos B. Even if Tholos A was that height, which seems unlikely, the viewer would only have caught a glimpse of the very top of the roof, and the burial structure would thus have had a minimal visual impact when seen from Tholos B. The invisibility of Tholos B from Tholos A is even clearer, not to say indisputable: the above-groundlevel analysis indicates that the vault of Tholos B was not visible from the courtyard of Tholos A unless it reached a minimum height of 17.90 m. From a visual perspective, the two tholos tombs were therefore clearly independent from each other. This absence of intervisibility may have contributed to keeping the two burial communities apart and stressing their distinct identities.

Visual Incentives for Placing Tholos A at Apesokari Analyses presented elsewhere suggest that, just as was the case for most tholos tombs, visibility played a central role in the decision-making process that

guided the locations of Tholos A and Tholos B (Déderix 2015a, 2015b). When compared to their 500.00-meter-radius neighborhood, both tombs appear to occupy settings that afford particularly large viewsheds. This implies that they had a commanding view of their surroundings, and that they were visually prominent in their local landscape. It is, nonetheless, remarkable that the visual impact of Tholos A would have been amplified even more if it had been built ca. 50.00 m farther east, on top of the ridge (Fig. 7). And, most importantly, Tholos A and Tholos B in that case would have been visible from each other. The location chosen for Tholos A therefore indicates that intervisibility with the old Tholos B was not sought by the builders of the new tomb. But then, one wonders which visual concerns (if any) guided the placement of Tholos A. There is little doubt that the answer is related to the oddly inconvenient topographic setting of the burial structure. Tholos A at Apesokari is an unusual example in the corpus of Minoan tholos tombs in that its main chamber was constructed on a sloping bedrock ledge overlooking the lower west slope of the hill of Plakoura/Plakouria (see Nelson and Flouda, this vol., Ch. 4, pp. 15–17, 20). Builders seem to have cared about erecting the circular chamber at this precise location, even at the risk of jeopardizing the stability of the tomb. In addition, because of the limited space available, the annex rooms had to be constructed on a higher level of bedrock, resulting in a configuration attested nowhere else on the island. But why was this particular spot so meaningful? Could it be that the builders aimed at ensuring visibility from and/or to a specific landscape feature, which would not have been the case if Tholos A had been built just a few dozen meters away? Three hypotheses are examined below.

Hypothesis 1: Linking the Houses of the Living and the Dead As mentioned above, the association between cemeteries and settlements in Prepalatial South-Central Crete is unclear. Yet it cannot be denied that tholos tombs are often (although by no means always) intervisible with nearby habitation sites (Déderix 2014, 209–210). This is the case at Hagia Triada, Hagia Kyriaki, Megaloi Skinoi West, Moni Odigitria,

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Megaloi Skinoi East, Lasaia, Trypiti Kalokampos, and Koumasa (Fig. 1:3–6, 8, 10, 11, 26, 29, respectively). The most striking example is Moni Odigitria (Fig. 1:6), where several farmsteads and hamlets on top of hills and ridges that overlook the cemetery have been recorded (Branigan and Vasilakis 2010b). These small habitation sites were not all occupied simultaneously, but their distribution seems to indicate that there was a tendency for the living to visually command, and in this way control, the dead. Conversely, the houses were visible on the skyline when looking up from the cemetery. Intervisibility both reflected and strengthened the links between the living and the tombs, and by extension the deceased. In cases such as Christos (Fig. 1:24) and Vasiliki (Fig. 1:27, 28) where information currently available suggests that the settlement was established after the tholos tomb was abandoned (Xanthoudides 1924, 74; Rutkowski 1989), proximity and intervisibility could have been specifically intended to connect with the immemorial monument and its occupants and thereby establish a link with the local past. At Apesokari, the Vigla Building is compatible with Tholos A from a chronological point of view, given that both were probably founded at some point in EM III. Quite surprisingly, however, the domestic building and Tholos A were invisible from each other, whereas the wider settlement and Tholos A maintained a weak visual relationship (Fig. 5). Depending on their height and exact location on the rocky summit, some of the houses in the settlement may have been visible partially from Tholos A, but the tomb itself could be seen only from the northern and western edges of the settlement. Even the older Tholos B had stronger visual connections with the settlement, being visible from its northeastern sector (Fig. 6). As emphasized earlier, it is unknown whether the burial community of Tholos A indeed resided in this (and only this) settlement, but on present evidence, the tomb does not appear to have been positioned in the landscape so as to be intervisible with the houses of the living.

Hypothesis 2: Negotiating Territorial Rights Figure 8 illustrates that the two tholoi at Apesokari are concealed from each other, and that their

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viewsheds overlap very little at the near distance. Thus, an individual walking in the vicinity would only have caught sight of both tombs when standing on the low ridge that rises to the east of Tholos A or when approaching the hill from the north. Conversely, the ridge blocks the view to such an extent that the two tombs exert visual control over distinct portions of the local landscape. The pattern is not dissimilar to that observed in the Hagiofarango Valley, where cemeteries of tholos tombs were founded at Hagia Kyriaki (Fig. 1:4), Megaloi Skinoi West (Fig. 1:5), Moni Odigitria (Fig. 1:6), and Megaloi Skinoi East (Fig. 1:8) in EM I. Each of these four cemeteries and its close surroundings are invisible from the other three (Fig. 9) in such a way that the landscape is subdivided into distinct visual niches. Visibility is one of the means by which control can be achieved (Wheatley 1995; Llobera 2003; WinterLivneh, Svoray, and Gilead 2012), and each burial site in the Hagiofarango Valley seems to visually delineate its own territory. Four decades ago, John Bintliff convincingly argued that Prepalatial tholoi functioned as territorial markers in the lower catchment of the valley, explicitly bonding “the land, the kin and the dead ancestors” (1977, vol. 2, 636). The ethnographic literature abounds with examples of corporate groups making use of cemeteries to claim lineal descent from the dead and thereby attain or legitimize control of “crucial but restricted resources” (Saxe 1970, 119; Goldstein 1981, 61). One type of resource is quality agricultural land (Saxe 1970; Bloch 1971; Renfrew 1976; Chapman 1981; Goldstein 1981; Glazier 1984; Shipton 1984; Chapman 1995; Williams 1999; Winter-Livneh, Svoray, and Gilead 2012). The placement of burial sites can therefore be instrumental in determining, demonstrating, and strengthening the rights of the living over a given territory, especially in a context of land pressure. In this sense, it is remarkable that the tombs of Hagia Kyriaki (Fig. 1:4), Megaloi Skinoi West (Fig. 1:5), and Megaloi Skinoi East (Fig. 1:8) are distributed around the main patches of arable land that exist in this marginal landscape (Bintliff 1977, vol. 2, 636; Blackman and Branigan 1977, fig. 34). In the Hagiofarango Valley, the visual pattern thus reinforces the hypothesis that tholos tombs marked particular land holdings and linked the associated groups to the parcels they exploited at the

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beginning of the Bronze Age. But could such an interpretation apply to Apesokari as well, when Tholos A was built during the late Prepalatial period only 220.00 m from the ancestral Tholos B, on a rocky hill itself unsuitable for cultivation but overlooking the Mesara Plain? The Mesara is the largest expanse of arable land in modern Crete, which does not conform to the idea of fertile land being a scarce resource in the area. Yet several lines of evidence are indicative of an increase in population, competitive strategies, and pressure on land resources in late Prepalatial Crete (Manning 1994, 234–236; Relaki 2009; Sbonias 2010a, 2010b, 2011; Legarra Herrero 2011). Examining the case of the Mesara Plain, Borja Legarra Herrero argues that the boom of architectural, depositional, and ritual activities in cemeteries of tholos tombs in EM III–MM IA testifies to new social dynamics probably related to demographic growth (Legarra Herrero 2014, 61–63). Unfortunately, no data are available on the evolution of settlement patterns and land use around Apesokari. The hypothesis that the construction of Tholos A contributed to affirm title to land in a context of intensification of agricultural practices can thus neither be confirmed nor refuted. But if this hypothesis were confirmed, two opposite scenarios could be suggested regarding the motivations for building a second tholos tomb at Apesokari: the decision could have been made within the framework of either competitive or, on the contrary, collaborative strategies of exploitation of the local landscape. On one hand, Tholos A could have been constructed by a newly established group competing with the users of Tholos B who settled at Apesokari centuries earlier, or at least claimed so by burying their dead in the ancient tomb. Intervisibility and overlap between the field of view of the tombs in this context could have been intentionally avoided to emphasize the independence of the two burial communities and demarcate their respective territory. On the other hand, it is equally possible that the burial community of Tholos B was involved in, or at least supported the construction of Tholos A. Its motivation could have been to expand visual control over arable land toward the northwest, an area invisible from Tholos B. This second scenario is not unlike that proposed for the Chalcolithic Southern Levant (Winter-Livneh, Svoray, and Gilead 2012), where spatial and visual patterns suggest that offsite secondary burial cemeteries were purposefully

located to enlarge the size of the area visible from habitation sites and thereby claimed tenure over a larger territory in a period characterized by demographic growth and agricultural intensification. Considering that the late Prepalatial was a period of nucleation in Crete (Manning 1994, 234–236; Haggis 1999; Watrous, Hadzi-Vallianou, and Blitzer, eds., 2004, 253; Branigan and Vasilakis 2010a, 267), new claims to land tenure at Apesokari could have been concomitant with changes in local settlement patterns. Donald Haggis notes that “there seems to have been a general tendency for populations to gather and grow in single villages or centers or to cluster in distinct but limited arable environments” (Haggis 1999, 67). Any hypothesis regarding Apesokari will remain conjectural in the absence of survey data as well as extensive excavation data from the settlement. However, it is not impossible that the construction of the Vigla Building in EM III was related to such a (small-scale) nucleation process. Habitation units previously dispersed in the surroundings would have merged and settled on the hill of Vigla, either forming a new settlement (if the excavated building on Vigla belongs to the first phase of habitation on the hill) or extending an existing settlement (if the few EM IIA sherds found by Schörgendorfer correspond to an older occupation phase of the hill). A segment of this new or enlarged village community would have continued to use (or reuse) the ancestral Tholos B, while another invested in the construction of a new burial structure ca. 200.00 m to the west.

Hypothesis 3: Overlooking Communication Networks A third possible incentive for the placement of Tholos A could have been intervisibility with communication networks. It is indeed striking that, perched as it is on a rocky ledge on the west side of the hill, Tholos A overlooks the modern road that leads south to the villages of Miamou, Krotos, and Lendas. Today, this road is one of three asphalt arteries that cross the Asterousia from north to south, connecting the Mesara Plain and the south coast. Following this line of approach, viewshed analyses were computed to model the visual relationship between Tholos A and optimal corridors of movement.

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Figure 10 illustrates a hierarchical communication network that was created for South-Central Crete based on the distribution of tholos tombs. A hierarchical communication network builds on a focal mobility network, a procedure designed to model cost-efficient paths leading to a given destination from the entire study area rather than from a single starting point, as is the case with leastcost paths (Fábrega-Álvarez 2006; Llobera, FábregaÁlvarez, and Parcero-Oubiña 2011). Figure 10 was produced by calculating a focal mobility network for each tholos tomb cemetery in South-Central Crete, summing up the resulting paths and calculating their density, and reclassifying the values to distinguish major, secondary, and minor paths (for a detailed description of the method, see Déderix 2016, 2017). Experiments demonstrated that the procedure models optimal paths in a manner that is somewhat balanced by the distribution of known archaeological sites (Déderix 2016). In this way, a hierarchical communication network represents a middle-way between simulations that are strictly constrained by the distribution of the sites—thereby offering limited insights into general patterns of movement—and those that disregard available cultural data during the computation of the paths, adopting in this way an environmentally deterministic approach to past movement. According to the hierarchical communication network illustrated in Figure 10, a major path enters the mountains ca. 600.00 m west of Apesokari (Fig. 10:7, 8) and gives access to Hagios Kyrillos (Fig. 10:3), which is itself at a major crossroad between paths leading in all directions. However, the model also outlines a secondary, or minor path that deviates from the major path and runs south–east, climbing up the hill of Vigla and leading to Miamou (Fig. 10:6), from where travelers can bifurcate toward the west (i.e., to Hagios Kyrillos; Fig. 10:3) or toward the east (i.e., to Krotos; Fig. 10:9) and then to Trypiti Kalokampos (Fig. 10:11) or Lebena (Fig. 10:2, 4, 5). This hierarchical mobility network was created using a 20.00 m resolution DEM constructed by SPOT satellite stereoscopic images (courtesy of the Laboratory of Geophysical-Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeo-environment, Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas [FORTH]). If it provides insight into potential movement patterns at the regional scale, the resolution of the DEM is

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too coarse to produce relevant results at the local scale. To meet the local goals pursued in this chapter, an additional mobility network was calculated based on the same 5.00 m DEM used for the viewsheds analyses. To minimize processing time, the study area was limited to a 3.00 km radius around Apesokari. The methodology involved (1) generating a grid of points spaced 1.00 km apart, (2) computing a focal mobility network for each of these points, and (3) calculating the density of paths thus created in order to highlight natural corridors of movement. Figure 11 outlines the main optimal paths around Apesokari in a more precise manner than in Figure 10. It suggests that the optimal path connecting the Mesara and Miamou (Fig. 10:6) via Apesokari runs across the valley below Tholos A before climbing up the slope, passing through the southwest corner of the Vigla settlement, and continuing up the mountains. As illustrated in Figure 12, Tholos A visually controls the valley through which this path runs, while being well visible from it. This would not have been the case if the tomb had been established ca. 50.00 m farther east (Fig. 7). As a matter of fact, the visual impact of the tholos tomb would have been reduced even if the circular chamber had been erected in the place of the annex (Fig. 13). The joint examination of movement and visibility patterns therefore supports the hypothesis that Tholos A was positioned to be intervisible with a path leading up the hill of Vigla and connecting the Mesara Plain with the central Asterousia.

Discussion Results of the GIS analyses discussed above demonstrate that the builders of Tholos A did not seek intervisibility with Tholos B and/or the settlement on the hill of Vigla. Hypotheses 2 and 3 are, on the contrary, both possible and actually not mutually exclusive. Tholos A could have been positioned to overlook the path below and at the same time visually control arable land. Nevertheless, it is Hypothesis 3 that best explains why the tomb was constructed on the sloping bedrock ledge rather than just a few meters east: the burial community apparently

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intended to visually connect Tholos A to patterns of movement. Indeed, building the circular chamber on the flatter ground where the rectangular annex was constructed would have altered intervisibility with arable land in the plain to a lesser extent than it would have limited the visual impact of the tomb as seen from the optimal path at the foot of the hill (Fig. 13). Located on the bedrock ledge, Tholos A was thus visually connected to a natural corridor of movement leading from the Mesara Plain to the area of Miamou and onward through the settlement on the hill of Vigla. This observation has significant implications both locally and regionally. Locally it implies that a traveler coming from the Mesara Plain visually encountered Tholos A before reaching the settlement. If the two sites were indeed associated, the tomb may even have functioned as a waypoint guiding movement toward the settlement while constituting a powerful statement of the identity (and perhaps the territorial rights) of the community. At the regional level, the visual connection between Tholos A and a path linking the Mesara Plain, the Asterousia Mountains, and the south coast is even more significant: it adds to a growing body of evidence that during the late Prepalatial period, scales of interconnection broadened, and the small local communities of South-Central Crete became better embedded within regional and interregional networks of interaction than they were during the early Prepalatial period. One line of evidence that new scales of social interaction took form in EM III–MM IA comes from the distribution of prestige goods among tholos tombs. During the late Prepalatial period, specialized craft production grew in intensity, and increased contacts with Egypt and the Near East resulted in the arrival of raw materials (e.g., gold, ivory, semiprecious stones), ideas (e.g., imagery), technology (e.g., faience), and occasionally finished products (e.g., Egyptian stone vases and scarabs; Bevan 2003; 2004; 2007, 94–99; Watrous, HadziVallianou, and Blitzer, eds., 2004, 257–258; Schoep 2006; Ferrence 2007; Colburn 2008, 2011; Phillips 2008; Cherry 2009; Wiener 2013). Exotica and other prestige items found wider distribution in the cemeteries of South-Central Crete than they did in EM IIA, when the Cycladic-related grave goods that reached the region were monopolized by the communities of Koumasa and Platanos. This is, for

instance, illustrated by the distribution of copper daggers: during the late Prepalatial period, the manufacture and consumption of these items were dominated by Hagia Triada and Platanos, but isolated examples found their way into the tombs of Porti, Kalathiana, Moni Odigitria, Marathokefalo, and Lebena (Watrous, Hadzi-Vallianou, and Blitzer, eds., 2004, 257). It is, however, Prepalatial glyptics that provide the most compelling evidence for changes in scales of interaction and integration between EM II and MM I (Sbonias 1995, 1999, 2010a, 2010b, 2011; Anderson 2016). Early Minoan II seals were carved in bone and soft stones within the framework of a geographically decentralized production (Sbonias 1999, 40; 2010a, 317–318). They were manufactured in multiple workshops, some of which were associated with small peripheral communities, and their homogeneity and simplicity suggest the existence of a common tradition covering South-Central, NorthCentral, and East Crete. In contrast, the fine ivory seals of the EM III–MM IA Early period were highly valued, emblematic goods produced by skilled craft specialists (Sbonias 2010a, 319–321). Their distribution followed a hierarchical pattern, with the sites of Platanos, Marathokefalo, Moni Odigitria, Hagia Triada, and perhaps Koumasa dominating both production and consumption. Settlements that hosted these workshops functioned as “local micro-centers” (Sbonias 1999, 42) that nevertheless exported isolated ivory seals of high quality to peripheral sites such as Lebena, Porti, Krotos, Hagios Kyrillos, Miamou, Sivas, and Kalathiana. Early Minoan III–MM IA Early sphragistic evidence therefore indicates that “some of the outlying minor local communities were more clearly embedded in networks of the wider region, in a more dependent socio-economic structure” (Sbonias 2010a, 319). As emphasized by Emily Anderson (2016), the changes noted in seal production and consumption formed part of a broader trend that saw the small communities of Crete beginning to engage in new scales and processes of collectivity. The late Prepalatial period was indeed marked by the foundation of peak sanctuaries and the construction of large court-centered complexes, both of which were extra-local venues where small communities could gather and build a sense of commonality (Anderson 2016, e.g., 25–41). The case of Phaistos (Todaro 2011, 2013) is telling in this respect: a large building

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project took place in EM III that radically transformed the appearance of the Palace Hill and refined its identity as a place of collective significance (Todaro 2011, 212–214; 2013; Anderson 2016, 28). In fact, the integrative effect of peak sanctuaries and court-centered complexes extended beyond the boundaries of the sites themselves, as movement toward these regional gathering places also contributed to the creation of a shared intercommunity landscape (Anderson 2016, 142–143). As pilgrims and other travelers walked away from their familiar pathways, they encountered multiple small, local communities and perhaps traveled together with members of these communities. On the way, they shared stories, news, and experience, and in this way actively participated in the development of new scales of collectivity. Of particular significance is that the location of tholos tombs along optimal paths also supports the picture of broadening networks of interaction in late Prepalatial South-Central Crete (Déderix 2016, 2017). Early Minoan I tholos tombs are mostly found in the southern Asterousia Mountains near secondary and minor branches of the hierarchical communication network (Fig. 10; Déderix 2017, 27–28). The spatial pattern thus suggests that the associated communities were more concerned with small- rather than long-distance connections, hence emphasizing the local preoccupations that drove the construction of the first tombs. Several tholoi were constructed in the Mesara Plain in EM II, which is also when interregional systems of exchange developed in the Aegean (Broodbank 2000, 276–287; Papadatos 2007; Renfrew 2011). However, the distribution of Cycladic-like items indicates that the southern Asterousia remained peripheral to long-distance networks of exchange. The situation was perhaps related to the scarcity of EM II tholos tombs in the northern Asterousia, which left the southern Asterousia spatially distant from the Mesara communities that monopolized access to these networks. The gap was only filled during the late Prepalatial period with the foundation of the cemeteries of Sopata Kouse (Fig. 10:1), Miamou (Fig. 10:6), Hagios Kyrillos (Fig. 10:3), and Christos (Fig. 10:10; Xanthoudides 1924, 72; Sakellarakis 1968; Branigan 1993, 146–147; Goodison and Guarita 2005, 187). Remarkably enough, Sopata Kouse, Miamou, Hagios Kyrillos, and, to a lesser extent, Christos are located near major branches

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of the hierarchical communication network. Sopata Kouse stands right along a path between the Mesara and the Asterousia, Hagios Kyrillos is at a major crossroad in the central Asterousia, Miamou is along the major path crossing the mountains from east to west, and Christos is on a slope overlooking a natural corridor between the eastern Mesara and the south coast (Déderix 2017, 28). In all, Tholos A at Apesokari appears to be but one of several tombs, the locations of which testify to a greater interest in movement between the Mesara, the Asterousia, and the coast in EM III–MM IA. Tholos Tomb A and the tombs at Hagios Kyrillos, Miamou, and Sopata Kouse are similar not only in optimal paths but also in architecture. Contrary to other tholos tombs where annex rooms were gradually added as the need arose, these four tombs are preceded by a large rectangular complex subdivided into multiple rooms by inner partition walls. The regular layout of the annexes of Tholos A, Hagios Kyrillos, Miamou, and Sopata Kouse departs from the irregular, agglutinative building pattern of other tombs in the region (Flouda 2011, 113). And more important here, it stresses the distinctive character of these four burial structures, which form a coherent architectural group among Prepalatial tholos tombs. It seems therefore no coincidence that the four were constructed along natural corridors of movement at a time characterized by increased regional and interregional interactions.

Conclusion The placement of a cemetery is the result of a compromise between different criteria of significance to the associated community. Among these criteria, the location of the settlement(s) occupied by the burial community is undoubtedly of primary importance. To avoid physical and symbolic pollution, the deceased must be kept away from the living. It is unusual, however, for human groups to travel long distances to establish burial grounds meant to be reused and revisited over generations. In Apesokari, it has been argued in this chapter that, within the buffer zone deemed acceptable relative to the location of habitation site(s), Tholos Tomb A was specifically positioned on an

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inconvenient bedrock ledge so as to be intervisible with an optimal communication artery passing below. Building the circular chamber of Tholos A only a few meters farther east would have decreased its visual impact as seen from this route, which connected the Mesara Plain, the Asterousia Mountains, and the south coast. The builders of Tholos A thus appear to have sought intervisibility with regional communication networks to the detriment of visual connections with the old Tholos Tomb B and the settlement on the hill of Vigla.

Tholos A at Apesokari is not a tomb that has yielded numerous exotic grave goods. Its assemblage is in fact unremarkable in that respect. Yet the visual connection between Tholos A and a regional path as well as architectural and spatial similarities with the tombs of Hagios Kyrillos, Miamou, and Sopata Kouse suggest that the population of Apesokari formed part of a larger and more diversified network of interaction that developed during the late Prepalatial period.

6

Clay and Stone Finds from Tholos Tomb A Georgia Flouda

The following catalog presents all pottery and stone objects with a secure provenance from Tholos Tomb A. The prefix identifies the object type: (P) pottery— that is, clay vases and fragments of vases; (SI) stone idols; and (SV) stone vases. The major organizational principle of the catalog is morphological, although distinctions of fabrics and wares are also stressed. In order to employ a functional approach, all clay vessels are also arranged according to their different possible functions based on shape (see also Warren 2004, 26). At a second level, all objects are grouped via a contextual approach centered on their distribution in specific spaces. Although no undisturbed or sealed levels can be securely identified, as is usually the case with tholos tombs, the chronological arrangement of the objects on the basis of typological traits allows us to draw hypotheses on relevant temporal patterns of their possible use in the burial context. The published clay vessels from Tholos Tomb A were restored again by the conservator Irene Krasagaki, as the use of fish glue in their restoration after World War II had resulted in breakage. All clay

vessels are illustrated, except for those that could not be identified among the material stored in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion. From the numerous missing sherds of fine ware straight-sided, carinated, and rounded cups mentioned in the preliminary publication, it can be deduced that the ceramic material was either heavily selected during the excavation or mixed with the material from the Vigla Building when it was stored in the Herakleion museum Scientific Collection. A few examples of fragments of unpublished larnakes were differentiated from the material recovered from the Vigla Building because they were stored with the stone idol (SI1) from Tholos A (see Flouda, this vol., Ch. 3, p. 13). General observations on the typology and chronology of the clay and stone artifacts are made in the final discussion at the end of Part II (Flouda, this vol., Ch. 14). The ceramic wares represented are Plain, Monochrome, Dark-on-Light, Light-on-Dark, Polychrome, and Barbotine; these wares are typical for the Late Prepalatial and Protopalatial periods in the Mesara. The terminology on pottery follows

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the discussions by J. Alexander MacGillivray (2007, 109–112) and Nicoletta Momigliano (2007, 84–93) and the systematic reviews of the Mesara pottery wares and styles by Aleydis Van de Moortel (1997; 2006a), Simona Todaro (2009a; 2009–2010; 2013), Ilaria Caloi (2011b; 2013, 78–165), and Giorgia Baldacci (2017a, 158–179). With the exception of fragmentary pieces and a few pieces of larnakes, the catalog numbers are also related to Herakleion museum inventory numbers. Measurements are always in centimeters (cm) unless otherwise stated; the height is measured to the rim. Unless stated otherwise, rim diameter of the vessels refers to exterior rim diameter. The color of pottery fabrics was identified with Munsell Soil Color Charts (Munsell Color 2009). Coil-built vessels have coils thinned and are roughly shaped with rotative kinetic energy (RKE), hence wheel coiling “methods 1 and 2” (Jeffra 2013, 35–37, table 2, fig. 5). In the drawings, the convention used for polychrome decoration is dots for white and stippling for red, orange, and/or purple.

Burial Chamber A few drinking and pouring vessels (P1, P2, and some unidentified coil-built Plain ware handleless cups; see Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15–16) that escaped the looting of the burial chamber, along with two special clay vessels (P4, P5), date the earliest burial horizon of the tholos to the MM IA–IB ceramic phases. In particular, the unidentified handleless cups could possibly belong to any point from EM III Late to MM IB, as most cups recovered from Room D do, whereas a jug with a cutaway spout (P3) probably marks the latest burial use of the tholos. Three stone vessels (SV1–SV3) are datable to EM III–MM IB according to typological comparanda. All clay vessels from the burial chamber are made of fine buff and tempered buff fabrics, and their color ranges from pink (7.5YR 7/4 and 5YR 8/3) to reddish yellow (7.5YR 7/6) and light reddish brown (7.5YR 6/4); reddish yellow (5YR 6/6 to 7/6) also occurs occasionally.

Clay Drinking and Pouring Vessels Two handleless cups were not traced among the stored material and thus not inventoried, but they

are mentioned by the excavator. (Fine light brown fabric. Dims. of one: h. 5.30; dia. rim 7.80; dia. base ca. 4.00 cm. Coil built. No slip. Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15–16. Date: probably EM III Late–MM IB). P1 (HM P33428; Fig. 14; Pl. 14). Miniature beaked juglet; complete, mended spout. H. 6.4 (to end of spout), 5.5 (to handle); max. dia. body 5.6; dia. base 3.5 cm. Fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Hand-built, low­-bellied globular shape, wide neck, cylindrical handle starts at spout and ends almost at base. Polychrome ware, similar to the Knossian Woven Style. Brown worn paint, sponge marks, traces of red band on neck, possibly also red paint on spout, top of shoulder, base of handle, and base (not rendered in the drawing but documented by Schörgendorfer: 1951b, 15, pl. 4.2). Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15, pls. 4.2, 19.1. Date: MM IA– MM IB Early; Walberg (1983, 97) dates it to EM III. P2 (HM P33429; Fig. 14; Pl. 14). Straight-sided cup; complete, mended handle and parts of rim and body. H. 4.6; max. dia. rim 7.0; dia. base 4.4 cm. Fine buff fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4). Wheel coiling method 2, concave profile. Polychrome ware. Woven Style black lustrous slipped surface decorated with linear vertical lines in thick, powdery white framed by bands of red and orange paint. The decoration is similar to that of P1, although the vertical lines here are slightly wavy. Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15, pls. 4.1, 19.2. Comparanda: type C examples from a ceramic deposit at Archanes (Lahanas 2004, 68, 70, fig. 11:c) and Knossos (Zois 1965, pl. 27:HM P4383; MacGillivray 2007, 114, fig. 4.6:1, also fig. 4.9 in the accompanying CD; cf. straight-sided cup type 2 from the Early Chamber beneath the West Court Group) help to assign it to the Mature MM IB phase (see Caloi 2009, 403, Phaistos Phase B). The decoration corresponds closely to that of some jugs and jars from the Hagia Triada pottery group of “camerette” (cf. Banti 1930–1931, 181, fig. 42, pl. XVIIID:C.4035); for other comparanda from the Mesara, see Xanthoudides 1924, pl. XLVI:5714; Levi 1976, pls. 127c:F1367, 127e:F1370. Date: MM IB Mature. P3 (HM P33430; Fig. 14; Pl. 14). Jug with cutaway spout; restored. H. 11.1 (at end of spout); dia. base 3.6 cm. Fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Wheel coiling method 2, coil-joins visible on exterior; globular shape, tapering lower body, rounded vertical handle pushed into rim of spout. Plain and Dark-on-Light (DOL) ware, clay surface burnished and heavily flaked. Traces of yellowish slip on spout, possible traces of a wide DOL band at midbody. Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15, pl. 20.4. Comparanda: Phaistos (Levi 1976, 273, fig. 427:F1381 top row, center; Levi and Carinci 1988, pl. 35:g [F454]; Carinci 2011, 48, fig. 27:m); Tholos A at Vorou (Marinatos 1930–1931, 162, fig. 24 top row, second from left; cf. HM P8773); Knossos Royal Pottery Stores Group, rare MM IIA type 2 (MacGillivray 2007, 128–130, fig. 4.19:2). Date: MM IIA.

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Special Clay Vessels P4 (HM P33431; Fig. 14; Pl. 14). Large pedestaled lamp; lower part of foot restored, edges of plate broken off, and traces of fire on plate. Pres. h. foot 9.7; max. th. plate 1.7 cm. Tempered buff gritty fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/6) with sandwich core, very distinctive of Phaistos X (Todaro 2009a); semi fine, hard fired. Coil built, conical carinated and concave foot, raised ring at bottom of the shallow plate, another one at lower end of foot. DOL ware. Traces of wide horizontal band of dark reddish-brown paint (5YR 3/2) preserved on the carination of the foot. Bibl.: previously unpublished; Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15. Comparanda: Phaistos in MM IA (Todaro 2009a, 129, fig. 12:m with similar surface treatment); Knossos (MacGillivray 1998, 87, fig. 2.24:1, 2); MM IB Lakkos deposit at Petras (Haggis 2007, 747, fig. 23f). Date: MM IA? P5 (HM P33432; Fig. 14). Cup lamp; one-half preserved, restored. H. 5.2; w. (int.) 5.5; dia. base ca. 5.0 cm. Tempered buff gritty fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 6/6). Wheel coiling method 2, string marks on base, horizontal handle, two lugs on rim. Monochrome ware, interior and exterior brown-reddish paint (yellowish red, 5YR 4/6). Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 16. Comparanda: Caloi 2013, pl. XXVIII. Date: MM IB.

Stone Vessels SV1 (HM unnumbered; Fig. 14; Pl. 14). Bird’s-nest bowl; one fragment, rim and upper body to shoulder. Pres. h. 2.9; w. 7.1; max. dia. rim 9.0; th. rim 0.3 cm. Limestone, pale to medium gray in pale brown matrix. Surface smooth and even; no work marks survived because it was treated with acid in the past. Corresponds to stone vessel MSV type 3 (Warren 1969, 7–11). Bibl.: previously unpublished; Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15. Comparanda: the size, internal dimensions, and type of stone are typical of EM III–MM I examples found predominantly in the Mesara (Prepalatial tholos at Siva: HM L1137–L1138) and at Pseira (HM L2268; Zervos 1956, pl. 148, center and left; Warren 1969, cf. no. P17; possibly from Pseira: no. 26.31.431, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The undercut interior is characteristic of MM I stone vessels such as examples from Platanos and Malia (Warren 1969, 10; cf. nos. D7 [HM L1801], D11 [HM L2426]). Date: MM I. SV2 (HM L2795; Fig. 14; Pl. 14). Tall bowl; most of body and rim restored. H. 4.5; dia. rim 4.1; dia. base 3.0; max. dia. 5.8 cm. Dark green serpentinite, as established through Raman spectroscopy (Flouda et al. 2012, 47; Tsikouras, this vol., App. B), rather than chlorite (Warren 1969, 24). Horizontal work marks. Corresponds to MSV type 8, which is broadly datable from EM IIB to MM I/II (Warren 1969, 22, 24, 218; cf. type F, e.g., nos. D76, P122 from Mochlos). Bibl.: previously unpublished; Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15. Comparanda: two examples from

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Platanos (Xanthoudides 1924, pl. LIII:HM L1878; Gerontakou 2003, 312, no. 27); one from Moni Odigitria (Evely 2010, 172, fig. 74:SV11); one from the early cemetery at Pseira (Warren 1969, no. P133 [HM L1154]); one from Kamilari Tholos A at Grigori Koriphi (Levi 1961–1962, 92, fig. 120C.g.); and one from Hagios Charalambos Cave (Dierckx 2014, 74, no. 119 [HNM 11,846]). Although it is mainly a funerary class of stone vessels, it also occurs in the palace and House A at Malia (HM L2236 [cf. Warren 1969, no. P132] and HM L2248 [Demargne and de Santerre 1953, 18, pl. X]). Date: EM III–MM IB. SV3 (HM L2798; Fig. 14; Pl. 14). Lid; complete. Dia. 4.5; dia. handle 1.7 cm. Dark green serpentinite, a material common for lids of the EM II Late–MM IB/II group (cf. Warren 1969, 68, 218, type 27 I B). Conical knob handle, flange on the underside, may match bowl SV2 judging from the similar stone type, although they do not fit together well. Bibl.: previously unpublished; Schörgendorfer 1951b, 15. Comparanda: lid HM L1275bis from Mochlos (Seager 1912, fig.47:M21 with a different handle). Date: EM III–MM IB.

Room D With the exception of the pots published and illustrated in the preliminary report, the excavator also mentions numerous handleless cups of fine and semi-coarse fabric, the exact number of which he does not specify. Of the pots discussed, a restored handleless cup of DOL ware (Schörgendorfer 1951b, pl. 19:8) and another handleless cup could not be identified, and they thus were not cataloged. Schörgendorfer also notes numerous handleless cups and a partially preserved conical bowl similar in shape to a complete example from Room E but larger (1951b, 17, pl. 22.4), which was not traced in the storeroom. The assumption that these cups were preserved mostly intact because of the thickness of the deposit of Room D makes it possible to identify them with the 105 complete or restored examples stored in the Herakleion museum Scientific Collection, along with the best-preserved objects of the tomb’s assemblage. Unless otherwise noted, all handleless cups in the following catalog belong to Plain ware.

Clay Drinking and Pouring Vessels P6 (HM P33433; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Miniature handleless cup; complete, mended rim. H. 3.50; dia. rim 5.00;

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max. dia. base 3.16 cm. Gritty hard fabric (light reddish brown, 7.5YR 6/4) with medium- and large-sized grits. Coil built, burnished exterior. Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 17. Comparanda: Levi 1976, pl. 16:p (3444b); also, Papadatos 1999, 13, 21:V6 (EM III “footless goblet”); Todaro 2009‒2010, 12, 18, fig. 11, top row, right. Date: EM III Middle–Late? P7 (HM P33434; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Beaked teapot; mended handle. Max. h. (at top of spout) 8.7; h. body 6.2; h. neck 5.0; dia. rim 4.8; dia. base 6.0; max. L. spout 7.5 cm. Fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Coil built, low neck, molded rim, mended cylindrical handle, vertical opposite spout. Reddish brown (2.5YR 4/4) slip exterior, no traces of light-on-dark (LOD) decoration survive. Comparanda: its biconical body with simple base recalls comparanda from Patrikies (Walberg 1983, 97, cf. type 166:13), Phaistos (Levi 1976, pls. 15a:F2141, 15c:F2139, 15d:F2117; La Rosa 2002, 778, fig. 288:F7636), and Tholos Tomb I at Lebena Papoura (Alexiou and Warren 2004, 43, fig. 9:133). Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 17, pl. 19.6. Date: EM III Late. P8 (HM P33435; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 4.9–5.1; max. dia. rim 8.2; dia. base 4.3 cm. Medium-fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/6) with very small grits. Coil built. DOL ware. Assymetrical flaky band (reddish brown, 2.5YR 4/4) starting at rim and finishing below midbody (h. 3.8–4.5 cm), faint traces of two thin horizontal white lines beneath rim, interior regularly coated with brownish-red paint. Comparanda: Branigan and Campbell-Green 2010b, 118, fig. 53, pl. 40. Date: EM III Late. P9 (HM P33436; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.6; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 5.0 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 6/6) with many small- and medium-sized grits and shells or bone fragments (max. dia. 2.0 mm). Coil built. Date: EM III Late. P10 (HM P33437; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete, chips on rim. H. 5.4; dia. rim 7.6; dia. base 4.7 cm. Coarse fabric (very pale brown, 10YR 7/4) with many grits and negative traces. Coil built, smoothed surface on interior. Comparanda: Todaro 2009a, fig. 14:a, left. Date: EM III Late. P11 (HM P33438; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.7; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 4.2 cm. Coarse fabric (brownish yellow, 10YR 6/6) with many small- and medium-sized grits and mica. Coil built, smoothed surface on interior, finger impressions on base. Comparanda: La Rosa 2002, 775, fig. 260. Date: EM III Late. P12 (HM P33439; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Handleless cup with small pulled spout; complete. H. 5.6; max. dia. rim 8.2; dia. base 4.0 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Coil built. DOL ware. Band on interior and exterior rim, self-slipped. Comparanda: Alexiou and Warren 2004, 67–68, fig. 20:52, pls. 40A, 112B, top row 52, middle row 60. Date: EM III Late. P13 (HM P33440; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete, chips on rim. H. 5.6–5.8; max. dia. rim 8.8;

dia. base 4.5 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Coil built, smoothed surface. DOL ware. Band on interior and exterior rim, self-slipped. Date: EM III Late. P14 (HM P33441; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.6; max. dia. rim 8.2; dia. base 4.0 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Coil built, smoothed surface. Date: EM III Late. P15 (HM P33442; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 6.1; dia. rim 7.6, dia. base 4.5 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with many grits. Coil built. Date: EM III Late. P16 (HM P33443; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.5; dia. rim 7.7; dia. base 4.3 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with many grits. Coil built, inhomogeneous firing, rim pulled inside creates a small spout. Date: EM III Late. P17 (HM P33444; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.5; dia. rim 8.1; dia. base 4.2 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with small-sized grits. Coil built, smoothed surface. Date: EM III Late. P18 (HM P33445; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 6.3; dia. rim 8.5; dia. base 4.7 cm. Coarse fabric (light reddish brown, 7.5YR 6/4) with many smallsized grits. Coil built, smoothed surface. Horizontal DOL bands on interior rim and midbody made with a brush, wide DOL band on exterior rim. Comparanda: Todaro 2009a, fig.14:a, right. Date: EM III Late. P19 (HM P33446; Fig. 15; Pl. 15). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.9; max. dia. rim 8.8; dia. base 5.0 cm. Coarse fabric (light brown, 7.5YR 6/4) with many smalland medium-sized grits and fragments of bones. Coil built, wiped surface, deep rounded profile, incurving rim, slightly raised base. Horizontal DOL bands on interior rim and midbody made with a brush, traces of wide DOL band on exterior rim. Date: EM III Late. P20 (HM P33447; Fig. 15; Pl. 16) Handleless bowl; restored. H. 6.2; dia. rim 9.7; dia. base 4.5 cm. Mediumfine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with very small grits. Coil built. Date: EM III Late. P21 (HM P33448; Fig. 15; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete, chips on rim. H. 5.5; max. dia. rim 7.4; dia. base 5.0 cm. Semi-coarse gritty fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4). Coil built. Monochrome ware (dark brown, 7.5YR 3/4) on interior and exterior, originally white band on rim (not indicated in drawing). Comparanda: Banti 1930–1931, 179, fig. 35b; Momigliano 1991, 156 n. 19, 157, fig. 1:18/KSM Box 960, pl. 20:18; 2007, 81, 88, fig. 3.6:5 (Upper East Well Group at Knossos, EM III Late); La Rosa 2002, 780, fig. 304 (Phaistos); Todaro 2009–2010, 14, fig. 13 bottom row, right. Date: EM III Late. P22 (HM P33499; Fig. 15; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete, chipped rim. H. 6.0; dia. rim 8.4; dia. base 4.0 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Wheel coiling method 2, raised base. LOD ware. Off-white lines at rim on a red-coated (5YR 4/6) interior and exterior. Comparanda: La Rosa 2002, 780, fig. 304; Alexiou and

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Warren 2004, 148, pl. 131B:42, 43 (in DOL ware from Tomb IIa at Lebena Gerokampos); Todaro 2009–2010, 16, fig. 15 (with a different base). Date: MM IA Late. P23 (HM P33450; Fig. 15; Pl. 16). Miniature handleless cup; complete. H. 3.8; dia. rim 5.3; max. dia. base 2.6 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Wheel coiling method 1. Brown-dipped (7.5YR 4/4) band on buff at exterior rim (w. 1.1–1.4 cm), interior coated with red paint (2.5YR 5/6). Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 17, pl. 20:3. Comparanda: Walberg 1983, 97– 98; La Rosa 2002, 863, fig. 951, first from left; Todaro 2009a, 139 (Phaistos X). Date: MM IA. P24 (HM P33451; Fig. 15; Pl. 16). Miniature handleless cup; complete, with minor additions. H. 3.1; dia. rim 4.6; max. dia. base 2.7 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Wheel coiling method 1, fingerpinched near base. DOL ware. Interior coated with reddish brown paint (2.5YR 4/4), dipped band at rim (w. 1.0 cm; reddish brown, 2.5YR 4/4). Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 17, pl. 21:5. Comparanda: see P7. Date: MM IA. P25 (HM P33452; Fig. 15; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete with minor additions to the rim. H. 5.20; max. dia. rim 8.21; dia. base 3.30 cm. Fine buff fabric (light brown, 7.5YR 6/4). Wheel coiling method 1, fingerpinched base. DOL ware. Two thin off-white lines on a wide black-dipped assymetrical band at rim, interior regularly coated with black paint, no slip. Bibl.: Schörgendorfer 1951b, 17, pl. 19:7. Date: MM IA. P26 (HM P33453; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; restored. H. 6.0; dia. rim 8.7; dia. base 4.3 cm. Fine buff fabric (light reddish brown, 7.5YR 6/4) with small-sized grits and negative traces. Wheel coiling method 1, nonhomogeneous firing, wiped surface. Date: MM IA. P27 (HM P33454; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.8–6.0; dia. rim 7.3–7.7; dia. base 4.3 cm. Coarse gritty fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4). Wheel coiling method 1, paring marks on walls, fingerprints. Date: MM IA. P28 (HM P 33455; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.2; dia. rim 7.5; dia. base 3.9 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with small- and medium-sized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, nonhomogeneous firing, wiped surface. P29 (HM P33456; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete, rim broken off. H. 5.2; dia. rim 7.5; dia. base 3.8 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 6/6) with many small- and medium-sized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface. Date: MM IA. P30 (HM P33457; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.0; max. dia. rim 8.5; dia. base 5.2 cm. Medium fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with a few small brown grits. Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface. Date: MM IA. P31 (HM P33458; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.3; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 4.6 cm. Medium-fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with grits. Wheel

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coiling method 1, wiped surface on interior and exterior, paring marks on walls. Date: MM IA. P32 (HM P33459; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete, rim broken off at places. H. 4.5–4.8; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 4.5 cm. Medium-fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6) with small-sized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface on rim. Date: MM IA. P33 (Fig. HM P33460; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.5; dia. rim 8.6; dia. base 4.5–4.8 cm. Coarse fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4) with many small- and largesized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, smoothed surface, wiped rim, finger impressions. Date: MM IA. P34 (HM P33461; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete. H. 4.6; dia. rim 7.7; dia. base 4.7 cm. Coarse fabric (pink, 7.5YR 8/4). Wheel coiling method 1, wiped rim. Date: MM IA. P35 (HM P33462; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete, broken at rim. H. 4.6; dia. rim 7.6; dia. base 3.7 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 6/6). Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface. Date: MM IA. P36 (HM P33463; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; restored. H. 5.0; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 4.2–4.5 cm. Fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Wheel coiling method 1, wiped rim, paring marks on walls. Date: MM IA. P37 (HM P33464; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete. H. 4.8–5.0; dia. rim 8.4–9.0; dia. base 4.1 cm. Mediumfine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 6/6). Wheel coiling method 1, paring marks on walls. Slip and brown dot on midbody. Date: MM IA. P38 (HM P33465; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete, chips on rim. H. 4.8; max. dia. rim 9.2; dia. base 5.0 cm. Fine buff fabric (light reddish brown, 7.5YR 6/4) with a few grits (max. dia. 1.0 mm). Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface on interior and exterior. Date: MM IA. P39 (HM P33466; Pl. 16). Handleless cup; complete, chips on rim. H. 4.5–4.9; dia. rim 7.9; dia. base 3.6–3.8 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6 to 6/6). Wheel coiling method 1. Brown ovoid dot below rim. Date: MM IA. P40 (HM P33467; Fig. 15; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.1; dia. rim 9.0; dia. base 5.0–5.3 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Wheel coiling method 1, paring marks on walls, string marks on base, shallow S-profile, crinkled rim that forms a spout. Comparanda: La Rosa 2002, 777, fig. 280. Date: MM IA. P41 (HM P33468; Fig. 16; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 4.5–4.7; dia. rim 8.5; dia. base 4.4 cm. Medium-fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/6). Wheel coiling method 1, paring marks on walls. White slip and two brown dots at rim. Comparanda: Levi and Carinci 1988, pl.99:f, g; La Rosa 2002, 777, fig. 281, on a cup from the Prepalatial Stratum 31 in the area south of Rooms XCI and XCII at Phaistos. Date: MM IA. P42 (HM P33469; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.2–5.5; dia. rim 8.6–8.9; dia. base 4.4 cm.

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GEORGIA FLOUDA

Medium-fine fabric (light reddish brown, 7.5YR 6/4) with many quartz and serpentinite grits. Wheel coiling method 1, uneven firing, paring marks, fingerprints on lower half. Slipped on interior and exterior. Date: MM IA. P43 (HM P 33470; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.5; dia. rim 8.3; dia. base 4.2 cm. Coarse fabric (yellow, 10YR 8/6) with a few small-sized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, paring marks on walls. Date: MM IA. P44 (HM P33471; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete, chips on rim. H. 5.2; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 4.7. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/6) with small-sized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, paring marks on walls, irregular S-profile, straight rim pressed inward on one side. Date: MM IA. P45 (HM P33472; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.0; dia. rim 8.8; dia. base 4.5 cm. Medium-fine fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6 surface) with a few smallsized grits and negative traces Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface, S-profile, straight vertical rim. Yellowish slip, traces of brown dot. Date: MM IA. P46 (HM P33473; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 4.6; dia. rim 8.1; dia. base 4.5 cm. Fine buff fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4) with a few small-sized grits and negative traces. Wheel coiling method 1. Date: MM IA. P47 (HM P33474; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.6; dia. rim 8.6; dia. base 5.0 cm. Coarse fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4) with many small-sized grits (max dia. 1.0 mm). Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface on interior, fingerprints on base. Comparanda: Levi and Carinci 1988, pl. 99:g; Todaro 2009a, fig. 14:a, right. Date: MM IA. P48 (HM P33475; Fig. 16; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 4.5–4.8; dia. rim 6.5–7.3; dia. base 3.7 cm. Medium-fine buff fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4) with smallsized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface. Date: MM IA. P49 (HM P33476; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete with worn rim. H. 5.2; max. dia. rim 9.0; dia. base 4.1 cm. Coarse fabric with many large brown and white grits (max. dia. 2.0 mm), possibly crushed shells or bones. Coil built. Very pale brown (10YR 7/4) slip on interior and exterior. Date: MM IA. P50 (HM P33477; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.7; dia. rim 8.4; dia. base 4.0 cm. Coarse fabric (very pale brown, 10YR 7/4) with small- and medium-sized grits (max. dia. 1.0 mm). Wheel-coiling method 1, wiped surface on interior and exterior, fingerprints on base. Date: MM IA. P51 (HM P33478; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; restored, chips on rim and base. H. 5.0; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 4.3 cm. Fine buff fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 6/6) with very few small-sized grits. Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface on interior. Date: MM IA. P52 (HM P33479; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; restored, rim broken off, base worn. H. 5.0; dia. rim 7.3; dia. base 3.5 cm. Coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 6/6).

Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface. Slip on rim. Date: MM IA. P53 (HM P33480; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; restored. H. 5.1; dia. rim 8.0; dia. base 3.7 cm. Medium-fine buff fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4) with small grits (max. dia. 1.0 mm). Wheel coiling method 1, wiped exterior rim, “nipple” below rim. Comparanda: Levi and Carinci 1988, pl. 100:a. Date: MM IA. P54 (HM P33481; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete, base worn out. H. 5.1; max. dia. rim 8.2; dia. base 3.2 cm. Medium fine fabric (pink, 7.5YR 7/4). Wheel coiling method 1, wiped surface, striations on middle part. Date: MM IA. P55 (HM P33482; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; complete. H. 5.7; max. dia. rim 7.6; dia. base 4.2 cm. Mediumfine buff fabric (very pale brown, 10YR 7/4) with a few small grits (max. dia. 1.0 mm). Wheel coiling method 1, striations on base, deep rounded profile, straight rim, slightly pinched. Comparanda: Todaro 2009a, fig. 14:a, right. Date: MM IA. P56 (HM P33483; Pl. 17). Handleless cup; restored. H. 5.3; dia. rim 8.2; dia. base 4.5 cm. Medium-fine buff fabric (very pale brown, 10YR 7/4) with very few small-sized grits (dia.