Hagios Charalambos: A Minoan Burial Cave in Crete: I. Excavation and Portable Objects (Prehistory Monographs) [Illustrated] 9781931534802, 1931534802

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Hagios Charalambos A Minoan Burial Cave in Crete I. Excavation and Portable Objects

PREHISTORY MONOGRAPHS 47

Hagios Charalambos A Minoan Burial Cave in Crete I. Excavation and Portable Objects by Philip P. Betancourt with contributions by Costis Davaras, Heidi M.C. Dierckx, Susan C. Ferrence, Panagiotis Karkanas, Louise C. Langford-Verstegen, Tanya J. McCullough, James D. Muhly, Natalia Poulou-Papadimitriou, Antonia Stamos, Eleni Stravopodi, Maria Tsiboukaki, and Gayla M. Weng edited by Philip P. Betancourt, Costis Davaras, and Eleni Stravopodi

Published by INSTAP Academic Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2014

Design and Production INSTAP Academic Press, Philadelphia, PA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Betancourt, Philip P., 1936The Hagios Charalambos cave I : the excavation and the portable artifacts / by Philip P. Betancourt ; with contributions by Costis Davaras, Heidi M.C. Dierckx, Susan C. Ferrence, Panagiotis Karkanas, Tanya J. McCullough, James D. Muhly, Natalia Poulou-Papadimitriou, David S. Reese, Antonia Stamos, Eleni Stravopodi, Maria Tsiboukaki, Louise L. Langford-Verstegen, and Gayla M. Weng ; edited by Philip P. Betancourt, Costis Davaras, and Eleni Stravopodi. pages cm. — (Prehistory monographs ; 47) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-931534-80-2 1. Crete (Greece)—Antiquities. 2. Hagios Charalambos (Greece)—Antiquities. 3. Caves—Greece—Hagios Charalambos. 4. Ossuaries—Greece—Hagios Charalambos. 5. Human remains (Archaeology)—Greece—Hagios Charalambos. 6. Grave goods— Greece—Hagios Charalambos. 7. Excavations (Archaeology)—Greece—Hagios Charalambos. 8. Minoans—Greece—Hagios Charalambos—Antiquities. 9. Bronze age—Greece—Hagios Charalambos. I. Davaras, Costis. II. Dierckx, Heidi. III. Title. DF221.C8B5635 2014 939’.18—dc23 2014022231

Copyright © 2014 INSTAP Academic Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

List of Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii List of Plates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiii Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv List of Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii PART I. EXCAVATION 1. Introduction, Philip P. Betancourt, Costis Davaras, and Eleni Stravopodi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 2. Geography and Topography of Lasithi, Philip P. Betancourt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 3. Geology, Geomorphology, and Micromorphology Studies, Panagiotis Karkanas. . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 4. Discovery of the Cave, Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 5. Excavations inside the Cave, Philip P. Betancourt, Costis Davaras, Susan C. Ferrence, Louise C. Langford-Verstegen, Antonia Stamos, Maria Tsiboukaki, and Gayla M. Weng. . . . . . 21 6. Excavations outside the Cave, Philip P. Betancourt and Tanya J. McCullough. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 7. Later Occupation of the Area, Philip P. Betancourt and Natalia Poulou-Papadimitriou. . . . . . . . . .37 PART II. PORTABLE MINOAN OBJECTS 8. Larnakes, Philip P. Betancourt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 9. Figurines, Philip P. Betancourt and Susan C. Ferrence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 10. Objects of Copper and Bronze, James D. Muhly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

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11. Objects of Gold, Silver, and Lead, James D. Muhly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 12. Seal Rings, James D. Muhly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 13. Seals, Philip P. Betancourt and Susan C. Ferrence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 14. Sistra, Philip P. Betancourt and James D. Muhly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 15. Stone Vessels, Heidi M.C. Dierckx. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 16. Ground Stone Tools, Heidi M.C. Dierckx. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 17. Chipped Stone Tools, Heidi M.C. Dierckx. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 18. Miscellaneous Objects, Philip P. Betancourt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 PART III. COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION 19. Comments and Discussion, Philip P. Betancourt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117 Figures Plates

List of Figures

Figure 1.

Map of the Aegean.

Figure 2.

Map of the Lasithi Plain.

Figure 3.

Elevations of mountain peaks around the Lasithi Plain.

Figure 4.

Walking distances (in hours of walking) between the Lasithi Plain and other locations.

Figure 5.

Districts in the Nomos of Lasithi in eastern Crete.

Figure 6.

Topographic map of the western end of the Lasithi Plain including Hagios Charalambos and Plati.

Figure 7.

Topographic map of the area of the Hagios Charalambos Cave showing the two permanent concrete benchmarks near the cave (nos. a1 and a2) and a point at the original ground surface at the entrance to the cave (no. hch2).

Figure 8.

Plan of the surviving rooms of the Hagios Charalambos Cave.

Figure 9.

Plan and cross section of Room 3.

Figure 10.

Plan and cross section of Room 4.

Figure 11.

Plan of the Room 4/5 Entrance.

Figure 12.

Plan of the Room 4/5 Entrance and Room 5.

Figure 13.

Plan of Room 5 before excavation.

Figure 14.

Room 5 showing the division into Areas 1–5.

Figure 15.

Plan and east–west cross section of Areas 5 and 1.

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HAGIOS CHARALAMBOS I

Figure 16.

Plan and north–south cross section of the 4/5 Entrance and Areas 5 and 3.

Figure 17.

Selection of pottery from the cave. Scale 1:3.

Figure 18.

Late artifacts from the cave: an open vessel (HCH 04-392) from LM IA(?) and a silver disk (77) from MM II–LM IA. Scale 1:3.

Figure 19.

Plan of the terrace showing the location of the lens of original soil at the cavern’s mouth and the excavation outside the cave.

Figure 20.

Plan of the trenches outside the entrance to the cave.

Figure 21.

Objects from the periods after the use of the cave (1–18). Scale 1:3.

Figure 22.

Larnax 19 (HNM 14,279). Scale 1:12.

Figure 23.

Larnax 20 (HNM 14,278). Scale 1:12.

Figure 24.

Larnax 21 (HNM 14,281). Scale 1:12.

Figure 25.

Larnax 22 (HNM 14,280). Scale 1:12.

Figure 26.

Larnax lid 23 (HNM 6826 + 13,887). Scale 1:12.

Figure 27.

Figurines from the cave (24–30). Scale 1:2.

Figure 28.

Figurines from the cave (31–34). Scale 1:1.

Figure 29.

Copper and bronze artifacts (35–50). Scale 1:2.

Figure 30.

Gold, silver, and lead artifacts (51–56, 58, 60–63, 65–71, 73–75). Seal rings (76–79). Scale 1:1.

Figure 31.

Seals (80–89). Scale 1:1.

Figure 32.

Seals (90–95). Scale 2:1 unless otherwise noted.

Figure 33.

Sistra (96–101). Scale 1:3.

Figure 34.

Stone vessels (110–127). Scale 1:2.

Figure 35.

Stone vessels (128–130); ground stone implements (131–137). Scale 1:3, unless otherwise indicated.

Figure 36.

Obsidian prismatic blades (138–150). Scale 1:1.

Figure 37.

Obsidian prismatic blades (151–155) and retouched blades (156–159). Scale 1:1.

Figure 38.

Retouched obsidian blades (160–162) and (163, 164) flakes and debitage (165–172). Scale 1:1.

Figure 39.

Obsidian lunates (173–189) and trapezes (190–194); chert (195–200) and quartzite (201, 202) blades and flakes. Scale 1:1.

Figure 40.

Pendants and beads from the cave (203–221). Scale 1:1.

Figure 41.

Beads from the cave (222–245). Scale 1:1.

Figure 42.

Beads from the cave (246–269). Scale 1:1.

Figure 43.

Beads (270–284) and miscellaneous objects (285–291) from the cave. Scale 1:1.

List of Plates

Plate 1A.

The Lasithi Plain as seen from the acropolis of Plati, looking north. Arrow points to the cave of Hagios Charalambos, with the modern village to the left.

Plate 1B.

Conservators Alekos Nikakis and Nearchos Nikakis close the cave with a locked iron gate covered by stones and a concrete wall.

Plate 2A.

The Lasithi Plain as seen from Plati. Hagios Charalambos is at the left.

Plate 2B.

The northwest side of the Lasithi Plain with the swallow-hole called the Chonos in the distance (below arrow). Geologist Panayiotis Karkanas (left) and conservator Alekos Nikakis (right) discuss the geology of the Chonos.

Plate 3A.

Vertical cliffs adjacent to the Chonos with Panayiotis Karkanas (left) and Alekos Nikakis (right).

Plate 3B.

The cave (the Chonos) drains the Lasithi Plain, and the walls channel the stream, named Megalos Potamos, toward the natural drain.

Plate 4A.

Contact of light colored limestone (left) and gray dolomite (right), with arrow at the trace of a fault plane.

Plate 4B.

Steeply inclined and polished rock surface delineating part of the original sinkhole entrance.

Plate 4C.

Cave formations (speleothems) inside the cave.

Plate 5A.

Travertine substrate (T) covered by a thin silty crust (S) and overlain by clayey deposit (D). Yellowish spots of phosphate (A) alter calcitic crystals of travertine. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm.

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HAGIOS CHARALAMBOS I

Plate 5B.

Fragments of silty crust (S) and travertine (T) inside the clayey sediment. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm.

Plate 5C.

Clayey sediment with striated fabric of clay and clay intercalations. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 1.5 mm.

Plate 5D.

Rounded bone fragments (white areas except voids labeled with V) inside clayey sediment. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm.

Plate 5E.

Dusty clay coatings (C) around polyconcave voids (V). Note the sand-sized rock fragments inside the clayey matrix. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm.

Plate 5F.

Clay and silt intercalations. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm.

Plate 6A.

Fragment of dusty clay coating incorporated in the clayey silt matrix. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 1.5 mm.

Plate 6B.

Massive structure with a few chamber voids (white areas). Width of photo 10 mm.

Plate 6C.

Diffuse silt and clay intercalations and dusty clay coatings (C). Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm.

Plate 6D.

Burned root (black) inside silty clay sediment. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm.

Plate 6E.

Mixture of dark and light colored soil aggregates forming large, mammilated, densely packed earthworm excrements. Width of photo 10 mm.

Plate 7A.

The site of the Hagios Charalambos Cave from the road in front of the site, facing southwest.

Plate 7B.

The ledge above the modern road. The cave is at the right, beyond the tents, facing northwest.

Plate 8A.

The remains of the spur that concealed the cave until 1976, facing west. Upper part of Room 2 at lower right.

Plate 8B.

The modern entrance to the cave at lower left, facing north. For scale, see the meter stick at upper right.

Plate 9A.

Grid of long bones placed to form a lattice, creating a platform to support the deposit of human bones and artifacts.

Plate 9B.

Sistrum 98 as found in situ in the Room 4/5 Entrance, level 4.

Plate 9C.

Accumulation of skulls against the northern cave wall of Room 5.

Plate 10A.

Surface of the east side of Room 5 before excavation, showing long bones on the surface and stones that had fallen down from the ceiling.

Plate 10B.

The north–south wall across the center of Room 5, looking northeast and showing the relation of the wall to a large stalagmite that was used to partly brace the stones at the base of the wall.

Plate 10C.

The wall shown in Plate 10B as seen looking east, showing the lower courses that were constructed first, with bones (marked B) across them below the higher courses of stones.

Plate 11A.

Room 5, Area 1, Level 1, showing disarticulated bones near Wall 1.

Plate 11B.

Group of five articulated vertebrae found in Room 5, Area 1, Level 3, area 1.

Plate 11C.

Excavation of Room 5, Area 5, Level 2 showing the disarticulated mass of bones and bone fragments and a small jug (HCH 02-54).

LIST OF PLATES

xi

Plate 12A.

The area south of the cave before excavation, facing north. The edge of the deep pit containing the modern entrance to the cave as at the top of the photograph, at the center.

Plate 12B.

Trench 13 after excavation, showing the bedrocknear the modern surface.

Plate 12C.

Trench 12 showing the disturbed soil in front of the cave.

Plate 13.

Zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines (24–28).

Plate 14.

Anthropomorphic figurines (29–34) and metal objects (35–38, 41).

Plate 15.

Metal objects (54, 55, 65, 66, 76).

Plate 16.

Silver seal disk (77) and ivory stamp seal (81).

Plate 17.

Ivory stamp seals (82, 83).

Plate 18.

Stamp seals (84, 85).

Plate 19.

Stamp seals (86, 87).

Plate 20.

Stamp seals (88, 89).

Plate 21.

Prism seal (90).

Plate 22.

Prism seal (91).

Plate 23.

Prism seal (92).

Plate 24.

Prism seal (93).

Plate 25A.

Cusion seal (94).

Plate 25B.

Sistrum (98).

Plate 25C.

Linear A tablet from Zakros (no. 18a) with a sistrum used as a sign (after Betancourt and Muhly 2006).

Plate 25D.

Detail of the Harvesters Vase from Hagia Triada, showing the sistrum player at the right (after Betancourt and Muhly 2006).

Plate 26.

Miscellaneous objects (204, 205, 208–212, 217, 221, 282, 285, 286, 288, 289). Scale 1:1.

Preface

Costis Davaras first excavated the Hagios Charalambos Cave as a rescue excavation when the site was discovered in 1976 in the Lasithi Plain in the eastern part of Central Crete. The underground rooms were revealed as a result of blasting with dynamite to improve the road that encircles the upland plain. The dynamite created an opening in the ceiling of what would later be called Room 1, so the cave could be entered even though the original mouth was not visible at the time. The situation was extremely dangerous because of the cracked and shattered bedrock, and little work was possible before the front of the cave was removed by power machinery in 1982. Short excavation seasons were conducted in 1982 and 1983, and Davaras then made an important and far-sighted decision that would preserve the cave’s information and allow it to make a unique and lasting contribution to the history of Bronze Age Crete. Realizing that he had too few financial and technical resources available to make a proper excavation, he left one room untouched and sealed the front of the cave with a locked iron gate covered by a wall of stone and concrete, to await a future generation with the resources to excavate the site properly. In spite of these precautions and the proximity of the site to a well-traveled highway, looters broke into the cave in the winter of 2000. They were not apprehended, but they were only able to enter the cave briefly before it was resealed. The danger to the cave was obvious. I was then approached and asked if I could organize a new project. Convincing arguments were made by three different people: my friend and colleague, Costis, the Chief Conservator for the 24th Ephorate, Alekos Nikakis, and the Ephorate’s Director, the late Nikos Papadakis, all said the cave was too important to allow it to be destroyed by inaction that would eventually lead to its destruction by clandestine looters. The science of archaeology had developed enormously between 1983 and the early 21st century, both in the world as a whole and especially in Crete. Computers had

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revolutionized the recording and management of information. Electronic total station survey instruments could provide accurate measurements, including of underground chambers. Water separation machines capable of retrieving microscopic evidence were now routine parts of American projects in eastern Crete. The INSTAP Study Center of East Crete in Pacheia Ammos had been built, and it provided technical support in photography, conservation, library study, technical drawing, the storage and study of anthropological material, analysis by laserinduced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), ceramic petrography, and other areas. With all this in mind, a team of international scholars was assembled, and we tried to retrieve the maximum amount of knowledge we could within the parameters of the two six-week excavation seasons made possible by the available government permit (in 2002 and 2003, a law that was later repealed limited foreign excavations to six-weeks per year). Philip P. Betancourt Philadelphia, 2010

Acknowledgments

Excavations were conducted at Hagios Chalambos in 1976, 1982, and 1983 under the direction of Costis Davaras, in 2002 under the direction of Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras, and in 2003 under the direction of Philip P. Betancourt, Costis Davaras, and Eleni Stravopodi. The excavations of 1976 to 1983 were supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture. The Temple University Excavations of 2002 and 2003 were supported financially by the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, and private donors. Thanks are expressed to Steven Tracey, who was then Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, for support and assistance with permits. Special thanks go to Vili Apostolakou, who was then Director of the 24th Ephorate, and to Alekos Nikakis, who was then the Chief Conservator for the Ephorate, for assistance of many types with this project over the course of several years. Valuable support was given by the staff members of the INSTAP Study Center for East Crete: Thomas M. Brogan, Director; Elizabeth B. Shank, Administrative Coordinator; Eleanor J. Huffman, Assistant to the Director; Stephania N. Chlouveraki, Chief Con servator; Michel Roggenbucke and Kathy Hall, Senior Conservators; Étienne Baxter, Conservator; Erietta Attali (2002) and Chronis Papanikolopoulos (2003), Chief Photo graphers; Doug Faulmann, Chief Artist; Eleni Nodarou, Ceramic Petrographer; Georgos Serepetsis, Maintenance; and Maria R. Koinakis, Custodian. The representative from the Palaeoanthropology and Speliology Ephorate in 2002 was Eleni Stravopodi, and Angeliki Kaznesi was the representative in 2003. In addition to the co-directors and the personnel from the INSTAP Study Center mentioned above, the following persons were members of the Hagios Charalambos team (years of membership are listed after each name): James D. Muhly, field director and metallurgy specialist (2002–2009); Albert Leonard Jr., field director (2002, 2003);

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Mary A. Betancourt, registrar (2002–2009); Mary H. Leonard, assistant registrar (2002, 2003); Photeini J.P. McGeorge, physical anthropologist (2002–2009); Alekos Nikakis, conservator and technitis (2002, 2003, 2005); Stephania N. Chlouveraki, conservator (2002–2005); Maria Giannakaki, conservation intern (2002, 2003); Linda Meiberg, assistant to the conservator (2002); Susan Nalezyty, computer specialist (2002); Andrew Koh, instrument survey team supervisor (2002); Tamryn L. McDermott, instrument survey team member (2002); Gayla M. Weng, trench supervisor, assistant to the photographer, residue sorting, and assistant pottery specialist (2002–2005); Antonia Stamos, trench supervisor (2002); Susan C. Ferrence, trench supervisor and pottery specialist (2002–2009); Louise C. Langford-Verstegen, trench supervisor, instrument survey team member, and pottery specialist (2002–2009); Maria Tsiboukaki, assistant trench supervisor (2002, 2003); Alison Cox, palaeobotanist (2002); Panagiotis Karkanas, geologist (2002, 2003); Jane Hickman, assistant to the physical anthropologist (2003–2006); Michael Furlong, assistant to the physical anthropologist (2003, 2004); Alexis Boutin, assistant to the physical anthropologist (2003); Étienne Baxter, assistant to the physical anthropologist and conservator (2003–2006); Tanya J. McCullough, trench supervisor, residue sorting, and pottery assistant (2003, 2004); David S. Reese, faunal remains specialist (2004, 2006–2009); Heidi M.C. Dierckx, stone tools specialist (2004, 2005); Michael Ionakis, conservator (2005); Judith Papit, assistant pottery specialist (2005). Thanks are expressed to many other individuals for help with this project. The authors are grateful to Walter Müller and Ingo Pini and the Corpus of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals, in Marburg, founded by Frederich Matz, for photographs and drawings of the seals excavated between 1976 and 1983. All the members of the team would like to thank: Costas and Galatia Manussakis, our hosts at the Hotel Dionysos in Magoulas; Manolis Yerakakis, our host at the Hotel Zeus in Psychro; and all of our many friends in Lasithi for their wonderful hospitality during the years of excavation; and Yannis, Aristidis, and Maria Chalkiadakis, our hosts at the Hotel Tholos Beach in Kavousi, for their hospitality during the study seasons.

List of Abbreviations

Ch.

Chapter

LIBS

laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

cm

centimeters

LM

Late Minoan

d.

diameter

m

meter(s)

dim.

dimension

m asl

meters above sea level

EDM

electronic distance measuring device

max.

maximum

EM

Early Minoan

mm

millimeters

FTIR

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

MM

Middle Minoan

g

grams

pres.

preserved

HNM

Archaeological Museum, Hagios Nikolaos

rest.

restored

th.

thickness

h.

height

w.

width

kg

kilograms

wt.

weight

km

kilometers

Part I

Excavation

1

Introduction Philip P. Betancourt, Costis Davaras, and Eleni Stravopodi

Crete has about two thousand caves, and the Minoans used many of them for various purposes including as places for temporary or more permanent shelter, as tombs for burials, and as locations for the observance of cult ceremonies and other celebrations (Faure 1960, 1964; Rutkowski and Nowicki 1996; Davaras 2003, 144–148). In several instances, as was the case with a small cavern near the modern village of Hagios Charalambos, a natural underground chamber was used as an ossuary for the secondary deposit of human bones. The excavations in the ossuary at Hagios Charalambos provided historical information in several categories, and they showed that the division between burial use and cult use that occasionally has been suggested for Minoan caves may be too simple an explanation for the complex Minoan attitudes involving underground spaces. The two activities were interlocked sufficiently for this cave to provide evidence for both practices. The unnamed cave at the village of Hagios Charalambos is located on the western side of the

Lasithi Plain in the eastern part of Central Crete (Figs. 1, 2). Lasithi is a high plain surrounded by mountains, without any rivers or streams flowing out of it to carry away the rainwater (see the discussions in Chs. 3 and 4). Its soil is deep and fertile, but the land will have been marshy in periods when the drainage by swallow-holes was not sufficient to accommodate the water flowing into the plain from the surrounding hills. The mountains that surround Lasithi make it a unified geographic region, and it has often been regarded as a single cultural zone as well (Watrous 1982; Panagiotaki 1988). The cave is located within the boundaries of the village of Hagios Charalambos (formerly called Gerontomouri; see references and discussion in Ch. 4), in a bedrock outcrop that rises above the level area of the plain on its western side. This outcrop is a prominent landmark, and it is easily visible from a distance (Pl. 1A). The entrance to the cave was covered by the end of the Bronze Age, and the cavern was hidden from view in modern

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PHILIP P. BETANCOURT, COSTIS DAVARAS, AND ELENI STRAVOPODI

times until it was rediscovered in 1976 during public roadworks. Costis Davaras directed excavations at the site between 1976 and 1983. Several preliminary reports have been published (Davaras 1976a, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1988; Davaras and Pini 1992). Research on the human bones found during this period has been mentioned briefly (McGeorge 1987, 2008). The excavations of 1976 to 1983 revealed a series of deposits that consisted of human bones along with whole and fragmentary clay and stone vases, larnax fragments, seals, seal rings, figurines, jewelry, tools and weapons of stone and metal, and other objects. The project left two rooms and a short entrance-passageway leading to them unexcavated, and a new investigation began in 2001 with a study of the pottery from the previous seasons. New excavations were carried out in 2002 under the joint direction of Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras and in 2003 under the direction of the three authors of this chapter (Betancourt et al. 2008). The site is important for several reasons. Its earliest finds consist of dark-surfaced, burnished pottery fragments from the Cretan Neolithic. Although enough Neolithic sites have been found to demonstrate that the island of Crete was already settled by large numbers of people by this time (Vagnetti 1972–1973; 1973; 1996; Vagnetti and Belli 1978; Vagnetti, Christopoulou, and Tzedakis 1989; Vasilakis 1989–1990, 70–79; Betancourt 1999; 2008; Branigan 1999; Nowicki 2000; 2002a; 2002b; 2006; Schlager 2001; Hayden 2003a; 2003b; Tomkins 2007a; 2007b; 2008), the Final Neolithic pottery from both inside and outside the cave at Hagios Charalambos adds new data to the information about this period in Lasithi. The interior of the cave was not used during this early period in any way that left visible remains aside from sherds found in mixed contexts. It surely already was being visited for reasons that did not involve burial (perhaps as shelter or as a source of water), because fragments found outside the cave were not associated with any human bones. The situation in the open air near the mouth of the cavern contrasts with the deposit underground where human bones formed the largest part of the deposit. Some of the Neolithic fragments inside the cave were found on bedrock, but additional Neolithic sherds were discovered on the surface of the unexcavated Room 5

as well as at random within the higher strata. One cannot be sure, therefore, that the Neolithic sherds that were low within the cave’s deposit were necessarily put there any earlier than the rest of the objects. Unlike the Trapeza Cave on the eastern end of the Lasithi Plain, which had a pure Neolithic layer below its later material (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936), no pure Neolithic level was discovered at Hagios Charalambos. It is likely that all the Neolithic pottery discovered inside the cavern was brought inside when the bones and the other artifacts were deposited there during the Middle Bronze Age. Hagios Charalambos makes a significant contribution to our knowledge about Minoan burial practices. In Middle Minoan (MM) IIB, the cave became the focus of a complex ceremony. The evidence clearly shows that it had no primary burials. It was used as an ossuary for the secondary deposition of human bones and their associated grave offerings, all of which were placed in the cave within a relatively short span of time. Although the cave consisted of seven small interconnected rooms, only five of them were used as depositories for the Minoan bones and their associated objects, all of which were taken from earlier burials originally made in a different location. Bones and artifacts were placed in at least two strata, both of them put in the cave in MM IIB. One MM III to Late Minoan (LM) IA or slightly later sherd and a few other objects suggest the cave was still open during the Late Bronze Age. In addition, visits to the vicinity of the cavern in LM I and III resulted in the deposition of a few objects outside the entrance, but no evidence exists for a burial use of the cave after the deposition in MM IIB. By the end of LM III, the cave was closed. In 2002 and 2003, geological investigations and archaeological excavations uncovered evidence for the way in which the deposits were made. Before its use by the Minoans, the cavern consisted of a series of empty interconnected rooms without any deposition of soil on the bare stone floors. Because of the steepness of the cave’s floor, it drained easily down into the rock below it, and no soil had accumulated. The steepness of the floors may be the reason that it was not considered appropriate for Neolithic habitation (in contrast with the Trapeza Cave, e.g., which has underground rooms with almost level floors).

INTRODUCTION

The Minoan deposition took place in MM IIB. Some of the higher rooms were filled first (see discussion in Ch. 3). Room 5, the lowest room used by the Minoans, had a steeper floor than the higher chambers, so it required extra work. It was prepared by building two terrace walls to help support the bones and their associated burial gifts. Leg bones were used to build a lattice over cracks in the stone floor, creating an informal platform for the rest of the deposit. Then, human bones and their associated whole or broken pots and other offerings were spread across the room, uphill from the terrace walls. Many of the bones were placed carefully. At a later stage, but still within MM IIB, one of the terrace walls across Room 5 was improved by adding new stones to it, and additional bones and grave offerings were spread across the terraces. Skulls and long bones were then placed over the surface of the deposit. Although the bones and other objects were buried in MM IIB, pottery with the bones shows that burials from as early as the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age were moved to the cave along with the Middle Minoan II objects. In addition to the ceremonies that accompanied the physical placing of the bones within the small rooms, excavations in front of the cave in 2003 found evidence to suggest that the Minoans also held a ceremony outside the mouth of the cavern. An important part of this ceremony consisted of the cooking and consumption of food, including substantial amounts of meat. The fires were large enough to leave a deposit of black, charcoal-filled soil outside the cave. The Hagios Charalambos Cave provides an example of a complex Minoan burial custom that occurs elsewhere as well as in Lasithi. Although the form of the tomb chamber varied from region to region, Minoans shared the custom of communal entombment (for good summaries of the evidence, see Pini 1968; Branigan 1970a). Tombs in the Mesara were often circular (Xanthoudides 1924; Branigan 1970b), while rectangular ones (“house tombs”) were preferred in the east (Soles 1992). Natural caves were employed in regions where they were available. Other classes of tombs, such as a multi-room complex at Chrysolakkos at Malia (Demargne 1945; Pierpoint 1987; Poursat 1993; Stürmer 1993) are known as well. In many of these tombs, burial was not a simple custom that took place in one phase. The practice of collecting and

5

moving the bones of the deceased and the custom of secondary burial is well known from Minoan Crete, and it can be documented from several places (see the discussions of Xanthoudides 1924; Branigan 1987; 1991; 1993, 119–127). The importance of this small cave lies in the fact that it is an extreme example of the custom in which many hundreds of individuals were moved in a single period. It was discovered by accident in modern times, so that an almost intact example of the evidence could be excavated by modern methods of excavation and conservation, preserving it for later study by our generation as well as by future researchers. The cave is now closed with a stone and concrete wall placed in front of a locked iron gate (Pl. 1B); its interior is extremely dangerous, and any future excavations will require the use of mining technology to support the ceiling. The human bones from this deposit are particularly important (McGeorge 2008). Besides the sociocultural importance, they provide evidence for a range of disease lesions and prevalence distribution problems in a relatively rigid demographic scale of all age intervals, a case not frequently observed in human collections in Greek prehistoric anthropogenic deposits that furthermore strengthens the reliability of new analytical methods (histology, scanning electron microscope, endoscopy) being incorporated in the ongoing intensive molecular research for biological relations and migratory events of population packages during the Bronze Age in Greece, in relation with possibly paleoepidemiological outbreaks. Besides the statistical significance of so many specimens, the age intervals and lesion distrubution (although an ossuary) provide data for testing new techniques. It has no parallel cases in Greece except for the sample, also from the Bronze Age, of an ossuary at the Perachora Cave at Corinth (Koumouzeli 1989–1991) but with the minimum number of individuals much less (about 82). Interestingly, the specimens have lesions similar to those from Hagios Charalambos. In that perspective, as a factor to the bioarchaeological interpretation, the question of the environmental setting (the mountains in Crete and the marsh/lake in Corinth) as detrimental variables in possibal endemic events, is raised, yet taking into consideration the ossuary identity of the samples. The assemblage also provides variables (dependent and independent) to build up a database

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PHILIP P. BETANCOURT, COSTIS DAVARAS, AND ELENI STRAVOPODI

of escalating complementary methods for reliable differential diagnosis and disease profiles in prehistoric Greece within a sociocultural and/or environmental perspective (solidifying the inferential statistics as to paleoepidemiology in late prehistory in Greece). The publication of the site is planned in five volumes:

Excavation and Portable Objects The Pottery The History of Minoan Lasithi The Faunal Remains The Human Remains

2

Geography and Topography of Lasithi Philip P. Betancourt

The island of Crete marks the southern border of the Aegean Sea, with the Libyan Sea to the south and the Sea of Crete (part of the Aegean) to the north (Fig. 1). It is situated near the center of a geographical feature called the Hellenic Arc. The arc is a crucial factor in the creation of the island’s mountains because it is the point of collision between the northward moving African tectonic plate and the southward moving European plate. The collision of the two plates and the subduction of the African

one have created dynamic phases of mountain building, and Crete’s rugged landscape resulted from complex interactions between these tectonic movements (Wachendorf et al. 1974; Baumann et al. 1976; Baumann, Best, and Wachendorf 1977; Dermitzakis 1990, with an extensive bibliography on the geology of Crete on pp. 239–252; for the newer bibliography and for more recent insights into our understanding of the tectonic situation, see Fassoulas 1999; 2001; McCoy 2013, 15–22).

Geography and General Comments Mountains run east and west along almost the entire length of Crete, and except for a low region across the island (the geological term is a graben) at the isthmus of Ierapetra, much of the island has a mountainous landscape. These mountains dominate most of Crete’s interior. They are high enough to have snow during winters, and the melting snow

and spring rains provide ample moisture for high valleys and small upland plains. The Cretan mountains have a substantially wetter and cooler climate than the island’s lowland subalpine climate. The Lasithi Plain is the largest highland plain in Crete (general descriptions include Psarianos 1961; Spanakis 1976; Watrous 1982; Nowicki 1996;

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Davaras 2003, 203–204). It is located in the Dictaean Mountain Range in the Nomos of Lasithi, in the southern part of east-central Crete (Fig. 3; Pl. 2A). The Dictaean Range has several peaks, and the two highest ones rise south of the Lasithi plain: Mt. Spathi (“the Sword,” 2,147 m) and Mt. Aphentis Christos (“Our Lord Christ,” 2,140 m). The next tallest promontory, Mt. Lazaros (2,004 m), is northeast of its two taller companions. Peaks and ridges surround the plain on all its sides. The Lasithi Plain has a roughly elliptical shape (Fig. 2). It is about 11 km long from east to west and 4–6 km from north to south. In geological terms, it is a topographic feature called a polje, a plain surrounded by mountains with no outlet above ground to drain either the precipitation or the groundwater that flows into it from the surrounding hills and valleys (Psarianos 1961). It has an elevation of over 800 m above sea level. A rocky hill named Kephala rises out of the flat plain and divides the polje into two parts. The western part is called the Kampos (also spelled Kambos), and the drier eastern part is called the Xerokampos. The plain and its adjacent villages occupy about 40 km2 of land, but if one counts all the nearby small plains and valleys, the region includes 110–120 km2 (Stavrakis 1890, 37). The elevation at the west is 814 m above sea level, while the higher land at the east averages about 870 m above sea level, so the plain drains toward the west. Olive trees, which are so typical for elsewhere in Crete, do not grow because of the altitude, creating a special type of landscape. Like the mountains, the small nearby plains help determine the region’s character. A small plain called Katharo is at a higher elevation to the southeast. This plain has an elevation of about 1,150 m above sea level, making its climate ex tremely harsh during the winter, and it receives substantial amounts of snow. The drainage pattern for precipitation and water run-off goes from Katharo to Lasithi, and a stream called the Mega los Potamos begins in Katharo, flows through a ravine called the Chavgas Gorge, and enters the Lasithi Plain at the southeast. It flows northwest across the polje until it disappears into a sinkhole named the Chonos (“big funnel”). The next largest plain is Limnarkaro, south of Hagios Georgios and west of Katharo at the plain’s southern side. The small plain of Nisimos is at the north.

The Chonos, the large cave that drains the region, is at the edge of the hills that lie at the northwest (Pl. 2B). Sheer cliffs with smooth cave formations on them flank the swallow-hole (Pl. 3A), providing a testament to past eras millions of years ago when the water flowed down into the ground from a higher level. Modern constructions help to maintain the flow by the use of walls and channels that conduct the precipitation to its destination (Pl. 3B). The fact that modern water-management efforts are needed to control the water run-off in the spring and reduce the amount of flooding suggests that marshy conditions were probably serious issues in past periods when such engineering had not yet been attempted. These topographic conditions explain why all the settlements from before the Roman period seem to have been located on high ground overlooking the flat plain instead of in the plain itself, even though sherds on the plain’s surface suggest that the ground level at the west of the plain has not changed much since the Late Bronze Age, at least in the vicinity of Hagios Charalambos. The geology of the Lasithi Plain is a result of a complex interplay between tectonic movements, karstic erosion (the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks), and mechanical erosion. The soil of the Lasithi Plain is partly alluvial and partly fluvial, and it results from erosion of several nearby regions. It has washed into the plain both from the surrounding mountains and from floods when heavy spring rains cause the Megalos Potamos to overflow its banks. Furthermore, a small component of loess that has blown north from the Sahara has augmented the locally formed sediments.

Origin of the Plain’s Name In the past, the origin of the name Lasithi has caused some speculation. A few writers have considered it to be one of the many Venetian corruptions of Greek words, either from Lyttos (Spratt 1865, I, 201–202: Lyttus to Tselyttus to Tselethe to Xeethe to the Italian La Xeethi to Lasethe) or from Siteia (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 5: Sitia to the Italian La Sitia to Lasithi). A Venetian corruption of an earlier name, however, is unlikely, because Thomopoulos (1975) has shown that the name Lasithi was already in use in 1211, at the beginning of the Venetian period, and that it could be derived from the Greek word lakkos, meaning a hole or a natural topographic basin

GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF LASITHI

(Lakkos to Lakkidion to Latsidi to Lasidi to Lasithi). A derivation from the word for a topographic feature that fits its unusual geographic situation, of course, is a logical hypothesis but rather unlikely. Strong epigraphic evidence (possibly also the ra-suto of Linear B) suggests a derivation from Lasynthos, a good prehistoric name (Kritzas 2000, 96).

Climate and Weather The Lasithi basin is high enough to have cool summers and snowy winters. Pendlebury and his colleagues report a few olives (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 8), but the fruit is not grown as successfully at these altitudes as at lower elevations. Grains and vegetables, on the other hand, grow very well. The agricultural conditions, however, can sometimes be erratic. The plain has been marshy in many periods during its history, and mountain winds can cause unexpected rainstorms and rapid changes in the local weather. Erratic weather conditions occasionally damage crops, even in modern times (Greger 1984, 14). Because of its mountainous setting, Lasithi has abundant water. This circumstance traditionally has been regarded as one of the plain’s main defining characteristics (i.e., Dapper 1688, 34). The snow and rain are especially heavy during the winter and spring. Snow varies from year to year. The mountains, especially the higher ones, always receive enough to cover them. Sometimes the plain itself has very little, but occasionally enough snow can fall to block off automobile access, and a depth of up to 60 cm has been recorded (Psarianos 1961, 118).

9

Water can be a problem when the snow melts in the spring. At present, the landscape is drained by only one swallow-hole. Canals in a grid (the famous Venetian linies) and ditches help the Megalos Potamos channel the water toward the drainage cave, but the land floods if the precipitation is substantial, the drain is partly blocked, or the channel leading toward it is silted. Even in modern times, the plain can be under water or marshy for several weeks in the spring. This situation has had a profound effect on the settlement patterns, and all the modern villages are on the high ground surrounding the plain (Fig. 2), reserving the lower and flatter landscape for other uses, especially farming and the pasturage of animals. The abundance of water has made Lasithi an important area for animal husbandry throughout its history. The water causes denser vegetation and more pasturage than lower and drier parts of Crete, and the region has always attracted shepherds and herdsmen. The abundance of animal bones found in the cave at Hagios Charalambos underscore the importance of flocks and herds in the Bronze Age economy of the region. Wind is also an important factor in the life of Lasithi. The region is extremely windy, and until the arrival of electricity, windmills (reputed to have numbered 10,000) provided most of the power for pumping water for irrigation, creating an extremely picturesque landscape. Lasithi is close enough to Africa for the south wind (sirocco) to be an annoying factor, and occasional dust-laden winds can be unpleasant and even disruptive.

Access to the Plain In spite of its high altitude, Lasithi has good access to the surrounding regions. The mountains that surround the plain are lofty, but they are not impassable. The higher elevations are difficult to traverse only during the winter. The high plain of Katharo, for example, has only a tiny permanent population in the 21st century, but it has a large number of small stone buildings constructed for summer habitation (Arakadaki 2004). During the summer, traffic moves on foot throughout the

entire region. The mountains have trails that make them capable of being traversed with little difficulty, and passes between the peaks have always kept Lasithi in touch with other parts of Crete when the residents were not actively hostile to those living nearer the coast. Routes from Lasithi through the Pediada have been carefully traced (Panagiotakis 2004a, 179; Rethemiotakis and Christakis 2004). In the Minoan period, the trails in and out of Lasithi were probably all designed for walking and

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for pack animals, so modern hiking and travel with donkeys offers a good parallel. Donkeys and their drivers or riders, like experienced hikers, walk at a steady pace, and they can cover up to 4 or 5 km per hour at a regular walk, or more if pressed. John Pendlebury personally walked over all the routes near Lasithi in the 1930s, and he published a list of the times needed to walk with a pack animal between the Lasithi Plain and various other locations (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 8–9). Several of the Bronze Age palaces were within easy walking distance. Travel from Lasithi northwest to the Minoan palace at Knossos required 8 hours. The trip to the southwest to the palace at Phaistos was longer, and it needed 16 hours of walking. A journey to the large Minoan town of Gournia with its rather modest palace could be made in 8 hours. For contact with the Malia palace, one can add the more recent anecdote about a young man from Lasithi who routinely traveled the 10 km from Lasithi to Malia to see his girlfriend for lunch and then returned home the same evening (Polymnia Muhly, pers. com., 2004). According to Pendlebury, who was a very strong and swift walker, trips to various Lasithi communities from nearby towns outside the plain required the following walking times (for the towns in Lasithi, see Fig. 2; for the towns around the plain, see Fig. 4):

To Plati from Mathia: 2.75 hours To Hagios Georgios from Viannos: 5.25 hours To Katharo from Males: 4 hours To Katharo from Kalamafka: 4.5 hours To Hagios Georgios from Kritsa: 4 hours To Mesa Lasithaki from Tapes: 4.5 hours To Mesa Lasithi from Potamoi: 0.75 hour To Tzermiado from Potamoi: 1.5 hours To Tzermiado or Lagou from Kera: 1.5 hours To Lagou from Gonia: 2 hours To Kato Metochi from Lyttos: 3 hours The most important point resulting from all this data is that multiple routes connected the towns of Lasithi with other places. The plain was not joined to the outside world by just a few strategic passes, but by a whole series of trails and tracks leading to different destinations. It is only the advent of wheeled vehicles that has restricted the routes to the more easily traversed topography. Trips through the mountains were simple and routine if no hostility was present. The topography did not act as a barrier to the possibility of a state that joined Lasithi to the coast (Cadogan 1990, 1994, 1995; Knappett 1997, 1999; Betancourt 2007).

To Hagios Charalambos from Kastamonitsa: 2.5 hours

Settlement Patterns and Political Boundaries Modern Crete is divided into four Nomoi (Chania, Rethymnon, Herakleion, and Lasithi), and each Nomos is subdivided into several districts (called Eparchies). The boundaries of Lasithi’s four districts are shown in Figure 5. These boundaries should be considered by anyone examining the ancient history of Crete because many of them follow traditional divisions, and they are often located at topographic barriers that form natural borders between regions and territories. The border between Ierapetra and Lasithi, for example, follows the mountains south of the Lasithi Plain, and it is a natural division between the south coast and

the north coast. At the east of the Lasithi District, the boundary is set to include all of the highland plain as well as the adjacent mountainsides that form the closest grazing lands for the shepherds and herders in the communities that ring it. It is an important reminder that a society’s natural district includes the land that is used by a series of communities as well as the urban centers themselves. At the north coast, the border between Siteia and Ierapetra is at a major ravine (with steep cliffs at its sides) that forms a natural barrier for traffic by foot and pack animal.

GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF LASITHI

The modern settlement pattern in the Lasithi Plain is shown in Figure 2. In order to exploit both the plain and its adjacent mountains, the modern villages are set around the elliptical flat land, on hillsides that overlook it. The villages are just above the plain, on hills and terraces that are high enough to avoid flooding and partly escape the mosquitoes and other problems of marshy wetlands. A similar situation existed in the Bronze Age. A surface survey by Vance Watrous documented the Lasithi Plain’s substantial Bronze Age population (Watrous 1982). Several towns were present during the Final Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, and Middle Bronze Age, which are the main periods of the finds from the Hagios Charalambos Cave. The settlements ranged from isolated small buildings to good-sized towns, and they were all situated on the higher ground that overlooked the flat plain rather than down on the plain itself. This settlement pattern is one of the important pieces of evidence suggesting that marshy conditions probably existed in the plain itself during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods of habitation. Both large and small settlements existed during the Bronze Age. Substantial towns were already present before the Late Bronze Age at Plati at the

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west (Dawkins 1913–1914), at Kastello near Avrakontes (Watrous 1982, 56–57), near Kaminaki at the south (Watrous 1982, 60), and at Kastellos (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1937– 1938) and Hagios Konstantinos (Watrous 1982, 44–45) at the east. Cyclopean fortification walls seem to have been regular features of several of these early towns, and their existence cannot be ruled out for any of them. Several other locations had smaller settlements (Watrous 1982). Surveys have also documented the presence of a substantial Early and Middle Minoan population in the regions adjoining Lasithi, especially the Pediada, the territory between Knossos and Malia on the north coast and the area along the southern coast of Crete (Panagiotakis 2004a, 2004b). Many of the Middle Minoan sites near the northern entrance to Lasithi were placed on defensible hilltops, echoing the pattern of hilltop settlements overlooking the plain itself (Nowicki 1996, 35). Like other parts of Crete, this region experienced deep-seated social and political changes when Knossos expanded at the end of the Middle Minoan period, and many of the hilltop sites were abandoned (Rethemiotakis 2002).

Caves in Lasithi Karstic weathering, unlike weathering caused by erosion, results from dissolution of carbonate rocks by the acids in rain and ground water. Caves and other karstic features are common in the limestone hills around the Lasithi Plain. The Chonos that drains the region is one of its largest karstic features. In addition to the cavern near Hagios Charalambos, several other caves are also situated in the mountains that overlook the plain. The Trapeza Cave near Tzermiado is a burial cave that forms an excellent parallel for the one at Hagios Charalambos (for the excavation, see Pendlebury,

Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936; see also Faure 1964, 68). Neolithic and Minoan objects have also been reported from the Peristeria Cave near Koudoumalia (Watrous 1982, 56), from caves at Skaphidia and Meskine (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1937–1938), and from a cave between Hagios Charalambos and Kato Metochi (Watrous 1982, 65). These caverns show that taking advantage of the available underground chambers was an integral part of the way the early inhabitants of Lasithi used their landscape’s natural topographic features.

3

Geology, Geomorphology, and Micromorphology Studies Panagiotis Karkanas

Regional Geomorphology The cave of Hagios Charalambos is a blocked inactive sinkhole located on the western side of the Lasithi Plain. Its entrance is 834.95 meters above sea level (m asl) and about 14–15 m above the present surface of the plain in this area. The lowest altitude of the Lasithi Plain is near the active Chonos sinkole (ca. 810 m asl), about 2 km to the northwest of Hagios Charalambos on the same side of the plain. Circular depressions in the alluvial plain, which are located a few hundred meters to the north of the cave, are also features of the complex underground karstic system that drains the landscape. The Chonos sinkhole, which today is the major drainage conduit for Lasithi, was also active during much of the Pleistocene; its gradually collapsed former mouth can be traced at elevations up to 880 m asl. The gradual drop of the base level of the Lasithi Plain also can be inferred by remnants of erosional benches and alluvial fill together with a series of inactive sinkholes along the rock hills that border the region.

A bench near the modern village of Kato Metochi and a collapsed sinkhole near Pinakion on the northern side of the plain, at about 830 m asl, together with the Hagios Charalambos Cave, probably correspond to the last major base level of the plain before it attained its present position. The continuous drop of the Lasithi base level must be based on a combination of climatic and tectonic processes. Accelerated tectonic uplift rates would have enhanced erosion and lowered the level of the plain. During glacial times the intramontane valleys around the plain would have been charged with debris from glacial processes (freeze-thaw activity, glacier drift). The Dicte Mountains on the eastern side of the plain have peaks more that 2,000 m high, and they probably witnessed high-altitude glaciation during the Pleistocene. Indications of glacial formations are reported for Lefka Ori and Mt. Ida (Nemec and Postma 1993). At the transition to interglacial runoff periods, the sediment could have

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been progressively transported to the lowland. Continuing runoff during the following warm periods probably led to wash out of the sediment fill of the alluvial plain into the karstic drainage conduits around the plain. Today this can be seen in the progressive lowering of the base of the plain from the east to the west where the major sinkholes are located. Recent flood deposits can be observed in the area of Hagios Konstantinos in the southeastern part

of the plain where the exit of a major drainage system for the Dicte Mountains is located (i.e., the Chavgas Gorge). It is not clear though, to which interglacial-glacial cycle the corresponding base level of the Hagios Charalambos Cave should be assigned. The combination of climatic and tectonic processes described above would have resulted in a complex evolution for the region.

Speleogenesis of the Cave The Hagios Charalambos Cave is formed along a fault that separates gray dolomite from limestone, both of Upper Triassic–Upper Jurassic age (Pl. 4A). The tectonic contact facilitated the dissolution of the rocks, and the formed cavity was gradually enlarged. When the sinkhole was active, water draining through it probably eroded and further enlarged the cave. After the sinkhole became inactive, formation of speleothems (e.g., stalagmites, stalactites, flowstones) accelerated and gradually filled and blocked the lower parts of the sinkhole. Remnants of the rim and the entrance of the sinkhole can be seen on the outer edge of the present open-air part of the cave’s entrance in the form of steeply inclined and polished rock surfaces that also locally bear travertine crusts (Pl. 4B). The only passage to the lower part of the cave was always the one that can be seen today. Between the entrance and the surviving part of the cave, an upper pair of connected chambers was once present (Rooms 1 and 2), but the pair of rooms is now totally exposed to the openair. However, a small and very narrow conduit (Room 6) also connects the upper chambers with the lower ones; it is now blocked with sediment.

It is difficult to differentiate between older episodes of collapse and the recent one associated with the construction of the road. It seems, though, that the two giant blocks that form the entrance to the intact part of the cave are the result of an older collapse episode before the prehistoric use of the cave. The two blocks seem to have been fixed and shaped in place in order to make a proper opening to the interior where a few speleothems exist (Pl. 4C). The steeply inclined walls of the sinkhole prevented the accumulation of sediment on the surface of the cave. In most places the surface is covered by thick speleothem formations. The thin sediment cover in the areas where the human bones were located is most likely the result of the construction of leveled surfaces for the deposition of the bones by the Minoan people. The bones themselves would have acted as sediment traps. The sediment cover is reddish clay that was gradually transported and infiltrated through the fractures and conduits of the rock from the top of the hill above the cave. The shape and the form of the sinkhole entrance prevented the entry of coarser clastic material from the outside area of the cave.

Microstructure and Microstratigraphy of the Cave Deposits Sampling and Field Description During the 2002 and 2003 excavation seasons eight undisturbed and oriented blocks of the archaeological deposits were collected for micromorphological study (for the application of micromorphology to archaeology, see Courty, Goldberg, and Macphail 1989). Five of the samples were

collected from the archaeological deposits inside the cave. Samples GM1 and GM2 (from Room 5, Area 1, see Ch. 5) contained the upper part of the travertine substrate formation and parts of units 3 and 4 (the lower units in the deposit). In the field one could observe a large amount of bones embedded in reddish water-saturated clay.

GEOLOGY, GEOMORPHOLOGY, AND MICROMORPHOLOGY STUDIES

Samples GM3, GM4, and GM5 were collected from two fan-shaped sediment and bone accumulations (Room 5, Areas 2 and 3, see Ch. 5). These fan forms are found in small cavities with deeply sloping floors that connect the main chambers of the cave. Some of them seem to have been formed after the collapse of part of the cave floor, or the opening of new passages between the chambers. The bones are found in piles on top of the sediment fan, but are not covered by sediment. However, some bones on the base of the piles intrude into the sediment substrate. The sediment consists of reddish watersaturated clay with some cemented clay inclusions and rock fragments. Three more samples (GM6, GM7, and GM9) were collected from the front, open-air part of the site. In the set of trenches outside the mouth of the cave, a soil cover was found on top of the limestone basement (see Ch. 6). The soil was in the form of small pockets inside the karstified limestone. In the thickest pocket (about 20 cm thick) the soil had two horizons. The lower one was structureless reddish clay with a massive appearance. It was overlain by dark brown clay with a granular structure. The boundary between the two horizons was rather clear and inclined. The smaller pockets had a uniform grayish-brown appearance.

Methodology The samples were oven-dried at 40ºC for several days and then impregnated with polyester resin under vacuum. The cured blocks were cut into thin slabs with a rock saw and mounted on glass slides. Finally, large format thin sections (7 x 5 cm) 30 micrometers thick were produced by Spectrum Petrographic Inc., Oregon, USA. The finished thin sections were studied with a stereomicroscope at magnifications of 5–40x and with petrographic microscopes (transmitted and reflected with at tached fluorescent light) at magnifications ranging from 50–500x.

Cave Interior In the thin sections it was observed that the speleothem basement was altered before the accumulation of the sediment cover. In particular, a thin crust of silty clastic material, embedded in an

15

amorphous matrix, overlay the calcitic speleothem formation. In places the calcite was replaced by the amorphous material that was most likely a phosphate mineral (Pl. 5A). This alteration is frequently observed in caves and is attributed to the reaction of bat or bird guano with the cave walls (Karkanas et al. 2000). The overlying sediment cover was silty clay that also contained angular microscopic fragments of the speleothem alteration cover (Pl. 5B). It is thus concluded that the speleothems were eroded by the water entering the cave, and fragments of them were incorporated in the fine-grained sediment slurry that entered the cave (Pl. 5C). It was also observed that a great number of microscopic fragments of bone were dispersed into the fine-grained sediment (Pl. 5D). The size of the fragments varied from a few tens of micrometers to several hundreds of micrometers, and locally the fragments comprised up to 30%–40% of the sediment volume. In most cases the fragments were quite rounded, implying transport from the upper chambers of the cave. It was not possible to locate a lower sublayer deficient of bone fragments. Consequently it must be concluded that the formation of the sediment cover was after or contemporaneous with the bone deposition. It is also probable that bones were deposited first in the upper chambers and then in the lower one. Furthermore, ash crystals, plant fragments, or charcoal fragments were not found except for one or two of the latter that could have been transported from outside the cave. The samples from the fan-shaped sediment accumulations have the same features irrespective of the sampled part or location of the fan. The samples consist of clayey silt and clayey sand (Pl. 5E) and are certainly coarser grained than the samples from the areas of the intentionally deposited bones. They also differ from the latter in having a distinct microstructure. Domains with good layering and good sorting within individual laminae were observed (Pl. 5F). The layering consists of alternating clay and silt laminae of about a few micrometers thick. In addition, clay coatings (micropans) and clay intercalations are frequently found (Pls. 5E–6A). Often, fragments of previously developed mud crusts and travertine were incorporated into the sediment matrix (Pl. 6A). Iron/manganese mottling and intergrowths together with fragments of what is

16

PANAGIOTIS KARKANAS

probably charcoal were embedded in the groundmass. Bone fragments were not observed in these samples. These features strongly suggest that the sediments were the product of mass movement in the form of water-saturated slurries. They were certainly formed before the deposition of bones, and their source was open fissures in the cave walls connected to the surface. The whole arrangement of bones and sediment in the fans together with the deposition processes of the sediment suggest that the bone fragments were rolled down there from somewhere else in the cave. As was defined in the field, the fans were formed after the collapse of parts of the cave hanging floors. These collapses were followed by the deposition of sediment slurries that were deposited on the underlying sloping surfaces, followed by the deposition of bones. It is clear that this formation process is different from that of the areas with the intentionally deposited bones.

Entrance of the Cave The lower horizon of the soil cover outside the cave was reddish silty clay with a massive structure and very little porosity (Pl. 6B). The few voids were in the form of small passages and chambers attributed to plant and soil fauna activities. A few clay intercalations and some diffuse internal layering were also observed as remnants of the original depositional processes (Pl. 6C). The content and fabric of this horizon strongly suggest that it also was deposited by mud slurries. It is most likely that this area was formerly part of the cave, although very close to the entrance. The latter is confirmed by the presence of in situ plant roots that were identified inside the samples.

Interestingly though, these roots are burned (Pl. 6D). Several microscopic fragments of charred material were identified. However, it is also possible that colonization by plants happened after the exposure of the sediment to the air, due probably to an earlier collapse of the cave’s entrance. The overlying soil horizon is a mixture of two contrasting soil aggregate types. The first is dark brown silty clay with a high amount of dispersed organic material, and the second is derived from the lower reddish silty clay horizon (Pl. 6E). In addition several microscopic charcoal fragments were also identified. The highest amount was associated with the dark aggregates. This mixed horizon was altered by soil-forming processes. Earthworm excrement and passages and chambers from soil fauna activity were frequently observed. The mixture as a whole had a moderately developed granular to angular, blocky structure. It is most likely that faunal activity had mixed the two contrasting materials, but trampling on the former surface cannot be excluded. The presence of the in situ burned roots and the charcoal fragments is most likely attributed to hearth or similar burning activities that took place at the entrance to the cave. However, from the geological evidence, one cannot be sure whether the high amount of organic matter is the result of a former humus horizon, or if it is related to unknown human activities. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was conducted on a sample from the dark horizon in order to identify its mineralogical and organic content. The presence of kaolinitic clay, quartz, some feldspars, and organic matter was confirmed, but the organic content was not differentiated further.

4

Discovery of the Cave Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras

The village of Hagios Charalambos has a long history, although few records survive for most of the time it has been settled. Venetian census figures for 1583 when the village was known as Gero to Muri record that it had 18 families at that time (discussed by Spanakis 1957, 69, 87; 1976, 26). The village’s name was also spelled Geromouri, Geron to Mouri, Yerontomouri, and Gerontomouri before it was changed to Hagios Charalambos during the late 20th century (Spanakis 1991, 224). The population declined in the late 20th century, and many residents had left the region by 2002. The remaining population is now mostly aging people. When the new excavation was in progress, several of the houses in the village were vacant. Figure 6 shows the western end of the Lasithi Plain. The modern paved road proceeds around the base of the hills at the edge of the flat farmland, trending generally north and south at the west of the plain. The town of Plati is at the plain’s southwest corner where the north–south road at the west meets the east–west passage along the southern

side of the plain. Hagios Charalambos occupies a hill about 1,000 m north of Plati. The village of Kato Metochi lies to the north (see Fig. 2), and the swallow-hole called the Chonos that collects much of the water from the spring rains is situated nearby, north of Kato Metochi (for details of the plain, see Watrous 1982). The cave is within the borders of the village of Hagios Charalambos, which has most of its houses just uphill from the paved road (Pl. 1A). As Figure 6 illustrates, the small town is on a foothill overlooking the plain from the west. The cave is on the same hill as the village, near its eastern boundary. Like other villages in the Lasithi Plain, the modern town’s houses are situated on higher ground well above where water can collect after the spring rains (houses are not shown on Fig. 6). Although the cave is adjacent to the modern highway (Pl. 7A, B), it is not visible from the roadway that is immediately next to it because it is on a small terrace above the level ground. Its original entrance is at 834.95 meters above sea level (m asl)

18

PHILIP P. BETANCOURT AND COSTIS DAVARAS

at coordinates E2447.94 N8189.64 on the Greek national grid (Fig. 7). The nearly flat plain is at ca. 820 m asl at this point, so the cave’s mouth is almost 15 m above it. The cave was discovered by accident in 1976 by dynamite blasts designed to remove the bedrock spur during road construction. The explosions opened the top of the cavern but did not uncover the cave’s mouth. Because bones and pottery could be seen inside the underground rooms, the archaeological service was called to conduct an excavation. The cave originally consisted of seven interconnected rooms (only five of them still survive; see Fig. 8). The original entrance into the cave was at the south side of Room 1. Room 2 was at the first room’s western side, and Room 3 was at a lower level at the north. The other rooms were at still lower levels, a few meters farther down inside the hill. Cave formations were modest, and only a few small stalactites and some larger stalagmites were in the cavern’s interior. When the cave was opened, the floors of the front rooms had piles of human skulls on them. The roofs of the front rooms were cracked and dangerous because of the dynamite blasts, and some of the stones from their ceilings collapsed into the cave. The early excavations proceeded under difficult conditions. Because of the danger, the front of the cave was removed in 1982 to allow for safer excavations, creating the topographic situation that was present when excavations resumed in 2002. A large part of Rooms 1 and 2 was now missing, and only a part of the south side of the original entrance leading down into the ground survived. The new entrance (leading into Room 3) was at the base of a large cavity where the front of the cave had once existed. Most of the landscape immediately in front of the cave was a jumble of tumbled stones and soil as left by the power equipment. Southwest of the cave was an inclined terrace that was in the process of being lowered and removed when the cave was discovered (Pl. 7B), and a new artificial cliff rose above the cavern at the north and northeast (Pl. 8A). In addition to the Minoan discoveries inside the cavern, the excavations of 1976 to 1983 found archaeological remains from Minoan and later periods elsewhere in the vicinity (Fig. 7). Small excavations near the cave discovered a number of LM III sherds (Davaras 1982). Building stones,

roof tiles, and Roman pottery were visible at the location of a Roman house ca. 60 m northeast of the cave, down on the plain. The walls of the Roman building were already buried again by 2002, and they were no longer visible enough to trace the structure’s outlines. Other ancient traces exist in the vicinity. Sherds throughout the area provide evidence for agricultural practices in Roman and later periods. In addition, about 120 m south of the cave are fields with several LM I sherds on the surface where local people report that digging of wells has turned up Minoan pithos burials. This flat area on the plain must be the location of a Minoan cemetery consisting of burials in large jars (pithoi). For the cave itself, the topographic situation in 2002 (when the modern series of excavations began) was not a natural one, because the hillside was greatly altered by the road construction that discovered the cavern in 1976. Before that time, soil and stones covered the cave’s mouth. The entrance at the front of the cavern, which had originally been an almost vertical hole, was completely filled with black soil when the entrance was discovered, and the modern surface over this hidden entrance consisted of loose stones and reddish brown terra rossa soil that had slipped down from higher on the limestone and dolomite hill. The road construction had proceeded by blasting with dynamite, enlarging the terrace until the workers broke into the cave in the ceiling of Room 2. The original entrance was not discovered until much later when the front of the cave was removed (in 1982). In the early 21st century, the cave was at the bottom of a hole on a terrace above the paved roadway (Fig. 7; Pl. 8). As Plate 7B shows at the right of the photograph, this terrace was once the foundation of the unpaved road that encircled the Lasithi Plain. The road left the lower ground and ascended several meters in order to convey the traffic over the spur of limestone and dolomite that extended all the way to the flat plain at this point. What remains of this bedrock spur is shown in Plate 8A, and the relation between the surviving parts of the cave at the bottom of a modern cavity and the present ground level can be seen in Plate 8B, at the upper part of the photograph. In order to produce accurate maps of the territory around the cave in 2002, the survey team used existing datum points. This grid was established

DISCOVERY OF THE CAVE

by measuring with a Topcon Total Station from a permanent geodetic pin on Mt. Dicte as well as from the Bitsoloukoumi geodetic pin shown on Figure 6; it can be reconstructed by reference to two additional permanent survey markers set up by the Greek surveyors on the site itself (Fig. 7; Survey Point a1 is at coordinates E2443.64

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N8162.79, with an elevation of 837.72 m asl, and Survey Point a2 is at coordinates E2445.77 N8176.86, with an elevation of 838.934 m asl). The southern edge of the mouth of the cave was originally at the point marked hch2 (E2447.94 N8189.64, 834.95 m asl).

5

Excavations inside the Cave Philip P. Betancourt, Costis Davaras, Susan C. Ferrence, Louise C. Langford-Verstegen, Antonia Stamos, Maria Tsiboukaki, and Gayla M. Weng

Five seasons of fieldwork were conducted at Hagios Charalambos. Campaigns were made in 1976, 1982, and 1983 (Davaras 1976a, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1988) and in 2002 and 2003 (Betancourt et al. 2008). The excavation discovered evidence for the way the underground rooms were prepared to make the cave into an ossuary, documented how the bones and their associated artifacts were deposited, and recovered human bones, animal bones, artifacts, and various archaeological materials from inside the ossuary and from small excavations outside the cave’s mouth. The cavern is located at a contact between deposits of limestone and dolomite, and the cave

formed through dissolution of these rocks. The rooms were fairly small. Where the original walls still exist, they are smooth from the formation of travertine. Several stalagmites and small stalactites are present, but the cave is not impressive for its formations, and it has none of the attractive natural displays that contribute to the grandiose feelings evoked by the much larger Psychro Cave, located across the plain. The beauty of Psychro can be appreciated in color photos (Davaras 1989, cover and figs. 3, 4; Provatakis 1990, pl. on p. 144; Davaras, n.d., pls. 38–60; Rutkowski and Nowicki 1996, cover).

Summary of the Methodology 1976–1983 Seasons When the Hagios Charalambos Cave was discovered in 1976, it consisted of a series of seven

interconnected rooms (Fig. 8). The room that was visible through the hole made by the dynamite (Room 1) contained skulls and other human

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bones, complete Minoan vases, pottery fragments, and other artifacts (room numbers given here are the final numbers, not the preliminary ones assigned in 2002). The 1976 season consisted of a rescue excavation to recover what was possible in the way of artifacts, explore the site’s characteristics, and save it from being looted. Costis Davaras directed the excavation. Work in 1976 concentrated on the higher parts of the cave and on the area outside it. Entering the cave through the hole blasted through the ceiling of Room 1 was the only way into the underground spaces. The original entrance for the cave was not visible. Objects and human bones were removed from inside the cave and taken to the Hagios Nikolaos Museum. In addition, several small trenches were opened outside the cave, at the sides of the hill, in an effort to locate the original entrance. These excavations found some Minoan sherds, but the original entrance was not discovered. In 1982, a front loader was brought to the location, and the cave was again opened. The dangerous upper part of Rooms 1 and 2 was removed with the power equipment so that further excavation could proceed safely (Davaras 1982, 387). The removal of rock revealed the original entrance for the cave, at the south of Room 1. The 1982 season’s work consisted of the excavation of the black soil in the entrance and the deposits in Rooms 1, 2, and 3. Additional finds were made in the horizontal passage between Rooms 1 and 2. An inclined passage leading down to Room 4 from just west of a small landing inside the modern entrance leading north from Room 2 into Room 3 was not yet cleared, and its excavation was left for 1983. Excavations continued in 1983. The third season concentrated on the excavation of Room 4, and although the small entrance between Room 4 and 5 and the slightly lower Room 5 could be seen, the lower room was not excavated because the project did not have sufficient resources to excavate this room properly. Saving it for the future preserved its information for a later generation when new technological developments could provide more advanced methodologies for retrieval of information from this unique and extremely important site. The cave mouth was covered with a stone and concrete wall at the end of the season.

2002 and 2003 Seasons The new excavations began in July of 2002. Looters had broken into the cave in the winter of 1999–2000, and although the mouth was again sealed with stones and concrete across a locked iron gate after they broke in, it was felt that waiting longer without completing the excavation would be a mistake. The cave needed to be excavated to save it from complete destruction. In 2002, the cavern was visible at the base of a large cone-like hole whose top began at 834.95 m above sea level. It consisted of the five back rooms of the cave (Fig. 8), because only traces survived of the two front rooms (Rooms 1 and 2) that had been removed in 1982. The floor of the original entrance passage was partly preserved, but except for a few traces outside the new opening, the first room was no longer present. Part of the north wall of Room 2 could be seen about 7 m west of the new cave entrance. The new entrance to the remaining rooms was an irregular opening ca. 2.5 m high by 4 m wide at the top, narrowing to 0.5 m wide at the bottom. The geological studies (see Ch. 3) suggested that the two large blocks that formed this doorway between Rooms 1 and 3 were the result of a collapse that had occurred inside the cave before the Minoans used it. Permits for two six-week excavation seasons were awarded for the project by the Greek Ministry of Culture. In 2002, the team conducted excavations in Rooms 3, 4, 4/5 Entrance, and 5. A topographic map of the area was prepared in 2002 using an electronic distance measuring device (EDM) total station survey instrument. In 2003, the project completed the excavation of the 4/5 Entrance and Room 5, and it excavated four trenches outside the mouth of the cave. Within Room 5 a dangerous part of the cave was left unexcavated, to wait for a future generation when the problems of safe underground excavation could be solved with mining techniques, and new archaeological methodologies could be used again to obtain more information than was possible with early 21st-century excavation techniques. The excavations of 2002 and 2003 tried to maximize the amount of information that could be retrieved within the parameters of the two short excavation seasons allowed by the permits. Measurements were made with points established

EXCAVATIONS INSIDE THE CAVE

both outside and inside the cave with the survey instrument interfaced with a laptop computer. Two workmen excavated the trenches outside the cave, with two trench supervisors and one assistant trench supervisor keeping the records (Gayla Weng and Tanya J. McCullough, assisted by Maria Tsiboukaki). One workman and one trench supervisor were used for cleaning operations in Rooms 3 and 4, both of which had already been partly excavated (Gayla Weng supervised Room 3, and Antonia Stamos supervised Room 4). Alekos Nikakis, the head conservator for the 24th Ephorate, excavated inside the intact Room 4/5 Entrance and Rooms 5 and 7 in the cave, and workmen were used only for removal of buckets containing stones, soil, and finds. Excavation proceeded slowly, using small hand tools. Gloves were worn for both excavation and processing to avoid contamination of bones and artifacts. Two co-supervisors, Susan Ferrence and Louise Langford-Verstegen, maintained the trench notebook, supervised the photography, and drew the architecture and finds, triangulating the discoveries by reference to points established with the Topcon survey instrument. All bones, sherds, and other artifacts were retained and recorded within their contexts, and all soil was kept for processing with a water separation machine.

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Finds of human bones and other objects were first taken to a tent on-site where conservator Stephania Chlouveraki and field directors James Muhly and Albert Leonard Jr. supervised the staff that conducted preliminary processing for all finds. Objects were sorted and processed for shipping either to the Hagios Nikolaos Museum or to the INSTAP Study Center for East Crete in Pacheia Ammos. Whole objects were assigned accession numbers at the time of excavation or in the headquarters tent. Objects requiring conservation (such as ivory or metal) were given on-site treatment as required (for description of the methodology, see Chlouveraki 2008). Human and animal bones were cleaned with wooden tools. Sherds and other objects were sorted, bagged, and labeled for shipment. Soil from the excavation was bagged, recorded by context, and shipped by truck to the INSTAP Study Center for later processing with a water separation machine for retrieval of flot and residue (for the methodology, see Peterson 2009). The water separation device flows water through the soil and divides insoluble residue from floating material, both of which are retained for study (Peterson 2009). This methodology provided a substantial retrieval of information and objects, approaching full retrieval from all excavated deposits.

Excavations in Individual Rooms Room 1 In 1976 Room 1 was entered through its roof because the original entrance to the cave was not immediately visible. The chamber, about 3 x 3 m in size, contained a deposit of human bones along with many pieces of Minoan pottery and other objects. Skulls, long bones, and fragments of Minoan vases were visible on the modern surface before excavation, and the lower levels of the room contained a deposit of disarticulated human bones along with whole vases, broken pottery, and other artifacts (Davaras 1976a). Many of the bones in the first room were broken, and the excavators wondered if they had been thrown down into the room from the top of the vertical hole that formed the cavern’s higher entrance (Davaras 1983). The geomorphology later determined that the upper rooms

had been filled before the lower ones (Ch. 3), which means that the Minoans had to walk on these deposits in order to reach the lower parts of the cave. Because of the danger of collapse, the deposit had to be removed quickly. Power equipment was brought to the site in 1982 in order to remove the highly dangerous parts of the hill. During the process of removing Room 1’s roof and the cracked rock over it, the original entrance of the cavern was discovered. It was a vertical tunnel-like passage that began at ca. E2400.185 N8382.271 in the Greek military grid system. The entrance was at an elevation of 834.95 m asl. The passageway descended downward toward the north for about 5 meters (to ca. 830 m asl) to reach Room 1. This original entrance tunnel was filled with dark soil

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BETANCOURT, DAVARAS, FERRENCE, LANGFORD-VERSTEGEN, STAMOS, TSIBOUKAKI, AND WENG

when the cave was closed at some period between MM III and LM III, and its opening had been covered by erosion in antiquity, so that it was not visible above ground in modern times (Davaras 1982, 387). In a cleft in the rock at the entrance, the excavation discovered an intact bronze seal ring decorated with crossed lines incised into the elliptical upper surface (76), which may have been one of the last items deposited in the cave (Davaras 1982, 388).

Room 2 Room 2 was ca. 7 m west of Room 1. It was joined to Room 1 by a narrow horizontal passageway or tunnel about 6 m long. Room 2 consisted of a small chamber about 2 x 2 m in size. Like Room 1, its deposit contained human bones as well as artifacts. Skulls were placed on the surface over the mixed deposit of disarticulated other bones. The deposit was excavated in 1976 and 1982. It had no stratigraphy except for the skulls placed on the surface. Among the objects found within the jumble of disarticulated human bones in this room were a miniature dagger (35) and an igneous stone figurine with an incised motif on its flat side that resembles a female figurine, called the “Green Goddess” (28).

Room 3 The excavations in 1982 that used earth-moving machinery to remove the dangerous parts of the front of the cave enlarged the entrance between Room 1 and the lower rooms. Immediately inside the entrance leading down from Room 1 was a ledge of natural rock at an elevation of 829.35 m asl, and a lower room was at the east (Room 3), over a meter lower than the ledge inside the entrance. Room 3’s uneven floor was ca. 2 x 3 m in size. Its stone floor (which was natural bedrock) sloped steeply toward the north to an elevation of 828.12 m asl (see plan and more recent cross section, Fig. 9). When it was found in 1982, the room’s floor was covered with skulls and complete Minoan vases that had been sorted, gathered together, and placed on the upper surface of a deposit of disarticulated human bones. The skulls on the surface of this room had apparently never been covered with soil or stones, and they had been exposed to the air for many centuries (Davaras 1982, 388). Below them was a deposit of

broken human bones with a number of broken and whole vessels mixed with the skeletal material, very similar to the deposits in Rooms 1 and 2. After excavation of these upper units, the ceiling collapsed into the room. In 2002, the floor of Room 3 was covered with red soil (terra rossa) and stones that had fallen from the ceiling. From this chamber, a narrow, horizontal opening led across an uneven pile of fallen stones into Room 5, situated to the north at a lower level. Cleaning in Room 3 removed units consisting of soil, small pieces of human bone, a few sherds, some marine shells, and other small artifacts. The human bones were all scattered and disarticulated, and the artifacts were found within the red soil. Small pieces of plastic and modern wood were mixed with the entire deposit. All the soil was saved and subsequently processed with a water separation machine. Additional human bones and artifacts were recovered during this water sieving process. Cleaning of this room ceased at the level of the stones that had collapsed into the room after the excavations of 1982.

Room 4 West of the doorway leading from Room 1 to Room 3, a small sloping ledge descended toward the north from 828.89 m asl near the entrance to 828.18 m asl at the north. From this ledge, a bedrock ramp descended to the west at a much steeper angle (ca. 45 degrees of inclination) to Room 4 (Fig. 10). The ramp was covered with soil up to the ceiling until it was removed in 1983. Many complete vases came from this chamber. At the east side of Room 4, a low entrance below an overhanging dome of rock led into Room 5. The space between the two rooms was designated the Room 4/5 Entrance. At the southwest was a small passageway leading to a curved, low, tunnel-like room (Room 6, not used by the Minoans; blocked with concrete in 1983 and not reopened during the new investigations). When Room 4 was first exposed in 1983, it had skulls and complete vases on the surface, with a deposit of human bones and Minoan objects below them. The upper units of this deposit were excavated in 1983, yielding many complete clay vases and several other objects. Excavations in 1983 stopped near the bottom of the deposit.

EXCAVATIONS INSIDE THE CAVE

Excavations in 2002 continued the investigation of the room by removing lower units. Beneath a level of surface soil and fallen stones (that had washed in after the 1983 excavations) was a previously unexcavated lower level containing human bones, soil, and several fragments of Minoan pottery. The deposit was very loose, with open air spaces between the bones. It consisted mostly of a jumble of disarticulated human bones and red terra rossa soil. The bones were collected, and the soil was bagged, marked by context, and kept for later processing with a water separation machine. Additional tiny artifacts as well as human and animal bones were subsequently recovered during the water sieving. Intrusive modern artifacts (microscopic pieces of plastic, wood, grass, modern seeds, and tiny modern land snails) were present in the water sieved remains, indicating that a large amount of modern surface water had flowed through this part of the cave after 1976 when the tunnel-like Room 6 was exposed and numerous cracks were created in the bedrock by the dynamite operation. Because of this contamination with 20th century material, including charcoal, other plant fragments, and other items, the context for the flot was not regarded as secure. After excavation in 2002, the lowest part of the floor in Room 4 was at 826.82 m asl.

Room 4/5 Entrance Access between Rooms 4 and 5 (Fig. 11) was provided by a passageway ca. 30 to 50 cm high. The space was not previously excavated. Before the new work began, the space consisted of a narrow opening ca. 10 to 20 cm high, mostly blocked with fallen stones and soil deposited in recent years. After the removal of the fallen stones and soil, the passageway was excavated. The work discovered two superimposed strata. The upper stratum had very little soil in it, and it consisted mostly of human bones. All the bones were disarticulated and mixed together. Many of them were broken into small pieces. The level was ca. 10 to 15 cm deep. Pottery in this level ranged from black-burnished ceramics (FN to EM I) to fine wheelmade pottery (MM IIB). No stratigraphy was present, and the sherds were spread throughout the deposit with no uniform orientation. Skulls had

25

been placed at the northwest of the passageway, near the western wall of the small chamber, both within the bone stratum and on the resulting ancient surface created by the deposit of human bones. Below this stratum was a lower level consisting of a deposit of red soil containing additional human bones and pottery from MM IIB and earlier. As in the upper stratum, bones were jumbled together at different angles, with no articulated skeletons. The lower stratum rested on bedrock. The stratum continued into Room 5. The geomorphology studies proved that the bones had been placed originally in an empty cave (Ch. 3), and that this red sediment had come into the cave through fissures in the rock, filling in the lower part of the bone deposit to create a layer with soil and bones below an upper level without the red soil. This means that the red soil was the result of a postburial event that did not have anything to do with the original deposition of grave goods. As in the other rooms, all the bones and artifacts were saved, and the soil was bagged for later processing by a water separation machine. Subsequent pottery study showed that the two levels were contemporary, and that they differed only in the amount of red soil they contained. As in Room 4, the remains that were recovered by flotation contained modern grass seeds and other modern items. Evidently enough natural fissures had always been present in the upper parts of the cave to allow water to flow through it after the Minoans deposited the bones, even after the mouth of the cave was closed in the second millennium B.C. This water washed away the organic remains of the burials and deposited new red soil within the lower part of the thick deposit of bones and Minoan artifacts. The water continued to flow through in larger amounts after 1976, bringing in tiny land snails, modern grass seeds, and other microscopic modern items. Thirty cm below the surface (ca. 826 m asl), at the location marked on Figure 8, the excavation discovered a careful placement of leg bones that had been laid to form a grid (Pl. 9A). The grid was laid over a series of cracks and loose stones, and it formed a kind of platform to support the deposit of disarticulated human bones. This careful placement could only have been laid one bone at a time. Elsewhere, the bones seemed to have been put into

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BETANCOURT, DAVARAS, FERRENCE, LANGFORD-VERSTEGEN, STAMOS, TSIBOUKAKI, AND WENG

the ossuary much more casually, with little regard for orientation. A complete ceramic sistrum and several disks and fragments of the frames that were joined with pieces from other contexts to form whole instruments were found in this space (Ch. 14). The complete sistrum (98) is shown in Plate 9B. It consists of an unbroken frame and handle, missing only the horizontal rods that were surely made of wood. Its two clay disks were discovered nearby in the same level. The discovery of several sistra in this cave suggests that the original burial had made use of the instrument either as offerings with the deceased or for music during funerary services, but the scattered and broken condition of most examples indicates that the use was in the original burials, not in this secondary context.

Room 5 Room 5, the largest room in the cave, was open both to the Room 4/5 Entrance and to Room 3. It was a roughly elliptical space oriented east–west, with its eastern side covered with blocks of stone fallen from the ceiling (Figs. 12, 13). The dimensions were ca. 4 x 6 m at the floor. At the west, a well-like opening in the floor led down to Room 7. Much of the north part of Room 5’s floor was covered with human bones, especially skulls and long bones. However, when it was left intact in 1983 and the entrance to the cave was blocked with concrete, about 20 Minoan vases were also on the floor. All of these vessels had been looted when the cave was opened illegally before the new excavations began. The room was excavated in 2002 and 2003. The position of the human skulls on the surface of Room 5 can be seen in Figure 13 and Plate 9C. At the north and in the center of the room, no soil at all was visible because the surface was completely covered with bones and a few stones fallen from the ceiling. At the east, toward Room 3, a tumble of stones fallen from the ceiling covered much of the surface, and the few human skulls and long bones over this tumble were not in situ (Pl. 10A). This part of the surface was disturbed slightly when the looters crawled into the room through the tiny space that led from Room 3 into Room 5. Along the northern wall of the cave, where the surface sloped downhill to the west until it terminated in a deep well-like cavity that led to Room 7, the floor was mostly covered with human skulls.

Locations of bones on the surface were plotted and drawn with the assistance of measurements made with the Topcon total station. For ease in mapping and recording, the room was divided into five areas based on natural and manmade features (Fig. 14). Excavation proceeded by areas, using standard methods for modern scientific excavation. All bones and artifacts were collected, and all soil was kept for water sieving. As in the Room 4/5 Entrance, the work uncovered two strata. All the excavated portions of the room below the level of skulls and long bones consisted of a mass of disarticulated bones that were mostly already broken into small pieces. With a few exceptions (noted below), the bones were in disarray. Pottery consisted of a few complete vases and many sherds. Other artifacts were also found, and (like the bones and pottery) they were at various orientations and spread throughout the mass of bones. The upper portions of the areas were not “excavated” in the traditional sense because no soil was present. Bones were carefully picked up by hand (by the Chief Conservator for the 24th Ephorate, Alekos Nikakis), because tools were not needed. Local workmen were used only for transporting stones, soil, bones, and artifacts to the surface where items were processed and packed for shipment to the INSTAP Study Center. As elsewhere, all soil was kept for later water sieving. The lower part of the deposit contained some red soil, and study by the geologist showed that, as elsewhere in the cave, all the soil in this room had been deposited after the Minoan deposit had been placed there. As elsewhere in the cave, fissures in the hill had allowed water to flow through the entire cavern, leaving soil behind and removing lighter material such as organic remains. As in the other rooms, the microscopic material recovered by water sieving contained tiny pieces of plastic, modern land snails, modern plant material, and charcoal that may have been modern or ancient. These items contaminated the material recovered by flotation. The room’s areas are shown in Figure 14. They were delineated by reference to the room’s walls, the cave’s natural stalagmites, and artificial terrace walls added to the cave by the Minoans. Thus, they conform to the architectural spaces made in antiquity by the modification of the natural chamber through new architectural additions.

EXCAVATIONS INSIDE THE CAVE

Area 1 Area 1 in Room 5 consisted of the space immediately east of the Minoan terrace wall that ran across the room from north to south (Figs. 14, 15). The excavation began by drawing and then removing the loose and complete bones lying on the surface (Fig. 13). A deposit of disarticulated human bones with no soil or stones was visible beneath the surface bones and the few large stones that had tumbled downhill into Area 1 from Areas 2 and 4. The bones in this mixed and jumbled deposit were removed in arbitrary passes because no stratigraphy was present. The highest bones were at 826.25 m asl. Long bones were sometimes horizontal and sometimes diagonal or vertical. Vertical bones extended from the surface to well into the lower layers, demonstrating that all the material consisted of a single deposit. Occasional sherds and other artifacts were found at random within the deposit. The lower part of the deposit included red soil between the bones (as in the Room 4/5 Entrance, geological studies later demonstrated that this red soil had accumulated in the cave after the ossuary was closed, and that it was still accumulating in modern times; see Ch. 3). The area included the north–south terrace wall across the room (Wall 1), which was clearly revealed at the bottom of the first pass below the surface (unit HCH02-3-1-1, marked 1 on the section shown in Fig. 15). The wall was built of dry stone masonry using unworked fieldstones brought into the cave from outside it (Pl. 10B). The wall was placed to the east of a stalagmite whose base was wide enough to partly brace the bottom of the wall. The wall had been constructed in two stages. The lower stage, up to an elevation of 825.88 m asl, had been built first. The bones were then deposited east of the wall, and some of them were placed across the top of the wall. The second stage added another course of stones over the first stage, somewhat crushing the human bones that were lying on top of the lower part (Pl. 10C). The deposit of bones was excavated from the modern surface at 826.25 m asl down to a depth of 825.75 m asl, so it was ca. 0.5 m deep at this point, on the east side of the wall in Area 1 (Figs. 14, 15). The deposit of bones east of Wall 1, in Area 1, was similar in composition to the rest of the remains in the ossuary in that they were oriented at random in different directions (Pl. 11A). One

27

unusual discovery in this area was a group of vertebrae that were still in an articulated position (Pl. 11B). The small group of bones, probably from one of the latest burials in the original tomb, demonstrates that not every skeleton was completely disarticulated before the movement of the bones to their location inside the cave. The discovery was made in Level 3.

Area 2 Area 2 was not excavated. It was higher in elevation than Area 1 (at 826.25 to 826.71 m asl). This part of Room 5 was covered with stones that had collapsed into the room in 1976 as a result of the dynamite blasts (Fig. 14). Part of the pile of stones supported the cave’s cracked ceiling. Bones on the surface were collected. Excavation would have been too dangerous.

Area 3 Area 3 was at the north of the room and west of the manmade terrace wall across the underground chamber (Fig. 14). Elevations varied from 826.07 m asl to 825.70 m asl. A single layer of skulls covered almost all of Area 3 before the excavation began (Fig. 13; Pl. 9C). The skulls were drawn in place and removed as unit HCH 02-3-1-Surface. Below the skulls, the character of the deposit was like the rest of the excavated part of the room, in that it consisted of loose and disarticulated human bones mixed with artifacts. It had two strata, corresponding to the levels in the Room 4/5 Entrance and in Area 5. The upper stratum, with an irregular upper surface (with the highest elevations at ca. 825.5 to 825.7 m asl, consisted only of bones with no soil, and the lower level, below ca. 825.5 m asl, consisted of both bones and soil. As the geological studies demonstrate (Ch. 3), the soil was all deposited in the room after the bones were already in place as a result of natural movement of water through the cave. As in Area 1, the bones in the upper levels (i.e., the levels with no soil) did not need any excavation to remove them. After they were plotted and drawn, the skulls on the surface were removed for study. Under them was the same deposit of disarticulated human bones. The bones were carefully picked up while wearing gloves, placed in bags, and sent to the INSTAP Study Center. Removal proceeded in arbitrary passes, each about 15 to 20 cm deep (Fig. 16).

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The eastern end of this area was not excavated. It adjoined Area 2, and it was covered by the fall of loose stones that had tumbled down from the ceiling. Loose human bones and large sherds lying on the surface were picked up, but the stones were not disturbed.

Area 4 Area 4 was at the southeast of Room 5 (Fig. 14). Like nearby Area 2, Area 4 was covered with stones that had collapsed into the room when the ceiling above Room 3 and the eastern part of this space collapsed (Pl. 10A). At the southeast corner of the space, the elevation was 827.45 m asl. Bones on the surface were collected. Excavation would have been too dangerous, because the pile of loose stones supported the cracked ceiling. The area was not investigated.

Area 5 Area 5, which adjoined the entrance, was located between two terrace walls, one at the west near the entrance to Room 7 and the other at the east at the edge of Area 1 (Figs. 14–16). The wall on the west (Wall 2) was preserved only as a single incomplete course of stones near the entrance to Room 7 (most of the wall had tumbled into Room 7). Area 5 was excavated from the surface to a deposit of stone blocks that either preceded the Minoan occupation or was brought in by the Minoans to level the bottom of the cave. The upper stratum in Area 5 was a continuation of the higher stratum in the Room 4/5 Entrance and Area 3 (Fig. 16). Before excavation, the surface varied in elevation from 826.28 m asl at the south to 826.07 at the north wall of the room. Like the rest of this room, it consisted of a level of disarticulated human bones and small stones, with both sherds and whole vessels situated at random within the deposit (Pl. 11C). No soil was in the upper part of this stratum, and as elsewhere most of the “excavation”consisted of carefully picking up human bones. Vessels in the stratum had random orientations. A layer of large stones at the base of Level 1, shown in the cross section in Figure 16, had become

so tightly wedged that an empty air pocket was below it. The lower part of the deposit in Area 5 had much more soil than the upper one, and the interface between the two levels could be easily distinguished. The level, a continuation of a stratum in the Room 4/5 Entrance, consisted of human bones, stones, soil, and pottery. The soil had accumulated well after the deposition of the bones and artifacts (see Ch. 3). The pottery in all of this room was no later than MM IIB. Among the artifacts in the level were several cups, jugs, fragments of vessels, and several clay sistra. The bottom of the level was at an elevation of 825.55 m asl (Fig. 15).

Room 6 Room 6 was a narrow tunnel leading southwest from Room 4 and terminating at Room 2. It was investigated in 1983 and then closed with concrete. The Minoans did not use it.

Room 7 Room 7 was a roughly triangular room about 3 x 5 m in size. It could be entered only through a hole at the deepest part of Room 5 (Figs. 8, 14). The elevation in Room 5 near the hole was 826.07 m asl, and the bottom of the hole was at 824.07 m asl. From here, one could step down to Room 7, whose floor was at 822.76 to 823.42 m asl. The Minoans did not use this small triangular room, but a tumble of human bones and stone blocks was found across its entrance and floor, washed in from Room 5. The blocks of stone originated outside the cave, and they appeared to be the remains of Wall 2, which had originally been built in Room 5, at the edge of the hole leading down into Room 7 (Fig. 14). The situation attested to the force of the water that must have poured through the cave at intermittent intervals. The bones and artifacts in Room 7 were removed in 2002 and 2003. The objects included several pieces of pottery, some larnax fragments, beads, and a number of human bones.

Human Remains The skeletons from the site constitute the largest preserved population from the Lasithi Plain, and

one of the largest populations known from Early to Middle Minoan Crete (McGeorge 2008). The bones

EXCAVATIONS INSIDE THE CAVE

include all parts of the skeleton, and they represent people of all age groups, from infants to adults. Only a few small sections of vertebra were found in an articulated position, indicating that in almost all cases, the remains were devoid of flesh when they were placed in the cave. The bones did not have

29

marks from vultures or other large scavengers, showing they came from closed tombs; their clean condition suggests they may not have been covered with soil in their original resting places. The bones will be published in a later volume.

Comments and Dates The cave contained a secondary deposit of funerary material from a local Minoan community. Much of the pottery is from the Lasithi Plain or nearby parts of the Pediada. The excavated remains demonstrate that the material was deposited in at least two stages, both during MM IIB. In each case, the remains included all age groups from the primary burials, along with associated grave goods. The evidence suggests that the community that used the ossuary was most likely local. The closest parallels for both the nature of the deposit and the nature of the objects are provided by the Trapeza Cave (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936), and the similarities between the two Lasithi sites argue strongly for a regional tradition. The original location for the bones and artifacts must have been a communal burial chamber, either a tholos tomb or another cave or some other type of underground space. The bones could never have been in the ground and covered with soil because of the condition of their surfaces. The fact that some of the pottery showed signs of burning is to be expected because of the Minoan practice of purification and fumigation by lighting fires inside primary tomb chambers (Xanthoudides 1924, 135). The pottery, to be published in detail in volume II (Langford-Verstegen, forthcoming), provides the best chronological context for the other portable finds. It shows that the mixed and unstratified deposit includes objects from a chronological range of well over one thousand years, from the Neolithic until Middle Minoan times, with very few items that seem to be slightly later. The earliest sherds are from the Neolithic period. One sherd comes from an incised bowl whose surface is dark and heavily

burnished (Fig. 17:a). Part of a burnished chalice of Pyrgos Ware (Fig. 17:b) dates to EM I. A small jug (Fig. 17:c) is handmade with soft fabric and is from EM IIA. A Vasiliki Ware jug (Fig. 17:d) dates to EM IIB. An example of the local version of Whiteon-Dark Ware (Fig. 17:e) is from EM III/MM IA. Two other vessels (Fig. 17:f, g) are from late in EM or early in the MM period. A carinated cup (Fig. 17:h) and a Chamaizi pot (Fig. 17:i) are from MM II. All of these periods were mixed in the ossuary, and many of the vases had joins from more than one level and even from more than one room. The latest date for the material from inside the cave is MM III to LM I, but very little survives from this period. The latest sherd (HCH 04-392) was mended from sherds found on the top of the deposit of bones in Room 5 and from the upper level of Room 4 as left by the excavations of Davaras (Fig. 18, left). The sherd is the base of a closed vessel decorated in the lustrous dark paint used in MM III and LM I. The fabric and the paint suggest that the piece is most likely from LM IA, though it could be a little earlier or later. Among the other objects, a silver disk for a seal ring may also be one of the last objects put in the cave (Fig. 18, right). Most of the vases are no later than MM IIB, and the most datable object from the deposit at the rim of the entrance, which seems to be the remains of a meal consumed at the end of the ceremony at the closing of the cave, dates to MM II. Probably the entire deposit in the cave was made in MM IIB, but the entrance remained open for a time, and people left a few more items inside the cavern before its mouth was permanently sealed during the Late Bronze Age.

6

Excavations outside the Cave Philip P. Betancourt and Tanya J. McCullough

Areas outside the cave were explored in 1976 and in 2003. In 1976, excavations were conducted at the sides of the hill in order to learn something of the context for the cave and to see if the original entrance could be discovered (Davaras 1976a). The entrance to the cavern was not visible until after the removal of the dangerous front part of the limestone formation in 1982 when it was revealed as a vertical cylindrical hole leading down into Room 1 (Davaras 1982). In 2003, the area in front of the entrance was excavated to see if any traces of ancient activities could be identified. The area just outside the mouth of the cave (south of the entrance) was extremely damaged by the dynamite explosions used to prepare the location for road construction in 1976. In addition, power equipment also removed soil and stones in 1982 when the front of the cave was excavated. The machinery removed both the cracked upper part of the cave and much of the rock and soil at its front, leaving a large cavity where the two front rooms

had been originally. In 2003, the area in front of the cave was excavated in two places: 1) A small lens of black soil at the mouth of the cave (at the top of the east side of the original entrance) was excavated and processed by a water separation machine. 2) Four small adjoining trenches were excavated. The closest trench was ca. 7.5 m south of the entrance to the cave. The trenches extended 5 m to the south (Figs. 19, 20). Before excavation, the elevation at the northeast corner of Trench 14, the trench closest to the cave, was 835.66 m asl, and the elevation at the southwest corner of Trench 11, which was the farthest trench from the cave, was 834.76 m asl. The goal of these tiny excavations was to provide information on any activities that may have occurred outside the mouth of the burial cave.

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PHILIP P. BETANCOURT AND TANYA J. MCCULLOUGH

Alekos Nikakis excavated the small lens. Tanya J. McCullough and Gayla Weng supervised the excavation in the four trenches near the entrance, and

Maria Tsiboukaki acted as assistant trench supervisor for all the work.

The Mouth of the Cave A dark, almost black lens of soil was excavated at the top of the surviving part of the original conical entrance to the cave. The lens of soil (ca. 20 x 20 x 30 cm in size) was clearly visible in 2003 in the scarp left by the removal of the cave’s front part (the dark area at the upper center of the photograph shown in Plate 4B, to the left of the upper part of the meter stick). It was carefully removed, as it was the only part of the original soil inside the cave’s entrance that still survived. The excavated soil was divided into a small sample for potential later analysis and a larger sample for processing with a water separation machine. The tiny deposit consisted of black soil from the remains of fires. A large amount of burning had occurred just outside the entrance. Evidence for fires outside of tombs has also been reported from other Minoan cemeteries (Xanthoudides 1924, 6).

In addition to the tiny bits of charcoal, the deposit included a handle from a typical MM II cup made of red local clay and several small pieces of animal bones. The animal bones had cut marks on them, showing that they were the remains of food from which the meat had been removed. They included bones from sheep or goat, pig, and a small mammal, probably a hare. The handle sherd was made in the Lasithi-Pediada Red Fabric Group (the local fabric used for a majority of the pottery from this site). Its shape is typical of cups from MM II, which is the latest date for the majority of the deposit inside the ossuary. This sherd suggests a date of MM II for the lens of soil (Pl. 4B). No human bones were found in this deposit, confirming that the entrance was a different type of deposition from the ossuary where human bones were found in all parts of the interior of the cavern.

Excavations of Four Trenches Trenches 11, 12, 13, and 14 were excavated 7.5 m south of the surviving entrance to the cave (Figs. 19, 20). The first three trenches were 1 x 2 m in size, oriented north and south, and Trench 14, a northern extension of Trench 12, was only 1 x 1 m. Before the excavation began, the area was covered with terra rossa soil and light vegetation consisting only of sparse grass and small weeds (Pl. 12A). A few human bones were visible on the surface.

Trench 11 The original soil immediately in front of the cave was clearly no longer present (the area consisted of recently broken bedrock), so Trench 11 was placed ca. 7.5 m south of it in the hope that it would avoid much of the disturbed area and yet still be close enough to the cave’s entrance to discover original topsoil layers. This goal was not

achieved by Trench 11 because the road construction had removed all of the original soil in 1976, and bedrock was near the surface (Fig. 20). The trench discovered two strata above bedrock: 1. Patches of disturbed soil and stones moved here by the road construction 2. A dump from the 1976 to 1983 excavations on top of the disturbed layer The dump consisted of soil, pieces of human bones, a few small pieces of Minoan pottery, other artifacts, and small stones. It was mixed with terra rossa soil that had washed down to this location from the slope of the hill west of the cave. This erosion had all occurred after the 1983 season (it was probably partly a result of the removal of grass and other vegetation by the road construction).

EXCAVATIONS OUTSIDE THE CAVE

Trench 12 Trench 12 was immediately north of Trench 11, closer to the cave. Like Trench 11, it was 1 x 2 m in size. It was also excavated down to bedrock. Part of the dump from the 1976–1983 season was discovered above a jumble of dislodged stones and small patches of soil. The upper level in this trench consisted of the dump from the 1976–1983 excavations. It was about one meter thick. The stratum consisted of layers of two soil types: red clay-rich sediment that contained many human and animal bones, a small amount of pottery, and small stones; and a loose, dark brown soil filled with small stone chips, sand, and human bones. Both types of soil came from the excavation inside the interior of the cavern. Small pieces of modern plastic were mixed with the entire excavated stratum. All of this soil was dry sieved to remove artifacts and the larger stones before being bagged and retained for sorting by a water separation machine at the INSTAP Study Center. Below the dump was a jumble of dislodged stones and small patches of soil (Pl. 12B). Human bones were found where they had fallen from above into empty spaces between the stones, but no human bones were within the patches of original soil from outside the cave. Dark soil patches were discovered at the south of Trench 12 and in the north balk of the trench. Micromorphology samples of these soil patches were collected for analysis (samples GM 6 and 7 in the north balk; sample GM 9 from the south of the trench). The geologist (P. Karkanas) analyzed the samples and was able to determine some of the details of the original soil configuration (Ch. 3). He determined that originally the hill had a level of dark topsoil over it. Near this point on the hill, this topsoil contained small bits of charcoal, animal bones, and pottery. No human bones were present. This dark soil was originally over a redder soil level. The redder level was not aligned horizontally in the patch at the north of Trench 12 (it was vertical, with the red soil at the west, indicating that the soil had been scooped up by the power machinery and redeposited in this new location). The patch of dark soil at the south had red soil beneath it, suggesting the possibility that it may have been in situ

33

or nearly in situ. The only pottery in this dark soil was a Neolithic piece (HCH03-189), found next to the bedrock at the south of Trench 12. No artifacts were found in the redder soil.

Trench 13 Trench 13 was excavated east of Trench 11 in order to see if any of the original soil existed in situ at this location (Pl. 12C). The trench reached the natural bedrock at a high level (bedrock was only 2 cm below the modern surface at the southeast of the trench, though it was slightly deeper elsewhere). The smooth bedrock at the south of the trench had two drill holes for dynamite in it because this part of the hill was ready for blasting when the work was stopped by the discovery of the archaeological site. About 2–3 cm of soil had washed over the bedrock since 1976. Except at the south of the trench where the bedrock was higher, the soil consisted of a mixture of red soil (terra rossa) that had eroded down to this spot in recent years from higher up the hill and some of the dump from the 1976–1983 excavations. No soil was found in its original location in this trench.

Trench 14 Trench 14, north of Trench 12, uncovered the same two levels as Trench 12. The upper stratum was part of the dump left by the 1976–1983 excavations. It contained human bones, pottery, and other artifacts. Below this stratum was a level consisting of the disturbed and shattered debris as left by the road construction. The stones consisted of a jumble of broken limestone and dolomite blocks along with small lenses of soil. The lenses included several different classes of soil. Red, gray, and very dark, almost black sediments were out of their original place and interspersed with angular chunks of rock. All of this material was evidently gathered by the machinery and left on the natural bedrock. The soil lenses were not in situ. The red and gray soil was sterile. Panagiotis Karkanas collected samples of the lenses for micromorphology analysis, and all of the dark soil and samples from the sterile soil lenses were saved for water sieving. The analysis of the red and gray levels confirmed that these

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PHILIP P. BETANCOURT AND TANYA J. MCCULLOUGH

sterile layers had no evidence for human occupation. Analysis of the dark soil yielded additional small pieces of charcoal and animal bones like

those recovered at the time of excavation, but no human bones were present.

Comments The area outside the cave was extremely disturbed, but its excavation produced some very important information. The conclusions are only based on a small amount of recovered evidence, so they must be regarded as tentative, but they suggest some interesting probabilities. Five different deposits were discovered outside the cave: 1. Lenses of sterile gray and reddish soil out of their original context and a sterile level of the same soils in the lower excavated part of Trench 12 2. Lenses of dark topsoil dislodged from their original place on the hill 3. Part of the original fill of the cavern’s mouth, found in situ at the upper part of the original entrance 4. Part of the dump from the 1976 to 1983 excavations 5. A shallow level of soil that was deposited by erosion over the area after 1983

Earliest Material Sterile soil that preceded the human habitation in this area consisted of reddish and gray sediments underlying darker topsoil containing Neolithic pottery. This sterile soil was found both in place in Trench 12 and in small patches that were dislodged by the road construction. No evidence for the date of this level was discovered. The earliest stratum with human remains was represented by small lenses of dark soil containing Neolithic pottery that were found several meters south of the mouth of the cave. The stratigraphic position of this soil is known from dislodged patches of dark soil overlying the redder sediment that predated the human occupation. A significant difference between this deposit and all of the deposits inside the cave is that it did not contain any human bones, although it did contain charcoal, Neolithic pottery, and EM I pottery.

The absence of human bones indicates that the lenses of soil did not come from inside the cave. Because the Neolithic and EM I sherds were all small and worn and found away from any joining fragments, they can be regarded as a secondary context containing sherds that were discarded rather than as a primary context in which vessels might be found as they were left after use. The presence of the small charcoal bits and worn pottery in the dark soil in front of the cavern suggests the likelihood that people camped outside the cave before the beginning of the Bronze Age and during EM I. The cave probably contained water in its deep levels, so it will have been an important source when the rest of the plain was dry. The steep angle of the hole that provided an entrance to the cavern must have required ropes or a ladder to enter it, so it was not as easy an entrance as the cave at Trapeza on the east side of the Lasithi Plain (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936) where one could simply walk into the underground rooms. This difference in topography might explain why Trapeza had a Neolithic habitation level inside it, and the cave at Hagios Charalambos did not.

Fill inside the Cave’s Mouth When power machinery was used to get rid of the dangerous upper parts of the cave in 1982, the original entrance to the cavern was removed along with the rest of the upper parts of Rooms 1 and 2. The entrance was shown to consist of a nearly vertical shaft leading from the ancient surface into the cave. In contrast with the underground rooms, whose floors were covered with human bones, the entrance shaft was filled with soil. Most of the soil that filled the entrance was removed by the power machinery in 1982, and only a small lens was left near the modern surface. The excavation of this small lens of soil in 2003 revealed a situation that differed both from the deposits inside the ossuary

EXCAVATIONS OUTSIDE THE CAVE

and from the remains outside the mouth of the cave. The small remnant of the soil that once filled the cave’s mouth consisted of black soil without human bones but with animal bones and pottery. The pottery here was from MM II, and the charcoal and the animal bones with cut marks suggest that food preparation or consumption occurred near this spot. It is likely that this deposit represents the remains of feasts held at the mouth of the cave. The feast or feasts that left this deposit may have been the communal celebration that accompanied the filling of the cave. Because such a large quantity of soil filled the mouth of the cave, it is likely that feasting occurred on more than one occasion.

Modern Deposits The highest level in front of the cave consisted of part of the dump from the archaeological excavations of 1976 to 1983 mixed with new sediment that had eroded over this area after 1983. This deposit of very loose soil was easy to distinguish from the other levels. The soil was filled with small bits of human bones, and a few artifacts were recovered from the loose dump. At the modern surface, most

35

of the soil was terra rossa that had washed down from the hill to the west of the cave after the conclusion of the excavations of 1983. The amount of new sediment that had accumulated over the area in a period of slightly less than 20 years helps explain why the mouth of the cave was filled with soil rather quickly after the ossuary was filled with bones and artifacts in MM IIB. Rain is heavy in this part of Crete during some years, and the steepness of the landscape will have encouraged erosion. Terra rossa is a red soil that forms over carbonate bedrock in Greece (Nevros and Zvorykin 1936; for discussion, see Clark 2004, 33). It is caused by dissolution of the carbonate with additional red components added by loess blown northward from the Sahara. The red soil that was found inside the cave is similar to the terra rossa that washed down the area in front of the cavern after 1983. The amount of erosion at this location is certainly enough to explain why the cave was concealed from view relatively quickly. By the end of the Bronze Age, the ossuary was no longer accessible, and the cavern’s original entrance was not revealed again until 1982.

7

Later Occupation of the Area Philip P. Betancourt and Natalia Poulou-Papadimitriou

Vance Watrous conducted an intensive surface survey of the region around and within the village of Hagios Charalambos as part of an archaeological survey that documented traces of past habitation in the Lasithi Plain. He reported finding MM III and LM I pottery on the higher elevations that rise to the north above the cavern (Watrous 1982, 65). His suggestion that a Minoan settlement existed here at Hagios Charalambos is surely correct. Although he did not note any surface pottery from the same periods as the finds in the cave, the presence of later habitation does not exclude the possibility that people lived here in earlier times as well. Insufficient evidence exists to decide whether this would or would not have been the community that moved its ancestors to the cavern in MM IIB. In 1982, Costis Davaras conducted several small excavations outside the cave to explore the

immediate vicinity (Davaras 1982). His work discovered several pieces of LM III and later pottery as well as a few other artifacts. The discoveries demonstrated that a Roman house existed nearby at the edge of the plain itself (Fig. 7) and that the region as a whole had intermittent use during the Late Minoan III period and at several times after the Bronze Age. Some of the later pottery provides information that bears on the history of the cave itself. A few records of the village are preserved in Venetian documents, and local stories also provide additional information about the region. Objects from the later periods are preserved both in the Hagios Nikolaos Museum and in the INSTAP Study Center for East Crete in Pacheia Ammos. In this report, Betancourt studied the Minoan pottery, and Poulou-Papadimitriou studied the post-Minoan artifacts.

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MM III–LM I Pithos Cemetery A location south of the modern road and about 120 m west of the cave appears to be a Minoan cemetery from immediately after the period when the cave went out of use. The local inhabitants report that an excavation for a well at the modern farm there discovered an ancient skeleton buried in a pithos (for the location, see Fig. 7). The cemetery is located approximately west of location E2341.7, N8482.7. It is 10–11 m lower in elevation than the mouth of the cave, at an elevation of 827.5 to 828.4 m asl. The area is covered with a deep deposit of alluvial soil. The land is nearly flat, and it is similar to the nearby parts of the plain except that many pottery sherds are visible on the surface. Pottery fragments from this area include several pieces from LM I, including fragments of pithoi. They show that Minoans continued to live in this immediate region after the cave went out of use, and it is likely that the burials here should be associated with the Minoan remains reported by Watrous as a result of his surface survey of the hill overlooking this location (Watrous 1982, 65). The discovery of the pithos burials also indicates that the local people, like the residents of many other communities in Bronze Age Crete, gradually began placing their dead in larnakes and pithoi during the Middle Bronze Age, ending the practice of communal burial that led to ossuaries like the Hagios Charalambos Cave (for discussions of larnax burials, see esp. Rutkowski 1966, 1968b; Pini 1968; Watrous 1991). Larnax fragments in the cave show that the change in burial customs had already begun before the deposit was placed in the ossuary. Pithos burials are also known from elsewhere in the Lasithi Plain. At the west of the plain, burials in jars come from a location called Drakones, west of Plati (Watrous 1982, 64). Kastellos, the Early Minoan and Middle Minoan town that seems to have been the largest settlement at the east of the plain (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1937–1938), had a pithos cemetery that began during the Middle Bronze Age (Pendlebury 1936– 1937, 195; Watrous 1982, 42–43). Pendlebury found a larnax burial, apparently part of a cemetery from LM III, about 20 m east of the Trapeza Cave (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1937–1938, 44–45). Another pithos cemetery has

been noted near the monastery of Kroustellenia at Hagios Konstantinos (Watrous 1982, 44). Pithos sherds are also reported from Stou Petra, probably the cemetery for a Minoan town at Kastello near Avrakontes (Watrous 1982, 57) and from Pigadistria, the cemetery for the Minoan town at Aphenti Christou near Kaminaki (Watrous 1982, 61). These discoveries from several parts of the Lasithi Plain demonstrate that the custom of burial in larnakes and pithoi was widespread in this region, beginning at some period before the end of the Middle Bronze Age and continuing into the Late Minoan period, so that Hagios Charalambos fits well with the situation that existed elsewhere in the region. Burial in jars and larnakes was also practiced elsewhere in Minoan Crete, and it gradually became more and more popular in the island during the Middle Bronze Age (Pini 1968, 12–13). The custom of placing the dead in jars buried in the soil, as opposed to inside a tomb, occurred occasionally in Central Crete, including at Knossos (Evans 1921–1935, I, 584). This custom has also been associated with East Crete where it occurs at Sphoungaras (Hall 1912), Mochlos (Seager 1912, 87), Pacheia Ammos (Seager 1916; Schachermeyr 1938, 468), and Pseira (Betancourt and Davaras, eds., 2003, 128–129). The presence of the custom of pithos burial at Hagios Charalambos is an important piece of information. It suggests the possibility that the unexcavated settlement burying its deceased in the cave probably was located nearby, and that it did not leave the region after placing the bones in the communal ossuary. The situation at the Hagios Charalambos Cave must be understood within a historical development that involved fundamental changes in Minoan burial customs. The replacement of communal ossuaries with individual burials in jars placed in the soil of a cemetery was one part of a wider social development.

MM III–LM I Pottery Four sherds illustrated in Figure 21 (1–4) and described in the catalog here provide a good sample of the MM III to LM I pottery from the area of the cemetery. The jug handle (1) is made of a fine,

LATER OCCUPATION OF THE AREA

pale fabric, and it was imported into Lasithi from outside the local region. Of particular interest are the two pieces of pithoi (2, 3), which may come from large jars used as burial containers like the one recalled by the local oral tradition. The thickened rim of 2 is similar to the rim of MM III and later pithoi including those found in Minoan cemeteries (e.g., Seager 1916, pls. 1, 2). The clay fabric shows that both of the pithoi are local to the Lasithi region. The rim sherd from a cup is also local, and it provides a good date for the assemblage.

39

1 (HCH 02-8; Fig. 21). Jug, handle sherd. Pres. length 5.2 cm. A fine pale fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/6). Date: MM III–LM I(?). 2 (HCH 02-3; Fig. 21). Pithos, rim sherd. D. of rim ca. 40–50 cm. Red fabric group (light red, 2.5YR 6/8), coarse. Thickened rim. Date: MM III–LM I. 3 (HCH 02-4; Fig. 21). Pithos, base sherd. D. of base ca. 50–60 cm. Red fabric group (light red, 2.5YR 6/6). Horizontal ridge just above base. Date: MM III–LM I. 4 (HCH 02-7; Fig. 21). Cup, rim sherd. D. of rim 8 cm. Lasithi-Pediada Red Fabric Group (light red, 2.5YR 6/8). Thin, strap handle joins vessel at rim. Date: LM I(?).

LM III Occupation A few sherds of LM III pottery are preserved in the Hagios Nikolaos Museum along with the pottery found in the cave. No LM III pieces were in the cave itself, and all of the fragments come from the general area around it where Davaras excavated in 1982. They show that people continued to live in the region after the cave was no longer in use. It is likely that the objects represent offerings in memory of the deceased. One group of LM III sherds is illustrated here (Fig. 21:5). The fragments come from a small stirrup jar of the type used in LM IIIA:2 to LM IIIB.

The decoration does not survive, but the shape is typical of the period. The exact context for the fragment is not recorded. 5 (HCH 140; Fig. 21). Stirrup jar, fragmentary. D. of false spout 2.5; d. of base 4.2 cm. A fine pale colored fabric (pink, 5YR 7/4, burnished). Handle with both an oval and a circular section; small raised base. Decoration on upper shoulder not preserved; three bands on body; three bands above base. Date: LM IIIA:2–IIIB.

Post-Minoan Occupation Several Roman sherds can be associated with an occupation site south of the modern road and ca. 50 m east of the cave (Fig. 7). The area was investigated by Costis Davaras (1982, 388), but no new excavations were conducted at the location during the 2002 to 2003 campaign. Roof tiles and a few sherds are still visible on the surface, but the architecture is buried. Post-Roman sherds from this area show that the vicinity was also used in later times. The artifacts from the area of the Roman house can be divided into three periods: 1. Imperial Roman, second to third centuries A.D.

2. Early Byzantine, fifth to ninth centuries A.D. 3. Venetian, 15th to 16th centuries A.D. These sherds demonstrate that people lived near the cave in at least three periods of time. The pottery from the second to third centuries A.D. assigns a date to the Roman house mentioned by Davaras (1982). For the later periods, the information can be added to what was reported by Watrous (1982, 65), as he noted both Early Byzantine pottery and Sgraffito Ware sherds in the vicinity. One can also add the Early Byzantine sherd from the area of the

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pithos cemetery (13). The nature of these finds suggests nothing more than habitation, as no cultic items have been discovered. The evidence for importation or imitation of incised and glazed pottery from northern Italy is to be expected in a region under Venetian control (see below 14, 15). For the Venetian period, records survive to help document the habitation. The metochio of Gero to Muri, the name of the village of Hagios Charalambos in the Venetian period, was recorded in the Venetian census of 1582 (Spanakis 1957, 35–72; 1984, 84–89; Watrous 1982, 26–27, map 15). The plain of Lasithi had 40 settlements at that time, all of them regarded as metochia, which were not permanent towns. The metochio of Gero to Muri had 10 houses, which made it fairly large, as only six places in Lasithi had more than this many buildings. The later presence near the cave probably has no relation at all to the cavern itself. Veneration of ancient burial sites has been reported for Crete during Roman and later times (Xanthoudides 1924, 4, for Roman Koumasa), but there is no evidence that the later people were aware of the early burials, as the Minoan cave was completely closed by that period, and not a single artifact from after the Bronze Age was found inside it (the latest sherd from inside the cave is a closed vessel that is probably from LM I, Fig. 18, left; see Ch. 5). It is more likely that the sherds and other finds all represent occupation near this spot and use of the region for farming and the tending of animals.

Roman Imperial Period 6 (HCH 200; Fig. 21). Terra sigillata carinated bowl, rim sherd. D. of rim ca. 16 cm. Large convex molding below rim, with a ridge below. Two lines of rouletted decoration on molding below rim. Comments: from outside the cave (1976 season). Date: Roman, second century A.D. 7 (HCH 201; Fig. 21). Lamp, rim sherd. Rest. length 9.8 cm. Light brown clay; brown slip. Three rows of circles impressed on rim. Comments: from outside the cave (1976 season). Local Cretan production. For lamps with rows of raised bumps from Athens and elsewhere, see Perlzwig 1961, nos. 124, 426, 427, 435. Date: second century A.D.(?). 8 (HCH 202; Fig. 21). Dish, rim sherd. D. of rim 22 cm. A fine fabric. Comments: from outside the cave (1976 season). Date: Roman, second–third century A.D. 9 (HNM 13,836; Fig. 21). Loom weight, almost complete. H. 7; max. w. at base 3 cm. Conical shape, pierced

near the top. A red fabric (clay color varies from light red, 2.5YR 6/6, to black). Date: Roman, second–third century A.D.

Early Byzantine Period 10 (HCH 03-161; Fig. 21). Terra sigillata dish, rim sherd. D. of rim ca. 32 cm. A fine fabric; reddish-brown slip. Comments: surface find from the area of the Roman house. This is a typical Late Roman C=Phocaean red slip Ware/Form 3 dish (Hayes 1972, 335–336). The production center has been identified at Phocaea in Western Turkey. Date: Early Byzantine, sixth century A.D. 11 (HCH 03-162; Fig. 21). Cooking pot, rim sherd. D. of rim ca. 26 cm. A coarse fabric. Comments: surface find from the area of the Roman house. This cooking pot is typical for the region of Mochlos and Pseira and the Mirabello region. Date: Early Byzantine, eighth–ninth century A.D. 12 (HCH 03-158; Fig. 21). Glass vessel, base fragment. D. of rim ca. 14–16 cm. Transparent pale blue glass. Thin glass vessel of unknown shape. Comments: surface find from the area of the Roman House. Date: perhaps Early Byzantine, fifth–sixth century A.D.(?), but this type could also be of Late Roman date, ca. fourth century A.D. 13 (HCH 02-1; Fig. 21). Closed vessel, body sherd. Max. dim. 3 cm. A red fabric (light red, 2.5YR 6/6). Comments: Combed Ware. Date: Early Byzantine.

Venetian Period 14 (HCH 03-160; Fig. 21). Glazed bowl, body sherd. Max. dim. 3.3 cm. Painted and incised (graffita arcaica). White slip; incised decoration highlighted by splashes of green and yellowish brown; traces of yellowish glaze. Comments: surface find from the area of the Roman house. This vessel is probably a North Italian (Bologna or Venice) production or a local imitation. Date: Venetian, 15th–16th century A.D. 15 (HCH 03-159; Fig. 21). Glazed bowl, body sherd. Max. dim. 4.5 cm. Painted and incised (graffita arcaica). White slip; incised decoration highlighted by splashes of green and yellowish brown; traces of yellowish glaze. Comments: surface find from the area of the Roman house. This vessel is probably a North Italian (Bologna or Venice) production or a local imitation of it. Date: Venetian, 15th to early 16th century A.D.

Ottoman to Modern Periods A fragment of a modern pithari was found on the surface of the site near the cave. Pitharia— large jars used as storage vessels for a wide variety of products—were widely used in Cretan

LATER OCCUPATION OF THE AREA

villages until other containers replaced them in the second half of the 20th century. Itinerant potters from the village of Thrapsano made most of these jars. Thrapsano is located in the Pediada foothills to the west of the Lasithi Plain. The Thrapsano potters traveled out from their home village every spring and set up local workshops throughout rural Crete, making the pitharia out of local clay and selling them within the region of the temporary workshop (Voyatzoglou 1972). According to Spyros Stivaktakis, a resident of Lasithi all of his life, the western part of the Lasithi Plain received its pitharia from the village of Martha as recently as the middle of the 20th century (“after the war,” meaning after 1945). Potters from Thrapsano set up their workshop there, with a kiln and wheels for making the jars, and they were transported to Lasithi by donkey. There was, he said, no need to set up a workshop in Lasithi itself because Martha was so close. The village of Martha is about 14 km south of Lasithi (ca. 16 to 18 km by donkey track over the mountains). Water jars (stamnia) and other pottery shapes were acquired along with the pitharia from the Thrapsano potters at Martha. The anecdote is of interest as an example of the ease of travel and interaction between Lasithi and

41

villages outside the upland plain, but it should not be interpreted incorrectly, as an indication that Lasithi could never make pottery of its own. In fact, a Thrapsano pottery workshop at Kato Metochi, the village just east of Hagios Charalambos, existed about 1900 (Psaropoulou 1996, 113). Clays that are suitable for pottery are widely distributed throughout Crete, and potters can set up workshops wherever the markets seem to justify them.

Ottoman or Modern Pottery 16 (HCH 03-168; Fig. 21). Pithari, body sherd. Max. dim. 11.5 cm. A coarse fabric (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 6/6). Raised band; wavy comb pattern next to the raised band. Comments: found on the modern surface in front of the cave; according to a local resident (Spyros Stivaktakis), this sherd is from a large jar made by the Thrapsano potters. Date: Modern. 17 (HCH 02-10; Fig. 21). Stamna, rim sherd. D. of rim ca. 10. A pale fabric (pink, 5YR 7/4). Straight, flaring rim; ridges below rim from the manufacturing process. Comments: surface find from the pithos cemetery; a modern water jar. Date: Modern.

Unknown 18 (HCH 02-5; Fig. 21). Open vessel, rim sherd. D. of rim 44 cm. A red fabric, coarse (light red, 2.5YR 6/6). Perhaps a basin; plastic decoration on outside of rim. Date: unknown.

Part II

Portable Minoan Objects

8

Larnakes Philip P. Betancourt

Beginning in EM III to MM I or perhaps earlier, the Minoans began changing their burial customs as increasing numbers of people began burying the dead in clay jars and elliptical or rectangular coffins called larnakes (“boxes”) or cists (arca). Although some writers prefer to restrict the term larnax to the rectangular clay boxes (i.e., Watrous 1991, 285 n. 2), other scholars use the term for both classes. This study follows authors like Preston (2004a, 178; cf. Davaras 2003, 199–203, figs. 94–97) who use the word larnax for both rectilinear and elliptical burial containers. The elliptical coffins have been regarded as originating as bathtubs (“asaminthos”), a theory reinforced by the iconography of fish and other marine animals painted inside them on some of the LM III examples, while the rectangular larnakes are thought to follow the design of wooden chests (Watrous 1991). Because painted references to the sea are present on both classes, images of marine

life may have a funerary context rather than being a reference to bathing. All the examples from Hagios Charalambos are elliptical. The earliest elliptical burial containers from the island of Crete come from communal burials where an exact date for individual objects is uncertain, but their date may be as early as the Early Minoan period (Xanthoudides 1918a). For the region near the Lasithi Plain, the best date comes from the excavations at Archanes where the coffins are first attested in EM III (Papadatos 2005, 17). The custom of burial in larnakes reached its peak in LM II to III. By this period many of the members of both of the larnax classes were painted with symbolic figures and designs. The coffins have an extensive literature (for discussion and additional bibliography, see Orsi 1890; Joly 1928; Rutkowski 1966; 1968b; Pini 1968, 12–13; Tzedakis 1971; Long 1974, 75–77; Watrous 1991; Preston 2004a; 2004b).

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Larnakes and Larnax Lid from the Cave Four elliptical larnakes and one lid come from the cave (Figs. 22–26). They are assembled from fragments found scattered through several levels in Rooms 3, 4, 5, 7, and the entrance between Rooms 4 and 5. Every example had fragments in more than one room, so they provide one of the many proofs that the deposit was mixed before and during its original deposition in the cave. The larnakes are all generally similar, consisting of elliptical containers with straight walls, but they differ in some of their details. The top of the rim is flat in 3 cases and rounded on the fourth one (19). Number 20 has some square corners at the base, and it has no holes for drainage. Number 22 has small feet, while the others rest on their flat bases. Three of the larnakes from the Hagios Charalambos cave have small pairs of drain holes, and one of them was fitted with an impractical clay lid made in two pieces. These details are important, because they suggest that these larnakes were designed specifically for funerary use, and they were not re-used bathtubs. They are too small to hold adult individuals. They were for secondary deposition of disarticulated bones. Good parallels for the larnakes from Hagios Charalambos come from a house tomb at Kalo Chorio (Haggis 1996, 651–652). The small elliptical larnakes from here are dated to MM I to II, but they do not come from a secure context. Examples from Archanes come from EM III (Papadatos 2005, figs. 17, 18). Additional parallels come from the Pyrgos Cave (Xanthoudides 1918a). Most of the pottery from this cavern can be assigned to EM I, but the larnakes are probably later. The examples from the Hagios Charalambos Cave are from somewhere between EM III and MM II. The larnax fragments are surely related to the finds of large jar sherds from this cave. The custom of burial in clay containers, which began in Crete by the end of the Early Bronze Age, has been discussed in Chapter 7. The jar fragments are described in volume II of the Hagios Charalambos series along with the other ceramic vessels found in the cave. The evidence of the larnakes at Hagios Charalambos provides limited evidence for the controversy discussed in detail by Hamilakis (2013, 143–154) about whether an adoption of larnakes

for burial was an attempt to emphasize the individual and minimize the importance of the clan (see Branigan 1993, 65–66). The larnakes at Hagios Charalambos are too small to hold any complete body, and there is no reason to suppose that they held anything other than disarticulated human bones. In their final stage of deposition, their contents were no longer compartmentalized. Even the larnax fragments were in more than one room.

Larnakes 19 (HNM 14,279, HCH 02-32; Fig. 22). Larnax, almost complete. H. 32; rim max. w. 31.4; rim max. length 93; base max. w. 35.4; base max. length 91.4 cm. Lasithi-Pediada Red Fabric Group, coarse (red near surface, 2.5YR 5/8, and core weak red, 2.5YR 5/2), with typical inclusions of phyllite and other stones. Bathtub larnax with flat base; elliptical base and rim; top of rim flattened; straight walls; two pairs of drain holes near one end, placed at the level of the floor, two cm above base. Comments: “Larnax 1” mended from sherds from Rooms 4, 5, the 4/5 Entrance, and the dump from the 1976–1983 seasons (units: Room 4, 1983 season; HCH02-Dump; HCH02-2/3Ent-Surface; HCH02-3-Surface); the larnax lid (23) probably goes with this larnax because it fits nicely and the clay color is similar. Date: EM III–MM II. 20 (HNM 14,278, HCH 6; Fig. 23). Larnax, almost complete. H. 40.4; rim max. w. 29.4; rim max. length 85.6; base max. w. 32.4; base max. length 81 cm. LasithiPediada Red Fabric Group, coarse (red, 10R 5/6), with typical inclusions of phyllite and other stones. Bathtub larnax with flat base; elliptical shape; base with one rounded corner, two almost square corners, and the other corner not preserved; elliptical rim; top of rim flattened; straight walls; no drain holes. Comments: “Larnax 2” mended from sherds from Rooms 3, 4, the 4/5 Entrance, and the dump from the 1976–1983 seasons (units: Room 3, 1983 season; Room 4, 1983 season; HCH02-Dump; HCH02-2-2; HCH02-2/3Ent-Surface; HCH02-3-5; HCH02-3-5-Surface; HCH02-4-2). Date: EM III–MM II. 21 (HNM 14,281, HCH 50; Fig. 24). Larnax, almost complete. H. 33; rim max. w. 31.6; rim max. length 90.4; base max. w. 34.8; base max. length 88.4 cm. LasithiPediada Red Fabric Group, coarse (light red to red, 2.5YR 5/6 to 6/6), with typical inclusions of phyllite and other stones. Bathtub larnax with flat base; elliptical base and rim; top of rim slightly thickened, 2.2 cm thick, with top of rim flattened; straight walls; four pairs of drain holes at base, 3.6 to 4.2 cm apart at the level of the floor, two cm above the base; exterior covered with brown to dark reddish brown slip. Comments: “Larnax 3” mended

LARNAKES

from sherds from Rooms 3, 4, the 4/5 Entrance, 5, 7, and the dump from the 1976–1983 seasons (units: Room 3, 1983 season; Room 4, 1983 season; HCH02-Dump; HCH02-1-Cleaning; HCH02-2-2; HCH02-2/3EntSurface; HCH02-3-3-Below Surface; HCH02-4-2; HCH02-5-Surface; HCH03-7-3). Date: EM III–MM II. 22 (HNM 14,280, HCH 10; Fig. 25). Larnax, almost complete. H. 28.8 (including feet); rim max. w. 26; rim max. length 87; base max. w. 31.6; base max. length 87 cm. Lasithi-Pediada Red Fabric Group, coarse (color near the surface red, 2.5YR 5/6, with the core weak red, 2.5YR 5/2), with typical inclusions of phyllite and other stones. Bathtub larnax with flat base and small feet; elliptical base and rim; straight walls; slightly thickened rim, with top of rim rounded, 1.8 cm thick; four small feet 8.5 cm long by 3.8 cm wide; four pairs of drain holes above the feet, 1.5 to 3.4 cm apart, at the level of the floor, 2 cm above the base. Short, almost vertical incisions near the feet. Exterior covered with brown to reddish brown slip. Comments: “Larnax 4” mended from sherds from Rooms 3, 4, the 4/5 Entrance, 5, and 7 (units: Room 3, 1983 season; Room 4, 1983 season; HCH02-1-1; HCH02-1-Cleaning; HCH02-2-2; HCH022/3Ent-Surface; HCH02-3; HCH02-3-3-Below Surface; HCH02-3-5-Surface; HCH02-5-5-2). Perhaps it is a

47

hybrid with aspects of both elliptical and rectangular forms. Date: EM III–MM II.

Larnax Lid 23 (HNM 6826 +13,887, HCH 9; Fig. 26). Larnax lid made as two halves, almost complete. Both halves put together: length 96; w. 35.8; length of first half 49.5; w. 36.2; th. of rim 2.0; length of second half 26.5; w. of second half 34 cm. Lasithi-Pediada Red Fabric Group, coarse (reddish gray, 5YR 5/2, in the interior, with the clay surface reddish yellow, 5YR 6/6). Flat lid with almost vertical edges, with elliptical shape before it broke in half near the center. Exterior covered with yellowish red (5YR 5/6) to reddish brown (5YR 5/4) slip. Comments: from Room 4, upper units (1983 season); the larnax lid broke in half before firing; the two broken edges were covered with coils of clay, and the coils were then smoothed to create a finished appearance; the two pieces were then fired separately, making a single lid, in two halves; the color of the clay matches larnax 19, but the lid also fits larnax 21. Date: EM III–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1976a, 379, pl. 301:2.

9

Figurines Philip P. Betancourt and Susan C. Ferrence

Several figurines come from the cavern. They include both zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures in several classes. Materials are varied, particularly for the human figures, with the imported and unusual materials that are used for some of these artifacts suggesting that this category includes some of the objects with elite status in the community. A high percentage of the figurines

have pierced holes, suggesting they were worn as personal ornaments or, rather, as amulets. Objects carved as seals are not described in this chapter. The classification is inexact, because some of these pieces may have been intended as seals, but their lower surfaces are either not carved or they are so worn that carving is not visible.

Zoomorphic Figurines Three figurines in the form of animals come from the cave. They are all small and pierced for suspension, indicating they are intended as pendants. The exotic materials—two are of ivory and the third is made of a rare and attractive pale blue and white stone—suggest they are elite objects that would contribute to the prestige of their wearers or to their protection if they were worn as amulets.

Stone Bull’s or Cow’s Head This figurine has been discussed in detail by Ferrence (2011, 606). It has parallels that suggest a manufacturing date in EM II–MM I. 24 (HNM 13,898, HCH 03-197; Fig. 27; Pl. 13). Bull’s head pendant, complete. H. 1.7; w. 1.4 cm. Soft pale blue and white stone. Head of a bucranium with short horns,

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nostrils, and mouth; pierced through side for suspension. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 dump, unit HCH 03-14-5). Parallels: Xanthoudides 1924, 122, pl. 15:1147; Branigan 1970a, fig. 14, lower center (Platanos); Seager 1912, pl. 10; for a color photograph, see Karetsou, Andreadaki-Vlazaki, and Papadakis, eds., 2000, no. 99 (Mochlos, made of amethyst). Date: EM–MM II.

Ivory Ape Figurines Hippopotamus ivory was imported into Crete in substantial amounts in the EM II to MM I periods (Ferrence 2011, 603). The earliest pieces known include a worked tooth from Knossos that was found in an EM II deposit (Krzyszkowska 1984, 123–125, pl. 13a), and a seal from Tholos Tomb Gamma at Archanes that is also this early (Papadatos 2005, fig. 26:S4). By far the largest number are from the next period, EM III to MM IA (Sbonias 1995, 1999), suggesting that this time is the main period for the use of the material in Crete. No elephant ivory was imported to Crete until later in the Bronze Age (Krzyszkowska 1988; 1989; 2005, 59). Several Minoan sites have yielded ape figurines made of ivory. The figures are mostly seals depicting squatting animals with the engraved designs on the bottom of the base (discussed by Boardman 1972, fig. 24, pl. 4). Examples of single animals come only from the Mesara, the Pediada, and Lasithi. The example from Platanos is the closest parallel for the piece from Hagios Charalambos (25). 1. Archanes (Sakellarakis and SapounaSakellaraki 1997, 636, fig. 694) 2. Hagia Triada (Banti 1930–1931, 216, no. 447, fig. 120:b; for a color photograph, see Karetsou, Andreadaki-Vlazaki, and Papa dakis, eds., 2000, 172, no. 153) 3. Marathokephalo (Xanthoudides 1918b, fig. 8, at lower left of double figure). 4. Platanos (Xanthoudides 1924, 114, fig. 13:1040; Pendlebury 1939, 87, fig. 14:1:d; Zervos 1956, figs. 205, 207; Platon, ed., 1969 [CMS II, 1, no. 249]; for a color photograph, see Karetsou, AndreadakiVlazaki, and Papadakis, eds., 2000, 174, no. 156)

5. Trapeza Cave (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, fig. 21:7; Pendlebury 1939, 87, fig. 13.2; Boardman 1972, fig. 24; Lambrou-Phillipson 1990, 270, no. 236, fig. 59; for a color photograph, see Karetsou, AndreadakiVlazaki, and Papadakis, eds., 2000, 172, no. 154) Double figures that squat back to back also come from several sites. Their style ranges from naturalistic to highly schematic. The most naturalistic examples seem to be either monkeys or baboons, suggesting that all double figures should be identified as apes, though a different view is expressed by Xanthoudides, who regarded the schematic class as double birds. Examples come from the same geographic area as the single animals. 1. Archanes (Sakellarakis and SapounaSakellaraki 1997, 636, fig. 693) 2. Lebena (Alexiou and Warren 2004, 146– 147, no. 29, pl. 133:a, of bone or ivory) 3. Marathokephalo (Xanthoudides 1918b, fig. 8, upper center) 4. Platanos (Xanthoudides 1924, pl. 15:1026, 1146; Branigan 1970a, fig. 14, upper row center) 5. Trapeza Cave (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 97, 101, no. 10, fig. 21:10, pl. 14; for a color photograph, see Karetsou, Andreadaki-Vlazaki, and Papadakis, eds., 2000, 173, no. 155) These double figures may also be related to the glyptic image of two apes or other animals seated back to back (Ward 1971, 97, fig. 9; Pini, ed., 2004, 240 [Chania, sigma 214; CMS V Suppl. 3 (1), no. 133]). Similar double figures are known from Egypt (Wiese 1996, pl. 15:15, 16). 25 (HNM 13,907, HCH 03-191; Fig. 27; Pl. 13). Ape figurine, almost complete but surface missing. Pres. h. 2.2; w. 1.4 cm. Hippopotamus ivory, very pale brown (10YR 8/3–8/4). Animal seated on haunches with front legs between back legs; flat base; pierced laterally through back of head. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH03-7-3). Eroded in antiquity. The figurine may have been intended as a seal, but the base is too eroded to preserve any motif. Date: EM

FIGURINES

III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 451; 2007, 213, fig. 25.2:a, b; Ferrence 2007, 173, fig. 20.4; 2011, 603, fig. 3a. 26 (HNM 13,910, HCH 03-198; Fig. 27; Pl. 13). Double ape (or double bird?), missing one of the heads. H. 2.5; w. 1.9 cm. Hippopotamus ivory. Very abstract double figure with two opposed heads and featureless

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body; incised eyes; pierced through the upper center for use as a pendant. Comments: from Room 5, Area 1, Level 4 (unit HCH03-5-1-4). Probably an uncarved seal. Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2007, 213, fig. 25.2:f; Ferrence 2007, 173, fig. 20.4; 2011, 603–604, fig. 3b.

Human Figurines Eight human figurines come from the site (for the class, see Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1983). Materials and styles are extremely varied, and they include marble, fossil shell, pale green stone, animal bone, and ivory. The ivory, which comes from the hippopotamus, is a material that was used in Egypt (Krzyszkowska and Morkot 2000, 326–327), but the animal is also found in western Asia (Horwitz and Tchernov 1990), so the source of the raw material used here is not necessarily Africa. The sources for the other materials are probably in Crete.

Marble Figurine This figurine has been discussed in detail by Ferrence (2011, 601–602). It is an unusual form for Crete that does fit easily into any of the categories that have been previously defined. The lower part, with an almost rectangular shape, with no legs visible, suggests the figure may be wearing a long garment. 27 (HNM 11,844; Fig. 27; Pl. 13). Female figurine, complete. H. 12.8; w. at shoulders 5.1; w. of head 2.5 cm. Marble (white with a pink patina, 7.5YR 7/4). Rectangular body; oval head with features in low relief; hands meet at center of waist; abstract lower body. Comments: from Room 1 (Davaras 1982, 388). Parallels: Xanthoudides 1924, pl. 4:130 (Koumasa); Banti 1930–1931, fig. 58:g (Hagia Triada). Date: EM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1982, 388; Betancourt 2008, 16, fig. 5:AN 11,844; Ferrence 2008, 571, fig. 14:53; 2011, 601–602.

Green Igneous Stone Figurine A unique figurine made of a pale green igneous stone (28) has a form with some characteristics

that suggest a scarab and other characteristics that recall nude female figures of Cycladic inspiration. The “Green Goddess” is oval in outline, with one almost flat side and one rounded side. The rounded side has a line incised at one end in a position that reminds one of the line dividing the wings of a scarab beetle (Davaras 1982, 388; 1986, 10) or the division between the legs of an anthropomorphic figure. The flat side has an abstract human form consisting of arms folded horizontally across the stomach, an incised pubic triangle, and lines that suggest the head or shoulders. These details bear a strong resemblance to marble Cycladic figurines and their versions copied in Crete. The figurine has been discussed previously (Davaras 1982, 388; 1986, 10; Betancourt 2003, 8–9; Ferrence 2011, 598–599), with the latter two authors making the suggestion that it is related to Cycladic concepts. Nude female figures with the specific features of a frontal stance, arms folded across the body below the breasts, and abstract details of the nude female body are not native to Crete, but they are all present in a class of Cycladic figure that was imported and copied in Crete, with many examples coming from the Pediada and the Mesara (Xanthoudides 1924, 122–127; Renfrew 1969, Group IV; Branigan 1971, 61–63; for figurines in Cycladic style from Archanes, see Sakellarakis 1977a; 1977b; Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1997, vol. I, 339–349; Papadatos 2005). The Hagios Charalambos figure adopts the concept of the Cycladic figures without the specific Cycladic iconography, suggesting the likelihood that it is the concept and the meaning of the figure that is important rather than the specific

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PHILIP P. BETANCOURT AND SUSAN C. FERRENCE

details of the iconography. The local Cretan versions of the Cycladic nude female figure with folded arms are especially common in the Mesara and the Pediada, two regions with many other characteristics that influence the material at Hagios Charalambos in EM III. 28 (HNM 11,845; Fig. 27; Pl. 13). Female figurine, complete. H. 9.8; max. w. 6.8; max. th. 3.3 cm. Igneous rock, pale greenish gray with dark gray (5Y 4/1) phenocrysts. Smooth, rounded form with a scarab-like shape; rounded side has incised line for neck and incised line dividing the wings; flat side has incised lines delineating details of a schematic human figurine, including neck, arms folded across body, and pubic triangle. Comments: from Room 2 (Davaras 1982, 388). Date: EM I–III. Bibliography: Davaras 1982, 388; 1986, 10; Betancourt 2003, 8–9, fig. 4:2; 2005, 454, pl. CII:b; 2008, 17, fig. 6, left; Ferrence 2008, fig. 15:54; 2011, 598–599.

pieces. Perhaps the Cycladic figurines played a role in the beginning of the tradition, but the pieces from Quartier Mu were in use in MM II, long after the period of the Early Bronze Age Cycladic pieces. 29 (HNM 11,898; Fig. 27; Pl. 14). Figurine, almost complete. H. 5.1; max. w. 2.2; max. th. 1.5 cm. Fossil shell, Spondylus gaederopus (spiny oyster), lower valve. Smooth, rounded form with two sections separated by a waist (“fiddle-shaped” figurine). Surface very eroded. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1982 season). The piece is a worked lower shell valve. Date: MM II. Bibliography: Betancourt 2008, 16, fig. 5:AN 11,898; Ferrence 2008, 571, fig. 14:59; 2011, 607–608, fig. 4a. 30 (HNM 13,861; Fig. 27; Pl. 14). Figurine, complete. H. 4.0; w. 2.5; th 0.9 cm. Fossil shell, Spondylus gaederopus (spiny oyster), lower valve. Amorphous figurine; rounded, elliptical form. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). The piece is a worked lower shell valve. Date: MM II. Bibliography: Ferrence 2008, 571, fig. 14:60; 2011, 607–608, fig. 4b.

Fossil Shell Figurines The two shell figurines belong to a class of amorphous figurines with a long history in Crete (Ferrence 2011, 607–608). One of the pieces from Hagios Charalambos is a rounded, oval shape (30), while the other one consists of two rounded, featureless portions with a waist between them (29), with one of the rounded parts smaller than the other. The example with a waist and two rounded parts belongs to a well-known type in Crete. The class survive in several materials. Examples made of shell, like the one found at Hagios Charalambos, come from the Trapeza Cave (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, fig. 25:6–7), from House Epsilon at Malia (Pelon 1970, pl. 14:3), and from Quartier Mu at Malia (Detournay 1980, 99–102, figs. 136–138). Marble examples come from Pseira (Betancourt et al. 2002, no. 221) and Malia (Detournay 1980, figs. 134–138). An example of limestone has been found at Palaikastro (Bosanquet and Dawkins 1923, 149, fig. 131). The smaller member is usually regarded as the head, with the larger part representing the body of a human figure. The figures are often compared with the Early Cycladic amorphous “fiddle-shaped” figurines (Renfrew 1969); like the Cycladic versions, some of the Cretan examples are made of white marble, and the shape is similar enough to suggest a relationship. The date of the Cretan figurines, however, is often much later than the Cycladic

Animal Bone Female Figurine A nude female figure (31) with an erect, standing pose has a stiff vertical stance, straight legs, and a frontal face. Its head is somewhat triangular, with shallow holes for eyes and a horizontal cut for the mouth. The arms are bent at the elbow and folded across the front of the body at the waist. The figure, which is carved from animal bone, can be assigned to the Siva Type of Cretan figurine (Branigan 1971, 71–72), along with additional examples from Hagia Triada and Siva. The class comes from the Early Minoan period. 31 (HNM 13,067; Fig. 27; Pl. 14). Female figurine, complete. H. 8.9; w. of head 1.7 cm. Animal bone. Nude figure with frontal stance with slightly separated legs and arms that are bent at the elbow and join across the front, at the waist; incised details of eyes, arms, ears, and pubic triangle. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper levels (1983 season). The Siva Type, to which this figure belongs, is a local Cretan class of nude female figurine (Branigan 1971). Parallels: Banti 1930–1931, fig. 58:n (Hagia Triada); Branigan 1971 (Siva). Date: EM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1983; 1986, 10; Betancourt 2008, 17, fig. 6, right; Ferrence 2008, 572, fig. 15:55; 2011, 598, fig. 1a, left; Papadatos 2008, 215.

Ivory Female Figurines Several ivory objects come from the Hagios Charalambos Cave, including three female figurines (32–34). The three figures belong to a class made in

FIGURINES

both stone and ivory, with several surviving examples from other sites, including some with more details than were applied to the rather schematic figures from this site (Ferrence 2011, 599–601). The figurines in this class all have a generally squat form with a head showing simple facial features. The body varies from featureless figures (Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1997, 637, fig. 696 [Arc hanes]; Xanthoudides 1924, pl. 4:128, 129 [Koumasa]; 33 in this catalog) to examples with details of female clothing including the hem and the collar (Banti 1930–1931, fig. 58:v [Hagia Triada]). The examples with details of clothing show that the figure is a standing woman wearing a long garment that reaches almost to the ground. More naturalistic figures from later times (Karetsou, AndreadakiVlazaki, and Papadakis, eds., 2000, no. 78 [Knossos]) confirm the pose. Additional parallels come from the Pediada (Sakellarakis and SapounaSakellaraki 1997, 637, fig. 696 [Archanes]) and from tombs in the Mesara: Kalathiana (Xanthoudides 1924, 84, pl. 8:182); Koumasa (Xanthoudides 1924, pls. 4:135, 21:128, 129, 135); and Platanos (Xanthoudides 1924, 122, pl. 15:230). 32 (HNM 13,909, HCH 03-182; Fig. 28; Pl. 14. Female figurine, complete. H. 2.7; w. 1.7 cm. Hippopotamus ivory. Rectangular body with slight waist and arms bent at the elbows, with the hands meeting at the center of the waist; head with ridge for nose and incised eyes; flat back; pierced from top of head to back of head for use as a pendant. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-1); burned;

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ancient vertical crack at front of figure. Parallels: Xanthoudides 1924, pls. 4:128, 129 (Koumasa, stone), 15:230 (Platanos, ivory); Banti 1930–1931, fig. 58:v (Hagia Triada). Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; 2007, 213, fig. 25.2:J; 2008, 16, fig. 5:AN 13,909; Ferrence 2007, 171–173, fig. 20.4; 2008, 571, fig. 14:56; 2011, 599–601, fig. 1b, lower. 33 (HNM 13,912, HCH 02-102; Fig. 28; Pl. 14). Female(?) figurine, complete. H. 2.6; max. w. 1.4 cm. Hippopotamus ivory. Featureless body with rounded shoulders; short neck; almost circular head with incised eyes; flat back; pierced from top of head to back of head for use a pendant. Comments: from Room 5, Area 1, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-1-3); the back of the head was broken in antiquity, rendering the object useless as a pendant; for a similar broken head from a Minoan tomb at Marathokephalo, see Xanthoudides 1918b, 22. Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; 2008, 16, fig. 5:AN 13,912; Ferrence 2008, 571, fig. 14:58; 2011, 599–601. 34 (HNM 13,908, HCH 03-187; Fig. 28; Pl. 14). Female figurine, head missing. Preserved h. 2.8; w. 1.7; thickness 0.8 cm. Hippopotamus ivory. Rectangular body with slight waist and arms bent at the elbows with the hands meeting at the center of the front of the body, at the waist; head missing; back flat; pierced from top of head to back of head for use as a pendant. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-72); the break at the neck is ancient. Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; 2007, 213, fig. 25.2:H; Ferrence 2007, 171; 2008, 571, fig. 14:57; 2011, 599–601, fig. 1b, upper.

10

Objects of Copper and Bronze James D. Muhly

Relatively few metal objects come from the cave, and many of them are difficult to date with confidence. Few, if any, objects can be assigned to the beginning of the Bronze Age. Most of the pieces are most likely from EM III to MM II, the period of the majority of the pottery. The Cyclades and Lavrion were responsible for considerable influence on the Cretan copper production (Stos-Gale 1993,

1998; Stos-Gale and Macdonald 1991), and they probably exerted an influence on the objects found in the cave. Some of the metal objects from the cave were analyzed for elemental composition with laserinduced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) in 2004 at the Archaeological Museum in Hagios Nikolaos.

Catalog Copper or Bronze Weapon

Bronze Blades

35 (HNM 11,879; Fig. 29; Pl. 14). Dagger, complete. Length 7.5; w. 1.4 cm. Copper or bronze. Miniature dagger; elliptical section; rounded heel with no rivets. Comments: from Room 2 (Davaras 1982, 388); analysis by LIBS demonstrated that this object is made of copper with a very small amount of tin. Date: MM IIB. Bibliography: Davaras 1982, 388; 1986, 10; Muhly 2008, 558–560, fig. 11:22.

36 (HNM 11,881; Fig. 29; Pl. 14). Blade, almost complete. Length 3.2; w. 1.7; th. 0.3 cm. Bronze. Flat heel with two holes for rivets, in line; straight blade with wide, rounded end. Comments: from Room 2 (Davaras 1982, 388); analysis by LIBS demonstrated that this object is made of copper with a substantial amount of tin. Parallels: Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, pl. 15 above (Trapeza Cave); Seager 1912,

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nos. VI.29, with part of the ivory hilt still in place, and XIX.29, 30, 32 (Mochlos); Xanthoudides 1918b, 20, fig. 6, lower right (Marathokephalo); Poursat 1996, pl. 42:b, c (Malia); Branigan 2010, 148–149 (Moni Odigitria, Koumasa, Kalathiana, Platanos, Porti, Siva, and Lebena). Date: EM–MM IIB. Bibliography: Davaras 1982, 388; Muhly 2008, 558–560, fig. 11:23. 37 (HNM 13,904, HCH 02-92; Fig. 29; Pl. 14). Blade in handle, metal broken at base of handle. Pres. length 3.5; w. 0.9; max. th. of blade 0.1 cm. Hippopotamus ivory handle with copper or bronze blade; pawn-shaped handle with two rivets holding the blade and a third hole pierced in the end of the handle. Comments: from Room 5, Area 1, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-3-1-2). Date: EM III–MM IIB. Bibliography: Ferrence 2007, 172–173, fig. 20.4.

Copper or Bronze Awls and Pins 38 (HNM 11,882; Fig. 29; Pl. 14). Awl(?), complete. Length 3.2; max. th. 0.5 cm. Copper or bronze. Pointed tool; square cross section; pointed heel for insertion in a handle. Comments: from Room 1 (1982 season). Date: EM–MM IIB. 39 (HNM 13,778, HCH 02-87; Fig. 29). Pin or awl(?), fragment of center section. Pres. length 2.3 (1.9 as bent); w. 0.5 cm. Copper or bronze. Constructed by rolling a thin sheet, badly corroded. Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-5-3). Date: EM–MM IIB.

Handles for Metal Tools 40 (HNM 11,872; Fig. 29). Handle for an unknown tool, almost complete. Length 3.7; d. 1.8 cm. Hippopotamus ivory (exterior mottled, very pale brown, 10YR 7/3, and brown, 7.5YR 5/4), polished. Handle with bulb at end, tapering to a smaller size at other end; pierced laterally through the larger end. Smaller end damaged and probably pierced through the tip for the insertion of a tool. Comments: from Room 3 or 4 (1983 season). Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. 41 (HNM 13,911, HCH 02-103; Fig. 29; Pl. 14). Handle for unknown tool, broken. Pres. length 3.7; max. w. 1.3 cm. Hippopotamus ivory (very pale brown, 10YR 7/3), polished. Pawn-shaped hilt; pierced at end; small shoulder; two incised lines at base of bulb; handle has cutting for insertion of a blade. Comments: from Room 5, Area 1, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-1-3); similar to (37), so probably a handle for a blade or some other metal tool. Date: EM III–MM IIB. Bibliography: Muhly 2008, 558–560, fig. 11:21.

Copper Bead 42 (HNM 11,886; Fig. 29). Cylindrical bead, complete. Length 2.3 cm; d. 0.44 cm. Copper. Rolled strip of

metal, producing a hollow tube. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1982 season); analysis by LIBS demonstrated that this object is made of pure copper. Date: EM–MM IIB. Bibliography: Muhly 2008, 558–560, fig. 11:24.

Copper or Bronze Diadems and Strips In this catalog, strips with pierced holes near the ends are regarded as diadems and similar pieces of metal without pierced holes are called strips. 43 (HNM 11,880; Fig. 29). Diadem, one end. Pres. length 1.5; w. 0.7 cm. Copper or bronze. Strip of metal; two holes, one containing a rivet. Comments: from Room 1 (1982 season). Date: EM–MM IIB. 44 (HNM 11,906; Fig. 29). Diadem, two fragments of the same object. Pres. length 6.5; w. 0.7 cm. Copper or bronze. Strip of metal; one hole 2 cm from end. Comments: from Room 3 (1983 season). Date: EM– MM IIB. 45 (HNM 11,905; Fig. 29). Strip, fragment. Pres. length 2.4 (unbent); w. 0.4 cm. Copper or bronze diadem? Comments: from Room 3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM IIB. 46 (HNM 13,794; Fig. 29). Strip, fragment. Pres. length (as bent) 1.8; w. 0.6 cm. Copper or bronze. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II. 47 (HNM 13,798; Fig. 29). Strip, fragment. Pres. length 1.2; w. 0.8 cm. Copper or bronze. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM IIB.

Copper Disk 48 (HNM 11,885; Fig. 29). Disk, complete. D. 2.8; h. 0.3 cm. Plumbian copper. Circular disk, slightly concave. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1982 season); analysis by LIBS demonstrated that this object is made of copper with a tiny amount of lead. Date: EM–MM IIB. Bibliography: Muhly 2008, 558–560, fig. 11:25.

Copper or Bronze Miscellaneous Objects 49 (HNM 11,883; Fig. 29). Irregular strip, complete(?). Pres. length 1.8; w. 0.5 cm. Copper or bronze. Comments: from Room 1 (1982 season). Date: EM–MM IIB. 50 (HNM 13,777, HCH 02-95; Fig. 29). Unknown object, irregular fragment. Pres. length 1.7; th. 0.2 cm. Copper and silver. Irregular strip, broken on all sides, possibly copper with silver inlay, but too corroded for identification. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-3-3-2); analysis by LIBS showed the presence of the two metals. Date: EM–MM IIB.

11

Objects of Gold, Silver, and Lead James D. Muhly

Objects of Gold Several conclusions are obvious in the collection of metal objects. First, almost all of the metal objects are items of jewelry. One must conclude that they were deposited in the burials as personal possessions, either worn by the deceased or intended as prestige items in the next life. Secondly, gold was clearly a favored metal over silver or copper alloys or lead as the material of choice for elite personal adornment. Approximately twice as many gold pieces occur as silver and lead combined. All three metals were imported into Crete, but the relative abundance of gold over especially silver is a very different pattern from what occurs in the Cyclades, which must indicate that the access to gold and the trade routes that brought this metal to Crete in EM III to MM II did not come from the north.

Gold Diadem and Strips In this catalog, a diadem is defined as a strip with a width of at least 1 cm and with holes near the ends, making the form suitable for wearing across the forehead, as is shown on the wall painting of a Late Cycladic IA figure from Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, Thera (Doumas 1992, 156–157). Unpierced or very thin pieces and fragments that do not preserve the end are called strips. Gold artifacts of this type are also known from many other Minoan sites (Davaras 1975; Hickman 2008), including the Trapeza Cave in Lasithi (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and MoneyCoutts 1935–1936, pl. 15, below). 51 (HNM 11,902; Fig. 30). Diadem, fragment from the end. Pres. length (as found, bent) 1.3; w. 0.3 cm.

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Gold. Strip; two pierced holes near the one preserved end. Comments: from Room 4 (1983 season); the fragment of diadem was rolled up; the survival of the pierced hole near the end suggests that these strips were used as diadems. Parallels: for thin diadems of this type, see Seager 1912, figs. 8, 10, 43 (Mochlos); Demargne 1930, pl. 18; 1945, pl. l65:565 (Malia). Date: EM IIB–MM II. Bibliography: Hickman 2008, 562, fig. 11:28. 52 (HNM 13,866, HCH 04-235; Fig. 30). Strip, one end. Pres. length (as found, bent) 4.0; w. 0.2 cm. Gold. Thin strip. Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1-2-Cleaning). Date: EM IIB–MM II. Bibliography: Hickman 2008, 561, fig. 11:26. 53 (HNM 13,865, HCH 04-242; Fig. 30). Strip, irregular piece. Max. dim. (as found, bent) 0.9 cm. Gold. Piece of sheet. Comments: from Room 3, lower levels (unit HCH 02-1-3). Date: EM IIB–MM II. Bib liography: Hickman 2008, 562, fig. 11:27.

Gold and Copper Ring (Earring?) 54 (HNM 11,851; Fig. 30; Pl. 15. Ring, broken at both ends. Exterior d. 2.1 cm. Gold sheets folded and shaped as exterior cover over the copper or bronze core. Small part of the gold missing at the center, showing the core. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons); perhaps an earring. Parallels: Demargne 1945, pl. 22:557 (Malia). Date: MM I–II.

Gold Ring This gold ring decorated with naturalistic marine elements is one of the finest objects from the cave. Its manufacture uses complex technology and a miniaturist style that is a progenitor for the marine style of later Minoan times. It has been discussed in detail by Pini (2010, 17) and Betancourt (2011). Both style and the use of copper diffusion bonding for joining gold to gold associate the manufacture with the Middle Minoan palace at Malia where the joining of gold to gold has long been known from the granulation on the “bee pendant” (Demargne 1930) and where cockle shells were used as symbolic motifs. The ring is an item that reinforces the suggestion of a close bond between Lasithi and Malia at the end of MM II (Cadogan 1990, 1995; Knappett 1999; Knappett and Schoep 2000). 55 (HNM 11,868; Fig. 30; Pl. 15). Ring, complete. D. 1.6 cm. Gold. Repoussé decoration composed of three marine shells in a background of irregular rock-like formations; decoration is manufactured as two sheets, with the lower one plain and the upper one with the relief decoration; decorative ornament is fused or soldered

onto the ring, which is made by rolling the sides of a rectangular sheet of gold to produce a pair of rolls next to each other. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: MM IIB. Bibliography: Davaras 1983, 375; 1986, 10; Effinger 1996, 185; Betancourt 2007, 215, fig. 25.4; 2008, 16, fig. 5:AN 11,868; 2011; Muhly 2008, 558, fig. 11:17; Pini, ed., 2010, 17.

Gold Foil and Sheets Small pieces of gold foil occur occasionally in Minoan tombs, indicating that the fragile material was used to cover objects of other materials (Marinatos 1929a, 121 [Krasi]). 56 (HNM 13,782; Fig. 30). Gold foil, irregular piece. Pres. length 1.0; w. 0.7 cm. Comments: from Room 4, upper levels (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II. 57 (HNM 13,800). Gold foil, irregular piece. Max. dim. 0.7 cm. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II. 58 (HCH 03-179; Fig. 30). Unknown object, fragment of decorated gold foil. Pres. length 1.9; pres. w. 1.2 cm. Thin sheet with decoration of herringbone design in repoussé. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 5 (unit HCH 03-5-3-5). Date: EM–MM II. 59 (HNM 13,771). Gold foil, irregular piece. Max. dim. 0.9 cm. Comments: from Room 4 (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II. 60 (HCH 04-269; Fig. 30). Gold foil, irregular piece. Max. dim. 0.55 cm. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 dump). Date: EM–MM IIB. 61 (HCH 04-291; Fig. 30). Gold foil, three irregular pieces. Max. dims. 2.7, 1.7, and 1.3 cm. Unclear design in repoussé. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 5 (unit HCH 03-5-3-5). Date: EM–MM IIB. 62 (HCH 04-369; Fig. 30). Gold foil, irregular piece. Max. dim. 0.45 cm. Perhaps has design(?). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: EM– MM IIB. 63 (HCH 04-399; Fig. 30). Gold foil, irregular piece. Max. dim. 0.55 cm. Unclear design(?) in repoussé. Comments: found folded; from Room 5, Area 1, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-3-1-2). Date: EM–MM IIB. 64 (HCH 05-426). Gold foil, irregular piece. Max. dim. 1.0 cm. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: EM–MM IIB.

Gold Caps A pair of thin gold bosses are probably the covering for the ends of a bead made of wood or some other perishable material.

OBJECTS OF GOLD, SILVER, AND LEAD

65 (HNM 11,901 alpha and beta; Fig. 30; Pl. 15). Caps (2), complete. D. 1.0 cm. Gold. Pair of circular caps; thin gold once pressed over a now missing wooden(?) object; impressed dots on periphery. Comments: from Room 4, upper levels (1983 season); Richard Seager identified disks of this type as covers for beads (1912, color pl. 10). Parallels: Seager 1912, fig. 9:II.12, from EM IIB, and color pl. 10, from LM I–IIIA (Mochlos). Date: EM IIB–MM II.

Gold Beads 66 (HNM 13,762; Fig. 30; Pl. 15). Cylindrical bead, complete. Length 12 mm; d. 3 mm. Gold. Rolled strip, producing a cylindrical bead. Comments: from Rooms 1– 4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Getz-Gentle 1996, 231, no. 377 (Cycladic); Seager 1912, no. XXI.19 (Mochlos);

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HNM 4681 (Hagia Photia, made of copper). Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Muhly 2008, 558, fig. 11:19. 67 (HCH 04-346; Fig. 30). Bead, complete. Length 2 mm; d. 3 mm. Gold. Rolled up strip, wrapped around a perishable core (now missing), producing a disk-shaped gold bead. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02Dump). Date: EM–MM IIB. 68 (HCH 04-379; Fig. 30). Bead, complete. D. 3.5 mm; th. 1.5 mm. Gold. Strip bent around a core of perishable material (now missing), producing a disk-shaped gold bead. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02Dump). Date: EM–MM IIB. 69 (HNM 13,867, HCH 04-237; Fig. 30). Spherical bead, complete. D. 5 mm. Gold. Hollow spherical bead with two holes next to each other Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-12-3). Date: EM–MM IIB.

Objects of Silver Four small silver artifacts were found in the cave in addition to an engraved circular disk from a seal ring (see Ch. 12).They are all small personal possessions rather than objects that would be associated with rituals or institutional practices.

Silver Ring 70 (HNM 11,865; Fig. 30). Ring (hair ring or earring?), complete. D. 1.8 cm. Silver. Circular wire ring. Comments: from Rooms 3 or 4 (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II.

Silver Bead 71 (HNM 13,878, HCH 04-239; Fig. 30). Cylindrical bead, complete. Length 5 mm; d. 3 mm. Silver.

Rolled sheet. Comments: from Room 4, lower levels, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-2-2). Date: EM–MM II.

Silver Sheet 72 (HNM 13,787). Sheet, fragment. Max. pres. length 1.0 cm. Silver. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

Silver Miscellaneous Objects 73 (HNM 13,780; Fig. 30). Cover for the end of an object, 5 fragments. Max. length of largest fragment 1.7 cm. Silver. Pieces of sheet that covered the end of a cylindrical object, perhaps a bead. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

Objects of Lead Two lead beads are in the collection of artifacts. Lead must have been a more common metal than such finds suggest, but it was not used very much for Minoan jewelry.

Lead Beads 74 (HCH 03-231; Fig. 30). Spherical bead, almost complete. D. 6 mm. Lead. Comments: from Room 4/5

Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3-BL); material identified by LIBS analysis in 2003. Date: EM–MM II. 75 (HNM 13,881, HCH 04-238; Fig. 30). Spherical bead, almost complete. Lead. D. 6 mm. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (unit HCH 03-12-3); material identified by LIBS analysis in 2003. Date: EM–MM II.

12

Seal Rings James D. Muhly

Late Minoan seal rings and their techniques of construction are discussed by Younger (1984). All of the rings from this cave are earlier than the ones he discussed. They include examples of a few different classes of rings made in various ways. Workers were clearly experimenting with several ways of making seals. As Krzyskowska (2005, 9–10) points out in detail, the evidence for dating the early examples of metal rings with seals is very sparse. Most of the surviving examples come from mixed contexts or from the looting of ancient sites. The finds from Hagios Charalambos would provide more help for

this problem if the final date of deposition for the objects in the cave were more firm. Almost all of the latest pottery from inside the cave is from MM IIB, but one pair of joining sherds (Fig. 18, left) is from a poorly made vessel fired so that the surface is red and lustrous, and it might be from an early effort to produce the lustrous styles that became more common in MM IIIA. The vessel was not made in Lasithi. In addition, the style of a silver bezel from one of the seal rings (77) has a style that many would consider later than MM IIB (reference below). As a result, the dating of the other objects must be very general.

Catalog 76 (HNM 11,850; Fig. 30; Pl. 15). Seal ring, complete. Dims. of ring plate 1.6 x 1.7, outer d. of ring 1.58 to 1.72, inner d. of ring 1.4 cm. Copper or bronze. Round bezel. Incised decoration of crossed sets of triple lines

forming negative-space diamond shapes, with hatched diamond at center. Comments: found in the entrance to Room 1 (Davaras 1982, 388). Parallels: for crossed multiple lines, see Pini, ed., 1970, 5 (CMS II, 5, no. 8).

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Date: MM IIB. Bibliography: Davaras 1982, 388; 1986, 33–34, no. 13, fig. 9, pl. 6:a–d; Davaras and Pini 1992, 50 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 45); Effinger 1996, 185, fig. 35:b, c; Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1997, 650; Vassilikou 2000, 11. 77 (HNM 11,877; Fig. 30; Pl. 16). Seal ring, disk. Dims. of disk 1.59 x 1.63 cm. Silver. Almost circular shape; slightly convex upper surface and concave lower surface. Incised decoration consisting of a clump of five stalks of “sea daffodils” or “papyrus” growing from a small area on an irregular ground, with the stems spreading apart as they rise from the ground and terminating in blossoms, with small leaves at the sides of the composition. Comments: from Room 4, upper levels (Davaras 1983). This seal ring fragment is decorated with a floral motif that has been traditionally dated to MM III to LM I (Davaras 1986, 34–48), but the pottery from inside the cave is almost all from no later than MM II. The recent discovery of the seal’s floral motif from a MM IIIA wall painting at Galatas (Rethemiotakis 2002, 57, color pl. 16a), and the fact that no circular seal ring bezels are known from after MM II, raise the likelihood that the ring is from the same period as all the pottery found with it. Furthermore, the stiff stems and the fact that the flowers do not radiate from a single place suggest an early date as well. Parallels: the motif is rare on seals (for a stylized version of the spreading clump of plants, possibly illustrating leaves of some type, see Platon, Pini, and Salies, eds., 1977, 279 [CMS II, 2, no. 203). Rather, the floral composition belongs in the same class with compositions in

faience (Panagiotaki 1999, fig. 27) and in several fresco paintings of clumps of flowers (Cameron 1976, fig. 3:a, from Knossos; Doumas 1992, figs. 2–5, 63–64, 66–71, from Akrotiri, Thera; Marinatos 1976, fig. 23, from Amnisos). The motif is already fully mature by MM IIB or IIIA (Rethemiotakis 2002, color pl. 16a, from Galatas). The same composition appears on pottery (Betancourt 1985, fig. 92, from Knossos) and in other contexts, including some with suggestions that it has religious meaning (for its association with a seated goddess, see Dimopoulou and Rethemiotakis 2000, 47, fig. 7, from Poros). Bibliography: Davaras 1983; 1986, 34–48, no. 14, pl. 6e–g; Davaras and Pini 1992, 51 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 46]; Effinger 1996, 185, fig. 35:b, c; Hiller 1996, fig. 13:b; Vassilikou 2000, 11; Betancourt 2005, 450; 2008, 16, fig. 5:AN 11,877; Warren 2007, 265, 270, fig. 3; Muhly 2008, 558, fig. 11:18; Pini, ed., 2010, 17; Crowley 2013, 262. Date: MM IIB. 78 (HNM 11,907; Fig. 30). Seal ring, base for the seal. Dims. 1.0 x 0.9 cm. Silver. Boss with two opposed notches. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper levels (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II. 79 (HNM 11,884; Fig. 30). Seal ring, almost complete except for seal. W. 1.5; upper medallion 1.5 x 1.9; thickness of band 0.4 cm. Silver and copper. Silver band and upper medallion overlaid with copper; two small rivets joining medallion to band; missing seal that would have been over the medallion. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper levels (Davaras 1983). Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1983.

13

Seals Philip P. Betancourt and Susan C. Ferrence

Seals in several materials come from the cave. The corpus includes examples in different shapes and styles, ranging in date from EM II until MM II, plus seal rings and fragments of seal rings from as late as MM II. The seals presented here are organized by shape and material. Most EM and MM seals come from communal tombs or from other deposits with no precise dates. Although only a few datable contexts exist for Cretan sealstones and sealings from before LM I, they are sufficient to establish the general parameters for the succession of classes in the late Early Bronze Age and the early part of the Middle Bronze Age (for studies of chronology, see Pini 1990; Weingarten 1990; Sbonias 2000; Karytinos 2000). The deposits show a gradual progression in both technology and style. Simple seals and sealings from EM II Myrtos (Warren 1972, 226–227), from the lower stratum of Tholos Epsilon at Archanes (Karytinos 2000, 127), and from the EM II level in Tholos Gamma at Archanes (Papadatos 2005, 43) establish the early

classes. The seals (all used for stamping, not rolling) are manufactured from bone, hippopotamus ivory, and other soft materials. Designs are often simple, and crosshatched areas are especially common (crosshatched motifs are also extremely common in EM II pottery, Betancourt 1985, pls. 2:F, 3:E, F, L, M, 4:B). This early phase of Minoan seal engraving is in existence until the time of mottled Vasiliki Ware in EM IIB (Betancourt 1979). No seals from this period are in the deposit discussed here. Tholos Gamma at Archanes (Papadatos 2005, 43) and the lower level in Burial Building 19 at Archanes (Maggidis 1998) contribute information on the stylistic phase that follows EM IIB and ends in MM IA (Sbonias 1995, 1999). Hippopotamus ivory is used for a large number of seals during this period, especially over a geographic region that includes the Mesara and the Pediada as well as the plain of Lasithi (for its rare use at Knossos, see Pini 1990). Motifs are regularly set within circular compositions, and simple animals of several types

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are introduced together with plants and several new abstract designs, while the motifs of EM II continue to be used as well. Soft stones and a few other materials are used alongside the ivory, and the first written symbols (the “Archanes Script”) are used on some of the seals manufactured during this phase (Karytinos 2000, 129). Hippopotamus ivory seals and a serpentine stamp seal can be assigned to this period. Late MM IA and early MM IB is a period when seal use expanded. Scarabs were imported into Crete and copied locally. Many seals were made of soft stone and bone. Except for the prisim seals, the remainder of the seals from the cave can be assigned to this phase. For MM IIB, large groups of sealings survive from the Archivio di Cretule at Phaistos (Levi 1957–1958; Fiandra 1968), and both seals and sealings exist from Quartier Mu at Malia (Poursat 1980, 198–199; 1990; 1996), with Weingarten suggesting that the Malia deposit is perhaps slightly later than the one at Phaistos (1990, 106). The phase is contemporary with Classical Kamares Ware in the Mesara (Walberg 1976; Levi 1976, Phase IB [Phaistos]; Betancourt 1990, MM IIB [Kommos]) and with the period of the carinated cups with horizontal grooves in eastern and EastCentral Crete (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and MoneyCoutts 1935–1936, 62 [Trapeza]; Demargne 1945, pl. 33:8657 [Malia]; Betancourt 1983, 74, nos. 257–260 [Vasiliki]; Betancourt and Davaras, eds., 2002, 36, no. 28 [Pseira]). This period coincides with the introduction of a complex system of administrative sealing practices

that had a long earlier history in western Asia and Egypt (Fiandra 1968, 1975; Weingarten 1990). Seals were used to mark documents, boxes, and the doors of chests or other containers, and after the sealings were broken, they seem to have been retained as records of past transactions. Workshops at Malia manufactured a large number of seals during MM IIB, including many prisms made of serpentinite and other materials. Minoan Hieroglyphic symbols were used on many of the Malia seals. The prisim seals can be assigned to this period. The dates of these phases are by no means exact. They do, however, seem to be generally successive periods, and they help divide the seals of the Hagios Charalambos cave into the following groups: Hippopotamus ivory seals, EM III–MM IA 1. Ivory stamp seals Scarab, MM IA–IB 2. Scarab Zoomorphic and simple stamp seals, MM IA–IB 3. Zoomorphic stamp seal 4. Simple stamp seals Other seals, MM IA–IB 5. Centrally pierced seal or spindle whorl 6. Rectangular cushion seals Prism seals, MM IIA–IIB 7. Prism seals

Hippopotamus Ivory Seals The material for all of the ivory seals from the Hagios Charalambos cave is hippopotamus tooth. The material is used in Egypt (Krzyszkowska and Morkot 2000, 326–327), but there is no way of knowing if the imports into Crete came from Africa or western Asia. Several writers have discussed the attractive and easily carved material (for the Levant, see Horwitz and Tchernov 1990; for Egypt, see Krzyszkowska and Morkot 2000, 326–327; for the Early Bronze Age in the Aegean, see Krzyszkowska 1983). Trade in unworked ivory seems to have existed even before the beginning of the Bronze

Age, and it was not an uncommon material in the eastern Mediterranean (Ferrence 2007). Ivory seals with a structure like those from Hagios Charalambos first appear during EM II (the date is established by Tholos Gamma at Archanes: Papadatos 2005, 43, no. S4). The class continues into EM III and MM IA, and it occurs from a broad territory that includes the Mesara and the Pediada as far north as Archanes. A detailed study of the few good contexts for the group suggests that they are mostly from EM III to early MM IA, and that they were replaced in late MM IA by new classes

SEALS

in a variety of different materials (Sbonias 1995, 1999, 2000; Karytinos 2000). The EM III to MM IA ivory seals use a restricted number of motifs, but their range is much greater than in EM II. A generally cohesive style and technique also knits the group together, which suggested to Sbonias that they were made in a closely related group of workshops that shared several traits (Sbonias 2000). Weingarten has regarded the finest examples as elite objects that are precursors to the palatial productions of MM IB (2005, 763). 80 (HNM 11,861; Fig. 31). Stamp seal, intact. Hippopotamus ivory. H. 1.7, d. of ends 0.23 and 0.37 cm. Cylindrical, pierced through the side. Not engraved. Comments: from Rooms 1–2 (1976 season). Date: EM III–MM IA. Bibliography: Davaras 1976a, 379–380; Davaras and Pini 1992, 37 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 37). 81 (HNM 11,858; Fig. 31; Pl. 16). Stamp seal, intact. Hippopotamus ivory. Cylindrical, pierced through the side. H. 2.1; side A: 1.75–2.03; side B: 1.54–1.72 cm. Side A: standing lion within circular rope-like line surrounded by drilled dot border. Side B: swastika with bent and recurved arms. Comments: probably from Room

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4, upper levels (1983 season). Date: EM III–MM IA. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 12–13, no. 3; Davaras and Pini 1992, 32–33 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 34); Betancourt 2005, 454, pl. CII:e; 2007, 212, fig. 25.1, left; 2008, 18, fig. 7:AN 11,858; Ferrence 2007, fig. 20.4. 82 (HNM 11,859; Fig. 31; Pl. 17). Stamp seal, intact but with damaged faces. H. 2.18; side A: 2.49–2.74; side B: 2.57–2.78 cm. Hippopotamus ivory. Cylindrical, pierced through the side. Side A: three running quadrupeds (dogs?). Side B: sets of four to five lines crossing at center of field, with dots in negative spaces. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper levels (1983 season). Parallels: for an earlier (EM II) version of the motif on Side A, see Warren 1972, 227, no. 134 (Myrtos). Date: EM III–MM IA. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 11–12, no. 2; Davaras and Pini 1992, 34–35 (CMS V, Suppl. 1A, no. 35); Betancourt 2005, 450; Ferrence 2007, fig. 20.4. 83 (HNM 11,876; Fig. 31; Pl. 17). Stamp seal, intact. Hippopotamus ivory. H. 3.3; side A: 3.26–3.41; side B: 2.86–2.99 cm. Cylindrical, pierced through the side. Only traces of the engraved motifs survive. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM III–MM IA. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 14, no. 4; Davaras and Pini 1992, 36 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 36); Betancourt 2005, 450.

Scarab The corpus of scarab-shaped seals in Crete consists of both Egyptian imports and local Minoan scarabs (Ward 1971, 92–96; Krzyszkowska 2005, 72–74; Weingarten 2005, 759–760; for the suggestion that the imports came to Crete by way of Syria, see Branigan 1973, 25–26; Aruz 2000, 3–4). The group of Egyptian pieces has been given a range of dates from the First Intermediate Period to the 12th Dynasty (Warren 1965, 34), but the seals occur in later contexts from Crete as well, suggesting that they were later or sometimes had a long life in Crete (or that a few of them were imported after their date of manufacture). The imitations (including some that are made of a substance called white material) and variations that were made in Crete, like the example from Hagios Charalambos, have been found in contexts that are from MM IB or later (Weingarten 2005, 760). Recent scholarship has clarified several aspects of the imitation of Egyptian scarab beetle seals made of the substance called white material.

Detailed studies by Ingo Pini (2000) have demonstrated that microscopic traces of glaze exist on some examples, confirming the material as glazed steatite. Pini has also shown that the Cretan seals have an incision at the base with a V-shaped section, unlike the square sections of seals from Egypt and the Levant. They also have motifs on the bases that never occur anywhere except Crete. These results demonstrate that the seals were made in Crete, and that because their manufacturing technology is complex, the relationship cannot be simple trade and the copying of imported products. The date of these objects has also been clarified. Pottery studies of the contexts for Egyptian scarabs have shown that most Egyptian scarabs come from late in the Middle Kingdom, and that the earliest ones are later than the First Intermediate period (Ben-Tor 2003; 2006, 78). This means that the date of the Cretan versions can be no earlier than MM IA, and it may be MM IB or MM IIA.

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84 (HNM 11,871; Fig. 31; Pl. 18). Scarab, intact. H. 0.41; bottom 0.79 x 0.59 cm. Fired steatite. Scarab with incised lines indicating the head, thorax, and the division between the wings. Design on seal face: crosshatched lines. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons).

The scarab is a local Cretan product, not an Egyptian import. Date: MM IA–IB. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 14, no. 5; Davaras and Pini 1992, 38–39 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 38); Betancourt 2005, 454, pl. CII:a; Ferrence 2011, 605–606, fig. 3c.

Zoomorphic Seal Small zoomorphic stamp seals made of soft Cretan stones begin to appear in EM II (Karytinos 2000, 127, fig. 2). One example of this class comes from the cave (Ferrence 2011, 606, fig. 3d). The seal is somewhat abstract, but it appears to be a frog, an animal that is also known from stamp seals from Egypt (Wiese 1996, pl. 15:1). Weingarten suggests that this class is one of several types of foreigninspired seals used in Crete along with symbolic meanings borrowed from the source of the iconography (Weingarten 2005, 763).

85 (HNM 11,873; Fig. 31; Pl. 18). Zoomorphic stamp seal, intact. H. 0.73; dim. of seal face 0.96 x 0.94 cm. Black, glassy stone (serpentinite or steatite?). Unidentifiable animal, perhaps a frog. Design on seal face: triangular motif (bull with curved horns?). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: MM IA–IB. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 15–17, no. 7; Davaras and Pini 1992, 41 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 40); Ferrence 2011, 606, fig. 3d.

Simple Stamp Seals Stamp seals of cone shape or pawn shape in several materials come from EM II, but the dating of individual examples has severe problems. The following examples of this class may be later than EM III–MM IA. Motifs are always very simple. 86 (HNM 11,878; Fig. 31; Pl. 19). Stamp seal, intact. Gray, brown, and pale brown stone (serpentinite or limestone?). H. 1.84; base 1.47; upper end 0.78–0.81 cm. Somewhat cone shaped with a flat base, drilled through the side and top. Motif of circles. Comments: very worn and eroded. Date: MM I–II(?). Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 17–18, no. 8; Davaras and Pini 1992, 42 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 41).

87 (HNM, HCH 04-300; Fig. 31; Pl. 19). Stamp seal, intact. H. 1.7, d. of face 0.8 cm. Bone. Cylindrical seal with one rounded end and one flat end; design on the seal face: scorpion(?) and short lines. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-Dump). Date: MM IA–IB. 88 (HNM, HCH 04-302; Fig. 31; Pl. 20). Stamp seal, intact. H. 0.8, d. of smallest flat face 0.6 cm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Truncated cone with grooves on the sides to delineate the five petals of the flower designs on the two flat faces. Largest face: flower with five petals and a star design around a central dot. Smaller face: flower with five petals and two central dots. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: MM IA–IB.

Centrally Pierced Seal or Spindle Whorl A stone disk with a central hole is engraved on one side. It could have functioned as a seal as well as a spindle whorl. 89 (HNM 11,860; Fig. 32; Pl. 20). Seal or spindle whorl, intact. H. 1.48; d. 3.07–3.26 cm. Grayish-green

serpentinite. Flat disk, pierced through the center, with decoration on one side. Side A: six triangles surrounding the central hole; border of drilled circles, surrounded by incised line. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1983 season). This object has been published as a seal (Davaras 1986, 14–15, no. 6; Davaras and Pini 1992, 40 [CMS V Suppl.

SEALS

1A, no. 39]), but the central hole suggests the possibility that it could have functioned as a spindle whorl. Date:

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EM III–MM IA. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 14–15, no. 6; Davaras and Pini 1992, 40 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 39).

Prism Seals Prism seals like those from Hagios Charalambos can be regarded as products of the palace of Malia in MM IB–IIB due to their close correspondence to seals from that site in shape, material, style, and iconography (Yule 1980, 15, 212; Davaras 1986, 19; Anastasiadou 2011). Although Malia used several types of seals, the prism was the most common class (Poursat 1996, 109). Soft stones like serpentinite were highly favored. Considerable information for the manufacture of seals at Malia comes from a workshop in Quartier Mu that produced prism seals and other shapes; the establishment lasted until its destruction in MM IIB (for the workshop, see Poursat 1978; 1980; 1981; 1990; 1996, 7–22; for the seals, see Platon, Pini, and Salies, eds., 1977, 110–270 [CMS II, 2, nos. 86–198]). 90 (HNM 11,855; Fig. 32; Pl. 21). Prism seal, intact. Serpentinite. Faces 1.2 x 1.0 cm. Side A: two standing human figures. Side B: bird and curved line (probably representing vegetation). Side C: two fish. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper levels (1983 season). Date: MM IB–IIB. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 19–22, no. 11; Davaras and Pini 1992, 43–45 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 42); Betancourt 2007, 214, fig. 25.3:a; Anastasiadou 2011, 488, no. 4. 91 (HNM 11,856; Fig. 32; Pl. 22). Prism seal, intact. Serpentinite. Faces 1.3 x 1.3 cm. Side A: group of three

standing human figures in profile surrounding an aniconic figurine(?). Side B: human figure; head of a bull(?) in profile; amphora; group of three circles with attached lines. Side C: standing lion. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper levels (1983 season). Date: MM IB–IIB. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 22–33, no. 12; 1988; Davaras and Pini 1992, 46–47 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 43); Betancourt 2007, 214, fig. 25.3:d; Anastasiadou 2011, 288, no. 5. 92 (HNM 11,857; Fig. 32; Pl. 23). Prism seal, intact. Serpentinite. Faces 1.4 x 1.2 cm. Side A: pair of triangular motifs with attached bent lines. Side B: standing bird with long beak and plant-like motif. Side C: quatrefoil design. Comments: from Room 3 or 4 (1983 season). Date: MM IB–IIB. Bibliography: Davaras 1986, 18–19, no. 10; Davaras and Pini 1992, 48–49 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 44); Betancourt 2007, 214, fig. 25.3:g; Anastasiadou 2011, 488–489, no. 6. 93 (HNM 13,868, HCH 04-241; Fig. 32; Pl. 24). Prism seal, intact. Length 1.6 cm; face A: 1.6 x 1.5 cm, face B: 1.6 x 1.55, face C: 1.55 x 1.5 cm. Serpentinite, white with mottled areas of very pale blue to light gray. Side A: three standing human figures. Side B: agrimi and branch. Side C: abstract motif consisting of three circles and two lines with jagged edges. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, level 2 (unit HCH02-2-2). Date: MM IB–IIB. Bibliography: Betancourt 2008, 18, fig. 7:AN 13,868; Anastasiadou 2011, 490, no. 10.

Rectangular Cushion Seals A cushion seal has a rectangular or nearly rectangular shape with a hole drilled through the edge. This class is not common during the Middle Minoan period, but it is known from Quartier Mu at Malia (Poursat 1992, 3). Two examples come from the cavern. 94 (HNM 13,903, HCH 02-23; Fig. 32; Pl. 25). Rectangular stamp seal, complete. Length 1.2; w. 1.1 cm. Ivory or bone. Almost square seal with hole through the edges. Incised motif on one side: central spine dividing

field into 2 sections; woven crosshatched design with three incised lines in each hatch. Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 02-2/3-Ent-Surface). Date: MM IA–IB. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450. 95 (HNM, HCH 04-396; Fig. 32). Rectangular stamp seal, complete. Dimensions 1.8 x 1.6 x 0.7 cm. Bone or ivory. Rectangular seal with rounded corners; broken on back side. Design very eroded, not identifiable. Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 3 (unit HCH 023-5-3). Date: MM IA–IB. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450.

14

Sistra Philip P. Betancourt and James D. Muhly

The sistrum, an ancient musical percussion instrument used in Egypt and Anatolia as well as in Crete, consisted of a frame bent into an ellipse or an oval and fitted with rods to support small disks or other objects (Fig. 33; Pl. 25B–D). Because the disks were held loosely on the horizontal rods, musicians could shake the instrument back and forth to make sounds. The most common type of sistrum had its frame supported above a vertical stick-like handle, with a series of small disks used for the sound effects. The disks were pierced, and they were supported on 1, 2, 3, or 4 horizontal rods. One representation of a sistrum is known from Minoan figural art. A sistrum held aloft by a man on the Harvesters Vase from Hagia Triada (Pl. 25D) has only one bar, bearing two disks (for a full page photograph of the man, see Davaras 2003, 233–236, fig. 107:b). A.J. Evans thought that the representation was faithful to the original, and because it had only one rod it must have been a “primitive form” of sistrum, “in contrast to the

dynastic Egyptian examples with three or four” rods (Evans 1921–1935, II, 48). Sistra also occur in the Minoan scripts. Yannis and Efi Sakellarakis have suggested that sign 181 in the corpus of Cretan hieroglyphic signs published by J.-P. Olivier and L. Godart (1996) depicts a sistrum, but one different from the type known from the Archanes and Hagios Charalambos finds (Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1997, 326–330, 352–355). The sign depicts an object that is open at the top, not closed like the examples from the Harvesters Vase. If it is actually a sistrum, it is a different type from those discussed here (Younger calls it a U-sistrum [1998, 39–40, 75–76, no. 55]). Examples in the Linear A script, on the other hand, are like the ones from the representation on the stone vessel from Hagia Triada (Pl. 25C). The sistrum sign, number 321 in the corpus of Linear A signs published by Godart and Olivier (1985, 298), occurs on tablets from Tylissos (Hazzidakis 1921, 38–39, fig. 19; Evans 1921–1935, IV, 219;

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Godart and Olivier 1976a, 326–327: text TY 3a), Hagia Triada (Godart and Olivier 1976a, 12: text HT 6a), Zakros (Godart and Olivier 1976b, 190: text ZA 18a), and Juktas (Godart and Olivier 1985, 28: text IO ZA7). The Linear A tablets show that the sistrum was common enough to be recognized as a sign in the Minoan syllabary. It could not have been a rare instrument in LM I. The sign on the tablets depicts an oval-shaped object with some slight differences in shape (the Tylissos example is more rounded than the others, with two horizontal suspension bars inside the frame, and with two disks on each bar). The bars are held in place, in some fashion, on the

outer surface of the sistrum. The entire musical instrument seems to rest on a base of some sort, recalling the hollow handle of the sistrum from Archanes, which could have been placed on a vertical peg when it was not in use. This placment is not possible for the sistra from Hagios Charalambos (or for the Egyptian parallels), because they have solid handles, but a LM I bronze example from Mochlos also has a hollow handle (Soles 2011, 136, fig. 14.3). The presence of the sistrum sign on Linear A tablets distributed over the central and eastern parts of Crete must indicate a fairly widespread knowledge of the existence (and use?) of such a musical instrument.

Sistra from the Cave and Elsewhere in Crete Six sistra were found at Hagios Charalambos. Only one example was intact, and the others were assembled from scattered fragments. Pieces were found scattered through several rooms, and fragments were discovered in both the old and the new excavations. All of the sistra were manufactured from pale colored Cretan clay (not local to the Lasithi Plain). The design is similar for all examples from Hagios Charalambos, and there are two horizontal rods for the disks (called krotala in Greek, meaning “clappers”). Each sistrum from this site has a vertical handle with a circular section and a rounded end (Fig. 33). The handle supports a curved band of thin clay bent to form an elliptical frame, and the frame is pierced with either two or three sets of small holes to support the horizontal rods for the disks. Although the surface is often poorly preserved, all of the examples from Hagios Charalambos were once painted black. In a technique that is normal for the Middle Minoan period, the dark slip probably always had white linear ornament; decoration consists of simple horizontal lines painted on the outer edges of the frames. The finds from the site are not unique. The best Minoan parallel is an instrument from a MM IA burial at Archanes (Sakellaraki and Sakellarakis 1991, 184–186; Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1994, 67; Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1997, 351– 356, figs. 321–323; Sapouna 2000). Like the sistra

from Hagios Charalambos, the instrument from Archanes is made of pale colored clay. It resembles the sistra found in Lasithi, except that its frame is a little wider than usual, and its handle is hollow. Like the more recently found examples, the handle on the Archanes sistrum is cylindrical, and it supports an elliptical frame with two sets of tiny holes to hold the horizontal rods for the disks. The sistrum from Archanes was found in Burial Building 9, a tomb with MM I burials. It had been placed in the tomb intact, and three krotala were in place within its frame. The date of this grave was MM IA. In addition to the room with the MM I sistrum, Burial Building 9 had several other chambers used for burials. One of them had a walled off section that was used as an ossuary for the secondary deposition of the human bones from earlier burials. Several skulls were in the deposit, a practice that can be compared with the situation at Hagios Charalambos. A bronze sistrum from Mochlos has two rods, each with one disk (Soles 2011). It dates to LM I. A fragmentary bronze example survives from Hagia Triada (Brogan 2012). A few other Minoan sites have yielded evidence for sistrum disks. Two clay disks from a sistrum come from the tholos tomb at Krasi, a site located in the part of the Pediada that adjoins the Lasithi Plain (Marinatos 1929a, 122, fig. 15:45), and disks also come from the Trapeza Cave (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, pl. 19).

SISTRA

Several disks from Quartier Mu at Malia may also be krotala (Detournay 1980, fig. 205). If these clay disks are all from sistra, the instrument was more common than people have supposed. The design of the sistra from Archanes and Hagios Charalambos has its best parallels in Egypt. The simple shape with a loop above a plain handle can be seen in an example from Thebes that has been illustrated by Mikrakis (2000, 163, fig. 1). During the Late Bronze Age and in later times, Egyptian sistra were so common that many examples survive (Aign 1963, 415–447; Klebs 1931; Bonnet 1971; Manniche 1991). They are not usual before the 18th Dynasty. Egyptian sistra usually had both frames and disks of metal, and they sometimes had several disks on a single horizontal rod, suggesting that skilled musicians probably could achieve many different sounds by varying the motions used to play the instruments. Anatolian instruments begin to be used in the third millennium B.C. They make use of the same general principles as the Egyptian and Minoan ones, but their design is stylistically very different. Metal sistra from the site of Horoztepe (Özgüç and Akok 1958, pls. 12, 17, nos. 1–3) have rectangular frames with small figures of stags and other animals added for embellishment. Their general principle (loose disks supported on rods for shaking) is like the sistra from Egypt and Crete, but the artistic form is different enough to suggest that the Minoan sistra are more related to the Nilotic style than to the Anatolian one. The sistra from Hagios Charalambos and elsewhere suggest that the instrument was either a personal possession that was deposited with the deceased or it had a use in Minoan funerary rituals. The instrument would have been particularly useful in setting the rhythm for a group. Perhaps the sistra were used along with the chants or other singing that could have accompanied the deposition of the deceased. The instrument could have been used either in the services at the time of primary burial or in the subsequent rituals that accompanied the secondary deposition of the bones. Like the other artifacts in the cave, they were not found in situ where they were used, but scattered in several locations (and usually broken), so the most likely scenario is that they were played at the time of primary burial, and they were brought to the cave along with

71

the disarticulated bones. Funerary processions have been proposed for Bronze Age burials (Karantzali 2001, 98), and sistra would have been a good addition to the funeral service. If the sistra were deposited as personal possessions, their use could have been as percussion instruments as shown on the Harvesters Vase. The volume of the sound of clay instruments would be immaterial if they were magical instruments (for example, in summoning spirits). They may have been used simply to keep a group in rhythm. A relation between the rhythmic rattling of the sistrum and Minoan cult has long been recognized (Matz 1956, 75). The significance of sistra and other percussion instruments in regard to ceremonial actions is discussed in detail by Kolotourou (2012). She suggests that it was an important accessory to ceremonies and that “rattling was an important ritual device, possibly with shamanistic dimensions” (Kolotourou 2012, 213–214). Shamanic elements and the use of rhythmic repetition to induce trances and their relation to Minoan ceremonies are discussed further by Peatfield and Morris (Morris and Peatfield 2006; Peatfield and Morris 2012). 96 (HNM 13,976, HCH-20; Fig. 33). Sistrum, complete. H. 17.7; max. w. 5.5; max. th. 3.6 cm. A fine fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/8). Small vertical handle with circular section, supporting an elliptical strap frame with two sets of holes to support the horizontal rods for the disks. Covered in black slip; horizontal white lines on the outside edge of the frame. Comments: mended from scattered fragments from Rooms 1–4 (1983 season) and the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 4 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-4). Date: MM I. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; 2008, 18, fig. 7:AN 13,976; Soles 2005, 433; Warren 2005, 223–225; Betancourt and Muhly 2006, ill. 2, right; Papadatos 2008, 234; Pilali and Tsagkarake 2011, 650, 651, 658, 659, 667. 97 (HNM 13,984, HCH 02-72; Fig. 33). Sistrum, not complete. Missing upper left part of strap. H. 16.1; max. pres. w. 5.0; max. th. 2.8 cm. A fine fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/8). Small vertical handle with circular section, supporting an elliptical strap frame with two sets of holes (one hole missing) to support the horizontal rods for the disks. Covered with black slip; horizontal white lines on the outside edge of the frame. Comments: mended from scattered fragments from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Levels 3 and 4 (units HCH02-2/3Ent-3 and HCH02-2/3Ent-4) and Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: MM I. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; Soles 2005, 433; Warren 2005, 223–225; Pilali and Tsagkarake 2011, 650, 651, 658, 659, 667.

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98 (HNM 13,978, HCH 02-118; Fig. 33; Pls. 9B, 25B). Sistrum, complete. H. 15.8; w. 5.1; max. th. 2.8 cm. A fine fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/8). Small vertical handle with circlar section, supporting an elliptical strap frame with three sets of holes to support the horizontal rods for the disks. Covered with black slip; horizontal white lines on the outside edge of the frame. Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 4 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-4); found complete, with two disks nearby. Date: MM I. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; Soles 2005, 433; Warren 2005, 223–225; Pilali and Tsagkarake 2011, 650, 651, 658, 659, 667. 99 (HNM 13,977, HCH 180; Fig. 33). Sistrum, not complete. Missing handle and lower left part of strap. Max. pres. h. 10.8; max. w. 5.2; max. th. 3.1 cm. A fine fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/8). Top half of sistrum preserved, consisting of elliptical strap frame with two sets of holes to support the horizontal rods for the disks. Handle missing. Covered with black slip; horizontal bands on outside of the frame. Comments: mended from fragments from Rooms 1–3 (1982 Season). Date: MM I. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; Soles 2005, 433. 100 (HNM 13,979, HCH 17; Fig. 33). Sistrum, complete. H. 16.3; max. w. 5.3; max. th. 2.7 cm. A fine fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/8). Small vertical handle with circular section, supporting an elliptical strap frame with two sets of holes to support the horizontal rods for the disks. Faint traces of black slip; no horizontal white bands visible. Surface very badly preserved. Comments: mended from fragments from Rooms 1–4 (1983 Season). Date: MM I. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; Soles 2005, 433; Warren 2005, 223–225; Pilali and Tsagkarake 2011, 650, 651, 658, 659, 667. 101 (HNM, HCH 05-451; Fig. 33). Sistrum, two pieces of the frame. Rest. h. ca. 15–16 cm. A fine fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/8). Fragments of the elliptical strap frame. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1983 Season). Date: MM I. Bibliography: Soles 2005, 433; Warren 2005, 223–225; Pilali and Tsagkarake 2011, 650, 651, 658, 659, 667.

Sistrum Disks 102 (HNM 11,866). Sistrum disk, almost complete. D. 2.7; th. 0.45 cm. A fine fabric (light red, 2.5YR 6/6). Discoid shape with central hole. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: MM I. 103 (HNM 11,887). Sistrum disk, almost complete. D. 2.3; th. 0.4 cm. A fine fabric (pink, 5YR 7/4). Discoid shape with central hole. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: MM I. 104 (HNM 11,888). Sistrum disk, almost complete. D. 2.8; th. 0.4 cm. A fine fabric (pink, 5YR 7/4). Discoid shape with central hole. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: MM I. 105 (HNM 12,400). Sistrum disk, almost complete. D. 2.6; th. 0.4 cm. A fine fabric (pink, 5YR 7/4). Discoid shape with central hole. Comments: from Room 2 (1982 season). Date: MM I. 106 (HNM, HCH 02-36). Sistrum disk, complete. D. 2.3; th. 0.4 cm. A fine fabric (between reddish yellow and yellowish red, 5YR 6/8 and 5/8). Discoid shape with central hole, slightly off center. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-2-2). Date: MM I. 107 (HNM, HCH 02-94). Sistrum disk, almost complete. D. 2.3; th. 0.4 cm. A fine fabric (reddish yellow, 5YR 7/6). Discoid shape with central hole. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 dump). Date: MM I. 108 (HNM, HCH 02-121). Sistrum disks (3), almost complete. D. 2.3, 2.3, 2.4; th. 0.4 cm. A fine fabric (mostly light red, 2.5YR 6/8). Discoid shape with central hole. Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 4 (unit HCH 02-2/3-Ent-4). Date: MM I. 109 (HNM 13,883). Sistrum disk, almost complete. D. 2.6; th. 0.45 cm. A fine fabric (pink, 5YR 6/6). Discoid shape with central hole. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 1 (unit HCH 02-2-1). Date: MM I.

15

Stone Vessels Heidi M.C. Dierckx

Twenty-one stone vessels come from the Hagios Charalambos Cave. They include eight bowls, a bird’s-nest bowl, two cups, one jug, one jar, miniature jars, goblets, a dish, and two lids. They were made from a variety of raw materials, especially serpentinite, but a few were made from travertine, marble, and limestone. The vessels represent a variety of types that can be found in other tomb deposits from the Mesara and northeast Crete, most notably in deposits from the Trapeza Cave, the Mochlos burials, and the Lebena tombs (Xanthoudides 1924; Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts

1935–1936; Warren 1969; Alexiou and Warren 2004). Based on the comparanda, the vessels appear to date from the EM II–MM I/II period. Both the miniature cup/jar and the bird’s-nest bowl with their corresponding lids were common funerary forms in the Mesara tombs. Most of the stone vessels, however, can be associated with similar finds from tombs in North and East Crete, and especially from the Trapeza Cave where the miniature goblet, the dish, the bowl, the conical cup, and the spouted jug can be found (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 114–116, figs. 23, 24).

Catalog 110 (HCH 02-82; Fig. 34). Cylindrical pyxis/jar, complete. H. 4.0; d. of rim 4.7; d. of base 4.5 cm. Banded travertine (reddish yellow, 7.5YR 7/6). Straight rim and wall; pronounced base. Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-5-3). Parallels: an unusual type. It resembles Warren 1969, 82, Type 33C, no. D251

(Hagia Triada), but without incised decoration. Date: probably EM II–III. 111 (HNM 13,899, HCH 03-193; Fig. 34). Miniature dish, almost complete. H. 1.3; d. of rim 5.9; d. of base 3.8 cm. Banded sandy marble (gray, 5Y 5/1, dark gray, 5Y 4/1,

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HEIDI M.C. DIERCKX

and white, 10YR 8/1). Thin, straight rim, flat base. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 5 (unit HCH 034/5Ent-5). Parallels: Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and MoneyCoutts 1935–1936, 114, fig. 23, pl. 16:3 (Trapeza Cave). Date: EM II–III. 112 (HCH 02-108; Fig. 34). Miniature goblet, intact. H. 3.0; d. of rim 2.2; d. of base 1.3 cm. Serpentinite (olive gray 5Y 4/3, dark olive gray 5Y 3/2). Thin rounded rim, small pedestal base. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Parallels: Warren 1969, 73, Type 29A, no. D211 (Mochlos); close to Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 115, fig. 24, pl. 16:26 (Trapeza Cave). Mainly an East Cretan and North Cretan type. Date: EM II–III. 113 (HNM 11,849; Fig. 34). Miniature goblet, half complete. Pres. h. 2.7; d. of rim 3.3; d of base 2.2 cm. Serpentinite (gray, 5Y 5/1, with lighter areas). Thin slightly inturned rim, rounded profile, pronounced wide base. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 73–74, Type 29B; see also 92, Type 36B, 266, no. D271 (Mochlos). Closest to Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 115, fig. 23, pl. 16:20 (Trapeza Cave). Mainly an East Cretan and North Cretan type. Date: EM II–III. 114 (HNM 11,874; Fig. 34). Miniature goblet, complete. H. 2.8; max. d. 1.8 cm. Serpentinite (dark green). Tall shape, pronounced base and rim. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 73, Type 29A, no. D 210 (Mochlos); close to Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 116, fig. 24, pl. 16:32 (Trapeza Cave). Mainly an East Cretan and North Cretan type. Date: EM II–III. Bibliography: Betancourt 2008:AN 11,874. 115 (HNM 11,847; Fig. 34). Bowl, complete. H. 2.3; d. of rim 8.3; d. of base 3.7 cm. Serpentinite (green). Flat rim, three lug handles at rim, pronounced base. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 27, Type 10A1; Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 115, fig. 23, pl. 16:14 (Trapeza Cave). This is a popular East Cretan and North Cretan type. Date: EM II–III. 116 (HCH 02-105; Fig. 34). Bowl, rim with handle, spout, base, and body fragment. Max. dims. 3.7, 3.3, 2.6; length of handle 1.0; th. of handle 0.4; d. of base ca. 4.0 cm. Banded marble (gray, 10YR 5/1, and white). Almost straight rim, small upturned spout, small lug handle at rim, flat base. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02Dump). Parallels: Warren 1969, 94–95, Type 37B1; Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 115, fig. 23, pl. 16:17 though slightly larger (Trapeza Cave); Alexiou and Warren 2004, 53, fig. 11, pl. 24F, HM 2986/1b3, no. 75 (Lebena). Date: EM II–MM I. 117 (HCH 02-134; Fig. 34). Bowl, rim sherd. D. of rim 8.0 cm. Marble (white, 2.5Y N8/). Everted rim. Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 3 (HCH

02-3-5-3). Parallels: Warren 1969, 21–25, Type 8. Date: EM II–MM I/II. 118 (HCH 03-196; Fig. 34). Bowl, base fragment. D. of base 5.0; max. pres. h. 1.6 cm. Travertine (light red and brown surface, 2.5YR 6/8 and 7.5 YR 6/4). Heavily encrusted. Flat base. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-14-1). Date: probably EM II–MM I/II. 119 (HNM 11,846; Fig. 34). Bowl, complete. H. 4.3; d. of rim 7.3; d. of base 5.2 cm. Banded marble (white and gray). Carinated profile, pronounced base. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 23, Type 8C2; Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 115, fig. 24, pl. 16:21 (Trapeza Cave); Alexiou and Warren 2004, 156, fig. 41. Date: EM II–MM I/II. 120 (HNM 11,909; Fig. 34). Miniature bowl, complete. H. 2.2; d. of rim 4.1 cm. Marble. Curved profile with straight everted rim. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 23, Type 8A, but slightly deeper. Date: EM II–MM I/II. 121 (HNM 12,395; Fig. 34). Bowl, half complete. H. 3.9; d. of rim 8.0 cm. Banded travertine (brown and white). Semi-globular shape with everted rim and emphasized base. Comments: from Room 3 (1976–1982 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 23, Type 8B; Alexiou and Warren 2004, 140, fig. 37, pl. 123F, HM. Date: EM II–MM I/II. 122 (HNM 13,795; Fig. 34). Bowl, nine pieces of rim and body sherds. D. of rim 12.0 cm. Travertine. Everted rim. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 21–25, Type 8. Date: EM II–MM I/II 123 (HCH 02-96; Fig. 34). Jug, half complete. Pres. h. 6.0, 6.3; length of spout 2.3 cm. Mottled serpentinite (mostly dark olive gray, 5YR 3/2). Thin rim, small spout, rounded carination. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Parallels: Warren 1969, 47, Type 22A. Date: EM II–MM I. 124 (HNM 13,857; Fig. 34). Side-spouted jar, almost complete. H. 7.6; d. of rim 7.8; d. of base 5.5 cm. Limestone (pinkish gray, 7.5YR 6–7/2). Rim spout, two horizontal handles below the rim, vertical handle opposite the spout. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976– 1983 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 47, Type 22A. Date: EM II–MM I. Bibliography: Betancourt 2008, 16, Fig. 5:AN 13,857. 125 (HNM 13,797; Fig. 34). Lid, two rim fragments. D. of rim 7; d. of inner rim 6 cm. Serpentinite (mottled dark gray, 10YR 4/1, veins and white). Circular with incut underside, ca. 0.3 cm space between outer and inner rim. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (HCH 02 joined piece in HNM). Parallels: Warren 1969, 69, Type 27IB; Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 115, fig. 24, pl. 16:21A (Trapeza Cave); Betancourt 1983, 36, no. 81 (Pseira). Date: EM II–MM I.

STONE VESSELS

126 (HCH 02-84; Fig. 34). Lid, complete. D. of rim 5; knob 0.8; th. of lid 0.3; th. of knob 1.0 cm. Serpentinite (gray, 10YR 5/1). Flat circular lid with pawn-shaped knob, slightly off center. Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-5-3). Parallels: Warren 1969, 69, Type 27IA. Date: EM II–MM I. 127 (HNM 12,397; Fig. 34). Bird’s-nest bowl, complete. H. 3.4; max. d. 7.7; d. of base 3.4 cm. Limestone (light gray, 5YR 7/1) with white veins. Comments: from Room 3 (1976–1982 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 7–11, Type 3; Betancourt 1983, 36, nos. 83, 90 (Pseira); Alexiou and Warren 2004, 139, fig. 37, pl. 123F, HM 2974/11, no. 566 (Lebena). Date: EM III–MM I/II. 128 (HCH 02-47; Fig. 35). Miniature cup/jar, complete. H. 3.3; d. of rim 4.4; d. of base 3.3 cm. Serpentinite

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(yellowish red, 5YR 5/6). Straight-sided with straight rim and flat base. Comments: from Room 5, Area 1, Level 1 (unit HCH 02-3-1-1). Parallels: Warren 1969, 46, Type 21A. Date: MM I. 129 (HNM 12,388; Fig. 35). Conical cup, complete. H. 4.5; d. of rim 8.0; d. of base 3.6 cm. Serpentinite (dark green). Straight rim, flat base. Comments: from Room 3 (1976–1982 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 37, Type 16, no. D119 (Mochlos). Date: MM I–II. 130 (HNM 12,398; Fig. 35). Conical cup, complete. H. 5.7; d. of rim 7.0; d. of base 3.4 cm. Serpentinite (mottled). Inturned rim, flat base. Comments: from Room 3 (1976–1982 seasons). Parallels: Warren 1969, 37, Type 16, no. D118 (Mochlos). Date: MM I–LM I.

16

Ground Stone Tools Heidi M.C. Dierckx

The ground stone tool assemblage from the cave is not very impressive. The five tools and two possible ones were found in a state of poor preservation. The identified tools consisted of a quartzite whetstone and pounding platform, two limestone pounders, and a sandstone celt. The latter is of greatest interest. Stone axes appear to be rare in Minoan tomb contexts, as very few stone axes have been reported from Minoan EM tombs. From the Mesara tombs, two stone axes came from Moni Odigitria, one came from Drakones and two came from Kalathiana (Xanthoudides 1924, 80, 86, pl. 46:a; Carter 1998b, app. 4). Two more stone axes were published from the Trapeza Cave, one identified as green stone, the other as black limestone (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936, 114, 116, pl. 17). In

general, celts have been found at Knossos, Myrtos, and elsewhere and are common during the Neolithic period, continuing into the EM period (Warren 1972, 232; Strasser and Fassoulas 2003–2004). Whetstones are more commonly found in tombs, but in the Mesara they tend to be more intricate than the example from the Hagios Charalambos Cave. They are made of fine sandstone and are long and narrow with a hole pierced at one end (Xanthoudides 1924, 20, 66, 80, pls. 13, 39, 43, 54, from Koumasa, Porti, Drakones, and Platanos). Five marble and schist whetstones found in the Trapeza Cave correspond more closely to the example from Hagios Charalambos in that they consist of unshaped cobbles with abraded faces but with no hole.

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Catalog Whetstone 131 (HCH 65; Fig. 35). Whetstone, broken on one end. Max. length 8.2; max. w. 5.5; max. th. 2.25 cm; wt. 162 gr. Quartzite (dark grayish brown, 2.5Y 4/2). Natural waterworn cobble, with ovoid shape, abraded smooth on two faces, pecking on both ends and at center of one face. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1983 season). Date: FN–MM II.

Other Tools 132 (HCH 02-27; Fig. 35). Possible tool, broken on one end (from use?). Max. pres. length 10.4; max. w. 8.1; max. th. 5.7 cm; preserved wt. 712 g. Limestone (gray, 2.5Y N6/). Natural waterworn cobble, triangular shape. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, surface level (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent). Date: FN–MM II. 133 (HCH 02-35; Fig. 35). Possible tool, complete. Max. length 11.1; max. w. 8.2; max. th. 6.1 cm; wt. 709 g. Limestone (gray, 2.5Y N6/). Cobble, rounded triangular shape, possible pecking on margins and pointed end. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, surface level (HCH 02-2/3Ent). Date: FN–MM II. 134 (HCH 02-42; Fig. 35). Pounder, complete. Max. length 9.5; max. w. 9.3; max. th. 6.3 cm; wt. 683 g.

Limestone (gray, 2.5Y N6/). Cobble, irregular shape, pecking on one end and possibly one margin. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, surface level (unit HCH 022/3Ent). Date: FN–MM II. 135 (HCH 02-48; Fig. 35). Pounding platform, intact. Pres. length 18.6; max. w. 13.2; max. th. 8.0 cm; pres. wt. 2,650 g. Quartzite (dark grayish brown, 2.5Y 4/2). Rounded rectangular slab, pecked base, pecked flat upper surface, flaked and pecked to shape. Comments: from Room 5, surface level (unit HCH 02-3-Surface). Date: FN–MM II. 136 (HCH 03-177; Fig. 35). Pounder, incomplete. Max. pres. length 9.4; max. preserved w. 11.3; max. pres. th. 5.3 cm; pres. wt. 910 g. Limestone (gray, 2.5Y N6/). Natural waterworn cobble, rounded shape, battered on one margin from use. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 dump, unit HCH 03-11-2-2). Date: FN–MM II. 137 (HCH 02-111; Fig. 35). Celt, complete. Length 4.7; w. 4.3; th. 1.7 cm; wt. 40 g. Sandstone (red, 2.5YR 5/6, fine-grained and poorly sorted). Waterworn pebble, trapezoidal shape, worn on large end. Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, level 3 (unit HCH 022/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II.

17

Chipped Stone Tools Heidi M.C. Dierckx

The chipped stone tool assemblage from the burial cave of Hagios Charalambos consisted of 64 artifacts (Figs. 36–39), the majority of which were made of obsidian (56 pieces). Six tools were made of chert, and two pieces were of quartzite. Over half of the artifacts that were recovered were less than 2 cm in length, and they would have been lost to us had it not been for the meticulous sieving methods employed during the excavation and study seasons. The obsidian came most likely from Melos, because most obsidian from Bronze Age Crete comes from that island. Recent neutron activation analysis (NAA) conducted on a number of obsidian samples from Bronze Age sites from Crete confirms this assertion (Carter 2008, 225–226). Two obsidian quarries are on Melos: Sta Nychia and Demenegaki. Most of the obsidian from the cave was of the dark gray to black variety (total 47), probably from Sta Nychia. A few pieces (total 9) look macroscopically different in appearance. These obsidian pieces are darker gray in color, with

darker stripes; they are translucent and lustrous. These pieces could possibly come from the Demenegaki quarry on Melos (T. Carter, pers. comm.). It is hard to ascertain the origin of obsidian by mere visual analysis, and the pieces would need to be tested for certainty. The obsidian assemblage is diverse in character, consisting of prismatic blades (18 pieces), retouched blades (7 pieces), a prismatic core fragment, crested blades (2 pieces), flakes (7 pieces), and geometrics (22 pieces). The cave yielded the largest collection of obsidian geometrics ever found in the Aegean. Two shapes are represented among these microliths, lunates and trapezes. The nomenclature is borrowed from lithic studies in the Near East, and some regions there have a long earlier history of microliths in several shapes including those found at the site in Lasithi (Phillips and Bar-Yosef 1974). Hafted arrows from Egyptian tombs of PreDynastic and Early Dynastic date suggest that both the lunates and trapezes were probably used as

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projectile points for arrows (Clark, Phillips, and Staley 1974). As in Early Bronze Age Lasithi, the

Egyptian projectile points are not bilaterally symmetrical.

Prismatic Blades The assemblage of chipped stone from the cave includes 18 prismatic obsidian blades. Only one example (Fig. 37:151) is completely preserved. It is the longest among the group of blades, measuring 9.7 cm in length. It has parallels with the long prismatic blades from the EM cemetery at Hagia Photia (Davaras 1976b, 211–212, fig. 120). Geographically, these long blades are mostly limited to Hagia Photia and tombs in the Cyclades where the blades measure more than 7 cm in length (Carter 1998c 71). The blade from Hagios Charalambos is comparable to the blades from Hagia Photia where the longest blade measures over 12 cm. A single example of a long blade also occurs at Moni Odigitria in the Mesara region of South-Central Crete (Carter 2010, fig. 61:CS15). Smaller in size, yet only partially preserved, the other prismatic blades measured about 5–6 cm in length when complete. Such prismatic blades were common finds at EM–MM I burial sites like the Pyrgos, Kyparissi, and Trapeza Caves, as well as at the Hagia Photia cemetery in East Crete (Carter 1998a, 251; Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and MoneyCoutts 1935–1936, 16, pl. 17; Davaras 2003, 246, fig. 112, showing 30 fine long examples from Hagia Photia). The blades were also part of the funerary assemblages in tombs in the Mesara and Central Crete (Carter 1998a, 250). Several of the blades show signs of retouch, consisting of marginal retouch on the edges (139, 141, 143, 145, 149, 152, 153, 155), retouch creating notches for the purpose of hafting (145, 152), pointed retouch (146), and end retouch in the form of serration (154). 138 (HCH 203; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, distal end. Pres. length 2.0; w. 0.57; th. 0.17 cm. Obsidian. Two ridges, point broken, chipped edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1983 season). Date: FN–MM II. 139 (HCH 205; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, center section. Pres. length 1.8; w. 0.76; th. 0.26 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges, marginal retouch on one edge of dorsal surface, chipped other edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1983 season). Date: FN–MM II.

140 (HCH 03-180; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, proximal end. Pres. length 2.33; w. 0.87; th. 0.3 cm. Obsidian (black, 2.5Y N2/, and dark gray, 2.5Y N3/). Two ridges, chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-12-4). Date: FN–MM II. 141 (HCH 03-190; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, distal end. Pres. length 2.8; w. 0.74; th. 0.22 cm. Obsidian (black, 2.5Y N2/, and dark gray, 2.5Y N3/). Two parallel ridges, marginal retouch on dorsal and ventral edges. Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, surface level (unit HCH 03-4/5Ent). Date: FN–MM II. 142 (HCH 03-203; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, distal end (in two pieces). Pres. length 1.14; w. 0.57; th. 0.1 cm. Obsidian (black, 2.5Y N2/, and dark gray, 2.5Y N3/). Two parallel ridges, broken point, chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-12-7). Date: FN–MM II. 143 (HCH 04-309; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, center section. Pres. length 1.4; w. 0.86; th. 0.25 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges, marginal retouch on one edge of dorsal surface, chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-11-1 north). Date: FN–MM II. 144 (HCH 04-310; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, proximal end. Pres. length 0.63; w. 0.86; th. 0.27 cm. Obsidian. Two ridges. Chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-11-1 north). Date: FN–MM II. 145 (HCH 04-319; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, center section. Pres. length 0.58; w. 0.55; th. 0.1 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges, retouched on edges: one notch on each. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-12-1/2). Date: FN–MM II. 146 (HCH 04-322; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, complete. Length 1.4; w. 0.54; th. 0.18 cm. Obsidian. Pres. one parallel ridge; retouch on dorsal surface on ends: abrupt retouch at proximal end and pointed at distal end; retouch along one edge: notch; broken tip of pointed end. Comments: pointed blade, from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 147 (HCH 04-331; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, proximal end. Pres. length 0.75; w. 0.49; th. 0.12 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-11-1). Date: FN–MM II. 148 (HCH 04-338; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, center section. Pres. length 1.52; w. 0.86; th. 0.18 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges, chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-Dump). Date: FN–MM II.

CHIPPED STONE TOOLS

149 (HCH 04-360; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, center section. Pres. length 1.7; w. 0.57; th. 0.21 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges, marginal retouch on part of one edge on ventral surface, chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: FN–MM II. 150 (HCH 05-429; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, distal end. Pres. length 0.75; w. 0.54; th. 0.15 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges. Chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: FN–MM II. 151 (HNM 11,853; Fig. 37). Prismatic blade, complete. Length 9.7; w. 1.2; th. 0.36 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges, chipped edges. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Parallels: Davaras 1976b, 211– 212, fig. 120 (Hagia Photia); for Cycladic parallels, see Carter 2008, 229–232. Date: FN–MM II. 152 (HNM 11,890b; Fig. 37). Prismatic blade, proximal end. Pres. length 3.25; w. 1.03; th. 0.26 cm. Obsidian. Two ridges, retouched at proximal end on dorsal surface; retouched on both surfaces: notches for

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hafting. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II. 153 (HNM 11,892; Fig. 36). Prismatic blade, center section. Pres. length 2.23; w. 0.76; th. 0.31 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges, marginal retouch and a notch on dorsal surface, chipped edge (from use). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II. 154 (HNM 11,899; Fig. 37). Prismatic blade, distal end. Pres. length 3.1; w. 0.87; th. 0.2 cm. Obsidian. Two parallel ridges; retouched end: serrated end; chipped edges. Comments: serrated blade, from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II. 155 (HNM 13,814; Fig. 37). Prismatic blade, proximal and center sections. Pres. length 3.82; w. 0.65; th. 0.12 cm. Obsidian (from Demenegaki). Two ridges, marginal retouch on one edge of ventral surface, one chipped edge (use). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II.

Retouched Blades and Flakes Nine additional retouched blades and flakes were found in the cave. The retouch consists of marginal retouch, notches for hafting, and pointed ends. Three scrapers, including an end scraper, complete this group.

Retouched Blades 156 (HCH 04-318; Fig. 37). Blade, distal end. Pres. length 1.12; w. 0.82; th. 0.24 cm. Obsidian. One preserved ridge, abrupt retouch on one edge and point. Comments: pointed blade, from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-12-1/2). Date: FN–MM II. 157 (HCH 04-330; Fig. 37). Blade, distal end. Pres. length 1.24; w. 0.53; th. 0.31 cm. Obsidian. One ridge, two notches at the top on each edge of the dorsal surface, retouch at end creating a point. Comments: pointed blade; from Room 4, lower units, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-2-2). Date: FN–MM II. 158 (HNM 11,891; Fig. 37). Blade, distal end. Pres. length 2.28; w. 1.0; th. 0.41 cm. Obsidian. One ridge, retouch on dorsal surface on both edges and to a point. Comments: pointed blade, from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II. 159 (HNM 11,900; Fig. 37). Blade, proximal end. Pres. length 2.4; w. 0.62; th. 0.15 cm. Obsidian (from Demenegaki?). Three parallel ridges, retouch at proximal end on ventral surface, chipped one edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II.

160 (HNM 11,889; Fig. 38). Initial blade, complete. Length 3.96; w. 1.95; th. 0.6 cm. Obsidian. Some cortex preserved; retouch on ventral surface of one edge: two notches; chipped other edge (use). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II. 161 (HCH 05-428; Fig. 38). Blade, complete. Length 1.59; w. 0.54; th. 0.11 cm. Obsidian. Blade, three ridges. Semi-abrupt end retouch at proximal end, marginal retouch at distal end. Comments: end scraper, from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: FN–MM II. 162 (HCH 02-93; Fig. 38). Secondary crested blade, distal end. Pres. length 2.76; w. 1.21; th. 0.37 cm. Obsidian (black, 10YR 2/1). One ridge, marginal retouch on one edge of ventral surface and one edge of dorsal surface, chipped. Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-5-3). Date: FN–MM II.

Retouched Flakes 163 (HNM 11,890a; Fig. 38). Initial flake, complete. Length 2.56; w. 2.09; th. 0.62 cm. Obsidian. Some cortex preserved, retouch on ventral and dorsal surface on two edges, use wear on one edge (in form of perpendicular scratches on ventral surface). Comments: scraper, from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II. 164 (HNM 11,893; Fig. 38). Initial flake, complete. Length 1.51; w. 1.29; th. 0.51 cm. Obsidian. Some cortex preserved, rounded retouch on distal end on both surfaces. Comments: scraper, from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II.

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Debitage One core fragment, two crested blades, one primary flake, and four debris flakes compose the debitage products found inside the cave.

Core 165 (HCH 04-317; Fig. 38). Core, fragment. Max. dim. 1.41; th. 0.58 cm. Obsidian. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-11-1). Date: FN–MM II.

Crested Blades 166 (HCH 204; Fig. 38). Crested blade, distal end. Pres. length 1.95; w. 0.81; th. 0.15 cm. Obsidian. Chipped edges. Comments: from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: FN–MM II. 167 (HCH 04-308; Fig. 38). Secondary crested blade, center section. Pres. length 1.64; w. 0.96; th. 0.29 cm. Obsidian. Chipped edge. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-2-2). Date: FN–MM II.

Flakes 168 (HCH 04-326; Fig. 38). Primary flake, complete. Max. dim. 0.94; th. 0.4 cm. Obsidian. Cortex preserved on one side. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-12-3). Date: FN–MM II. 169 (HCH 04-328). Flake, complete. Max. dim. 0.13 cm. Obsidian. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-Dump). Date: FN–MM II. 170 (HCH 04-332; Fig. 38). Flake, complete. Max. dim. 0.84; th. 0.28 cm. Obsidian (from Demenaki?). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 dump, unit HCH 03-12-2). Date: FN–MM II. 171 (HCH 04-361). Flake, complete. Max. dim. 0.37 cm. Obsidian. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: FN–MM II. 172 (HNM 13,858 alpha; Fig. 38). Flake, complete. Max. dim. 1.8 cm. Obsidian. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II.

Geometrics: Lunates and Trapezes Twenty-two geometrics come from the cave. They are of two types, lunates and trapezes. The 17 lunates, which have a crescent shape, make up the more common type. They are blanks made from the medial section of a prismatic blade with rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, while the opposing edge is straight. All, except for three examples, were complete and averaged 1.32 x 0.62 x 0.2 cm in size. The five trapezes, named because of their trapezoidal shape, were manufactured similarly to the lunates, with semi-abrupt or abrupt retouch on one edge, leaving the opposing edge straight. The Hagios Charalambos Cave has revealed the largest number of geometrics as yet known from any early Minoan tomb. Of the two types, the trapeze has been regarded as a rare form (Carter 1998a, 298). Parallels for this type have been published from the Peloponnese: Lerna; the Argolid Exploration Project; the Asea Valley Survey; and Geraki, Laconia (Runnels 1985, 372, table 11, fig. 6:c; Kardulias and Runnels 1995, 95, figs. 78.3, 80.2, 89.9; Carter and Ydo 1996, 157, ill. 18.9:c; Carter 2002, 38–39, fig. 12 [nos. 495/3, 4492/SF1,

500/1,4494/SF1]; 2003, 148, 150, fig. 110 [nos. CS 174, CS 173]). This tool type has been dated to the EH II period. Two EB II trapezes were found in a Cycladic tomb from Naxos (Carter 1998a, 299, app. 2). From Crete, one example was published from Myrtos Phournou Korifi from an EM IIB context (Jarman 1972, 326, fig. 128.35). Further parallels come from tholos tombs from Platanos and Lebena in the Mesara (total 13), and three pieces come from Tholos Gamma and the Area of the Rocks at Archanes (Carter 1998a, 298–299, pl. 12.6, 7; Papadatos 2005, fig. 27:O17, O19, fig. 28:O46a). The additional evidence from Hagios Charalambos adds further credibility to Carter’s statement, “[i]n the absence of secure dating for these latter examples [referring to Platanos and Lebena], it would be unwise to overstate the case, but it is tempting to see a localized variant in the construction of funerary assemblages, shared by communities in southern and central Crete” (1998a, 307). As for the function of these tools, other than as funerary goods, their shape suggests a possible use in sickles or reaping knives. However, Runnels suggested their use as

CHIPPED STONE TOOLS

projectile points based on examples from the Near East and Egypt (1985, 347). Although the lunate type of geometric has not yet been found elsewhere, it is safe to recognize it as belonging to the same category of tools. Further study of obsidian assemblages from EM tombs may discover more lunates in Crete.

Lunates 173 (HCH 03-223; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.37; w. 0.5; th. 0.16 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, made from a blade fragment, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge. Not chipped. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-Dump). Date: FN–MM II. 174 (HCH 04-307; Fig. 39). Lunate, chipped. Length 1.34; w. 0.65; th. 0.15 cm. Obsidian (from Demenaki?). Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge. Comments: from Room 7 (unit HCH 037-3). Date: FN–MM II. 175 (HCH 04-311; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.41; w. 0.52; th. 0.21 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on the two ends of one edge, partial cortex preserved on same edge. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 1 (unit HCH 02-2-1). Date: FN–MM II. 176 (HCH 04-312; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.46; w. 0.56; th. 0.31 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, made from a core fragment, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-2-2). Date: FN–MM II. 177 (HCH 04-314; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.08; w. 0.61; th. 0.14 cm. Obsidian (from Demenaki?). Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 5 (unit HCH 03-5-5-5). Date: FN–MM II. 178 (HCH 04-315; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.59; w. 0.69; th. 0.32 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-2-2). Date: FN–MM II. 179 (HCH 04-316; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.4; w. 0.68; th. 0.18 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 2 (unit HCH 02-2-2). Date: FN–MM II. 180 (HCH 04-323; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.18; w. 0.68; th. 0.15 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 4 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-4). Date: FN–MM II. 181 (HCH 04-324A; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.42; w. 0.66; th. 0.16 cm. Obsidian. Crescent

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shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 182 (HCH 04-324B; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.06; w. 0.62; th. 0.2 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 183 (HCH 04-324C; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete (in two pieces). Length 1.52; w. 0.77; th. 0.12 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 184 (HCH 04-327; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.13; w. 0.52; th. 0.24 cm. Obsidian. Some cortex preserved. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 185 (HCH 04-385; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.15; w. 0.6; th. 0.2 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Wear marks on ventral surface of straight edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-3-5-3). Date: FN–MM II. 186 (HCH 04-333; Fig. 39). Lunate, half preserved. Pres. length 0.9; w. 0.65; th. 0.12 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-12-4). Date: FN–MM II. 187 (HCH 04-406; Fig. 39). Lunate, fragment. Pres. length 0.5; w. 0.5; th. 0.17 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, abupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: FN–MM II. 188 (HCH 05-424; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.36; w. 0.58; th. 0.21 cm. Obsidian. Crescent shape, made from blade fragment, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 189 (HNM 13,858 gamma; Fig. 39). Lunate, complete. Length 1.38; w. 0.67; th. 0.27 cm. Obsidian (from Demenegaki?). Crescent shape, rounded abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II.

Trapezes 190 (HNM 13,858 beta; Fig. 39). Trapeze, complete. Length 1.57; w. 0.57; th. 0.21 cm. Obsidian (from Demenegaki?). Trapezoidal shape, semi-abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge, scratches on ventral surface from use. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976– 1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II.

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191 (HNM 13,858 delta; Fig. 39). Trapeze, complete. Length 1.79; w. 0.52; th. 0.17 cm. Obsidian (from Demenegaki?). Trapezoidal shape, semi-abrupt retouch on ends of one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: FN–MM II. 192 (HCH 04-363; Fig. 39). Trapeze, complete. Length 1.21; w. 0.51; th. 0.22. Obsidian. Trapezoidal shape, retouch at both ends, originally from core fragment, scratches on ventral surface of straight edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II.

193 (HCH 04-329; Fig. 39). Trapeze, complete. Length 1.42; w. 0.71; th. 0.22. Obsidian. Trapezoidal shape, abrupt retouch on one edge, chipped straight edge. Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 022/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 194 (HCH 04-313; Fig. 39). Trapeze, complete. Length 1.53; w. 0.61; th. 0.23. Obsidian (from Demenegaki?). Trapezoidal shape, abrupt retouch on one edge, dull wear marks from use on straight edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-11-3). Date: FN–MM II.

Chert and Quartzite Eight artifacts made of chert (6 pieces) and quartzite (2 pieces) also were recovered. Of these, three were retouched to create pointed tools, and four were used as scrapers.

Chert Tools 195 (HCH 04-325; Fig. 39). Flake, complete. Max. dim. 0.96 cm. Chert (white, 7.5YR N8/). Comments: from the 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3). Date: FN–MM II. 196 (HCH 04-334; Fig. 39). Blade, complete. Length 2.45; w. 0.96; th. 0.28 cm. Chert (white, 10YR 8/1). One ridge, retouch at proximal end creating a point. Comments: pointed blade, from Room 3, lower units (unit HCH 02-14). Date: FN–MM II. 197 (HCH 04-335; Fig. 39). Blade/flake, complete. Length 1.43; w. 0.99; th. 0.49 cm. Chert (white, 10YR 8/1). Two ridges; retouched distal end: rounded edge. Comments: scraper, from Room 3, lower units, surface level (unit HCH 02-1-surface north). Date: FN–MM II. 198 (HCH 04-336; Fig. 39). Flake, complete. Length 1.41; w. 1.15; th. 0.59 cm. Chert (white, 2.5 Y N8/). Retouched at one end: rounded; waterworn surface.

Comments: scraper, from Room 3, lower units, surface level (unit HCH 02-1-surface north). Date: FN–MM II. 199 (HCH 04-337; Fig. 39). Blade/flake, complete. Length 1.66; w. 1.1; th. 0.61 cm. Chert (white and light red, 5Y 8/1 and 10R 6/6). Retouched at distal end creating rounded pointed end. Comments: pointed blade, from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 dump). Date: FN–MM II. 200 (HCH 04-366; Fig. 39). Blade, proximal end. Pres. length 2.15; w. 0.66; th. 0.46 cm. Chert. Two ridges, chipped and broken from use at point. Comments: pointed blade, from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-14-2). Date: FN– MM II.

Quartzite Tools 201 (HCH 04-367; Fig. 39). Flake, complete. Max. dim. 2.29; th. 0.47 cm. Quartzite. Retouched at edges to shape to a point on dorsal surface with a notch for hafting. Comments: scraper/pointed tool, from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 03-14-2). Date: FN–MM II. 202 (HCH 04-384; Fig. 39). Blade, proximal end. Pres. length 0.57; w. 0.49; th. 0.1 cm. Quartzite (dark gray, 10YR 4/1). One ridge, end retouch on proximal end. Comments: end scraper, from Rooms 1–4 (unit HCH 02Dump). Date: FN–MM II.

18

Miscellaneous Objects Philip P. Betancourt

Most of the manufactured artifacts from the cave were small and portable. Aside from pottery (published in the second volume), the largest general class consisted of items to be worn as jewelry. Materials included metals, stone, bone, ivory, and perishable substances like wood. The beads, pendants, and other pierced objects were probably personal possessions of the deceased. This chapter publishes the beads, the pendants that are not zoomorphic or anthropomorphic, and other small items (Figs. 40–43; Pl. 26). Many of the pieces

are modest, while others are made from rare or imported materials. Most of the miscellaneous objects are in classes that would have been regarded as personal ornaments. They include both the simple decoration of the poorer members of society and some of the elite imported gemstones that enhanced the public image of those who wore them to increase their prestige. They would have been attractive accessories to costume in death as well as in life or perhaps protective amulets for the living.

Pendants A few simple pendants come from the cave. Three examples are made of hippopotamus ivory. Others are fashioned from stone and bone, but the class is not common from this cave. More interesting are the figural objects carved in the form of feet, a double axe, an ape, a bull’s head, and human

figures. Because one counts these figural pieces all together, they are more numerous than the undecorated pendants. It is possible that the ivory pendants with flat lower surfaces are uncarved stamp seals. Because no carving exists, however, they are included here

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instead of with the finished seals. All of the ivory objects appear to be made of hippopotamus teeth. Because the hippopotamus ranged from Egypt to the Levant during the Bronze Age (Horwitz and Tchernov 1990), the original source of the raw material is unknown. It is, however, an uncommon imported material for Crete, and the objects made from it are often carefully manufactured and nicely polished. The ivory objects are all assigned a date in EM III–MM IA, based on the main period of the material (Sbonias 1995, 36–37; see fuller discussion in Ch. 9). Measurements are in millimeters.

Ivory Pendants 203 (HNM 13,902; HCH 02-22; Fig. 40). Pendant, complete. H. 13; w. 10; th. 8; hole d. 2 mm. Hippopotamus ivory. Triangular shape, truncated at the tip and pierced at the wider end. Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent). Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period of use of the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; Ferrence 2007, 171. 204 (HNM 13,905; HCH 02-100; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Rectangular pendant, complete. H. 16; w. 23; th. 4 mm. Hippopotamus ivory. Flat rectangle with rounded edges, pierced through the top and the flat sides. Comments: from Room 5, Area 1, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-1-3). Burned. It is possible that this is a blank for a seal. Parallels: Xanthoudides 1924, 123, no. 1140 (Platanos), pl. 4:801 (Koumasa, with more rounded upper part and a seal on the base); Marinatos 1929a, fig. 15:54 (Krasi); Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1997, 632, figs. 683, 684 (Archanes). Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period of use for the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; 2008, 18, fig. 7:AN 13,905; Ferrence 2007, 171, fig. 20.4. 205 (HNM 13,906; HCH 02-101; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Rectangular pendant, complete. H. 29; w. 25 to 27; th. 6 mm. Hippopotamus ivory. Flat rectangle with rounded edges, pierced through the flat sides. Comments: from Room 5, Area 1, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-1-3). Burned. It is possible that this is a blank for a seal. Parallels: see 204. Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period of use for the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450; 2008, 18, fig. 7:AN 13,906; Ferrence 2007, 171.

pale colored stone, lapis lazuli, and blue frit, see Panagiotaki 2000, 109, 118, 119, nos. 86, 87, 97). They were sometimes undrilled but made with grooves for ease in attachment (Papadatos 2005, fig. 23:A9–A19 [Phourni, Archanes]). 206 (HNM 13,779; Fig. 40). Drop pendant, complete. H. 12; w. 6 mm. Transparent quartz (rock crystal). Oval shape; pierced at small end. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM II–MM II.

Bone Pendant 207 (HNM 13,074; Fig. 40). Pendant or bead, complete. H. 12; w. 15 mm. Bone. Hollow section; pierced through the top laterally. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1982 season). Date: EM–MM II.

Foot Pendants

Quartz Pendant

Two pendants in the shape of human feet come from the cave. They are made of different materials (ivory and serpentinite), but they are generally similar in style. They consist of flat representations of the foot and ankle. Small holes are pierced at the upper ends through the flat sides of the objects. The objects are both small (17 and 25 mm high). The pendant in the form of a human foot is well known in Minoan Crete, and several scholars have discussed its distribution and possible meaning (Xanthoudides 1924, 31; Branigan 1970b; Soles 2004). Examples come from a long list of sites (including Archanes, Hagia Triada, Koumasa, Krasi, Lebena, Marathokephalo, Mochlos, Palaikastro, Platanos, the Psychro Cave, and Tylissos), and similar pendants also occur in Egypt and western Asia. Most known examples are from tombs, but small pierced feet occur occasionally in settlement contexts as well (e.g., at Mochlos, Soles 2004). A suggestion that they were intended as protective amulets to heal, strengthen, or otherwise assist the wearer’s foot in some way seems highly likely (as this meaning is attested in Egyptian documents), and their presence in burials suggests that they may have been intended to assist the spirit of the deceased in a life after death.

Drop pendants were made of several different materials. They were used in necklaces along with beads of various shapes made in more than one material (for examples of drop pendants made of

208 (HNM 11,870; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Foot pendant, complete except for damaged toe area. H. 17; length 22 mm. Hippopotamus ivory (exterior color pink, 5YR 7/3). Pendant in the form of a foot, pierced at the top of the ankle. Comments: from Room 4 (1983 season).

MISCELLEANOUS OBJECTS

Date: EM III–MM IA. Bibliography: Davaras 1983; Betancourt 2005, 450, 454, pl. CII:d; 2007, 213, fig. 25.2:c; Ferrence 2007, fig. 20.1. 209 (HNM 13,860; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Foot pendant, complete. H. 25; length 17 mm. Serpentinite (black). Pendant in the form of a foot, pierced at the top of the ankle. Comments: from Room 4 (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1983; Betancourt 2005, 450; Ferrence 2007, fig. 20.1.

Miniature Double Axe

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or as a miniature votive. Very few objects from the cave are miniature versions of useful objects (one example is a miniature copper dagger). Most likely, the small axe was suspended in some fashion from the handle and worn as a pendant. 210 (HNM 13,802; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Miniature double axe, complete. Length 17; h. 5 mm. Serpentinite (black, N3). Circular (drilled) shaft hole. Comments: from Room 2 (Davaras 1982, 388). Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1982, 388; 1986, 10.

A miniature double axe is made of serpentinite. It is unclear if it was intended as a piece of jewelry

Beads Beads of stone and other materials are common in Minoan cemeteries. In fact, all large communal tombs from the EM to MM period that were excavated with modern methodology have yielded numerous examples in many shapes. The beads from Hagios Charalambos include examples that are spherical, cylindrical, barrel-shaped, biconical, and conical. The names used in this volume follow the standardized nomenclature for ancient beads agreed upon at a meeting of archaeologists in Baghdad in 1929 and adopted for the descriptions of the large collection of beads from various sites including the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Woolley 1934, 366–375) and elsewhere. It is highly possible that some of the Cretan carnelian and banded agate beads (and possibly others) have the same source as very similar Mesopotamian beads, because they are made of non-Cretan materials. The most likely source for the carnelian, especially the long barrel-shaped beads, is the Indus Valley (where similar examples were manufactured from local material; see Mackay 1937). Manufacture in other places, however, cannot be ruled out (Moorey 1994, 106–109). Many beads from this site are made from serpentinite, the metamorphic rock whose major constituent consists of one or more minerals in the serpentine group (antigorite and lizardite). It is fine grained, and it takes a nice polish. The color varies from green to very dark green to black. Tests with the LIBS instrument at the INSTAP Study Center in Pacheia Ammos revealed only magnesium,

which is consistent with what is expected for serpentine or talc, and the hardness confirms that the material is not talc. The material ranges in color from green to black, but most examples are black or nearly black. The material is certainly not local to the Lasithi Plain, but whether these beads were made in Crete or elsewhere is uncertain. The class is common all over Crete. Beads found together are listed under single catalog entries, so that the distribution within the cave can be understood. These objects were surely strung originally, but by the time they were deposited in the secondary ossuary, they were scattered. They provide additional evidence that the material was placed in the cave as a secondary deposition.

Large Serpentinite Ring-Shaped Beads or Disks Two stone disks seem a little large to be regarded as items in the same category with the smaller beads, but they could have been worn as jewelry. They are both made of serpentinite. 211 (HNM 11,875; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Large ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 29; th. 8 mm. Serpentinite, gray. Disk, drilled in center. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM III–MM II. 212 (HNM 11,848; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Large ringshaped bead, complete. Exterior d. 33; interior d. 21 mm. Serpentinite, green. Sawed after drilling. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1982 season). Date: EM–MM II.

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Quartz Beads 213 (HNM 11,862; Fig. 40). Cylindrical bead, complete. Length 21; d. 10 mm. Transparent quartz (rock crystal). Hole (d. 4) drilled longitudinally. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper level (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II. 214 (HNM 13,935; HCH 03-233; Fig. 40). Cylindrical bead, complete. Length 6; d. 3 mm; hole d. 1 mm. Transparent quartz (rock crystal). Hole drilled longitudinally. Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3-BM). Date: EM–MM II. 215 (HNM 13,876; HCH 04-240; Fig. 40). Lentoid bead, complete. D. 7 mm. Transparent quartz (rock crystal). A disk bead with convex faces, with a lentoid section, pierced through the side. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 2 (HCH 02-2-2). Date: EM–MM II. 216 (HCH 04-296; Fig. 40). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 5; th. 3 mm. Transparent quartz (rock crystal). Irregular. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 3-7-3). Date: EM–MM II.

Carnelian Agate Beads The cave yielded beads made both of banded agate and carnelian agate. Neither material is local to Crete. The long double-conoid bead is regarded as one of the commonest bead types in Mesopotamia (Woolley 1934, 367, pl. 131, from the Royal Cemetery at Ur). It also occurs in Egypt (Rigault 1999, 425). Similar beads have been found in other Cretan tombs (Xanthoudides 1918b, fig. 18 [Marathokephalo]). The rhomboid bead is also a common bead in Mesopotamia (Woolley 1934, 368). The banded agate bead is an amygdaloid, a shape used for seals in Crete, but this specimen is not carved (for other beads of this shape that have been regarded as uncarved seals, see Betancourt 1983, 42 [Psychro Cave and Pyrgos Myrtou]). The ultimate source for these objects is probably in India. 217 (HNM 11,863; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Long doubleconoid bead, complete. Length 17; d. 14 mm. Carnelian agate. Long double-conoid shape; hole drilled longitudinally. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1983, 375; 1986, 10; Effinger 1996, 185; Betancourt 2005, 451; Ferrence 2007, fig. 20.1. 218 (HNM 11,864; Fig. 40). Long double-conoid bead, complete. Length 16; d. 9 mm. Carnelian agate. Elliptical shape; hole drilled longitudinally. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date:

EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1983, 375; 1986, 10; Effinger 1996, 185; Betancourt 2005, 451; Ferrence 2007, fig. 20.1. 219 (HNM 11,854; Fig. 40). Rhomboid bead, complete. Length 17; w. 14 mm. Carnelian agate. Rhomboid shape, with an elliptical section; hole drilled longitudinally. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1982 season). Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1983, 375; Effinger 1996, 185; Betancourt 2005, 451; Ferrence 2007, fig. 20.1. 220 (HNM 13,790; Fig. 40). Rhomboid bead, complete. Length 14; max. d. 9 mm. Carnelian agate. Rhomboid shape, with an elliptical section; hole drilled longitudinally. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1982 season). Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1983, 375; Effinger 1996, 185; Betancourt 2005, 451.

Agate Amygdaloid Bead 221 (HNM 11,852; Fig. 40; Pl. 26). Amygdaloid bead, complete. Length 24.7; w. 19.1; th. 9 mm. Agate, with bands. Drilled longitudinally. Uncarved. Comments: from Room 2 (Davaras 1982, 388); probably a bead rather than a seal, in spite of the amygdaloid shape. Date: EM–MM II. Bibliography: Davaras 1982, 388; 1986, 18, no. 9; Davaras and Pini 1992, 52 (CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 47).

Bone Tubular Bead It is perhaps surprising that only one bead made from a hollow bone is present in this assemblage. The scarcity probably suggests that beads were regarded as elite items, and objects made from local bird bones were not in fashion because they had limited prestige associated with them in comparison with exotic imported items. 222 (HNM 14,008; HCH 04-245; Fig. 41). Tubular bead, complete. Length 15; d. 3 mm. Hollow bird bone, distal ends removed to make a tubular bead. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 dump, unit HCH 03-121-2). Date: EM–MM II.

Serpentinite Elliptical Beads 223 (HNM 13,888; HCH 03-188; Fig. 41). Elliptical bead, complete. Length 15; max. w. 7 x 10 mm. Serpentinite, black. Elongated shape, with elliptical section; drilled longitudinally. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-4). Date: EM– MM II. 224 (HNM 13,880; HCH 04-244; Fig. 41). Elliptical bead, complete. Length 15; max. w. 7 x 10 mm. Serpentinite, black. Elongated shape, with elliptical section; drilled longitudinally. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 4 (unit HCH 03-5-3-4). Date: EM–MM II.

MISCELLEANOUS OBJECTS

Serpentinite Cylindrical Beads 225 (HNM 13,785 alpha; Fig. 41). Cylindrical beads (14), complete. D. 6; length 9 to 11 mm. Serpentinite, black. Drilled longitudinally. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

Serpentinite Discoid Beads Drilled through Edge The discoid bead pierced through the edge is not as common at this cave as the similarly shaped ring-shaped bead that is pierced through the flat sides. 226 (HNM 13,875; HCH 04-246; Fig. 41). Discoid bead, complete. D. 4.5; th. 3 mm. Serpentinite, green. Pierced through the edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons, unit HCH 03-11-1). Date: EM– MM II. 227 (HNM 13,785 gamma; Fig. 41). Discoid beads (4), complete. D. 8 to 10; th. 5 mm. Serpentinite, black. Pierced through the edge. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

Serpentinite Ring-Shaped Beads Drilled through Side 228 (HNM 13,891; HCH 02-89; Fig. 41). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 3 mm. Serpentinite, dark gray (10YR 4/1). Comments: from Room 5, Area 5, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-3-5-3). Date: EM–MM II. 229 (HNM 13,892; HCH 02-109; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 5; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, very dark gray (N3/). Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976– 1983 dump, unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: EM–MM II. 230 (HNM 13,894; HCH 03-172; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 5.5; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-2). Date: EM–MM II. 231 (HNM 13,896; HCH 03-183; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 4 (unit HCH 03-5-3-4). Date: EM–MM II. 232 (HNM 13,894 beta; HCH 03-184; Fig. 41). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 4 (unit HCH 03-5-3-4). Date: EM–MM II. 233 (HNM 13,893; HCH 03-194; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete except for missing chip. D. 5; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (from 1976–1983 dump, unit HCH 03-14-1). Date: EM–MM II. 234 (HNM 13,932; HCH 03-201; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. .45; th. 3 mm. Serpentinite,

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very dark gray (N3/). Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (from dump, unit HCH 03-12-2). Date: EM–MM II. 235 (HNM 13,937; HCH 03-228; Fig. 41). Ringshaped beads (5), complete. D. 2; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, very dark gray (N2/ to N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-4-BN). Date: EM–MM II. 236 (HNM 13,938; HCH 03-229; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 3; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N2/) to very dark gray (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 4 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-4-BN). Date: EM–MM II. 237 (HNM 13,939; HCH 03-230; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 1.5; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N2/) to very dark gray (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3-BK). Date: EM–MM II. 238 (HNM 13,936; HCH 03-232; Fig. 41). Ringshaped beads (3), complete. D. 1.5; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N2/) to very dark gray (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, Level 3 (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent-3-BL). Date: EM–MM II. 239 (HNM 13,934; HCH 03-234; Fig. 41). Ringshaped beads (2), complete. D. 2; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N2/) to very dark gray (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance, surface (unit HCH 02-2/3Ent). Date: EM–MM II. 240 (HNM 13,879; HCH 04-247; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 3; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 dump, unit HCH 03-12-2). Date: EM–MM II. 241 (HNM 13,871; HCH 04-248; Fig. 41). Ringshaped beads (3), complete. D. 3.5; th. 1.5–2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 4 (unit HCH 03-5-3-4). Date: EM–MM II. 242 (HCH 04-249; Fig. 41). Ring-shaped beads (2), complete. D. 2; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 dump, unit HCH 03-12-3). Date: EM–MM II. 243 (HNM 13,877; HCH 04-250; Fig. 41). Ringshaped beads (2), complete. D. 3.5; th. 1.5 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 5 (unit HCH 03-5-3-5). Date: EM–MM II. 244 (HNM 13,884; HCH 04-251; Fig. 41). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, dark green. Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 5 (unit HCH 03-5-3-5). Date: EM–MM II. 245 (HNM 13,869; HCH 04-252; Fig. 41). Ringshaped beads (5), complete. D. 2.5–3; th. 1.5 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1-2). Date: EM–MM II. 246 (HNM 13,874; HCH 04-254; Fig. 42). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 4.6; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1-2). Date: EM–MM II.

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247 (HCH 04-255; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 2; th. 1.4 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 4, lower units, Level 1 (unit HCH 02-2-1). Date: EM–MM II. 248 (HNM 13,870; HCH 04-256; Fig. 42). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 5; th. 4 mm. Serpentinite, black. Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1-1). Date: EM–MM II. 249 (HCH 04-257; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 3 mm. Serpentinite, black (N/3). Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1-3). Date: EM–MM II. 250 (HNM 13,882; HCH 04-258; Fig. 42). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 2.5; th. 1.5 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1-3). Date: EM–MM II. 251 (HCH 04-259; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped beads (13), complete. D. 3–4; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 4 (unit HCH 035-3-4). Date: EM–MM II. 252 (HCH 04-262; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped beads (4), complete. D. 4–5; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-2). Date: EM–MM II. 253 (HCH 04-263; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped beads (2), complete. D. 3; th. 1.5 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 4, lower level (unit HCH 02-23). Date: EM–MM II. 254 (HCH 04-264; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 4 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3). Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1-Surface). Date: EM–MM II. 255 (HCH 04-265; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 6; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH 02-1Surface). Date: EM–MM II. 256 (HCH 04-266; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 2; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 4, lower units (unit HCH 02-2-Cleaning). Date: EM–MM II. 257 (HCH 04-267; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 5; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, green. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-74). Date: EM–MM II. 258 (HCH 04-268; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped beads (4), complete. D. 3; th. 2–3 mm. Serpentinite, black. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-4). Date: EM–MM II. 259 (HNM 11,903; HCH 04-282; Fig. 42). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 7; th. 3 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II. 260 (HNM 13,785 beta; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped beads (4), complete. D. 5; th. 2 to 3 mm. Serpentinite, pale green. Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

261 (HNM 13,785 delta; HCH04-294; Fig. 42). Ringshaped beads (3), complete. D. 6 to 9; th. 2, 3, and 6 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II. 262 (HNM 13,793; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 22; th. 7 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II. 263 (HCH 04-295; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped beads (11), complete. D. 4; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 5 (unit HCH 035-3-5). Date: EM–MM II. 264 (HCH 04-297; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 3 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-4). Date: EM–MM II. 265 (HCH 04-298; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 3 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-5). Date: EM–MM II. 266 (HCH 04-299; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-3). Date: EM–MM II. 267 (HCH 04-362; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped beads (3), complete. D. 2.5–3; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 022/3 Ent-Surface). Date: EM–MM II. 268 (HCH 04-364; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 3; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 022/3 Ent-Surface). Date: EM–MM II. 269 (HCH 04-365; Fig. 42). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 2; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 022/3 Ent-Surface). Date: EM–MM II. 270 (HCH 04-368; Fig. 43). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 3; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Rooms 1– 4 (1976–1983 seasons, unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: EM–MM II. 271 (HCH 04-378; Fig. 43). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 3.5; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 022/3 Ent-3). Date: EM–MM II. 272 (HCH 04-386; Fig. 43). Ring-shaped beads (2), complete. D. 2, 3; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 022/3 Ent-3). Date: EM–MM II. 273 (HCH 04-401; Fig. 43). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 3; th. 1 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from the Room 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 022/3 Ent-3). Date: EM–MM II. 274 (HCH 05-420; Fig. 43). Ring-shaped bead, complete. D. 4; th. 2 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/).

MISCELLEANOUS OBJECTS

Comments: from Rooms 1–4 (1976–1983 seasons; unit HCH 02-Dump). Date: EM–MM II. 275 (HCH 04-295; Fig. 43). Ring-shaped beads (11), complete. D. 4; th. 2–3 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 3 (unit HCH 035-3-5). Date: EM–MM II.

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281 (HNM 13,889; HCH 03-167; Fig. 43). Elliptical bead, complete. Length 9; d. at center of bead 4 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Drilled longitudinally. Comments: from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-5-3-5). Date: EM–MM II.

White Stone Ring-Shaped Bead Serpentinite Spherical Beads 276 (HNM 13,890; HCH 03-173; Fig. 43). Spherical bead, complete. D. 7 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 5 (unit HCH 035-3-5). Date: EM–MM II. 277 (HNM 13,785 epsilon; Fig. 43). Spherical beads (2), complete. D. 6 and 9 mm. Serpententinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II. 278 (HNM 13,872; HCH 04-260; Fig. 43). Spherical beads (4), complete. D. 7–8 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Comments: from Room 5, Area 3, Level 4 (unit HCH 03-5-3-4). Date: EM–MM II. 279 (HCH 04-261; Fig. 43). Spherical bead, complete. D. 8 mm. Serpentinite, black. Comments: from Room 7, washed in from Room 5 (unit HCH 03-7-2). Date: EM–MM II.

Serpentinite Miscellaneous Beads 280 (HCH 02-152; Fig. 43). Almost square bead, complete. Length 7; w. 6 mm. Serpentinite, dark olive gray (5Y 3/2) and olive gray (5Y 5/2). Drilled through the edge. Comments: from Rooms 4/5 Entrance (unit HCH 02-2/3-Ent-L4). Date: EM–MM II.

A few beads are made of unusual soft materials, including a white stone that is probably limestone. 282 (HNM 13,873; HCH 04-253; Fig. 43). Ringshaped bead, complete. D. 5; th. 2 mm. Stone, white. Comments: from Room 3, cleaning (unit HCH23-1-2). Date: EM–MM II.

Triangular Bone(?) Bead 283 (HNM 11,904; Fig. 43). Bead, complete. Dims. 0.9 x 0.6 x 0.5 mm. Bone(?) (reddish brown, 5YR 4/4). Triangular-shaped lump, pierced through upper portion. Comments: from Room 4 (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II.

Bead of Unknown Material 284 (HCH 04-243; Fig. 43). Bead, internal core preserved. D. 3 mm. Unknown stone-like material. Probably once globular. Comments: from Room 4 (HCH 02-2-1). Date: EM–MM II.

Miscellaneous Objects A few objects are difficult to classify in the preceding categories. They include an ivory object that might be a pommel or handle, two pierced objects that are more likely spindle whorls rather than beads, an onion-shaped object of unknown purpose, unworked pieces of rock crystal and hematite, and a piece of malachite that was probably used as cosmetics.

Ivory Pommel or Handle 285 (HNM 11,869; Fig. 43; Pl. 26). Pommel or handle, complete. H. 2.1; d. 2.1. Hippopotamus ivory. Onionshaped object with flat base, drilled in center of base. Comments: probably from Room 3 or 4 (1983 season).

Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. Bibliography: Betancourt 2005, 450.

Spindle Whorls 286 (HNM 11,867; Fig. 43; Pl. 26). Spindle whorl, complete. D. 16; h. 8.5 mm. Hippopotamus ivory (exterior color pinkish white, 7.5YR 8/2). Biconical shape with central hole. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: EM III–MM IA, based on the main period for the use of the material. 287 (HNM 11,894; Fig. 43). Spindle whorl, complete. D. 16; h. 11 mm. Serpentinite, black (N3/). Biconical shape with central hole. Comments: probably from Room 4, upper units (1983 season). Date: EM–MM II.

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Pendant?

Malachite Raw Material

288. (HNM 13,792; Fig. 43; Pl. 26). Onion-shaped object, complete. H. 21; d. 20 mm. Fossil shell: Spondylus gaederopus (spiny oyster). Unknown purpose; traces of a protrusion with a hole, so it might have been a pendant. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

291 (HNM 13,781; Fig. 43). Malachite, small piece. Length 11 mm. Natural fragment. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Malachite was used extensively as a cosmetic because of its bright green color. Date: EM–MM II.

Fragment of Quartz Crystal 289 (HNM 13,786; Fig. 43; Pl. 26). Quartz, angular fragment. Max. length 21 mm. Transparent quartz (rock crystal). Angular piece, broken from percussion, with no crystal faces present. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976– 1983 seasons); could be either a piece of raw material or a new tool that would be useful in engraving softer stones. Date: EM–MM II.

Hematite Raw Material 290 (HNM 13,864; Fig. 43). Hematite. Max. dim. 12 mm. Natural fragment. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

Waterworn Stone 292 (HNM not numbered). Waterworn stone, complete. H. 3.9; w. 2.4. Stone. Elliptical shape. Comments: from Rooms 1–3 (1976–1983 seasons). Date: EM–MM II.

Part III

Comments and Discussion

19

Comments and Discussion Philip P. Betancourt

The data acquired from Hagios Charalambos is important for several reasons. The interpretation of this data, and the information it sheds on the place of Lasithi in the development of Minoan Crete, are discussed in volume III in the Hagios Charalambos series (Ferrence, forthcoming). Specific information on the rituals associated with secondary burials is rare in Minoan archaeology, and the information recorded here can be used to help explain the situation at other secondary burial sites, especially the Trapeza Cave, the only other burial cave excavated from the Lasithi Plain (Pendlebury, Pendlebury, and Money-Coutts 1935–1936). At the Trapeza Cave, the remains were more disturbed than at Hagios Charalambos, and little stratigraphy was present. The excavators were unable to obtain much information on the cult practices at the time the bones were deposited, and they did not uncover any evidence to show whether the deposit was primary or secondary. Considering the similarity to Hagios Charalambos, the Trapeza Cave was surely a secondary deposit as well. The suggestion that looting was responsible for

the absence of stratigraphy at the site is disproved by the richness of the artifacts, which included many complete vases, seals, figurines, and other attractive artifacts. It is likely that several other caves in Crete, including the Pyrgos Cave (Xanthoudides 1918a), the Amnissos Cave (Marinatos 1929b), and the Kleisidi Cave (Younger 1976) were also secondary ossuaries like the one recorded here. One must also consider the presence of perishable objects. In addition to what was preserved, many items of an organic nature will have been buried with the primary burials, and some of them probably survived to the time when the secondary depositions were made. In order to check for the survival of traces of these objects, the soil from the cave was all processed with a water separation machine (water sieving: for the process, see Peterson 2009). Unfortunately, the process did not yield any organic remains that could be regarded as ancient with any degree of confidence because the soil all the way to the lowest levels was mixed with modern items, including fresh plant material.

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Evidently the cracks in the bedrock above the cave permitted water to circulate through the ancient remains freely. One can only speculate that baskets, textiles, and objects of wood and leather would have all been part of the burial assemblages at the time of burial. The fragmentary nature of the pottery is proof that even among the imperishable objects everything deposited in the original burials did not survive in the ossuary. It is always possible that those who carried the remains to the cave will have kept some of the objects either as remembrances or for other reasons (for documentation of “extensive looting” at Archanes, see Maggidis 2000, 184). Bronze

and gold and silver are valuable as materials, and they would be desirable even if the objects were bent or broken. It is of interest that relatively few objects of metal are in the cave, and they are all small. Metal vessels are completely missing. Many of the ivory pendants are broken, so they could no longer be worn as jewelry or amulets. The pottery shows that no attempt was made to bring every fragment to the cave. With the absence of all the organic material and the presence of several thousand pottery fragments that did not join with other pieces so that the vases could be mended, the assemblage cannot be assumed to be anywhere near the original site of the deposit.

Ancient Topography The discovery of pottery sherds from the Bronze Age on the surface of the plain near the cave (Ch. 6) shows that the ancient ground level near the cave cannot have been very different from the modern one. Except for the stone that was blasted away and removed by the road building operation in 1976, the local topography during the Bronze Age was similar to the modern situation. The cave was located a little over 10 meters above the plain on a small terrace that overlooked the flatter land. Before it was used for burial purposes, an almost vertical entrance led down into several interconnected underground rooms. The cave was originally a swallow-hole for flood waters on the plain, but it was no longer functioning

as a conduit for surface run-off by the time the first humans arrived in Crete (Ch. 3). Its location near the base of a higher hill, however, meant that it did have water in its lower levels during the spring. It was probably used as a source for fresh water during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, and the decision to use it as an ossuary means that this purpose for the cavern had to be abandoned. Probably the reason that the lowest space (Room 7) was not used for the deposit of human bones was related to the very wet conditions in the lower part of the cave. In addition, a close relationship between the dead and water has been noted elsewhere (Weiberg 2007, 267).

Configuration inside the Cave The Hagios Charalambos Cave consisted of a series of rooms, some passages between them, and a vertical entrance shaft. They included the following spaces (Fig. 8): 1. A vertical entrance shaft that led down from the original surface to Room 1 (ca. 1 x 2 m and ca. 5 m high) 2. Room 1, a space adjoining the entrance shaft at the base of its north side (ca. 3 x 3 m)

3. A horizontal passage leading west from Room 1 to Room 2 (ca. 1–2 x 6 m) 4. Room 2, a small room west of Room 1, connected to it by the horizontal passage (ca. 2 x 2 m) 5. A landing just north of Room 1 (ca. 1.5 x 2 m) 6. Room 3, northeast of the landing north of Room 1, at a lower level (ca. 2 x 3 m)

COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION

7. A ramp leading down from the west side of the landing toward Room 4 8. Room 4, at the base of the ramp leading down from the west side of the landing 9. Entrance 4/5, a space between Rooms 4 and 5 10. Room 5, a room connected to Room 3 at its east and the 4/5 Entrance at its southwest (ca. 4 x 6 m) 11. Room 6, a narrow crevice between Room 2 and the west side of Room 4 12. Room 7, lower than Room 5 and reached through a hole at the northwest of Room 5 (ca. 3 x 5 m) The Minoans did not use all the spaces. Room 6 was a narrow passage that was more of a crevice than an actual room. Room 7 was a tiny chamber at the bottom of the cave where water will have collected in the spring before it drained down into fissures below the cavern. Because of their steeply inclined floors, the landing and the ramp were employed mainly as passages to reach the other places. The other rooms were used for the deposit of human bones and artifacts. Spaces at the front of the cave (Rooms 1 and 2), removed with power machinery for safety reasons in 1982 (Davaras 1982, 387), were explored between 1976 and 1983 and no longer survive. Their dimensions can only be estimated from a few surviving parts of their walls. No manmade walls were noted during their excavation.

Architectural Terraces Two walls were built inside the Hagios Charalambos Cave. They were both constructed inside Room 5, a room that (according to the geological studies of Karkanas, see Ch. 3) was filled with bones after the higher rooms in the cave had already been at least partly filled. The reasons for this situation are not hard to understand. The floor of Room 5 was not level, so it was not as suitable for an ossuary as the higher rooms, whose floors were more horizontal. When the community

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decided that Room 5 had to be used as well, they needed to build terrace walls to create spaces to hold the bones. The two walls were built using the techniques that were well known from agricultural terraces. If mud was used as a binder, it had all disappeared by the time of the excavations from the action of the water that flowed through the cave from rains. The two walls created terraces, but the lower wall eventually collapsed, and its stones and some of the bones and artifacts it supported had fallen into Room 7 before modern times. The terrace walls inside the cave at Hagios Charalambos are not unique constructions. In fact, Minoan caves display a surprising number of different stone structures. A paved area, walls, and a bench or altar are found in the Psychro Cave (Watrous 1996). The Amnisos Cave has terrace walls and a small building (Betancourt, Marinatos, et al. 2000). A stone bench is in the Kleisidi Cave (Younger 1976). The Hagios Charalambos Cave has more modest additions than several other Minoan caverns, but no two Cretan caves seem to have been identical. Modifications were specific to the needs of local situations rather than applications of general rules. Each cave was treated as a different case. The two terrace walls at Hagios Charalambos were required because of a sloping floor that terminated at a hole leading down into another room. The walls helped hold the deposit of bones, so that when the operation was finished, the deposits with their piles of skulls could be relatively flat on their upper surfaces. The final effect would have been emotionally evocative. These remains represented the past members of the entire Minoan community. Without the flesh, the bones were no longer recognizable as individuals, but as a group they could be seen as a collective ancestry. The surfaces of all the rooms were completed by placing large numbers of human skulls over the disarray of the other bones, producing what was surely one of the most powerful symbols of the people’s past history. Anyone seeing these underground monuments to a vanished past could only be deeply moved.

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Date of the Deposit The structure of the deposit demonstrates that the bones were never disturbed in antiquity by human activities after they were placed in the cavern. Two points are crucial for this conclusion. First, the cross-placement of leg bones to form a sort of grid deep within the deposit in the short passage between Rooms 4 and 5 indicates that the lower parts of the deposit were never disturbed. Second, the sorting of skulls and their placement on top of the other bones resulted in piles of skulls in all of the rooms. According to one of the workmen who participated in the excavation in 1976, when the rooms were uncovered the floors of the upper rooms looked “like mushrooms were growing there” because of the many skulls on the ancient surface. The only disturbance was the removal of surface pottery from Room 5 by illegal looters in 1999. Except for changes caused by the water that must have seeped through cracks and flowed through the underground rooms, the deposit was probably much like it was left by the Minoans. This water removed the decayed organic matter from the deposit and replaced it with red soil from the surface above the cavern (Ch. 3). That this process was still continuing was shown by the results of the water sieving that revealed microscopic bits of modern plant material and plastic in the lower part of Room 5. Several pieces of evidence demonstrate that all of the deposit in the Hagios Charalambos Cave was put in the cavern within a short space of time. One compelling piece of information that insists on this conclusion is the large number of objects found in a scattered condition, with pieces in several rooms and in several levels within the rooms. Pieces of the four larnakes, for example, were found in Rooms 3, 4, 5, 7, and the entrance between Rooms 4 and 5. Both vases and skulls were assembled from fragments found in several places. Pieces of both the earliest and the latest pottery were distributed from

the surface of Room 5 all the way to bedrock in the same room. The date of the main deposit of bones is established by its latest pottery, which includes several shapes with close parallels from MM IIB deposits in several places in Crete. Pottery from this horizon includes several shapes found at Malia in Quartier Mu, including the carinated cup with horizontal grooves on the upper part (Poursat 1996, pl. 33:c), the conical cup with one handle (Poursat 1996, pl. 30:g), the jug with no transition between body and neck (Poursat 1996, pl. 30:f), and the Chamaizi pot (Poursat 1996, pl. 30:d, e). From a deposit in Room I,1 in Quartier E at Malia come whole examples of the carinated cup with horizontal grooves and the conical cup with one handle (Pelon 1970, 20–21, 23–24, pl. 10:3, 4, 7). Sherds of these vessels were widely distributed within the cave, all the way from surface levels to the deepest parts of rooms well down inside the cavern (Langford-Verstegen, forthcoming). The deposit, however, was placed in the cave in two stages. The wall across Room 5 (Wall 1, Fig. 14) was built in two parts, and human bones were spread across the stones of the first stage of construction before the upper part of the wall was added. This pause, however, was not long enough for any change in pottery to occur. It could have lasted only a few days or less, until the community realized that so many bones needed to be placed in the room that the retaining wall had to be higher to hold them. All of the deposit, with objects ranging from Neolithic to MM II, was apparently placed in the cavern in MM IIB. The cave then remained open for a time, and a few objects were added to it in MM III to LM I. By some time in the Late Bronze Age, however, the vertical shaft that acted as the entrance was filled with black soil, and the underground spaces were no longer accessible.

Ritual Use of the Cave Secondary burial must have been more than a local custom, because two different communities in the Lasithi Plain gathered the bones from their

ancestors’ tomb or tombs, transported them to caverns, and placed them in underground chambers. That the activity was carefully planned is shown by

COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION

the use of terrace walls inside the room with a sloping floor at Hagios Charalambos and by the relatively large scale of the undertaking, which must have involved a considerable expenditure of time and labor. The transport of the burials must have required many persons working together. After the two terrace walls were constructed across Room 5, the bones and pottery, stone vases, metal artifacts, sealstones, and other articles of daily use were placed in the cave without regard for original associations in the original burials. The scattered positions and random orientations of the artifacts indicate that they were brought with the bones because they were in the original burials as offerings (i.e., they were not placed in the cave in contexts suggesting they were part of a ritual at the time of secondary deposition). Room 5 and the entrance between Rooms 4 and 5 provided evidence on the ritual practices used with the deposition. The two terrace walls in Room 5 were built on bedrock, which shows that the cave had no lower Neolithic deposit in this room. They were constructed in two stages to provide space for the burial remains that were planned for the cavern. Bones were then deposited across the floor behind the terrace walls. Deliberate placement (not the casual dumping of bones) is indicated by locations such as the place in the Room 4/5 Entrance where long bones were carefully laid in a grid to form a floor-like platform on which the smaller bones were placed (Pl. 9A). The room was completed as a series of level terraces of human bones, and skulls and long bones were placed on top at the completion of the ceremony. Collecting and moving human bones is also known from other places in Crete. At Archanes, bones were sorted and moved, and skulls and long bones were deposited together (Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1997, 258; Maggidis 2000, 183–184). Skulls were sorted and placed in a group at the Kyparisi Cave (Serpetsidaki 2006, 244). Bones, including skulls, were also moved and sorted in the Mesara tholos tomb cemeteries (Branigan 1993, 124). Skulls were also

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given special treatment at Mochlos (Soles 1988, 58). The practice of sorting, moving, and giving special veneration to selected bones, especially skulls, was widespread (Talalay 2004; see also Weiberg 2007, 322, 325, 329). The cave at Hagios Charalambos can be added to the list of places where it occurred. Keswani regards the transfer of the human bones of the dead from the isolated primary grave to the familial or common tomb as the logical finale of the passage of the deceased from the society of the living to the society of the dead (Keswani 2004, 16). Along with the items used in the primary burials as grave offerings were a few objects that may have been employed in ritual practices in the earlier cemetery. Several cups used as lamps are in the corpus, and they could have been used by the burial parties at the time of interment. The sistra found in the cave may also have been used in ceremonies. It is possible that they were designed for symbolic appearance rather than for making music, because they are made of clay (Egyptian instruments consisted of metal disks in wooden or ivory or metal frames). Clay sistra, however, do make a satisfactory percussion sound, though it is not as loud as the sound metal instruments make. The artifacts from LM I show that the higher parts of the cavern were visited after the close of the Middle Bronze Age. These late items indicate that the cave was probably closed at the beginning of LM I. A pithos cemetery across the road from the burial cave seems to be primarily from MM III–LM I, and it probably represents the next phase of the local burial customs after the custom represented by the cavern ended. The discovery of two approximately contemporary ossuaries in Lasithi, one here and one at Trapeza, is a crucial point for the interpretation. It means that the change in funerary customs was a regional phenomenon, not a local one. The Lasithi communities ended their earlier custom, closed off the remains of their ancestors underground, and began burying individuals in jars placed in the soil (Ch. 7).

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Social Practices The cave provides evidence for a number of social customs associated with Minoan funerary activities. The consumption of food and beverage was one of the most persistent of these customs, and both the earliest and the latest remains from the cave include vessels for food and beverage. Eating and drinking must have been important both for its symbolic and for its practical components, providing sustenance for the living as well as an affirmation of the continuity of the community in the face of tragedy and disruption. Information about meals comes both from the evidence for food and beverage buried with the original burials and from traces of feasting found outside the cave, in the open air outside its entrance. Funerary feasts were not a static tradition in Minoan Crete. One important change in the practice of shared communal meals happened between EM I and EM IIA. This change has been documented most fully at Knossos where good stratigraphic sequences allow it to be tracked in a series of successive deposits (Day and Wilson 2002, 149–152; 2004). In archaeological terms, the development is recognized by a change from large chalices suitable for sharing beverages between several persons to the use of larger numbers of small goblets suitable for individuals, along with the introduction of flat bowls and several new pouring vessels with better spouts. The flat bowls suggest that food accompanied the consumption of the beverage (for eating and drinking at EH funerals, see Weiberg 2007, 350). The more efficient pouring vessels, including jugs with better spouts and also teapots and sidespouted jars and jugs, would allow the more precise pouring necessary for smaller vessels, and they also provided an attractive series of containers designed for the serving ritual that was a major addition to the act of individual drinking. Chalices to be passed around among a group of persons are only filled before the ceremony begins. Individual portions, on the other hand, emphasize the relation between the host who pours and the recipient who receives the beverage. The change from large chalices to small goblets can be traced in the pottery from Hagios Charalambos (see discussion in LangfordVerstegen, forthcoming), suggesting that this devel-

opment in social customs occurred in Lasithi as well as in other parts of Crete. The offerings to the deceased included ample provision for food and drink (discussed more fully in subsequent volumes). The ratio of pouring to drinking vessels suggests that toasts by large groups of mourners did not occur at this site, but that containers for food and beverage probably accompanied the deceased at the time of burial. The evidence for the food, which involved a substantial amount of meat, will be presented in a future volume (for a preliminary report, see Betancourt et al. 2008). The pottery is discussed in volume II (Langford-Verstegen, forthcoming), and the interpretation is discussed in volume III (Ferrence, forthcoming). The end of MM IIB, when the great communal event represented by the act of collection and deposition of the ancestral remains occurred, was a time of great social change in Crete. It was just before the close of what is called the Protopalatial period, before the building of the new palaces at the end of MM IIIA. The period was accompanied by some revolutionary changes in ritual practices (Rutkowski 1968a; Loucas and Loucas 1989). Among these changes were a decline in the use of many peak sanctuaries, new types of visual iconography to illustrate the belief-system, an increased emphasis on cult in the palaces, and substantial changes in burial practices. The changes in burial customs are some of the most archaeologically visible aspects of these social transformations. The practice of using tholos tombs and house tombs for communal burial was in sharp decline during MM II (for the tholoi, see Xanthoudides 1924; Branigan 1970a; for house tombs, see Seager 1912; Soles 1992). Some of the traditional cemeteries were completely abandoned at this time (Betancourt and Davaras, eds., 2002, 2003). The change from communal burial to a more individualized interment in jars and larnakes, which is a practice that had already begun before the deposition was made inside the cave (Ch. 8), was resulting in new types of burial grounds: large numbers of small individual burials replaced the smaller numbers of earlier collective chambers at

COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION

Sphoungaras (Hall 1912), Pacheia Ammos (Seager 1916), and elsewhere (Pini 1968). The new type of funerary landscape that was created in this way no longer had large funerary architecture to act as visual symbols for the importance of the social group buried in monumental stone tombs. The new funerary landscapes with their individual burials that were mostly underground suggested much less of a communal symbol, and burying that communal symbol in an underground cave was an even more emphatic statement of the passing of an old custom and an affirmation that Lasithi was looking to new ways of thinking. The new funerary practices in the Lasithi Plain were part of a much larger set of social transformations. They were a local manifestation of a new set of very complex social changes that have been recognized across much of Crete.

Closing of the Cave Small excavations outside the mouth of the cave discovered evidence for activities that occurred here in MM IIB, at the time that the cave was closed. Fragments of pottery from MM II similar to pieces from the last period inside the cavern provide a secure date for the final phase of the deposit. Animal bones along with the pottery have cut marks on them, demonstrating that they were the remains of food, and many small pieces of charcoal suggest the food was cooked nearby. The bones come from a surprising variety of animals. They include cattle, pigs, sheep or goats, and a small mammal, probably hare (to be discussed in volume IV). They suggest that the people who used the cave used animal husbandry as a substantial part of their livelihood, and that the ceremony at the closing of the cave involved the consumption of substantial amounts of meat. In addition to the animal bones and broken pottery, the deposit outside the cave held enough charcoal to color the soil black. The charcoal was in small bits, scattered through the soil. Little of the deposit in front of the cave survived, so that few details of the ceremonies that took place near the cavern can be reconstructed. The importance of the meal, however, can be judged by the fact that it involved meat of several types.

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Feasts cooked on the spot to commemorate the dead are not unique to Hagios Charalambos. Traces of fires have also been reported outside the tholoi at Koumasa, Platanos, and Porti (Xanthoudides 1924, 6). They suggest that the consumption of food was an important aspect of the funeral ceremony at some Minoan sites, and that it occurred outside the tomb. It is also possible that the symbolic aspects of fire could have played a role here. Whatever ceremony took place was outside the ossuary, charcoal inside the cave was limited to a few rare small bits that were mixed with the bones, suggesting that they belonged to the primary burial site, not that they resulted from any activity associated with this secondary deposition. The limited amount of charcoal from within the cavern is clearly a contrast with the larger quantity from outside the cave’s mouth. Performing the cult activities in the open fits well with Minoan cult ceremonies in general, because at least some celebrations seem to have taken place in front of architectural or natural facades (Shaw 1978; Renfrew 1981, 29), rather than within the confines of the architecture itself. An exterior setting allowed a larger and more public ceremony than would have been possible within the confines of this small cavern. The cave mouth was apparently charged with enough meaning to function as an appropriate symbol in commemorating the community’s ancestors.

Use of the Ossuary One of the many social distinctions between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans involves a difference in attitudes toward the dead. It has been suggested that no evidence at all exists for a Mycenaean “cult of the dead” in which ceremonies and other commemorations of the deceased occurred periodically in Helladic cemeteries (Kurtz and Boardman 1971, 22–23). In Minoan Crete, on the other hand, the cemeteries were locations for extremely complex and varied funerary activities. Some of these practices involved special treatments for the bones of the deceased after the flesh had disappeared. Interestingly, the practice of collecting, sorting, and depositing human bones in a cave used as an ossuary with skulls placed over a mixed deposit of offerings and disarticulated human remains was present in mainland Greece during the Early

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Helladic II period (Koumouzeli 1989–1991). Special treatment for bones and skulls has also been recorded for a few tombs from the Early Bronze Age Cyclades (Doumas 1977, 56–57). What we see at Hagios Charalambos is an expression of a burial custom that was far from unique in the early centuries of the Aegean Bonze Age. The Hagios Charalambos Cave, however, is an extreme example of the Minoan practice of collecting the bones of the deceased after a period of time had elapsed after the death of the individual, moving them, sorting them by class, and re-depositing them again in a new context. The cave has much to teach us about Minoan burial customs but, as is often the case with the Cretan Bronze Age, it still leaves essential issues unresolved. The bones that were moved to the cavern in MM IIB along with

their associated offerings were placed in the new deposit in what must have been a communal memorial to the community’s past members, but the details of the belief-system behind these activities will never be clear. We can be sure that the bones were buried so that the people they represented would be commemorated and remembered in some way. The act of placing both the bones of their ancestors and the artifacts those ancestors possessed together in a cave implies a desire by the Minoan community that something about their past history should not be lost and forgotten. One of the most conspicuous characteristics of a cavern whose mouth is sealed and covered over by soil is the safety and permanence of the deposition.

Evidence for the Changing Political Alignment of Lasithi The seals at Lasithi provide some valuable evidence for the economic and political alignment of the Lasithi site (Betancourt 2007). Seals are an important class of evidence for this subject because they are one of the items used for the control of administrative practices (Palaima, ed., 1990), and evidence exists for their use at palatial administrative centers (Olivier 1990; Pini 1990; Poursat 1990). Because only 18 seals and seal rings survive from a community consisting of several hundred individuals, we can be sure that the seals are elite objects used by only a few members of the Bronze Age community, confirming their special use. Their style and design change abruptly at several points during the history of the cave, providing hints about the changing alignment of the site’s connections. Excluding seal 89 (which might be a spindle whorl) and several uncarved seals and seals with damaged faces, 15 seals have recognizable engraved designs (76, 77, 81, 82, 84–88, 90–95). They come from the following periods: EM III–MM IA 3 ivory seals MM IA–IB Scarab

Frog-shaped seal Pear-shaped seal Pawn-shaped seal Bullet-shaped seal 1 cushion seal MM IIA–IIB 4 prism seals MM IIB 2 engraved seal rings The seals of EM III to MM IA are much more specialized than the earliest Cretan group (which is not known from the cave). The earliest examples from Hagios Charalambos are made of hippopotamus ivory. Ivory from hippopotamus teeth was one of the materials used in Egypt (Krzyszkowska and Morkot 2000, 326–327), but the animal also lived in western Asia. The seals from Hagios Charalmbos consist of both unengraved pieces and four seals whose designs consist of what were recently introduced motifs, including animals like the dog and the lion, several plants, and some abstract ornaments. Circular compositions are preferred. This class of cylindrical ivory seal occurs especially over a geographic region that includes the Mesara (Sbonias 1995, 2000) and the

COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION

Pediada (Karytinos 2000, 128), with only rare uses at Knossos (Pini 1990) and elsewhere (Ferrence 2007). Many examples come from the tholos tombs of the Mesara, and the seals’ imported material is also extremely common in this part of southern Crete. The most likely connection with a palatial site would be either with Archanes or with Phaistos. The date of this class is EM II to MM IA (for discussion of the chronology, see Sbonias 1995, 3–4; 1999, 36–39; Weingarten 2005, 106 n. 3). The earliest pieces come from EM II (Papadatos 2005, 43), but elaborate motifs like those from Hagios Charalambos are from EM III to MM IA, which is a period that coincides with increased activity at Phaistos (La Rosa 2004). The distribution strongly suggests the material was imported through South-Central Crete (Ferrence 2007, 170, fig. 20.3), suggesting that the elite leaders at Phaistos who would build a palace in MM IB may have had a hand in the importation of the material from the eastern Mediterranean. Beginning at some time in MM IB–II, the seals at Hagios Charalambos change completely. The ivory stamp seals are completely abandoned in favor of new classes, including smaller seals of soft materials and prisms made of soft stone and engraved with completely new motifs. All four of the prisms from Hagios Charalambos are three-sided serpentinite seals with motifs that belong to the iconography used at Malia. Two

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examples of a water bird beside a plant or leaf are in the collection, and two seals have standing human figures that are rendered in a similar manner. Animals also include a pair of fish, an agrimi, and a lively lion. This change in seal use, coinciding with what Weingarten calls the “first upheaval in Minoan sealing practice” (Weingarten 1990, 105–107), accompanies the introduction of new administrative practices at the Minoan palaces. The conclusion must be that the site in Lasithi is now no longer being administered with the use of Mesara/Pediada seals, but with prisms made at Malia. This period coincides with a substantial use of pottery from Malia. The similarity in the pottery has been observed before, and it has suggested a “Malia state” that includes the plain of Lasithi (Cadogan 1990, 1994, 1995; Knappett 1997, 1999; Knappett and Schoep 2000). Another change coincides with the final period of use for the cave. One of the latest objects in the cave is an engraved disk from a broken silver seal ring (77). It is decorated with a radiating floral motif often called the papyrus, a design that seems to be borrowed from Egypt (Hiller 1996, fig. 13:b). In Crete, the motif is definitely associated with Knossos (see parallels in the catalog). The change in seal administration coincides with the expansion of Knossian influence and power at the end of the Middle Bronze Age.

Final Statement The cave was discovered in modern times by accident, and the hasty excavations in 1976, 1982, and 1983 were designed to remove the material before looters destroyed the context. The remains in Room 5 would still be there were it not for the actions of thieves who would prefer to sell a few pots to eager buyers instead of preserving a monument of their

region’s history. By rescuing the cave’s contents from destruction, we can now use those remains to help reconstruct something of the lives of the people who were buried there. In a way, this is also an act of commemorating the past history of those who built the ossuary, so that at least a small part of what the people who lived there did is not lost forever.

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Index

agate, 87–88 agrimi, 67 Akrotiri, 56, 62 amethyst, 50 Amnisos, 62, 95, 97 amulets, 49–53 Anatolia, 69, 71 animal bone figurine, 51–52 ape, 50, 85 Aphenti Christou, 38 Archanes, 45–46, 50, 53, 69, 82, 86, 96, 99 Burial Building 11, 70 Burial Building 21, 63 Tholos Epsilon, 63 Tholos Gamma, 50, 63, 82 Archanes script, 64 arrowheads, see projectile points articulated vertebrae, 27, 29 Asea Valley, 82 Athens, 40 Avrakontes, 11, 38 awl, 56

baboons, 50 baskets, 96

bathtubs, 45 beads, 28, 56 bee pendant, 58 birds, 67 bird’s-nest bowl, 73, 75 bovine head, 49–50 bronze, 55–56, 61–62, 69–71, 96 bucranium, 49–50, 67, 85 bull, 66 butcher marks on bones, 32, 35, 101 Byzantine occupation near cave, 39–40

camping outside the cave, 34–35 caps for bead, 58–59 carinated bowl, 40 carinated cup, 29, 64, 98 carnelian, 87–88 carved figures, 4, 24, 49–53 celt, 77–78 census in 1582 A.D., 40 Chamazi pot, 29, 98 charcoal, 5, 15–16, 25–26, 32–34, 101 Chavgas Gorge, 8, 14 chert, 79, 84 chipped stone tools, 79–84

118

Chonos, 8, 11, 13, 17 Chrysolakkos, 5 circles motif, 66 Classical Kamares Ware, 64 cockle shells, 58 Combed Ware, 40 cooking pot, 30 copper, 55–56, 58, 61–62 copper diffusion bonding, 58 Corinth, 5 crested obsidian blades, 82 Cup, 38 stirrup jar, 38 cushion seals, 67, 102 Cycladic figurines, 50–52 cylindrical beads, 59

dagger, 24, 55 date of the cave, 29, 98 diadems, 56–58 disease lesions, 5 dish, 40 disk, 56, 61–62, 66–67 dogs, 65, 102 donkeys, 41 double axe, 85, 87 double birds, 50 drain holes in larnakes, 46–47 Drakones, 38, 77 drop pendant, 86

earring, 58 Egypt, 50–51, 64–66, 69, 71, 83, 86, 99, 102 elephant ivory, 50–51 endoscopy, 5

faience, 62 female clothing, 53 figurines, 4, 24, 49–53, 85, 95 fiddle-shaped, 52 fossil shell, 51–52 marble, 51–52, 77 fish, 67 flower, 66 foil, 58 foot pendants, 85–87 fresco, 62 frog, 66, 102

HAGIOS CHARALAMBOS I

Galatas, 62 geological age of the cave, 14 Geraki, 82 Gerontomouri, 3, 17 glass vessel, 40 glazed pottery, 40 glazed steatite, 65 gold, 57–59, 96 Gonia, 10 Gournia, 10 granulation, 58 “Green Goddess,” 24, 51–52 ground stone tools, 77–78

Hagia Photia, 59, 80–81 Hagia Triada, 50–52, 69–71, 86 Hagios Georgios, 8, 10 Hagios Konstantinos, 11, 14, 38 hare, 32, 101 Harvesters Vase, 69, 71 hearth outside the cave, 16, 29, 32 Hellenic arc, 7 hematite, 91–92 herringbone design, 58 hippopotamus ivory, see ivory histology, 5 Horoztepe, 71 house tombs, 5, 100 human bones, 5, 21–29, 32–35, 38, 97–101

Indus Valley, 87 Italy, 40 ivory, 23, 49–53, 56, 63–65, 85–86, 91–92, 96, 99, 102– 103 figurines, 51–53, 85–86

jar burials in the cave, 46, 99–100 jewelry, 4, 96 jug, 38–39 Juktas, 70

Kalamafka, 10 Kalathiana, 56, 77 Kalo Chorio, 46 Kaminaki, 11, 38 Kastamonitsa, 10 Kastellos, 11, 38

INDEX

Katharo (town), 8, 10 Katharo Plain, 8–9 Kato Metochi, 10–11, 13, 17, 41 pottery workshop, 41 Kephala Hill, 8 Kera, 10 Kleisidi Cave, 95, 97 Knossos, 10, 11, 38, 50, 53, 62–63, 77, 100, 103 chalices, 100 peak sanctuaries, 100 Kommos, 64 Koudomalia, 11 Koumasa, 40, 51, 53, 57, 77, 86, 101 Krasi, 70, 86 Kritsa, 10 Kroustellenia, 38 Kyparisi Cave, 80, 99

Lagou, 10 lamp, 40, 99 larnakes, 4, 28, 38, 45–47, 98, 100 lid, 46–47 marine life paintings on, 45 Late Roman C Ware, 40 lead, 57–59 Lebena, 50, 56, 73, 82, 86 Lefka Ori, 13 Lerna, 82 Levant, 64 limestone, 73–75, 77–78 Limnarkaro Plain, 8 Linear A tablets, 69–70 lion, 65, 102 loomweight, 40 looters, xiii, 22, 26, 98, 103 lunates, 79, 82–83 Lyttos, 10

malachite, 92 Males, 10 Malia, 5, 10–11, 52, 56, 58, 64, 67, 71, 98, 103 Malia state, 10, 58, 103 Marathokephalo, 50, 53, 56, 86 marble, 51–52, 73–74, 77 marine shells, 24 Marine Style, 58 marshy land, 3, 8–9, 11 Martha, 41 Mathia, 10 meal outside the cave, 32–35

Megalos Potamos, 8–9 Melos, 79–84 Mesa Lasithi, 10 Meskine, 11 micromorphology, 13–15 Mochlos, 38, 40, 50, 56, 58, 70, 73, 86, 99 modern occupation near cave, 39–41 Moni Odigitria, 56, 77, 80 monkeys, 50 Mt. Aphentis Christos, 8 Mt. Dicte, 19 Mt. Ida, 13 Mt. Lazaros, 8 Mt. Spathi, 8 Myrtos, 63, 65, 77, 82

Naxos, 82 Neolithic period, 4, 11, 29, 33–34, 77, 79–80, 99 rituals, main discussion, 99–101 Nisimos Plain, 8

obsidian, 79–84 core, 82 olive trees, 8–9 origin of the name Lasithi, 8–9 Ottoman occupation near cave, 39–41 oyster, 52

Pacheia Ammos, 38, 101 Palaikastro, 52, 86 papyrus, 62, 103 Perachora Cave, 5 Peristeria Cave, 11 Phaistos, 10, 64, 103 Archivo de Cretule, 64 Phocaea, 40 pig, 5, 101 Pigadistria, 38 pin or awl, 56 Pinakion, 13 pithari, 40–41 pithos cemetery, 18, 38–39, 99 Platanos, 50, 53, 56, 77, 82, 86, 101 Plati, 10–11, 17, 38 plumbean copper, 56 Porti, 56, 77, 101 Potamoi, 10 pounding platform, 77–78

119

120

HAGIOS CHARALAMBOS I

Pre-Dynastic period, 79–80 prism seals, 64, 67, 102–103 prismatic blades, 80–81 projectile points, 79–80, 83 Pseira, 38, 40, 52, 64 Psychro Cave, 21, 86, 97 purification of tombs, 29 Pyrgos Cave, 46, 80, 95 Pyrgos Ware, 29

quartz, 86, 88, 91–92 quartzite, 77–79, 84 quatrefoil motif, 67

ring, 58 rivets, 55–56 road construction, 4, 18, 31–34 Roman house, 18, 37–39 roof tiles, 39 rouletting, 40 Royal Cemetery at Ur, 87 running dogs, 65

Sahara Desert, 8, 35 sandstone, 77–78 scanning electron microscope, 5 scarab, 51–52, 64–66, 102–103 schist, 77 scorpion, 66 sea daffodils, 62 seal rings, 4, 24, 29, 61–63 seals, 4, 49–51, 63–67, 85–86, 95, 99, 102–103 serpentine and serpentinite, 64, 66–67, 74–75, 87–91, 103 Sgraffito Ware, 38–39 sheep or goat, 32, 101 cattle, 101 sickles, 82 silver, 56–57, 59, 61–62, 96, 103 silver disk, 29, 103 sistra, 26, 28, 69–72, 99 disks for, 69–72 Siva, 52, 56 Skaphidia, 11 Sphoungaras, 38, 101 spindle whorl, 66–67 stags, 71

star motif, 66 steatite, 66 stirrup jar, 38 stone vessels, 73–75, 99 Stou Petra, 38 strips, 56–57 surface survey of Lasithi, 11 survey points, 19 swallow-hole, 3, 8, 9, 13–14, 17, 96 swastika, 65 Syria, 65

terrace walls, 5, 28, 98–101 textiles, 96 Thebes, Egypt, 71, 79 Thera, 56 tholos tombs, 5, 29, 50, 63, 82, 100, 103 Thrapsano pottery, 41 tin, 55–56 town associated with the cave, 37 Trapeza Cave, 4, 11, 29, 34, 38, 50, 52, 55–57, 70, 73, 77, 80, 95, 99–100 trapezes, 79, 82–83 travertine, 73–74 Tylissos, 69–70, 86 Tzermiado, 10–11

Vasiliki, 64 Vasiliki Ware, 29, 63 Venetian occupation near cave, 39–40 Viannos, 10 vultures, 29

weapons, 4 weather of Lasithi, 9 whetstone, 77–78 White-on-Dark Ware, 29 windmills, 9 wire ring, 59 wood objects, 45, 96

Xeste 5, 56

Zakros, 70

Figures

FIGURES 1 AND 2 Attica Samos Tenos Keos Kythnos

Delos

Seriphos

Paros Naxos

Siphnos

Kos

Melos Anaphi

Thera

Aegean Sea Sea of Crete

Karpathos

Crete Libyan Sea

Lasithi Plain

Figure 1. Map of the Aegean.

to Heraklion and Malia

Tsouli to Mnima

0

1 km

N

MT. SELENA to Hagios Nikolaos

SELLI Lagou Tzermiado Pinakiano

to PEDIADA

CHONOS Marmaketo Kato Metochi

KAMPOS Mesa Lasithi

Hagios Charalambos Cave Hagios Charalambos

Mesa Lasithaki Hagios Kostantinos

KEPHALA SKALIA

Plati

Hagios Georgios

Psychro

to Katharo

XEROKAMPOS Magoulas Kaminaki

CHLOROS

Figure 2. Map of the Lasithi Plain.

Koudoumalia Avrakontes

Chavgas Gorge to Limnakaro

Poros Gorge

FIGURE 3

Sea of Crete Chersonisos

Minoan palace at Malia Malia Vrachasi

300 m 500 m Mochos 700 m

Neapoli

Krasi Avdou

Mt. Selena 1558

Kera

Amygdaloi

Nisimos Plain

Askoi Lyttos

Zenia

Exo Potami Tichos

Tzermiado

Lakkonia

Chonos Kato Metochi

Tapes

Mesa Lasithi Mt. Katharo Tsivi 1663

Hagios Charalambos Cave Mt. Afendis 1577

Gieraki

Lasithi Plain

Plati Psychro

Mt. Sarakinis 1586

Lato

Hagios Georgios

Kritsa

Kaminaki

Katharo Plain

Limnakaro Plain

Kroustas Mt. Virgiomeno 1413 Mt. Spathi 2147

Mt. Lazaros 2004

1462 Embaros Katofigi

2140 Mt. Aphentis Christos Kalamafka Males

Omalos Plain

Viannos

Anatoli

Amiras

Pefkos 700 m

Mythoi Kato Symi

500 m 300 m

Myrtos

300 m

0 Arvi

Libyan Sea Figure 3. Elevations of mountain peaks around the Lasithi Plain.

5 km

FIGURES 4 AND 5

Sea of Crete

Malia (5)

Knossos (8)

Gulf of Mirabello

Kera (1.5) Lyttos (3)

Gonia (2)

Kastamonitsa (2.5) Mathia (2.75)

Potamoi (1.5) Tzermiado

Tapes (4.5) Kritsa (4)

Plati Psychro

Gournia (8) Malles (4)

to Phaistos (16)

Kalamafka (4.5)

ISTHMUS OF IERAPETRA

Ano Viannos (5.25) Ierapetra

N

0

Libyan Sea Figure 4. Walking distances (in hours of walking) between the Lasithi Plain and other locations.

LASITHI PLAIN

Sea of Crete

Mirabello Lasithi

Ierapetra Siteia N

Libyan Sea

0

20 km

Figure 5. Districts in the Nomos of Lasithi in eastern Crete.

20 km

FIGURES 6 AND 7 -3600,-7700

-3400,-7700

-3200,-7700

-2800,-7700

-3000,-7700

-2600,-7700

-2400,-7700

-2200,-7700

-2537.88,-7752.76,817.80 -2140,-7800

-2140,-8000

-2447.94,-8189.64,834.95 -2140,-8200

Cave Hagios Charalambos

-2140,-8400

Bitsoloukoumi Geodetic Pin -3477.82,-8537.90,1095.59

-2140,-8600

Figure 6. Topographic map of the western end of the Lasithi Plain including Hagios Cha ralambos and Plati. Coordinates in meters according to Greek National Grid. Contour interval 20 m. Image A. Koh.

840 m -2140,-8800 -2453.00,-8817.49,856.10

-2140,-9000

Plati 840 m

0

100

1000 meters

500

Road

Figure 7. Topographic map of the area of the Hagios Charalambos Cave showing the two permanent concrete bench marks near the cave (nos. a1 and a2) and a point at the original ground surface at the entrance to the cave (no. hch2). Contour interval 20 m. Image A. Koh.

a1 840 m

Cave

a2

area of the Roman house

Survey Points a1 E2443.64, N8162.79,837.72 a2 E2445.77, N8176.86,838.93 hch2 E2447.94, N8189.64,834.95

hch2

church area of the pithos cemetery

860 m 0

50 m

N

FIGURE 8

Room 7

Room 5

4/5 Entrance

grid of bones

Room 3 Room 4

Room 6

Modern Entrance Room 2 Room 1

approximate location of original entrance

Hagios Charalambos Cave Figure 8. Plan of the surviving rooms of the Hagios Charalambos Cave with elevations (m asl). Drawing T. McDermott.

FIGURES 9 AND 10

Room 3

0

0

Room 3 Plan

1m

Room 3 Section A–A

Figure 9. Plan and cross section of Room 3. Drawing T. McDermott.

Room 4/5 Entrance

Room 4

0

1m

Room 4 Plan

0

1m

Room 4

Room 4 Section B–B

Figure 10. Plan and cross section of Room 4. Drawing A. Stamos and T. McDermott.

1m

FIGURES 11 AND 12

Room 5 Room 5

Area 5 bedrock

Area 1

Room 4/5 Entrance

bedrock

Room 4

N

-8375 1m

0

-2408

Figure 11. Plan of Room 4/5 Entrance. Drawing T. McDermott.

bedrock

Room 7

pile of skulls rock fall

Room 5 rock fall

bedrock

rock fall

Room 4/5 Entrance

bedrock

N

Room 4 0

1m

Figure 12. Plan of Room 4/5 Entrance and Room 5. Drawing T. McDermott.

FIGURES 13 AND 14

N

rock fall

Entrance to Room 7

rock fall

rock fall larnax fragment larnax fragments

larnax fragment

B91 B77 B78 B41

Room 5 1m

0

is is is is

east of B40 east of B42 above B77 north of B78

Figure 13. Plan of Room 5 before excavation. Drawing S. Ferrence.

N

Area 3

Area 2 (covered with fallen rocks)

Entrance to Room 7

Wall 2

Wall 1

Area 5 stalagmite location

Area 1

Area 4 (covered with fallen rocks)

4/5 Entrance

Areas in Room 5

Room 4 0

1m

Figure 14. Room 5 showing the division into Areas 1–5. Drawing T. McDermott and S. Ferrence.

FIGURE 15

N

Room 5 Area 3 Entrance to Room 7

Room 5 Area 2

Room 5 Area 5

Wall 2 B

Wall 1

B

Room 5 Area 4

Room 5 Area 1

Room 4/5 Entrance

Room 4

0

Elevations

1m

Area 5

Area 1

platform rock

Stalagmite B

empty space

Wall Stalagmite A

Section B–B 0

1m

Figure 15. Plan of Room 5 and the east–west cross section of Areas 5 and 1. Drawing T. McDermott and S. Ferrence.

FIGURE 16

A Room 5 Area 3

Entrance to Room 7

Room 5 Area 2 Wall 1

Wall 2 Room 5 Area 5

Room 5 Area 4

Room 5 Area 1

Room 4/5 Entrance

A Room 4

Elevations

4/5 Entrance surface

surface and below surface

surface stones

below surface

bedrock

Section A–A

stones empty space

bedrock ledge

not excavated

Figure 16. Plan and north–south cross section of 4/5 Entrance and Areas 5 and 3. Drawing T. McDermott and S. Ferrence.

FIGURE 17

b

a

c

e

f d

g

Figure 17. Selection of pottery from the cave. Scale 1:3.

h

i

FIGURES 18, 19, AND 20

1:3 2:1

Figure 18. Late artifacts from the cave: (left) an open vessel (HCH 04-392) from LM IA(?), and (right) a silver disk (77) from MM II–LM IA. Scale as marked.

Point a1

modern road

Point a2

Cave

Figure 19. Plan of the terrace showing the location of the lens of original soil at the cavern’s mouth and the ex cavation outside the cave. Drawing A. Koh.

N

lens of original soil

Point hch2

trenches outside cave

0

5

10 m

Figure 20. Plan of the trenches outside the entrance to the cave. Coordinates in meters according to Greek National Grid. Elevations in m asl. Drawing A. Koh and T. McCullough.

FIGURE 21

3

2

1

4

traces of dark slip

5

7

6

8

10

9

12

13

16

14

17

Figure 21. Objects from the periods after the use of the cave. Scale 1:3.

11

15

18

FIGURE 22

19

0

Figure 22. Larnax 19. Drawing D. Faulmann.

20 cm

FIGURE 23

20

0

Figure 23. Larnax 20. Drawing D. Faulmann.

20 cm

FIGURE 24

21

0

Figure 24. Larnax 21. Drawing D. Faulmann.

20 cm

FIGURE 25

22

0

Figure 25. Larnax 22. Drawing D. Faulmann.

20 cm

FIGURE 26

23

0

Figure 26. Larnax lid 23. Drawing D. Faulmann.

20 cm

FIGURE 27

reconstructed 25

24

26

27

29

28

Figure 27. Figurines from the cave (24–30). Scale 1:2.

30

FIGURE 28

32

31

33

Figure 28. Figurines from the cave (31–34). Scale 1:1.

34

FIGURE 29

35

36

40

39

43

47

44

48

Figure 29. Copper and bronze artifacts (35–50). Scale 1:2.

37

38

41

45

49

42

46

50

FIGURE 30

51

52

53

55

54

1:2 58

56

60

61

63

62

66

67

65

68

73

76

70

69

75

74

77

71

78

79

Figure 30. Gold, silver, and lead artifacts (51–56, 58, 60–63, 65–71, 73–75). Seal rings (76–79). Scale 1:1 except as indicated.

FIGURE 31

80

81

82

84

83

85

86

Figure 31. Seals (80–89). Scale 1:1.

87

88

89

FIGURE 32

90

91

92

94 (1:1)

Figure 32. Seals (90–95). Scale 2:1, unless otherwise noted.

93

95 (1:1)

FIGURE 33

96

98

100

Figure 33. Sistra as restored (96–101). Scale 1:3. Drawings D. Faulmann.

97

99

101

FIGURE 34

110

111

112

115

113

117

116

118

119

114

121

120

122

123 124 A

A'

A'

A

125

Figure 34. Stone vessels (110–127). Scale 1:2.

126

127

FIGURE 35

129 (1:2)

128 (1:2)

131

130 (1:2)

132

133

134

135 1:1

136

137

Figure 35. Stone vessels (128–130); ground stone implements (131–137). Scale 1:3, unless otherwise indicated.

FIGURE 36

138

139

141

144

148

140

142

145

143

146

149

Figure 36. Obsidian prismatic blades (138–150). Scale 1:1.

147

150

FIGURE 37

152

151

153

154

157

156

155

158

Figure 37. Obsidian prismatic blades (151–155) and retouched blades (156–159). Scale 1:1.

159

FIGURE 38

161

160

162

163

165

164

167

166

168

170

172

Figure 38. Retouched obsidian blades (160–162) and flakes (163, 164) and debitage (165–172). Scale 1:1.

FIGURE 39

173

174

175

176

177

182

178

179

180

181

183

184

185

186

188

189

190

191

193

194

187

192

195 196

198

197

201

200

202

Figure 39. Obsidian lunates (173–189) and trapezes (190–194); chert (195–200) and quartzite (201, 202) blades and flakes. Scale 1:1.

FIGURE 40

203

208

207

209

211

215

219

210

213

212

214

218

206

205

204

216

220

Figure 40. Pendants and beads from the cave (203–221). Scale 1:1.

217

221

FIGURE 41

223

224

222

226

230

236

242

225

231

237

229

228

227

232

238

243

Figure 41. Beads from the cave (222–245). Scale 1:1.

234

233

239

244

235

241

240

245

FIGURE 42

246

248

247

249

250

252

251

253

254

260

264

255

256

258

262

261

265

257

266

Figure 42. Beads from the cave (246–269). Scale 1:1.

267

259

263

268

269

FIGURE 43

270

272

271

278

277

273

279

280

288

281

276

282

286

285

284

275

274

289

283

287

290

Figure 43. Beads (270–284) and miscellaneous objects (285–291) from the cave. Scale 1:1.

291

Plates

PLATE 1

Plate 1A. The Lasithi Plain as seen from the acropolis of Plati, looking north. Arrow points to the cave of Hagios Charalambos with the modern village to the left. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 1B. Conservators Alekos Nikakis and Nearchos Nikakis close the cave with a locked iron gate covered by stones and a concrete wall. Photo P. Betancourt.

PLATE 2

Plate 2A. The Lasithi Plain as seen from Plati. Hagios Charalambos is at the left. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 2B. The northwest side of the Lasithi Plain with the swallow-hole called the Chonos in the distance (below arrow). Geologist Panayiotis Karkanas (left) and conservator Alekos Nikakis (right) discuss the geology of the Chonos. Photo P. Betancourt.

PLATE 3

Plate 3A. Vertical cliffs adjacent to the Chonos with Panayiotis Karkanas (left) and Alekos Nikakis (right). Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 3B. The cave (the Chonos) drains the Lasithi Plain, and the walls channel the stream, named the Megalos Potamos, toward the natural drain. Photo P. Betancourt.

PLATE 4

Plate 4A. Contact of light colored limestone (left) and gray dolomite (right), with arrow at the trace of a fault plane. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 4B. Steeply inclined and polished rock surface delineates part of the original sinkhole entrance (arrow points to original black lens of soil). Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 4C. Cave formations (speleothems) inside the cave. Photo P. Betancourt.

PLATE 5

Plate 5A. Travertine substrate (T) covered by a thin silty crust (S) and overlain by clayey deposit (D). Yellowish spots of phosphate (A) alter calcitic crystals of travertine. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 5B. Fragments of silty crust (S) and travertine (T) inside the clayey sediment. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 5C. Clayey sediment with striated fabric of clay and clay intercalations. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 1.5 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 5D. Rounded bone fragments (white areas except voids labeled with V) inside clayey sediment. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 5E. Dusty clay coatings (C) around polyconcave voids (V). Note the sand-sized rock fragments inside the clayey matrix. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 5F. Clay and silt intercalations. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

PLATE 6

Plate 6A. Fragment of dusty clay coating incorporated in the clayey silt matrix. Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 1.5 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 6B. Massive structure with a few chamber voids (white areas). Width of photo 10 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 6C. Diffuse silt and clay intercalations and dusty clay coatings (C). Crossed polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 6D. Burned root (black) inside silty clay sediment. Plane polarized light. Width of photo 3 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

Plate 6E. Mixture of dark and light colored soil aggregates forming large, mammilated, densely packed earthworm excrement. Width of photo 10 mm. Photo P. Karkanas.

PLATE 7

Plate 7A. The site of the Hagios Charalambos Cave from the road in front of the site, facing southwest. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 7B. The ledge above the modern road. The cave is at the right, beyond the tents, facing northwest. Photo P. Betancourt.

PLATE 8

Plate 8A. The remains of the spur that concealed the cave until 1976, facing west. Upper part of Room 2 at lower right. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 8B. The modern entrance to the cave at lower left, facing north. For scale, see the meter stick at upper right. Photo P. Betan court.

PLATE 9

Plate 9A. Grid of long bones placed to form a lattice, creating a platform to support the deposit of human bones and artifacts. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 9B. Sistrum 98 as found in situ in the Room 4/5 Entrance, level 4. Arrows indicate the position of the disks. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 9C. Accumulation of skulls against the northern cave wall of Room 5. Photo E. Attali.

PLATE 10

Plate 10A. Surface of the east side of Room 5 before excavation, showing long bones on the surface and stones that had fallen down from the ceiling. Photo E. Attali.

Plate 10B. The north–south wall across the center of Room 5, looking northeast and showing the relation of the wall to a large stalagmite that was used to partly brace the stones at the base of the wall. Photo S. Ferrence

Plate 10C. The wall shown in Plate 10B as seen looking east, showing the lower courses that were constructed first, with bones (marked B) across them below the higher courses of stones. Photo S. Ferrence.

PLATE 11

Plate 11A. Room 5, Area 1, Level 1, showing disarticulated bones near Wall 1. Photo L. Langford-Verstegen.

Plate 11B. Group of five articulated vertebrae found in Room 5, Area 1, Level 3. Photo L. LangfordVerstegen.

Plate 11C. Excavation of Room 5, Area 5, Level 2 showing the disarticulated mass of bones, bone fragments, and a small jug (HCH 02-54). Photo S. Ferrence.

PLATE 12

Plate 12A. The area south of the cave before excavation, facing north. The edge of the deep pit containing the modern entrance to the cave as at the top of the photograph, at the center. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 12B. Trench 12 showing the disturbed soil in front of the cave. Photo P. Betancourt.

Plate 12C. Trench 13 after excavation, showing the bedrock near the modern surface. Photo P. Betancourt.

PLATE 13

24

25

26

(2:1)

(2:1)

(1.5:1)

27

28

(2:3)

(2:3)

Plate 13. Zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines (24–28). Scale as marked. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos.

PLATE 14

29

30

31

32

(3:2)

(3:2)

(1:1)

(3:2)

33

34

35

(3:2)

(3:2)

(1:1)

36

37

38

41

(1:1)

(1:1)

(1:1)

(1:1)

Plate 14. Anthropomorphic figurines (29–34) and metal and ivory objects (35–38, 41). Scale as marked. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos.

PLATE 15

54

55

(3:1)

(3:1)

65

66

(2.5:1)

(2:1)

76 (2:1)

Plate 15. Metal objects (54, 55, 65, 66, 76). Scale as marked. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawing (76) courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 50 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 45]).

PLATE 16

back

impression

front

77

drawing

photograph

impression

photograph

impression

drawing

drawing

81

Plate 16. Silver seal disk (77) and ivory stamp seal (81). Scale 2:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawings courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 32, 33 [81], 51 [77] [CMS V Suppl. 1A, nos. 34 (81), 46 (77)]).

PLATE 17

impressions

drawings

82 (3:2)

photographs

side B

side B

side B impression

side A side A 83 (1:1) Plate 17. Ivory stamp seals (82, 83). Scale as marked. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawings (82) courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 35, 36 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 35]).

PLATE 18

impression

84

photographs

drawing

(5:1)

photographs

impression

85 (4:1)

drawing Plate 18. Stamp seals (84, 85). Scale as marked. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawings courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 38–39 [84], 41 [85] [CMS V Suppl. 1A, nos. 38 (84), 40 (85)]).

PLATE 19

photographs

impression

86 drawing

photograph impression

drawing drawing

87

Plate 19. Stamp seals (86, 87). Scale 5:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawing (86) courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 42 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 41]).

PLATE 20

photographs

impressions

drawings

88 (3:1)

impression

photographs

89

drawings

side photograph

(1:1) Plate 20. Stamp seals (88, 89). Scale as marked. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawing (89) courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 40 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 39]).

PLATE 21

impressions

photographs

drawings

90

Plate 21. Prism seal (90). Scale 4:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawings courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 43–45 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 42]).

PLATE 22

impressions

photographs

drawings

91

Plate 22. Prism seal (91). Scale 3:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawings courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 46–47 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 43]).

PLATE 23

impressions

photographs

drawings

92

Plate 23. Prism seal (92). Scale 3:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos; drawings courtesy CMS (Davaras and Pini 1992, 48–49 [CMS V Suppl. 1A, no. 44]).

PLATE 24

impressions

photographs

93 Plate 24. Prism seal (93). Scale 3:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos.

drawings

PLATE 25

photograph

drawing

impression

94 Plate 25A. Cushion seal (94). Scale 3:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos.

98 Plate 25B. Sistrum (98). Photo Ch. Papanikolopoulos.

Plate 25C. Linear A tablet from Zakros (no. 18a) with a sistrum used as a sign (after Betancourt and Muhly 2006).

Plate 25D. Detail of the Harvesters Vase from Hagia Triada, showing the sistrum player at the right (after Betancourt and Muhly 2006).

PLATE 26

204

205

209

212

285

208

210

217

286

211

221

282

288

289

Plate 26. Miscellaneous objects (204, 205, 208–212, 217, 221, 282, 285, 286, 288, 289). Scale 1:1. Photos Ch. Papanikolopoulos.