Jan Driessen

Peter Tomkins

Ilse Schoep

Ever since their first discovery, more than a century ago, the Minoan Palaces have dominated scholarship on the Cretan Bronze Age. Opinion long held that their first appearance, seemingly at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, marked a pivotal transformation point, during which the simple, egalitarian societies of the Early Bronze Age were transformed into something significantly more complex, hierarchical and civilized. Over the last three decades, however, theoretical developments, together with new research and discoveries, have so thoroughly undermined this conceptualization of the Early and Middle Bronze Age that it seemed advisable to go back to the beginning, reevaluate our theories and models and ask anew what we really know about social and political complexity on Crete from the end of the Neolithic to Middle Minoan II (c.3600-1750/00 BC). Back to the Beginning explores this theme through fifteen papers. They cover both the principal central Cretan urban centuries of Knossos, Malia and Phaistos and the smaller communities that lay beyond them in central and eastern Crete. Many present significant new bodies of settlement and cemetery data, whether recently acquired or reinterpreted from older excavations. All place a clear and concerted emphasis on breaking down complexity into different social processes and relations and building up an understanding of society, from the bottom up, as a host of interacting and potentially conflicting agents or scales of identity. All too are concerned with addressing long-standing and fundamental research questions. When, in fact, does the Bronze Age begin in real terms? How did socioeconomic diversity play out across the Cretan landscape? When and where did the monumental Court Complexes, which convention terms Palaces, emerge; how did they function and how did this vary? Were the Court Complexes entirely new phenomena or were they rooted more firmly in preexisting traditions and practices? What happened in MM I and how, more generally, might we frame and explain the Early and Middle Bronze Age in more inclusive terms? How were different communities structured and how did this vary? Is it appropriate to talk of urbanism and state formation during this period and if so, when and where? By taking us significantly closer to resolving these questions, Back to the Beginning ushers in a new era of understanding for the Early and Middle Bronze Age on Crete.

Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete During the Early and Middle Bronze Age

Back to the Beginning

Robert Laffineur

Foreword; Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces; Introduction; List of abbreviations; Jan DRIESSEN, 'The King Must Die.' Some Observations on the Use of Minoan Court Compounds; Ilse SCHOEP, The State of the Minoan Palaces or the Minoan Palace-State?; Colin F. MACDONALD, The Neopalatial Palaces of Knossos; Giorgos RETHEMIOTAKIS, Evidence on Social and Economic Changes at Galatas and Pediada in the New-Palace Period; Vincenzo LA ROSA, Pour une revision preliminaire du second palais de Phaistos; Joseph SHAW, The Minoan Palatial Establishment at Kommos. An Anatomy of its History, Function, and Interconnections; Olivier PELON, Contribution du palais de Malia a l'etude et a l'interpretation des "palais" minoens; Jeffrey S. SOLES, A Central Court at Gournia; Metaxia TSIPOPOULOU, Petras, Siteia: The Palace, the Town, the Hinterland and the Protopalatial Background; Lefteris PLATON, The Political and Cultural Influence of the Zakros Palace on Nearby Sites and in a Wider Context; Maria ANDREADAKI-VLASAKI, Are We Approaching the Minoan Palace of Khania?; Clairy PALYVOU, Central Courts: The Supremacy of the Void; Yannis HAMILAKIS, Too Many Chiefs?: Factional Competition in Neopalatial Crete; Peter M. WARREN, Political Structure in Neopalatial Crete; Philip P. BETANCOURT, Who was in charge of the Palaces?; J. Alexander MACGILLIVRAY, Memories of a Minotaur; Peter M. DAY and Maria RELAKI, Past Factions and Present Fictions: Palaces in the Study of Minoan Crete; Klaas VANSTEENHUYSE, Minoan Courts and Ritual Competition.

Ilse Schoep

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