LM IA Pottery from Priniatikos Pyrgos

Several pieces from this excavation are in American collections; a selection of these is presented and discussed here.

Cups and other shapes from LM IA may be compared with the pottery from the "pits" at Zakros, from a stratum under the LM IB level at Palaikastro, and from elsewhere. It is suggested that an earlier LM I destruction may have preceded the better known LM IB destruction of Crete, and that one may possibly associate this earlier horizon with the earthquakes and other events associated with the eruption of Thera.

Priniatikos Pyrgos, a small site on the north coast of Crete, is located on a tiny headland that juts out into the Gulf of Mirabello. It was excavated briefly in 1912 (Hall 1914, 84 - 85) and yielded evidence of habitation from EM II until Roman times, with a disturbed stratigraphy because of the Roman building operations.

The small promontory offers good drainage and a commanding view of the sea, and a gradually ascending sandy shore to the east would have been a good landing place for small ships. Since the land on the inland side rises gradually toward the hills, the area affords enough arable land for a sizeable community.

After the excavations a selection of the pottery was sent to the sponsoring institution, the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, and part of this group was transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1914 as part of an inter-museum exchange. Other pieces remain in Herakleion.

The pottery is little known to scholars because it has never been properly published.

While it includes examples from several periods, this study discusses only a small selection, some of the pottery in American collections from early LM I. Many of the vases are complete, and they can only have come from a destruction level.

Since their date is from LM IA, not LM IB, they may provide evidence for a destruction on the northern coast of Crete, a possible correlation with the seismic events on Thera. A catalogue of the vases is appended to this study.

The vases with leaf-like tendrils (cat. nos. 7 and 10) seem to have been popular in the early part of LM I, when the older light-on-dark technique was still in use alongside the newer dark-painted system. Both variations occur from Priniatikos Pyrgos. The cup with white tendrils (cat. no. 7) provides a good link with material from two "pits" found at Zakros in the nineteenth century (Hogarth 1900 - 1901, 123 ff.) where many similar cups were found (Dawkins 1903, 249, figs. 1 and 3; Blinkenberg and Johansen 1931, pl. 32 nos. 18 - 21; Forsdyke 1925, pl. 8 no. A 580 and fig. 130 left; Popham 1967, pl. 78a; others in the Arch. Mus., Herakleion, unpublished). The style also occurs at Knossos (Lamb 1936, pl. 4 no. 31). The cup with similar dark-painted designs (cat. no. 10) also has parallels from the pits at Zakros (Blinkenberg and Johansen 1931, pl. 32 no. 22; Popham 1967, pl. 78b), as well as from Palaikastro (Forsdyke 1925, no. A 675) and Pseira (Herakleion, Arch. Mus., Study Collection, no. 5390). A variation occurs at Thera (Marinatos 1968 - 1976, IV, pl. 87a right).

Cups with white spirals. (cat. nos. 8 and 9) were found in the same contexts in East Crete (for the "pits" at Zakros see Popham 1967, pl. 78a). Once again, a similar style exists in the dark-on-light technique (for a cup from Priniatikos Pyrgos in the Arch. Mus., Herakleion, see Hall 1914, fig. 46 top row no. 4).

The group of vases with "tortoise shell ripple" decoration (nos. 3, 5, and 6) also probably comes from this period. At Knossos the motif begins in MM IIIA (Hood 1971, 44), and the excavations at Pyrgos, near Myrtos, suggest it may begin even earlier here (G. Cadogan, personal communication), but the design persists into the Late Minoan period and is particularly common in LM IA. It occurs regularly at Akrotiri (Marinatos 1968 - 1976, III, fig. 33; IV, pls. 77b and 86c).

The two vases with floral decorations (nos. 1 and 2) are also typical of early LM I. Grass motifs are common on most sites from this period, and Akrotiri offers a good example; they are found here in both light paint (Marinatos 1968 - 1976, IV, pls. 70b and 74) and dark paint (ibid. II, pl. E no. 5; IV, pls. Hb, 66b, and 68).

Similar patterns persist into LM IB (Platon, 1971, pl. on p. 113). The motif of the groups of concentric lines in alternation with another motif (cat. no. 2) is known from Thera (Marinatos 1968 - 1976, II, pl. 10 no. 2; III, figs. 40 - 41) and also occurs at Palaikastro (Dawkins et al. 1904 - 1905, figs. 6b and 7a).

Comparisons for the pottery from Priniatikos Pyrgos may be made with several LM I sites in northeastern Crete and elsewhere. The clearest evidence for the dating of this level in northeastern Crete itself comes from Palaikastro where a stratum lay under the LM IB settlement, especially visible in blocks Pi and Khi (Dawkins et al. 1904 - 1905, 275 - 276 and 286 ff.). The houses were well built, and the level was apparently a sizeable one with deep accumulations of fill (four levels, for example, were visible in Room Pi 42).

The pottery (Dawkins et al. 1904 - 1905, figs. 6 - 7 and 15; Bosanquet and Dawkins 1923, 21 ff.) included both light-painted and dark-painted wares in a style like that found at Priniatikos Pyrgos and in the "pits" at Zakros. The stratigraphy was clear because the level was overlain by the LM IB houses. Although the later building operations usually covered the earlier floors, two rooms which were not built over (Dawkins et al. 1904 - 1905, 276) furnished floor deposits with complete vases, evidence of a destruction of some type, at least in this area.

At Zakros, the style of the vases from Priniatikos Pyrgos had already ended by the time of the destructions at the end of LM IB. The comparison is, instead, with the earlier "pits" (Hogarth 1900 - 1901, 121 ff.). These features were two large cavities filled with rubble: stone building blocks, small bits of plaster, much pottery, stone vases and mortars, a few small scraps of bronze and bone tools. Since there was no animal bone or other evidence for the accumulation of normal village debris, another explanation must be sought. A religious purpose has been suggested (Bosanquet and Dawkins 1923, 21; Hood 1973, 152), but the nature of the objects and other materials found suggests to this writer it was simply the result of a clean-up operation after a destruction from earthquake or some other cause. The pottery from these deposits used both light-on-dark and dark-on-light decoration, with many spirals and graceful tendrils.

A destruction in early LM I also seems to have occurred at Gournia, as in Area D, "abandoned early in the Ist Late Minoan period... long before the houses on top of the hill, in Quarters E,F,G,H, ceased to be inhabited" (Hawes et al. 1908, 24). At Mochlos the largest LM IB house cut "into some houses belonging to the earlier part of LM I" (Seager 1909, 277). A severe earthquake has also been noted at Knossos at this time (Evans 1921 - 35, II, 431 ff.; Hood 1971a, 378 - 379). Scattered evidence exists from elsewhere (Hood 1973, 152, for Vathipetro; Dawkins 1913 - 1914, for Plati).

It would seem that Priniatikos Pyrgos, like several other settlements along the northern part of Crete, shows evidence of a destruction within LM I but well  before the LM IB calamity that ended the phase. This conclusion lends support to the suggestion of Hood (1970, 105; 1973, 151 - 152) that a pre-LM IB destruction-horizon exists along the nortltern coast of Crete, and that it is this destruction (and not the better-known LM IB one) which may be correlated with the eruption of Thera.

The northeastern coast was one of the most heavily populated parts of Crete in LM I. Since the area lies immediately south of Thera, the consequences of an eruption would surely be as pronounced here as anywhere on the island. Most excavations have concentrated on the LM IB horizons in this region, but evidence is gradually accumulating for an earlier LM I destruction that might fit better with the date of Akrotiri itself. In fact, this catastrophe may even have provided the stimulus for the building activity that marked the end of LM I on Crete. The Minoan settlements rebuilt, usually on the same sites, ushering in a flourishing period; perhaps they were even bolstered by Cycladic refugees who revitalized the phase with new ideas.

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