The Cretan Element on Thera in Late Minoan IA

This Minoan style of architecture could hardly reflect a Cretan presence at Akrotiri unless Cretans were dominant in the settlement, since where foreigners settle without being dominant they tend to keep a low profile and adopt the local style of housing. The religious aspects of the houses at Akrotiri with their apparent Minoan affinities seem in any case difficult to reconcile with the idea that their inhabitants were of Cycladic origin. Various further lines of enquiry are suggested for ascertaining the character and date of any influx of Cretan settlers that there may have been at Akrotiri, Phylakopi and Ayia Irini.

From Early Minoan times onwards Cretans were leaving the shores of their island to found settlements on neighbouring ones like Kythera to the north-west (Coldstream and Huxley 1984). Cretan settlements dating back to the Middle Minoan period seem attested by the researches of M. Melas on Kasos and Karpathos north-east of Crete, and further afield on Kos and Rhodes, as well as at places on the coast of Asia Minor like Iasos (Benzi 1984; Laviosa 1984; Schiering 1984).

The settlement at Kastri on Kythera which began in Early Minoan times was a pure Minoan one. That is to say, the previous inhabitants of the island were totally absorbed, or driven away, or eliminated. Minoan Kastri was therefore a true example of a 'settlement colony' as defined by Branigan (1981, 1984). Akrotiri on Thera was clearly different from this. It must have existed against the background of a mixed population, even if it was dominated by Cretan settlers. The strong local Cycladic element in the pottery alongside Cretan shapes and styles of decoration is evidence for this.

At the same time the Cretan elements at Akrotiri and elsewhere on Thera in Late Minoan IA are striking, and they are especially striking in the field of architecture. This is significant, because foreigners in a mixed community, where they are not in control, tend for obvious reasons to keep a low profile and adopt the local style of housing. This appears to have been the case in the examples, both ancient and modern, cited by Branigan for such 'community colonies' as he has called them. At Akrotiri, however, there seems to be nothing in the architecture and layout of the settlement that need not be of Cretan derivation. That is not of course to say that everything must in fact have been derived from Crete.

At the last Thera Conference Shaw (1978) outlined in detail the Cretan aspects of the architecture. He noted, however, a few points of difference from contemporary Crete. One was the irregularity of the street frontages at Akrotiri. These are certainly a striking contrast to the frontages on the main street at Palaikastro, as Shaw notes (see Bosanquet and Dawkins 1923, Pl. I). But were such regular frontages the norm in Crete? Will excavation along the sides of the Royal Road at Knossos, for instance, reveal comparable frontages? Or will they prove to be irregular and more like those at Akrotiri? Even at Palaikastro some of the side streets have somewhat broken frontages more reminiscent of Akrotiri. And were the frontages at Akrotiri so irregular during the earliest phase of the settlement, before the very considerable modifications which followed the severe earthquake damage early in Late Minoan IA as described by Palyvou (1984, 1986)?

In any case, only small areas of the settlement at Akrotiri - some ten buildings or parts of buildings - have been excavated. Moreover, one of these buildings, the West House, seems exceptional in character. It is tempting to think that it was some kind of sacred building, along the lines perhaps suggested by Säflund (1981), and this might explain its deviant orientation. The curious rock-cut pits noted below and around it sound from their description (Mylonas 1984, 79; 1985, 63f.) as if they might be votive, connected in some way with the foundation of the building.

A lustral basin reminiscent of those in Crete has been identified in Xeste 3. No pillar crypts have yet been recognized at Akrotiri, but they may appear in due course. A block or blocks that might have come from a square pillar were in fact noted by Marinatos (1968, 39ff., Fig. 57, 62) during the first year of the excavations. There were two pillar crypts, each with a single pillar, in neighbouring houses not far from the later Mycenaean palace at Phylakopi on Milos (Atkinson et al. 1904, 40f., Fig. 26). Even in Crete, Knossos is the only centre where pillar crypts abound. Only three, for instance, are listed by Rutkowski (1986, 39) from Palaikastro, where large areas of the Minoan town have been cleared, and two from Zakro.

Shaw (1978, 434) remarked upon the absence of light-wells of the kind found in Crete at Akrotiri. But Doumas (1983, 53) has since noted the possible existence of a light-well in the House of the Ladies. In any case light-wells are not found in every house in contemporary Crete, and their presence may be, to some extent at any rate, a function of the size of the building involved.

The projecting horizontal courses between storeys seen at Akrotiri do not appear to be attested in Crete, but they are represented on the clay model of a house or shrine found at Arkhanes, as Shaw (1978, 435) notes. Another architectural feature at Akrotiri unknown in Crete is the framing of some doors and windows with projecting ashlar blocks. Cretan doors and windows were, normally at any rate, framed with wooden beams. But some cupboards in walls of the Later Palace at Phaistos have surrounds formed of ashlar blocks reminiscent of Akrotiri (e.g. Pernier and Banti 1951, 248, Fig. 155, 250, Fig. 156). The use of stone in place of wood to frame doors and windows at Akrotiri may reflect the availability of suitable supplies of it and the absence of local sources for large timbers of the kind that were evidently to hand in Crete at the time.

The signs known as mason's marks are another architectural element which Crete shares with the settlement at Akrotiri. These signs abound at Knossos and occur on many other sites in Bronze Age Crete (Hood 1987). They are excessively rare, however, outside Crete except, it seems, here at Akrotiri, being only attested by a few signs at three or four sites on the Greek mainland. The significance of the presence of these signs at Akrotiri is heightened if, as seems probable, they were not in fact cut to facilitate the placing of the stones but were religious or magical in their intention.

Much has been said about the mainland elements in the wall-paintings of Akrotiri. There seems to be nothing, however, that need not in fact derive from Crete, either in the style, or in the subjects depicted, or in the details such as beards, helmets, ear-rings and other jewellery. The ear-rings, for instance, from the Mycenae Shaft Graves resembling ones depicted in the wall-paintings at Akrotiri may well have been imported from Crete (Hood 1978, 201, Fig. 200).

Nanno Marinatos (1984a, 1984b) has described the religious character of important areas of the houses at Akrotiri. This again is very much in harmony with the impression given by many of the houses of the time on Crete, and more especially by those at Knossos, with buildings like the House of the High Priest, the House of the Chancel Screen, the South-East House, the South House and the Royal Villa - all with areas clearly set apart for religious uses. Vivid and informative wall-paintings like those of Akrotiri are, of course, missing from these Knossian houses; but the scraps which survive, and the large deposit from the House of the Frescoes, suggest that they once existed. Cameron's restoration of the paintings from the House of the Frescoes is compatible with the idea that the room on an upper floor which they adorned was reserved for cult (Cameron 1968; Hood 1978, 52).

The rites practised in these houses, whether on Crete or Thera, and the power or influence in the community which depended on them, were no doubt, as in many societies, rooted in the family concerned and handed down in it from one generation to another.

This all suggests a basically similar way of life at Akrotiri and in major Cretan centres like Knossos, as Nanno Marinatos has stressed. The question, of course, is whether this basic similarity is due to a common background of social organization and religious beliefs and practices in Crete and Thera stretching back into the distant past, or whether it reflects the settlement of Cretans as a dominant element in Thera at some not very remote period before the eruption in Late Minoan IA.

We must obviously learn more about what preceded Late Minoan IA at Akrotiri and elsewhere on Thera before we can begin to answer the question with any degree of certainty. The history of the settlement at Akrotiri has now been traced back to the end of Middle Cycladic or the very beginning of Late Minoan IA in Cretan terms. Only the one occupation level, however, which ended at the very beginning of Late Minoan IA, appears to have been identified so far at Akrotiri before that of the final abandonment (Marthari 1984).

Doumas (1981; 1983, 42) has indeed reported evidence for occupation of some kind at Akrotiri dating back to Early Cycladic II - III. Could the Early Cycladic material that has been found in later contexts reflect the former existence of a cemetery of that period on the site before, or even perhaps long before, the time of the settlement? Doumas, as reported by Mylonas (1985, 64f.), has made the interesting observation that a rock-cut basement north-east of Block Delta might have been an earlier tomb reused as such by the inhabitants of the later settlement. A reuse of old tombs as basements, if confirmed, might be taken to reflect some radical disruption of a previous social order in Thera, on the grounds that societies with any degree of continuity tend to respect earlier burial areas. For the moment, however, this is only a straw in the wind.

Another such straw is the observation of Barber (1987, 162) in regard to the evidence which suggests that Thera in Late Minoan IA was dotted with rural farms and hamlets in much the same way as Crete at the time, but unlike contemporary Milos it seems.

It would be interesting to know whether there was any abrupt change in the types of tomb used and in burial customs on Thera associated with a sudden influx of Cretan fashions in architecture, pottery, dress and jewellery. It would also be interesting to discover whether there was a ruler's house with an archive of Linear A tablets, as Renfrew (1978, 418) has emphasized.

The contemporary settlements at Phylakopi on Milos and at Ayia Irini on Kea are obviously important for comparison or contrast with Akrotiri. The main system of fortifications and the earliest wall-paintings at Phylakopi appear to date from eady in City III (Late Minoan IA) (Renfrew 1978). It will be interesting if these innovations are found to coincide with a sudden influx of Cretan pottery fashions, and more especially with a vogue for the simple handleless cups which go by the name of conical cups whose importance in this connection Wiener (1984) has stressed. It will also be interesting to know when and if cooking pots of Cretan types and Cretan varieties of loom-weights were adopted at Phylakopi, and whether a spread of Cretan fashions in general took place at a time when the two pillar crypts were built and the earlier mansion on the site of the Mycenaean megaron with which a Linear A tablet may have been associated (Renfrew 1978, 411f.). No evidence appears to be forthcoming from Milos, however, bearing upon the question of possible changes in tomb types and burial customs at this time.

At Ayia Irini on Kea, there is similarly a question as to whether a sudden influx of Cretan pottery fashions, including a vogue for types of Cretan plain and cooking-pot wares, can be distinguished early in Late Minoan I or further back in Middle Minoan times. It would be interesting to know, if there was such an influx, whether it coincided with the appearance of loom-weights of Cretan types and perhaps of the kind of loom for which they were used (Davis 1984). A change in the types of tomb at Ayia Irini has been recognized at the end of Period IV, well before the beginning of Late Minoan IA (Overbeck 1984). But the new tombs do not appear to be very Cretan in character. Nor are the same obviously Cretan elements noticeable in the architecture at Ayia Irini as they are at Akrotiri. House A (Cummer and Schofield 1984) by the temple, suggested as a possible ruler's house, boasts a pillar crypt, but in other respects does not seem unduly Cretan in character. But was House A really the ruler's house of Periods VI and VII, contemporary with Late Minoan I in Crete? It does not seem especially distinguished apart from its pillar crypt, and the single Linear A tablet found at Ayia Irini came from another part of the site.

The question of whether or not there was Cretan political domination of Thera in Late Minoan IA, and of exactly what form it took assuming that there was, may be difficult to resolve with any degree of certainty in the absence of decipherable written records. The legends which refer to Cretan expansion in the Aegean in the time of Minos are a poor substitute for these, although they are not by any means to be ignored (Korres 1984, 141, for references). The background of the East Mediterranean world of the time, with warfare between rulers striving for mastery over their neighbours and restless movements of peoples of which we have record, is also important to keep in mind when thinking about what may have happened in the Aegean (Hood 1984).

If Cretan settlers dominated Thera and other islands in the Cyclades at the end of the Middle and beginning of the Late Minoan periods, it might simply reflect a continuation of the process of expansion from Crete which began in Early Minoan times with settlements like Kastri on Kythera. But any such later expansion was evidently marked by a greater degree of tolerance for existing populations, and might have been combined with an element of political direction and control emanating from the palatial centres of power which had by this time arisen in Crete.

Addendum

-    Comparisons between Theran and Cretan architecture:

In connection with the irregularity of street frontages at Akrotiri, it may be noted that Late Minoan I street frontages in the excavated part of the important town at Khania: Kastelli also appear to be very irregular (e.g. Hallager and Tzedakis 1985, 4f., Fig. 1 and 2).

There is a distant analogy for the projecting courses between storeys at Akrotiri in the narrow projecting slabs which crown the south wall of the South Light Well of the Queen's Megaron assignable to the Early Palace at Knossos (Evans 1930, 373, Fig. 248).

In connection with the use of stone instead of wood for the framing of some doors and windows at Akrotiri, the study by O. Rackham (1990) suggests that large trees for timber would have been scarce on Thera at the time.

C. Palyvou (1990, Fig. 8) has drawn attention to the system of diminishing courses in the ashlar walls of Xeste 4 at Akrotiri. A similar system of diminishing courses is found in ashlar walls of Late Minoan IA date in Crete, e.g. the north and south walls of the Pillar Hall (room H) of the Unexplored Mansion at Knossos (Popham 1984, ii Pl. 5).

The signs known as mason's marks at Akrotiri are interesting both for similarities with and differences from those of Crete. Many of the Akrotiri signs of this class appear to be cut on the upper (or lower) surfaces of ashlar blocks. The cutting of signs on the upper and lower surfaces of blocks of stone was a regular practice in Crete in the time of the Early Palaces, but does not appear to be certainly attested there in Late Minoan IA. At Knossos at any rate it would seem on present evidence that by Late Minoan IA signs were only being cut on the dressed vertical faces of ashlar masonry. The evidence from Thera may either reflect a different practice there or help us to identify signs cut on the upper or lower surfaces of blocks during this period in Crete.

-    Further light from Thera on Minoan Crete:

The importance of the discoveries at Akrotiri for the study of Minoan Crete cannot be overstressed. This is due to the superb state of preservation of the buildings and the relatively precise dating of their contents and fixtures such as wall-paintings.

The only wall-paintings from Knossos in Crete assignable with a fair degree of certainty perhaps to Late Minoan IA are the important series from the House of the Frescoes and the fragments from the fill of the Lustral Basin in the South House compared with them by Evans (1928, 378f., Fig. 211). Associated with the South House fragments was part of a bird which Evans interpreted as a swallow (Evans 1928, 378f., Fig. 211: c). Comparison with the Akrotiri paintings may allow the assignment of other less well stratified examples from Knossos to Late Minoan IA.

The mass of imported Cretan pottery from Akrotiri and local imitations may similarly help the dating of Cretan deposits such as the Knossos Temple Repositories which at present hover between Middle Minoan IIIB and Late Minoan IA.

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