Building Social Distances in Neopalatial Crete
A Comparison of Accessibility in Minoan Palaces
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.26675Keywords:
access analysis, GIS, Minoan Crete, palaces, spatial analysesAbstract
This study compares the accessibility of the Minoan Neopalatial (ca. 1750–1490 bc) Palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, Zakros and Galatas in central and eastern Crete. The study seeks to interpret the sites’ social meaning based on analytical observations of their spatial organisation, using cost-surface analysis functions available in Geographical Information System (GIS) software. The article focuses in particular on assessing the distinct accessibility patterns provided by the different, supposedly main entrances to the sites; on the effect of ‘lengthening access’ and its social implications in the Minoan built environment; and on the gendered use of space in the hall systems of the Palaces.
References
Adams, E. 2017 Cultural Identity in Minoan Crete: Social Dynamics in the Neopalatial Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi-org.pc124152.oulu.fi:9443/10.1017/9781108178525
Alberti, B. 2002 Gender and the figurative art of Late Bronze Age Knossos. In Y. Hamilakis (ed.), Labyrinth Revisited: Rethinking ‘Minoan’ Archaeology, 98-117. Oxford: Oxbow.
Alhusban, A., and A. Al-Shorman 2010 The social, political and economic functions of courtyard houses in Umm Qais, northern Jordan. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 15: 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-010-0126-6
Buell, D.M. 2014 The rise of a Minoan city and the (re)structuring of its hinterlands: a view from Galatas. In A.T. Creekmore III and K. Fisher (eds.), Making Ancient Cities: Space and Place in Early Urban Societies, 257-91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107110274.009
Campbell, L.M. 2013 Bronze Age adyta: exploring Lustral Basins as representations of natural spaces and places. Eras 14: 1-32. Online: https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1673968/14-article-campbell-bronze.pdf
Carignano, M. 2018 Reconstructing Minoan Dining Practice and Sociopolitical Organization in Neopalatial Households and Palaces. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Online: https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/59354/Carignano_cornellgrad_0058F_10805.pdf
Chesson, M.S. 2003 Households, houses, neighborhoods and corporate villages: modeling the Early Bronze Age as a house society. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16: 79-102. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v16i1.79
Conolly, J., and M. Lake 2006 Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807459
Cunningham, T. 2001 Variations on a theme: divergence in the settlement patterns and spatial organization in the far east of Crete during the Proto- and Neopalatial periods. In K. Branigan (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age. Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology 4: 72-86. London: Sheffield Academic Press.
Day, P.M., and M. Relaki 2002 Past factions and present fictions: palaces in the study of Minoan Crete. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 217-34. Liège: Université de Liège.
DeDeo, C. 2013 Yellow, red, and blue: a symbolic and linguistic analysis of gendered colors in XIX Dynasty Egyptian mortuary art. Providence College Journal of Art 1(2): 3-15. Online: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=art_journal
Driessen, J. 2002 ‘The king must die’. Some observations on the use of Minoan court compounds. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 1-14. Liège: Université de Liège.
Driessen, J. 2004 The Central Court of the Palace of Knossos. In G. Cadogan, E. Hatzaki and A. Vasilakis (eds.), Knossos: Palace, City, State. British School at Athens, Studies 12: 75-82. Athens: British School at Athens.
Driessen, J. 2010 Spirit of place: Minoan houses as major actors. In D.J. Pullen (ed.), Political Economies of the Aegean Bronze Age, 35-65. Oxford: Oxbow.
Driessen, J. 2012 Chercher la femme: identifying Minoan gender relations in the built environment. In D. Panagiotopoulos and U. Günkel-Maschek (eds.), Minoan Realities: Approaches to Images, Architecture, and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegis 5: 141-63. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain.
Driessen, J. 2017 Understanding Minoan in-house relationships in Bronze Age Crete. In Q. Letesson and C. Knappett (eds.), Minoan Architecture and Urbanism: New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment, 80-104. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198793625.003.0011
Driessen, J. 2018 Beyond the collective… the Minoan palace in action. In M. Relaki and Y. Papadatos (eds.), From the Foundations to the Legacy of Minoan Archaeology: Studies in Honour of Professor Keith Branigan. Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology 12: 291-313. Oxford: Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dnqd.18
Gesell, G. 1987 The Minoan palace and public cult. In R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds.), The Function of the Minoan Palaces, 123-27. Stockholm: Paul Åströms Förlag.
Gilboa, A., I. Sharon and J.R. Zorn 2014 An Iron Age I Canaanite/Phoenician courtyard house at Tel Dor: a comparative architectural and functional analysis. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 372: 39-80.
González-Ruibal, A. 2006 House societies vs. kinship-based societies: an archaeological case from Iron Age Europe. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25: 144-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2005.09.002
González-Ruibal, A., and M. Ruiz-Gálvez 2016 House societies in the ancient Mediterranean (2000-500 BC). Journal of World Prehistory 29: 383-437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-016-9098-8
Haciguzeller, P. 2008 Modeling human circulation in the Minoan Palace at Malia. In A. Posluschny, K. Lambers and I. Herzog (eds.), Layers of Perception, 336-41. Bonn: Habelt Verlag.
Hall, E.T. 1969 The Hidden Dimension: An Anthropologist Examines Man’s Use of Space in Public and in Private. New York: Doubleday.
Hamilakis, Y. 2002 Too many chiefs? Factional competition in Neopalatial Crete. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 179-99. Liège: Université de Liège.
Hitchcock, L. 2000 Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature, Pocket-Book 155. Jonsered: Paul Åström’s Förlag.
Hitchcock, L. 2007 Naturalising the cultural: architectonised landscape as ideology in Minoan Crete. In R. Westgate, N. Fisher and J. Whitley (eds.), Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond. British School at Athens, Studies 15: 91-97. Athens: British School at Athens. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40960577
Hood, S. 2005 Dating the Knossos frescoes. In L. Morgan (ed.), Aegean Wall Painting: A Tribute to Mark Cameron. British School at Athens, Studies 13: 45-81. Athens: British School at Athens. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40960393
Kamau, L.J. 1978 Semipublic, private, and hidden rooms: symbolic aspects of domestic space in urban Kenya. African Urban Studies 3: 105-15.
Kopaka, K. 2009 Mothers in Aegean stratigraphies? The dawn of ever-continuing engendered life cycles. In K. Kopaka (ed.), FYLO: Engendering Prehistoric ‘Stratigraphies’ in the Aegean and the Mediterranean. Aegaeum 30: 183–96. Liège and Austin: Université de Liège and University of Texas at Austin.
Leick, G. 1988 Dictionary of Ancient Near East Architecture. London: Routledge.
Letesson, Q. 2009 Du phénotype au génotype: analyse de la syntaxe spatiale en architecture minoenne (MM IIIB-MR IB). Aegis 2. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain.
Letesson, Q. 2013 Minoan halls: a syntactical genealogy. American Journal of Archaeology 117: 303-51. https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.117.3.0303
Letesson, Q. 2014 From building to architecture: the rise of configurational thinking in Bronze Age Crete. In E. Paliou, U. Lieberwirth and S. Polla (eds.), Spatial Analysis and Social Spaces: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Interpretation of Prehistoric and Historic Built Environments, 49-90. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110266436.49
Letesson, Q., and J. Driessen 2008 From ‘party’ to ‘ritual’ to ‘ruin’ in Minoan Crete: the spatial context of feasting. In L. Hitchcock, R. Laffineur and J. Crowley (eds.), DAIS: The Aegean Feast. Aegaeum 29: 207-15. Liège: Université de Liège. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/178792
MacDonald, C.F. 2002 The Neopalatial palaces of Knossos. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 35-54. Liège: Université de Liège.
Marcar, A. 2004 Aegean costume and the dating of the Knossian frescoes. In G. Cadogan, E. Hatzaki and A. Vasilakis (eds.), Knossos: Palace, City, State. British School at Athens, Studies 12: 225-38. Athens: British School at Athens. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40960780
Margueron, J.-C. 2014 Mari: Capital of Northern Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium BC. The Archaeology of Tell Hariri on the Euphrates. Oxford: Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dt7w
Marinatos, N., and R. Hägg 1986 On the ceremonial function of the Minoan polythyron. Opuscula Atheniensia 16(6): 57-73.
McEnroe, J.C. 2010 Architecture of Minoan Crete: Constructing Identity in the Aegean Bronze Age. Austin: University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/721937
Newman, A.N. 2017 Queering the Minoans: gender performativity and the Aegean color convention in fresco painting at Knossos. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 30: 213-36. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.35406
Palyvou, C. 2002 Central courts: the supremacy of the void. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 167-77. Liège: Université de Liège.
Palyvou, C. 2004 Outdoor space in Minoan architecture: ‘community and privacy’. In G. Cadogan, E. Hatzaki and A. Vasilakis (eds.), Knossos: Palace, City, State. British School at Athens, Studies 12: 207-17. Athens: British School at Athens.
Palyvou, C. 2017 Minoan group design: the ‘view from the bridge’. In Q. Letesson and C. Knappett (eds.), Minoan Architecture and Urbanism: New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment, 181-203. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198793625.003.0015
Palyvou, C. 2018 Daidalos at Work: A Phenomenological Approach to the Study of Minoan Architecture. Philadelphia:
INSTAP Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv9zcgz9
Parkinson, W.A., and M.L. Galaty 2007 Secondary states in perspective: an integrated approach to state formation in the prehistoric Aegean. American Anthropologist 109: 113-29. https://doi.org/10.1525/AA.2007.109.1.113
Rapoport, A. 1969 House Form and Culture. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Rethemiotakis, G. 2002 Evidence on social and economic changes at Galatas and Pediada in the New-Palace period. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 55-70. Liège: Université de Liège.
Schoep, I. 2002 The state of the Minoan palaces or the Minoan palace-state? In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 15-33. Liège: Université de Liège.
Schoep, I. 2010 The Minoan ‘Palace-Temple’ reconsidered: a critical assessment of the spatial concentration of political, religious and economic power in Bronze Age Crete. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23: 219-43. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v23i2.219
Shaw, J.W. 2002 The Minoan palatial establishment at Kommos: an anatomy of its history, function, and interconnections. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 99-110. Liège: Université de Liège.
Shaw, J.W. 2015 Elite Minoan Architecture: Its Development at Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2t4b7j
Shaw, M.C. 1993 The Aegean garden. American Journal of Archaeology 97: 661-85. https://doi.org/10.2307/506717
Shelmerdine, C.W., and J. Bennet 2008 Economy and administration. In C.W. Shelmerdine (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age, 289-309. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521814447.013
Smith, W.S., and W.K. Simpson 1986 The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt. 2nd edition. Harmondsworth, United Kingdom: Penguin Books.
Soar, K. 2014 Sects and the city: factional ideologies in representations of performance from Bronze Age Crete. World Archaeology 46: 224-41. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2014.885850
Soetens, S., A. Sarris, K. Vansteenhuyse and S. Topouzi 2002 GIS variations on a Cretan theme: Minoan peak sanctuaries. In K.P. Foster and R. Laffineur (eds.), Metron: Measuring the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegaeum 24: 18-21. Liège: Université de Liège.
Stöger, H. 2014 The spatial signature of an insula neighbourhood of Roman Ostia. In E. Paliou, U. Lieberwirth and S. Polla (eds.), Spatial Analysis and Social Spaces: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Interpretation of Prehistoric and Historic Built Environments, 297-316. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110266436.297
Susnow, M. 2021 The Space Syntax of Canaanite cultic spaces: a unique category of spatial configuration within the Bronze Age southern Levant. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 385: 131-52. https://doi.org/10.1086/712563
Thaler, U. 2005 Narrative and syntax: new perspectives on the Late Bronze Age palace of Pylos, Greece. In A. van Nes (ed.), Space Syntax 5th International Symposium, 324-39. Amsterdam: Techne Press.
Twaissi, S. 2017 The source of inspiration of the plan of the Nabatean mansion at Az-Zantur IV in Petra: a Space Ssyntax approach. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 17(3): 97-119. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1005494
Vander Beken, N. 2010 Processional behaviour in Neopalatial Crete (1700-1450BC): the Minoan palaces as theatres for social interaction. Rosetta 8(5): 139-63. Online: http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue8supp/Vander_Beken_Neopalatial.pdf
Vander Beken, N. 2015 Socializing Architecture: (Monumental) Architecture and Social Interaction in Minoan Society. With a Main Focus on the Minoan Palaces in the Neopalatial Period (1700-1450 BC). Unpublished PhD dissertation, Ruprecht-Karls-Univesität, Heidelberg. Online: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/19761/1/PhD_VanderBeken_Final.pdf
Vansteenhuyse, K. 2002 Minoan courts and ritual competition. In J. Driessen, I. Schoep and R. Laffineur (eds.), Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Aegaeum 23: 235-48. Liège: Université de Liège.
Verner, M. 2012 Temple of the World: Sanctuaries, Cults, and Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. https://doi.org/10.5743/cairo/9789774165634.001.0001
Whitelaw, T. 2004 Estimating the population of Neopalatial Knossos. In G. Cadogan, E. Hatzaki and A. Vasilakis (eds.), Knossos: Palace, City, State. British School at Athens, Studies 12: 147-58. Athens: British School at Athens. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40960773
Wilkinson, A. 1994 Symbolism and design in ancient Egyptian gardens. Garden History 22: 1-17. https://doi.org/10.2307/1586999
