The dangers of viewing archaeological evidence as merely illustrative of written sources (see p. 28) are especially apparent in cases where there is a mismatch between the two categories of evidence. Our literary sources record practically nothing - and certainly nothing reliable - that we can assign to Athens in the eighth century; unlike Eretria or Corinth, no overseas settlements are attributed to Athens in this period. On the other hand, the archaeological record, which is all we really have at our disposal, suggests that Athens followed a development trajectory that was, in many ways, similar to that of Eretria and Corinth - as well as of Argos, another “non-colonizer.” At all four sites, clusters of dispersed settlement nuclei seem to have expanded to form a more continuous urbanized area in the course of the eighth century, with a concomitant shift towards burying the dead in outlying cemeteries (p. 78), while a greater prosperity appears to be attested by a marked increase in the quantity and quality of grave goods and sanctuary dedications. Aside from metalworking, Athens in this period became home to a particularly innovative style of Late Geometric pottery which, while designed for a more local consumption than had been the case with Early and Middle Geometric ceramics, nevertheless exerted a measurable influence on the pottery styles of its neighbors.
As we have seen (p. 80), the number of retrieved burials in Athens and Attica increases sevenfold in the period 780-720 - a pattern replicated, albeit less precipitously, in the Argolid. Given that the number of identified sites in Attica also increases in this period (from fifteen in the ninth century to more than fifty by the end of the eighth century), it is reasonable to suppose that demographic factors are partly responsible. That cannot, however, be the whole explanation.
A History of the Archaic Greek World: ca. 1200-479 BCE, Second Edition. Jonathan M. Hall. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The fact that, prior to this, infant burials are consistently underrepresented in the archaeological record compared with what we would normally expect in a pre-industrial society makes it quite clear that there is no direct or simple correlation between burial numbers and population levels. In the second half of the eighth century, the number of infant burials does reach virtual parity with that of adult burials and, in the last third of the century, infants come to be buried in the same cemeteries as adults, suggesting that the burial record has become more representative of the living population. The suggestion that a greater cross-section of the Athenian population is now granted “formal” - and hence, archaeologically visible - burial would seem to be confirmed by a greater variability in the types and numbers of grave goods as well as in the choice of cremation or inhumation. Certain burials appear to articulate claims to an especially high status, expressed through costly grave goods such as gold bands with animal friezes of ultimately Near Eastern inspiration or through the monumental vases that served as gendered grave markers - krateres for male burials and amphorai for female.
Nothing, however, in the archaeological record for eighth-century Athens and Attica could have prepared us for what we find in the subsequent century (Map II.1). The number of seventh-century burials returns to ninth-century levels, with most of those that are attested dating to the second half of the century, and both adult cemeteries and burial plots become smaller. Many of the settlement sites that were occupied in the eighth century - for instance, Thoricus - are now abandoned. And craft production, especially in ceramics, seems to decline significantly - especially if, as has been suggested, the “Black and White” class of pottery dating to the middle of the seventh century was manufactured on Aegina rather than at Athens. Only certain sanctuary sites continue to display clear signs of activity and these tend to be located on hilltops in relatively remote areas of the countryside - for example, the sanctuary of Zeus Ombrios on Mount Hymettus, Tourkovouni to the northeast of Athens, Profitis Ilias near Sunium, Mount Merenda near Myrrhinous, and perhaps Lathoureza to the south of Hymettus. By contrast, on the Athenian acropolis, evidence for seventh-century cult is less visible than it had been in the eighth century.
Much as with the discussion of the concept of a “Dark Age” (pp. 59-66), one is tempted to wonder whether this is the reflection of a genuine decline in living conditions and standards or merely an archaeological mirage. For those who attribute the increase in eighth-century burials to higher mortality rates occasioned by a drought (p. 80), the seventh-century “gap” would reflect the inevitable consequences of a natural disaster and, since a drought is unlikely to have been restricted to a single geographical region, such an explanation could be extended to Eretria and Argos, which witness a similar decline in seventh-century material. Yet, Corinth, which one would expect to be affected equally by a climatic event such as a drought, does not follow the pattern of Athens, Argos, and Eretria; if anything, the archaeological evidence from Corinth suggests a rise in prosperity throughout the seventh century.
Map II.1 Settlements in Attica
For those, instead, who interpret the eighth-century increase in mortuary disposal as the admission of a larger section of society to formal burial, the tailing-off in the seventh century represents a “backlash” on the part of elites, anxious to reclaim the traditional prerogatives of their status (p. 201). Whatever credence one gives to this rather mechanistic to-and-fro in admission to formal burial, there is little independent testimony to support such an early expression of class-based ideological opposition (see pp. 201-4). Furthermore, it is not only that the number of burials declines but that entirely new burial practices are adopted. While infants came to be buried alongside adults in Late Geometric cemeteries, they are disposed of in reserved necropoleis in the seventh century. In the second half of the eighth century, inhumation is the preferred rite for adults but some - presumably higher-status - burials are “inurned” or “secondary” cremations, where the corpse is burned on a pyre and the ashes transferred to a cinerary container placed in a subterranean trench with accompanying grave goods. In the seventh century, by contrast, the almost exclusive method of mortuary disposal is “primary” cremation, where the body is burned on a pyre within the grave, obviating the need for a cinerary urn; offerings, which no longer include weapons or costly metal items, are placed in a separate offering trench next to the grave; and the practice of marking graves with monumental vases ceases, replaced in some cases by mounds or tumuli.
Literary sources offer little in the way of contextual aids in interpreting the archaeological gap. Three “events” are recorded for the seventh century: the first, and perhaps least reliable, is the establishment of the annual archonship in 683/2 (Parian Marble fr. 32); the second is Cylon’s attempt on the tyranny ca. 630 (Herodotus 5.71; see p. 145); and the third is the legislation of Dracon, about a decade later (p. 140). The laws of Dracon are widely viewed as a response to the political crisis that was triggered by Cylon’s attempted coup d’etat, but our extant sources offer no connections between these isolated events that would allow us to reconstruct a more continuous narrative history for the century. Suggestions, then, that the material record of seventh-century Attica reflects a period of instability created by wars are not inherently implausible but are difficult to substantiate, meaning that we have no choice but to explain the archaeological record in its own terms. The attestation of cult at rural, hilltop sanctuaries might indicate a shift towards rural settlement: as we shall see (pp. 215-19), there is reason to suppose that Solon’s reforms in the early sixth century were a response to an intensification of agricultural practices on the part of the elites. But this does not explain the apparent abandonment of many rural settlements or the change in burial practices. Alternatively, a more promising explanation links the level of material prosperity to trade and commercial connections. As already noted, Corinth, whose Mediterranean-wide networks are documented by the widespread distribution of its pottery between the late eighth century and the second quarter of the sixth, displays no material decline in the seventh century; by the time Attic wares displace Corinthian products from overseas markets in the sixth century, the archaeological record of Athens and Attica is noticeably richer.
Yet another explanation seeks to relate the settlement and archaeological evidence to a change in artistic style. The years around 700 see the appearance of the Protoattic style of pottery, an eclectic blend of lingering Late Geometric traditions and the more “orientalizing” motifs and subjects of the slightly earlier Protocorinthian style. Decorated in a looser, more fluid composition than the rigid order of Late Geometric vessels, scenes on Protoattic pottery exhibit more of a thematic unity and, from about 670, reference - for the first time - specific, identifiable myths such as Heracles killing the centaur Nessos or Odysseus blinding the Cyclops. The selectivity employed in such scenes, it is argued, challenges the viewer to question normative assumptions about traditions or a fundamental continuity with the past, and this is paralleled by the decision, conscious or otherwise, to signal a break with the past by adopting new funerary customs and by investing in new cult sites outside the community. Paradoxically, perhaps, this is interpreted as “a sign of confidence and strength, in as far as the political community no longer felt the need to bind itself together by conservatism and communal monopoly of ritual” (Osborne 1989: 320) and it is this confidence that explains why seventh-century Attica escaped tyranny and did not have to resort to founding settlements overseas to resolve internal tensions.
Ultimately, however, regardless of the relative plausibility to be attributed to each of these explanations, either singly or in combination, we cannot exclude the possibility that the seventh-century gap in the archaeological record of Attica is also the product of our own inability to identify or interpret the material evidence. Post-depositional factors such as erosion or later overbuilding may have destroyed much of our evidence, even if it is not easy to account for why this should have happened so consistently to Early Archaic layers. Alternatively, it could well be the case that diagnostic pottery of the seventh-century - apart from the distinctive Protoattic wares, which seem to have been reserved for ritual use - is still poorly understood by comparison with the much studied and instantly recognizable Geometric pottery. It has even been suggested that Late Geometric and Subgeometric styles lingered longer than previously thought and may have overlapped chronologically with Protoattic, meaning that material normally dated to the later eighth century may, in fact, belong to the seventh. More likely than not, the archaeological gap in Attica is due to a combination of all these factors - both historical and archaeological, explanatory and methodological - and provides a salutary reminder about the provisional and interpretive nature of archaeological practice.
Crete weathered the disruption that accompanied the end of the Bronze Age much better than most areas of Greece (Map II.2). The palace at Cnossus probably suffered its final destruction ca. 1300, about a century before the disaster that overwhelmed the palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Thebes (p. 43). But while the twelfth century witnesses shifts in settlement patterns and the establishment of “refugee” sites, especially in the mountainous eastern part of the island, the material culture of Crete displays considerable continuities across the transition from the Bronze to the Early Iron Age. Specifically Cretan divinities known from later sources such as Diktynna or Britomartis - along with the
More youthful Zeus, whose birth was associated with both the Idaian and the Diktaian caves - are almost certainly a legacy of the Minoan civilization, which flourished on the island from the Middle Bronze Age. Votive material from certain sanctuaries, including the Diktaian Cave and the peak sanctuary at Kato Symi, testifies to continuous worship stretching back into the Bronze Age. A particular type of temple with internal bench and hearth, which is characteristic of many regions of Crete from the eleventh century onwards, derives from Late Minoan prototypes, as does the image of a goddess with upraised hands, which appears in Geometric and Archaic art. Similarly, the practice of depositing multiple burials in chamber tombs goes back to Minoan times, although there is a near universal shift to cremation for adult burials by the ninth century. Much of this evidence derives from the better explored central region of Crete, from Eleutherna in the west, to Kommos in the south, and Dreros in the east. The western and eastern regions display certain cultural differences: in the area of Praisos, for example, open-air sanctuaries are preferred to bench-shrines and inhumation is more common than cremation.
Furthermore, signs of a marked decline in prosperity are less evident on Crete in the Early Iron Age and the island seems to have maintained intensive overseas connections. From the tenth century, imports from both Attica and the Near East are found in graves at Cnossus and, around the middle of the ninth, elaborate bronzes and gold jewelry are being produced in a style that exhibits strong parallels to that of North Syria, causing some to suggest the presence on the island of Levantine craftsmen. These connections are reflected in the production of Protogeometric B pottery, an eclectic blend of Minoan, Attic, and Near Eastern sources, which has been claimed as the first example of the “orientalizing” style in Greek art (see pp. 299-300). From the seventh century, contacts with Egypt are suggested by imports of faience, ivory plaques, and scarabs and Egyptian influences have been proposed for a large limestone relief, depicting a god framed by two naked women, from the acropolis temple at Gortyn and the architectural sculpture from Temple A at Prinias, both dating to the last decades of the seventh century. Indeed, Crete, with its easy absorption of both North Syrian and Egyptian models, is widely viewed as the birthplace of the “Daedalic” style of sculpture, the immediate forerunner of the distinctive kouroi and korai of Archaic Greek art (pp. 179-80, 222-3).
Crete’s archaeological “gap” falls not in the seventh, but in the sixth century. Most of our evidence comes from Cnossus, a site that has been extensively explored ever since Arthur Evans’ excavations at the start of the twentieth century. Traces of settlement datable to the Early Iron Age are generally missing - due, in part, to the focus of earlier archaeologists on either the Minoan or the Roman periods - but, following some late seventh-century activity that can be documented by a well in the area of the Unexplored Mansion, there are no domestic deposits from about 600 down to 525. The burial evidence is even more revealing. From the eleventh century onwards, Cnossus was surrounded by a number of cemeteries in which chamber tombs were used or reused for multiple cremation burials in urns. It is likely that each chamber tomb was employed by members of the same extended family group, especially since human remains from successive burials in one tomb in the North Cemetery, dating from the tenth down to the seventh century, reveal a consistent, presumably inherited, deformation of the mandible. After a peak in the eighth century, the number of known seventh-century tombs drops, although any demographic implications have to be offset by the fact that, on average, tombs now contain greater numbers of cinerary urns than before. Around 630, however, and apparently without warning, the cemeteries around Cnossus were suddenly abandoned and were not extensively used again until the late fourth century, although some burials recommence towards the end of the sixth century.
Similarly, evidence for cultic activity is practically non-existent. Sixth-century offerings are scarce at the open-air sanctuary of Demeter on the Gypsades hill, overlooking the Minoan palace, and do not resume until the start of the fifth century; a similar disjuncture has been recorded in the sanctuary of Zeus Thenatas at Amnisos, on the northern coast. Whether or not the sixth-century gap was island-wide, it was clearly not restricted to the immediate area of Cnossus: Temple A at Prinias shows no signs of use in the sixth century, the cemetery at Aphrati was abandoned soon after 600, and Kommos exhibits little activity between 600 and 400. Our knowledge of Cretan ceramics, terracottas, and bronzes is virtually non-existent in the period 600-525, after which sequences can again be pegged against Attic and Laconian imports.
As with the parallel case of Attica, explanations for the sixth-century gap on Crete have typically appealed both to genuine historical causes and to issues of archaeological interpretation. To take the latter first, it is probably becoming harder now to justify the claim that the apparent absence of sixth-century contexts is due merely to a lack of interest on the part of archaeologists. It has, however, been suggested that an apparent conservatism in Cretan material culture after the seventh century has contributed to a consistent failure to recognize diagnostic sixth-century ceramics in the archaeological record. Among more historical explanations, a drought has been suggested on the basis of
Herodotus’ account (4.151) of the Theran settlement of Cyrene, in which the initiative was undertaken in response to a seven-year drought. Thera is only about 120 kilometers north of Crete and the archaeological evidence from Cyrene, which suggests a foundation ca. 630, accords well with the date at which the cemeteries of Cnossus were abandoned, but we cannot simply accept Herodotus’ testimony at face value and, at Cnossus, there is no evidence for an infilling of wells at this time. Furthermore, a natural disaster such as drought, famine, or plague should have resulted in an increase in burial numbers prior to 630, but this is not what we find.
As with Attica, another explanation appeals to a conflict. In the Odyssey (19.172-7), a disguised Odysseus describes Crete to his wife, Penelope, noting its mixed Achaean, Eteocretan, Kydonian, Dorian, and Pelasgian populations, and it has been suggested that interethnic tensions erupted into war during the sixth century. The appearance of sixth-century inscriptions at Praisos, inscribed in the Greek script but what has been termed the “Eteocretan” language, certainly gives some support to the idea that Eteocretan identity assumed a particular salience in this period, though there is little independent evidence to suggest that this involved an especially hostile dimension. Pausanias (2.21.3) does mention a war between Sparta and Cnossus at the time of the Cretan seer Epimenides, who is supposed to have purified Athens after the Cylonian conspiracy in the late seventh century (Suda, s. v. Epimenides). Elsewhere (4.19.4), the same author notes that, at the time of the Second Messenian War, the Spartans could count on the assistance of Cretan archers from Lyktos and it has been conjectured that Lyktos and Cnossus were engaged in a lengthy conflict, the former backed by Sparta and the latter possibly by Sparta’s enemy Argos - an assumption based on the famous mid-fifth-century treaty between Cnossus and Tylissos (ML 42 = Fornara 89), which was brokered by Argos. This whole reconstruction, however, bears some of the same methodological characteristics and problems as those employed to model the Lelantine War (pp. 1-8); the historicity of the Second Messenian War has already been questioned (pp. 185-8); our sources are not unanimous about when Epimenides lived - Plato (Laws 1.642d) dates him about a century later; and Pausanias himself (3.12.11) notes that the Spartans denied ever having gone to war against Cnossus.
Again, as with Attica, an economic explanation has been proposed. In the wake of Assyrian aggression against the cities of Phoenicia, followed by conquest at the hands of the Babylonians in the years around 600, it is possible that Crete, whose earlier connections with the Levant are amply documented by the archaeological evidence, was now bypassed by shipping routes that took more northerly courses to Athens, Corinth, and the Ionian cities of the Anatolian seaboard. This would certainly account for a decline in material prosperity on the island although it is a less satisfactory explanation for the near invisibility of sixth-century activity. Some emigration almost certainly occurred at this time: Cretans may have joined Geloans in founding Acragas ca. 580 and settlers from the island are mentioned at Cyrene in connection with the administrative reforms of Demonax of Mantinea in the mid-sixth century (Herodotus 4.161; see p. 249). It is, however, difficult to believe that the island was significantly depopulated because, while archaeological evidence is largely lacking for sixth-century Crete, epigraphic evidence is not.
We have already considered the seventh-century law from the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios at Dreros (ML 2 = Fornara 11; see p. 140). For the period ca. 650-450, fragments of laws are known from many of the cities of central Crete and it is no accident that the Spartans believed their legislation to have been borrowed from Crete (Herodotus 1.65.4), that Plato should have set the Laws on the island, or that both the legendary Cnossian king Minos and his brother Rhadamanthys should have been considered judges and lawmakers. Indeed, the majority of Archaic Cretan inscriptions are of a public, political, or legal nature, marking a strong contrast with Attica, where personal inscriptions - graffiti, dedications, and funerary epitaphs - outweigh more official inscriptions such as law codes or decrees. The decision to record official decisions and procedures in a permanently written form - replacing the need to consult the hieromnemones or “rememberers” of many other cities, who are assumed to have engaged in the improvisational techniques commonly associated with oral cultures - has been seen by some as indicative of a certain Cretan “conservatism,” a trait for which the island was famous and which was invoked to prove deep-seated connections between Crete and Sparta. But the other parallel with Sparta concerns the public, communal nature of the Cretan inscriptions.
A late sixth-century inscription from Eltynia (IC 1.10.2) refers to agelai and an andreion. Agelai, or “herds,” were the age-classes to which Cretan youths were assigned - a practice known also from Sparta - while the andreion was a public communal dining-room, akin to the syssitia of Sparta. Large structures with hearths that were excavated at Agia Pelagia, northwest of Cnossus, and Itanos and Azoria in eastern Crete have plausibly been identified as andreia dating to the Late Archaic period. What is more, from the eighth century onwards, Cretan drinking wares become less, rather than more, elaborate and there are progressively fewer imports of the sorts of vessels associated elsewhere in Greece with the symposium (pp. 203-4). There is, then, the distinct possibility that, in addition to possible factors such as war, emigration, and economic decline, a consciously conservatizing ethos in material behavior has prevented us from correctly identifying sixth-century material on Crete, while a focus on public and communal activity militated against the sorts of individual expressions of status that are commonly found elsewhere in this period.