In the last two decades, a need to contextualize the Minoan 'palaces' has caused a shift from an archaeology of palaces and urban centres to an archaeology of their hinterlands. This shift is most clearly evidenced in the boom in intensive and extensive surveys of specific regions in Crete, which have now covered a considerable surface of the island (Driessen in this volume). This increasing interest in the wider social, political and economic landscape and more specifically in the relationship between centre and hinterland closely follows earlier developments in Mesoamerican and Near Eastern archaeology (Adams and Nissen 1972; Johnson 1973,1987; Schwartz and Falconer 1994, Blanton, Kowalewski, Feinman and Appel 1981).
At the beginning of the Protopalatial period (c. 2000 BC), the construction of central buildings with monumental character directly testifies to the centralized mobilisation of labour, materials and construction techniques and indirectly to the emergence of a new form of sociopolitical complexity. Such central buildings were constructed in different parts of the island (Knossos, Malia, Phaistos and Petras) at approximately the same time and each seems to have exercised some form of influence over a hinterland (cf. Knappett 1999). These central buildings have long been labelled 'palaces', largely on analogy with the even more monumental Neopalatial structures which succeeded these 'first palaces' following their destruction at the end of MM II (around 1700 BC).
Although the 'first' and 'second palaces' seem to have functioned within different socio-political frameworks, their objectives seem to have been broadly similar, namely a concern with the accumulation of goods, the bureaucratisation which oversaw this accumulation and capitalisation or 'putting resources to work' (Knappett and Schoep 2000: 365-71). This paper will focus on two of these three aspects, accumulation and bureaucratisation. To oversee accumulation, the Protopalatial centres of Knossos and Phaistos were making use of regional administrative systems and it is no mere coincidence that the creation of the first effective writing systems on Crete is situated within the wider context of the emergence of the palaces (Schoep 1999: 268). Direct evidence for the accumulation of goods can be found in the administrative documents and the presence of storage space in the 'first palaces', while changes in settlement patterns and patterns of land-use in the hinterland may also provide more indirect evidence for exploitation by the centre.
By presenting case-studies from the Protopalatial (Knossos and Phaistos) and Neopalatial (Ayia Triada and Khania) periods, this paper will highlight two important changes in the application and distribution of writing for administrative purposes which occurred between these two periods: the first involves a change from regionally located and differentiated administrative systems in the Protopalatial period to a single administrative system in the Neopalatial period. The second involves changes in the distribution of script and administration, which in the Protopalatial period was restricted to palatial centres but during the Neopalatial period became widespread over several administrative levels.
World History
