Phaistos and the Mesara
Although the administrative documents from Phaistos do not contain clear evidence for the large-scale collection of agricultural commodities, archaeological evidence for such a mobilisation is evidenced by the ample storage space in the 'first palace' and the construction of the kouloures, which are hard to interpret as anything other than storage for a specialized surplus (Strasser 1997, Halstead 1997). The Early Minoan I and II settlements in the Mesara are spaced equally (c. 8-10 km) and although the best locations were settled first, a filling-in of the space between the existing settlements can be noted during EM III/MM lA (Sbonias 1995: 13). This pattern seems to suggest that each village had a claim to the agricultural land immediately around it (cf. Murphy 1997: 27). It may therefore be assumed that during EM II and EM III/MM lA, agricultural production would have been organized at a local scale, with individual villages probably being largely self-sufficient when it came to food supplies. Other items such as seal stones, stone vases, daggers, pottery and perhaps a variety of other goods may have been procured through a wider exchange network.
At present, it remains unclear as to what degree the construction of the 'palace' at Phaistos in MM I affected this situation. The MM I-II period in the area to the west of Phaistos surveyed by Watrous et al. seems to be characterized by a growth in the number and size of settlements (Watrous et al. 1993) (Figure 6.3). However, in the Asterousia sites were abandoned (Branigan and Blackman 1977:198), which would seem to suggest that at least here surplus production was not procured through capital investment in the improvement of marginal land (Halstead 1992; Manning 1994: 236). There is no evidence for the foundation of new settlements in the central Mesara in MM I-II and in general settlement growth may have been static (Branigan 1970: 127). Sbonias notes that in MM IB, competition between villages appears to have diminished considerably (Sbonias 1995: 132-133). The static growth in MM I-II settlements in the central Mesara (Sbonias 1995:16) may be contrasted with the apparent growth in settlements in the area immediately around and to the west of Phaistos. If fhis is real and not due to the different degree to which the two regions have been researched, it could suggest that the impact of the 'first palace' at Phaistos upon settlement patterns may have been limited. One might even tentatively suggest that patterns of land-use remained more or less the same and were not affected significantly by the need of the centre to mobilize agricultural surpluses. The continued distribution of farmhouses and small villages in the landscape would rather suggest the widespread continuation of infensive local agriculture, which need not have produced large-scale surpluses for the centre (Halstead 1992).
During this same period, nucleation has been noted for settlements such as Koumasa and Platanos and this may indirectly testify to some sort of extensification of agriculture (Halstead 1987: 83). However, since the number of abandoned settlements in MM l-II is quite low (Sbonias 1995: 16) and moreover, since the nucleation at sites such as Platanos and Koumasa predates the emergence of the palace in MM IB (Sbonias 1995: 32), any connection between a nucleated settlement pattern and the emergence of the 'first palace' at Phaistos is difficult to sustain and cannot therefore be used as evidence for the direct involvement of that centre in the extensification of local agriculture for the production of surpluses.
And so, if the differences in setflement patterns are real, it would seem that, following the construction of the 'first palace' at Phaistos, the westernmost part of the western Mesara fared differently from the area further east. The archaeological evidence does not suggest the direct involvement of the centre in the production of large-scale surpluses within an area to the east of Phaistos. The data available at present instead suggest continuity of local intensive agriculture, which could not have yielded such surpluses. If agricultural surpluses were collected from this area, they would have been restricted in quantity. There is, however, some evidence to suggest that the palace of Phaistos may have been more actively involved in extensive agricultural exploitation, in the area west of Phaistos. Also worth considering in this context is the site of Monastiraki in the Amari valley, which features a monumental central building with ample storage space and abundant links with Phaistos (Matz 1951, Kanta 1999: 387-93). Not only is the pottery very similar to that of Phaistos (Kanta 1999), albeit of a lesser quality than the finely decorated ware at Phaistos (Walberg 1983: 91), but also an administrative link is suggested by the hundreds of direct object sealings, some of which were impressed by sealstones similar or even identical to those at Phaistos (Godart 1999: 40). As at Phaistos, the sealing system is intensive and on present evidence, particularly the absence of written documents®, it seems fair to argue that the administration at Monastiraki was secondary to that at Phaistos. The first phase at Monastiraki dates to MM IB/IIA (Walberg 1983: 89) and it may conjecturally be suggested that an expansionist strategy by Phaistos with the aim of securing a larger hinterland may have led to the establishment of this centre in the Amari. The absence of a developed settlement hierarchy in the Amari in the Prepalatial and Protopalatial periods would seem to corroborate this hypothesis suggesting that any expansionist plan by Phaistos would have met less resistance in this area than if it had been implemented within the Mesara itselF. Besides the possiblity for the mobilisation of
Kokkinos
Pyrgos
Figure 6.3 Area surveyed by the Western Mesara Survey (after Watrous et al. 1993, fig. 8)
Agricultural produce, Monastiraki is also situated on a natural route to the north coast, which may have played a role in the movement of goods along this north-south axis’".
Knossos and Central Crete
When one applies the same approach to the
Protopalatial centre at Knossos, the results are less conclusive. Cadogan has tentatively reconstructed the hinterland of Profopalatial Knossos as sfrefching as far east as Gouves, as far south as Ayia Varvara and possibly as far west as Tylissos, including part of fhe Myloptamos district (Cadogan 1994: 66-68). Protopalatial Knossos itself has been estimated to cover c. 45 ha (Whitelaw 1983: 340) and it is dear therefore that this centre was considerably larger than Phaistos and consequently required even larger agricultural surpluses to feed its population; this may also be implied by the larger size of the kouloures (Branigan 1987). Although the administrative documents from Knossos provide convincing evidence for the exploitation of its hinterland, the picture obtained from the settlement patterns in the presumed hinterland is at best vague. We are confronted in the first place by insufficient knowledge of the hinterland itself, which is mainly due to the small number of excavated sites (Figure 6.4). Furthermore, although Flood and Smyth (1981: 8-10) note that the extent of Knossos town expanded greatly in MM I-II, no surveys have been conducted in its alleged hinterland, with the result that it is unclear as to what degree MM I-II regional settlement patterns were affected by this. Known Protopalatial sites, which presumably lay in this hinterland are Poros-Katsambas, Skalani, Archanes, Vitsila, Ayios Myron, Kato Vathia and Dalia, louktas, Ayia Marina, Krousonas, Gouves, Amnissos, Skamni (area of Gonies Maleviziou) and Tylissos, however very few of these sites have actually been excavated. Excavations at Tylissos and Archanes have provided the best evidence, but the sketchy nature of the remains do not allow any definition of the nature of these Protopalatial settlements and their relationship to Knossos. The reservoir at Archanes dates to the Protopalatial period and the quality of its construction is unparalleled in the Phaistos hinterland. Functional differentiation between sites is perhaps more pronounced: Poros-Katsambas is already a harbour of Knossos and there are perhaps more specialized ritual sites, such as Anemospilia, louktas and other peak sanctuaries (Nowicki 1994: fig. 8)”.
To conclude, the crescent-shaped nodules from Knossos seem to suggest that the collection of agricultural and perhaps also other goods was centralized, rather than decentralized. This centralized mobilisation of goods, presumably from what are different locations in the hinterland, indicates an important difference from Phaistos. It was suggested that because settlement patterns to the east of Phaistos seem to have changed very little in MM I-II, land-ownership and land-use are not likely to have changed significantly. Expansion into the Amari valley may therefore have been at least partly connected with the possibility that no large agricultural surpluses were acquired from the part of the Mesara to the east of Phaistos. If Monastiraki were indeed a secondary order centre of Phaistos, then this decentralisation contrasts sharply with the administration at Knossos, where all control may have been concentrated at the centre. It would seem therefore that external administrative differences between Knossos and Phaistos (i. e. script, document types) do also correspond to differences in the economic exploitation of their respective hinterlands.
World History
