No-one has defended the propositions that the First and Second Palaces and the Second Palace era rural mansions were occupied by peasants, or that the system was run by middle-class artisans and traders, on a communitarian basis. Yet the exact form of the managerial elite is surprisingly difficult to capture from the archaeological or iconographic evidence. This is not helped by the fact that Linear A archives are only translatable to the level of names and pictograms, and seem mostly to relate to records of storerooms.
Minoan civilization is traditionally depicted as an exception amongst ancient civilizations, for its virtual absence of evidence (archaeological, architectural, and iconographic) for a powerful (if not oppressive) elite, for the minimal emphasis on warfare, and an unusual bias in art on females in significant social roles. Mycenaean Mainland Greece seems its direct opposite, except for the role of women, who also in art and burial were given status (though not on a scale comparable to Minoan Crete). Greek myth portrayed otherwise: King Minos of Knossos, in a tradition plausibly Bronze Age in origin, possessed a seaborne empire, extracted tribute from the Aegean peoples, and sacrificed annual victims from these subjects to his Minotaur monster. This monster dwelt in the Labyrinth, probably a memory of the “labyrinthine” passages and rooms of the giant palace-complex with its double-axe or labrys symbols.
The Minoan world as a “Golden Age” of peaceful innocence was the creation, appropriately, of the civilization’s discoverer Arthur Evans (Bintliff 1984; MacGillivray 2000). He felt ill at ease in the late Victorian and Edwardian world, seeking something better and more idealistic, which he found, or rather created, out of the remains he excavated in Knossos. He was indeed right in noting the virtual absence of fortifications around the palaces, although there are watchtowers along roads, and whilst access to the palaces is carefully controlled and difficult, this only appears in the later phases of these complexes.
We have in this chapter outlined persuasive reinterpretations of the origins, development, and functioning of the Minoan “court complex” societies. These theories have powerful attractions and even to skeptics of such revisionism serve to remind us that Evans’ picture rested on little archaeological evidence. Are there problems in turn with the new historical narrative?
Firstly, it is difficult to envisage how the palaces, both in their (new) EM “Pre-Palatial” and in their mature First and Second Palace form, could have been constructed, and evolved, to a broadly similar plan, across the island, by a series of infighting families each based in their own mansions across the towns of Crete. Moreover, in contrast to the situation at MM Malia where town mansions are identified as elite private homes, at Knossos the LM1A mansions around the Palace lack storage facilities and normal domestic equipment: instead, their ritual or ceremonial functions are clear. Warren (2004) believes they were supported by “the Palace establishment” economically, and this fits better with the traditional view that this series of mansions were residences of people responsible for major functions within the palace. But proponents of the new models could reasonably respond that this First to Second Palace era contrast (MM Malia compared with LM1 Knossos) can just as well agree with a gradual shift of power from a controlling elite who may initially have occupied independent mansions in the towns around the “palaces,” to an elite controlled from within the palace.
Secondly, the existence of bureaucracies, itemizing it seems the same kind of detailed production and consumption of food and artifacts across wide territories as in the comparable and readable Mycenaean archives, also fits poorly with a group of competitive families disputing power. To whom were the scribes answerable? The parallels which are now drawn to Mesoamerican ceremonial centers highlight common features with Minoan palaces. These include an overriding emphasis on ritual spaces and large storage zones which were necessary in regional foci where rituals were performed that integrated whole regions, as well as a town plan with scattered elite palaces (Driessen 2007). But these parallels do not emphasize sufficiently other typical Mesoamerican features such as dynastic rulers, regular warfare between states, and the systematic control and display of violence to underpin elite power. One might speculatively wonder if the bloodthirsty ball-game ubiquitous in preColumbian states of Mesoamerica has its reflection in the bull-leaping sport.
Thirdly, it is difficult to imagine that the survival of the “palatial” system over some 1000 years, and its deep impact on the Aegean islands and the Mainland (with some likely colonial foundations, Kythera, Miletus, and perhaps on southerly Cycladic islands such as Thera), could have been accomplished without the realization of the standard definition of the state — its monopoly on the use of force within its domain. Recent thinking on Minoan palatial political “history” reinforces the view that Minoan neglect of the iconography (artistic representation) of power and militarism sprang from a deeper control of the island’s population, and did not reflect political relations on the ground. Nonetheless it is striking that Linear A tablets are almost completely lacking in picture-symbols for weapons, armor, and chariots, unlike those from Mycenaean Linear B archives. On the other hand the oldest (EM3-MM1) “palace” at Malia possesses a suite of reception rooms opening onto the West Court, in which two ceremonial swords were found. Driessen (in Laffineur 1999) admits these prestige weapons “imply the use of force in the establishment of relations and a warlike mentality.”
A fourth query concerns elite residences. The fact that MM townhouses and Second Palace “villas” possess major storage areas, evidence of craft specialists, “state rooms” and ritual activity, and sometimes Linear A documents, is open to various interpretations. These building complexes could, as traditionally assumed, be merely extramural extensions of the palaces, residences of members of the controlling elite, state officials. But alternatively, they might belong to independent merchants and major landowners. In complex state societies such as Medieval Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and pre-Modern Japan and China, the elite class is a very broad one, with intermarriage bonding together innumerable powerful families, within which different individuals can possess a share of the power structure and construct and own their own urban and rural mansions, despite being ultimately, at least nominally, subordinate to a single ruler. In Renaissance Florence, the Medici dynasty controlled the city for long periods from their town and country houses, only at a late stage moving into the Town Hall (the PalazzoVecchio) and converting it into a ducal palace. It would seem more reasonable to create a less unstable form of elite than so far envisaged in the “heterar-chic model,” to accommodate the issues raised above regarding military, bureaucratic, and architectural planning within Minoan society.
All this need not prevent the adoption of the main lines of the revisionist model: in EM-MM times Minoan society was coordinated by a class of linked powerful families, dwelling in mansions within smaller and larger settlements across the island, and perhaps, or perhaps not, in apartments within the “court-complexes” themselves. A major function of this class, along with its personal aggrandizement within its community through land ownership, control of craft production, and special access to interregional and international trade, was the management of ceremonial centers or “court-complexes/palaces.” Over time, notably in the late Second Palace era, the most dominant families may have distanced themselves from the wider elite, and made palaces more “remote” in their religious and political activities from popular participation. In keeping with this, controlling dynasts now commissioned prominent art and tombs of a more individualistic nature. Personally I am inclined to envisage a more “hierarchical” than “heterarchical” Minoan society, based on the relative stability and flourishing of the palace era. The mansions would then be signs of a broad elite occupying public and private roles in tandem or cooperation. Whether the dominant family dwelt in the “palace” at all, or only later, or usually in a town mansion, may be less important than the current view that till late on “court-complexes” were theaters for ritual and political integration. Nonetheless, elite solidarity regarding control over internal law and order and external aggression or defense, appears an essential requirement.
Our data currently available cannot yet resolve these possibilities into a single narrative, but we can be confident that the ongoing meticulous reworking of the accumulated excavation data, enriched by ever-improving scientific techniques for the dating of finds, by dietary and environmental reconstructions, the search for family relationships (DNA tests of burials), and more open theoretical debate, will take us to solutions in the near future.
World History
