Ancient Cyprus webproject

CRETAN EXTERNAL RELATIONS DURING LM IIIA2-B (CA. 1370 - 1200 B.C.):

A VIEW FROM THE MESARA

Jeremy B. Rutter

Department of Classics, Dartmouth College,
Hanover, New Hampshire 03755

The great destruction of the palace at Knossos that occurred roughly halfway through the first half of the fourteenth century B.C. appears to mark a dramatic turning point in the history of the Bronze Age Aegean, one which Bennet and Hallager have aptly recognized as separating a "Mono-Palatial" from a "Final Palatial" phase on Crete.[i] This destruction marks the end of a period some two to three generations long - the Late Minoan II and IIIA1 ceramic phases - during which Knossian supremacy in the center and west of the island was absolute.[ii] This Knossian dominance is most clearly visible in the wealth of the graves of a Mycenaeanizing population element resident at Knossos, a group that is conventionally considered to have been principally responsible for Knossos' preeminent position on the island. But Knossos' leading role is equally clear from the standardization of LM IIIA1 ceramics following Knossian models, and also from the simple fact that no complexes of monumental settlement architecture replacing or rivalling the court-centered buildings of the Neopalatial era that we ordinarily refer to as "palaces" existed anywhere on the island except at Knossos itself.[iii]

All of this changed abruptly in the immediate aftermath of Knossos' destruction by fire early in the LM IIIA2 ceramic phase.[iv] The richly furnished tombs at Knossos known collectively as the "Warrior Graves" (or, somewhat more accurately, "Burials with Bronzes", inasmuch as they include numerous female burials[v]) cease to be used, and equally rich burials at nearby sites such as Katsambas on the coast to the north and Archanes just to the south likewise come to an abrupt halt.[vi] Regional distinctions in ceramic style are far more characteristic of the LM IIIA2 period than of the preceding LM IIIA1 phase and these become progressively more pronounced with time.[vii] And major building programs involving large-scale and often architecturally innovative structures are launched at sites such as Tylissos, Ayia Triadha, and Kommos.[viii] It is the external contacts of this later phase, which I will follow Hallager in terming "Final Palatial", that I should like to explore in summary fashion in what follows.

In spatial terms, I shall focus on the western Mesara, and in particular on the sites of Kommos and Ayia Triadha, for two reasons: first, this is simply the area of Crete that I know best, thanks to eight years of work on the Neoapalatial, Monopalatial, and Final Palatial pottery from Kommos and to the hospitality of my Italian colleagues working at Ayia Triadha;[ix] and secondly, the numerous recent surveys of Aegean external contacts during this period[x] have made abundantly clear that the site of Kommos has produced far more evidence for interregional contacts during the Final Palatial era than has any other single site on land in the Aegean, whether these be great palatial centers such as Mycenae, Thebes, and Knossos or, like Kommos, merely ports of entry such as Palaikastro, Poros/Katsambas, Mallia, or Asine.[xi] The only sites in the Aegean that, on present evidence, can begin to rival Kommos in terms of the number and range of imports from outside this region's boundaries are Tiryns on the Greek Mainland and Chania on Crete, at both of which the functions of palatial center and port are combined.[xii]

In striking contrast, Kommos was seemingly not a political center in the Final Palatial era, but merely a harbor town. It served the nearby center of Ayia Triadha, the site not merely of two major complexes of settlement architecture constructed during this period but also of the surely royal tomb that contained the famous Ayia Triadha sarcophagus.[xiii] During the period ca. 1370 - 1250/1225 B.C., between the establishment of an independent polity (in all likelihood, a kingdom[xiv]) in the western Mesara with its capital at Ayia Triadha and its principal port at Kommos on the one hand and the virtual abandonment of both sites midway through the LM IIIB ceramic phase on the other, these two sites, along with the other preeminent site in the region, Phaistos, provide an invaluable, and as of this writing unique, archaeological laboratory for the study of how materials imported from outside the Aegean were dispersed after their arrival at a Minoan port of entry.[xv]

So what sorts of extra-Aegean imports show up at Kommos during this period? Among the most important economically, but as a rule very difficult to verify through excavations of major sites on land, is metal, especially copper.[xvi] Six fragments of copper ingots have been found at Kommos, only one of which certainly dates from the Final Palatial era but all of which could and probably do.[xvii] All were sampled for analysis and have been shown to be consistent with production from Cypriot ores.[xviii]

Of much lesser economic importance to the receiving society but of perhaps equal value to the archaeologist are two three-holed anchors of Cypro-Levantine type found re-used as bases for posts in a LM IIIA2 context south of the original two galleries of the ship-storage facility christened Building P.[xix] Not only is the type of anchor non-Aegean, but analysis of the foraminifera embedded in the limestone of which the anchors are made indicates that the stone is most likely to come from Cyprus or coastal Syria. Aside from an example without provenience on display in the Mykonos Museum and a much smaller example produced from a different stone (sandstone) that is associated with the Iria wreck,[xx] these Kommian anchors are the only specimens thus far known from the Aegean of a type that is extremely popular in the Late Bronze Age Levant and Cyprus at sites such as Ugarit, Athlit, Kition, Hala Sultan Tekke, and Maroni Tsarroukas.[xxi] Their use at Kommos as bases for a makeshift colonnade is striking, inasmuch as anchors of this sort are often found re-used as building material both in Syria and on Cyprus.[xxii] They imply, although certainly do not prove, the presence of either Cypriot or Syrian ships at Kommos in the 14th century B.C. Their use as architectural members may conceivably even reflect Levantine collaboration in the construction of some of the harbor facilities there.[xxiii]

Kommos has not produced any of the Mitannian "Common Style" seals in faïence or frit, North Syrian or Cypriot faïence vessels, Old as well as New Kingdom Egyptian stone vases, or North Syrian and Egyptian ivories that have been recovered from LM III contexts at both coastal (Nea Alikarnassos, Amnisos, Poros/Katsamba, Chania) and inland (Armenoi, Ayia Triadha, Kalyvia, Knossos) sites on Crete, and only one possible fragment of an Egyptian 18th Dynasty glass vessel has so far been recovered at the site.[xxiv] But this is hardly surprising, since the vast majority of such finds come from tombs and the LM III cemetery at Kommos has yet to be located.[xxv] What is significant about these categories of foreign imports is that they show clearly how commonly exotic objects from abroad were forwarded inland from their points of entry at the coast and how frequently such items were deposited as grave goods. By contrast, the large quantities of imported ceramics so far identified at Kommos do not appear to have represented a class of object that was valued enough to be transported inland, much less deposited in tombs. The handsomely decorated tablewares from Cyprus found in substantial numbers at Kommos (Table 1) are not attested at either Ayia Triadha or Phaistos, nor are the numerous Cypriot pithoi in which such fragile tablewares were probably shipped.[xxvi] This pattern may be true in other regions of Crete as well, though the numbers of examples so far known are small. For example, White Slip II milkbowls have been found in LM III contexts at Poros/Katsambas and Chania, but have yet to be published from settlements further inland.[xxvii] No imported Cypriot tablewares have to my knowledge been reported from LM III tombs. How different this situation is from the dispersal of Mycenaean and Minoan tablewares on Cyprus, where huge quantities of such imports are transported inland and deposited in large numbers in tombs.[xxviii] Nor have undecorated Cypriot utilitarian vessels in the form of fragments of ordinary Plain White jugs and kraters been identified at any Minoan site other than Kommos.[xxix]

Fragments of over fifty Canaanite (Table 2) and almost three dozen Egyptian (Table 3) jars have been found at Kommos, but once again not one fragment of such a vessel has been discovered at either Ayia Triadha or Phaistos.[xxx] As in the case of the Cypriot tablewares, these Levantine vessels used for the transport of liquid and other produce in bulk[xxxi] turn up at Minoan coastal emporia such as Chania and Poros/Katsambas, but are not dispersed from there to inland centers.[xxxii] How different the situation is on the Greek Mainland, where Canaanite jars are found at sites on the interior (e.g. Athens, Menidi, Tsoungiza) from the LH IIB phase onward and where vessels of this type are much more commonly deposited in tombs, presumably as prestige objects.[xxxiii] The chronological distribution of these Near Eastern jars at Kommos is a bit surprising. The earliest round-bodied jars of Egyptian type may appear as early as the beginning of the LM IB period, and are certainly common from the LM II period onwards. The more angular Canaanite jars seemingly made their debut in the Mesara no earlier than the LM IIIA1 period, although examples of Neopalatial date are known from Akrotiri on Thera, as well as from a chamber tomb at Poros, the palace at Kato Zakro, and probably also the settlement on the islet of Pseira.[xxxiv] The apparent opening up of the Mesara initially to Egyptian rather than Levantine imports in bulk is presumably simply a consequence of that region's geographic position on Crete and the location of its major port in the middle of the south coast. But this circumstance does suggest that Kommos' principal trading partners may have been somewhat different from those who were carrying goods to the ports of eastern and northeastern Crete.

Aside from these two varieties, a third important class of transport vessel commonly found at Kommos, particularly in deposits of the Mono-Palatial era but also in the Final Palatial period, consists of reddish-brown burnished wheelmade jars (Table 4). Although we as yet have no idea where in the Mediterranean such vases may be at home between the later 15th and the 13th centuries B.C., we have been able to use the fragments from no less than sixteen different examples to produce reconstructions of what we think the largest and smallest examples probably looked like (Figs. 1-2).[xxxv] The absence to date of any handle fragments that can be associated with these jars suggests to us that these vases may simply not have had handles.

In contrast to the numerous terracotta vessels from Cyprus, Syria-Palestine, and Egypt, almost no Anatolian ceramic imports have been identified at Kommos. Apart from one bowl and one flask from Neopalatial contexts, pottery fragments suspected of being Anatolian consist of just two pieces of very hard-fired, slipped-and-burnished bowls from 13th century B.C. contexts (Table 4).[xxxvi] Though few in number, these pieces are nevertheless of considerable interest. First of all, they are the only presently recognized ceramic imports from Anatolia to have been found anywhere in the Aegean west of the Dodecanese and the other eastern Aegean islands lying immediately off the west coast of modern Turkey.[xxxvii] And secondly, in their physical appearance they strongly resemble Hittite pottery - that is, they belong not to the gray and tan wares characteristic of the western Anatolian coastal regions during the Late Bronze Age, but rather to the red-slipped wares typical of the Anatolian interior.[xxxviii]

Not all of the imports to Kommos from outside the Aegean come from the east. As Watrous has made clear, imports from Italy fall into two typologically and chronologically discrete groups: first, a series of thin-walled, black-surfaced, and very highly burnished open vessels which have distinctively shaped boss-like bases ["omphalos bases"]; and second, a somewhat broader range of vessel types comprising two kinds of jars (collar-necked and swollen-lipped) and two kinds of bowls (lipless and sloping-lipped) that Watrous is surely correct in interpreting as lids for the jars (Table 5).[xxxix] The first group dates from the end of the 15th century, lacks any particularly close parallels, and consequently cannot yet be assigned to any more narrowly defined source than "Italy".[xl] The omphalos-based cups or bowls of this group are much too early in date to merit further discussion here. But the second group of jars and bowls appears to date exclusively from LM IIIB. Indeed, the majority of examples come, as noted by Watrous, from contexts that represent the final large-scale occupation of the site during the Bronze Age.[xli] Watrous justifiably saw in these combinations of jars and lids another approach to long-distance transport using ceramic containers and he made a very solid case for their identification as Sardinian.[xlii] But his suggestion that ceramic vessels such as these were used to ship scrap metal seems inherently improbable, since it is unclear why lids would have been desirable for this purpose, and in any case organic containers like baskets would surely have been better suited for the long-distance transport of irregularly shaped and often heavy pieces of metal.[xliii] It is more likely that these lidded Sardinian jars, like their functional analogues from Egypt and Syria-Palestine,[xliv] not to mention the reddish-brown burnished jars I mentioned earlier whose home is still unknown to us, contained organic produce of some kind.

Two last categories of non-Minoan ceramic imports into Kommos are worth mentioning briefly, not so much for their exotic nature as for the interesting comparisons and contrasts they offer with the various groups of foreign containers already surveyed. The first consists of Mycenaean pottery, all of which takes the form of finely decorated tablewares that dribbled into the site in modest amounts and without any significant breaks from the final phase of the LM IA period onwards (Table 6). The later 14th and 13th century B.C. Mycenaean imports consist of both open and closed shapes, including a small fragment of an amphoroid krater decorated with a chariot scene, a very rare find on Crete.[xlv] There is no evidence from Kommos for the importing during any stage of the Late Bronze Age of either more utilitarian unpainted wares or cooking pottery from the Mycenaean Mainland. From the contemporary Cyclades, on the other hand, come several dark-surfaced, highly micaceous pithoi (Table 7), seemingly all datable to the 13th century.[xlvi] Large closed vases with micaceous fabrics that may come from the Cyclades, whether linear or patterned, appear to be a phenomenon of the Mono-Palatial era at Kommos, as are at least two Cycladic White jars (Table 7). Occasional heavily micaceous cooking vessels that likewise may originate in the islands turn up in Kommian contexts throughout the Late Bronze Age (Table 7).[xlvii]

As thus far revealed by excavation, the Bronze Age town of Kommos in the Final Palatial period may be neatly subdivided into two functionally distinct zones.[xlviii] The northern and higher areas of the site, known as the Hilltop and the Central Hillside, are residential districts that were occupied by what may reasonably be described as "ordinary" rather than "affluent" inhabitants. The southernmost and lowest part of the site, to the south of a handsomely paved east-west road that may have led from the harbor town all the way to the capital of Ayia Triadha, was home to two monumental structures that represent rebuildings of two large segments of the underlying court-centered complex of Neopalatial date known as Building T. Over T's east wing were built the six great galleries of the ship-storage facility known as Building P; and over parts of T's north and west wings were constructed the various rooms of Building N, possibly the administrative headquarters from which Kommos' port facilities were supervised.[xlix] It is therefore possible to break down the imports into Final Palatial Kommos according to whether they come from private domestic contexts on the hill as opposed to findspots in the monumental, presumably either royal or public buildings south of the road. Moreover, within the royal or public sector one can distinguish between an administrative but nevertheless residential structure (Building N), the shipsheds (Building P), and the very large court open to the south and west which lay in the angle between them.[l]

Space considerations preclude a detailed review of the evidence here, but a few quick implications of the data are worth noting.[li] First, half of the known copper ingot fragments come from the Central Hillside, half from Building N. That is, access to this imported metal does not appear to have been restricted, and metalworking was an activity that could take place in a residential context and was not confined to specialized industrial establishments.[lii] Second, imported tablewares in Final Palatial contexts, whether Cypriot or Mycenaean, and imported pithoi, whether Cypriot or Cycladic, are quite evenly distributed from one end of the site to the other (Tables 1, 6-7). Egyptian, Canaanite, and reddish-brown burnished jars, on the other hand, are distinctly more common in the southern sector, closer to where they would have been offloaded (Tables 2-4).[liii] They are also far more common in strata of the Mono-Palatial period than in Final Palatial contexts, thus implying that the importation of bulk organic produce in such vessels was brisker when Knossos ruled unchallenged over most of the island than in the subsequent poly-palatial era.[liv] Third, the Sardinian dark-burnished jars and lids were evidently introduced only well after the Final Palatial period had begun.[lv] Unlike the other transport vessels which are richly, albeit very fragmentarily, represented in and around the shipsheds, the Sardinian jars occur only in residential contexts, whether on the Hilltop and Central Hillside or in Building N south of the road (Table 5).[lvi] In other words, this western form of imported transport vessel differs from the eastern varieties both in terms of when it was popular and where within the settlement it was distributed. Finally, although their numbers are tiny, the few Anatolian imports resemble the Sardinian jars in being restricted to Final Palatial and ordinary residential contexts (Table 4).

Given the amount of foreign material pouring into Kommos in the Mono-Palatial and Final Palatial eras, one may reasonably inquire as to what was being shipped out of the site. There is unfortunately not much relevant evidence from Kommos for the Mono-Palatial period of LM II - IIIA2 Early, although some Linear B tablets from Knossos make clear that very impressive quantities of grain were produced and stored in the Mesara at this time, possibly to be exported.[lvii] During the Final Palatial period of LM IIIA2 through mid-LM IIIB, a novel form of transport container, known as the short-necked amphora (or SNA), was produced in huge quantities either at or in the immediate vicinity of Kommos (Figs. 3-4). I have argued elsewhere that this distinctive shape was purposefully designed to rival the Canaanite jar of Cyprus and the Levant and the transport stirrup jar of north-central and western Crete as a reusable container in the intense interregional commerce of the later 14th and 13th centuries B.C. in the eastern Mediterranean.[lviii] Its shape was intended to recall that of the oval-mouthed amphora, which had been the principal transport vessel of the Protopalatial and earlier Neopalatial Mesara. But like much of the monumental architecture of the Final Palatial Mesara, the short-necked amphora was also designed, at least initially, to be both a morphological and decorative hybrid: just as the monumental buildings of Final Palatial date at Ayia Triadha represent an unprecedented blending of Minoan and Mycenaean elements, so is the short-necked amphora of Kommos a novel combination of the oval-mouthed amphora, the Canaanite jar, and the transport stirrup jar decorated with an octopus or simply with stylized tentacles, Thanks to their wide necks, the Kommian amphoras could have carried either liquids or solids. Oil and wine were probably shipped in most, but the only commodity we can presently sure was transported in them is haematite, or red ocher, because this substance has left clear stains on many amphora interiors. These two instances of the creative fusion of once discrete forms of material culture, one from the domain of architecture and one from that of ceramics, speak eloquently across the centuries of how the Mesara reacted to the independence restored to it by the destruction of Knossos ca. 1375 B.C.[lix]

Who were the principal carriers of tradegoods brought into and shipped out of Kommos in the Final Palatial period? Certainty on this point in the present state of our knowledge is, of course, impossible, but a fairly strong case can, I believe, be made that most of the ships conducting interregional trade in and out of Kommos were Cypriot.[lx] Cypriot imports have a longer history in the Kommian material record than do imports from any other region, including the Greek Mainland and perhaps even the Aegean islands: certainly attested as early as Middle Minoan IIB, they may begin even earlier.[lxi] In addition, Cypriot imports span a wider range of functions (from tablewares to bulk containers to simple utilitarian pottery) and materials (copper ingots and possibly stone anchors as well as ceramic containers). Cypriot traders are likely to have been present in every region beyond the Aegean from which Kommos received imports, from Egypt through the Levant to Cilicia, then through the central Aegean to Sardinia in the far west; they alone could therefore have been responsible for delivering Kommos' unusually wide range of imports to this single location. The Late Bronze Age shipwrecks so far excavated in and immediately adjacent to the Aegean - Iria, Ulu Burun, and Gelidonya - all contained large amounts of cargo originating in Cyprus and could well all have been Cypriot. Finally, essentially no foreign imports except for Mycenaean containers of perfumed oil and Near Eastern luxury items like cylinder seals, carved ivories, and vessels made of exotic stones, faïence, and glass percolate from Minoan ports of entry into the interior, in dramatic contrast with the situation on contemporary Cyprus. If the traffic in foreign staples and basic manufactured goods had been in the hands of the Minoans, wouldn't more foreign tableware and containers have ended up at sites on the interior of Crete?

I am extremely grateful to the following friends and colleagues for profitable intellectual exchanges concerning many of the issues raised in this paper, as well as for helpful critiques of earlier drafts and numerous suggestions for improvement: J. F. Cherry, A. L. D'Agata, E. H. Cline, F. De Mita, A. B. Knapp, S. W. Manning, L. Preston, J. W. Shaw, M. C. Shaw, A. Van de Moortel, and M. H. Wiener. They share none of the responsibility, however, for whatever failings the paper may still exhibit.

Special thanks are due to E. H. Cline for sharing the contents of his paper entitled "The Nature of the Economic Relations of Crete with Egypt and the Near East during the Late Bronze Age" prior to its publication. Since I first saw his paper only after my own had already been presented orally and was almost on the point of being submitted in written form for publication, the two may be viewed as largely independent assessments of the data currently available. The numerous points of agreement are thus all the more striking, while the occasional areas of disagreement indicate clearly enough which problems require additonal data or merit further research.

For recent discussions of the LM IIIA2 destruction at Knossos and its impact, see Niemeier 1985; Doxey 1987; Bennet 1987b, esp. 311; Hallager 1988a, esp. 15-17 and table 1; Haskell 1989; Shelmerdine 1992; Haskell 1997a; Popham 1997; Rethemiotakis 1997. In their recent review of the Neopalatial, Final Palatial, and Postpalatial eras on Crete, Rehak and Younger embrace the term "Final Palatial", the equivalent to what Dickinson [1994, 13, fig. 1.2] terms "Third Palace Period". Both of these latter appraoches fail to make the important distinction between LM II-IIIA1 (when Knossos appears to have been the only functioning palatial center on Crete) and the ensuing LM IIIA2 through mid-IIIB phase (during which most scholars are confident that the island was divided into several smaller but seemingly independent political entities with their capitals at sites such as Ayia Triadha, Chania, and Tylissos [e.g. Hallager 1987; Shelmerdine 1992]). Shelmerdine has argued persuasively that the Knossian destruction marks a major turning point in patterns of settlement throughout the island (1992, 572-577, 585-590). Note that the latest fieldwork and analysis of the finds at Kommos has demonstrated that a major period of building activity at this site during LM IIIA2 (and not LM IIIA1) now conforms in date with those observed at Chania, Ayia Triadha, Tylissos, Knossos, and Malia, so that Kommos no longer appears to be as out of step with developments elsewhere, as Shelmerdine thought might be the case (1992, 574, 576-577).

Notes

[i]The groundbreaking work of L. V. Watrous on foreign ceramic imports into Kommos (1985; 1989; 1992, 149-183) has set the stage for all of my own work on this material over the past five years, as a glance at Tables 1-7 will make abundantly clear. Our occasional disagreements over the identifications of individual fragments [e.g. as noted in Tables 1, 5, 6, and 7] do not significantly alter the principal patterns in Kommos' external relations to which Watrous has drawn attention (1992, 173-183).

[ii]Bennet 1985; 1990, 208-211. Eastern Crete appears to have lain outside of Knossos' sphere of interest and control during this period, to judge both from the Linear B texts found at Knossos and from the material culture of the eastern part of the island (Bennet 1987b; MacGillivray 1997a; 1997b). Shelmerdine has nevertheless presented some interesting arguments in favor of identifying a major change in settlement organization at Palaikastro at the time of Knossos' destruction early in LM IIIA2 (1992, 575).

[iii]Bennet 1987a, 311; Hallager 1988a, 15-16. As J. W. Shaw has kindly reminded me, one should in this context keep in mind that no significant portions of the palace at Knossos were actually constructed in LM III times. That is, the Knossian palace of the later 15th and early 14th centuries B.C. is a Neopalatial facility that was, in effect, being re-used during this Mono-Palatial era. We are often less well-informed about the nature of this re-use than we are about how the original structure functioned in Neopalatial times. Moreover, no thorough investigation of how the workings of this enormous architectural complex varied from Neopalatial to Mono-Palatial to Final Palatial times has to my knowledge yet been published.

[iv]The ceramic date for this destruction was presented in detail by Popham almost three decades ago (1970) and has been recently reaffirmed (1997). A contemporary destruction horizon has been reported in Knossos' harbor-town of Poros (Rethemiotakis 1997, 52 and note 102). Cline (1994, 10-11; n.d.) has drawn attention to the significance of this destruction horizon for the history of Crete's external contacts.

[v]As has been made abundantly clear by Kilian-Dirlmeier 1985. I am very grateful to L. Preston for stimulating discussion on this as well as other aspects of LM burial customs.

[vi]For the Warrior Graves as a phenomenon, see the treatments in Pini 1968, esp. 41-46; Popham, Catling, and Catling 1974 [to whom credit is due for the alternative label of "Burials with Bronzes"]; Matthäus 1983; Driessen and MacDonald 1984; Kilian-Dirlmeier 1985; Kallitsaki 1997. A helpful recent review is provided by Löwe (1996, 52-60) who, however, includes all Neopalatial, Mono-Palatial, Final Palatial, and Post-Palatial graves with weapons under the single heading of "Warrior Graves".

[vii]Kanta 1980, 288-290. For a recent sampling of opinions on the growing regionalism that characterizes Final Palatial as well as Post-Palatial Minoan ceramics, see the papers in Hallager and Hallager 1997.

[viii]Hayden 1981, 1984, 1987; Shelmerdine 1992, 573-577, 585-587; Shaw and Shaw 1993; La Rosa 1992, 1997; Cucuzza 1997.

ix I should like to acknowledge the great debt I owe to the directors of the Kommos Excavations, Professors Maria and Joseph Shaw, as well as to my collaborator in the study of the prehistoric pottery from the site, Dr. Aleydis Van de Moortel, for past and continuing instruction on virtually all aspects of Minoan culture. It is a pleasure to acknowledge also the easy-going collegiality of the Minoanists working at Ayia Triadha and Phaistos over the past decade. Professors Vincenzo La Rosa and Fillipo Carinci, and Drs. Nicola Cucuzza, Anna Lucia D'Agata, Pietro Militello, and Orazio Palio have been extremely kind and generous in sharing knowledge not only about their most recent finds but also concerning all aspects of the extremely complex sites at which they work.

[x]Lambrou-Philippson 1990; Cline 1994; Knapp and Cherry 1994. An indication of how quickly the basic data base on which we all rely can change is the fact that Yannai 1983, written in the earlier 1980's, makes no mention whatsoever of Kommos.

[xi]Cline 1994, 276-277 table 70. For the significance of Kommos as a port, see Knapp and Cherry (1994, 138-141) who conclude their review of the site as follows: "Kommos must be recognized as a significant seaport in Bronze Age Mediterranean trade, one that should take its place alongside Ugarit, Enkomi, Marsa Matruh, Termitito, Thapsos, or Nuraghe Antigori. Like those ports, it is suggested here that Kommos enjoyed an independent existence, at least from LM I onwards." Insofar as the Final Palatial period is concerned, it is inconceivable to me that Kommos could have acted independently of nearby Ayia Triadha. I am inclined to see in Ayia Triadha and Kommos a pairing of interior capital and nearby coastal emporion comparable to Ras Shamra and Minet el-Beida in Syria, Pylos and its port in the southwestern Peloponnese, or for that matter Knossos and Poros/Katsamba on Crete's north coast. For Kommos and Tiryns as Aegean "gateway communities" which exhibit distinctly different arrays of Near Eastern imports from those typical of inland centers such as Knossos and Mycenae, see Cline 1994, 87; n.d.

[xii]See Pålsson Hallager 1983, 1985, 1993 for imports from Chania, Kilian 1988, 122-123 fig. 4, 127 on imports to Tiryns. Cline's recent list of imports by site makes the task of evaluating which sites in the Aegean played leading roles in interregional exchanges far simpler than heretofore (1994, 276-277 table 70).

[xiii]For the sarcophagus itself, the standard work is still Long 1974, to be supplemented by Immerwahr 1990, 100-103, 180-181, Löwe 1996, 23-41, and Rehak and Younger 1998, 155 with notes 441-442. The tomb (Pini 1968, 51, fig. 112; Löwe 1996, 172 Cat. No. 362) was re-exposed in 1997 by V. La Rosa and his team, and its date of construction has now been pinpointed thanks to the discovery of mendable pottery found in a previously unexcavated foundation trench along the structure's east side. I am very grateful to V. La Rosa for guiding me around his excavations at Ayia Triadha during the summer of 1997.

[xiv]For the argument that the states of LM IIIB Crete must have included at least one kingdom because of the use of the word WA-NA-KA-TE-RO on the inscribed stirrup jars, see Hallager 1987, 182-183, 185. Note that an independent LM III kingdom in the western Mesara appears to have been established either at the same time as or very shortly after the great destruction of Knossos by fire early in LM IIIA2.

[xv]For the issue of how imports were dispersed from ports of entry to their hinterlands, see most recently Manning and De Mita 1997. Other major coastal sites on Crete either lack a nearby excavated center on the interior to which they might have forwarded the foreign goods offloaded at them (e.g. Palaikastro, Gournia, Malia, Chania) or else have been heavily eroded and therefore have preserved only outlying districts to be excavated (the case of Poros-Katsamba: Dimopoulou 1997). For discussion of gateway communities with particular reference to Crete, see Cline 1994, 87.

[xvi]For literature of the past decade on the Late Bronze Age traffic in metal ingots in the eastern Mediterranean, see Muhly, Maddin, and Stech 1988; Stos-Gale 1988; 1989; Knapp 1990; Gale 1991b; Borgna 1995; Budd, Pollard, Scaife, and Thomas 1995; Stos-Gale, Maliotis, Gale, and Annetts 1997. For a fairly recent review of the literature on provenience analyses of metals, see Knapp and Cherry 1994, 96-121.

[xvii]Blitzer 1995, 500-501 M1-M6, 527-530. The pieces M1, M4, and M5 comes from three LM IIIA2 deposits oon the Central Hillside [Watrous 1992, Deposits 43, 47, and 44 respectively]. The remaining three (M2, M3, and M6) were found in advanced LM IIIB contexts in and around the eastern room of Building N [contemporary with Watrous 1992, 76-78, Deposit 77].

[xviii]Muhly, Maddin, and Stech 1988, 291-292. See now Stos-Gale, Maliotis, Gale, and Annetts 1997. For assistance with how the source of the copper represented by the Kommian ingots is most accurately described, I am beholden to A. B. Knapp (cf. 1993, 335, with respect to the source of the ingots found at Cape Gelidonya and Uluburun). Half an ingot found in a LM IIIC to Subminoan context during the excavation of the Piazzale dei Sacelli at Ayia Triada in 1903 is now unfortunately lost (D'Agata n.d.). Its precise metallic composition is therefore uncertain, as, of course, is the date of its arrival at the site where it was found. Despite its late context, it could well have been imported contemporarily with the Kommian fragments during the Final Palatial era. I am very grateful to A. L. D'Agata for drawing my attention to this piece and for allowing me to mention it here in advance of the fuller presentation of it in her forthcoming monograph.

[xix]Shaw, J. W. 1995. Detailed study during 1998 of the context pottery associated with these anchors has led to a slight lowering of the date initially assigned to them, from LM IIIA1 to LM IIIA2. For other anchors at Kommos, see Shaw and Blitzer 1983. For anchors as indicators of other cultural groups in the Eastern Mediterranean, see Galili, Sharvit, and Artzy 1994 (for which reference I am grateful to A. Van de Moortel).

[xx]Pennas, Vichos, and Lolos 1996, 15-17, figs. 1, 3a.

[xxi]Shaw, J. W. 1995, 284-286; Manning and De Mita 1997, 128-129, figs. 26-27.

[xxii]Shaw, J. W. 1995, 285-286; Manning and DeMita 1997, 129.

[xxiii]The Kommian three-holed anchors could, of course, easily enough have been acquired by Minoan ships in Cypriot or Levantine ports. If is not so much their presence at Kommos as their particular usage as architectural members in Building P that suggests, at least to me, that they should be taken as indicative of some sort of actual Cypro-Levantine presence at the site. If the re-use of foreign anchors for such a purpose is so unexceptional, then why have such anchors not been found at other Aegean harbor sites, expecially those with close Cypriot or Levantine connections (e.g. Chania, Tiryns, Palaikastro, Poros/Katsambas)?

[xxiv]For a listing of such items, see the following catalogue entries in Cline 1994, no. 556 [Amnisos]; nos. 168-169 [Armenoi]; nos. 142, 743 [Ayia Triadha]; nos. 260-261, 557, 650 [Kalyvia]; nos. 491, 496-497, 742 [Katsambas]; no. 125 [Chania]; nos. 128, 153, 170, 398, 283-287, 506, 522, 561, 683, 703, 745 [Knossos]; no. 487 [Nea Alikarnassos]; no. 127 [Poros]. A number of the pieces from Knossos and Katsambas listed above come from "Burials with Bronzes" of the Mono-Palatial phase rather than from Final Palatial contexts. See also Kanta 1980, 315-316; Phillips 1991. Compare the corresponding range of items of this sort imported into Late Bronze Age Cyprus recently collected by Jacobsson (1994). The possible vessel fragment of Egyptian glass from Kommos comes from Room 4 in House X (Shaw and Shaw 1993, pl. 27c; Cline 1994, no. 784); I thank J. W. Shaw for reminding me of its existence.

[xxv]Cline (n.d.) has independently made precisely this point.

[xxvi]Cypriot tablewares make their initial appearance at Kommos in the last of the three sub-phases of LM IA identified at the site (see Table 1; for the tripartite subdivision of LM IA at Kommos, see Van de Moortel 1997, 25-28, 235-267) and continue to be imported throughout the remainder of the Neopalatial period as well as during the Mono-Palatial and Final Palatial eras. Prior to LM IA Final, Cypriot imports are thus far attested in some numbers in the form of medium coarse vessels from Protopalatial contexts, but as yet not in contemporary tablewares (Watrous 1985, 7; Van de Moortel, pers. comm.). For the transport of Cypriot tablewares during the 14th century B.C. in Cypriot pithoi, in much the same fashion that Oriental porcelain was packed in china barrels between the 18th and 20th centuries A.D., see the evidence of the Ulu Burun wreck (most recently Pulak 1997, 242-243), which was carrying Base Ring II bowls, White Slip II milkbowls, White-shaved juglets, and Bucchero juglets, and plain trefoil-mouthed jugs, lamps, and wall brackets, in addition to the pithoi, as part of its cargo. Cypriot pithoi that have been found in the central Mediterranean on both Sardinia (at Nuraghe Antigori: Ferrarese Ceruti, Vagnetti, and Lo Schiavo 1987, 17-19, fig. 2.5) and Sicily (at Cannatello: De Miro 1996, 999; Deorsola 1996, 1037, pl. VI, a; D'Agata 1997, 456) may have functioned in the same way; my thanks go to A. L. D'Agata for the references to the Cannatello example.

[xxvii]Kanta 1980, 316; Banou 1995, 649-654, fig. 1; Stambolidis and Karetsou 1998, 62-63 nos. 14-15

[xxviii]For some recent discussions of the importing of Aegean tablewares into Cyprus, see South 1995 and Manning and De Mita 1997. For the importation of Mycenaean tablewares to Crete, see Kanta 1980, 314-315; Pålsson Hallager 1993; and the discussion below of Mycenaean imports to Kommos, together with Table 6.

[xxix]On the other hand, no examples of the Cypriot wall brackets abundantly represented on the Ulu Burun wreck (Cline 1994, nos. 797-804) and at Tiryns (ibid., nos. 788-796) nor any Cypriot lamps of the sort found in quantity on the Ulu Burun wreck (Pulak 1997, 243; Cline 1994, nos. 662-677) have been identified at Kommos. A single example of a similar wall bracket was found at Mycenae over seventy years ago (Cline 1994, no. 787).

[xxx]A handful of Egyptian flask fragments have also been found at Kommos (Watrous 1992, 162-163 nos. 1541, 1961, fig. 73, pls. 54-55), the largest single example of which has recently been published by Banou (1995a, 657, fig. 4).

[xxxi]For the original contents of such jars, the information derived from the Ulu Burun wreck has been extraordinarily informative. According to the latest report (Pulak 1997, 240-241), the Canaanite jars on this ship contained olives, terebinth resin, orpiment, and glass beads. No doubt they also contained wine (Leonard 1995) and oil, and possibly also grains (Cline 1994, 95-97, 99 table 60). See also Haider 1988; 1989; Mills and White 1989; Knapp 1991; Haldane 1993.

[xxxii]For Canaanite jars from LM III contexts on Crete other than at Kommos, see Stambolidis and Karetsou 1998, 57-58 nos. 4 [= Cline 1994, 179 no. 388] and 5 (Chania). For the notion that the predominantly coastal distribution of Canaanite jars in Crete is due to the fact that their contents were decanted or otherwise repackaged at ports of entry such as Kommos prior to being dispersed to the interior, see Cline 1994, 96; n.d. The altogether different pattern of distribution of these jars on the contemporary Greek Mainland (see following note), though striking, does not necessarily invalidate Cline's explanation of their distribution on Crete.

[xxxiii]Cline 1994, 95-96 and nos. 294-295 [Athens], 296 [Argos], 297 [Asine], 298-301 [Menidi], 302-310 [Mycenae], 311-321 [Tiryns]. 322 [Tsoungiza], 323 [Pylos], and 324 [Thebes]. Cline, following Amiran, initially downplays the value of such jars in and by themselves (1994, 95), but clearly in Mainland Greek contexts they served as a potent symbol of status, as he himself goes on to point out (ibid., 96). At least two Canaanite jars recently published from Crete were parts of funerary assemblages, one from a Neopalatial tomb at Poros and the other from a LM IIIA tomb at Chania (Stambolidis and Karetsou 1998, 56 no.2 and 57-58 no.5), but the vast majority of such jars from Minoan sites have been found in settlement contexts. The reason for the prestige seemingly conferred by Canaanite jars on the Greek Mainland may possibly be connected with their having contained an alcoholic beverage, a substance to which greater value may have been attributed by the individualistic warrior ideology that seemingly prevailed in early Mycenaean culture than by the more communal orientation of Minoan palatial culture. The value of such a beverage may have been further enhanced if it was an imported, hence exotic alternative to a locally produced form of alcohol. The latter may have been of considerable value in the first instance, owing to the substance from which it was made (e.g. honey, in the case of mead). For an extended discussion of the role of alcoholic beverages in European prehistory, see Sherratt 1987 = Sherratt 1997, 376-402.

[xxxiv]Akrotiri: Cline 1994, 172 no.325; Poros tomb: Stambolidis and Karetsou 1998, 56 no.2 (found with LM IB and LM II pottery); Kato Zakro: Cline 1994, 178 nos. 385-386; Pseira: Cline 1994, 179 no. 387 = Banou 1995b, 115 ADC-65, 152-153, fig. 50, pl. 29c. The predominance and priority of Egyptian over Levantine contacts with Crete in the LM I and II periods has been commented on previously by Cline (1994, xvii; n.d.).

[xxxv]The closest external parallels for the body profile and size of these reddish-brown burnished jars that I have yet seen are those of late Middle Bronze and Late Bronze I shoulder-handled jugs from Megiddo (Amiran 1970, pls. 34:6, 46:1) and both handleless jars and shoulder-handled amphoras from Tarsus (Goldman 1956, nos. 882, 887-889, 1044), but the fabric and surface treatment of these pieces all appear to be quite different. I am extremely grateful to J. Balensi, P. Bikai, and M-H. Gates for their assistance in tracking down Near Eastern comparanda for this newly identified class of imported jars.

[xxxvi]Watrous 1992, 156, 168 nos 1058 and 1292, pls. 25, 48, 53, 57; Cline 1994, 183 no. 427 and 218-219 no. 761.

[xxxvii]Cline 1994, 68, 271 table 67.

[xxxviii]For west Anatolian gray and tan wares, see Blegen, Caskey and Rawson 1953, 35-38; Blegen, Boulter, Caskey, and Rawson 1958, 21-23. For the distribution of imported Trojan gray wares throughout the eastern Mediterranean, see Allen 1990 and Schachner 1997. For a brief introduction to Hittite pottery and how it is to be distinguished from Late Bronze Age pottery in both northwest and southwest Anatolia, with references to more detailed studies, see Macqueen 1986, 102-107. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to H. Erkanal, M. Mellink, and A. Schachner for serving as consultants on the issue of the identity of these sherds.

[xxxix]Watrous 1989; Watrous 1992, 163-168, 175, 182; Cline 1994, 79, 272-273 table 68. The only additional shape aside from jars and bowls that belongs to the second group is the round-mouthed jug, represented by a single example (Watrous 1992, 167 no. 1971, pl. 58, fig. 75). Watrous uses the Italian term dolio for the shape here described as a swollen-lipped jar.

[xl]The clay of the vessels to which the omphalos bases belong is readily distinguishable petrologically from that used for the later jars and bowls from Sardinia (Watrous, Day, and Jones n.d.). It is therefore quite likely that these two groups of "Italian" material from Kommos were produced in altogether different locations.

[xli]Watrous 1992, 182. In his original presentation of the Italian material from Kommos, Watrous assigned a substantial number of pieces to LM IIIA2 (4) and LM IIIA2-B (23) contexts. As Table 5 makes clear, there is no good reason to assign a LM IIIA2 date to any piece of Italian material yet recovered from Kommos, and particularly not to any examples of the later group identified on typological and petrographic grounds as Sardinian. The data presented in Cline's charts (1994, 82-84 tables 49-54, fig. 17 and 272-273 table 68 should be adjusted accordingly.

The pieces of wheelmade gray ware from Kommos which Watrous lists under the heading of imports from Italy are in my opinion unlikely to have anything to do with Italy (contra Kilian 1988, 133). They are best viewed as imitations in ceramic of stone (most likely serpentine) vessels, a tradition which has a long history on Crete (e.g. Rutter 1979; Tsipopoulou and Vagnetti 1994) for both small open shapes (shallow cups and bowls) and diminutive closed ones (juglets, piriform jars, alabastra). Half-a-dozen examples of such vases have now been inventoried at Kommos, from contexts of several different dates, although most examples may be assigned with some confidence to LM IIIA (Table 5).

[xlii]Watrous 1992, 163, 182. A Sardinian provenience is supported by the petrological work done by P. M. Day on the fabrics of these jars and bowls. This Sardinian material from Kommos thus appears to be substantially different in functional terms from the Italian ceramic material recovered at Chania, which B. Pålsson Hallager has interpreted as evidence for a resident Italian population group at the site (1983, 1985; note the cautionary remarks of Vagnetti 1985 on this subject).

[xliii]Watrous 1992, 182, followed by Cline 1994, 79. I am grateful to J. W. Shaw for useful discussion of this issue. That such jars may have been used as storage containers for scrap metal in stationary contexts does not by any means prove that they were equally well suited to serve as shipping containers for such material.

[xliv]It is worth noting, in passing, that the mouths of these Near Eastern jars would also have been covered, but the mode of doing so was quite different (see, for Egyptian jars, Wood 1987), as was the mode of covering the spouts of transport stirrup jars in the Aegean (for which see Tournavitou 1995, 79-81, pls. 11b-d, 12a).

[xlv]The most detailed treatment of this ceramic type is Morris 1989, which I have unfortunately not been able to consult. For the rarity of Mycenaean pictorial kraters on Crete, see Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982, 41. The only other example dating from the Final Palatial era known to me comes from a tomb of uncertain type near Souda Bay (Kanta 1980, 236; Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982, 201 V.19) and, though decorated with a chariot scene like the piece from Kommos, is a LH IIIB bell krater (FS 281) rather than an amphoroid krater; it has been on permanent display for many years now in the Chania Museum (Inv. No. 812).

[xlvi]A fully restorable example of such a pithos comes from Archives Room 7 in the palace at Pylos (Blegen and Rawson 1966, 394 shape 55, fig. 381), a context now persuasively dated to the very beginning of the LH IIIC period (Mountjoy 1997). A. L. D'Agata kindly informs me that several fragments of similar pithoi have been found in LM IIIA2 contexts at Ayia Triadha.

[xlvii]Fragments of markedly micaceous cooking dishes or pans also occur in Protopalatial contexts in the building fills associated with Building AA (Van de Moortel pers. comm.), the monumental predecessor of the court-centered Neopalatial Building T that appears to have had much the same plan (see Shaw and Shaw 1993, 168-170, 178, 185, fig. 10a-b for the early stages of its exposure).

[xlviii]For a detailed analysis of the town of Kommos in the Bronze Age, see Shaw, J. W. 1996a, 1-8; 1996b, 392-398; Shaw M. C. 1996, 360-363. For a report on the most recent fieldwork at the site through the end of the 1992 season, see Shaw and Shaw 1993. For a review composed in 1991 of Kommos during the Mono-Palatial era, see Shaw and Shaw 1997.

[xlix]In between the northern and southern sectors of the site as so far excavated and lying just north of the east-west road, immediately northwest of where that road intersects a paved north-south road, is the building named House X. Constructed in early Neopalatial times as a well-to-do residence, this building appears to have been largely, perhaps even entirely, converted into a town shrine during the Mono-Palatial era (LM II - IIIA2 Early), after which it appears to have undergone yet another major remodelling. Its terminal period of use, during the Final Palatial era, is poorly documented, since the uppermost prehistoric levels here were to a large extent re-used in the seventh century B.C. The foreign imports from House X (Tables 1-4, 6) thus belong almost exclusively to the Neopalatial and Mono-Palatial periods, and for this reason this portion of the site is omitted from further discussion in this paper. For a detailed preliminary report on House X, see M. C. Shaw in Shaw and Shaw 1993, 131-161.

[l]In the Neopalatial period, and possibly even in Mono-Palatial times, the court would have been bounded on the west and south by the respective wings of the palatial Building T. But after the construction of Building P at the beginning of the Final Palatial era, the west wing had certainly been either destroyed by the sea or purposefully demolished in order to provide ready access from the beach to P's galleries. The original south wall of Building T had by this time been dismantled down to just above its original foundations.

[li]In a paper delivered in May 1997, a little more than a year before the data presented here in Tables 1-7 was most recently updated, J. W. Shaw (n.d.) has a number of interesting observations to make with regard to the spatial distributions of imported pottery found at Kommos.

[lii]For a diachronic study of metallurgy at Kommos, with special emphasis on the decentralization of this activity in the later Neopalatial period, see Blitzer 1995, 500-520 and especially 526-532.

[liii]This intrasite distribution of foreign transport jars might be viewed as supporting Cline's theory that the contents of such jars were decanted prior to being distributed inland (see note 32 above). On the other hand, the only complete Canaanite or Egyptian jars so far recovered at Kommos were found in storerroms [Rooms X4 and X5] adjacent to the shrine (Room X7] in House X (Table 2) rather than in the shipshed-cum-warehouse that is Building P.

[liv]Watrous 1992, 175, 181-182; Cline 1994, 11, 96; n.d. It is, however, something of an exaggeration to describe either Canaanite or Cypriot vases as "rare" during Final Palatial times (Watrous 1992, 182; cf. Tables 1-3 here). No reddish-brown burnished jars whatsoever appear to have been recognized in contexts on the Hilltop or Central Hillside. The three more or less fully preserved Canaanite jars found at the site all come from the LM IIIA2 Early abandonment horizon of the public shrine in House X and presumably contained perishables that were either used or at least stored in that facility; two of these have already been published (Watrous 1992, no. 1951, pl. 53, fig. 72 = Banou 1995a, 654 no. 7061, fig. 2 = Stambolidis and Karetsou 1998, 57 no. 3; Banou 1995a, 655 no. 8069, fig. 3).

[lv]The point worth noting here is that a significant amount of time appears to have elapsed between the decline in the numbers of Near Eastern jars arriving at Kommos and the appearance of Sardinian jars. Thus to connect the two in some kind of cause-and-effect relationship (e.g. Watrous 1992, 182; Cline 1994, xvii, 11, 79-80; n.d.) may be to oversimplify what is a far more complex situation. In addition, previous authorities have tended to view the Levantine, Egyptian, and Sardinian imports to Kommos as the result of Minoan maritime enterprise, whereas it seems equally possible that non-Minoan carriers (e.g. Cypriots; see text below) may have been responsible for the actual overseas transport of the vessels in question.

[lvi]The numbers of bowl correspond remarkably closely to the numbers of jars in individual contexts, further supporting Watrous' identification of the bowls as lids.

[lvii]Over 10,000 units of grain (estimated to have weighed more than 800 tons, or enough to feed over 4000 persons for a year) are recorded on tablet KN F 852 next to the site of DA-WO, considered by most authorities to have been a site within the Mesara (Chadwick 1976, 117-118; Bennet 1985, 247; 1990, 210). Bennet (1985, 247) suggests that this enormous quantity of grain, if not redistributed within Crete, might well have been traded overseas. For the names of the sites of Phaistos, Ayia Triadha, and Kommos in the "age of Linear B", see Bennet 1985, 247; Shelmerdine 1992, 580-581; McArthur 1993; Cucuzza n.d.

[lviii]Rutter n.d. A program of petrological and chemical analysis incorporating samples from a substantial number of these jars was launched in 1998 by P. M. Day, V. Kilikoglou, and J. B. Rutter in an effort to establish on physico-chemical as well as stylistic grounds that they were produced in the western Mesara.

[lix]Other examples of such creative fusion at this time include the Ayia Triadha sarcophagus, long recognized as an amalgam of formerly discrete Minoan and Mycenaean traditions in funerary ideology and representational art, and also the wallpainting style represented by the surviving LM III frescoes from Ayia Triadha, soon to be published by P. Militello. A rather different interpretation of the significance of the hybridization process, as this is manifested in the large megaroid Building ABCD at Ayia Triadha, is provided by Hayden 1987, 213-218.

[lx]The issues being addressed in this paragraph are essentially twofold: first, should we imagine that the carriers responsible for the presence of non-Minoan goods at Kommos were as heterogeneous as the range of the imports themselves? and second, to what degree do we wish to credit Minoan maritime enterprise for the quantity and range of these foreign imports? To say that most of the ships that brought foreign goods to Kommos were Cypriot is most decidedly not the same thing as claiming that eastern Mediterranean trade in general was dominated by Cypriot carriers. Moreover, even with respect to Kommos in particular, a substantial amount of the cargoes both entering and leaving the harbor must have travelled in Minoan bottoms, for otherwise Building P, on the assumption that it is correctly identified as a ship-storage facility, would hardly have been necessary.

The surveys by Knapp (1993) and Cline (1994), and more fully by Knapp and Cherry (1994, 123-155), of the various theories concerning the nature of eastern Mediterranean interregional trade and who, if anyone, was the dominant ethnic group in this activity makes abundantly clear how little agreement there has been among the principal authorities on this subject. Significantly, although the Cypriots have often been identified as important participants in the trade in metals, and particularly during the 13th century B.C. when various modes of physico-chemical analysis have identified ingots for the first time consistent with Cypriot ore compositions (e.g. Muhly, Madden, and Stech 1988, 291-292), Cypriots have rarely been argued to have been the major carriers in the traffic in raw materials and manufactured goods (e.g. Knapp and Cherry 1994, 128-134; the viewpoint expressed in Muhly, Madden, and Stech 1988 is an exception in this respect). For Cypriot interaction with the Aegean specifically, see most recently Graziadio 1995.

[lxi]Such imports of Protopalatial date from outside the Aegean that had been identified at Kommos prior to May 1997 are briefly reviewed and assessed in Shaw J. W. n.d.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

reproduced, by permission, from:
The Point Iria Wreck: Interconnections in the Mediterranean ca. 1200 BC Proceedings of the International Conference. Island of Spetses, 19 September 1998. Ed. William Phelps, Yannos Lolos, Yannis Vichos. Athens 1999. Pp. 268. ISBN 960-86282-1-0

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