Minoan palaces
Minoan palaces were massive building complexes built on Crete during the Bronze Age. They are often considered emblematic of the Minoan civilization and are modern tourist destinations. Archaeologists and the UNESCO World Heritage generally recognize six structures as palaces, namely those at Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, Zominthos, Zakros and Kydonia. Minoan palaces consisted of multistory wings surrounding an open rectangular central court. They shared a common architectural vocabulary and organization, including distinctive room types such as the lustral basin and the pillar crypt. However, each palace was unique, and their appearances changed dramatically as they were continually remodeled throughout their lifespans.
The palaces' function is a topic of continuing debate in Minoan archaeology. Despite the modern term "palace", it is generally agreed that they did not primarily serve as royal residences. They are known to have contained shrines, open areas for communal festivals, industrial workshops, as well as storage magazines for large agricultural surpluses. Archives of Linear A and Linear B tablets suggest that they served in part as local administrative centers.
The first palaces were constructed around 1900 BC, as the culmination of longer-term social and architectural trends. These initial palaces were destroyed by earthquakes around 1700 BC but were rebuilt on a grander scale, with new palaces appearing at other sites. Around 1450 BC, a wave of violent destructions destroyed all of the palaces except for Knossos, which was itself destroyed roughly a century later.
Definition and terminology
The term "palace" was introduced by Arthur Evans, who had interpreted Knossos as the residence of a "Priest-King". The term has generally been retained despite subsequent researchers largely rejecting Evans's interpretation. However, alternative terms have been proposed including “court building” and “court-centered building”, which characterize the buildings in terms of their form while remaining neutral as to their function. Numerous other terms from Minoan archaeology carry similar caveats. For instance, the term "Lustral Basin" is often used to refer to a particular architectural feature even by scholars who do not regard them as having been used for lustration.Architecture
The defining feature of a Minoan palace is its arrangement of multistory wings around a rectangular central court. Beyond that, the palaces shared a further common architectural vocabulary of room types, ornamentation styles, and shared tendencies in layout. Their floorplans have been described as "labyrinthine", with corridors often taking circuitous routes even between rooms which shared a wall. They share similar tendencies in organization, for instance having their main storage magazines and industrial areas in the north and northwest wings. Palaces were typically at the center of a larger settlement and are not always clearly demarcated from the rest of the town.Despite their common architectural vocabulary, each palace was distinct. For instance, while the palaces share a common overall organization, their specific floorplans are unique. Similarly, while they share the same proportions, they varied considerably in size. In the Neopalatial era, Knossos was twice as large as Malia and Phaistos, and three times as large as Galatas and Zakros. The palaces also changed dramatically over their lifespans, with many of their most familiar features only appearing in the Neopalatial era.
Central courts
Minoan palaces were organized around a rectangular central court. In each palace, the court had 2:1 proportions, with the longer side running north-south. This orientation would have maximized sunlight, and oriented important rooms in the west wing's inner facade towards the rising sun. The central courts were typically aligned with the surrounding topography, in particular with nearby sacred mountains. For instance, the palace at Phaistos is aligned with Mount Ida and Knossos is aligned with Mount Juktas. The central courts at Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia were nearly identical in area, measuring roughly 24 by 52 meters. Zakros had a smaller central court, roughly 12 by 29 meters.The central courts were used for rituals and festivals. One of these festivals is believed to be depicted in the Grandstand Fresco found at Knossos. Altars found in the courts of some palaces suggest other kinds of ritual activity. Some scholars have suggested that bull-leaping would have taken place in the courts, though others have argued that the paving would not have been optimal for the animals or the people, and that the restricted access points would have kept the spectacle too far out of public view.
West courts
The west court was a spacious public area directly outside a palace's main entrance. Unlike the central court, the west court was located outside the palace's enclosed area, and was thus easily accessible from the lower town. In the Protopalatial era, the courts were lined with raised triangular causeways and circular stone-lined pits which excavators dubbed kouloures after a circular Cretan pastry. Kouloures have been variously interpreted as granaries, cisterns, and planters for sacred trees. They were removed when the west courts were expanded in the Neopalatial period.The west courts were adjacent to the palaces' monumental west facades, which towered over them. Like their Near Eastern antecedents, the west facades were punctuated by recesses which would have enhanced the spectacle of public events, creating what is sometimes referred to as a "window of appearances". The west courts are believed to have been used for public festivals, in contrast to the central courts where events would have included a smaller audience of elites. The Sacred Grove Fresco appears to depict such a ritual at Knossos, the west court identifiable by the causeways.
The Minoan hall
The Minoan Hall has been referred to as "the very essence of Minoan architecture". Typically found on the palaces' north sides, they consisted of a main room, a forehall, and a lightwell. The latter was separated from the main room by a series of wooden doors mounted on piers, called a pier-and-door partition. By opening or closing the doors, occupants could control light and airflow, transforming the hall into either an interior or exterior space.Few artifacts have been found in the halls themselves, leaving little evidence of the activity that went on there. However, several examples are located near tablet archives, raising the possibility that they were used as meeting places for bureaucrats.
Lustral basins
Lustral basins are small rectangular chambers sunk into the floor of the surrounding room. They are reached via a descending L-shaped staircase and are open at the top, allowing occupants to be viewed from above. Each palace had at least one lustral basin, with Phaistos having four of them.They are presumed to have been used for rituals, in particular given that at least some were decorated with religious-themed frescoes. However, their exact function is unknown. The term "lustral basin" was coined by Arthur Evans, who found unguent flasks in a lustral basin at Knossos and inferred that it had been used for anointing rituals. Subsequent researchers have interpreted them as forerunners of the classical-era adyton or as the location of an initiation ritual. An alternate hypothesis regards them as baths, though they lack drains and show no signs of water weathering.
Lustral basins were added to the palaces during the renovations that marked the beginning of the Neopalatial period. Earlier examples exist from the Protopalatial period, but only became commonplace and only took on their canonical form during the Neopalatial period. They fell out of use and were filled in during the LM IB period, simultaneous with an island-wide change in religious practice that also saw the abandonment of peak sanctuaries.
Pillar crypts
Pillar crypts were small dark rooms with one or more square pillars in the center. These pillars were often with the double axe sign, and sometimes accompanied channels or basins which may have been used for libations. They were usually located in lower levels near storage magazines, often directly below a cult room. They are sometimes interpreted as human-made analogues of sacred caves, where worship often centered around stalagmites and stalactites incised with the double axe. Like lustral basins, pillar crypts also show up in villas. However, they also show up in tombs, suggesting that their ritual use may have had some relation to the dead. As with lustral basins, these rooms fell into disuse during the LM IB period.Function
The palaces are traditionally regarded as the seats of a combined political, economic, and religious authority that presided over a redistributive economy. Thus, their development is often taken as a sign of social stratification and formation of state-level societies on Crete. While this view is still widespread among scholars, it has also been questioned. In particular, the functions of the palaces seem to have varied by time and by site, and many seemingly palatial functions also took place in other kinds of buildings. Thus, the role of the palaces in Minoan society remains a topic of scholarly debate.Writing and sealing is often taken as evidence for viewing the palaces as regional administration centers. For instance, documents from Knossos suggest that it managed large flocks of sheep in the Protopalatial era, and also appear to record transactions involving figs, olives, cereals, and other produce. Later Linear B documents record agricultural surplusses far beyond local needs for subsistence, including 960,000 liters of grain from a place called Da-wo. However, both writing and sealing predate the construction of the palaces and were never exclusive to them. For instance, there is less evidence of administrative bureaucracy at the Palace of Phaistos than at non-palatial buildings in nearby Ayia Triada. Similarly, even in eras where there is clear evidence of palace-based redistribution, there was still economic activity outside the palaces' control.
Unlike the Near Eastern buildings that influenced them, Minoan palaces were not secure fortresses, and were at least partially accessible to residents of the adjacent towns. Similarly, while Near Eastern societies had separate buildings which served as palaces and temples, Minoan architecture does not make any such obvious distinction. Some scholars have questioned whether these functions were truly grouped under one roof, or if we have somehow fundamentally misunderstood the palaces.
Similarly, they do not appear to have been the seats of kings or centralized authority. Emerging evidence suggests that palaces were primarily consumers rather than producers of many goods associated with them, such as Kamares Ware pottery, though there is limited evidence for on-site production at the palaces. A major exception is loom weights found at Knossos and Phaistos.
The palaces' courts are generally regarded as having been used for public rituals, though the nature of these rituals is unknown. One hypothesis suggests that the west courts were used for a harvest festival. This view is based largely on the interpretation of kouloures as grain repositories. However, this interpretation has been questioned on the basis that the kouloures lacked the sort of capping or lining that would have been necessary to keep the grain dry.
The palaces have extensive storage facilities which were used for agricultural commodities as well as tableware. Enormous sets of high quality tableware were stored in the palaces, often produced elsewhere. For instance, Kamares Ware found at Knossos was probably made in Mesara.