Kommos (Crete)
Κομμός | |
 Archaeological site of Kommos | |
  Kommos  Kommos (Crete) (Greece) | |
| Region | Mesara Plain, Crete |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 35°00′48″N 24°45′39″E / 35.013333°N 24.760962°E |
| Type | Harbour town, sanctuary |
| History | |
| Cultures | Minoan civilization, Mycenaean civilization, Ancient Greece |
| Satellite of | Possibly Phaistos and Agia Triada |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1976-1995 |
| Archaeologists | Joseph Shaw, Maria Shaw |
| Public access | No |
Kommos (Template:Lang-el) is an ancient archaeological site in southern Crete. During the Minoan period, it served as a harbour town for nearby Phaistos and Hagia Triada. Later on, a Classical Greek sanctuary was built over the ruins of the earlier town. The partially excavated site is located 5 km north of Matala, adjacent to Kommos Beach. It is not open to the public, but is visible from the beach.
Site description
The archaeological site of Kommos is located on the coast of the Mesara Plain, directly abutting the sea. In ancient times, Papadoplaka reef islet would have partly sheltered the town from waves and wind, though it has been substantially submerged by rising sea levels and German bombing during the Nazi occupation of Crete. The Minoan city was divided into two areas, demarcated by a broad road paved with stone slabs. The hilly northern sector was primarily a residential neighborhood, while civic buildings were constructed in the lower and flatter southern area.[1] The site is stratigraphically complex, with remains from different periods often directly on top of each other.[1][2]
Palace-style buildings
On the southern edge of the site lie the intermingled remains of a sequence of monumental buildings whose architecture parallels that of Minoan palaces. Like the palaces, they consisted of wings arranged around a rectangular central court. Among them, the Middle Minoan Building T is comparable in size to the palace at Phaistos and its facade was built from the largest ashlars used by the Minoans. Because Kommos is thought to have been administratively dependent on Phaistos and Hagia Triada, the presence of palatial architecture is a puzzle. In the words of excavator Joseph Shaw:[2](pp30–35)
Could a relatively small and architecturally unpretentious town such as Kommos have promoted and maintained such an enormous structure, or have we misunderstood the palaces? Perhaps they were not so rare nor served such large regions as is generally supposed. Or perhaps in T we see an adaptation of the palace form for commercial purposes.[2](p35)
Ship sheds
The Late Minoan Building P was built over the ruins of Building T's eastern wing, and is generally interpreted as the port's ship sheds.[1]
Post-Bronze Age sanctuary
Later ruins visible at the site include a sequence of sanctuaries. The earliest, Temple A was a small rural shrine built around 1020 BC at the then-abandoned site. It was then replaced by Temple B, characterized by the presence of an outdoor altar, constructed on the same site. The latest temple was Temple C, a more ambitious construction, started around 750 B.C. Excavations in the sanctuary area have yielded evidence of offerings and ritual meals, including aryballoi and cups.
History
The site was first settled in the Late Neolithic, but only expanded into a major settlement during the Middle Minoan period. In this era, the site expanded to cover an area of roughly 1.5 ha, and monumental buildings were built for the first time in the flat southern part of the site. After an earthquake in the MMIII/LMI period, the site was rebuilt on a larger scale, perhaps 3.5 ha. Archaeologists have noted that during the early LMIII period, residents' living standards fell even as commercial activity reached its all time peak. The site was abandoned after LMIIIB around 1200 BC and was never reoccupied on the same scale, though it served as a sanctuary until the Hellenistic era.[1]
The Minoan name of the town is unknown, but it has been argued that the site corresponds to Classical Era Amyklaion (Template:Lang-el), which would reflect a link with Amyclae. Robin Lane Fox speculates that it is referred to in Odyssey 3.296: "a small rock holds back the great waves."[3] That small rock is likely to have been the natural reef of Papadoplaka and a submerged sandy shore stretching to the coast would have formed a natural harbor.[4]
Ancient flora and fauna
The site has yielded many animal remains, a majority of which were excavated from archaic vessels and pottery.[5]
Excavations carried out between 1976 and 1985 yielded 9,400 large mammal bones, 150 Rodentia bones, 1,150 fish bones, and around 36,000 marine invertebrate. Of these samples a large number were attributed to pigs. Remains found revealed a variety of butchery methods performed, including partial opening of the skull assumedly for consumption of the brain. Further animal remains, such as cows and deer were also found around the site. Very few human remains have been uncovered from the site, with the only human remain being an adult mandible.[5]
Bird remains have also been found. Eggshells and avian bones from the site were identified by Dr. George E. Watson, Curator of Birds at the Smithsonian Institution. The usage for birds varied from domestication to consumption. Avian bones found at the site include Woodpigeon, Rock Dove, Turtle Dove, Scopoli's Shearwater, and Chukar Partridge.[5]
Evidence of Trade
Kommos has yielded more evidence for intercultural trade in the form of imported ceramics than any other Bronze Age site in the Aegean.[6] Archaeologists have found Egyptian figurines and transport jars, Canaanite jars, and jars that originated from the Nile Delta. The typical transport vessel found in the Late Bronze Age Southern Aegean is the transport stirrup-jar, which looks like a larger false-necked amphora. It has a wide-mouth rim with two vertical handles on the shoulders that connect to the neck of the vessel. At the beginning of the 14th century BC, a variation of the Minoan oval-mouthed amphora started making an appearance in Kommos. Dubbed the short-neck amphora, this vessel had two cylindrical handles attached at the shoulder, a stunted neck, and a round mouth. On the Syro-Palestinian coast, the Canaanite jar was the preferred transport jar; it was widely exported to Cyprus and Lower Egypt, where they eventually adopted and imitated the shoulder-handled vessel. The variations of the Canaanite jar created in Egypt can easily be identified by the diversities in material and surface treatment.
Thousands of ceramic sherds have been recovered from the Late Minoan city of Kommos. Transport stirrup jars have not only been found on Crete but also in vast quantities on the Greek mainland, throughout the Aegean Islands, and along the western Anatolian coast. The Cretan vessels have been found in the Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna, Cyprus, and the Levant, and the results of petrographic and trace element analysis determine that the majority of these transport stirrup jars originated in the northern part of Central Crete. While the transport stirrup jar was frequently used in Crete to ferry their goods, the Canaanite jar was the preferred container throughout the Levant. Evidence of the Canaanite jar has been found at Kommos in the form of 60 fragmentary to fully restorable containers. The final type of vessel identified is the Egyptian jar. Kommos has been the only Aegean site where this Late Bronze Age undecorated pottery has been recovered. The styles of pottery range from closed shapes to amphoras, flasks, and necked jars, and most likely transported wine. The presence of Canaanite jars and Egyptian jars at Kommos and Cretan transport stirrup jars found throughout the Aegean islands, Egypt, and the Anatolian coast confirms the importance of international trade to the Late Minoan coastal city of Kommos.
Excavation history
The site first attracted the attention of archaeologists in 1924, when Arthur Evans heard about large storage vessels found there. He visited the site and speculated that a Bronze Age "customs house" had once stood there. Excavations started in 1976 under the direction of Joseph and Maria Shaw, and continued until 1995.[7]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d Shaw, Joseph; Shaw, Maria (2012). "Kommos". In Cline, Eric (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford University Press. pp. 543–444. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199873609.013.0041. ISBN 978-0199873609.
- ^ a b c Shaw, Joseph (2006). Kommos: A Minoan Harbor Town and Greek Sanctuary in Southern Crete. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 9780876616598.
- ^ Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (London: Allen Lane, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7139-9980-8), p. 323.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Amnisos - Harbour town of Minos? by Jorg Schafer, p. 4. - ^ a b c Shaw, Joseph W.; Shaw, Maria C., eds. (1995-12-31). Kommos: An Excavation on the South Coast of Crete, Volume I. doi:10.1515/9781400852956. ISBN 9781400852956.
- ^ Peter M. Day, Patrick S. Quinn, Jeremy B. Rutter, & Vassilis Kilikoglou. (2011). A WORLD OF GOODS: Transport Jars and Commodity Exchange at the Late Bronze Age Harbor of Kommos, Crete. Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 80(4), 511-558. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2972/hesperia.80.4.0511
- ^ Kommos Excavation Crete Archived 2010-06-12 at the Wayback Machine.
Further reading
- Shaw, Joseph W. "Excavations at Kommos (Crete) during 1979." Hesperia 49.3 (Jul.-Sep. 1980): 207–250. Plates 53 - 67 (pp. 45 – 59.).
- Shaw, Joseph W. "Kommos in Southern Crete: an Aegean barometer for east-west interconnections." In Eastern Mediterranean: Cyprus-Dodecanese-Crete, 16th-6th cent. B.C., Rethymnon Conference of May 1996, Athens, 1998: 13–27. (Editors: Vassos Karageorghis and Nikolaos Stampolidis).
- Watrous, L. Vance. "Late Bronze Age Kommos: imported pottery as evidence for foreign contact." Scripta Mediterranea VI (1985): 1–10.
External links
- University of Toronto Excavation Page (archaeological introduction)
- Kommos Conservancy (Conservation Development and Education).
- Minoan Crete website: Kommos page
- Joseph W. Shaw archival papers held at the University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services
- Amyklaion? (the archaeological site of Kommos) in the Pleiades Gazetteer
Bibliography
Joseph W. Shaw, Kommos: A Minoan Harbor Town and Greek Sanctuary in Southern Crete (ASCSA, 2006: ISBN 0-87661-659-7).
Peter M. Day, Patrick S. Quinn, Jeremy B. Rutter, & Vassilis Kilikoglou. (2011). A WORLD OF GOODS: Transport Jars and Commodity Exchange at the Late Bronze Age Harbor of Kommos, Crete. Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 80(4), 511–558.