Late Minoan Chronology

Abstract

Evans' date for the beginning of Late Minoan I is generally accepted but its basis is open to question. When he proposed it in PM II, 362, he gave as a reason that the beginning of the New Kingdom must have by some years preceded that of the great Earthquake that took place toward the close of M. M. III. He had in mind what he considered to be Egyptian New Kingdom influence both on objects in the Temple Repositories (particularly the floral design on the dresses) and on the paintings from the House of the Frescoes and the Labyrinth and the Miniature frescoes from west of the North Entrance of the Palace, which he dated to MM IIIB. Egyptian influence on the first group is doubtful, while of the paintings in the second group those from the House of Frescoes need not be earlier than the pottery (dated LM IA), provided indeed all the contents of the House are contemporary; the dating of the Labyrinth and Miniature frescoes was made on general stylistic considerations not specific enough to serve chronological purposes. Furumark made one of the Cretan imports found in Egypt LM IA (OpusArch 6, 210-213); I would consider it later, LM IB or LH IIA. The main connection between Crete and the Egyptian New Kingdom in LM IA is thus reduced to Egyptian influence on the paintings in the House of the Frescoes, provided they are of LM IA date. (Conversely the griffin on the axe of Aahotep which Furumark, OpusArch 6, 220, regarded as an absolutely certain instance of Aegean influence, is evidence of Aegean relations with Egypt at about the time of LM IA.) It may well be that the best synchronisms to be found at present are not directly between objects and works of art found in Crete and Egypt but, accepting the synchronism LM I = LH I, between LH I (Grave Circles A and in part B) and Egypt. Correlations with Cyprus exist in a Cypriote White Slip I bowl found in old excavations on Thera, the destruction of which seems to belong late in LM IA.