Tablets and Territories? Reconstructing Late Minoan IB Political Geography through Undeciphered Documents

Abstract

In this article I explore the political geography of Neopalatial Crete through a multidisciplinary analysis of Late Minoan IB administrative documents. These documents testify to the existence of two levels in Minoan administration, a local level, represented by Linear A tablets, and a regional level, embodied by sealed documents. Both tablets and sealed documents reflect a considerable degree of regionalism, an observation that does not corroborate the thesis that LM IB Crete was a centralized state run by Knossos. On the basis of intersite differences in administration, it is argued here that administrative centers were managing and exploiting their own hinterland, without the interference of a central power. The so-called Knossos replica rings, which left identical impressions at various Neopalatial sites, cannot be directly connected with Knossos. Although perhaps testifying to the existence of an intensive supraregional network, the rings do not provide evidence that this was of a political nature. Some developments in material culture, script, and religion that occur at the beginning of the Neopalatial period are explained as politically motivated and caused by unifying aspirations of Knossos. By the time of the final destructions in LM IB, however, the regions of Crete had lapsed again into a looser network of regional centers, managing their own resources.