Kato Zakros Research Articles

South by Southeast: The History and Archaeology of Southeast Crete from Myrtos to Kato Zakros

South by Southeast: The History and Archaeology of Southeast Crete from Myrtos to Kato Zakros

Tephra in caves: Distal deposits of the Minoan Santorini eruption and the Campanian super-eruption

Tephra deposits in caves are not only significant as stratigraphic markers. The comparatively sheltered position of cave environments, protected from rainfall, may preserve original distal tephra deposition features, unlikely to have survived in the open landscape. Most reported findings of tephra in caves are from the Campanian super-eruption, which originated in the area of Naples (Italy). These findings facilitate evaluation in different caves of facies variability and modes of tephra deposition, derived from the same eruption. The Campanian volcanic event, about 40,000 years ago, was the largest eruption in Europe and the Mediterranean region during the late Pleistocene. Another major volcanic event during the Quaternary was the more recent Santorini eruption in the eastern Mediterranean (Aegean Sea) during the Late Minoan cultural period, approximately 3600 years ago. This was the largest Holocene eruption in the region, but tephra deposits in caves from this event appear to be very rare. We present here the first ever finding of a visible tephra layer from the Minoan Santorini eruption in a cave. The pure tephra, situated in the Pelekita cave in eastern Crete near Kato Zakros, has a thickness of up to 9 cm. Geochemistry analyses of major elements by electron probe micro-analysis (EPMA) and trace elements by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) prove the tephra to be derived from the Minoan Santorini eruption. Radiocarbon dating also fits the time frame of this eruption. Our findings indicate that the tephra layer in the Pelekita cave is an air-fall deposit. The lower boundary of the tephra layer is sharp and wavy, draping over the underlying irregular cave surface. Particle size distribution of the tephra is bimodal and typical for suspended aeolian transport. The consistently smaller size of heavier feldspar particles adjacent to larger but lighter volcanic glass particles, in thin sections of undisturbed samples, corroborate emplacement of the tephra inside the Pelekita cave from high-altitude fallout.

Shoreline reconstruction of the submerged Minoan harbour morphology in the bay of Kato Zakros (Eastern Crete, Greece)

The Minoan centre of Kato Zakros flourished in a favourable geographical location, naturally fortified, in a leeward bay providing a natural harbour morphology. The submerged geomorphological markers of former sea levels define four distinct sea level stands, at −4.00±0.30m, −2.85±0.30m, −1.25±0.05m, and −0.50±0.05m. The dating of these sea levels was based on the gradual rise of the brackish groundwater, observed at the building relics and the water supply installations of the Palace, as well as on submerged coastal rock-cut structures. The oldest change in sea level is associated with the violent seismic disaster of the old Palace that occurred around 1600BCE. The destruction of the new Palace occurred around 1450BCE and is related with a strong seismic event that hit all the Minoan centres of Crete, but it did not cause any change in the relative sea level. The following sea level change is most likely related with the demise of the Minoan centres of Crete around 1200BCE. During the historical period, two changes in relative sea level occurred. The first change is linked with the 1604CE earthquake, and the most recent with the period of the last 400years. The palaeoshoreline reconstruction of the Kato Zakros bay revealed a natural morphology, shaped by an elongate beachrock slab on the northernmost part of the western coast. Coastal responses to sea level rise include: progressive shoreline retreat, submersion of the natural harbour morphology and coastal fishing installations, and flooding of the Palace relics.

A long-term rock uplift rate for eastern Crete and geodynamic implications for the Hellenic subduction zone

The island of Crete in the forearc of the Hellenic subduction zone has a rugged topography with local relief exceeding 2km. Based on the elevation of marine shorelines, rates of rock uplift during the Late Holocene were previously estimated to range between 1 and 4mm/a in different parts of the island. These rates may, however, not be representative for longer timescales, because subduction earthquakes with up to 9m of vertical coseismic displacement have affected Crete in the Late Holocene. Here we use a well preserved sequence of marine terraces near Kato Zakros in eastern Crete to determine the rate of rock uplift over the last ∼600ka. Field investigations and topographic profiles document a flight of more than 13 marine bedrock terraces that were carved into limestones of the Tripolitza unit. Preliminary age constraints for the terraces were obtained by 10Be exposure dating of rare quartz-bearing sandstone clasts, which are present on some terraces. The 10Be ages of these samples, which have been corrected for an inherited nuclide component, yielded exposure ages between ∼100ka and zero. Combined with geomorphologic evidence the two oldest 10Be ages suggest that the terraces T4 and T5, with shoreline angles at an elevation of ∼68 and ∼76m above sea level, respectively, formed during the marine isotope stage 5e about 120ka ago. The correlation of the higher terraces (T6 to T13) with regional sea-level highstands indicates sustained rock uplift at a rate of ∼0.5m/ka since at least ∼600ka. As normal faulting has dominated the tectonics of Crete during the last several million years, upper crustal shortening can be ruled out as a cause for rock uplift. We argue that the sustained uplift of the island results from the continuous underplating of sediments, which are transferred from the subducting African plate to the base of the crust beneath Crete.

Book Review of Minoan Kato Zakro: A Pastoral Economy, by Judith Reid

This study, based on a Ph.D. thesis presented at the University of Wellington, New Zealand, in 2005, offers a fresh look into the landscape of Zakros in east Crete by linking the town and palace of Kato Zakro to the hinterland and the wider environmental setting of the region. In the light of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory and of strategies of adaptation to the environment, Reid examines Kato Zakro in close relation to the natural environment of the region, which is favorable for pastoralism.

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Previous articleNext article FreeOPEN ACCESS ON AJA ONLINE (www.ajaonline.org)Online-Only ContentPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreOnline-only content accompanying American Journal of ArchaeologyVolume 115, Number 3 (July 2011)SUPPLEMENTARY CONTENTAppendix: Transport Stirrup Jars from Israel, by David Ben-Shlomo, Eleni Nodarou, and Jeremy B. RutterImage Gallery: From Site to Landscape: Assessing the Value of Geoarchaeological Data in Understanding the Archaeological Record of Domuztepe, Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, by A. Fletcher, Benjamin R. Gearey, David Keen, Emma Tetlow, Ian Boomer, Jane Reed, Stuart Campbell, William G. FletcherMUSEUM REVIEWPerceptions of the New Acropolis Museum, by Miriam CaskeyBOOK REVIEWSPolities and Power: Archaeological Perspectives on the Landscapes of Early States, edited by Steven E. Falconer and Charles L. Redman. Reviewed by Thomas E. EmersonTree-Rings, Kings, and Old World Archaeology and Environment: Papers Presented in Honor of Peter Ian Kuniholm, edited by Sturt W. Manning and Mary Jaye Bruce. Reviewed by Felix HöflmayerAncient Egypt: An Introduction, by Salima Ikram. Reviewed by Tracy MusacchioOn Art in the Ancient Near East, by Irene J. Winter. Reviewed by Nassos PapalexandrouAt Empire’s Edge: Project Paphlagonia. Regional Survey in North-Central Turkey, edited by Roger Matthews and Claudia Glatz. Reviewed by James NewhardScholars, Travels, Archives: Greek History and Culture Through the British School at Athens. Proceedings of a Conference Held at the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, 6–7 October 2006, edited by Michael Llewellyn Smith, Paschalis M. Kitromilides, and Eleni Calligas. Reviewed by John Griffiths PedleyArchaeology in Situ: Sites, Archaeology, and Communities in Greece, edited by Anna Stroulia and Susan Buck Sutton. Reviewed by James WhitleyThe Chora of Croton 1: The Neolithic Settlement at Capo Alfiere, by Jon Morter. Reviewed by Dante G. BartoliArchaic State Interaction: The Eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze Age, edited by William A. Parkinson and Michael L. Galaty. Reviewed by Cynthia W. ShelmerdineMinoan Kato Zakro: A Pastoral Economy, by Judith Reid. Reviewed by Kostas SboniasCorpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel. Vol. 6, Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum, by Helen Hughes-Brock. Reviewed by Olga KrzyszkowskaThe Sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite at Syme Viannou. Vol. 4, Animal Images of Clay, by Polymnia Muhly. Reviewed by Anna Lucia D’AgataPrima delle colonie: Organizzazione territoriale e produzioni ceramiche specializzate in Basilicata e Calabria settentrionale ionica nella prima età del ferro. Atti delle Giornate di Studio, Matera, 20–21 novembre 2007, edited by Marco Bettelli, Cecilia de Faveri, and Massimo Osanna. Reviewed by Edward HerringLeontinoi: Archeologia di una colonia greca, by Massimo Frasca. Reviewed by Franco De AngelisPheidias: The Sculptures & Ancient Sources, by Claire Cullen Davison; edited by Geoffrey B. Waywell. Reviewed by Andrew StewartCorpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Greece 11. Athens 1: Museum of Cycladic Art, by Kleopatra Kathariou. Reviewed by David W.J. GillApollonia Pontica 2007, by Roald Docter, Kristina Panayotova, Jan de Boer, Lieve Donnellan, Winfred van de Put, and Babette Bechtold. Reviewed by Elias K. PetropoulosI complessi archeologici di Trestina e di Fabbrecce nel Museo Archeologico di Firenze, edited by Fulvia Lo Schiavo and Antonella Romualdi. Reviewed by Jean Macintosh TurfaCult Places and Cultural Change in Republican Italy: A Contextual Approach to Religious Aspects of Rural Society After the Roman Conquest, by Tesse Stek. Reviewed by Elizabeth ColantoniThe Horace’s Villa Project, 1997–2003: Report on New Fieldwork and Research, edited by Bernard Frischer, Jane Crawford, and Monica de Simone. Reviewed by Jeremy RossiterUrbem adornare: Die Stadt Rom und ihre Gestaltumwandlung unter Augustus, by Lothar Haselberger; translated by Alexander Thein. Reviewed by John Bert LottVesuviana: Archeologie a confronto. Atti del convegno internazionale (Bologna, 14–16 gennaio 2008), edited by Antonella Coralini. Reviewed by Catalin PavelFraming Public Life: The Portico in Roman Gaul, by James F.D. Frakes. Reviewed by James C. Anderson, Jr.List of Books Received Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 115, Number 3July 2011 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 17Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.3764/aja.115.3.online Views: 17Total views on this site Copyright © 2011 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The "Lost" Portico at Knossos: The Central Court Revisited

When Evans excavated the Palace at Knossos he found the eastern part of the central court eroded down to at least 2 m below its original floor level. He also discovered that just east of the court was a huge terrace-like cutting, within which were preserved the Grand Staircase and the Residential Quarter. Since then it has been assumed that the western walls of these two areas formed the edge of the court. This article offers a different solution, partially based on comparative analysis with the courts of the other Minoan palaces. Specifically, the proposal is made that lining the court here was a long pillared portico of two adjoining sections. The first, northern section of reconstruction is based on Doll's and Evans's restoration of an East Hall. South of the hall was the Grand Staircase, presumably with an entrance leading down to it from the Central Court. Such an entrance can be convincingly established by the fact that all major areas bordering Minoan central courts were reached directly from them. This entrance must have been covered (hence the beginning of the second stretch of the proposed portico), for otherwise the Grand Staircase would have been flooded by rainwater runoff. The portico continued south to the end of the court. The proposed restoration finds support from similar arrangements alongside other palatial courts (e.g., Phaistos, Malia, Kato Zakros, Galatas), some discovered after Evans's time. Moreover, the new proposal results in general proportions of court length-to-width that conform more closely to those of other palaces.

Collecting for Cambridge: John Hubert Marshall on Crete

In 1901 excavations were conducted under the auspices of the Cretan Exploration Fund at Praisos and Kato Zakro in eastern Crete. One of the members of the party was John Hubert Marshall, formerly of King's College, Cambridge. During his journey to and from the excavations, and described in the correspondence of Robert Carr Bosanquet, Marshall seems to have acquired antiquities from a number of sites which were purchased by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge later in the year. This material included antiquities from Palaikastro which was to be become the scene of major excavations by the British School at Athens. Marshall was awarded a Craven Studentship at the British School at Athens in 1901, but in February 1902 was appointed Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India. It was Marshall's experience of excavation on Crete which was to influence the development of archaeological fieldwork in India.

Aegean art and architecture

1. Introduction: Aegean Art and Architecture The environment Discovering the Aegean World Art and art history Objectives Organization. 2. The Neolithic Period and the Prepalatial Early Bronze Age Settlements Burial practices. 3. The First Palace Period Middle Bronze Age palaces and villas The vernacular tradition in Greece and Crete Ritual practices Summary. 4. The Second Palace Period Public art, private art, and the palatial architectural style The Second Palaces: Knossos, Phaistos, Gournia, and Kato Zakro Minoan villas: function and design The terminology and typology of Minoan palatial buildings The Minoan and Mycenaean spheres of influence Religious practices Burial practices. 5. Mycenaean Domination and the Minoan Tradition The Mycenaean palace at Pylos The Mycenaean palace at Knossos Haghia Triadha and Kommos The continuation of Minoan building techniques in the Third Palace Period Burial practices The Mycenaean shrine at Phylakopi The circuit walls at Mycenae and Tiryns. 6. Conclusion: Disruptions, (Dis)Continuities, and the Bronze Age The eastward migration of Aegean traditions The international style Cyprus, Palestine, and the Peoples of the Sea Tradition and transformation What goes around comes around: Daedalus returns to Crete. Notes List of Illustrations Bibliographic Essay Timeline Index

The Apprehension of the South in Modern Culture

When I went to the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate in 1966, the South was deemed there to be a very minor part of the puzzle of American culture. American literature was Henry James, Melville, Emerson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, but mostly Henry James of southern authors only Faulkner had a significant hearing, though he was seen as a steamy exoticism, a sort of Henri Rousseau with a knowledge of the sexual utility of corncobs, not as one of the foremost modernists. As for history, the South was relevant to understanding the coming of the Civil War, as a problem to be deprecated, but little more. American history was told as a succession of whiggish reform movements, of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, of Populism, Progressivism, and the Deal. The South did not fit in, except as the occasional obstacle. To be interested in the South then was to be against the grain. Matters are very different now, not only in Cambridge but elsewhere in even in Japan. The existence of the Southern Studies Forum as a branch of the European Association of American Studies--as far as I know, the only affiliation of that association devoted to a component part or aspect of American culture--is testimony to a growth of interest, evidenced by four conferences and three volumes of proceedings.(1) There are scholars in Odense who write about Walker Percy, in Berlin who concern themselves with John Esten Cooke, in Vienna who read Flannery O'Connor, in Genoa who are experts on women's clubs in Charleston, in Newcastle who do the history of rhythm and blues, in Australia who write on southern Baptists. When I was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in November of 1997, a whole conference of Japanese scholars had descended upon the place. In the summer of 1998, there was a meeting at the University of Warwick tided New Orleans in Europe, with no less than thirty speakers. What is going on? Of course, much is explicable by the powerful cultural position of the United States in the postwar world, the more so since the collapse of the Soviet alternative. Self-evidently, the world grows crowded with American popular and high culture. Coca-Cola, Levi jeans, baseball caps, T-shirts, CNN, Elvis, Duke Ellington, Bill Gates, all these are familiar almost everywhere. This influence has deepened in the last twenty years. In 1973 my wife and I caught a bus in the eastern part of Crete, in the Lasithi region beyond Sitia and towards Kato Zakros. Behind us a small girl sat down, evidently on her way to school. She looked on us with wonder, as though we had come from another world, as indeed we had. With kindness towards strangers, she offered a part of the food she had for her lunch, and we, awkwardly and mutely, accepted it. I find it hard to imagine such a scene happening now, for the child would probably be wearing an outfit emblazoned with a Chicago Bulls logo. The ancient condescensions of European culture have perceptibly weakened. I do not mean that Parisian intellectuals have swapped their Haut-Medoc for Dr Pepper. I do mean that the presence of American culture in the formative years of European intellectuals has made it natural to take seriously interpreters of America who make that culture intelligible because they help to explain not only what America is, but what Europe is. For American culture is part of the fabric of European culture in ways that it was not in the nineteenth century, or far less so. That intermingling is, no doubt, deeply contentious, but it is at least arguable that American culture is now very close to being central to world culture and many--whether scientists, philosophers, historians, musicians, or literary critics -- whether they admit to it or not, behave as though the United States were pivotal. And this occurs despite the fact that both sides are somewhat in denial about the phenomenon: the world for its old anti-American instincts, America because so much of its eschatology is founded upon a sense of being at the end of things, of time and space, not in the middle of things. …

Palaeointensity and thermoluminescence measurements on Cretan kilns from 1300 to 2000 BC

The strength of the geomagnetic field in Crete during Minoan times has been determined using kiln wall samples from three Minoan palaces, Faistos, Aghia Triada and Kato Zakros, from the Minoan village at Stylos Hania and a Roman kiln at Kalo Horio. The samples have been dated by thermoluminescence measurements providing absolute dates for the construction of a palaeointensity curve. Without the thermoluminescence dates it would have been necessary to use the archaeologists' estimates of the kiln ages, one of which is shown here to be in error by 500 yr.

Carbon-14 and the Beginning of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean

Carbon-14 and the Beginning of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean

Human Skeletal Remains from Kato Zakro

the nearby Pezoules Kephala tomb enclosures, and assist in drawing two major sections of the site. Hogarth's excavations in the central part of Zakro in 1901 produced no human skeletal remains. However, human remains were recovered from caves located within the gorge.' R.B. Seager obtained a permit to go Zakro try for the cemetery (letter G. Richter 15 March 1924) and spent two weeks in May in a futile attempt locate the burial area.

A Banquet Hall at Mycenaean Pylos

Several years ago I published in this journal an article in which the suggestion was made that in addition to the great reception halls of the Piano Nobile along the west facades of the palaces at Knossos, Phaistos, and Mallia' there once existed another great public hall well separated from these that was used as a dining or banquet hall.2 In the latter two palaces this room would have measured rather more than nine by thirteen meters, and it was located on the second floor (i.e. the floor immediately above the ground floor) directly adjacent to the north end of the central court, from which it was reached by a fairly broad flight of stairs (pl. io8, figs. 2, 3). As indicated by the construction of the room or rooms below, the ceiling of the banquet hall was upheld by two rows of columns running with the length of the room.' The evidence for this identification would take too long even to summarize here, but it was in part based on the nature of the small rooms on the ground floor, which were suitable for the storage and preparation of food, partly also on the discovery of considerable quantities of household pottery in some of these rooms. Since the publication of these conjectural identifications' a new palace has been discovered at Kato Zakro and partially excavated by Platon.' The published plan of his 1964 excavations revealed a room of dimensions similar to those at Mallia and Phaistos at the north end of the cen-

The Zakro Sealings

The circumstances under which a find of impressed clay nodules was made in a Mycenaean house at Kato Zakro, in East Crete, in May 1901, are related in the Annual of the British School at Athens vii. p. 133. The nodules are of a fine clay baked, probably intentionally and not by the conflagration which destroyed the house, to varying shades of red. A great number are broken, but the more perfect, including many bearing two and three impressions, show a groove on one edge, about an eighth of an inch deep and a little more wide, scored with straight and oblique scratches. This is the impress of something Cylindrical, to which the nodule was pressed while still wet. The appearance of the clay in the grooves shows that this object was not textile, and it may most reasonably be supposed to have been a reed, perhaps a papyrus stalk. The number of nodules is in all about 500.