Last Chance to See?

Karfi (Crete) in the Twenty-First Century: Presentation of New

Architectural Data and Their Analysis in the Current Context of Research
Author(s): Saro Wallace
Source: The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 100, Centennial Volume (2005), pp.
215-274
Published by: British School at Athens
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30073228
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 LASTCHANCE TO SEE?KARFI(CRETE)IN THE TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY:PRESENTATIONOF NEWARCHITECTURALDATAAND
THEIR ANALYSISIN THE CURRENT CONTEXTOF RESEARCH'
INTRODUCTION
THEsaddle below Karfi,'in the north Lasithimountains,was excavated by the BSA in
1937-9, revealing a settlement of the earliest Iron Age (c. 1200-1000
III C through 'Subminoan'; EIA: c. 1200-700 BC).3 The site is still one of the standard
referencesfor the period, dramaticallytypifyingthe new defensible locations to which
much of the Cretanpopulationmoved afterthe collapseof LateBronzeAge statesystems.4
1 I thank the 24th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical
Antiquities for the award of architecturaland topographical
recording permit in 2002 and for a five-year period
thereafter. I am grateful to my assistants in the field,
especially Anastasia Christophilopoulou and Krzysztof
Nowicki, and for the financial support of the Leverhulme
Trust (2002-4), Institute for Aegean Prehistory (2002) and
British School at Athens (2002 and 2003). Leslie Day, Kevin
Glowacki, Metaxia Tsipopoulou, and Assaf Yasur-Landau
offered access to unpublished articles. Amalia Kakissis
facilitated repeated visits to the BSA's archives. The
INSTAP Study Centre for East Crete rented its EDM for
the project's use. Vassilis and Christine Kargiotakis and
Haralambos and Zacharenia Madelanakis offered
hospitality and warm company during fieldwork. Finally,
Leslie Day, Krzysztof Nowicki, and Todd Whitelaw offered
detailed and thoughtful comments on the manuscript.
Abbreviations:
Alexiou = S. Alexiou, '"Avaoxaq~p
Karogaitdi KQT'vrlg",
PAE1955, 311-14.
Boyd 1905 = H. Boyd, 'Gournia', in B. E. Williams,
R. B. Seager, and E. H. Hall, Gournia, Vasiliki and Other
Prehistoric
Siteson theIsthmusofl erapetra,
Crete:Excavations
of the Wells-Houston-Cramp Expeditions 9goi, 1903, 1904
(Philadelphia, 1905), 7-49.
Coulson and Tsipopoulou = W. Coulson and M.
Tsipopoulou, 'Preliminary investigations at Halasmenos,
Crete, 1992-1993', AegeanArchaeology,1 (1994), 65-98.
Cucuzza = N. Cucuzza, 'The north sector buildings of
Haghia Triada', in Driessen and Farnoux 1997, 73-84.
Darcque = P. Darcque, "Pour l'abandon du terme
'm6garon"', in Darcque and Treuil, 21-31.
Darcque and Treuil = P. Darcque and R. Treuil (eds.),
L'Habitat
eigen Actesdela Table
prihistorique: Rondeinternationale
par le CentreNationalde la Recherche
organisie Scientifique,
deParisI et l'fcolefranGaise
l'Universite d'Athenes
(Athines,23-
5juin I987), BCHSuppl. 19 (Paris, 1990).
Day 1997 = L. P. Day, 'The Late Minoan IIIC period at
Vronda, Kavousi', in Driessen and Farnoux 1997,
391-407.
BC; Late Minoan
Day and Snyder = L. P. Day and L. Snyder, 'The 'Big
House' at Vronda, Kavousi and the 'Great House' at Karphi:
evidence for social structurein LM
IIIC,
in Day et al. 2004,
63-80.
Day et al. 1986 = L. P. Day, W. D. E. Coulson, and G. C.
Gesell, 'Kavousi, 1983-1984: the settlement at Vronda',
Hesp. 55 (1986), 355-87-
Day et al. 2004 = L. P. Day, M. S. Mook, andJ. Muhly
(eds), CreteBeyondthePalaces:Proceedings
of theCrete2000
Conference(Philadelphia, 2oo4).
Driessen and Farnoux 1994 = J. Driessen and A.
Farnoux, 'Mycenaeans at Malia?', Aegean Archaeology,1
(1994), 54-64.
Driessen and Farnoux 1997 =J. Driessen and A. Farnoux
(eds),La Critemycinienne:
Actesdela tablerondeinternationale
parl'Ecole
organisie (BCHSupp.30; Paris,
franfaised'Athenes
1997).
Eliopoulos 1998 = T. Eliopoulos, 'A preliminary report
on the discovery of a temple complex of the Dark Age at
Kefala Vasiliki', in Karageorghis and Stampolidis, 301-13-
Eliopoulos 2004 = T. Eliopoulos, 'Gournia, Vronda
Kavousi, Kephala Vasilikis: a triad of interrelated shrines
of the expiring Minoan Age on the isthmus of lerapetra',
in Day et al. 2004, 81-91.
Fagerstrom = K. Fagerstr6m, GreekIronAgeArchitecture:
DevelopmentsThroughChangingTimes(G6teborg, 1988).
Gesell 1985 = G. C. Gesell, Town,Palace and House Cult
in Minoan Crete(Goteborg, 1985).
Gesell et al. 1985 = G. C. Gesell, L. P. Day, and W. D. E.
Coulson, 'Kavousi 1982-1983: the Kastro', Hesp.54 (1985),
327-55-
Gesell et al. 1988 = G. C. Gesell et al., 'Excavations at
Kavousi, Crete, 1987', Hesp. 57 (1988), 279-98.
Glowacki 2002 = K. Glowacki, 'Digging houses at LM
IIIC Vronda (Kavousi), Crete', in Luce 2002, 33-47.
Glowacki 2004 = K. Glowacki, 'Household analysis in
Dark Age Crete', in Day et al. 2004, 125-36.
Haggis et al. = D. C. Haggis, M. S. Mook, C. M. Scarry,
L. M. Snyder, and W. C. West, 'Excavations at Azoria,
2002', Hesp. 73- 3 (2oo4), 339-400.
216 SARO
The evidence from Karfi has been, and remains, heavily influential in almost all
interpretations of the Cretan latest Bronze to Early Iron Age. However, incomplete
recording and publication of the excavation and the selective preservation of its finds
have always limited exploitation of Karfi's research value. Interpretation of the excavated
Hatzi-Vallianou 2004 = D. Hatzi-Vallianou, "Ogritxad
o'rotqeia orylv AxQo6roXrllgaQto6", in Stampolidis and
Giannikouri, 105-27.
Hayden1983= B.J.Hayden,
'NewplansoftheEarlyIron
Age settlementof Vrokastro',
Hesp.52 (1983),367-87.
Hayden 1987 = B.J. Hayden, 'Crete in transition. LM
IIIA-B architecture:a preliminarystudy',SMEA26
(1987), 199-234.
Hayden 2002 = B. J. Hayden,'Aspectsof village
architecture in the Cretan postpalatial period', in Darcque
and Treuil, 203-13.
Kanta 2001 = A. Kanta, 'Cretan refuge settlements:
problems and historical implications within the wider
context of the eastern Mediterranean towards the end of
the Bronze Age', in Karageorghis and Morris, 13-21.
Karageorghis and Morris = V. Karageorghis and C. E.
Morris (eds), DefensiveSettlementsof the Aegeanand the
EasternMediterranean afterc. I2oo Bc. Proceedings of an
International heldat TrinityCollegeDublin,7th-9th
Workshop
May, 1999 (Nicosia, 2001).
Karageorghis and Stampolidis = V. Karageorghis and
N. Stampolidis, Eastern Mediterranean: Cyprus-
Dodecanese- Crete, i6th-6th centuriesBc (Athens, 1998).
Luce 2002 =J. M. Luce (ed.), Habitat et urbanismedans
d la prisedeMilet
le mondegrecde lafin despalais myciniens
(494 avantJ.-C.)= Pallas, 58 (Toulouse, 2002).
Mazarakis Ainian = A. Mazarakis Ainian, From Rulers'
Dwellingsto Temples: ReligionandSocietyinEarly
Architecture,
Iron Age Greece (I oo-7oo Bc) (SIMA 121; Jonsered,
1997).
Mook = M. Mook, 'Early Iron Age domestic
architecture: the Northwest Building on the Kastro at
Kavousi', in W. Cavanagh and M. Curtis, Post-Minoan
of theFirst Colloquium
Crete:Proceedings (London, 1998),
45-57.
Nowicki 1987 = K. Nowicki, 'The history and setting of
the town at Karphi', SMEA 26 (1987), 235-56.
Nowicki 1990 = K. Nowicki, 'The West Siteia mountains
at the turn of the Bronze and Iron Ages', Aegaeum,6 (Liege,
199o), 161-8o.
Nowicki 1995 = K. Nowicki, 'ToFlechtron and other Dark
Age sites near Kera Karfi', Hegreaypeva rov Z' AteOvo6vq
KQ1roJoytxov vv5eoiov, PgOvpvo i99g , A2 (Rethymno,
1995), 693-702. ,
Nowicki 1999 = K. Nowicki, 'Economy of refugees: life
in the Cretan mountains at the turn of the Bronze and Iron
Ages', in A. Chaniotis (ed.), FromMinoanFarmersto Roman
Traders:Sidelightson the CretanEconomy(Stuttgart, 1999),
145-71.
Nowicki 20oo = K. Nowicki, DefensibleSites in Crete,c.
12oo-8oo00BC(LMIIIB/C throughEarlyGeometric)(Aegaeum,
21;
Liege,
2000).
Nowicki 2002 = K. Nowicki, 'From Late Minoan IIIC
WALLACE
refuge settlements to Geometric acropoleis: architectureand
social organization of Dark Age villages and towns in Crete',
in Luce 2002, 149-74-
Pendlebury et al. = H. W. Pendlebury,J. D. S. Pendlebury,
and M. B. Money-Coutts, 'Excavations in the plain of Lasithi
III. Karphi. A city of refuge of the Early Iron Age in Crete'
BSA 38 (1938) , 57-148.
2000 = HerQaygCiva rov IH Alevou0
Hezrtaypu~va
KrQirotoytxo6 EoveSliov, Hgdxleto 1996 (Iraklion, 2000).
Platon = L. Platon, 'Caractere, morphologie et datation
de la bourgade postpalatiale de Kefali Chondrou Viannou',
in Driessen and Farnoux 1997, 357-73-
Rutkowski= B. Rutkowski, 'The temple at Karphi', SMEA
26 (1987), 257-79.
Shaw = M. Shaw, 'Late Minoan hearths and ovens at
Kommos, Crete', in Darcque and Treuil, 231-54.
Stampolidis and Giannikouri = N. K. Stampolidis and A.
(eds),ToAycaloaorqv
Giannikouri j rotvZiSrov
qoirjEwozrt
- Heaxrtxa rov Aie6qlvo6gE~uvrpoaiov,
PdSog, I-4
NoeqPfLiov2o02 (Athens, 2004).
Tsipopoulou 2004 = M. Tsipopoulou, "Mta n1cino-roi
il anTXg -
TreQJtgv orlooXarQEtaq Fweg-eQtxzl
ougrnoo0iov
T oro XaXayaogvoIEcdF'eraq", in Stampolidis
avaxardkrrl6X
and Giannikouri, 127-42.
Wallace 2002 = S. A. Wallace, 'Case studies of settlement
change in Early Iron Age Crete (c. 1200-700 BC):economic
interpretations of cause and effect assessed in a long-term
historical perspective', AegeanArchaeology, 4 (2oo2), 61-99.
Wallace 2003 = S. A. Wallace, 'The perpetuated past-
re-use or continuity in material culture and the structuring
of identity in Early Iron Age Crete, 12th to 7th centuries
BC', BSA 98 (2003), 251-77.
Wallace 2004 = S. A. Wallace, "H65tadacrlrov
otxto1yLv
xat ot xotv(ovtxo-otxovogtxiqgaXXay oarlv y KQrl11xacrar
zriv HIQtpgrl EiroXi y ou Yt~iQou", in Stampolidis and
Giannikouri, 1-10o.
Yasur-Landauforthcoming = A. Yasur-Landau,'The last
Glendiin Halasmenos: social aspects of cooking in a Dark
Age Cretan Village,' AegeanArchaeology, 7 (forthcoming).
2 Most earlier
publications dealing with this site have
referred to it as 'Karphi' in the style of Greek transliteration
current at the time of its discovery and excavation. I follow
more recent styles, replacing Greek 1pwith f.
3 Pendlebury et al.
4 V. R. D.
Desborough, TheGreekDarkAges(London, 1972),
57-63, 12o-9; Kanta2001, 14; Nowicki 1987;Nowicki 2000,
157-64; R. Osborne, Greecein the Making, 1200-4 80 BC
(London, 1996), 30- ;A. M. Snodgrass, TheDarkAgeofGreece
(Edinburgh, 1971), 42, 37 ; L. V. Watrous, 'Aegean
settlements and transhumance', TempleUniversityAegean
Symposium,2 (Philadelphia, 1977), 2-6;J. Whitley, Styleand
SocietyinDarkAgeGreece(Cambridge,1991), 348-52; id., The
Archaeology ofAncientGreece(Cambridge, 2oo000), 77-8.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 217

architectureis now also severely constrainedby its badly deterioratedcondition.5In this

paper, I present the first detailed drawn record for four selected areas of architecture
aboutone quarterof the excavatedarea),preparedas partof an integratedmanagement/
researchstudyat the site in 2002-4.6 The areaswere selected as representingsome of the
best-preservedon the site and the most informativein a wide range of respects.Three of
the fourhave, since their excavation,been given regularscholarlyattentionin an ongoing
debateon the characterof elite or specialbuildingsand theiruse in EarlyIronAge societies
(referredto below). The new study was undertakenpartly in an attempt to contribute
furtherto this debate. The form of this paper reflects my aim of placing the new data
(whichin themselvesprovide small, dispersed,and unconnectedpieces of information)in
a broaderinterpretativecontext. In many parts of the site, advanced deteriorationand
the poorly preserved characterof the walls on excavation meant that drawn recording
was unlikelyto produce much new informationof value. Instead,systematicnew written
observationswere made on all the site'sexcavatedbuildings(considerablyenhancingthe
excavation record) and then used to put the informationfrom new plans in a broader
analyticalcontext. All the new data were archivedin paper and databaseform with the
BSA and the 24th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities in 2003. The
voluminousand highly detailednatureof the writtenobservationsmeans they could not
be presentedhere in full. The firstfull topographicalplan for the excavatedarea, and an
accurateplot of its substantialunexcavatedremains,were prepared,and are also presented
and discussedhere.
Separatereanalysesof the pottery and cult-relatedfinds from the originalexcavation,
currentlyin progress,7provided part of the impetus for a new architecturalstudy. The
new data have alreadybeen made availableto and discussedwith the scholarsinvolved
in these studies.However, work on the artefactmaterialis not yet complete, and could
not be systematicallytaken into account when making the currentanalysis.Even after
these studiesare complete,the limitednatureof the originalrecordson finds, architecture
and stratigraphywill always restrictanalysis of building context and function. In these
circumstances,a significant opportunity to contextualize the new data is offered by
comparisonswith other contemporaryexcavatedsites of the same period and defensible
type (investigatedmostlyin the last twenty-fiveyears).These show some majordifferences

5 The condition assessment carried out in 2002-3 found
that 39% of walls at the site had deteriorated by more than
50%/0since excavation; 19%were entirely or almost entirely
deteriorated or obscured, 7% in imminent danger of
complete collapse, and 12% of complete obscurement. Of
234 architectural
joints, 133 were obscuredor destroyed,
seriously restricting the reconstruction of building
sequences.
6
I have discussed the management-related aspects of
the study in another article: S. Wallace, 'Bridges in the
mountains: structure, multivocality, responsibility and gain
issues in filling a management gap in rural Greece', JMA
18. 1 (2005), 55-85; ead., 'Study towards the development
of 21st-century management and research strategies at the
archaeological site of Karfi, Lasithi, Crete' (unpublished
archive report, 24th Ephorate of the Greek Archaeological
Service/British School at Athens, 2003). The study's
recommendations included preparation of a full
management plan, pilot conservation of the best preserved
and most interpretatively significant complexes, and the
institution of a condition monitoring programme for the
site. It was advised that all buildings be recorded at 1 : 50
before any clearance or consolidation work takes place on
them. A conservation plan is needed to define the
acceptable limits of restoration, particularly in cases like
those of the Megarons and Great House, where the original
positions of large fallen blocks are clear. Intervention along
the above lines seems vital both to preserve Karfi's
research significance, and develop and promote it to public
advantage.
7 L. P. Day, ThePotteryfrom Karphi:A Reappraisal
(forthcoming); Day and Snyder; G. C. Gesell, Cult Finds
from Karphi (forthcoming).
218 SARO WALLACE

from Karfiat a numberof levels. For example, all of them are considerablysmaller,and
thus may have had a different level of complexity in social organization. Some are
excavated only in a very limited area. None of them have a record published in final
form. Preliminaryaccountslack quantitativeinformationon finds by context or details of
stratigraphy,restrictingindependentuse of the evidence to draw conclusionson building
function and development. Even so, they comprise a substantialnew knowledge base
which cannot be ignored in considering Karfi'srelevance today, and in fact supports
significantrevisionsof the Karfiexcavators'originalconclusions.8In some cases detailed
publicationis unlikelyto occur in the foreseeablefuture,so this data must either be used
in its presentform, or not at all, in studyingEIA architecture.Comparisonsbetween Karfi
and these other sites in termsof architectureand of social and economic organizationare
already frequentlymade in the literature:this made it seem a good time to revisit and
improve the Karfirecord before the architecturedeterioriatedfurther,and thereby add
more body to the debate. The separationof formal architecturalanalysis from context
and finds informationis not an effective archaeologicalmethodology.However, because
architectureis the element of the record currentlymost accessiblefor the largestnumber
of relevantsites (andat Karfiformsthe main survivingsource of data)the main emphasis
throughoutthis comparativepaper is on architecturalform, though all relevant context
and finds informationavailable is taken into account. Drawing together architectural
informationprovokednew questionsaboutEIA societywhichmay be more fully answered
throughthe more detailed study of finds recordsfrom Karfiand other sites.
After a brief evaluationin Part 1 of the ways in which the site and its architectural
remains have been interpretedto date, the second part of the paper presents the new
record of excavated and unexcavated remains, and interprets their physical and
chronologicalrelationships,drawing on both the old and new data. I then put these
buildingsinto the context of the wider site, using both the old and new recordsto analyse
the kinds of architecturalformscharacterizingthe settlement,and featuresof its layout.At
this stage,I startto bringin comparisonswith other sites,but mostlyin termsof discussing
specific architecturalelements. In Part 3, I undertakea broadercomparativeanalysisof
buildingfunctionand use, and theirrelationshipto social structuresand systems,in twelfth-
to tenth-centuryCretansettlements.The new Karfidata,and the existingdebateon special-
functionbuildingsin LBA-EIA Crete and Greece,9are my startingpoints for askinghow
far we can identifyany Cretanbuildingsas having specializeduse outside the cult sphere
(which has already been extensively discussed for this period). I look at how we can
identifydomestic,cult, industrial,and public architectureat Karfiand other sites and how
subtlethose differencescan be, in what seems a period of limited social and site hierarchy.
I then go on to explorewhetherwe can say thata certainkind of buildingwith a specialized
secular use, possibly connected to public feasting, regularly appeared in the new
communities,and if so, what this tells us aboutlarge-scalesocial structures.LastlyI touch
on how this type of building may have alteredin its social remit over the course of the

8
I have benefited from close contact and discussion
with the primary investigators of eight recently excavated
or restudied sites of this type, viewed excavated material
from five, and taken part in the excavation of three. This
close contact with the primary data helped partly to
overcome the shortcomings of the published record.
9 See especially Mazarakis Ainian.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 219

EIA in relation to the role and form of settlement temples, which also changed over the
same period. In this way, the limited quantity of new data presented here feeds into a
very much broader and more adventurous discussion. The field recording and basic analysis
could easily have been undertaken on its own as part of a standard management exercise.
Only by putting it in a broader research context does it become interpretativelymeaningful.
Despite the limits of the presently available data, there remain a variety of ways to
retrieve further information from the site which build on both the original study and the
re-studies, and use them to test and pose new research questions. I explore these avenues
in a brief conclusion to the paper (Part 4). The quality limitations of the current record,
coupled with the site's still high potential to expand and develop existing interpretations
of the Cretan EIA, make it seem especially important to move ahead with new research.
The paper's title reflects my overarching aim of bringing Karfi up to date by (1) enhancing
the existing record through proper documentation and re-examination; (2) interpreting
the record in the context of new data from other sites, and (3) identifying new research
issues in the social archaeology of EIA Crete which the site can help in resolving. In
showing how consideration of new data forces revaluation of views formed more than
sixty years ago, I hope that future studies at the site will build on my work in the same
way. I touch on a broad range of issues (often addressed in more detail in my other work
on EIA Cretan society) and extend some of my commentary to touch the Protogeometric-
Archaic periods (PG-A: c. 1000-580 BC), though without ever going into depth. It is not
my intention to attempt definitive answers on any single issue in the study of EIA Cretan
society, but to assess how far the architectural evidence so far acquired can take us in
some new research directions. Nor does this paper comprise an exhaustive study of the
Karfi architecturalrecord: rather,it uses a strategicallytargeted field exercise to demonstrate
the research value of that record long after excavation.

PART 1. PREVIOUS FIELDWORKAT KARFI AND THE SUBSEQUENT

INTERPRETATION OF ITS RESULTS

John Pendlebury's team'o excavated c. 6,000 m2 of a total c. 30,000 m2 settlement area,"

and twenty contemporary tombs on the slopes to east and south. A report on the work,
well rounded by the standards of its time, was published before Pendlebury's death in
1941. It briefly addressed building phasing and function, cult and mortuary practice, craft
production, and economy, but lacked consistent or detailed stratigraphic description,
quantifications of finds by context (including faunal or botanical remains) or artefact

0o The excavation report on Karfi was published under
the names ofJohn Pendlebury, his wife Hilda, and Mercy
Money-Coutts. J. Pendlebury, the project's formal
director, was by far the best-established scholar and
excavator. Neither of the co-authors took responsibility
for publishing the site in more detail after Pendlebury's
death in 1941, though Money-Coutts published a brief
summary of the pottery in 1960 (see below). The archives
clearly show that Pendlebury was mainly responsible for
architectural recording and interpretation, as well as for
the overall research strategy: much of Pendlebury's
notebook text is word-for-word directly that of the
published report. Thus we can legitimately read the
published discussion on architecture as authored by
Pendlebury, though he rightly paid credit to other team
members for their interpretative contributions. It is for
the above reasons, as well as for convenience, that I refer
in the text to 'Pendlebury' as the primary author of the
observations published in Pendlebury et al.
" Nowicki 1987, 242-4, notes that only about one-
fifth of the settlement has been excavated, on the basis
of surface material: 'less than a third' was estimated by
Pendlebury et al., 58.
220 SARO WALLACE

drawings.Quantifiedanalyses of pottery types and fabrics were also lacking, though a

1960 articleby one of the originalreport'sco-authorsl includeddrawingsof some 'typical'
potteryshapesand brief descriptionsof the most common fabrics.The archivenotebooks
contain very little more data about architecture,contexts, or finds.'s Graphic recording
reached the averagestandardsof the 1930s, includingstone-by-stoneplans and sections
of the tombs and a 1:300 settlement plan (FIG.i). The emphasis of the latter was on
broad spatial relationships.Walls were indicated as solid lines only, and phasing and
constructionaldetails were not illustrated(for example, through the use of elevations).
Absoluteheights(takenon wallsalone)were indicatedonly on two whole-sitecross-sections.
Topographywas shown by a partialcontourplan, combined with a sketch impressionof
the cliff line north of the saddle, which is the most prominent aspect of the site's
defensibility.
Specificpreconceptionstypical of early Aegean archaeology,or relatedto his personal
experience, affected some aspects of Pendlebury'sanalysis in ways which improved
contemporaryknowledgeallows us to re-evaluate:the presentpaper addressesseveral of
these issues.Forexample,Pendleburydrewparallelsbetweenhis recentfindingsat Amarna
and those at Karfi,despite the extreme contrastsin site type and historicalcontext.'4His
hope of discovering the remains of a 'city', with functionally differentiatedbuildings,
togetherwith his experiencein excavatingand studyingthe palaceof Knossos,conditioned
the terms he chose to describe the earliestexcavated buildings,such as 'the Magazines'
and 'the Barracks':'5 These are retainedhere for convenience, withoutany interpretative
overtones. The generally limited state of knowledge of contemporarysites of the same
type'6 at the time Pendleburywas writingencouragedhim to conclude that Karfihad a
centralrole in the island:
SinceKarphiis quitethe largestin extentandthe richestof thesecitiesof refuge,it wasevidently
the centre of the old regime [i.e. of a "pre-Dorian" Cretan population]. We can imagine the ruler
still calling himself by the title of "Minos".'7

1'
M. Seiradaki, 'Pottery from Karphi', BSA 55 (1960),
1-37.
'3 Rutkowski, 258, 270.
14 In a letter of 22
May 1938 (BSA ArchiveJP/L/766),
he wrote: 'We are going to get a sort of robber baron's
Amarna-one of the first connected town plans ever
found-or rather dug-in Greece.'
15 The name 'Barracks' for rooms
2-7 was adopted
because workers saw this block as 'guarding' the entrance
to the site from the south, and because its plan resembled
that of the Barracks block at Amarna. Pendlebury et al.,
64. Pendlebury initially interpreted the architecture in
this area as the remains of a palatial building, explaining
his use of 'Magazines' to designate a block of smaller
rooms to the west. He quickly gave up the idea of a palace
as the site was explored further (letter of 31 May 1938,
BSA Archive JP/L/767). Other names laden with
interpretative preconceptions include the 'Baker's House'
(with a circular structure thought to be a bread-oven), the
'Priest's House' (where an attached small room held some
cult material), and the 'Great House' (the final plan of
which seemed exceptionally large and impressive (see
Nowicki 1987, 238 contrathis view). A similar practice
of naming by Evans at Knossos is discussed by
Koudounaris and L. Hitchcock, 'Virtual discourse: Arthur
Evans and the reconstructions of the Minoan Palace at
Knossos', in Y. Hamilakis (ed.) Labyrinth: Rethinking
Minoan Crete(Oxford, 2000), 51-2.
16 Only Kavousi Kastro (then thought to date only in
the Geometric period), Kavousi Vronda, and Vrokastro,
all in east Crete, had been excavated to any significant
extent. H. A. Boyd, 'Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, in
19oo00',AJA 5 (1901), 125-57; E. Hall, Excavations in
Eastern Crete: Vrokastro(University of Pennsylvania, The
Museum Anthropological Publications 3; Philadelphia,
1914), 79-185-
'7 Pendlebury et al., 140.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 221

new
and

excavation,
Megaro of streets.

time
thepaved
at

units
represent

pattern
architectural
to cobble
House
with
given

filled
Baker's
Areas
designations

show
purposes.

Quarter Labels

reference
for
excavations.
Commercial
Karfi
of designations

plan

1939
1.

FIG.
222 SARO WALLACE

The view of Karfi as a 'city' or as the pre-eminent site in Crete during this period is no
longer tenable, even though it is a large example of its type. Research has advanced to
show the wide spread of defensible sites in the island at the period of Karfi's foundation,
around i200 BC.'8Typical examples in the Lasithi region alone which, like Karfi, date
only to the earliest part of the EIA period, include Erganos Kefali, Kritsa Kastello and
LoutrakiKandilioro. Together with KalamafkiKipia in eastern Crete, Kastrokefalain central
Crete, and others, these join Karfi in the top size class for defensible sites of the early
Cretan EIA (c. 3-4 ha). Many settlements in central Crete with continuous occupation
between the LM III C and Archaic periods (c. 1200-600 BC)were probably already as
large as or larger than Karfi in their early phases, though later material obscures much of
the occupation of this date. Though no contemporary defensible site of parallel size has
yet been excavated, Pendlebury's claim that Karfi was outstandingly rich has also lost
ground. Metal artefacts, for example, parallel those from tombs and settlement areas at
the recently excavated sites of Monastiraki Chalasmeno and Kavousi Vronda in east Crete
(though certainly more densely concentrated in the excavated area of Karfi).'9 In fact,
among the more than 120o settlements now known to have been established in LM III C,
no clear hierarchical relationship in size or function is seen at either regional or supra-
regional level, though some degree of complementary specialization seems likely to have
operated between Karfi and smaller, lower settlements nearby.0oComplementary or broad-
based economic models for the site contrast with Pendlebury's: '... picture of [Karfi as] a
brigand city, living largely on the wealth of the lowlands, raiding the fertile valley of
Gonies and Avdou, spoiling the rich coastland of Mallia and retiring with the booty',21 or
Watrous's more recent idea of the settlement as a base for seaborne pirates.2 These views
are undermined by evidence for the very widespread nature of relocation from c. 1200oo
BC: there are very few low-lying undefended towns or villages, outside the continuing
large sites at Knossos, Phaistos and Chania, in the twelfth to eleventh centuries.
Questionable assumptions about how material culture relates to ethnicity underpinned
some of Pendlebury's other interpretations.23 He suggested that a wave of 'Dorian'
immigrants entered Crete at around the time Karfi was founded, displacing communities
to the hills. He also saw other Aegean groups making their way to Crete at this time as
refugees from the same Dorian invasions. He accepted a prevailing idea that a previous
influx of mainlanders to Crete in the LM III period had led island societies to become

18 Nowicki 1987; 1990; 1999, 158, 164, 167; 2000,
157-64, 247-9; Wallace 2002; A.J. Whitley, M. Prent,
and S. Thorne, 'Praisos IV: a preliminary report on the
1993 and 1994 survey seasons' BSA 94 (1999), 215-64.
,9
Coulson and Tsipopoulou; Day 1997; Day et al.
1986; Gesell et al. 1988. Vronda is estimated to have had
only 100-25 people (15-20o houses) against the 750-
1000 (125-50 houses) postulated by Nowicki for Karfi.
Nowicki 2000, 157-64. See also Nowicki 199o.
20
Exchange of grain or shepherding products for oil
case of Early Iron Age Kavousi' JMA 6/2 (1993), 131-
74; Wallace 2002; ead., 'The changing role of herding in
Early Iron Age Crete: implications of settlement shift for
economy', AJA 107 (2003), 601-29. Pendlebury et al.,
139-40 also suggested the use of locally based cultivation
to sustain Karfi's population, an argument supported by
recent soils and geomorphology studies. See too D.
ThreeTestCasesfrom
Morris,Soil ScienceandArchaeology:
Minoan Crete(Philadelphia, 2003).
21 Pendlebury et al., 140. See alsoJ. D. S. Pendlebury,

(olives probably were not cultivable at the altitudes The Archaeology of Crete (London, 1939), 303-9;
around Karfi) might have taken place between Karfi's Desborough (n. 4), 128.
inhabitants and people at the surrounding foothill 22 L. V. Watrous, Lasithi.A Historyof Settlement on a
settlements of contemporary date (none excavated): Highland Plain in Crete(Hesp. Supp 18; Princeton, 1982),
Nowicki 1995; 1999. D. C. Haggis, 'Intensive survey, 68; id. (n. 4); Nowicki 1987, 249-
traditional settlement patterns, and Dark Age Crete: the 23
Pendlebury et al., 136-41.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 223

'ruled' by mainland groups, and suggested that in the community which relocated to
Karfi,Achaeansformed a 'rulingcaste'. Nonetheless,he arguedthat typically'Achaean'-
type building as opposed to Minoan construction(includingthe use of the 'megaron'
form)24only came into its own duringthe phase of fresh settlementfoundationstartingc.
1200oo.Implicitin this model is the idea that 'Achaean'building designs and techniques,
and 'Achaean'people themselves,stayed separateand distinctfrom the 'Minoan'cultural
sphere for more than 300 years. Again, the changed context of knowledge and
interpretationof the archaeologicalrecord promotesre-evaluationof these views. It was
partlylack of data on LM III A-B architecturewhich allowed Pendleburyto see Karfi's
material culture as more 'Achaean'than that of the preceding period in Crete.25An
undevelopedtheorizationof culturecontact and change (the notion that Mycenaeanized
materialculturerepresentedpolitical control by people of mainland origin)26permitted
him to assume 'foreign'dominance. Concerningthe idea of major immigrationat this
period, Crete seems to have had few securityadvantagesover mainlandregions which
would be likely to encourage one-way migrationfrom the wider Aegean world. Along
with a number of other scholars,I see increasedopportunitiesfor maritimetrade and/or
raiding after the collapse of palatial systems c. 1200oo BC as leading to more generally
increasedmobility,insecurityin islandand coastalregions,and the buildingof new contact
networksacross the Aegean.'7The post-1200 settlementpatternin fact seems to reflect
the consequentretreatof large parts of the LM III B populationof Crete to defensible
sites, even while the few largestformercentresand tradegatewayscontinuedin use.28
The limitationsof detailin the recordhave permittedimaginative,but not alwaysreliable
interpretationsof the architecture,and of the site's general developmentand role, in the
post-Pendleburyera.Many new treatmentshave aimedto develop insightinto EIA Cretan
social structures.Most recently,Day and Snyderhave suggested(drawingon comparisons
with the more recently excavated site of KavousiVronda)that finds in the Karfi Great
House and Priest'sHouse might representfeasting activitywith a ritualized,prestigious

24 Hayden
1987, 199-201; Darcque. These authors
expose problems with the way ethnic/status significance has
been attributed to 'megaron' plans in the Aegean by
demonstrating problems with defining the term, the variable
and repeated appearance of structuresdesignated in this way
throughout the LM II-III period in Crete, and the diversity
of settlement contexts in which they are found. Of the term
Darcque (p. 31) notes: 'I1est employ1 pour faire pencher la
balance en faveur de theses diffusionistes. La raisonnement
propose, de fagon plus ou moins explicite, se pr6sente de la
faqon suivante: lI ofi il y avait un <<megaron,les Myc6niens
ktaient pr6sents, ils exergaient le pouvoir.'
25 For example, the sites of Chondros Kefali and Malia
Quartier Nu, offering important angles on this question, had
not been excavated. The LM III A-B record outside Knossos
is still under-researchedand under-published.Hayden 1987,
199-201; Darcque, 29; Cucuzza, 8o.
26 An
assumption which is only now really starting to be
deconstructed in Aegean archaeology: e.g. L. Preston,
'Mortuary practices and the negotiation of social identities
at LM II Knossos', BSA 94 (1999), 181-43; G.-J. van
Wijngaarden, Use and AppreciationofMycenaeanpotteryin the
Levant,CyprusandItaly( 6oo-I2oo BC)(Amsterdam, 2002).
27 S.
Sherratt, 'Sea Peoples and the economic structure
of the late second millennium in the eastern
Mediterranean' in S. Gitin, A. Mazar, and E. Stern (eds),
MediterraneanPeoplesin Transition(Jerusalem, 1998), 292-
307; ead., 'Potemkin palaces and route-based economies',
in S. Voutsaki and J. Killen (eds.), Economyand Politics in
the MycenaeanPalace States: Proceedingsof a Conferenceheld
on r-3 July r999 in the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge
(Cambridge, 2001), 214-39.
2s Although migrationist
models of the island's LM III
C population based on isolated, supposedly ethnically
diagnostic aspects of material culture have continued to
be influential: e.g. A. Kanta and A. Karetsou, 'From
Arkadhes to Rhytion. interactions of an isolated area of
Crete with the Aegean and the East Mediterranean', in
Karageorghis and Stampolidis, 161; Kanta 2001, 13;
V. Karageorghis, 'Patterns of fortified settlements in the
Aegean and Cyprus c. 1200 BC', in Karageorghis and
Morris, 1-12; M. R. Popham, 'Some LM III pottery from
Crete', BSA 6o (1965), 335; Nowicki 2000; id., 'Sea raiders
and refugees: problems of defensible sites in Crete c. 1200
BC',in Karageorghis and Morris, 23-39.
224 SARO WALLACE

and large-scale character, carried out in several different houses by competing groups. 9
This suggestion fits well with models of Aegean EIA social systems in general as based
strongly on competitive display and hospitality.3oRutkowski pointed to analogies between
the Karfi Temple and other LBA and EIA cult buildings. He identified diachronic
modifications in the Temple, and discussed the characterof cult practice there with reference
to cult finds elsewhere on the site.31Single, specialized cult buildings similar to the Temple
have since been found at several other excavated LM III C defensible settlements,32a fact
which suggests a strong, standardized social role for public cult in communities formed
during the relocation of c. 1200 BC. In fact, Mazarakis Ainian recently used the Karfi
architecture to highlight Crete's partly anomalous relation to his generalizing model for
the Aegean EIA-that is, that the social role of elite dwellings ('ruler'shouses') as venues
for ceremonial gatherings was replaced by the emergence of specialized cult buildings in
the eighth century: an either/or approach which is difficult to reconcile with the Cretan
evidence for much earlier cult buildings.33
The significance of 'megaron'-plan buildings vis-a-vis the ethnic and cultural affiliations
of Cretan EIA society is still a live issue. While the concept of the 'megaron' has been
regularly redefined and criticized, received notions of the direct connection of 'megaron'
buildings in LM III C Crete to mainland incomers and/or elite status persist (see below).34
The Karfi architecture, including a block on the north-eastern part of the site and the Great
House, both argued by Pendlebury to have been based around a 'megaron' plan,35has been
used to support a number of different arguments. Darcque cited Karfi'snorth-eastern block
in reassessing the problematic use of the term and its ethnic overtones.36Considering these
buildings within his model of the EIA 'ruler's house', Mazarakis Ainian drew heavily on
Pendlebury's interpretation and on the received ethnic connotations of the 'megaron' plan
in arguing for the idea of co-resident mainland and Cretan groups at the site. He suggested
that the Cretans imitated aspects of the mainlanders' culture, to explain the similarities of
plan between the Megarons (which he saw as built by mainlanders) and the Great House
(representing a local imitation of the mainland style).37Nowicki used the slightly different
idea of two distinct Cretan groups resident at the site, one local and one 'Mycenaeanized',
to help explain some of the differences in plan between the east and west sides of the

29
Day and Snyder.
30 Mazarakis Ainian, 275-96; I. Morris, 'Gift and
commodity in Archaic Greece', Man (NS) 21 (1986), 1-
17;J. Whitley, 'Social diversity in Dark Age Greece', BSA
86 (1991), 341-65. 3' Rutkowski.
32
Day 1997; Day et al. 1986; Eliopoulos 1998, 301-
3; 2004; G. C. Gesell, L. P. Day, and W. D. E. Coulson,
'Excavations at Kavousi, Crete', Hesp. 60 (1991), 162;
Gesell et al. 1988 , 289-90; N. Klein, 'The architecture
of the Late Minoan IIIC shrine at Vronda, Kavousi', in
Day et al. 2004, 91-1oo; M. Tsipopoulou, 'A new late
Minoan IIIC shrine at Halasmenos, East Crete' in R.
Laffineur and R. Hagg (eds), Potnia: Deities and Religion
of the8thInternational
in theAegeanBronzeAge.Proceedings
AegeanConference, University,2 th-I5th
Goteborg,
Goteborg
April 2ooo, Aegaeum 21, (Liege, 1999), 99-103.
33 Mazarakis Ainian, 218-20, 314.
34 V. R. D. Desborough, TheLastMycenaeans and their
Successors (Oxford, 1964), 172-3; M. Tsipopoulou,
'"Myceneans" at the isthmus of Hierapetra : some
(preliminary) thoughts on the foundation of the
(eteo)Cretan cultural identity', in A. L. D'Agata and
J. Moody (eds.), Ariadne'sThreads:Connectionsbetween
Creteand the Mainlandin the Post-PalatialPeriod(Late
MinoanIIIA2 to Sub-Minoan). of a Conference
Proceedings
Schoolat Athens,2004
held at the Italian Archaeological
(Athens, 2005); Darcque.
35 Pendlebury et al., 71,
77-
36
Darcque, 29. The complex is now quite often
referred in the literature to as 'the Megarons' so I have
chosen to keep this term here, although Pendlebury never
referred to it in this way. Nowicki 1987, 238; 1999, 147;
Tsipopoulou 2004, 127.
37 Mazarakis Ainian, 219-20.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 225

site.38Preziosi39viewed the Megaronsandtheirsurroundingbuildingsas a 'megaroidpalace'

with centralcourt,againtreatedas the residenceof the settlement'srulers.
Architecturalchronologyand constructionmethodsat Karfihave also been revisitedin
the literature.Nowickiattemptedto tie some visuallyidentifiablebuildingsequencesdirectly
into the very general cross-sitescheme outlinedin the 1939 report.40This approachhad
only limited success, in the absence of any record of deposits associatedwith individual
walls or features.Anotherimportantaspectof Nowicki'sworkhas been explorationof the
unexcavatedarchitecture.Pendleburyhad noted the existence of well-preservedbuilding
remains on the hills of Megali Koprana,to the south, and Mikri Koprana,east of the
excavatedarea.4'Nowickisketch-mappedthese areasand the furthestvisible extent of the
cemeteriesat the site: he also located anothersmall, separatesettlementarea,the 'North-
Easternsite'.4'Recently,he has returnedto studyingthe excavatedarchitecturein detail,
reconstructingthe use of space within several of the largestbuildings.43 He highlighted
visual differencesin plan and layoutbetween buildingson the easternand westernhalves
of the saddle,suggestingthatthe homogeneous,regularlyplannedstructureson the eastern
part of the site post-datethe irregularlylaid-outsettlement'core' aroundthe Karfipeak
on the west.44Conversely,Pendleburythoughtthat the eastsaddle'splans representedthe
first stone-builtconstructionon the site.45While twelfth-centuryCretan settlementson
defensiblehilltopsdo often seem to have spreadout over time,46problemsarisewith both
models, particularlyin their lack of supportfrom ceramicchronology (Day's new study
confirmsthere is no datingdifferencein the ceramicsretainedfrom each zone).47
None of the above studies produced new detailed plans or elevations, or extensive
writtenrecords,to supporttheir conclusionson the excavatedarchitecture,relyingmostly
on the small-scaleplans and brief descriptionspublishedin 1939. The studiesin progress
by Day and Gesell will include new drawingsand photographsof many artefacts.A gap
clearly still exists in the scholarship,then, with regardto analysisof architecturalform,
sequenceand functionbased on adequatedocumentation.It is this gap which the present
study was intended to fill.
PART 2. DETAILED RECORD OF AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE FORM OF
KARFI ARCHITECTURE, 2002-3

(a) METHODS AND PRODUCTS OF THE NEW STUDY

The firsttaskof the fieldworkwas contourplanningof the excavatedareaat 1 m intervals,
based on EDM survey.This aimed to producea more accurateand representativerecord
of topography,includingabsolutecontourheights and an accurateplot of the north cliff
line (FIG.2). Beyond the excavatedarea, EDM plots were made, and photographstaken,
of all ancientstructuralremainsclearlyvisible on the surface(FIG.3). The EDM was also

38 Nowicki 1999, 147-8. 45 Citing the frequent evidence of multiple building

39 D. Preziosi, MinoanArchitectural
Design:Formation phases in the western saddle (includingthe 'remainsof
andSignification
(Berlin,1983), 187. wooden structures'assumed to have representedsome
40 Nowicki 1987, of the earliest on the site) as suggesting the longest
238.
41 Pendleburyet al., 65.
occupation there. Pendlebury et al., 38; Mazarakis
42 Nowicki
1987, 242-6; 2000, 157-64. Ainian, 219.
43 Nowicki 1999. 46 Nowicki 2000, 247-9; Wallace 2003, 258-9; 2004.
44Nowicki 1987, 237; 2002. 47 Day (pers. comm.).
226 SARO WALLACE

-T~ii~

I ipproiximateexcavated "Xikri p a\\

arrea I
1Nikri Koprana
1//KarfiXA
1403 'W*
1
C13
Path-
Ix%
CI.,

Ta Mnimata Astividero-
WI, 4nN\V

1, II

JoC,
r2
rA2

Megali Ky(,rana

r1GcV_
tn /. -'-fz
i

LMION

1MG4 'KG

0 250m

FIG.2. Contour map of the Karfi settlement area based on the i : 5000 map of the Greek Army Mapping
Service with a plot of the main architecturalremains of possible EIA date visible but unexcavated in 2003.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 227

x /(
the
of
pran ~51~,
i\ 1"1
1I"-g/
'"1!22.
M~ikri rest
4Aii1
Kr
N
the
9/
I of
/l
plan

Pendlebury's
-127- drawing.
C'

Y original
buildings.
the
in
planned
C-L1---- ,a
IN'

of
iK:
excavation errors
hut
--I1i6N
1930s' slight
positions
T11ilil
4?~~~It
showing
correct

with

V
VAVA 20o2,

yr in superimposed,
is
30m
made
site
thearchitecture
of
-'--
Ct6'
4k
wall
/
N, plan
1)28 / ~c~
excavation
~
terrace
of 0
;llz~t2
~/;~=~1
LimitRecent
Topographical
3.

N FIG.
228 SARO WALLACE

used to reposition the originally published site plan on the new topographical plan,
providing a more accuraterepresentationof the settlement'slayout. The topographical
work was followed by recordingat scale 1 : 50 of four excavatedbuilding complexes-
the Megarons (rooms 135-142), Great House (rooms 9-14), Priest's House (rooms 61,
8o, 58-60) and part of the Cliff Houses (rooms 120-121-13-14). Along with the rest of
the excavated architecture, these were also the subject of a detailed written and
photographicrecord, aimed at illustratingtheir construction,chronology,and condition.
The various facets of these buildings' significance which justify their close study are
addressedat lengthin the archivereport.48 All the selectedbuildingswerejudged to possess
some of the best preservationon the site, in termsof standingwall height and the integrity
and visibilityof constructionover a sizeablearea.The firstthree buildingswerejudged as
highly interpretativelysignificant,with regard to the amount and type of information
they had producedduringexcavation,the excavator'sevaluationof them, the amount of
researchand analysisdedicatedto them by subsequentscholars,and the extent to which
new records of them would be of interestto currentresearchon EIA architectureand
society. The last structure,much less focused on by past scholarshipand treatedby the
excavatorsas an ordinaryhouse, was studiedas a usefulcomparison,furtheringthe study's
aim of more systematicallyevaluatingdistinctionsin use and form between 'standard'
domestic spaces and 'special'buildings.The focus on these particularstructuresdoes not
indicatethatthe other excavatedbuildingsare insignificant:later,I suggestwhich of them
might repay detailed study of a similarkind. For the first time anywhere at Karfi,wall
elevationswere drawnfor the highest-preservedwallsin the selectedbuildings,and appear
here alongsidethe plans. They proved useful in the comparativeanalysisof construction
techniqueswithin and beyond the site.
Despite their relativelygood preservation,the selected buildingshave alreadysuffered
considerabledeterioration(andtheir height makes them especiallyvulnerableto damage
in the immediatefuture).The recordingtook place in the driestseason (July-September)
when plant cover was at its lowest, but plantsstill often heavily obscuredthe walls. Given
the walls'fragility,the quantityof fallenblocks,and the absenceof consolidationalongside
with the recordingexercise,the clearanceof stones or vegetationcould not be undertaken
beforedrawingwithoutriskingfurtherdamage.For this reason, structureswere drawnand
photographedas found. A set of 'cleaned'plans (reconstructingthe obscured areas)was
also produced,and is providedhere for easy reference.The absoluteheightsshown inside
the architecturalspacesrepresentcurrentgroundlevels and are meantto show the relative
preservedheights of walls and features,not the level of any archaeologicaldeposit.
The new observationson building chronology, technology and form presented here
cannotbe treatedas ordinary'primary'analysisof archaeologicaldata.The buildingsand
theirassociateddepositswere alreadydescribedand interpretedtogetherby the excavator
as well as in later discussions.Since a long gap has elapsed since the buildingswere first
uncovered,changingand obscuringthem, the excavator'saccountis vital in understanding
how they originallyappeared.There would be no point in tryingto exclude it from my
analysis at any stage, and the earlier publication must be consulted alongside my new

48
Wallace, 'Study' (n. 6). The report includes a rationalizing significance will be highly relevant to future
multifaceted assessment of the significance of the site and conservation decisions.
its component parts, in the expectation that defining and
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 229

observations throughout, in order to understand the relevance of the latter. They mostly
emphasize simple differences from, or gaps in, the earlier accounts. While I reserve the
later parts of the paper for more broadly generalizing discussion, I try already in this
section to combine my observations with Pendlebury's to make some new basic small-
scale interpretations. My discussion also draws on a knowledge of other sites with better
context records in identifying and discussing specific types of feature (e.g. bins, doorways,
and storerooms).

(B) DETAILED OBSERVATIONS ON NEWLY-PLANNED BUILDINGS

Rooms113- 14-12-I 2 1 (part of 'CliffHouses')49(FIGS.4-6)

This complex represents a typical agglutinated unit in the architecture of the western
saddle. It lacked distinctive finds of cult, feasting, or craft equipment, suggesting a fairly
simple domestic structure. Despite the relatively good preservation, many joints are
damaged or obscured. The complex contains what Pendlebury described as 'earlier walls'
(one at the south end of room 120 and one just west of that room's western wall) and he
also noted 'many pits filled with charcoal' under the floor of room 1 13, suggesting a fairly
complex developmental sequence. The western walls of rooms 120, 113, and 114,
preserved to eight courses, illustrate construction techniques particularly well.
The two 'earlier' walls found near room o20 suggest a structure with location and
dimensions similar to the present room (the wall at the south-west corner of 120ois now
marked only by a rubble concentration). An earlier (open?) activity area to the south of
120, not necessarily contemporaneous with these earlier walls, seems represented by the
sub-floor deposits in room 113. The large, thick-walled complex 102-1 o6-115 seems to
abut room 120's south-west corner, and probably pre-dates the second incarnation of 120
for reasons noted below. A narrow east-west running wall, not mentioned by Pendlebury,
and not very clearly identifiable today, may have subdivided the current room 120 c. 2.3
m from its south end, or represent part of the earlier room. Almost all of 12o's north wall
is now eroded over the cliff edge. There is no topographical constraint to explain why
room 14, opening out of the present 120 to its south, is smaller than room x13, and this
suggests that these rooms were not built together. The thickness of room 114's south wall
suggests an exterior, and so the room could have been built together with 120, with room
113 being added later. Room 114's north wall, constructed in small rubble (and thus
resembling a partition) supports this idea. It seems to have been built up against the east
wall of 10o6-115-1o02: if it was indeed contemporary with the rest of 120's construction,
rather than rebuilt at a later date when room 114 was added to room 120, room 120
post-dates io6-115-102. Room 121 abuts the north wall of io6-115-102 and west wall
of 120, post-dating both. Pendlebury argued that the small rooms 115-102 were for storage,
noting carbonized olives from o0.l The small size and uneven rock floor of room 121,
together with the fragments of five pithoi recovered there, also suggest a storage function,
most likely for 12o-114, though the room has no visible doorways. The BSA Archive
notebook MCS-2 5-8.94 records it as containing heavily burnt deposits. This suggests a
significant volume of organic remains, possibly foodstuffs.

49 Pendleburyet al., 94-6.

230 SARO WALLACE

bedrock

vegetation

Legend

112139 footpat+,
1118

110.39
^1-lA
o-
Il1;~36y~:

121

1122.12 120
~112.17

earlier?wall

114

106-115-
102

113
QA
I6
sw)
-l
doorway

0 2m '-

18 7

doorway

FIG.4. Rooms 113, 114, 12o and 1i1 planned at 1 : 50, showing fallen stones and extent of
vegetation in 2002.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 231

bedrock

Legend

121
120

114

113

S2m

FIG.5. Rooms 113, 114, 120 and 121. Plan at 1 : 50 of walls and features visible in 2002, with projected
wall lines and door positions based on the original excavation plan. The stone concentration in 120o may
represent a wall, perhaps belonging to an earlier phase of the buidling.
232 SARO WALLACE

120

Room
wall
N of

120 140

Room
cross- of
Room m
in wall
2.5 SW SS
possible
wall
1122.01

139i
13-114-120o.
1 139

0
room
Room
of
rooms wall wall,
114 S

room walls, level west

of of
floor
wall west
N of
excavated
over elevation

' buildup East

elevation
soil 7.
outaropk
East FIG.
6. e;drck

2.5m
area FIG.

level
excavated
buildup
collapsed floor
soilover

NE
of 139
wall 0
N Room

113

room
wall
SW S of
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 233

Pendlebury argued that the construction of room 89, which narrowed the access road
117 to the east of the complex, required replacement of the doorway in the east wall of
113 by one in the room's south wall, giving onto road 103-105. However, after construction
of room 86 blocked this street, access seems to have been more clearly obstructed from
the south than it was from the east,50and the sequence of doorway construction may have
been the other way around. The south-east part of room 12o's east wall, shown as a thin
diagonal line on Pendlebury's plan, has a rough character, possibly suggesting rebuilding
on a slightly different angle in order to maximize light or access between 120 and 11 0-89
as 89 was being built.
Neither the 'column base'nor the plaque floor reported in room 1i135' are identifiable
today. In this narrow space it is difficult to explain the use of a roof support, and column
bases are generally unusual on the site. It may instead be a flat jar-stand, like those found
at contemporary Kavousi Vronda, or part of the paving.52The archive notebook suggests
that a central pit containing charcoal found in this room was a hearth, with posts either
side of it: nothing survives of this. The stone-built bin in the north-west corner of room
114 is buried by fallen stones, but has parallels in rooms 9 and 139 at Karfi, both the
main rooms of their respective buildings (see Part 3a), and in main rooms at Vronda,
which may have housed water jars or cooking pots.53
As their elevation shows (FIG. 6), the west walls of 120 and east wall of 102-106-115
use large blocks (many above 1 m long), contrasting with the small rubble construction of
the cross-walls. This solidity is characteristic of back walls on the saddle's slopes, and
created strong terrace-like supports for the buildings.

8-17 ('GreatHouse')54(FIGS. 8-12)

Pendlebury's sequence for this building's construction was as follows. Rooms 9 and 16-
1755were followed by room 8, then room 14, and at some stage by rooms 11 to 13. This
is partly confirmed by observation today. Partition walls in the latter rooms abut the
much more massive south wall of 16-17, and the doorway between rooms 9 and 11 was
cut through the existing wall of 9. Pendlebury's plan exaggerates the offsetting of the
north walls of rooms 9 and 16-17 to highlight their separation. In fact, some care was
taken to build these rooms/houses at right angles, suggesting careful planning. Nowicki's
corrected version of Pendlebury's plan shows the addition of room 14 as preceding the
construction of room 8, a conclusion my observations support.56In room 16-17, a c. 2 m-
long threshold stone, the largest on the site, was positioned centrally in the original fagade.
The entire effect of this was changed by the addition of 14, producing a new smaller

50 Nowicki 1987, 239.
5' BSA Archive MCS-2 5-8.94.
52 Day et al. 1986, 373.
53 Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71; Day et al. 1986, 373,
386. Pendlebury et al., 88 suggest that this feature could as
easily be a 'fireplace' as ajar-stand. This explanation is less
convincing in room 139, which already has a hearth.
However, such features could also conceivably represent the
bases of small ovens. Some mainland EIA examples contain
charred foodstuffs. Fagerstr6m, 131-2. Similar features had
appeared in LM III A-B main rooms at Kefali Chondros
Viannou and Kommos: Platon, 362; Shaw, 238-9, who
notes, p. 238, that these 'bins' at Kommos sometimes
contained cooking pots, and closely resemble hearths at the
site, as do enclosures at Chondros Kefali;Hayden 2002, 210.
54 Pendlebury et al., 77-9.
55 I think the latter should be treated as a room, not a
courtyard, given its uniformly heavy and careful
construction, self-contained character, and the fact that it
possesses a single, monumental entrance accessed from a
street.
56 Nowicki 1987, 238; 1999, 148-9.
234 SARO WALLACE

access
building
to
current
path
a

~"7I

2oo2.

7-j
I'i in
/~~6
cover
m
j4W
2.5
9
steps
of l 8301-_"1 vegetation
I
remains
51'
,f_.
Ilw
I
I(K of
4
-

(I extent

~cr and
11188
(
IoX.
stones
11101.75

fallen
iT

showing

17
50,
:
1109.83
Ills.
1
16 at
12

99,
1o planned

3 13
House'
40
ej ,.J

,I9
earlier 'Great
or 8.

'bench'
wall FIG.
L.egend

vegetaton
bedtrock
LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 235

original
the
on

partly
8
based

positions
3
2,5

18 15 door
14
and
9 observations.
lines
01

wall

architectural
projected
new
11 on
with

partly
2002,
in
and

16 17 12 plan
visible

features
excavation
13 and

walls
of

Plan

Legzed
bodrock1 House'.

'Great
9.

FIG.
236 SARO WALLACE

m
2.5

50.
50. :
: 1
1 at
at 11

16/17 Room Drawn

of
0 Drawn
SE
Room wall
of W
E
wall House').
E '1110.53 House'). level

floor
('Great
('Great 13
excavated

over and
16/17
level 12
buildup
wall
floor room soil

of earlier rooms
or of
excavated
wall
'bench'
over N wall
of m N
buildup 2.5 of
soil face
S face
of comer S
1109.63 NW 13
outcrop of
Room
forming
bedrock
of
NW
Elevation
0 Elevation
1o. 1.
1
W
FIG.
of 16/17 FIG.
wall
W Room
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 237

FIG. 12. 'Bench' in 11-12, from south.

doorway into room 16-17 which incorporated only part of the original threshold. The
intrusive nature of this change suggests collaboration in, or acceptance of, the extension
to room 9 by the owners/residents of 16-17 (potentially a distinct group, since these
rooms never communicated). Collapse from the north wall of room 9 completely obscures
the hatch found between rooms 9 and 14, where floor levels were separated by at least
0.7 m. Awkward for everyday use, the hatch entrance fits Pendlebury's characterization of
14 as a storeroom, and is paralleled in some other likely storerooms on the site, though
no special concentration of pithoi was found in this case.
The new observations help in assessing the function of a 'bench' or 'ledge' identified by
Pendlebury in rooms 12-11 (FIGS. 11-12). This continues between the rooms along the
north wall, running through a narrow doorway in a way highly inconvenient for regular
use. Its width in most places is a half to one stone wide (max. 0.55 m), minimally adequate
for use as a work surface or shelf.57It is c. 1 m above the approximate floor level, with an
uneven upper surface and an increasing east-to-west offset from the wall. Many of these

57 Benches at the contemporary Chalasmeno and Vronda sites are 0.6-0.9 m wide (Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 76-7).
238 SARO WALLACE

features cast doubt on its functional character. It may represent (along with the bench on
the east wall of room 12, no longer preserved) the walls of an earlier room which covered
a similar area to the present rooms 12 and 13, predating the present room 16/17 and
thus adding another phase to the history of building in this area. Pendlebury records that
'Both these rooms [12, 131 were built over an earlier rubbish-tip,'58noting that the latter
extended up to 1 m below the foundations of the present rooms 11-13, 16-17, and
70o. I
suggest this 'tip' could represent deposits belonging with an earlier construction, though
in a sketch section Pendlebury also represents the 'bench' as overlying these deposits.59
He noted that the 'tip' contained a high number of fine sherds (possibly suggesting a
special or high-status function for this potentially early structure, echoed by the finds
from the later Great House, discussed below). The ephemeral subdivision wall in 16-17's
south-west corner, reported during excavation but no longer visible, might belong with
the same early phase. Another interesting feature in 16-17 is a buttress of small rubble
construction, running halfway along the line of its west wall-possibly used to strengthen
the wall when its height was increased at the time room 70 was built towards the end of
the site's lifespan, showing the sequence of building in this area.6o
As shown by the elevation of the well-preserved north wall of room 16-17 (FIG.1o) the
Great House is remarkable for the consistent use of large roughly-coursed blocks (many c.
o.8-1 m in length) in its core walls. It was clearly felt appropriate, when adding subsidiary
rooms, to maintain the original high building standard-the north wall of 14 and south
wall of 11-12-13 include substantial, regular blocks: the partition walls in the latter area
have smaller stones, usually up to 0.5 m in length. Bedrock forms most of the west wall of
13, where it is probably cut back to a vertical face, and has an interesting role to play in
room 16-17, where it runs in a low ridge across the width of the room. Pendlebury links
bedrock outcrops in buildings across the site with finds of cult objects, but any directly
functional role of this one-e.g. as a bench-is unlikely, since it is uneven, low (c. o. 1 m
high) and runs right across the width of the room, only c. 1.25 m west of the doorway.6'

135-44 ('Megarons'block)6(FIGS.7, 13-14)

The way the block is represented on the 1939 plan, and its isolation, has often encouraged
its analysis as a package, though it is the suite of rooms 138-139 -140 which are most
frequently singled out for attention as representing a distinctive 'megaron plan.63The new
observations highlight the fact that though they share mostly centrally-aligned room
entrances and all contained central hearths, the block's components are not very closely
similar in plan. Rooms 137-141 form a much smaller structure than 138-140. The south
wall of Building 137-141 is set back more than a metre from that of building 138-139-
140, and sharply rising bedrock at the north end of room 137 means it cannot have had
the length which the original plan gives it. Though observation is hampered by much

58 Pendlebury et al., 77. 374. Gesell 1985, 45-6, suggests this feature was a bench.
BSA Archive MCS-2 5-8.94. 62 Pendleburyet al., 70-2.
59
63 The unaltered plan of these rooms, and of the whole
6 Pendlebury et al., 77.
6' Ibid., 85. The extensive incorporation of bedrock in block, has frequently been reproduced to support
architectureappears at most excavated EIA defensible sites: interpretations: e.g. Mazarakis Ainian, Table X; Darcque,
Gesell et al. 1985, 353; Hatzi-Valliano 2004; Hayden 1983, 29; Nowicki 1999.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 239

erosion and disturbance, I was able to identify a few stones in line potentially indicating
137's north wall, at a point roughly in line with the north wall of room 138 to the east.
Despite the suggestion in the old plan, there is no clear evidence for the deliberate design
of space 141, at the south end of the building, as an open anteroom to 137. After the
addition of enclosure 142 to its west, this was simply an irregular space formed by the
west wall of 138, extending south of 137's south wall on the east side, and the corner of
room 136, extending south by a shorter distance on the west. Before the building of 142
it is difficult to say what form this space took, since we do not know at what stage room
136 was added to the complex. Instead, room i37 might have had a closed anteroom
inside its south wall, mirroring the building to its east. A possible subdivision wall (lying
slightly further south than suggested on Pendlebury's plan) comprises a single line of
small to medium-sized stones. But this would create a very small anteroom, only c. 0.7 m
wide. The wall could alternatively represent the remains of an earlier structure, replaced
by rooms 137-141. Another possible subdivision, in the northern half of room 137, is
noted by Nowicki.64The present study recorded a concentration of very small stones in
the same approximate area, but these are not very convincing as a wall (and perhaps
simply represent post-excavation collapse). The tripartite division indicated if both walls
are accepted would produce a very small central room (2.3 x 3 m):65 it seems likely that
one wall is either illusory, or pre-dates the final plan.
The northern walls of all three 'Megarons' buildings are actually perched on or very
close to the cliff edge, though Pendlebury's plan misleadingly suggests that extensive further
building space extended to the north. Room 138 has lost most of its north wall over the
precipice. Bedrock formations isolate the block on other sides, too, rising in the cliff of
Mikri Koprana to the east and dropping down by c. 2 m west of room 136. This room has
bedrock as a major component of three walls, with a low (possibly cut) ledge, c. o.6 m
high, separating it from room 137. Its simple plan strongly resembles those of the
neighbouring Barracks (rooms 2-6), though its central hearth, as well as the party wall,
ties it together with the structures to its east.
Building 138-140 clearly has a single-phase plan. The solid east wall, a continuous
build, helps terrace the building on the slope. The main entrance in room 140, which is
rather wide for the site, at c. 1.17 m, preserves no trace of a threshold stone. The uneven
configuration of bedrock, rising slightly east of the doorway, is probably what caused the
door to be positioned at one end of the wall, rather than centrally, as elsewhere in the
complex. The doorway between rooms 140 and 139 also lacks a threshold, but a single-
slab threshold is well preserved in the doorway between 139 and 138, making a step up
from the floor of 139. The hollow space to the east of the building, enclosed by rising
bedrock cliffs on its north and east sides, seems to have been used at least in its southern
section (143) for food storage (twelve pithoi were found here), though this section was not
closed off at the front: perhaps the storage was short-term. This large external storage

64 Nowicki
1999, 151-2. Assumingroom 138 to have
been a specialized storage area, he reconstructs 137's
hypothetical back room in the same way. There are parallels
at Vronda Building I, and Smari Building 2, where the small
back room had storage evidence: Glowacki 2002, 41;
Glowacki 2004, 41; Hatzi-Vallianou 2004, 114.
65 Hayden
1987, 203 suggests such a plan at Chondros
Kefali Building A-B, with an inner anteroom only 1.6 m
wide. However, lack of published stratigraphy makes it
unclear whether this was in contemporaneous use with
the main room.
240 SARO WALLACE

bedrock

vegetation

Legend

1~e
1122.57
122.8K I123.88
138

144
1122.44 "'F2- ?2-301

"'1882 ~c
1121,41
f- 143

139 ir
1I
9
n 1121.73

0(
136 137 d a

3
11196 O
1- ~e

h
1122

140 o,.'
121.17
1119.40
141 12w3
m
J1121.79$

1OOWO
Y \Z

135 ~2f~t";i;;
'5C3h
Yr20. R~

o 2m

FIG. 13. Plan of 'Megarons' (1 : 50) showing fallen stones and extent of vegetation in 2002.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 241

bedrock

Legend

138 144

143
1 3
139

136

140

141

142

0 2m

FIG.14. 'Megarons'. Plan of walls and features visible in 2002, with projected wall lines and door positions
based partly on the original excavation plan and partly on new architecturalobservations. One or both of the
linear concentrations of stones in room 137 may represent a subdivision wall.
242 SARO WALLACE

area is unique on the site, and greatly enhanced the storage in room 138, which contained
at least five pithoi. The fact that the division wall across the hollow is set almost flush with
139's north wall (rather than nearly halfway down 139's length, as Pendlebury's plan
indicates) and may have been bonded into it, suggests this unit formed an integral part of
138-140. However, room 144, to its north, lacks preserved communication with either
room 138 or the space 143 to the south. Pendlebury noted traces of hatchways in both
rooms 143 and 144, linking them to 138-140, but the latter case seems unlikely, given
the short length of 144's west wall.66Room 142 includes rock outcrops in all its walls and
encloses an uneven rocky surface: outcrops close it off to the south. It might have been an
external larder or animal pen. To the south of the Megarons, the ground surface is mostly
eroded to bedrock-some soil may have been cleared by Pendlebury. There are no traces
of ancient building, and c. io m to the south the eroded/excavated area gives way to
agricultural terraces, pre-dating the excavation.
As FIG. 7 shows, the construction in this complex uses medium-sized blocks (up to
about 0.75 m in diameter), smaller than those in the core walls of the 'Great House', but
solid enough to provide a good terrace into the slope. The coursing is very rough and
small stones fill many interstices. Numerous gaps between the stones suggest considerable
use of mud bonding or small stone packing.

Priest'sHouse (61, 80, 58-60)67 (FIGS. 15-18)

The name of this complex reflects Pendlebury's view of it as having a special, even elite
function. This association, as well as its size, integrity and relative clarity of plan (though
rapid deterioration is changing this) made it an attractive target for study. Like several
others on the site, the building contains traces of probable earlier constructions, which the
inadequate stratigraphic recording did not allow to be related with each other. Charcoal
deposits were recorded under the floor of room 61, and traces of a c. 1 m thick wall run
parallel to the west wall's outer face. An off-parallel line of medium-sized stones juts out
under the east wall, and an earlier built corner protrudes at angles from under room 59's
south-east corner. Although Pendlebury interpreted the last two features as a means of
catching water runoff, all together these elements strongly suggest earlier construction in
the area. The first two walls suggest a building of similar dimensions and orientation to
the final room 61. The parallel circumstances in rooms 12o and 12-13 hint that rebuilding
at Karfi often closely followed earlier plans: since this often applies to the core main
rooms of buildings before many extensions were built, it might even suggest that a major
rebuilding event occurred early in the site's history.
The 1939 report used extra-thick lines to show the west walls of rooms 61 and 80o,and
indicated a recessed area on the latter's east face, possibly the 'high ledge' mentioned in
the text. The results of the new recording explains the excavators' reasons for representing
the building in this way, not explained in the original text. The new plan suggests an

66
Pendlebury et al., 71. Pendlebury may have
beenmisled by the erroneous final plan (the original sketch
plan shows the correct position) and in fact have seen
hatchway(s) only between rooms 139 and 143: he refers
to the second hatch as located in the NE corner of 139-
Another external storage area reached via a hatchway
appears east of room 2. It is possible that the wall between
rooms 143 and 144 was placed to extend the building's
south faqade, making it look more impressive.
67
Pendlebury et al., 77-9.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 243

eastward reorientation of room 8o's west wall somewhere south of its midpoint at the
time room 58 was added, possibly to preserve space and light between the building and
rooms 69-81 to the west. The west wall of 58 was extended south at some point after
completion of the room, closing off access from the south to major east-west and north-
south routes across the site. Other walls or buildings were also placed across streets late in
Karfi's occupation, restricting access to the central saddle. The south wall of room 59
joins the east wall of 58 at about its mid-point (rather than almost meeting room 8o's
south-east corner, as on Pendlebury's plan) and so looks to have been constructed after
58. The protruding corner south-east of room 59, mentioned above probably represents
an earlier small structure on the site of 59, not necessarily joined to the wider complex: it
is not clear when this fell out of use.
The west wall of room 61 is of double construction, showing 61-8o to be a completely
separate structure from the small rooms to its west (83 and 84), which are entered from
room 85. Although the double-wall technique is used elsewhere at Karfi (for example
between rooms 47-43 and 44 in the southern sector) it is not a consistent feature of
agglutinative building there. Here, where a steep slope produces a difference in floor
height of more than 0.7 m between 61 and the rooms to the west, the use of two lower
walls, rather than a single high one, might improve structural stability.68
Plans focused around a single 'main' room are typical at Karfi and other contemporary
sites, in all types of building. The near-duplication in size of the large room 61 by the
connected room 8o is a more unusual feature. Owing to a build-up of loose soil and
partial collapse their party wall is not clearly visible today, and the doorway indicated in
1939 is no longer clear. Parallels may exist with the Great House, where two originally
independent, offset single-room structures became more closely linked over time (though
never clearly linked or functioning as a single house). It is possible that room 80opost-
dates 61, or that the connecting doorway was knocked through to link two originally
separate buildings. The following features tend to support this idea. The double wall
between room 61 and the buildings to the west is not replicated in room 80o.The floor
height difference of c. o.6 m between the rooms suggests a step was needed: if rooms 61-
80ohad been built originally as one unit, levelling of the floors might be expected. Room
80oshows evidence for food storage as its last main use, with eight pithoi found there, but
is considerably larger than any other likely storeroom on the site. The small size of room
6o suggests an abbreviated anteroom or storeroom. It was probably never the main entry
route to room 61, and room 59 eventually closed off its external access. Because of the
presence of some cult-related artefacts there, Pendlebury saw room 58 as a semi-public
shrine, accessible from the street but somehow linked to the main building. An interesting
parallel appears at LM III B-C Katsambas, but here, too, the relation of the cult room to
the main structure is unclear.69If room 8o is seen as a 'main room' (see below) in its own
right, separate from 61 at some point in its lifetime, the form of room 58 echoes the porch
found before the main rooms of other large buildings at Karfi, and at Vronda, though

68 Use of a similar technique may appear in the
stepped rebuild of 71-73's east walls when 70 was
constructed: Mook, 47. At the LM III A-B hilltop
settlement of Chondros Kefali, double walls were used
fairly regularly. Platon, 365-
69
Pendlebury et al., 53; Alexiou. Its door opens to the
street, but is also adjacent to the house's entrance
corridor: some domestic connection is likely.
244 SARO WALLACE

11eJnuk

-gml-li~

double wall

11161.41

I,
>1
80

~tttll d1r rc
by~s
fl0i1-

61
60

redeposited
quem
79

cornerof -
earlierstructure
I
11141.
1114,
IS
(1 2,5
m~ earlierwallline

doorway

FIG.15. Plan of 'Priest'sHouse' (1 : 50) showingfallen stonesand extent of vegetationin 2002.

somewhat distorted in shape to take account of existing buildings to the west.70The lack
of communication with room 80 indicated on the 1939 plan was not able to be confirmed,
since the partition wall was not well preserved.
Construction quality supports the notion of an important, high-investment building hinted
at by the remarkably large storeroom and the 'cult' room. Medium to large rubble blocks
were used in room 61 's east and north street fagades, and traces of lime plaster (not paralleled
elsewhere on the site) were found on the west wall of room 80.7' The unique ledge in room
80, and the longest bench on the site, along room 61's west wall, are also noteworthy.

Megaliand MikriKoprana(FIGS. 2, 19-20)

UnexcavatedBuildings:
The new plan of unexcavated structures across the site replicates and extends the system
of reference numbers for each building started by Nowicki, to avoid confusion. Apart

70 Full-width porches at Karfi are mostly associated above. At Vronda, full-width anterooms appear in
with otherwise-distinguished buildings, but narrower apparently ordinary buildings, such as Block I. See Part
anterooms, not directly connected to the main rooms, 3 of this paper.
appear in other buildings, like the Cliff House, discussed 7' Pendlebury et al., 81.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 245

ar~L\*-~

_L7,1 -1 ,

58 80

61

59 60

2.5nt

FIG. 16. Cleaned/restored plan of 'Priest's House'.

from the large building shown in Nowicki's sketch, Megali Koprana shows a spread of
architecture dated to the LM III C period by its associated pottery. The smooth surface of
the soil suggests relatively deep and well preserved, rather than eroded, archaeological
deposits in this area. The apparent placing of rooms off a 'spine' wall along the western
edge of the summit finds parallels at hilltop settlements in the LM III C, but also the
Geometric to Archaic, periods.72It seems related to local topography, since spine building
would be of limited use in the saddle. Building Ai, located in the hollow immediately
north of Megali Koprana, appears of simple rectangular plan, a fact which encouraged
Nowicki to connect it to the 'late' uncluttered structures of Karfi's east saddle.7s However,

72
Day et al. 1986, 375-6. The remains of a recent
small drystone building may obscure the ancient wall line
on the west side of the summit. Earlier use of the spine
technique appears in a perimeter wall supporting
agglutinative architecture at Chondros Viannou. Platon,
358-60. A more complex structural role for such walls
existed by the Archaic period at hilltop settlements: see
Haggis et al. At 6th-c. Azoria, a massive wall c. 250 m
long acts as a terrace retaining the whole summit, as well
as a building spine. Haggis et al., 349-51, note parallel
examples at unexcavated Archaic settlements in the
Meseleri valley, and the use of 'spines' at individual
building level in the settlements of Lato and Onithe
Gouledianon.
Fagerstr6m, 14.
73 Nowicki 1987, 243; 1999, 147.
246 SARO WALLACE

FIG.17. Double wall in room 61, from north.

FIG. 18. Contrasting construction techniques in the west wall of room 58, showing its status as an extension.
East elevation.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 247

FIG. 19. Unexcavated structure C4, Mikri Koprana, from west.

FIG.20. Unexcavated structure MG3 on the western edge of the Megali Koprana summit, from east; 'spine'
wall with offshoots.
248 SARO WALLACE

structuraltraces in its vicinity may indicate agglutinated building here, too (only the largest,
most massively-built rooms were visible as surface remains before excavation at Karfi).74
On the north-east slopes of Mikri Koprana, several large structures standing 1-2 courses
high, of massive construction, are visible (C1, C2): they are filled by a heavy mass of
stone tumble.

(c) GENERAL COMMENTS ON FORM, SIZE AND LAYOUT OF THE KARFI

ARCHITECTURE: CROSS-SITE OBSERVATIONS AND OFF-SITE COMPARISONS

Below, I draw on Pendlebury's account, and on the new record, to produce a general
commentary on the chronology, form and technology of buildings and features across the
site.75This is enriched and supplemented by comparisons with more recently excavated
sites of the same type and date. It forms an important grounding for Part 3, where I move
on, using evidence from moveable finds, to consider the functions and status of rooms
and buildings, and the types of activities which took place there. Again it is necessary for
the reader to refer to the earlier account for a full description of the layout and character
of building complexes.
Observations on architectural sequences throughout the site suggest that as in the blocks
studied above, many of the earliest structureswere of a free-standing, simple type, involving
one or two rooms: room 44, in the south sector, and 55-57, a self-contained two-room
unit before the addition of the Baker's House complex to its north, reflect this pattern.76
Over time, buildings expanded in an agglutinative manner, paralleled at all contemporary
sites. This saved space in settlements with tightly restricted topography, and must also
have had social implications, which I discuss below. Although in this analysis I assume
that abutment joints indicate building expansion over time, they may often represent the
easiest technique in one-phase constructions.77The slightly greater thickness of the earliest
external walls in many blocks often seems related to the need to terrace buildings into the
slopes, but may also have had agglutination in mind, with the original outer walls designed
to be used as spines.78
By the end of Karfi's lifespan, as I have shown above, buildings were differentiated by
construction techniques as well as by plan and features. Pendlebury's impression was that
'Large and small stones seem to be used almost indiscriminately.'79In fact, as we saw
above, visible contrasts in construction methods seem to indicate varying degrees of
investment, as well as showing building sequence. At the same time, the exclusive use of
specific features or techniques in the interests of demonstrating a building's status or function
is generally rare, as I show repeatedly below. All walls were of worked rubble-the highest
now preserved (the north wall of room 16-17) is eight courses high (1.7 m).8o Their

74 A. Brown (ed.), with K. Bennett, ArthurEvans's
Travelsin Crete,I894-1899 (BAR Siooo; Oxford, 2001),
219, 337-8.
75Buildingon, and filling some gaps in, the discussion
in Pendleburyet al., 66-8.
76 Ibid., 81-2,
84. The originalreport suggestsroom
44 was added late to this block, but the solidity and size
of the structuresuggest otherwise. Wall joints are not
currentlywell-preservedenough to make certain.
77 Fagerstr6m, 113-15, notes the difficulty of wall
bonding in uncoursedrubble architecture.
78
Hayden 1983, 375; Nowicki 1999, 152.
79 Pendleburyet al., 66-7.
8o Mudbrick building on stone socles is the main
techniqueat Vrondaand Chalasmeno(withevidence for
second storeys at the former site). Coulson and
Tsipopoulou,8o; Day et al. 1986, 366, 385. LM III A-B
buildingsin smallto medium-sizedvillageswere of either
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 249

thickness is standard for EIA sites (0.6-0.85 m).8' Full stone second storeys would be
heavy in this technique, especially since supportingposts or columns are not widely
documented,except in the largest rooms. Short ladders or stone steps probablylinked
some rooms terracedonto the slopes, such as 23 and 22 in the Magazines:in general,
though, the building of long houses orientednorth-to-southalong the contoursseems to
have avoided the need for two-storeybuildings.
Hearthswere representedby patches of burnt soil/clay and charcoal.Similarcircular,
centralclay hearths,sometimeswith stone bedding/surround,had appearedin LM I-III
B domesticcontexts,and are seen in LM III C at Vronda,Chalasmeno,and Chania.8A At
Karfi,the concentrationof hearthsin the Megaronsis striking,83 but needs assessingwith
great caution:hearthsare in generalrarelyreportedat the site. It could relateto (a) poor
hearthpreservationin otherpartsof the site (withthe Megaronscasesperhapsrepresenting
specially large or intensively used examples, a fact in itself significant);(b) extra-careful
documentationby the excavators in this case because of the expected association of
'megaron'buildingswith centralhearths;or (c)the real characterof cooking organization
at Karfi,explored below. In contrast,most Vrondastructureshad a centralhearthand/or
rectangularclay oven in theirmain room, though some buildingsat Chalasmenolack any
trace of cooking facilities.84Ovens were used at Karfi,too, as the circular'breadoven' in
room 73 shows,85but the singularsize and form of this feature(1.5 m externaldiameter:
Vrondaaveragesare 0.5 m) and its centralpositioning,suggestan extra-householdfunction.

worked rubble or mudbrick. On former Neopalatial
settlements, they often re-used ashlar blocks or whole
walls. Boyd 1905, 23; V. Fotou, 'New light on Gournia:
unknown documents of the excavation at Gournia and
other sites on the isthmus of the Ierapetra by Harriet Ann
Boyd', Aegaeum, 9 (Liege, 1993), 82, 96; R. Dawkins,
'Excavations at Plati in Lasithi, Crete', BSA 20 (1914),
1-18. Mud mortar is used at the EIA sites of Chalasmeno,
Vronda, Kavousi Kastro (all periods), and Vrokastro.
Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 73; Day et al. 1986, 385;
Mook, 51.
81 Fagerstr6m, 119-20o. At Chalasmeno and Vronda,
walls rarely exceed 0.7 m in thickness. The walls of
sizeable LM III A-B buildings average about 0.75-0.8
m. In the Priest's House, the walls of room 61-6o (c. 0.75
m) contrast with the thinner examples in room 8o,
suggesting the latter room was built second. The walls of
16-17, at o.88 m, and 9, at 0.75-0.88 m, contrast with
the walls in 12/11 (0.63 m) and the addition 14 (north
wall 0.69 m). The walls of i06-115 (o.8 m) and 120 (0.7-
0.83 m), are thicker than those in room 113, a probable
later addition.
82 W. D. E.
Coulson, 'The Late Minoan IIIC period
on the Kastro at Kavousi', in Driessen and Farnoux 1997,
64, 71; Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71, 76-7; E. and B. P.
Hallager, The Greek-SwedishExcavationsat the Ayia
Aikaterini Square,Kastelli, Khania, 1970-1987, ii: TheLate
MinoanIIIC Settlement(Acts of the Swedish Institute at
Athens, 47: 2; Stockholm, 2001); iid. The Greek-Swedish
Excavationsat theAyiaAikateriniSquare,Kastelli,Khania,
1970-1987, iii: The Late Minoan IIIB Settlement (Acts
of the Swedish Institute at Athens, 47: 2, Stockholm,
2003), 30-1; Day et al.; Glowacki 2002, 42. Similarity
between LM III A-B and LM III C hearth forms
appears at sites with continuous occupation between the
periods, as at Chania. On new LM III C sites, the role of
local cooking traditions is clear: all hearths on a site
tend to be of the same type and pattern from the
start. However, there is considerable variability between
sites. For example, wall/corner hearths appear at
Chalasmeno but not at Vronda; Karfi has very few
hearths in general. These facts undermine any notion that
widespread, novel cooking traditions accompanied major
immigration in the 12th c.
83 The Great House
may have produced evidence for a
hearth which was not directly reported (Pendlebury et al.,
137). The excavators reported a small stone-built oven in
the south corner of room 89 (D. 0.7 m) and 'fireplaces' in
rooms 68 and 113 (ibid., 88-90o). The poor record and the
currently bad preservation of room 89 makes it unclear at
what stage the oven was built, or how it was used.
84 Glowacki 2002, 42; 2004, 129-30; Yasur-Landau
forthcoming; L. Day, K. Glowacki, and N. Klein,
'Cooking and dining at LM IIIC Vronda, Kavousi', in
2000, 117-18. Vronda ovens are
He7rQay'gva
characterized as too small to have contained the cooking
dishes found at the site, and thus were probably used for
cooking bread or other containerless food items. They
seem to have been regularly cleaned out after use.
s5 Pendlebury et al., 86-7.
250 SARO WALLACE

It is not absolutelyclear that it was actuallyused for food preparation,but this is likely:
two cooking dishes were found inside. It was not built in the firststage of the room's use,
leaving open the question of what kind of cooking systems it replaced. Distributionof
cooking facilities had also varied across and between LM III A-B sites. At Kommos,
cookingfacilities(stone-builthearthswhichmightdoubleas ovens)were lackingcompletely
in some houses;wherethey appeared,some were locatedin main rooms,othersin separate
'kitchens'associatedwith major complexes (e.g. 019; 012).86 The latter pattern is also
seen at Malia QuartierNu, suggestingto the excavatorsthat some role for centralized
cooking existed in this complex."'
Benchesappearin a minorityof Karfibuildings,though common enough not to suggest
any special significance.They are commonest in main rooms, less frequent in smaller
rooms identifiedas specializedstorageareas,and probablyhad multipleuses.88The wall-
to-wall benches in rooms 3 and 33 are positioned on the rooms' short sides: there are
benches shorterthan room widthin rooms 132, 6, and 76, which have parallelsat Vronda
and Chalasmeno.The bench in room 6 simply comprisedtwo large squarishstones set
against the wall, and most other benches (includingthe exceptionallylong example in
room 61) were probablyof this 'leaning'type. The bench in the Temple,createdby filling
a c. 0.7 m gap between two walls with rubble and earth packing,is unique in its scale,
constructionand solidity.89
Pendleburyprobablyunder-estimatedthe number of doorways, since many walls were
to
preserved only low heights. The lack of doorways in a complex as large as 26-27, for
is
example, not easily explicable, suggestingthey might have been positioned higher in
the walls. The elaborationof doorwaysby the use of squaredjambs and large threshold
slabs mostly correlateswith the size of room and the importanceof the entrancewithin
the buildingas a whole. The main externalentrancesof the main rooms 61, 9, and 16-17
have large single-blockthresholds,contrastingwith the modest paved threshold of the
subsidiaryroom 58, for example.Once again,differentiation in thisregardis rarelyextreme.
Even large and potentiallyspecial-functionbuildingslike the Megaronsand Priest'sHouse
lack doorwaysover 1 m rooms and partitionwalls have the narrowest
wide.91Subsidiary

86 Shaw. Glowacki 2002, 41-2. They appear in storerooms at LM

87 Driessen and Farnoux 1994,
60. A separate kitchen
seems to have existed in the largest building at Chondros
Kefali (Platon, 360). The 'stoa' at LM III Kommos
contains five hearths, suggesting a very concentrated
cooking function (Shaw, 251). By the late 6th c. at Azoria,
the development of separate household-level kitchens
seems indicated at Azoria: small houses at Bioo and
B300 seem to have a dedicated space for cooking and
food processing. Haggis et al., 352-6 1. A grouping of two
'kitchens', with corner hearths and food storage and
preparation evidence, occurs near and possibly in
association with a public dining and storage complex on
the site's west slope (A6oo). Haggis et al., 368, 378, 383-
4. The coexistence of domestic and public cooking in
both the LBA and Archaic periods suggests it also
occurred in the EIA. Yasur-Landau forthcoming.
88 Room 81, probably a storeroom (see below) is an
exception. At Vronda, benches are sometimes located in
subsidiary/store rooms, but mostly in main rooms.
III B-C Katsambas and Archaic Azoria (B4oo, A12oo).
Alexiou; Haggis et al., 363, 368, 375. Recesses for pithoi
at Geometric Zagora point to use of benches as shelves
in storeroom contexts. Fagerstr6m, 33-5-
89 Gesell et al. 1985, 340-2; Pendlebury et al., 75;
Rutkowski, 260.
90 This width is comparable with Vronda and Chalasmeno
doorway width. Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 77, 82; Glowacki
2002, 38. In LM III A-B buildings of medium to advanced
size and complexity, doorway widths paralleled or exceeded
the exceptional 2 m-wide example in Karfi 16-17. The
entrance in the north building at Plati is 2 m wide; in Gournia
Building He the main doorway is 3.4 m wide and the second
largest 1.2 m. Doorways seem to become generally more
modest in Early Iron Age architecture, and this pattern
continues into the Archaic period. At Archaic Azoria, the
1.1 m doorway to A8oo (interpretedas a public dining room)
is unusually wide. A furtherdecline in the use of broad, slab-
threshold doorways by this period may relate to the fact
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 251

doorways; those of rooms 12, 130, 82, and 59 are among the smallest on the site. Knocked-
through doorways, like the one between rooms 9 and i1, are less elaborate than those
which were planned into structures from the beginning. The latter example is narrower
than the main external doorway to room 9, and uses small, shaped-rubble jambs instead
of the latter's impressive blocks.
The use of hatchesin rooms 84-85, 2, 131 and 14, identifiable as storerooms (see below),
suggests that storage spaces did not require full doorways.9' In the latter case, where there
is a difference in floor levels between rooms 9 and 14, a hatch may have been easier to
knock through than a doorway when room 14 was added. Hatches were just one way of
dealing with regular differences in floor level on a sloping site. Pendlebury suggested that
short laddersoffset floor level differences where stepswere absent, e.g. in the c. o.5 m gap
between rooms 79 and 89 in the 'Commercial Quarter', and between rooms 61 and 80.92
He also argued that some rooms could only have been entered by trapdoors from above
because no doorways were preserved. This idea is not always convincing, as in the case of
rooms 12 and 13, suggested to have had trapdoor entrances. These had a high bedrock
terrace to their west, making access from above very difficult, and could not be accessed
from the north by this means either. They were built together with room 1 1, itself
communicating with room 9 by an ordinary doorway, and doorway access from 11 is
much more likely.e9The ladder method seems awkward and sometimes unnecessary where
only small height differences were in question. Short flights of stone steps between rooms
are also found here and at contemporary sites, e.g. in the Vronda complex I-O-N.94
Room 16-17 was entered by steps: so was room 23, which also had internal steps leading
to 22 at its east end.95 The Temple had external access on its east, and internal
communication via steps.96
Though Pendlebury suggests that many rooms lacked windows,97 the use of simple hatches
(without built frames) in internal walls shows that the appropriate building techniques
were in use. In room 2, an opening in the external back wall, looking into a small bedrock
hollow, could have performed either function, but more probably that of a hatch: the
hollow could easily have been used as a storage area.98Pendlebury reported a 'window'
high up in the south-east corner of 23.99 The hatch between rooms 9 and 14 might
conceivably have been a low-set window before 14 was added. An elaborate ceramic
window-frame found in Vronda Building A/B led Day to suggest that windows were
associated with elite dwellings and/or public buildings, categories in which the later Great

that as social status had become less vested in personal, certainly encouraged Pendlebury to suggest other means
house-based competition with the development of more of access to the room.
complex civic centres, domestic rooms had become more 94 Glowacki 2004; id., 'House, household and
evenly sized and specialized in use. The smaller size may community at LM IIIC Vronda, Kavousi, Crete', in R.
have made it important to maximize activity space. Haggis Westgate, N. Fisher, and J. Whitley (eds.), Building
et al., 380-1; Hayden 1983, 376. Communities:
House,Settlement
andSocietyin theAegeanand
9' A LM III C house at Smari illustrates well the use Beyond(forthcoming); Gesell et al. 1985, 331.
95 Pendlebury et al., 73.
of a hatch to communicate with a rear storeroom. Hatzi-
Vallianou 2004, 109. 96 Ibid.,
75-6.
92
Pendlebury et al., 85. 97 Ibid., 68. He cautioned that this
might only appear to
93 Ibid., 68. Reconstructing a door between 11 and 12 be the case because walls were not preserved high enough.
relies on the reinterpretation of the bench on the east wall 98 Ibid., 73.
of room 12. The assumption of a bench here almost 99 Ibid., 80.
252 SARO WALLACE

House might be included (see However, the possible 'window' in the 9-14 case
would belong to the original 9,below).o1o
a fairly standard, though well-built, one-room structure.
Interior paving was documented in some places, e.g. in the possible storage room 138,
and the south-east corner of the small room 96, which was also probably used for storage.'0'
It may have been preferred for liquid-storage areas, and has parallels in LM III A-B and
Archaic buildings.102Otherwise, floors seem to have been of tamped-down soil, though
main rooms like 9 were sometimes also partially paved, perhaps to make storage or food
preparation easier. Buildings at sizeable, low-lying LM III A-B settlements like Gournia
and Katsambas had seen investment in plastered floors, but it is possible that during the
foundation of new settlements on rocky hilltops, plastering came to be seen as a dispensable
or difficult practice. It could also represent a wealth or status-differentiating feature,
discarded in a new tendency towards an 'egalitarian' built environment, suggested by the
other limits on differentiation I have already observed.
The paved courts/squares and streetsfound at Karfi are paralleled at Kavousi Vronda and
probably Chalasmeno.103Some of these open spaces incorporate rock-cut or built steps
(32 and 105-111).'04 The number of designedand maintainedopen spaces at early Karfi,
where many buildings seem originally to have been simple freestanding structures,suggests
careful planning and investment in public amenities. However, the frequent intrusions on
such areas through the extension of houses over the settlement's lifespan noted by
Pendlebury suggest rather fluid dynamics of space control, rather than the static,
uncontested recognition of public space.
In LM III C Crete building sizes seem to vary rather less, whether within a site or
between sites, than they had done in the LM III A-B period. Marked or obvious
differentiation by size seems deliberately limited, as the case of Karfi illustrates well. I
define buildings here as sets of rooms linked by visible doorways, but the same observation
applies even where a group of rooms seemingly belong together but lack a preserved
doorway. Karfi's buildings, like those at other LM III C sites, also have a maximum size
smaller than many LM III A-B structures.Even the exceptionally large building at Vronda,
the largest known from any III C site, falls short in size of the several large single houses
of LM III A-B date at Gournia and Plati, for example. These facts seem to relate to
defensible sites' special topography, contemporaneous foundation, and similar
circumstances of development over time as well as to possible proscriptions on extreme
differentiation in newly formed communities where social cohesion was important. LM
III A-B building size had varied not only with a site's topography and its earlier
architectural history, but also with its place in the political and economic hierarchy. The
Malia Quartier Nu complex, at a major regional centre, is on a wholly different scale

10,oo L. P. Day, 'A Late Minoan IIIC window frame from
Vronda, Kavousi', in P. Betancourt, V. Karageorghis,
R. Laffineur, and W. D. Niemeier (eds), MEcer4jiara:
Studies in AegeanArchaeologyPresentedto MalcolmH. Wiener
As He Enters His 65th Year(Aegaeum, 20;
Liige, 1999),
185-91.
o10 Pendlebury et al., 67.
o'2At Vronda, the storeroom B3 is entirely paved, as is
the storeroom in the Katsambas house. At Azoria, the
probable storeroom in B loo was paved. Partial paving in
main rooms appears in LM III A-B at Buildings A/B, P,
and O at Chondros Kefali, and in LM III C at Vronda
(Ei), Chalasmeno (Bi). Flat stones may sometimes
represent groups of potstands rather than continuous
paving. Alexiou; Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71, 76-7; Day
et al. 1986, 366, 373; Haggis et al., 358-9; Platon, 362.
103 Day et al. 1986, 360; Tsipopulou 2004, 127. Paved
streets, courts and squares appear at LM III A-B
Chondros Kefali. Hayden 2002, 204; Platon, 358-61.
104 Pendlebury et al., 79, 93-
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 253

from the spacious single houses at Plati and Gournia (long-established regional nucleations).
These in turn differ from the compact and densely grouped urban houses of Katsambas
and Chania, or the modest-sized structures at the hilltop village of Chondros Kefali, where
the topography and building sizes most closely parallel those at LM III C defensible
settlements. The new reasons to keep size relatively small overall in LM III C settlements
must have given less general scope for differentiation in this aspect of material practice,
and this in turn had an impact on social practice and structure.'osThis also worked the
other way around. Larger houses, even if only modestly differentiated from others in the
settlement, may not only have been built by the largest or most powerful families, but
have imposed some public roles on their residents.

PART 3. DOMESTIC, CULT AND FEASTING-RELATED USES OF

ARCHITECTURALSPACE, THEIR OVERLAP, AND THE NATURE OF LM III C
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
This five-section part is almost a second paper in itself, but deeply grounded in the discussion
above. Developing this kind of analysis (incomplete though it is) was one of the main
reasons for doing the fieldwork in the first place. My aim here is to combine examination
of architectural forms and moveable finds and contexts to look at the function, role and
status of rooms and buildings at Karfi. I gradually narrow my focus onto a discussion of
buildings which seem marked out architecturallyas having some sort of specialized (secular)
public function or status, probably involving ceremonial feasting, at Karfi and other sites.
I have noted elsewhere that Cretan societies incorporated remarkably strong and coherent
social institutions, including (i) public cult (at both settlement and regional level) and (2)
some kind of ritualizedcollective feasting from a very early date after 12oo BC.106 This
seems to me to be bound up with a very proactive response in the island, through the
physical fragmentation and strategic relocation of communities, to the collapse of political
systems and related insecurity. Both institutions were important in developing the cohesion
and identity of the newly co-resident groups: both drew on and transformed elements of
LBA social practice. They also formed important arenas for status competition following
the collapse of stratified social relationships. Though I will refer regularly to the social role
of cult and the spaces occupied by cult activity, my interest here is mainly in dimensions
of ritualized public activity with a role and location distinct from that of mainstream cult
practice. Though very strong overlaps in meaning and symbolism do seem to have existed
between the two, the absence of concentrated cult assemblages in the buildings I will
discuss here clearly sets them apart from settlement temples. The LM III C cult sphere
has already been well-explored, due to its accessibility through the finds record.'17Other

105 The effects of architectural space on social Interdisciplinaryand Cross-CulturalStudy (Cambridge,

structuring are noted by J. C. Barrett, 'The mythical 1990), 114-27.
landscapes of the British Iron Age', in W. Ashmore and ,o6 Wallace 2oo3; 2004.
A. B. Knapp(eds),Archaeologies
ofLandscape:
Contemporary 107 See authors in n. 32 and M. Prent, CretanSanctuaries

Perspectives(Oxford, 1999), 257; P. Lane, 'Reordering andCults:Continuity

residues of the past', in I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeologyas
Long-TermHistory (Cambridge 1987), 57; L. W Donley-
Reid, 'A structuring structure: the Swahili house', in S.
Kent (ed.), DomesticArchitecture
and the Use of Space:an
andChange
fromLateMinoanIIICto the
ArchaicPeriod(Leiden, 2005). The latterwas published while
this paper was already in press and I regret that it could not
be fully referenced here: it develops at greater length some
of the ideas and issues raised in this discussion.
254 SARO WALLACE

types of public ceremonial activity are less easily accessible archaeologically. My discussion
below simply suggests some interesting links between certain architectural forms and
specialized social practice at Karfi and other sites: a fuller study would require more detailed
publication of finds and contexts and a parallel discussion of the cult sphere.o18
Advanced debate already exists about who controlled feasting activities and their venues
in EIA Greece, usually tied in to a more general discussion of how elites achieved,
represented, and maintained their status.'09Three of the Karfi buildings I studied in detail
(the Great House, Megarons, and Priest's House) have been variously suggested to have
possessed a prestigious status or function, as the residences of powerful families who might
have hosted status-enhancing ceremonies including collective feasting.no But identifying
'special' use clearly requires an understanding of how other architectural spaces were
functioning in the same settlement, which has been too little engaged in: this is my starting-
point below in section (a). A crucial point which emerges from the analysis is the fluidity
and overlap between 'ordinary domestic' and potentially 'specialized' feasting, cult, and
craft activities at different points in the lives of many buildings. It is thus difficult, even
pointless, to make absolute categorizations, especially given the limited state of knowledge
on the finds. I do highlight, however, how buildings changed their use and form over
time in ways probably related to changes in the status and ambitions of their owners and
users, and in the practices reflecting them. The notion that most building plans of the
period were conceptually related to a symbolic 'household' template (a single rectangular
main room with small subsidiaries)-is supported by the generally very limited
differentiation in size or constructional features between buildings of the period. These
special features mean that the conclusions I arrive at below on building use are all tentative
in nature. These conclusions are: that at least one building block at each new LM III C
site may have been designated for ceremonial public use of a type different from that
seen at contemporary settlement temples, and that this building need not have been used
as a residence at all. Some inter-site similarities in plan between buildings which I suggest
to have had this role suggest that a template of design for 'special' buildings of this kind
may have been shared between different communities. The possible feasting element in
their use is interesting in regard to the Archaic to Classical tradition of public feasts (syssitia)
as a central feature of Cretan society, held in buildings referred to as andreia, and to a
recent claim to have identified a sixth-century andreionat the site of Azoria.'"

ios I discuss the two spheres and their relationships in
more depth in a forthcoming monograph, S. Wallace,
From SuccessfulCollapseto Democracy'sAlternatives:A
Historyof Cretein itsMediterranean
Cultural Between
Context
the 12th and 5th centuriesBC.
,o9 For example, J. B. Carter, 'Thiasos and marzeah.
Ancestor cult in the age of Homer', in S. Langdon (ed.),
NewLighton a DarkAge:ExploringtheCultureof Geometric
Greece(Columbia, 1997), 9-43; A. L. D'Agata, 'Ritual and
rubbish in Dark Age Crete: the settlement of Thronos
Kefala (ancient Sybrita) and the pre-Classical roots of a
Greek city', Aegean Archaeology,4 (2oo2), 71; Day and
Snyder, Hatzi-Vallianou 2004; D. Hatzi-Vallianou and 0.
Evthimiou, 'KEQaJstx'tiaino rqlv AxQ6rtorl I lactou', in
HencwaypVva2000, 537-57; Mazarakis Ainian; Sherratt,
'Feasting in Homeric epic', inJ. Wright, TheMycenaeanFeast
(Princeton, 2004), 181-27; M. Tsipopoulou,
'Myceneanising or not at the end of the Bronze Age? A
comparative study of the Megara A2 and A3 and the
Houses B1 and B2 at Halasmenos, Ierapetra', in K.
Glowacki and Vogeikoff-Brogan (eds), .Eriya: The
ArchaeologyofHousesandHouseholds fromthe
in AncientCrete
NeolithicPeriodthroughtheRomanEra (forthcoming);ead.
(n. 36); Yasur-Landau forthcoming; Wallace 2003.
110o Day and Snyder; Mazarakis Ainian, 218-20;
Nowicki 1999; Pendlebury et al.
"' Herodotus i. 65; Strabo x. 4. 16-20o; Plato, Laws
viii. 842 B, 847 E-848 C; Aristotle Politics 1272a16-21;
Athenaeus iv. 143 A-D; Haggis et al., 380-1, 387-90.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 255

(a) BUILDING/ROOM FUNCTION

I start by looking at the types of space used for a range of relatively clearly identifiable
activities at Karfi-cooking and dining, storage, craft production, and cult-and their
distribution across the site. All these activities often seem to have met in the house. It is
clear that functional division of space within Karfi houses was not rigid. It is also clear
that even though the same types of use of space were replicated in houses across the site,
the format of the spaces involved was never repeated exactly between different building
units: there was considerable flexibility in the way common activities were housed.
Assemblages are often also basically similar between all types of building, with only a few
special differences pointing to special function: even the temple includes cooking and
storage pottery and loomweights alongside its concentration of cult objects. As at other
contemporary sites, there is no standard plan for the dwelling house like that which
developed in later (Archaic-Classical) houses on mainland Greece,'12but the assemblages
described by Pendlebury, paralleled by those from contemporary sites, suggest most
building units functioned as houses through most of their lifetime.
The large rectangular room (e.g. 9, 23, 120) seems the focus of most buildings at Karfi
(including the Temple and other potentially special buildings). This pattern is also echoed
at contemporary sites. Evidence for multiple uses of the main room had already existed
in modest LM III A/B structures like the Katsambas house and those at Chondros Kefali,
and the assemblages in these rooms often differ only subtly from those of subsidiary
rooms. Even the high-status complex at Quartier Nu, where we might expect a more
formal/ceremonial use for main rooms, had grinding equipment in the anteroom of its
main room, X 3."V3A typically mixed household assemblage of storage pottery, cooking
wares, eating and drinking pottery, loomweights, stone tools, and sometimes food remains
appears in most Karfi main rooms, and is well paralleled at Vronda and Chalasmeno and
in LM III C houses at the site of Smari Profitis Elias, in central Crete."4 The main room
sometimes seems to have comprised the entire residence-the standard mixed assemblages
from the single large rooms N4 and C4 at Vronda suggest that large individual Karfi units
like rooms 2, 3, and 7 could also represent whole households, an idea which the latter's
assemblages do not contradict."5 Some main rooms might develop more specialized uses
over time after extensions were made to the buildings concerned (as in the case of rooms
9 and 14, discussed above).

"1 L. Nevett,HouseandSocietyin theAncientGreekWorld
(Cambridge, 1999). In LM III A-B Crete there are only
partialindicators of anything like a common house template.
Hayden 1987, 217. The similarity of plan-a corridor with
a main axial room and storage rooms located off it-between
Ayia Triada'smonumental 'North-WestBuilding' and large
houses at sub-regional centres suggests there was a
recognized LM III A-B standard for elite dwellings which
had relationships to mainland tradition, but also drew on
LM I plans, often literally adapting LM I structures. The
popularity of the corridor element is reflected even in the
small house at Katsambas (Alexiou; Cucuzza). Nonetheless,
considerable variability in house plan is notable within and
between sites. The corridor disappears, perhaps mostly for
reasons of space restriction,in the new LM III C settlements,
but other elements of existing plan types remain in use. Even
by the fifth century in Crete, standard house forms do not
seem to have been used across settlements, as the Azoria
excavations show. Haggis et al.
"3 Alexiou; Driessen and Farnoux 1994, 62. At Quartier
Nu, stone tools, including querns,also clusterin the subsidiary
rooms X5 and X12, behind main room X11, suggesting a
more complex distribution of activities in large structures.
114 Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 71-7. Glowacki 2002, 42;
2004, 130-2; id. (n. 94). Hatzi-Vallianou2004, 11o. Cooking
pots (not always quantifiedin the originalrecords) seem only
slightly, if at all, concentrated in Karfi main rooms.
"5 Glowacki 2004, 130-2. Hayden 1987, 201-2, 223-4
cites LM III A-B examples, though some (Malia IVA and
XV IIII; Palaikastro Block X 54) seem too small for
households. The one-room house seems to occur more often
in LM III C.
256 SARO WALLACE

Main rooms are often read as the material construction/representation of the basic
family unit (oikos)at this period."6 In this regard, their limited size and frequently repeated
distribution across settlements developing in agglutinative fashion suggests that adult
children usually relocated out of the parental home."7 At the same time, the close proximity
of such 'nuclear' units, and their linking up over time within small agglutinative blocks,
indicates strong attachment to the extended kin group, and close collaboration between
its members. The Kavousi Vronda block I-O-N illustrates well the regular distribution of
main rooms, each with its typical hearth and oven, as household 'cores' through a block."8
The sizes of Karfi's largest main rooms (c. 29-9-56 m') resemble those of Vronda (c. 24-
38.9 m2)-with the exception of Vronda Building A's unique main room (74.2 m2)-and
of the buildings at Smari Profitis Elias. The latter (about which only limited published
data is available) include a large isolated block, the 'Megarons', of which the last use is
dated in the Late Geometric period (LG: c. 750-700 BC)but said by the excavator to have
continued in broadly the same form from the twelfth century onwards, though there are
traces of a burnt destruction within the LM III C period. The sizes of the main rooms in
this block are c. 31.2-32.5 mi2.19 Chalasmeno lacks rooms above c. 28 m'. Karfi'sslightly
higher upper size limit may be generally representative of larger and more complex
settlements of the period, or relate to technical considerations: stone walls could more
easily support wide roofs, given the apparently limited use of supporting posts.
The sizes of main rooms in LM III A-B houses had often been similar,120but had
varied more broadly between buildings and sites. In LM III C, then, the picture is again
of limited scope for differentiation in architectural forms, whether for practical reasons of
limited space, or because of social proscriptions on this type of competition, or both.
Similar sizes for main rooms are still seen by the Geometric to Archaic periods in Crete.
At Kavousi Kastro and Azoria, two defensible sites established c. 1200oo BCbut continuing
much later, the largest rooms of houses dating to the late eighth/early seventh century (in
the first case) and the 6th to early 5th century (in the second), are between 30 and 43 m2
in size. By this time, though, many houses include two or more equally-sized rooms,
rather than a core room with subsidiaries.121
At the new LM III C sites, ancillary rooms are usually fewer than they had been in LM
III A-B houses. Apart from storerooms (discussed below), the examples which do exist

"6 Mazarakis Ainian.
117 The tomb record of the
period, with a strong
emphasis on small family or couple groupings, partly
supports this idea. The fact that as families grew, children
moved out of the parental home, may have limited the
scale of investment in the same building over time. R.
Blanton, Housesand Households:A ComparativeSurvey(New
York, 1994), 189-9o; Glowacki 2004, 134; 2002, 38.
118
Day et al. 1986, 357, 360; Glowacki 2004.
1"9Smari is of special interest because it is the only
other 12th-i ith-c. settlement excavated to any
significant extent in the east central Cretan/Lasithi
region: Karfi can be seen from it. Hatzi-Vallianou 2004,
o06-12. However, a huge amount of work still remains
to be done in order adequately to publish the results of
the excavation.
1o0 The size of the main room in Gournia Building Eh
is 34-3 m', and in Building He, 30.2 m'. The main room
in Plati Building A is 29.5 mi, and the large eastern hall
of Malia Quartier Nu (X 11), 26.5 m'.
12" The
pattern of room use within a household had
apparentlyalteredby this time, possibly becoming differently
specialized. For example, following a new subdivision of
space at Azoria in the late 6th c., B3oo has a hearth in its
slightly smaller room, two pithoi in the other; in Bloo, the
hearth is again located in the smaller room; suggesting a
limited, specific kitchen space. A. Cambitoglou, A. Birchall,
J. J. Coulton, and J. R. Green, Zagora 2: Excavation of a
GeometricTownon theIslandofAndros(Athens, 1998), 154-7;
Haggis et al., 352-61; Mook; G. Rizza, 'Scavi e ricerche a
Priniasdal 1992 al 1996', in I7e7roaypuva2000, 162. In Crete
the largest single rooms of G-A date, like Vrokastro 16-17
or Azoria building 1300, are in structureslikely to have had
semi-public functions.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 257

have no clear specialized function (I discuss the special case of entrance anterooms further
later on). For example, no site includes anything similar to the bathroom with drain like
the one seen at LM III B Katsambas, though some Karfi rooms produced a few ceramic
drain pieces.22 Both a flattening-out of access to social distinction through architectural
form in the new communities, and the probably reduced space allowance as a result of
the restricted topography may again help explain this. Sizeable back rooms separate from
storage facilities are found in LM III A-B buildings (e.g. Gournia Building Eh), suggesting
that in better-off households separate sleeping had been a possibility. The smaller and
simpler houses at new III C settlements offer little space for sleeping outside the main
room.
Evidence for cooking and dining suggests these activities took place at extra-household
level, as well as domestically, in LM III C settlements and this point is important to some
of my arguments below. Architectural features and movable finds combine to give this
impression. There are indications of collective cooking/dining at Chalasmeno (Sector B's
concentration of hearths and cooking pots) and at Vronda (Building A/B's clustered small
storerooms, hearths and cooking pots; the number of large kylikes found there; the large
courtyard and concentrated food remains). These existed alongside plentiful evidence for
domestic cooking (and dining) in houses across both sites."3 Some clustering of cooking
facilities at Karfi (the oven in room 73 and the cluster of hearths in the Megarons) suggests
partly similar public cooking patterns to those at other sites. Karfi differs, though, in having
an apparently somewhat more limited background distributionof domestic cooking facilities
(though evidence for widespread domestic cooking and dining does appear in the spread
of cooking pots and trays and fine drinking wares throughout the settlement). This cooking
pattern is interesting to consider alongside finds suggesting that some buildings at Karfi
were used for specialized or ceremonial Some co-ordination of cooking would
dining."14in the
facilitate the investment of individual small groups hosting of public feasts, helping
a number of houses take on a semi-public role in this regard from time to time. At the
same time, widespread access to these facilities might hold back full or permanent
appropriation of ceremonial feasting by any single group.
Day and Snyder pointed out a group of exceptionally large kylikes from room 9 in the
Karfi Great House, not paralleled in the rest of the site assemblage. They relate these to
similar examples found in Vronda Building A/B.125There is a concentration of horns in
the Priest's House (room 61) which may parallel the modified cattle skulls with horns
found associated with concentrated cooking and dining evidence in Building A/B at
Vronda."26Day and Snyder see the Vronda skulls as decorative symbols, potentially
marking out an exceptional role for the structure, perhaps connected with ceremonial

22 Alexiou; Pendlebury et al., 83, 90. Karfi room 81

contained fragments of a larnax which might have been
used as a bath.
M. Tsipopoulou, 'Halasmenos: destroyed but not
13
invisible. New insights on the LM IIIC period in the
isthmus of Ierapetra. First presentation of the pottery
from the 1992-1997 campaigns', in Day et al. 2004, 103-
25; ead., forthcoming (n. iog); A. Yasur-Landau,
'Halasmeno fagito: burnt dishes and scorched pots. Some
Ile7raypdva ro 0' Atedvo6g KqlpoAoylxo6 EvvAe5iov,
EAo6vra 2ooI (forthcoming); id., forthcoming; Day et al.
(n. 84).
124Hinting at a specialization of settlement zones along
the lines suggested by Yasur-Landau forthcoming, who
argues that the 'Megarons' at Chalasmeno were mostly a
specialized dining area, served by concentrated cooking
facilities in another part of the site.
125 Day and Snyder.

preliminary observations on LM IIIC cooking ware', in

126
Pendlebury et al., 77-9.
258 SARO WALLACE

feasting. A bull skull with horns attached was also found in the Smari 'Megarons' complex,
which was rich in other dining debris too, in the form of animal bones and drinking
vessels dating in the LM III C through LG periods.127 Below I shall discuss special
architectural features linking these buildings, but the slenderness of published finds and
context evidence poses a real problem for theorizing 'feasting' in this context and for
identifying specialized venues for it with any accuracy. The concept I have in mind in the
discussion below is of a ceremonialized, collective, and organized activity involving a
group beyond the immediate family.128
In Karfi houses, one subsidiary room, plus part of the main room, was often used for
food storage in pithoi, a feature paralleled at other LM III C settlements. Clustered groups
of small storerooms like those found in LM III A-B houses above a certain size (and,
presumably, status) at large sites, and more rarely in modest buildings at small settlements
are suggested at Karfi by rooms 81-84 and possibly rooms 102-105.129 This may reflect a
tradition or practice partly retained during the movement to new sites, possibly associated
with prestigiousstatusof a buildingor group.However,these groupingsof smallrooms at
Karfido not correlatewith especiallylarge or impressivebuildings,as they do in the case
of Vronda Building A/B. Much more common in most LM III C houses were single,
small- to medium-sized storerooms, often adjoining the main room. These vary widely in
size and in pithos concentration(of those found to contain pithoi, room 14 is 8.75 m',
with io pithoi, room 80ois 20.1 m', with 8, room 22 is 5.6 m2, with 8). Finds suggest they
were also used to store household ceramicsand other types of goods as well as food.'13
Their size must have relatedto the size of the residencegroup at the time of construction,
but could also have been determinedby the level of hosting activities engaged in at a
particularhouse, additionaluses of the storeroom,and the space availablefor storagein
the adjoiningmain room. Storeroomswhich were added to a building over time, like
room 14 in the GreatHouse, may reflectincreasesin group size or an expandingscale of
social activity, but were also constrained by available extension space.
The fact that LM III C settlements lack obviously hierarchical or distinct functional
relationships to each other, and the lack of evidence for very large-scale specialization of

127 E. Tsoukala and D.

Hatzi-Vallianou, "Havi8a xat
tarQoqptxi&g oauvrlOFteq o-rrlv Axq6rnoki ZgaQ1t6u avra6
F&ogFe-Qtxi7/AvaTok1itovaaxat mnahatoavaxtxToQtx
17l
ernooX",in Ienreayldva 2000, 399; Hatzi-Vallianou and
Evthimiou (n. 109); Hatzi-Vallianou.
128 For a discussion of how
feasting can be theorized
and identified in the prehistoric Aegean see J. Wright,
chs. 1 and 2 in Wright (n. 1 o), 1-58; Tsipopulou 2004,
136-8; Tsoukala and Hatzi-Vallianou (n. 127), 404.
129 Like Chondros Kefali
Building O-D (Platon, n. 53)-
Driessen and Farnoux 1994, 62-3, note the storeroom
cluster 112, 113, II5 at Quartier Nu. Platon, 362 notes a
group of small unattached rooms beside the largest and
most complex building at Chondros Kefali. Similarities
in layout and size with LM III C storage complexes
should be viewed in the broader context of changes in
building scale after c. 12oo BC.In the Ayia Triada North-
West Building, for example, individual storerooms dating
to LM III A are similar in size to LM III C examples
(and larger than those in small III A-B buildings) In
aggregate, however, they provided more dedicated
storage than those in any LM III C structure (Cucuzza).
The volume of storage-type rooms at Gournia Building
Eh roughly parallels the B complex at Vronda (Day et al.
1986, 357). But Vronda A/B cannot be treated as
representative, being the largest building on any LM III
C site, and almost certainly possessing a special social
role. Some of the small rooms in the B complex probably
had other functions, like cooking, while the Gournia
house had additional subsidiary rooms beyond the
storage group. In sum, storage space per household seems
generally more modest at LM III C settlements than in
those of LM III A-B.
130 Room
80 contained cooking pots and lekanai; room
121 included a tripod cooking pot. Household ceramics
appeared alongside pithoi in probable storerooms at the
LM III B Katsambas house, in Malia Quartier Nu room
112, and in B3oo at Archaic Azoria. Alexiou; Haggis et al.,
352-6; Driessen and Farnoux 1994, 63-
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 259

production, contrasts substantially with the seemingly more centralized, complex

organization of production in the LM III A-B palatial economy reflected in settlement
pattern, the movable-artefact record, and the Linear B tablets.'~' Specialized areas for
metalworking or ceramic manufacture were not identified at Karfi. They do seem likely
to have existed, however, given the settlement's status as the largest in its region, and that
region's relative isolation from the low-lying trade gateways through which much of the
island's raw metal and at least some manufactured metal artefacts must have passed. These
factors suggest Karfi might well have had some kind of regionally centralized productive
role. The large quantities of bronze artefacts found at the site, and the similarity of Karfi's
ceramic fabrics to those of surrounding smaller settlements,132 support this notion.
Contemporary sites of much smaller size, even where closely clustered, seem to have had
their own production facilities. Vronda had its own kiln less than 30 m from the settlement,
and a potter's wheel was found in a house at Chalasmeno (B2).'33By the Archaic period,
specific buildings were clearly being set aside for manufacturing at or near large settlements
like Papoura (where Karfi residents probably relocated from the Protogeometric period).'34
However, even at these later sites, small work areas still seem to have been located within
houses. For example, metalworking residues were found in Storeroom B3oo at Archaic
Azoria, suggesting a long tradition of household craft production.'15 At Karfi, the small
size of room 26 in relation to the adjacent large room 27, together with the large number
of pithoi found there, suggests it was a storeroom, but it also contained exceptional
quantities of bronze tools.'36The high concentration of bronze tools and metal fragments
in the small room 12 suggest it might have been a workshop or specialist tools storeroom
attached to a large house, and the south part of room 16/17 also has high numbers of
bronze objects, including tools. This pattern could possibly represent a concentration of
craft activities in the central saddle, or under control of the powerful residents of the
Great House, but the evidence is slim (for example, a concentration of metal craft items
was also found on the western saddle, in room i o6). It could almost equally well be read
simply as indicating the relative wealth of the building's inhabitants (though such
concentrations are lacking from other large and important buildings like the Priest'sHouse).
In contrast, the wide distribution of loomweights across the site (also paralleled at other
settlements) suggests that textile working took place in nearly every household.'37

'31 J. Bennet, '"Collectors" or "owners"? An
examination of their possible functions within the palatial
economy of LM III Crete', in J.-P. Olivier (ed.),
Mykenaika: ActesduIXA Colloque Internationalsur les textes
mycinienset igiens, organisipar le Centrede l'Antiquiti
grecqueet romainede la FondationHelliniquedesRicherches
Scientifiqueset l'Acolefranfaise d Athines (Athines,2-6
octobrer99o) (Paris, 1992), 65-103; J. Driessen, 'Centre
and periphery: some observations on the administration
of the kingdom of Knossos', in Voutsaki and Killen (n.
27), 96-113, J.-P. Olivier, 'La collecte et la circulation
de l'information economique dans la Crete mycenienne',
in Driessen and Farnoux 1997, 391-407.
132 Nowicki 1995; 2000, 147-70.
'33 L. P. Day., W. D. E. Coulson, and G. C. Gesell, 'A
new Early Iron Age kiln at Kavousi, Crete', Rivista di
archeologia,13 (1989), 103-6; Gesell et al. 1988, 290-3;
Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 77.
'34 A building apparently used for fabric dyeing is
located at Kolonna, probably associated with the
settlement on Papoura. L. V. Watrous, 'J. D. S.
Pendlebury's excavations in the plain of Lasithi: the Iron
Age sites', BSA 75 (1980), 277-81. Azoria building
A13o0 contained evidence for wine-pressing at a
considerable scale, and another area (A9oo-i oo) had
concentrated evidence for textile manufacture in the form
of loomweights. Haggis et al., 369-72.
135 Haggis et al., 352-6.
136
Pendlebury et al., 81-3-
137 Glowacki 2004; Pendlebury et al., 72, 89.
260 SARO WALLACE

Cult activity at Karfi, as at other LM III C settlements, took place at a number of

different levels and locations apart from the Temple.138Cult material was spread around
the site in a number of different buildings and rooms, with a frequency somewhat higher
than at other excavated settlements. This suggested to Rutkowski that the whole central
saddle, including the Great House, might have been dedicated to cult practice alone at
some point in the settlement's life. While I think the cult finds are too widely dispersed
and the stratigraphic information too poor to firmly support this idea, the blocking-off of
much of the central saddle at a late date in the settlement's life could conceivably be
connected to a changed use of all or part of the excavated area, perhaps with an emphasis
on cult, at this point in time.139The change might have been connected to the community's
probable resettlement at Papoura.14oHowever, except in the Temple, the numbers of cult
objects were always an extreme minority in relation to standard domestic artefacts in
each room or building where they were found. The idea of more specialized use of buildings
over time lacks clear stratigraphic support.'14The exceptionally wide scattering of cult
items, compared to contemporary excavated sites may simply relate to Karfi's size and
complexity, in ways the limited detail of the record does not allow us to understand fully.
Differences in the type of cult items found between different rooms and buildings may be
significant, though there are many overlaps. Combinations of goddess figurines, snake
tubes, concentrations of kalathoi, and clay stands, all associated with settlement-level public
shrines in LM III C Crete, were found in the Temple and in rooms 16-17, 27, 57, 58, 70,
85 and 106.142 Other objects with probable cult associations, including animal figurines,
cult vases, bronze votive axes, an anthropomorphic rhyton, and a triton shell, came from
rooms 16-17, 85, 26, 27, and io6.'43 These most resemble the material found at
contemporary extra-settlement sanctuaries (possibly representing personal votives).'44
The contents of room 58 in the Priest's House, which belong to the first group, together
with the room's architectural status as an addition to a large, wealthy complex, may
represent attempts by an increasingly powerful family to emulate elements of standard
settlement cult. The ritually-associated material found in room 16-17 (which includes
both categories of object) together with the room's location in another prestigious and

138 Possible cult-related items were found in domestic

represent a secondary use of the room, my interpretation
contexts at Vronda and Chalasmeno. G. C. Gesell, L. P. here of the reasons for constructing the room would have
Day, and W. D. Coulson, 'Excavatations at Kavousi, to be revised. Unfortunately the recorded stratigraphy
Crete, 1989 and 199o', Hesp. 64 (1995), 70-1; provides no further insight.
Tsipopoulou (pers. comm.). They might be interpreted 142 Pendleburyet al., 77-9, 81-7, 91-2, 95-6; Gesell
as indicating the existence of 'household shrines'. 1985, 81-2.
139 Rutkowski, 262. 143
Pendleburyet al., 77-9, 81-2, 91-2, 95-6. There
140 There are some
parallels for this kind of change of is a concentration of animal figurines in buildings on the
'narrowed' use during the course of the EIA period in upper western saddle, but it is likely that many of these
Crete. Feasting-centred reuse of abandoned LM III C come from the Middle Bronze Age sanctuary on the Karfi
Megaron A at Chalasmeno occurred by Late Geometric. peak. The votive bronze axes found in room i06 and
The Smari Megarons block became a cult/feasting location elsewhere on the site may have the same origin.
from at least the LG period, after the abandonment of '44 J. Boardman, The Cretan Collection
in Oxford. The
much of the earlier settlement. Tsipopulou 2004; D. Hatzi- Dictaean Cave and Iron Age Crete, (Oxford, 1961);
Vallianou, "H AOTivaqo rlV A. Lembesi, To Ieo -rov x q ArpQooifqn
karc1cia -rqq AxeQ6ro1rl E)ri! xat
Bidvvov. Xdxtiva xoQrixad urr
lgaQtbu", in HerroayduEva 2000, 71-82; Wallace 2003. rooedlpara (Athens,
1'4 Though there are cases-e.g. in room 58-where ,dpuq
1985); L. V. Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary at Psychro:A
cult finds are reported as coming only from the Study of Extra-Urban Sanctuariesin Minoan and Early Iron
uppermost deposit. Pendlebury et al., 85. If these did Age Crete(Aegaeum, 15; Liege, 1996); Gesell 1985, 46.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 261

expandingbuilding,mightrepresenta rivalgroup'sdeliberatepromotionof a more widely

resonant type of cult practice. Ownershipof some aspects of cult by powerful private
groups is alreadysuggestedin LM III A-B Crete at ChondrosKefali,where the largest
house (Hi-G1) incorporateda cult area,perhapson a second storey.Malia QuartierNu
may have contained its own small shrine in room VII:1. No separate,specialized cult
buildingwas found at eithersettlement,thoughone existedat Gournia,showinga complex
role for cult alreadyin thisperiod.'45Afterthe settlementrelocationand socialrestructuring
c. 1200 BC,public templesbecame a more standardpart of everydaylife, almostcertainly
comprisingan importantreferencepoint in social cohesion and identity-building.In this
context, cult seems likely to have become a much less easily alienable social institution,
and privatepower display may have been increasinglychanneledinto feasting.Even so,
continued attempts at the appropriationof some aspects of cult activity by individual
groups seem to have continued.

(b) USEOF STATIC VERSUS AGGLUTINATIVE PLANS TO DIFFERENTIATE 'SPECIAL'

BUILDINGS

I now want to concentratefurtheron how power relationsin EIA Crete may have been
reflectedand negotiatedin architecturalforms.I have shown above that considerationof
structuralalterationsover time throwsimportantlight on building statusand function,in
an environmentwhere such alterationswere frequent.146 One aspect of the Karfi plan
whichhas attractedconsiderablescholarlyattentionis the impressionthatthe site is divided
into an eastern zone, of more regular,simply planned buildings,and a western one, of
heavily agglutinated,irregularlyplanned structures.Nowicki explained the simple final
plan of the eastern buildings by arguing that they represented the expansion of the
settlementin its latterstages.In doing so, however,he had to suggestthat they were built
'stillwithinthe earlyperiod, 1200-1 170 BC' to get over the absence of differentialpottery
dating.147 In fact, the hypothesis of later constructionin the easternzone is undermined
by Pendlebury's,Nowicki's,and my own studiesof buildingsin the westernsector,which
suggestthatits final plan developed over the site'sentirelifespan.It seems to have had an
initial pattern of fewer, simpler (often single-room) structures, including 55-57, 44, 120,
61 or 80, 60, 9, 16-17, possibly 67-9, the Magazines block, and the Temple, though it
cannot be proved that these are all contemporary.'48 This kind of pattern would have
more similaritieswith the final plans of the east sector. There are resemblances, for example,
between the 'Barracks'in the east sector and the 'Magazines' in the west: both are rows of
single-room structures, sharing party walls. I think that the east sector buildings may be
more usefully characterized as having not just simple, but static plans, which altered
minimallyduringthe periodbetweenconstructionand abandonment.The maincomponent
in the 'Megarons' block, rooms 138-140, is the best example, in having a single-phase

145Eliopoulos 2004; Platon, 361-2; Boyd 1905, 22,
43, 48; Gesell 1985, 42-3, 82; Farnoux and Driessen
1994, 63- See recently, for Palaikastro, T. Cunningham,
'House, shrine, or house-shrine? Assessing cultic vs.
domestic function in Late Bronze Age Crete', in Glowacki
and Vogeikoff-Brogan (n. 109). Each situation is different
and needs a different explanation: I do not attempt here
to model LM III A-B cult practice in detail.
146
Rutkowski, 259-
147Nowicki 2002, 158-61. The lack of clear dating
difference is confirmed by Day's restudy of the ceramic
finds (Day, pers. comm.).
148Pendlebury et al., 77; Nowicki 1987, 238.
262 SARO WALLACE

plan, with main and subsidiary rooms designed together. This contrasts with most buildings
in the western sector, where subsidiary rooms were added over time.'49 Nowicki has also
suggested that the differences between the sectors might reflect a long-term concentration
of residence on the most defensible, western part of the site. It is useful to test this idea
with reference to other settlements. At Vronda, though agglutination took place, this
happened in a balanced fashion, with the original wide spacing between all blocks never
becoming completely closed in. Following Nowicki's argument, the contrast with Karfi's
west sector might seem related to Vronda's less polarized defensible topography.15o
Chalasmeno is more like Karfi,in that distinct zones of more 'static'and more 'agglutinative'
planning are seen, with the Megarons of sector A contrasting with the more agglutinated
sector, B.'5' Yet the sector B topography lacks any special defensible characteristics. In all
three cases, the blocks with mostly static plans have otherdistinctive characteristics,discussed
further in (d) below, which suggest they may have been left unchanged for social and
symbolic reasons.
An argument for agglutination level as the major distinguishing feature between zones
at Karfi is hard to reconcile with ideas that the ethnicity or social standing of the builders/
owners determined the final form of the eastern zone buildings, especially the Megarons.
These such analyses pay very little attention either to architectural changes over time, or
to site-wide architectural context, skewing understanding of an environment where
agglutinative building was a widespread and socially meaningful practice. When the
unusually static aspect of some blocks' plans is recognized, it is difficult to suggest that
these plans represent one ethnic or power group without explaining why this group never
needed to expand or adapt its buildings. It might be argued that one group controlled
larger areas of building space than another, allowing more spaced-out, simpler construction
in one zone, while another group was forced to develop its architecture agglutinatively in
a more constricted area. In fact, though, on the basis of presently available data, Karfi's
'static' building zone looks much more limited in size than its 'agglutinative' one. Though
this impression could easily be reversed by extension of excavation on the site, the relatively
limited size of the static-plan zone is reflected at the more completely excavated sites of
Chalasmeno and Vronda.
Concern with end-state plan alone can also be misleading when analogies are sought
for EIA cultural patterns. For example, Pueblo villages of the seventeenth century AD in
New Mexico were founded by residents from a number of different earlier settlements in
circumstances of political insecurity, provide an interesting comparison with Karfi.152These
new villages often had bizonal plans, one zone formal and regular, the other roughly-built
and apparently unplanned. Here, zoning did represent groups of different origins/cultural
traditions. But significantly, growth over time occurred in bothzones: regular, formalized
expansion within the first sector, and looser agglutinative growth in the second. Distinct
patterns were deliberately maintained by distinct groups, but each expanded in its own

149 There is some degree of alteration over time in the
eastern sector-room 142 is probably an addition to the
Megarons block. Conversely, some buildings on the
western side, like the Magazines, seem to have altered
rather little over time.
150 Day 1997, 394; Glowacki 2004, 129-34-
'51 Tsipopulou2004-
152 R. W. Preucel, 'Making Pueblo communities:
architectural discourse at Kotyiti, New Mexico', in M. A.
Canuto andJ. Yaeger (eds), TheArchaeologyof Communities
(London, 2000), 58-78.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 263

sector. Some other elements of the case may however provide better analogies for Karfi.
House plans in the formal sectors show an observance of local cosmological tenets, absent
from the informally planned zones: it seems that a recognized building template was
being perpetuated and adapted at new locations to invest groups using it with legitimacy
and identity under colonial pressure. Cretan EIA communities may also have developed
sets of strict rules about the form and use of some buildings or zones which played a role
in the construction of community identities, as I shall suggest below.

(C)DISTINGUISHING IMPORTANT RESIDENCES FROM SECULAR 'PUBLIC' BUILDINGS

AS FEASTING VENUES

Even if feasting was an important institution in LM III C communities, it does not follow
that it required a separate, specialized venue. In some cases, it seems very likely to have
taken place in the private residences of powerful groups (see above). This assumption has
been used to support the more complex hypothesis that collective or ritualized feasting was
controlledeither by a single community leader or a number of eminent persons or groups.'53
The pan-Aegean model of Mazarakis Ainian suggests that separate institutionalization of
cult only emerged in the eighth century, with the rise of the polis state. This evolutionary
type of scheme clearly fails to explain Crete's record of EIA development, not only regarding
cult, but in the area of other kinds of public ceremonial activity, which may or may not have
incorporated elements of cult.'54The presence of more than one large and elaborate building
with evidence for feasting at Karfi undermines any notion that this type of public ceremony
always took place under the direct control of a resident ruler.This is especially interesting in
view of the later tradition of the andreionin Crete.
We saw that the assemblage from room 9, in the large and elaborate Great House,
shows evidence for special feasting use at some point in the room's life; room 16-17 also
has hints at special use, including cult artefacts. As the Great House expanded, linking
these two main rooms, both may have eventually become mostly publicly orientated,
with domestic activities being concentrated in the extension 11-13. The Priest's House
also has indications of a developing public role over time, including the addition of room
58 with its 'public cult' type of assemblage, the concentration of animal horns in room 61,
and possibly the linking of room 80 to room 61, as an exceptionally large storeroom.
These building histories suggest that success in hosting ceremonial activities could only
be easily reconciled with domestic functions in relatively spacious buildings, and ambitious
hosts may have expanded their houses with this kind of activity in mind. The existence of
restrictions on the ultimate expansive capacity of any single building on this tightly packed
site, especially in the agglutinative western sector, may help explain the development of a
number of 'special' buildings only slightly larger or more elaborate then their peers. There
are also likely to have been social or economic boundaries on the space, facilities, and
resources able to be appropriated by any one group, as the possible use of shared cooking
facilities suggests. In the end, only about thirty people could be accommodated for feasting

153 Day and Snyder;MazarakisAinian.Hatzi-Vallianou a 'Homeric'rulerbetween the LMIII C and LGperiods.

2004 has recentlyinterpretedthe largecomplex at Smari, 154Mazarakis Ainian,
with its associatedfeastingevidence, as the residence of 333-7-
264 SARO WALLACE

activities in any main room at Karfi, even assuming that storage, everyday food preparation
and sleeping were located elsewhere in the building.
In this regard, the Megarons block has a remarkable layout in comparison to other
large buildings at the site. Treating the block as a whole, rooms 136 and 137 seem unlikely
to have been domestic 'backup' for the public use of the large room 139, as I argued for
rooms 11-13 in the case of the Great House. Rather, their large size, separate entrances
and central hearths suggest closely parallel uses. Room 139 had a limited amount of
dedicated adjacent storage space, room 138, but the other units lacked storerooms
altogether. All three, however, could have participated in the use of the external storage
area in 143, with its unusual open character. If the rooms did function together in this
way'55the block would have had a significant capacity for formal feasting (and the storage
to support it) but rather low potential for combining domestic life and feasting.
At Vronda, Building A/B was apparently never seriously competed with by any other
unit in the settlement, in terms of size, architecturalelaboration, or evidence for concentrated
feasting activity. Its size meant it could more easily combine domestic and feasting roles
than any Karfi structure. However, this assumes there was no social imperative to restrict
access to the domestic quartersduring public activities or hide domestic trappings or family
members from visitors' eyes: sleeping, everyday storage, and work activities must all have
taken place in the single large main room. The excavators read the building as a residence
of a single leader or ruler.'56But like the Karfi Megarons, Vronda Building A/B could be
seen as a structure specifically for feasting use, rather than a residence. In either case, it
would seem that the small size of the Vronda community permanently restricted scope for
competition in the hosting of ceremonial feasts from an early date. The fact that domestic
cooking facilities are widespread at the site suggests a stable, well-established system of
both private and public cooking and dining. Depending on the interpretativemodel selected,
this could be seen to reflect the early consolidation of a permanent leadership system, of
chiefdom type, or the clear and permanent separation of a building for ceremonial activity
from ordinary houses throughout the life of the settlement. The Karfi pattern, with
indications of collective cooking facilities separate from any residential structure, but also
apparently more limited residential cooking provision, suggests greater difficulty in
maintaining either a fixed venue or a stable control system in a large settlement where
multiple competing power groups were all using feasting as a social tool.

(d) IDENTIFYING A TEMPLATE FOR SPECIALIZED SECULAR FEASTING-RELATED

BUILDINGS IN EIA CRETE

The idea that a certain rough template for buildings used for feasting-related public
ceremonies emerged from soon after the establishment of the new Cretan sites is partly
supported by a comparative study of buildings showing similar distinctive features across
a number of LM III C sites. I leave the question open as to whether or not such buildings
were always also residences.
There are exciting implications in being able to tentatively identify the existence of
such templates. First, if they are indeed associated with feasting, they help to confirm the

155 It is still unclear what connection this block had but poorly preservedbuilding 146 to the east.
with the 'Barracks'buildingsor to the exceptionallylarge 156 Day and Snyder.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 265

strengthof the public feast as an institutionin the new social environment,highlightinga

considerabledegree of complexityin pre-polisCretansocieties.The amountof planning
and deliberationinvolvedin adoptingsuch a templatein widely scatterednew communities
suggeststhat linked social structureshad come into existence over large regions of the
post-collapseisland, possibly rooted in a sense of collective identity which went beyond
the individualsettlementor region. Lastly, the fact that some featuresof the suggested
template seem to draw on prestige building traditionsdating back to the LM III A-B
periods suggestthat collective consciousnessin the new communitiesmay have been tied
into an idea of historyand 'ancestry'.This promotesthe developmentof culturalmodels
which give a bigger role to human agency and the manipulationof materialculturethan
the ethnicity-basedperspectivesstillused to analysearchitectureat this period (see above).
By looking at buildingswith possible specializeduse and formatin their site context,
and by examining both formal plan and associated finds, I highlight the assumption-
riddenovertonesof the term'megaron',whichhas been appliedto severalof the examples
discussed.'57Indeed, a desire to explore systematicallythe value of the term in relationto
EIA Cretan architecturewas one of my reasons for re-examiningthe Karfi Megarons
here. In the archaeologicalliterature,the termis stronglyassociated(implicitlyor explicitly)
with Mycenaeanpalatialdwellingsand with the Homeric traditionof leadersas living in
palaces centred around a 'megaron'plan. Applied to LM III C buildings,it helps (in a
rathercircularfashion)to encourageinterpretationsof their plans as direct correlatesof
the inhabitants'ethnicity,as well as the assumptionthatsuchbuildingswere elite residences.
Even while queryingthese models, I conclude that excavatorsand analystshave often
been right in identifyingsomething 'special' about the buildings in question.I suggest,
however, that they have often failed convincinglyto systematizetheir observationsor to
put them in a broad enough interpretativecontext. More critiqueseems needed to avoid
perpetuatingconfusingassumptionsinto secondaryanalyses.
I shall startby looking at how particularaspects of sizeandplan especially distinguish
some buildingsfrom othersin their site context,in a way roughlycomparableacrosssites.
The generallylimitedsize rangeof LM III C buildingsmeansthatspecial-function buildings
cannot easily be identified on the basis of size alone: inter- and intra-site context, and
building expansion over time, must be taken into account.'58Vronda BuildingA/B, at
90.3 m2, is the only example of a building really set apart by size in an intra-site context.
It is somewhat larger than LM III A-B buildings at hilltop villages or densely packed
lowland towns, yet still modest by the standards of buildings at regional settlement centres
of the LM III A-B period.' 59At Karfi, though the Megarons unit 138-140, the Great
House, and the Priest's House are some of the largest buildings on the site, none is marked

'57 Darcque; Gesell et al. 1985, 352-3; Tsipopulou
2004; Hatzi-Vallianou 2004; Nowicki 1987; Mazarakis
Ainian, 207-31, 286-305.
158 Thus Building D at Vronda is larger than the
individual units of the Karfi and Chalasmeno 'Megaron'
blocks, which I argue may have had a special role. Yet it
almost certainly lacked the status of Building A/B on the
same site, given the concentration of distinctive features
in the latter building.
'59 Chalasmeno and Vronda had several buildings in
the range 30-50 m , and Karfi, by its final stage, had a
number of buildings above 50 m'. For LM III A-B,
building sizes range much more widely according to site
type and history. At Chondros Kefali, sizes are mostly
between c. 20 and 40 m2, with the largest central building
being 62.5 m2, The largest LM III building at Tylissos is
54 m , and at Katsambas 63.9 m2. Some Plati and
Gournia buildings are above oo m2 in size, Ayia Triada's
North-West Building 168 m'; Quartier Nu 1116 m2.
Alexiou; Dawkins (n. 80o);Driessen and Farnoux 1994;
Hayden 1987, 203; Platon.
266 SARO WALLACE

out by size in such an extremeway. It seems important,however,to note the similarsizes

(withinabout 10om) of buildingsat several differentsites. These buildings-all three of
the Smari Megarons, Karfi unit 138-140, and the Chalasmeno Megaron A-are also
distinguishedby other features,discussed below. The parity in size contributesto the
impression of an accepted rough template for special-functionsecular structuresfrom
soon after 1200 BC.
Use of an axial plan (withshort-side,centredentrances)featuresin a limited numberof
buildingsat LM III C sites.It is characteristicof the plans of palatialand elite architecture
of the Mycenaeanmainland,and of ordinaryhouses (aswell as apparentlyspecial-function
buildings)on the mainlandin the period post-1200 BC.1'6Such plans had appearedin a
variety of LM III A-B building types, first being taken up in Crete during the main
period of Mycenaeanacculturationin LM II-III A, very likely as a prestigiousand exotic
form.'6'They appearin more than one buildingat all substantiallyexcavatedsitesfounded
in the LM III C period, and are thereforedifficultto use on their own to identify special
statusor function.However,some buildingswith these planspossess other specialfeatures
as well. The Megarons blocks at Karfi, Chalasmeno, and Smari, which all have axial
plans, are additionallydistinguishedby their static,non-agglutinativecharacter,of which
I have noted the possible symbolicsignificance.Incorporationof a full-widthanteroomin
the axial plan is anotherfeatureof the 'classic'megaron,which also had precedentin LM
III A-B domestic architecture.162 The appearanceof such anteroomsis rare overall on
LM III C sites. The differencein length between anteroomand main room is often more
pronounced than in LM III A-B, suggestingan increasinglystylized, symbolic role for
the anteroomand a more stronglysymbolic meaning for its inclusion. In this light, the
appearanceof full-width,but very shallow anterooms in the Smari, Chalasmeno, and
Karfi'Megarons',with their other special features,is notable, though such anteroomsare
also found in otherbuildingsat each site. VrondaBuildingA/B, which has a strongrange
of other evidence supportinga specialfunction,may also have had a full-widthanteroom,
but it is not certainwhether this was located at the front or back of the building. If the
feature was used to differentiatebuildings with a special social role, its inclusion and
formatwas clearlyflexible.
Nowicki has reconstructedthe Karfi Megaronsas an ordinarydomestic structure.In
doing so, he arguedthat anteroom140 was a cooking area,and drew a similarconclusion
about anteroom8, in the GreatHouse. This begs several questions,especiallyin view of
the other special characteristicsof both structures.If cooking was the main function of
anterooms,it is difficultto explain their rarity,why some buildingsonly had them added
over time, and why hearthsare rarelyfoundin them.'63In theirfull-widthform,anterooms
in fact seem to have had no standarddomesticrole. Their earlierheritage,and the other

,6o Mazarakis Ainian,
'6' Like other elements of mainland material culture.
Hayden 1987, 205-9; ead. (n. 40), 21o; Darcque, 24; Preston
(n. 26). It seems they may have became more 'democratized'
in form and distribution over time, a process paralleled in
the case of tholos tombs by the LM III C period.
162
e.g. at Plati (Building A), Malia Quartier Nu (rooms
Xi 1-13) and Chondros Kefali (Building A-B). Hayden
2002, 210.
163 Nowicki 1999, 149-50. Anterooms narrower than
the full width of the building appear in a number of Karfi
houses (rooms 58, 60, 114). These look too small for
kitchens, though in the Cliff Houses the large, late
anteroom 1 13 did contain a hearth. Nowicki's suggestion
is undermined by the fact that hearths are located in main
rooms at most LM III C settlements. In Vronda building
I, for example, food preparation was concentrated in the
main room 13, not the anteroom 14, though use of
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 267

distinctive featureswith which they are often associated, suggest that they could have
formed part of a templatefor buildingswith a special public function.In this light, their
emulationby ambitiousgroups as they developed their own houses for public activities
like the hosting of feasts would be understandable.MazarakisAinian suggestedthat the
adding of the anteroom 8 to the Karfi Great House emulated a pattern set by the
Megarons.'64 This argumentis based on his assumptionthat the Megaronswere built by
mainlanders,which rests on no other evidence than the kinds of assumptionsabout
'megarons'noted above. The establishedand prestigiousassociationsof the form in Crete
offer a more contextualizedand convincingexplanationfor this kind of emulation.
The Megaronsat Smariand Chalasmenoand the GreatHouse at Karfiincludedcolumn
bases in their main rooms. In the case of the first two blocks, the featurehelped their
excavatorsto tag them with the name 'megarons'because it partlyechoes the patternin
Mycenaeanpalatial architecture.Like the other distinguishingfeatureslisted here, they
had alreadybeen used in LM III A-B buildingsof a varietyof sizes, and at differentsites.
Whereverbases arepresentin LM III C structures,there are usuallytwo alongthe room's
axis. This pattern,adequateto supportthe roof span of the largestsizes of room used in
the period, is the same one which had appearedin some large LM III A-B rooms.'65In
LM III C, they seem one of the least reliableindicatorsof a building'sspecial functionif
treatedon their own, because of their generallyirregularuse: this was often probablya
matter of practicalityin large rooms. It is noteworthythat the Karfi Megaronsblock,
though it possessedmany other distinctivefeatures,did not incorporatethem. They were
found in ordinary-lookinghouses at Smari, as well as in the undoubtedly important
Megaronscomplex at the same site. Recoveryproceduresand interpretativebias heavily
affect the identificationof column bases. Small examples can be accidentallyremoved
with stone tumble, since floor surfacesare evanescentat most LM III C defensiblesites.
Conversely, any flat stone may tend to be interpretedas a column base if the building
seems to have other featureson the preconceivedlines of a 'megaron'.Some of the bases
identified in the Chalasmeno south megaron (A), for example, could as easily be pot-
stands,like those at Vronda.166
The possible use for specialized feasting of buildings which were set apart by their
architectural form is suggested by the finds evidence reviewed above. Distinctive
concentrations of animal bones, including horned skulls or horns themselves (argued by
Day and Snyder to have had a possible decorative or ritual use) mark out buildings at
three different sites-the Smari Megarons, Vronda Building A/B, and the Priest's House
at Karfi. The Smari buildings also contain heavy concentrations of other (burnt) animal
bones, likely to represent intensive dining use between LM III C and LG). Exceptional
quantities and types of fine drinking ceramics distinguished Vronda Building A/B, the
Great House at Karfi, and the Smari Megarons. A hint at the possible use for feasting of

outdoor areas for food preparation is evidenced in the see Hallager and Hallager 2003 (n. 82), 81-3.
court E7 and outside Building I, and in Chalasmeno court '64 Mazarakis Ainian, 219-20.

B7. Coulson and Tsipopoulou, 82; Gesell et al. 1988, 287; 165 Such as Gournia
Building Eh and Malia Quartier
Glowacki 2004, 133; Hayden 2002, 204; Yasur-Landau Nu. Boyd 1905; Driessen and Farnoux 1994-
forthcoming. At Kavousi Kastro, jar-stands and charcoal 166 Day et al. 1986, 373. I excavated in this building

deposits appear in or near the anterooms of the summit in 2000-1, and noted differing interpretations of the
buildings. Day et al. 1986, 335. For LM III B examples, features among excavation staff.
268 SARO WALLACE

Chalasmeno Megaron A in LM III C is also given by the concentration of LG drinking

ceramics there dating from the building's reuse in that period, possibly representing a
later adaptation of a feasting custom.'67 Similar types of evidence for intensive feasting
had appeared in some LM III A-B buildings'68 but here, too, inadequate publication of
full-site contexts and assemblages means these do not conclusively indicate a unique
function for the buildings concerned.
We might expect to find central hearths associated with large-scale feasting activity.
These are indeed present in many of the LM III C buildings which possess both feasting-
related finds and the 'special' formal attributes I have noted above. Their appearance at
this date has often been used to support ethnicity-related interpretations of architectural
change.169But central hearths had already appeared in the main rooms of various types of
LM II-III B structure, suggesting that their use in LM III C could represent a simple
continuation of tradition in some cases, and a more selective, symbolic use of that tradition
in others.17oThis dual model is supported by the very variable occurrence of central
hearths in domesticcontexts between different sites, but their more uniform occurrence in
buildings with other distinctive attributes. Intra-site context is very important in using the
presence of central hearths to identify special-status buildings. For example, in the large,
axially planned Vronda Building D, the central hearth is not a distinctive factor, since
most other buildings at the site have one. On the other hand, the exceptional concentration
of central hearths in the Karfi Megarons might well be connected to their special status at
the site.
Despite the frequent use of benches to line the walls of specialized feasting rooms in
Archaic to Classical Greece, there is no regular association of benches with the possible
LM III C special buildings I mentioned here.'71'The varying size and distribution of
benches in apparently ordinary, as well as exceptional, buildings at the period generally
invalidates them as a diagnostic feature, except where highly concentrated. The Smari
Megarons, with benches lining all the sides of the main room, is an example of such a
case, and is paralleled in another possible special-function building at Vasiliki Kefala (see
below). Thinking about seating arrangements encourages consideration of exactly how
'special' buildings were used, if they did indeed act as venues for feasts. Their size means
they can have been used by only fairly small groups of feasters (potentially groups of
affines or extended kin units) and this use was perhaps organized in rotation, or according
to the changing balance of power within the community. Larger-scale feasting, if this
existed, probably took place in the open air. The presence of unusually large open spaces
adjacent to several of the buildings named above may thus help indicate their role in

167
Tsipopulou 2004. in main rooms, argues that central hearths were rare on
168 The largest building at Chondros Kefali had LM III A-B Crete, except at Chania.
evidence for feasting in its main room (D1) and '7' Nevett (n. 112), 154-75; Mazarakis Ainian, 375-
substantial additional space for domestic activities. It had 96; Yasur-Landau forthcoming; Whitley 2000 (n. 4),
its own kitchen (Ii), and an adjacent room dedicated to 296-300, 309-10, 341-65, 361-2. Civic dining rooms
storage of fine ceramics. Platon, 361-2. in city centres, ritual dining complexes at temples and
169 Eliopoulos 1998, 305; Nowicki 1999, 50; sanctuaries, small dining rooms for invited guests in
Mazarakis Ainian, 219. LH III mainland hearths were private households, and the tradition of the common
mostly rectangular in form. meal in Crete and Sparta indicate both the continued
170 Hayden 1987, 203, 216, writing prior to the importance of this mode of social interaction, and its
investigation of Malia Quartier Nu, where they appear multiplied nuances in Classical Greece.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 269

public feasting and gathering ceremonies. The central position of Vronda Building A/B
and the courtyard in front of it (onto which the cooking and storage facilities of Building
B opened directly) the large open space east of the Megarons at Chalasmeno (also centrally-
located), and the lack of any adjacent structures immediately to the south of the Karfi
Megarons, are all noteworthy in view of the buildings' other special features.1'7The Karfi
Megarons are located adjacent to the steep cliff at the site's north edge. The position
offers a striking panorama over much of the north central Cretan coast and the populated
valleys to the north, and is the only part of the excavated settlement visible from the
surrounding landscape. An extensive open area lay to the south of the block. This siting
may possibly have helped differentiate the Megarons as a special building: it may be
meaningful that the Temple occupies a similar location. It seems significant, too, that the
Smari Megarons have a central, isolated, and dominant position on the acropolis, separate
from any other structures (apparently the case also in their LM III C incarnation) and
inside the site's inner fortification wall.
In summary, exceptional size, anteroom presence, axial plan, central hearths, column
bases, benches, feasting-relatedfinds, and central or isolated positioning all seem inadequate
(whether individually or in limited combination) to securely identify a single conceptual
template for special-function buildings at Cretan sites in the twelfth to eleventh centuries.
All the same, the regular combination of such features in certain buildings across a number
of sites is suggestive in this respect. At large sites like Karfi, the presence of several sizeable
buildings sharing such features suggest they or their inhabitants had important status within
the settlement, but it is so far impossible to say exactly how that status differed or in what
exactly it consisted. Distinctions between special-use buildings and domestic architecture
seem to be subtle, small and partial at this period in Crete, so that proper whole-site
context information is crucial to identifying the former. Unfortunately, adequate contextual
analysis is missing from many EIA architectural studies, which either start by over-
segregating certain buildings into an arbitrary closed category of 'special structures', often
based on certain received ideas about plan types, or lump all contemporary architecture
together to draw highly generalizing conclusions about features in use at the period.'73
While my conclusions here are cautious, I hope they will provide a grounding and direction
for further systematic and contextualized discussion of special buildings and their functions,
as more complete finds records become available from future excavations. The excavators
of any new LM III C defensible settlement may, on present evidence, reasonably expect
to find a settlement shrine. I suggest that they may also often expect to find at least one
large, probably isolated block with static plan, incorporating many of the above features
and possibly preserving evidence of concentrated feasting. Whether or not such blocks
were ever residences, they seem likely to have been a familiar component of the LM III
C built environment, which held special meaning for the communities of the period.

172
Day et al. 1986, 365-6, 371, 373; Rutkowski, 259.
Tsipopoulou. The Smari Megarons were also isolated by
the LG period, but discovering whether or not this was
the case during LM III C would require excavations
under the paved courts surrounding them. Hatzi-
Vallianou 2004.
173 Fagerstrim tends to the lumping approach.
Mazarakis Ainian, 42, defends a generalizing treatment
of pre-selected 'special' buildings across sites and regions,
with little or no attention to site context, as helpful in
modelling long-term social developments.
270 SARO WALLACE

During the LM III A-B period, strong regional settlement hierarchies may have limited
the requirement for or importance of formal gathering venues (whether secular or religious)
at small- to medium-sized sites. Where they did appear, these may have been closely
attached to, or integrated, in residential structures owned by powerful families. In the
changed environment of the LM III C period-similar small-to medium-sized settlements
with no strong hierarchal relation-both settlement temples and public feasting venues
seem to have become more important foci for societal self-conception and interaction,
more formalized in nature, and probably increasingly separated from direct personal
control, even though individual groups regularly attempted (often with considerable success)
to emulate or appropriate their function. Certain features of plan, some tied into exotic/
prestige traditions dating back in the island as early as the fifteenth century, but also
linked closely to the contemporary domestic template, were newly combined to distinguish
important buildings, possibly used for feasts, whether or not these were also the dwellings
of prominent families.'74 These features seem too selectively used, and and in too
concentrated a form, across a number of sites, to directly reflect the presence of a major
new immigrant group. The shared characteristicsof special buildings suggest strong, regular
contacts and shared social norms between the island's communities, yet there was clearly
considerable room for variation in how public feasting spaces were constructed. At LM
IIII C Thronos Kefala, for example, an open-air feasting area represented by pits occupies
the summit area, separate from any building in the settlement.175
It is interesting to consider the way 'special building' templates may have drawn on
past traditions in the light of Preucel's observations on the Pueblo settlements, built in a
context of ethnic revivalism sparked by changes in the level of contacts with non-local
groups: 'The form and layout of the plaza pueblo of Kotyiti can be interpreted as an
architectural assertion of ethnicity-linked tradition. In this sense, it is an archetype village,
the outcome of the broader pan-Pueblo discourse on shared origins and the local invention
of tradition by the Chichiti people'.'76 We might modify this interpretation for EIA Crete
to talk about the emergence of 'archetype' feasting blocks of formalized plan which drew
on a recognized and prestigious pan-Aegean heritage.

(e) PUBLIC CULT AND FEASTING IN EIA CRETE: THEORIZING THEIR RELATIONSHIP
IN SPATIAL AND SOCIAL TERMS

Above, we have seen how closely cult and collective feasting practices overlap in EIA
Cretan societies, as they did in other Aegean regions. Despite this, the existence of possible
'special' buildings in which assemblages do not include evidence of standard cult practice
represents an exceptionally balanced pattern for the twelfth- to eleventh-century Aegean.
This duality may help to explain the continued strong institutional role for secular public
feasting in Archaic-Classical Cretan society. However, the relationships between the two
sectors seem to have varied between different communities, and over time, especially as
the distribution of settlement changed, with a distinct nucleation movement accompanying

'74 Barbara Hayden's idea, that these features LM II-III A, focusing on the architectural evidence only.
represent the peak of intensity or 'culmination' of Hayden 1987, 217-18.
Myceneanization of Cretan culture, sidelines the evidence 175 D'Agata (n. 109).
for strongest, widest-ranging acculturation occurring in '76Preucel (n. 152), 70.
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 271

complexity growth from the tenth century onward.'77 I want to end this section by
addressing two difficult sites: Smari, discussed above, and Vasiliki Kefala,'78in the northern
lerapetra isthmus, which stimulate thinking on the flexible relations of the two spheres.
Building E at Vasiliki Kefala (for which no excavated site context information is available)
seems to combine elements of the special-function 'template' discussed above with those
of a contemporary public cult building. It is agglutinative in plan, rather than having
been built as a single unit. Its north section has three large rectangular rooms, two side-
by-side and communicating (E3 and E2), one at right angles to them (E6). Their sizes are
36.8 m', 32.8 m2, and 36.1 m', in the upper size range for the period. They both have
features in common with the probable special-function buildings discussed above. Room
E6 has a central hearth, with two column bases in axial alignment, and a rear anteroom.
It contained cooking and storage vessels, perhaps used to support dining activities in the
main room. The idea of large-scale feasting in this block is supported by the fact that
room E3 is lined with benches on all sides. Room E2 also has two axially aligned column
bases.
These three rooms abut, but never communicated with, the smaller room E5 (20 m')
and a similar room, E4, to the south, which are also both bench-lined and lie at right-
angles to each other. Both contained standard public cult equipment: E4 had a small
central altar. The three northern rooms, while clearly different in both assemblage and
plan from standard cult buildings of the period, do possess features linking them to cult
activity at some point in their lifetime, in the form of a central stone feature in E3 termed
an 'altar' by the excavator, echoing the position of hearths in later Cretan temples.'17
Room E6 has a feature identified by the excavator as a bothros or ritual deposit pit in its
north-west corner. Could the large rooms have had a function as secular feasting structures,
based on aspects of the new template for such buildings, but have developed an especially
close relationship with public cult activities over the site's lifetime (LM III C-PG)? Or
was strong separation of the two spheres lacking in this community from the very
beginning? A published stratigraphy and an exploration of the broader site are needed to
answer this. To me, the characteristics shared with probable special-function secular
buildings at other sites suggest there may be more to Building E than just an especially
complex temple, as the excavator currently interprets it.180
The long-term use of the Smari Megarons block may well involve changes in emphasis
over time between secular feasting and cult. It may only have started to be used in a
specialized fashion after the partial or total abandonment of the site as a habitation, as
occurred in the very similar case of Chalasmeno. By the LG period a small temple of
Athena, located east of the Megarons, had become the main focus of activity on the
Smari summit. There seems little doubt that the social resonance of this cult overlapped
with, or built on the contemporary feasting use of the Megarons. From the early seventh
through the fifth centuries, standard public cult became the onlyuse of the site.
Both Vasiliki and Smari are of interest in thinking about how changes in Cretan
settlement from PG onwards affected the relationship between cult and feasting as

'77 Nowicki 2000, PG-A sites: Wallace 2003. 29; S. Marinatos,'Le temple g6ometriquede Drdros',
BCH60o(1936), 214-84; L. Pernier,'Templiarcaicisulla
178
Eliopoulos 1988.
179 Mazarakis Ainian,
290; J. Shaw, 'Kommos in Patella di Prinias', ASA 1 (1905), 18-111.
southern Crete: an Aegean barometer for east-west i8o Eliopoulos 2004, 88.
interconnections',in Karageorghisand Stampolidis,13-
272 SARO WALLACE

institutions. Cult is usually seen as becoming publicly orientated-indeed, the central

institution of public life-during polis emergence, and secular feasting as taking on a
more individualized and privately relevant role, though both remained powerful forms of
social interaction at a number of levels.'8' In Crete, too, where public cult was already
very well-established in a complex public role, it also seems to have become strongly
linked up to state-level politics. The traditions about the common meal in Crete show
that secular collective feasting alsomaintained an important role there right into the Classical
period, while we have less clear evidence that private symposium-type feasting was
important in Cretan society. The change of use of the Smari summit buildings, from
apparently 'secular' feasting to cult (perhaps as a territorial temple for the nearby town of
Lyttos), fits quite well with Mazarakis Ainian's model, of 'ruler's dwellings' being
transformed into temples by the Late Geometric period-leaving aside my doubts as to
whether such buildings were ever really residences. But things are much less straightforward
elsewhere in Crete, where this kind of on-the-spot change can have occurred only rarely,
due to the abandonment or internal reorganization of many settlements between c. 1200
BC and the eighth century. The subtly differentiated nature of architecture in LM III C
settlements suggests that the conceptual line between household-level, affinal, and cult-
related feasting and ritual spaces could be easily crossed back and forward by different
groups at different times, and engagement in both arenas was important to maintaining
the political power of any individual group. On the other hand, while the two institutions
probably became more formally segregated and elaborated over time, the evidence suggests
that they already had important, separate forms and remits from the twelfth century on.
Cretan societies had a significant level of complexity long before the emergence of the
state.
At Azoria, the possible andreionwas focused around a single main room but incorporated
specialized blocks of rooms for food storage, dining or cult, and large-scale food
processing."18This suggests increasingly elaborate provision for secular gatherings, in units
increasingly distinct from domestic houses, at the large nucleated sites (all of which probably
also possessed temples, on the Prinias/Dreros analogy). Unfortunately no PG-A site of
this type is well enough excavated to offer examples of both types of building. In contrast,
at the few small defensible sites which continued through the PG-A periods, public cult
and secular feasting may have started to overlap much more in spatial terms, during a
process in which expanding polities within the same regions exclusively appropriated
formal cult architecture. At Kavousi Kastro, no separate cult building was found in the
LG settlement, and the Vrokastro settlement also lacks a temple by the same period.
Indeed, it is difficult to identify particular buildings at these sites as having any kind of
public ceremonial role. However, the Vrokastro room block 16-17 (77.1 m2) is larger
than most other buildings on the site, and its assemblage suggests that some kind of cult
practice (perhaps more linked to open-air sanctuaries and personal worship than to
contemporary town cult) took place there, possibly in a combined secular feasting and
cult unit.'83

181 See n. 171. figurines, and vase attachments from Vrokastro, Crete',
t82 Haggis et al. Hesp. 60 (1991), 103-44; Mazarakis Ainian, 296, 341.
183 Hayden 1987, 371'; B. Hayden, 'Terracotta figures,
 LAST CHANCE TO SEE? KARFI IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 273

PART 4. AVENUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Drawingon the observationsmade above aboutthe currentinterpretativeinterestof Karfi's

record,I shall finish by briefly suggestinga number of new avenues for furtherresearch.
The present study was designed to be both broad-rangingand superficial,an updated
evaluationof the site, coveringa numberof aspectsof Karfi'scurrentinterest.Development
of an agenda for furtherresearchseems valuable in view of Karfi'shigh interpretative
significance,the deteriorated(andstill-threatened)conditionof the standingremains,and
the lack of a detailed stratigraphicrecord from the earlier excavations. Warned by
experience, any new research should aim to retain significantparts of this otherwise
unthreatenedarchaeologicalresourcefor futureinvestigation.Some non-invasivework-
further architecturalrecording in the excavated area-could furtherunderstandingof
constructionalsequence and techniques(especiallyin the Temple,rooms 55-57 and 43-
47, the Barracks,and the Magazines).Excavationin selected areas, includingthe small
unexcavatedsectionin the southpartof the saddle,'84would allow the firstdocumentation
of a representativestratigraphyand full range of artefacttypes in context, greatlyhelping
in the identificationof functional and developmental contrastsbetween zones of this
complex settlement,and allow revision or enhancementof the argumentsput forwardin
this paper.The MegaliKopranasummitand the areaof BuildingA1, with theirapparently
deep deposits, are especially likely to include well-preserved architecture and/or
stratigraphy.Systematicrecovery and analysis of organic remains,uniform dry sieving,
and soil micromorphologystudies would help in the identificationof cooking features,
illuminatethe use of enclosures,benches, storage or workshopareas, and cooking and
dining zones, and contributeto an already active scholarshipon EIA subsistence.The
resultsof studieson plant and animalremainscould be usefullytied into recent analyses
of soils and geomorphologyin the vicinity of Karfi'85which suggestextensive cultivation
on the surroundingslopes during the site's occupation. Study of stratifiedceramics,
including petrographicanalyses, would improve understandingof the site's diachronic
development, and of EIA pottery chronology, production,and exchange in the wider
region. Trialexcavationmight also be carriedout in this connectionat some of the many
other EIA sites nearby, including Papoura, perhaps as part of an integrated project.
Fieldwalkingaround the Karfi site would help to locate undisturbedtombs, of which
some examples have already been found. Sample excavation of one or more of these
could expose standardburialrites and a complete assemblagefrom which to extrapolate
to the already-knowntombs.'86
Why excavateanew in this region,when severalother sites of the same type and period
in Cretehave recentlybeen excavated(thoughat variablestandards)and awaitpublication?
Apart from the reasons given above-the chance to enhance the original very limited
record-Karfi's unique size and complexitycomparedto other excavatedsites, combined
with extensive preservationof a stratigraphicrecord datingto the earliestpart of the EIA
and undisturbedby later development (as at many other excavatedsites),offer a notable

184
ThoughPendleburyet al., 64, noted the makingof a 185 Morris (n. 20).
field in this area during excavation, suggesting major '86 Gesell et al. 1985, 405-10; 1988, 280 describe a
disturbance,it could providethe last chanceto explorein similaroperationat Vronda.
detaila similarstratigraphyto thatfoundin the restof the
saddle.
274 SARO WALLACE

opportunity to test and refine some of the models of EIA society discussed in this paper.
The site's location in one of the Aegean's best-documented EIA cultural landscapes'87
offers opportunities to develop understanding of prehistoric social organization at a regional
and diachronic level, in a territorywith a varied topographical and ecological cross-section,
including lowland valleys, rocky mountain peaks and slopes and Crete's largest fertile
upland plain. The position of the Karfi site-between mountains and sea, on a major
natural communication route to a large arable plain-reflects an important symbolic,
economic, and political role in the wider region, over a timescale much longer than the
EIA.'88 A research project focused on the site and its region offers good opportunities to
link broad diachronic, structural, and spatial frameworks of human activity to agents and
actions at site level. Excavation of a concentration of EIA sites on the lerapetra isthmus
(Kavousi Kastro and Vronda, Azoria, Chalasmeno) has already promoted this kind of
investigation. The study of a contemporary landscape with many contrasting characteristics
would allow social and economic models for EIA Crete developed in the isthmus area to
be reviewed and built on further.

SchoolofHistoryandArchaeology SARO WALLACE

CardiffUniversity

187 Nowicki 1995.
188 Karfi's other prehistoric occupation phases need
investigation. Pendlebury et al., 89-92, 96 recorded a
number of probably Neolithic stone axes, obsidian flakes
and an obsidian core, stone vessel fragments and numerous
pierced stone disks, in the excavation, suggesting use of the
site in the Neolithic to Early/Middle Bronze Age periods.
The Middle Bronze Age peak sanctuary was never properly
investigated. K. Nowicki, 'Some remarks on the pre- and
protopalatial peak sanctuaries in Crete', AegeanArchaeology,
1 (1994), 35-7, 43-4-