Ilaria Caloi

AEGIS Researcher

PhD Title

22-Apr-10 I depositi ceramici MM IB-MM IIB dalla necropoli di Kamilari nella Messarà (Creta)

The Palace of Phaistos: Minoan Crete and social complexity

This project focuses on the first phases of the palace of Phaistos, and building on recent works carried out at the site aims at attempting a first comprehensive account of the functions of the First Minoan palaces. The site at Phaistos, although long neglected in narratives on the emergence of the complex society in Crete at the beginning of the II millennium BC, is the only palatial site which yields crucial evidence of the first phases of the palatial emergence in Crete.

The results achieved from my long work at Phaistos, combined with the resulting data from the researches conducted by the Italian equipe and from the survey of the Phaistos region, have convinced me that the best way to reconstruct the nature of the palatial site and the role played in its region is to focus on the site-level complexity. This project wants to analyse the level of the community of the Phaistos town, that means the agglomerations of buildings which were built around the main palatial building and which have preserved contemporary destruction levels of MM IIB. The contextual analysis of all the MM IIB Phaistian buildings is the best way to understand the functions of the single areas of the Phaistos town, and thus to reconstruct the role played by each of them in the socio-political dynamics of the site. This work will be fundamental in answering whether the nature of the palace is heterarchical or hierarchical, as well as whether the palace of Phaistos took form in an independent way, following its own development from Prepalatial period, or following other Cretan palatial models.

Scientific Participations

Project SARPEDON (Sissi Archaeological Project ; Université Catholique de Louvain) on the study of the Neopalatial pottery from Sissi, North-Eastern Crete (Director : Prof. J. Driessen, Université Catholique de Louvain). Project ANR DIKIDA 2011-2014 (CNRS with Université de Strasbourg, UMR 7044: Etudes des civilisations de l’Antiquité) on the relationship between the Cretan regions of Mesara and of Mirabello Golf (Director : D. Lefèvre-Novaro).

PRIN (Projects of relevant national interest), 2007-2008

‘Oltre l’eguaglianza: spazi comunitari e dimensione individuale nel Mediterraneo preistorico’ (Director: V. La Rosa, University of Catania, in collaboration with F. Carinci, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice).

PRIN (Projects of relevant national interest), 2005-2006

‘Creta, l’Egeo e il Mediterraneo: tra insularità e centralità. L’elaborazione degli assemblaggi cultuali in ambito palatino come indice di interrelazioni mediterranee’ (Director: V. La Rosa, University of Catania, in collaboration with F. Carinci, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

Books

1) 2011: Modernità Minoica. L’arte Egea e l’Art Nouveau: il caso di Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, in Periploi4, Firenze University Press, Firenze 2011.

Papers

Papers in journals

- 2011: ‘Changes and evolution in funerary and non-funerary rituals during the Protopalatial period in the Mesara plain (Crete): the evidence from Kamilari and from the other tholos tombs’ in I. Caloi (ed.), Minoan Seminar. The Mesara tholos tombs from the Protopalatial phases through the Mycenaean period. New foundations and re-use of the past (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, 25th February 2011), (Rivista di Archeologia 35), 2011, pp. 97-110.

- 2011: ‘Minoan inverted vases in funerary contexts: offerings to dead or to ancestors?’ in ASAteneLXXXIX, 2011, pp. 135-146.

- 2010: ‘The reception of the ‘Minoans’ in the modern art of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo’, in Creta Antica 11, pp. 279-299.

- 2009: ‘For a new ceramic sequence of Protopalatial Phaistos (MM IB-MM IIA) and some observations on Barbotine Ware’, in Creta Antica 10/II, pp. 373-440.

- 2008-2009: ‘Le brocchette askoidi nel Periodo Protopalaziale a Creta: distribuzione e funzionalità’, in Rivista di Archeologia 32-33, pp. 5-24.

- 2007: ‘Le ollette a secchiello: analisi di una forma vascolare tipica del MM IB di Festòs’, in Creta Antica 8, pp. 121-133.

- 2007: ‘La ceramica fine del MM IIA di Festòs’, in ASAtene 85, pp. 303-330.

- 2006: ‘Le frazioni di lingotto oxhide: una messa a punto’, in Annali di Numismatica 52, pp. 213-234.

- 2006: ‘The quarter to the West of the West Court at Phaistos: a revision of Levi’s excavations’, inRivista di Archeologia 30, pp. 15-25.

- 2005: ‘Il vano β e il MM IB ad Haghia Fotinì di Festòs’, in ASAtene 83/I, pp. 19-45.

Papers in books

- 2011: ‘MM IB Phaistos houses: function and relationship to the community palace’ in The Archaeology of Houses and Households in Ancient Crete (Hesperia Suppl. 44), Athens, pp. 71-80.

- 2011: ‘Tra l’antico e il moderno: dalle produzioni artistiche di Haghia Triada agli «scialli Knossos» di Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo’, in A.M. Jasink, G. Tucci, L. Bombardieri (edd.), MUSINT. Le collezioni archeologiche egee e cipriote in Toscana. Ricerche ed esperienze di museologia interattiva (Periploi 3), Firenze University Press: Firenze, pp. 187-202.

- 2011: ‘Le innovazioni tecnologiche nella Messarà: dal wheel-fashioning al wheel-throwing’, inKretes Minoidos. Tradizione e identità minoica tra produzione artigianale, pratiche cerimoniali e memoria del passato (Studi in onore di Vincenzo La Rosa), (Studi di Archeologia Cretese 10), Padova, pp. 87-102.

- 2009: ‘I rapporti fra Creta e Cipro tra il XX e il XVII sec. a.C.: per una rivalutazione del ruolo della costa levantina’, in Obeloi. Contatti, scambi e valori nel Mediterraneo antico (Studi offerti a Nicola Parise), (Tekmeria 11), Paestum-Atene, pp. 43-63.

Papers in Proceedings of International Congresses

- 2011: ‘The MM IB habitation quarter to the West of Piazzale I (West Court) at Phaistos: new data for an old problem’, in 10th International Cretological Congress, Khania (Crete), (International Colloquium, Khania 1st-8thOctober 2006), vol. A3, Khania, pp. 167-184.

Edited works

- 2011 (ed.), Minoan Seminar. The Mesara tholos tombs from the Protopalatial phases through the Mycenaean period. New foundations and re-use of the past (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, 25th February 2011), (Rivista di Archeologia 35), 2011, pp. 91-145.

Reviews

- 2005: I. Caloi – D. Lefèvre-Novaro, ‘Osservazioni sulle dinamiche insediamentali della Messarà occidentale’ regarding Watrous L.V., Hadzi-Vallianou D., Blitzer H. (eds.), The Plain of Phaistos. Cycles of Social Complexity in the Mesara Region of Crete, (Monumenta Archaeologica 23), Los Angeles 2004’ in ASAtene 83/II, pp. 503-520.

Books forthcoming

Festòs Protopalaziale. Il Quartiere ad Ovest del Piazzale I: strutture e ritrovamenti dalle terrazze mediana e superiore, (Antichistica 2), Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, Venezia.

Papers forthcoming

- ‘Memory of a feasting at the First palace of Phaistos: preliminary observations on the bench deposit of Room IL’, in Creta Antica 13, 2012, expected in Summer 2013.

- ‘Between Near Eastern and Minoan-Mycenaean traditions. The representation of the palm tree in the Late Bronze Age Cyprus’, in 10th Postgraduate Cypriote Archaeology (International Colloquium, Venice 28th-30th October 2010), Oxbow Books.

- ‘Recreating the past. Using and re-using tholos tombs in Protopalatial Mesara (Crete), in D. Panagiotopoulos (ed.), Minoan Archaeology. Challenges and Perspectives for the 21st Century(International Colloquium, Heidelberg 23rd-27th March 2011).

- ‘The funerary complexes of Kamilari and Ayia Triada in the Protopalatial period: competition or integration?’ in 11th International Cretological Congress (Rethymno, 21st-27th October 2011).

- ‘Connecting Crete with the Near East and the Egypt in the Minoan Protopalatial period: what news in the 21st century?’ in Identity and Connectivity (16th Symposium of Mediterranean Archaeology-SOMA), (Florence, 1st-3rd March 2012), BAR: Oxford.

Papers in preparation

- ‘Breaking with tradition: throwing off the hump at Protopalatial Phaistos’, in Craft and Peopleconference (International Conference, British Museum, London 1st-2nd November).

- ‘The Western Mesara plain in the Protopalatial period: integrating settlement and funerary data’ inDe la chaîne du DIKtè au massif de l’IDA : géosciences, territoire et archéologie en Crète de l’Âge du Bronze récent à l’époque archaïque (Strasbourg 15-18 Octobre 2013).

- ‘From feasting to hoarding, from re-building to discarding. The significance of accumulation in Minoan Crete: a case study from the Minoan town of Phaistos (Southern Crete, Greece)’.

Excavations and Fieldwork

Excavations – 2009 Crete (soundings): cemetery of Kamilari (near Phaistos): main tholos tomb andtholos tomb of Mylona Lakkos, 28th July – 4th August, trench supervisor (directed by prof. Vincenzo La Rosa) – 2004 Crete: Phaistos, façade of the Second palace, 27th June –7th August, trench supervisor (directed by prof. Vincenzo La Rosa) – 2001 Crete: Phaistos, House to the South of the Ramp, 12th August- 26th August, trench supervisor (directed by prof. Vincenzo La Rosa) – 2000 Crete: Phaistos, House to the South of the Ramp, 22th July – 19th August, trench supervisor (directed by prof. Vincenzo La Rosa) – 2000 Italy: Cerveteri, Etruscan temple of Hercules, 1st – 15thOctober, assistant trench supervisor (directed by prof. Adriano Maggiani) Ceramic studies

- 2013 Crete: ceramic material from Mallia, Magazins Dessenne;

- 2012 Crete: a) MM IIA pottery from Phaistos Palace (Room IL);

b) ceramic material from the survey in the Mirabello region;

- 2011 Crete: MM IIA pottery from Phaistos Palace (Room IL);

- 2010 Crete: MM IIA pottery from Phaistos Palace (Bastione II);

- 2008-2009 Crete: MM IB-MM IIB pottery from the tholos tombs of Kamilari;

- 2007 Crete: MM IB-MM IIB pottery from Phaistos, Ayia Triada and the tholos tombs of Kamilari;

- 2006 Crete: MM IB-MM IIB pottery from Phaistos Palace and from the tholos tombs of Kamilari;

- 2001 and 2003-2005 Crete: MM IB-MM IIB pottery from the Quarter to the West of the West Court of Phaistos.