Communal storage in Bronze Age Crete: Re-assessing testimonies

Kostis S. Christakis Κρητικά Χρονικά 34 (2014), 201-218

Από την εισαγωγή (στα Αγγλικά)

The extensive and well-built storerooms of Cretan Bronze Age palaces, the stores in the central complexes of peripheral settlements, and storerooms in many of the excavated elite mansions and ordinary houses highlight the importance that social groups placed on the production, collection, processing and storage of agricultural and pastoral goods. However, apart from storerooms incorporated in central buildings and houses, there are also many cases of structures, interpreted by some scholars as storehouses, which do not form part of a complex but are freestanding. These structures have often been interpreted as communal stores, containing goods, which served the needs of the wider community rather than the central political groups. Views on the authority that collected, controlled and redistributed the stored wealth in these complexes vary, depending largely on the theoretical narratives adopted to interpret the political organization of Cretan Bronze Age polities.