Società e forme di potere a Creta tra TM IIIA2-B

Sabina Mitrano Pasiphae. Rivista di filologia e antichità egee 3 (2009) [2010]: 155-170.

Περίληψη (στα Αγγλικά)

This study analyzes the material evidence concerning the “second phase” of Mycenaean occupation of Crete, the period following the fall of the Mycenaean Palace of Knossos in LM IIIA2 and continuing until LM IIIB period, in which the dynamics of evolution, on the one hand, appear to continue the line of development begun with the arrival of Mycenaean in LM II, on the other, show some changes of considerable importance. The general situation of Cretan society appears to be characterized by two main phenomena, the dissemination of Mycenaean culture all over the island, and the emergence of Mycenaean centers of different size and importance, but in which we can observe clear resources for new growing elites. The more correct interpretation of this framework stays perhaps in the middle between the Godart’s hypothesis on the existence of a new Mycenaean kingdom at Kydonia in LM IIIA2-B, which does not exclude different realities in other regions, and that of the emergence of small kingdoms or free city as suggested by Haskell, although it must necessarily take into account the western political situation, in which the presence of a wanax today can not be denied. These developments can also offer a contribution to reconstruct the dynamics that lead, after the end of Mycenaean society, to the transition from the world of the wanax to the world of the basileus, even better of basileis, an issue that must be deepened on the basis of the interpretation of the qa-si-re-u function as it emerges both from the Mycenaean texts and the material evidence.