KNOSSOS, KULP - 2009
Informations Générales
Numéro de la notice
1811
Année de l'opération
2009
Chronologie
Mots-clés
Nature de l'opération
Institution(s)
Localisation
Toponyme
Knossos, Knosos, Cnossus, Cnossos
Knossos, Knosos, Cnossus, Cnossos
Notices et opérations liées
Description
Knossos. Knossos Urban Landscape Project (KULP). M. Bredaki (Director, ΚΓ' ΕΠΚΑ), A. Vasilakis (ΚΓ' ΕΠΚΑ) and T. Whitelaw (BSA/London) report on study seasons in 2009 and spring 2010, in which the initial sorting and recording of material collected from units in 2008 was completed, as was the sorting and dating of the supplementary grab samples collected in all three field seasons (Fig. 1). Preliminary dates have now been assigned to ca. 90,000 feature and decorated sherds (of the ca. 420,000 sherds and tile fragments collected). A second task was the preliminary dating of the plain body sherds recovered in 2007 and 2008 and the listing of the majority of the uncatalogued other finds. Based largely on sherds retained from major excavations at Knossos, the prehistoric and Early Iron Age pottery specialists have begun to define criteria with which to date under-published categories of pottery such as coarsewares and cooking wares; this will be of particular importance in refining the dating of the plain body sherds. Initial study of the material collected from all outlying areas in 2007 and 2008 confirms the highly nucleated character of settlement and deposition throughout antiquity: only small outlying scatters or very low-density spreads are apparent outside the urban site. The ability to date plain body sherds at least in general terms, thus increasing the available sample five-fold, is particularly helpful in defining low-density outlying scatters and the edges of the main urban distributions. While this study has filled-out considerably the various period distributions, there is no material change to the patterns previously reported (see AR 55 [2008-2009], 94-96). One clarification may be noted. Throughout antiquity, occupation material is liable to blend into the immediately surrounding cemeteries: yet a distribution of lighter scatters surrounding the urban site on most sides is likely to represent discrete outlying cemeteries, such as those excavated at Sellopoulo, Mavrospelio and Upper Gypsadhes for the late prehistoric, and at Fortetsa and the North Cemetery for the Early Iron Age and later Hellenistic and Roman phases. A series of more extensive but low-density scatters roughly 750−1,500m north, southwest and east of the centre appear insufficiently focused or dense to represent subsidiary hamlets (the exceptions are two later prehistoric concentrations on the summit of Ailias to the east). Instead, they may indicate investment in the landscape, such as huts, to facilitate the exploitation of fields at a distance from the centre.
Auteur de la notice
Don EVELY
Références bibliographiques
Unpublished field report, British School at Athens AEK 1 (2010), 294-301
Légende graphique :
localisation de la fouille/de l'opération
localisation du toponyme
polygone du toponyme Chronique
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Date de création
2011-02-09 00:00:00
Dernière modification
2023-10-06 11:12:24
Figure(s)
Fig. 1/ Knossos Urban Landscape Project (KULP): clockwise from top left, sherd densities of the prehistoric, Hellenic, post-Roman and Roman periods.