Journal articles, conference papers and book chapters

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  • ItemOpen Access
    Late Minoan Hearths and Ovens at Kommos, Crete
    (2007-07-04T13:19:06Z) Shaw, Maria C.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Building Z at Kommos: An 8th-Century Pottery Sequence
    (2007-07-04T13:18:54Z) Johnston, Alan W.
    Building Z at Kommos is built into one of the Late Minoan shipsheds of Building P; its majoy phase of use is in the Middle Geometric period. The pottery from the building, including earlier Iron Age material and some from post-use deposition, is fully published here. The totality gives the opportunity of seeing the various contemporary products of the Mesara in fuller detail than is provided by other published sets of material. The purpose of the building is unclear, but it appears to have served a subsidiary function to that of the temple to the north.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Excavations at Kommos (Crete) during 1979
    (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1980) Shaw, Joseph W.
    During this fourth season of our excavations at Kommos we completed all major excavation of the Late Minoan (LM) houses on the hilltop as well as the LM house discovered earlier on the hillside. Soundings in the Middle Minoan (MM) levels in both these areas proved to be profitable, especially on the hillside where an intact MM storeroom was found within most informative stratigraphic contexts. In the Greek sanctuary to the south two more, relatively large altars were found within the deep sand. West of them we discovered a Greek temple of which the outer walls are destroyed but the interior is intact. Below the floor of the temple is an unusual shrine of Late Geometric/Early Archaic date. Further west, along the shore, lies a group of Minoan buildings of a monumental character not hitherto encountered on the Kommos site.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Kommos in Southern Crete: an Aegean barometer for east-west interconnections
    (The University of Crete and the A.G. Leventis Foundation, 1998) Shaw, Joseph W.
    This Cretan harbour-town, like Ugarit or Enkomi, can serve as a focus for study of east-west connections. At Kommos, now familiar to many, its interconnections cover the chronological spectrum of the Conference. The two major periods are Minoan and Greek. For the Middle and Late Bronze Age, there are large civic buildings, at least partially designed for storage, bordered by a town. The first is a large MM civic building, much destroyed. The second is Late Minoan I Building T, palatial in character, with a large central court. The third, LM IIIA2/IIIB Building P, with broad galleries, may have been used to store ships. Our chief evidence for interconnections during MM and LM, aside from ingot fragments from Cyprus, is ceramic, in particular pottery from Cyprus, Egypt, Italy and/or Sardinia, and Syria/Palestine. For the period 1000-600 B.C., when a rural sanctuary was in use, our evidence is also mainly ceramic (Phoenician and East Greek), but an actual built structure, and graffiti on local pottery, witness foreign presence.
  • ItemOpen Access
    A LM IA kiln at Kommos, Crete
    (Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 1997) Shaw, Joseph W. ; Moortel, Aleydis Van de ; Day, Peter M. ; Kilikoglou, Vassilis
    During the past few years, at Kommos in Southern Crete, we have revealed a well-preserved pottery kiln of Late Minoan IA date (Pl. CXVIIa-b and CXVIIIa). The kiln lies in the southern area of the site, south of the later Greek Sanctuary. During early LM IA a huge structure, faced by coursed ashlar, was built over an earlier Middle Minoan building in that area. We have dubbed the later Building T. T was characterized by spaces for storage and, perhaps, administration. Like the Minoan palaces, it featured a huge central court. Spacious stoas ran along the north and south ends of the court. For some unknown reason, after a relatively short period of use, T was abandoned within LM IA. Both stoas were to become centers for industrial production. Still during LM IA, a pottery kiln was built next to the southern wall of the South Stoa (Pl. CXVIIa-b and CXVIIIa). Presumably the colonnade had collapsed by the time that the kiln was set in. During LM IB, the North Stoa was used for metallurgical activities.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Phoenicians in Southern Crete
    (The Archaeological Institute of America, 1989) Shaw, Joseph W.
    During the 1979 excavation season at Kommos, a curious structure with three tapering stone pillars was discovered on the floor of a Geometric/Archaic temple, above which lay a fourth-century B.C. Greek temple. The tripillar structure appears to have been a center of worship particularly in the late ninth and eighth centuries B.C. Its appearance and certain historical and archaeological indications suggest that it may have been inspired by Phoenician shrines, if not set up by Phoenician seafarers visiting Kommos.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Excavations at Kommos (Crete) during 1981
    (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1982) Shaw, Joseph W.
    During our sixth season at Kommos (20 June-27 August) we studied specific Late Minoan (LM) III rooms on the hilltop but concentrated on clearing more of the Middle Minoan (MM) houses on the hillside. In the Greek Sanctuary to the south Iron Age levels around the three superposed temples discovered in earlier seasons were further investigated, and in the process a large, bone-filled altar was exposed east of Temple B. In the Minoan strata underlying this entire southern area we confirmed that in LM I the monumental Minoan buildings there faced south upon a large court, while on the north they were bordered by a wide paved road which started at the seashore.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The development of Minoan Orthostates
    (The Archaeological Institute of America, 1983) Shaw, Joseph W.
    The development of ashlar masonry in Crete is thought to originate in the Early Minoan (EM) period when rubble socles were surmounted by rubble and/or mudbrick construction, as at Vasiliki. Then, shortly after the beginning of the Middle Minoan (MM) period, the bases of exterior walls of important buildings started to be lined with cut stone blocks set rather like dadoes, as in the MM IB facade of the Early Palace at Phaistos where the base of the wall consists of a projecting krepidoma with large orthostate blocks on top. A similar method of construction was employed at the early MM ossuary at Chrysolakkos, north of the Palace of Mallia, where the Minoans first experimented with the cutting of hard limestone blocks ("sideropetra") with saws of copper or, more likely, of bronze. At the MM II "Agora" at Mallia, thin slabs were set along the edge of the court.
  • ItemOpen Access
    A Bronze Age enigma: the 'u-shaped' motif in Aegean architectural representations
    (Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 1999) Shaw, Maria C.
    Of the many pictorial depictions of the motif under consideration, I illustrate two examples only, given its rather consistent rendering. They show details of once more extensive frescoes from two Late Bronze Age palaces- at Knossos in Crete (Pl. CLXXIIa) and on the Acropolis at Mycenae on the Greek Mainland (Pl. CLXXIIb ). The motif, which always appears on facades of buildings, has been compared in the past to the capital letter U, a term I also use for consistency, although the resemblance is not exact. The motif consists of a horizontal band, with two shorter bands rising from its two ends; the letter's upright elements are longer than its horizontal part. The motif never occurs singly; it is repeated at regular and fairly close intervals in a stacked arrangement along vertical surfaces, the architectural identification of which is puzzling. One further feature to be noted is that the vertical elements or strips are usually shown flanking large openings, perhaps representing windows or loggias. Two main interpretations have been put forward for the vertical strips: 1) that they represent posts; 2) that they represent wall antae. The wall in the latter case must be understood as being transverse, but since Minoan representation does not use foreshortening, only its narrow end is shown. This explains the difficulty of determining which is the correct identification, though there are other representational clues that can help us decide, as will be discussed with reference to specific examples below. Neither of the two suggestions above, nor other interpretations offered in the past have had the advantage of offering a concrete example that would match and explain the motifs details. My wish to attempt a solution to this iconographic enigma, which to my view has not yet been satisfactorily explained, stems from archaeological evidence I uncovered some ten years ago in excavating in the Civic area of the Minoan site of Kommos. First, however, I shall review the pictorial evidence, starting with Crete, where both the actual architectural technique and the artistic conventions for representing the particular architectural feature probably originated.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Short-necked amphora of the post-palatial Mesara
    (Etairia Krhtikwn Istorikwn Meletwn, 2000) Rutter, Jeremy B.
    Renewed excavations from 1991 to 1994 at the Minoan harbor town of Kommos, located a couple of miles north of the modern resort town of Matala at the west end of the Mesara Plain of southern Crete, have focussed on greater exposure of the monumental public buildings in the southern portion of the site, partially underlying the area later occupied by a rural Greek sanctuary. The uppermost and latest of these large structures, termed Building P by the excavators, is the largest construction of the LM III period so far known from any site on Crete, measuring roughly 38.50 meters east-west by 39.60 meters north-south. Subdivided into a series of six long galleries, wide open at their western ends but otherwise apparently altogether lacking means of access, whether from the exterior or between the individual galleries, this massive structure has been persuasively identified as a ship-storage facility, a prehistoric predecessor and functional analogue of the even more imposing Venetian arsenals that are so prominent a feature of the waterfronts at the north Cretan ports of Heraklion and Khania.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Excavations at Kommos (Crete) during 1978
    (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1979) Shaw, Joseph W.
    During our third excavation season at Kommos, in 1978, we concentrated on clearing four Late Minoan (LM) buildings on the hilltop, and one LM house on the hillside. Soundings were made in the Middle Minoan (MM) levels, and the Greek sanctuary to the south was further explored, leading to the discovery of important new structures.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Preliminary considerations on the problem of the relationship between Phaistos and Hagia Triadha
    (Benben Publications, 1985) Rosa, Vincenzo La
    The problem of the relationship between Phaistos and Hagia Triadha was foreseen, as everyone knows, by the first excavators in southern Crete who were concerned with the possible subordinate role of Hagia Triadha to Phaistos. The hypothesis proposed at the beginning by Halbherr (1903:7) that the villa of Hagia Triadha was to be considered a 'rural residence' of the princes of Phaistos, codified this condition of dependence even though, later, the idea was to be abandoned. Already Halbherr himself, in a letter to L. Pernier dated 5 October, 1912 (Creta Antica:42) could not avoid noting a different situation in LM III: "It seems almost", he wrote, "as if in LM III the inner city of Phaistos lost its importance and that at least the centre of commercial activities was brought closer to the sea, in the suburb of Hagia Triadha, from the terraces of which one could see the arrival of the ships from the Libyan Sea to the landing of Dibaki" [= Tymbaki: Ed.]. Essentially ignored by the earlier and later excavators of Phaistos (Pernier, Levi), the problem was again addressed by L. Banti (Halbherr et al. 1977:233) in the publication of the excavations of Hagia Triadha; Banti obstinately rejected the hypothesis proposed by S. Marinatos that in Neopalatial times the ruler of Phaistos had moved to Hagia Triadha. This refutation, which defended the 'Palatial' role of Phaistos, re-proposed, indirectly, the subordinate role of Hagia Triadha.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Cooking vessels from Minoan Kommos: a preliminary report
    (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, 1980) Betancourt, Philip P.
    Kommos is a prehistoric to early Roman site on the southern coast of Crete near Phaistos and Aghia Triada. During its Bronze Age phase, covering much of the Middle Minoan and Late Minoan periods, a sizeable community was present. Several houses have been completely or partially excavated, suggesting habitation from MM I (shortly after 2000 B.C.) until LM IIIB (ca. 1200 B.C.). This report presents a selection of the site?s cooking vessels, a type of pottery manufactured from a coarse red ceramic fabric. This is a preliminary report in the sense that the excavations at Kommos are still continuing. Meticulous descriptions of the stratigraphic contexts must await the site?s final publication, still many years in the future. Brief descriptions of many deposits, however, have appeared in the annual excavation summaries in Hesperia, and references to these are included in the catalogue. The material is presented at this time for two reasons. In the first place, the stratigraphic situation at Kommos allows a better understanding of the date of this class of pottery than has previously been possible. Since cooking vessels are common on Minoan sites, the dating evidence should be useful to others working on the island, and it seems appropriate to publish it as quickly as possible. Secondly, the large body of material, taken from a long and continuous period of time, allows us to make some new observations and correct some popular misconceptions about Minoan cooking in general. Kommos has an apparently uninterrupted pottery sequence from MM I until LM IIIB, and its ceramic development is worth investigating in the coarse wares as well as in the finer pottery. I would like to thank Joseph W. Shaw, director of the excavations at Kommos, who suggested this study. I have discussed this material with several colleagues, especially L.V. Watrous, H. Blitzer Watrous, J. Wright, L. Nixon, M.C. Shaw, K.D. Vitelli, and G. Gesell. Photographs are by R.K. Vincent. Profile drawings are by Danae Cotsis. The excavations at Kommos are conducted under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and are being sponsored by the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum with the cooperation of the Greek Antiquities Service. Financial support is being given by the Canada Council, the SCM Corporation of New York, and Leon Pomerance. Portions of the writer?s research were funded by a Grant-in-aid from Temple University.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Excavations at Kommos (Crete) during 1976
    (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1977) Shaw, Joseph W. ; Shaw, Maria C.
    DURING eight weeks of the summer of 1976 excavations were initiated at the prehistoric Minoan site of Kommos, situated along the shore of the Messara Plain bordering the Libyan Sea (Pl. 49: a) . The chief archaeological aim of the first season was to determine by means of trial trenching the chronological range, relative size, and state of preservation of the Minoan settlement. As a result of the work done then, sufficient knowledge has now been attained to show that we are dealing with a site of some significance that merits a series of intensive future campaigns of excavation and study.
  • ItemOpen Access
    A proposal for Bronze Age Aegean ship-sheds in Crete
    (Hellenic Institute for the Preservation of Nautical Tradition, 1999) Shaw, Joseph W. ; Shaw, Maria C.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Two cups with incised decoration from Kommos, Crete
    (The Archaeological Institute of America, 1983) Shaw, Maria C.
    Two black-glazed cups with unusual figurative scenes, executed by incision, were found in a temple of eighth-seventh century B.C. date at Kommos, Crete. Possible interpretations of the scenes are considered, but emphasis is placed on an analysis of their motifs in the context of Cretan seventh century art. Incised and repouss頭etalwork appears to have been a major source of inspiration, with specific parallels indicating a date in the second half of the seventh century.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Bronze age Aegean harboursides
    (The Thera Foundation, 1990) Shaw, Joseph W.
    Recent excavations and exploration have contributed new and crucial information warranting a review of our earlier understanding of Bronze Age Aegean harboursides, especially of the topographical conditions and geographical locations selected by the Aegeans. Major sites which can be cited are Kea, Kommos, Zakros, and Amnisos. Further information derives from precious pictorial depictions of coastal towns and possible harbours, as in frescoes found at Kea and, especially, in the West House at Akrotiri, or in the recently published sealing from Chania. The paper will discuss this new material and address questions of defence, ship storage, relations with inland towns, trade, relative water-levels, and the nature of the possible harbour installations during the Middle and Late Bronze Age in the Aegean.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Excavations at Kommos (Crete) during 1986-1992
    (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1993) Shaw, Joseph W. ; Shaw, Maria C.
    Recent excavation in the Southern Area at Kommos (Figs. 1, 2; Pl. 17:a, b) has exposed most of a Late Minoan (LM) building, House X, with extensive small finds. The very large ashlar Building T, set near the sea and perhaps functioning partially as an emporium, can be described as palatial or even as a ?palace?, now that its plan is more completely known with the discovery of its south and east borders. Building P, set upon much of the east wing of T, can now be understood as a series of at least six broad and completely undivided galleries, open on the west to the seashore. The suggestion made in the past that the galleries housed ships during the winter, nonsailing months finds further support from the excavations of these past seasons.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Sir Arthur Evans at Kommos: a Cretan village remembers its past
    (The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1981) Shaw, Maria C.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Two three-holed stone anchors from Kommos, Crete: their context, type and origin
    (Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 1995) Shaw, Joseph W.
    This article discusses two three-holed stone anchors recently discovered at Kommos, a Minoan and Greek site on the south coast of Crete[1]. The Minoan settlement was inhabited from Middle Minoan I through Late Minoan IIIB, c. 2000 BC to 1250 BC, and is topographically divided into two areas, the town and the civic centre with two monumental ashlar buildings. The earlier, Building T, with a palatial plan and a large central court, was built and also went out of use in LM IA, but many of its walls and spaces were later re-used. During LM IIIA2 Building P was built upon its eastern wing.