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KOSTISS. CHRSKIS

Communal storage in Bronze Age Crete:

re-assessing testimonies1

e 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 so-

cial groups placed on the production, collection, processing and storage of agricul-

tural 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 freestand-

ing. ese structures have oen been interpreted as communal stores, containing

goods, which served the needs of the wider community rather than the central

political groups (e.g. Halstead 1981; 1988; Branigan 1988a,b; Driessen and Langohr

in press). Views on the authority that collected, controlled and redistributed the

stored wealth in these complexes vary, depending largely on the theoretical narra-

tives adopted to interpret the political organization of Cretan Bronze Age polities.

ose who consider palaces to be the main regulators of political, social, ideologi-

cal and economic aspects in a given political domain, see high-ranked government

officials as the managers and redistributors of the stored goods, either in times

1. I would like to thank Alexis Kalokerinos and Lena Tzedaki-Apostolaki for their in-

vitat ion to publ ish an ar ticle in the volume of , dedicated to the memory ofStylianos Alexiou. Alexiou was a friend, classmate and fellow student at Athens University ofmy uncle Ioannis Semertzakis, one of the 62 Martyrs executed by the Nazis during the Second

World War. I first met Alexiou in 1986 as an undergraduate student. From then on, Alexiou

followed my research career with great interest, particularly my studies on Minoan economy.

Although we did not always see eye to eye on my somewhat demythologised view of Minoan

society, he always listened to my ideas attentively and provided kind and valuable criticism.Many thanks are due to Rosemary Tzanaki for editing matters.

(2014), 201-218ISSN 0454-5206 ....


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COMMUNALE STORAGE IN BRONZE AGE CRETE 203

garding the collection and management of the stored goods: by the local leaders of

the community on the one hand, and by the community itself on the other. Seen

in their local setting, the storage strategies adopted by provincial leaders could bedefined as central, since the body responsible for the production, collection and

control of surplus goods was the centralized leadership of the community and not

the community itself. e stored capital mostly served the needs of the provincial

and local political groups, which were under the control of the central state admin-

istration. Only the storage activities organised by the members of the community

and intended solely for its benefit could be considered purely communal. In the

Mesoamerican milieu studied by Smyth, there were community institutions that

controlled the communal stores and provided revenue to support feasting events,

the sick and aged, and the whole community during food shortages or plague.ese institutions functioned exclusively for the good of the community.

A similar clarification must be made in the case of the definition of commu-

nity storage proposed by Driessen and Macdonald in their reconstruction of the

LM Ieconomy (1997, 101). ey distinguished three storage systems: central, com-

munity and household. As communal they defined the storage strategies adopted

by groups residing in non-palatial central buildings. However, it must be borne in

mind that most of these complexes were seats of political groups controlling sec-

ond-order centres within the major palatial polities. ese complexes, rather than

expressing a communal effort, reflect the aspiration of peripheral political factions

to establish a centre of authority and power in its own right, which might even

be opposed to the palatial centre of authority (e.g. Cherry 1986; Hamilakis 2002).

Storage in these contexts served mostly the needs of the local ruling group, not

of the surrounding community or communities. is is a form of central storage

strategy, central in the context of the second-order centre, but peripheral in com-

parison to those adopted by government officials. e potential of these stores is

limited to covering the needs of the community/communities living around these

complexes (Christakis 2011).Based on all the above, I would define here as community storage within pro-

to-state and state societies all those strategies adopted by community institutions

or groups in order to face subsistence crises, handle the surplus required for state

obligations, and support feasting events aiming to cement community coherence.

is strategy is perceived as an activity independent of storage within complexes

used by ruling groups, whether palatial or peripheral. How far the central author-

ity was involved in the process of collecting, processing, storing and distributing

the surpluses in communal stores is very hard to define, particularly in the case of


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204 KOSTIS S. CHRISTAKIS

Bronze Age Crete, where relationships between the different social sectors remain

unclear. We would expect communal storerooms to be substantial or large in scale

depending on the needs they were designed to fulfill. ey would be freestandingstructures built in the urban centre and clearly set apart from major civic/govern-

ment architecture. e technology adopted in the construction of such complexes

would contribute to the storage of considerable quantities of goods between two

productive seasons and even beyond. e goods stored must have been those that

formed the basis of the communal economy. Any difficulty in the production and

supply of these goods would destabilise the social system of the community. Eth-

nohistorical testimonies from pre-industrial Greece and the East Mediterranean

show that the staples destined for bulk storage in communal and state storerooms

were cereal surpluses, since cereals were the cornerstone of subsistence economy(e.g. Christakis 2008, 19-21; Asdrachas 2003, 206-7).

e proposed evidence

e existence of communal stores has already been proposed for the Initial Neo-

lithic. A burned timber structure just outside the earliest Neolithic settlement at

Knossos, closely associated with a large quantity of carbonized grain, was taken

as a possible evidence for a communal form of storage (Tomkins 2004, 43). e

cache of grain was found in Area AC, a trench opened in the Central Court of the

Knossian palace and covering about 55 m2 (J. Evans 1964; 1994). e area was not

built but was used for various activities including threshing, processing of cereals,

digging pits, and burials. e cache was close to the central part of the trench and

partly outside the area of the sounding. Its SW edge was marked by a row of stake-

holes, two containing ash and one the carbonized remains of a stake. e excavator

argued that, grain from a field of breadwheat had apparently been threshed (J.

Evans 1994, 4-5).

e three rock-cut circular pits recently excavated at Gazi, east of Heraklion,are dated to the Final Neolithic (Pylarinou and Vasilakis 2010). Driessen and Lan-

gohr suggested that they were used as large-scale communal stores (in press). e

pits contained rough stones, stone tools, animal bones and coarse ware dated to the

Roman and Early Byzantine periods. Building remains dated to the FN/EM I - EM

IIAperiod were found in the surrounding area. e excavators date the pits to the

Neolithic period due to their similarities to the Neolithic rock-cut pits excavated at

Kalavassos in Cyprus. is date was confirmed, in their view, by the discovery of

an obsidian blade dated to the Early Neolithic if not earlier. It should be noted that


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the strata above the pits contained pottery dated from Minoan to Roman times (no

information is available for a more accurate dating), and the only published Neo-

lithic artifact, apart from the blade, is a partly preserved figurine.More data have been cited in support of communal storage practices during

the Early Minoan period. e best-documented case is the EM Ibuilding at Aph-

rodites Kephali in the northern part of the Isthmus of Ierapetra (Betancourt 2013).

e store, consisting of a natural cavern and constructed rooms, is located on a

prominent peak of the region and protected by a fortification wall. e fragments

of pithoi represent a minimum of nine examples with an estimated capacity of ca.

1,485 kg. is estimate should be increased considerably, since other pithoi and

perishable storage containers were also probably in use. Organic residue analysis

demonstrates than many of the vessels found in the complex contained wine andolive oil. e absence of artefactual and ecofactual assemblages usually found at

habitation sites suggests that this free-standing structure had a specialized func-

tion related to bulk storage.

Much discussed in the bibliography, and problematic in its interpretation, is

the EM IIIHypogaeum at Knossos, a large, deep circular vault cut into the so

rock, which lay beneath the South Porch of the palace on the south side of the

Knossian mound (A. Evans 1921, 104-6, fig. 74; for a full discussion with extensive

bibliographic coverage see Strasser 1997; see also Macdonald 2005, 27-8). Due to

the poor state of preservation, only the bottom half of the structure was actually

found, and the ill-documented excavation has led to many scholars raising sound

reservations concerning Evanss reconstruction. e Hypogaeum has been widely

interpreted as a communal granary, indicating an expansion of the storage system

compared to the previous periods and increased control of production and redis-

tribution of agricultural products, leading to the emergence of palatial political

systems (e.g. Halstead 1981; Branigan 1988a,b, 1990; Sbonias 1999).

e structures, considered by most scholars to be the most tangible proof of

the existence of communal storage installations, are the large, stone-lined under-ground pits in the west court and the theatral area of the palace of Knossos and

the west court of the palace at Phaistos (A. Evans 1928, 610-2; 1935, 61-74; Pernier

1935, 177-85). e storage of such considerable quantities of grain outside the pal-

ace walls has been interpreted as evidence that the early states in Crete provide a

mechanism for the redistribution of at least part of the agricultural production

of the territory to sections of the community at large. In this sense, social secu-

rity against poor harvest and localized crises was provided by the state (Branigan

1988a,b, 1990). e paving over of these structures during the Neopalatial period


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has led some scholars to suggest the transfer of large-scale storage from outside to

inside the palace (Halstead 1981; 1988; Branigan 1988a,b; Moody 1987).

e complex of silos, two rows of four circular structures built in the south-west corner of the palace at Malia, is dated to the Neopalatial period (LM IAphase)

(Pelon 1980, 221-6; Driessen and Macdonald 1997, 185; Strasser 1997). Contrary to

the kouloures at Knossos and Phaistos, the silos were built above ground. e fact

that they were accessible from outside the palace led Driessen and Macdonald to

envisage a communal use (1997, 101). According to their narrative, local elites, in a

period of political instability and severe economic dislocation, stopped depending

on the economic organisation of the palaces and adopted independent economic

strategies.

Although not so far associated with communal storage strategies, the North-east House and the Bastione could hardly be le out of this discussion, given that

they are two free-standing complexes of high storage potential, the former in the

settlement of Knossos and the latter at Hagia Triada. e Northeast House was

built close to the northeast borders of the Knossian palace and is partly explored

(A. Evans 1928, 414-30). e extent of preservation of the architectural remains

and the fragments of large pithoi point to a complex specializing in the storage

of large quantities of staples (Christakis 2008, 74-5). To quote A. Evans, It may

indeed, have served as a supplementary storehouse, which would account for its ex-

ceptional size and its numerous Magazines (1928, 412). e excavated data on the

function of the Bastione are less straightforward, although the recent discussion by

Privitera has provided sufficient arguments to consider it a granary (2010, 104-5;

2014). e use of free-standing storehouses not forming part of a central complex

is not limited to LM I the Northeast House was used during LM IA, while the use

of the Bastione extended into LM IBand even LM IIIA2 but is also observed in the

LM period. is is also the case with the Arsenal, a large storage complex in the

area northwest of the Knossian palace (A. Evans 1903-1904, 54-62; Palmer 1963,

157-62), and other buildings in the area of the Hagia Triada settlement, interpretedas storehouses (Privitera 2010, 104-13; 2014).

e metadata

e scarcity of testimonies is noticeable, particularly given the extent of the tempo-

ral framework from the 7th millennium BCEto the end of the LM IBperiod (1425

BCE). Most of these are dated to the Prepalatial period, while just two cases, the

kouloures at Knossos and Phaistos and the silos at Malia, are dated to the Protopa-


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latial and Neopalatial periods respectively. Quantitative constraints and temporal

distribution are due to research bias. e archaeological recognition of the urban

centers of the island is mostly elite-orientated, focusing on the excavation of monu-mental buildings and neglecting their surrounding settlement. e non-elite sector

of the Cretan Bronze Age societies is the great unknown.

e empirical grounds of the communal storage scenario with the exception

of the EM Ibuilding at Aphrodites Kephali and the complex of silos at Malia is

rather weak. A cache of grain and its association with traces of a timber building

in a partially excavated area of the early Neolithic settlement at Knossos are not

enough in themselves to confirm the existence of a communal storage installation.

One wonders on what basis the circular rock-cut structures at Gazi have been iden-

tified as communal stores. eir (very tentative) designation by the excavators assilos is based not on testimonies but on general similarities to other such structures

whose use is also not completely certain. eir relationship to the surrounding set-

tlement is also unknown, if such a settlement indeed existed; naming them com-

munal stores seems inadvisable. As regards the dating of the Gazi structures to the

Final Neolithic, there are no data at all. eir dating even to the Bronze Age must

be investigated through a more systematic study of the pottery.

As for the Early Hypogaeum at Knossos, neither its architectural layout nor

its function is certain. e scenario according to which this rock-cut underground

chamber was a granary is hypothetical and not supported by any excavated data.

Macdonald interpreted it as a public water source because its floor lay at the same

level as the bottom of the EMUpper East Well (2005, 28; cf. MacGillivray 1994

who sees the structure as a reservoir for the water arriving from the Mavrokolyo

aqueduct). is proposal is very likely, although secure data are again lacking. e

Early Hypogaeum is still an enigmatic monument of the Knossian settlement, and

certainly not the only one.

he building at Aphrodites Kephali is the only Prepalatial complex for which a

communal function has been implied and whose designation as a storage complexis supported by data. e fact that the building is a free-standing structure not at-

tached to a central complex or domestic unit is a point in favour of this hypothesis.

It should be noted, however, that the designation depends not only on the loca-

tion of the building in the countryside but, above all, on who was responsible for

the collection and management of the stored goods. Betancourt has argued that

the building was under the joint management of several farmsteads or hamlets,

and that its complex construction and planning would probably have required the

supervision of an authoritative leader, a member of an elite. If this narrative is cor-


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rect, then Aphrodites Kephali is a central rather than a communal storage com-

plex, since the process of collecting, storing and managing the goods was under

the supervision of an elite group. Free-standing storage complexes located in thecountryside are found in many hierarchically organized economies (LeVine 1992).

It should also be noted that, even if we assume that storage capacities were larger

than those reflected by the excavated data, which are seriously affected by various

taphonomic biases, how far the storage containers and installations originally held

in the complex could have covered the needs of a community or communities is

relative. e evaluation in economic terms of the capacity of an assemblage of stor-

age containers presupposes a correlation between storage capacity and consump-

tion demand (Hayden 1995).

e use of the kouloures at the palaces of Knossos and Phaistos is uncertain.e data that might have aided in our understanding of their use are exceptionally

fragmentary, if not actually non-existent, which explains the many different sug-

gestions put forward (for a full discussion see Strasser 1997, Bradfer-Burdet 2005,

and recently Privitera 2010, 85-8; 2014). ese structures have, at times, been con-

sidered rubbish pits, wells for the disposal of surface water, cisterns, receptacles

for ritual offerings, ritual stores, tree pits around which ritual dances occurred,

structures for the temporary holding of cereals not yet processed for long-term

storage, and finally granaries, the last proposal being the most widely accepted.

e interpretation of kouloures as granaries has been questioned by Strasser, while

Privitera, in a thorought discussion, argues in favor of the granary scenario. e

use of these structures clearly remains enigmatic.

Setting aside any scepticism and adopting the view that the kouloures are gra-

naries, could they be seen as evidence of a communal form of storage? Do the kou-

loures represent a communal effort for the storage of goods kept in times of need?

e hypothesis of the communal character of the kouloures is based on the fact

that they were built outside the palace. It is generally argued that the west court of

the palaces was an area of intercommunication between the town and palace (e.g.Palyvou 2002; Letesson and Vansteenhuyse 2006); however, it may not have been

easily accessible to members of the surrounding community, as one could be as-

sumed. e limits of the west court of the Knossian palace during the Protopalatial

period were defined by a western and southern enceinte wall built of large cut gyp-

sum blocks (A. Evans 1935, 48-59; MacGillivray 1994). Although its remains are

badly preserved, without doubt it would be an impressive architectural structure.

A paved area crossed by raised walks now under the modern car park extended

westwards (Warren 1994; Fotou 2004). e west court of the Knossian palace is


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therefore an organic part of the palace, clearly segregated from the town which

extended beyond the paved area. e west court of the palace of Phaistos was also

clearly set apart from the settlement by a high and well-built retaining wall restrict-ing direct access to it (Carinci and La Rosa 2009).

e kouloures, therefore, were built in a relatively restricted area, in close con-

nection to the central complex. Who would have had access to the stored goods if

indeed kouloures ever were used for storage was probably determined by the po-

litical institution rather than the members of the community. e construction of

these structures outside the palace proper is due to practical considerations: cereals

are heavy to transport and had to undergo special processing prior to storage (Gast

1978; 1981; 1985). Storerooms within the palace were not suitable for the storage

of such commodities, especially if we consider the special storage environment re-quired for their long-term preservation. In a similar vein, Militello considers the

kouloures at Phaistos as palatial storage installations (2012). He argues, that, rather

than an enlargement of the original storage potential of the palace, the kouloures

represent an alternative way of storing cereals. It seems safe to conclude that the

abandonment of the kouloures during the Neopalatial period, if not earlier, points

to changes in the strategies of collection, processing, storage and distribution of

staples once stored in these installations. Indirect information from Linear A and

later Linear B written documents shows that large quantities of cereals harvested

from government estates would be kept in different locations, close to the centres

of production and consumption or even close to transhipment stations (Palaima

1994; Christakis 2008, 121-2; Nakassis 2010; Privitera 2014).

e subsistence wealth stored in kouloures, estimated at 353,908 kg of cereals at

Knossos and 216,305 kg at Phaistos (Strasser 1997), would cover the needs of many

individuals, not only of the leadership and its dependents but also of the larger

social segment. If we assumed, as a working hypothesis, an annual consumption of

166 kg of cereals per person, the reserve at Knossos could support 2,131 individuals

and that at Phaistos 1,303 individuals. e issue here, however, is not who was therecipient of the goods stored in the kouloures, but who controlled those goods. e

construction of kouloures close to the palace and the symbolic significance that

Protopalatial central complexes had for their urban setting a significance more

important than is assumed in heterarchical narratives (e.g. Schoep 2004; contra

Macdonald 2012; Militello 2012; Poursat 2012) lead me to assign the managerial

role to palatial personnel.

e complex of silos at Malia was built attached to the palace. Its location in

the southwest corner of the west wing, where the main stores were built, the way it


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was incorporated into the rest of the complex, and the system of raised walks lead-

ing to the interior of the palace and to the town, indicate a central architectural

planning taking many parameters into account (Pelon 1980, 221-6). Access to thesilos from the west court was limited by a south and a west enceinte wall, the latter

not preserved, and was through a narrow doorway in the northwest corner of the

complex. is direct access between the complex and the region outside the palace

is only to be expected: it would have been impractical to carry the large quantities

of grain for storage through the narrow spaces of the central complex. e ques-

tion remains, of course, why there was no second entrance connecting the silos

directly to the palace. is architectural paradox is presumably due to the fact that

the silos were a later LM IAaddition to the Neopalatial palace. e possibility of an

entrance at upper-floor level or a doorway at the west end of Magazine XX2a-c, notpreserved, cannot be excluded, although both hypotheses are purely speculative.

In conclusion, storage in silos is here seen as an additional economic reserve of the

central administration, rather than an initiative of the local community or elite

intended to take its economic fortunes into its own hands.

e Northeast House at Knossos is problematic in its interpretation due to its

incomplete excavation. It would certainly, however, have been an impressive free-

standing storage complex built and furnished using a storage technology similar to

that of the palace. Might the Northeast House have been a communal storehouse

under the control of the community or of an elite group independent of that resid-

ing within the palace, or was it under the control of the central palace authority? A

convincing answer to this question cannot be given; it would depend, to a certain

extent, on the theoretical context adopted by each scholar in the approach to the

Neopalatial polities. ose who see political organization under a heterarchical

interpretative scheme would be in favor of a scenario according to which the wealth

stored in the complex would be in the hands of the community or a powerful fac-

tion competing with the central administration. On the contrary, those who assign

an important role to the ruling group residing within the palace, as the presentauthor does, would see government officials as the managers of the stored goods

within the setting of the highly specialized Knossian economy. It is highly unlikely

that the Northeast House, built close to the palace, the seat of a ruling group that

would have controlled many aspects of the daily life of the inhabitants of the city

and other centres, would have been an independent storage unit under communal

or factional control. e same arguments apply in the case of the Bastione at Hagia

Triada.


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Judging from the above overview, the bias of archaeological data is evident.

e poor state of preservation of the complexes, their incomplete excavation and

the lack of a methodological framework within which storage testimonies could beexamined, meant that their designation as stores was not based on safe data sets,

such as architectural layout and construction details, organic remains and mean-

ingful spatial associations, but rather on a series of working hypotheses. One has

the impression that these installations have been called storehouses, not because

there were sound arguments, but because they could not be called anything else.

I would suggest that, to date, no complexes which could be considered communal

storehouses have come to light. ere is no evidence for the accumulation of large

quantities of goods in freestanding complexes within the urban centre, the man-

agement of which would allow the community or factions in competition with thepalace to adopt their own economic strategies.

Concluding thoughts

Whether seen in an economistic and utilitarian framework or as an embedded

practice with clear social and ideological extensions, the production of surplus

and its long-term storage has been considered a basic precondition for the devel-

opment of social complexity (e.g. Feinman 1995; Halperin 1994, 167-90; Hendron

2000). Storage potentials in complexes used by Bronze Age Cretan political groups

show that palaces and central buildings of non-palatial sites were the main stor-

age centres of their surrounding settlements (Christakis 2008, 119-34). ere are,

of course, in some cases, particularly at Malia, elite complexes with sizeable stor-

age installations. eir storage potentials, however, do not support a decentralized

storage pattern. e exclusive storage of large quantities of goods within central

complexes highlights the importance of production, accumulation and storage of

staples for the functioning of political institutions.

Differences in the storage potential of central complexes could be interpretedas the result of the wealth-producing capabilities of the exploited territory, the dif-

ferent economic policies adopted for wealth exploitation, and the management of

the stored capital, as well as the political groups ability to handle conditions posing

a threat to the complex and intersecting process of staple production, processing,

storage, distribution and consumption. Apart from these parameters, in certain

cases a decisive role has also been played by the complicated biographies of the

complexes and research biases that have disturbed the archaeological deposits.


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e economic dimension of centrally stored staple capital has been down-

played by some scholars who envision court-centered buildings as large communal

complexes without any political or residential function, used by the communityor competing factions as political and ritual arenas (Driessen 2002; Schoep 2002;

2006; Hamilakis 2002; 2014, 161-90). More specifically, it has been argued that the

goods stored in the palaces were used primarily for provisioning large-scale ritual

and ceremonial events (Driessen 2002; Schoep 2002). is narrative relies on heter-

archical models of political development and the over-emphasized role of feasting.

e re-assessment of its theoretical and archaeological basis is beyond the scope

of the present contribution. I will simply quote Bevans view that there is a risk

that, if we place near-exclusive explanatory emphasis on the political of heterar-

chy, factionalism, feasting and individual agency, we throw out clear-cut, cross-culturally justifiable structures of higher-level political organization, in favor of a

host of insightful, but fundamentally non-substitutable social properties (2010).

Considering palaces only as empty architectural molds and background scenery

for the enactment or performance of ritual ceremonies is obviously to misinterpret

the excavated data, which attest a far more multidimensional function (for a criti-

cal overview see Day and Relaki 2002). e polarization between ritual/ceremonial

and political/economic functions leads to cyclical arguments that, other than sat-

isfying academic ambitions attempts to improve and boost careers have nothing

significant to offer the scientific discussion. ere are better ways to approach the

palaces and their many different functions, functions which are not necessarily

mutually exclusive.

As far as large-scale storage within palaces is concerned, it cannot be envi-

sioned exclusively as a provision for feasting. Although the decisive significance of

feasting is beyond any doubt, I believe that many of the proposed narratives should

be reconsidered on the basis of a sound analytical methodology for the investiga-

tion of three pivotal factors: the special occasion with which feasting is associated,

the issue of scale, and the formalization of feasting strategies (cf. Catapoti 2006).is approach is an essential precondition for a productive examination of the re-

lationship between feasting and society. Even if we assign to large-scale feasting

events a defining role in the functioning of the Cretan socio-political system, it

would be hard to ignore the economic importance of the stored goods for power

groups. It is a commonplace that all complex political systems were based on the

production, collection, processing and storage of goods that ensured their survival,

and one wonders why Crete should be any exception. Palatial and peripheral politi-

cal institutions I prefer to talk about corporate groups rather than a high-ranked


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individual would obviously not have been concerned solely with the organiza-

tion of large-scale communal events, but would have extended their activities into

various economic sectors in which the distribution and management of staple capi-tal would have been vital. e architectural arrangement of palatial stores, their

equipment, and the accounting system indicate storage strategies forming part of

a complex economic system which was essential for the existence of a power group

within the context of agrarian states.

Challenging the traditional narrative according to which central authorities

were seen as redistributive agents and following recent theoretical discussion on

prehistoric economies, I have suggested that, at the apex of the political pyramid,

stored goods served the needs of a very limited number of individuals and not of

all segments of society (Christakis 2011; for a critical reassessment of redistribu-tion see Gallaty et al. 2011). e existence of an economic system of wealth re-

distribution to the community for subsistence in lean years is not supported by

the evidence. e capital sustained elite and non-food-producing specialists, and

financed state enterprises and large-scale ritualised events. Consequently, it would

be better to speak of distribution rather than redistribution; the difference between

the two economic transactions is not always evident.

Lacking the secure data that would confirm the existence of storage installa-

tions containing goods intended to meet the needs of the community, I suggest

that that at the opposite extreme are the storage strategies adopted by elite (non-

palatial) and ordinary households. Storage served the subsistence and economic

needs of the household on the one hand, and enhanced its moral and social posi-

tion on the other. Storage, besides its functional and utilitarian dimensions, is also,

to use the words of J. Hendon, a situated practice through which groups construct

identity, remember, and control knowledge as part of a moral economy (Hendon

2000; for the context of Neopalatial Crete see Christakis 2008, 11, 123-4). Differ-

ences in the distribution of storage facilities at domestic units imply differences in

the subsistence autarky and economic status of the resident household. Despite thedecisive part played by complex taphonomic parameters in the formation of the

studied record, there are strong grounds to argue that the observed pictures reflect

actual economic behaviors. Interpreting Bronze Age society as a continuum of

relatively well-off and richer groups (I borrow the expression from Driessen, in

press) an approach favorable to many traditional narratives and overlooking the

social and economic differentiations in the social landscape, not only ignores the

archaeological data but is a utopian picture unparalleled in any cultural milieu,

usually organised following a rigid class system (e.g. the case of Pharaonic Egypt;


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Frood 2010). Economic inequality is inherent in most pre-state and state level

societies.

e extensive storerooms of elite sumptuary complexes located close to palacesare oen interpreted as evidence of the ability of elite groups to adopt an economic

policy independent of the central administration (e.g. Hamilakis 2002 for the Lit-

tle Palace at Neopalatial Knossos and Schoep 2002 for Quartier Mu, the Crypte

Hypostyle and Magazins Dessenne at Protopalatial Malia) or auxiliary to it (e.g.

Bradfer-Burdet 2005 for Maison Epsilon at Malia). Although there is no doubt

about the complex and fluid political scenery in many domains, it should be noted

that the consideration of staple storage within such elite contexts must involve the

interplay of many parameters. Spacious storehouses and large numbers of pithoi

are not enough, in and of themselves, to form a safe criterion for the evaluation of agroups economic surplus. e functional performance characteristics of the stor-

age installations must be analysed and the overall storage potential correlated with

the consumption needs of the household or group/s residing in these complexes.

Using this methodological approach, obviously based on working hypotheses, the

amount exceeding consumption needs could be quantified; the exploitation of this

surplus would allow the group to engage in all those activities of social and political

aggrandisement. In none of the complexes mentioned above, however, is there any

indication that such large amounts of goods were stored that the group using them

could adopt economic strategies that threatened the supremacy of the ruling class.

Recent detailed studies of archaeological testimonies have demonstrated that there

is no evidence so far for an independent sector at the major palatial urban centres

(Macdonald 2012; Poursat 2012; Militello 2012).

e main managers of most of the agro-pastoral goods produced were the pa-

latial political groups and groups controlling second-order sites in the orbit of the

gonvertamental centres. Competition among these political fractions over access

to material resources, combined with their differing crisis-management abilities,

would promote an unstable economic and political landscape in which many dif-ferent economic transactions market exchange was surely one of these would

be carried out. e communal spirit, truly alive in most pre-industrial societies,

would regulate many social facets of Cretan Bronze Age societies, especially among

the lower strata; however, this is hard to verify from the archaeological remains.

It is this archaeological reality that must be our basic compass in navigating the

mutable ocean of ephemeral theoretical constructs.


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