MAKlNG VISIBLE THE INVISIBLE: CRETAN OBJECTS MENTIONED IN THE CUNEIFORM TEXTS OF MARI AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN CRETE IN THE 11 MILLENNIUM BC' by LUCIA ALBERTI INTRODUCTION The history of Crete is deeply affected by its position at the centre of the Mediterranean, a cross-roads for travel both east-west and north-south (Fig. 1). From the VII millennium BC onwards, an ever-increasing population in the island testifies in part to the continuous arrival of groups by sea: their likely point of origin being the south-western area of Asia Minor2. Throughout the Bronze Age the presence of foreign items in Crete increases with time, providing evidence for frequent and regular contacts with the Near East3 The position of Crete, in fact, . both sets it at the western limits of the culturally and technologically more advanced oriental world (to which it looks and with which it intensively communicates), and on the frontier with the central-western Mediterranean zone, with which relations will open up from the second part of the 11 millennium BC in particular. The diffusionist phrase Ex Oriente Lux can be given concrete expression in Cretan history by a series of innovations in its material culture - for example the building of the palaces, which are considered by some scholars the result of contacts with the Near Eastern world4 This orient-centered vision has been under critical review • in the last decades; the contributions in the opposite direction, namely from west to east, have been highlighted as a results. It is not so much the origin or the diffusion This article is the result of many exchanges with colleagues in the Institute for Aegean and Near I Eastern Studies of the National Research Council (CNR-ICEVO): I sincerely thank them for their willingness to discuss many aspects of this subject with me. Special thanks go to Dr Roberto Dan for the processing of Fig. 1 and to Dr Don Evely for his usual patience and competence in correcting my English text. 2 Until lately the first population settling in the island was dated to the VII millennium BC from the findings made under the Knossos palace. Very recent discoveries of a Greek-American team carried out by Professors Strasser, Runnels and Panagopoulou, however, indicate that it was during the Palaeolithic that the first human groups reached the south coast of Crete across the open sea (STRASSER ET AL. 2010). 3 KANTOR 1947; CUNE 1994/2009; CUNE, HARRIs-CuNE 1998; WATROUS 1998; VAN DONGEN 2007; COLBURN 2008. 4 Evans already prepared the way for this concept in 1928 (EVANS 1928, 11), and was followed by many others, among whom Hood (1978, 48) and Fiandra (1997). See also KNAPP 1998 and PALYVOU 2007,43-44. 5 For instance, BETANCOURT 1998. An absolutely Aegean-centric position was held by Kantor (1947), in her outdated but still fundamental pioneering work. A summary of the many positions on this subject is found in KNAPP 1998 and PALYVOU 2007. SMEA 54 (2012) p. 117-142 118 Lucia Alberti of a phenomenon per se that is interesting, but rather the consequential creation of new elements, appearing in a society by autonomous processes or transferred from one society to another. In so doing, they are profoundly integrated into the local culture through the complex phenomenon of acculturation6 The construction of • the Cretan palaces at the transition from the III to the Il millennia BC offers an example of the different interpretations concerning relationships with the Near East and, in particular, with the Near Eastern palaces. Even if the remarked on differences and re-interpretations of the oriental model visible in the Minoan exempla are such as to exclude a direct derivation7 it is yet plausible to argue that the Cretan , palaces only arose in a favourable chronological phase, when their complex society was able to support and promote this structure. If any derivation from the Near Eastern palatial civilizations is to be admitted, it was only at the general level of a concept of sodal, economic and territorial organization, the details of which were freely re-arranged and adapted by Cretan society 8. The general historical framework into which these innovations are inserted shows that an intense exchange and circulation of ideas, technologies, objects, individuals and groups existed in the Il millennium BC. The Mediterranean basin thereby emerges as a sort of proto-globalized world, characterized by extensive mobility resulting in social, economic and intercultural exchanges9 By this way of • thinking, the analysis of the rich cuneiform documentation sheds light not only on the politics of the time, but also on the fortunes of individuals and small groups; whilst study of the archaeological finds and their archaeometric analysis distinguishes imports from their local imitations The integration and co-operation 10. between the established humanities and the new science-based technologies when applied to the material of cultural heritage has resulted in appreciable re-thinking in these matters. The diffusionist approach - viz. that every innovation or new group of items appearing somewhere was physically introduced by people coming from that innovation's base point of origin - was abandoned. Indeed the pendulum has swung so that an overemphasised negation of diffusionism holds sway: Pots 6 Palyvou (2007) defines them as 'transcultural integrated elements': she means by this features coming from outside but fully integrated into the local culture. 7 MILlTELLO 1999. 8 Many scholars plausibly place into the III millennium BC the social, political and economic transformations that at the beginning of the 11 millennium BC led to the construction of the Minoan palaces (BETANCOURT 2008). Recently some scholars even propose the start of the phenomenon in the IV millennium BC (SCHOEP ET AL. 2012. See also the review of CHERRY 2012). But in the same volume in which this new theory is presented, another paper highlights the new features clearly emerging at the end of the Prepalatial, namely at the end of the III millennium BC (WHITELAW 2012). 9 In the last decades, in particular, interest in these subjects produced a great increase of meetings and volumes on the international relationships among different countries of the central-eastern Mediterranean and the Near East during the Bronze Age. Scholars from many different backgrounds met to take stock of our information on the commercial, political and socio-cultural contacts of this long period, with a special focus on the 11 millennium BC (DAVIES, SCHOFIELD 1995; SWINY ET AL. 1997; GITIN ET AL. 1998; KARAGEORGHIS, STAMPOLlDIS 1998; CAUBET 1999; KARETSOU, ANDREADAKI-VLASAKI 2000; OREN 2000; STAMPOLlDIS, KARAGEORGHIS 2003; LAFFINEUR, GRECO 2005; VAN DONGEN 2007; COLBURN 2008; MACDONALD ET AL. 2009). 10 DURAND 1992; FRENCH, TOMLlNSON 2004. Making visible the invisible: Cretan objects mentioned in the cuneiform texts of Mari 119 are not people. There emerged a more integrated concept of art and culture, hybrid and international: and so less ethnically distinguishable Recent debate on 11. international relationships and on whether one can identify foreign elements through material culture has been couched in anthropological and sociological concepts, of ethnicity and identity: the effect has been to refine even further the interpretation of such in the ancient world There is, however, a danger that this process passes 12. over the concreteness of the data and so loses sight of the ultimate goal-not shared by everyone - of historical reconstruction. Ethnicity and identity are fluid notions, difficult to define and involving complex aspects related not only to human groups, but also to individuals in their everyday lives: the nuances are not easy to parse for people living today, let alone those from the past13 • In so rich and intense a scientific debate, this brief contribution looks at a specific aspect of the international relationships amI commercial exchanges between east and west: one that involves a few items, from a short period of time and of no great distance apart. It has a Minoan and, more generally, Aegean perspective'4. Some tablets of the palace of Mari in Syria, destroyed in the XVIII cent. BC, list prestigious objects defined as 'Cretan'; later texts from Ugarit mention people coming from Crete, who are directly involved in commercial activities. Parallels to the objects, described in the Mariote texts, will be sought within the known Cretan corpus, with the aim of 'making visible' the goods in demand by the Mariote palatial elite as prestigious objects. As will become clear, some of the mentioned items are simple enough to identify, whereas others, from their rarity in archaeological excavations or their vague descriptions in the texts, have not been accurately recognized. Whenever possible, Protopalatial items (in Aegean terms, ca. 1900-1700 BC) are preferred for parallels, because they are contemporary with the Mari texts. But often recourse is had to Neopalatial (ca. 1700-1450 BC) and Final Palatial (ca. 1450- 1370 BC) pieces, due to the restrictions of the data IS. Further, it is worthwhile recalling the Ugaritic epic of Ba'al and 'Anat: the two deities ask that the god of metals, Kothar-wa-Hasis, to be moved from Kptr, his residence (probably Crete), in order to build for them a splendid palace. Kothar wa-Hasis seems connected to the carpenter god Ilish. His story, as told in numerous 11 CAUBET 1998; KNAPP 1998; MORRIS 1998. For a different approach to the subject, NIEMEIER 1991; 2005; 2009. 12 The writing on these subjects is truly extensive and increasing rapidly since the Nineties of the last century. See only as an example and with a rich bibliographic repertoire JONES 1997; KNAPP 2001; SHERRATI 2005. 13 JONES 1997; FABIETII 1998. In this contribution the terms 'Minoan' and 'Mycenaean' will be used with a cultural and geo 14 graphical slant: to indicate the human groups living in Crete in the 11 millennium BC and in the Greek Mainland during the Late Bronze Age. I do not enter the debate about the existence of political entities termed 'Minoans' and 'Mycenaeans'. 15 I have opted here to follow the traditional Aegean chronology, pending an agreement on the date of the Santorini eruption and the relations between Aegean and Egyptian chronological sequences. Concerning this, see WARBURTON 2009. 120 Lucia Alberti eastern texts, mostly from Ugarit, seems to indicate that Minoan handicrafts and carpentry-work were well known and appreciated not only by men, but even by the gods themselvesl6 . I. THE MAR! TEXTS MENTIONING CRETAN PRODUCTS Looking at the geographical position of Mari, the city is set on the Euphrates much in the middle of the Near Eastern world: virtually equidistant from the Hittite capital liattusa in the north, the Elamite one, Susa, at the south-east, the Egyptian one, Memphis, at the south-west; Crete lies further to the west (Fig. 1). Mari is located, not by chance, on one of the major communication routes - both east-west and north south, in the Near East, as the richness of the palace archives and the archaeological discoveries of goods and raw malerials lesLi[y. VelY probably tin, one of the essential but restricted goods of the Bronze Age, was obtained from the Far East (possibly from Elam), and was transported through Mari on its way to the Mediterranean. The harbour of Ugarit was probably a more immediate entrepot for passing on this fundamental raw material both towards Crete and more western sites17 A Mariote tablet mentions • a quantity of tin delivered by Zimri-Lim's emissaries to a man coming from Crete, defined as the 'chief of Cretan merchants in Ugarit', and to his interpreter. This text indicates that a community of Cretan merchants was active in Ugaritl8 • In the first half of the IT millennium BC and for reasons not exclUSively economic, Crete looked eastwards to rectify the absence of tin, copper and other exotics. Only in the second half of the IT millennium, with the political and socio-cultural changes taking place in the Aegean does Crete, still searching for raw materials and for commercial interchanges, start to direct its attention towards the central Mediterranean 19. 20 The texts we are dealing with have been published by Durand and Guichard . Chronologically they concern the reigns of the Mari sovereigns Yahdun-Lim (1815- 1798 BC) and Zimri-Lim (1775-1761 BC). Of particular interest is the journey made by Zimri-Lim in the year 1765 (according to the medium Near Eastern chronology) from Mari to Ugarit on the Syrian coast, where he saw the Cretan fleet21. The objects mentioned in the Mariote texts are the following: 1. LEATHER GOODS: BOOTS, FOOTWEAR, BELTS In an administrative account concerning the 6th year of the reign of Zimri-Lim (1770 BC) a pair of Cretan boots is mentioned. There are also other texts in which 22 appear shoes and belts from Crete . 16 Mentioned in PALYVou 2007, 45. 17 HELTZER 1988; 1989. 18 The mentioned text is ARMT XXIII 556, lines 28-31: HELTZER 1989; CUNE 1994/2009; 1995; NIEMEIER 1998. 19 VAGNETTI 2003. The contribution of the central Europe regions requires more consideration too, MUHLY 2003b. 20 DURAND 1983; GUICHARD 1993; 1999, 167; 2005. The existence of some of these texts was already reported by George Dossin in 1939 (DOSSIN 1939, 111-112). 21 See with bibliography, GUICHARD 1993; 1999, 167; 2005. 22 ARMT XXI 342, lines 5-12. DURAND 1983,454-455; CUNE 1994/2009, 127; GUICHARD 1999, 170. _ \ a: ~ c$I). ~ ~ . :5, °11 .• <> en HAn•u sA 0: ( ~ .~ ~ S- ~ is' (1) ~: • Q<::;> .-:~ ~ \;, .. ." 0efn:f (") @ ~ S d ::l ~ o .l MAR! 0" • 'ni' CRETE CYPRUS :.' .n... ·l. en ;. ..•. ~t ~ S.~. 3(1) :..:.l. Q 0' ::l " ...•. : 0(1)- S' t:. ,.,.:- S- ;;:::/. :~~;: n(1) C .'- ";'\:--. ::l (1) ~ 3 .... (1) .>.<.. en .o... . a: $I) ::1, Fig. I - Map of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East (modified by Dr Roberto Dan after http://www.sas.upenn.edu/-jtreat/rs/maps/2/2med.gif), ..... .N... . 122 Lucia Alberti 2. WEAPONS: SPEAR, DAGGER, HOLDER FOR WEAPON AND DINNER KNIFE The items mentioned seem to be parade weapons, since they are explicitly described as decorated with precious materials. In an administrative text a weapon with applications in gold and lapis lazuli is explicitly mentioned. A dinner knife and a sort of dagger, with a gold-plated hilt and silver decoration, are also mentioned. A text from the beginning of the reign of Zimri-Lim mentions also a special container for a Cretan weapon, a remark that seems to confirm the special attention given to these specific foreign items23 • 3. PRECIOUS VESSELS Numerous references to precious vases, both in gold and silver, are made. In particular are named: a. Four silver one-handled vases b. Three silver vases (bowls) c. Six gold vases: A. one is one-handled of a weight of '2/3 mine and x shekels' B. one of weight '113 mine and 6 Vz shekels' d. A gold vase, weight '2/3 mine and 2 Vz shekels', e. A set of total weight of '8 mine and 7 gold shekels', taken to Aleppo and consisting of: A. a susmarrum-basin with spiral B. two vases with incised decoration and without handles C. a zoomorphic vase in the shape of a kiradum-animal (weasel? Quadruped?) D. a prestigious vase without handle with a pappar!Jftum vegetal motif in the middle, weight 20 shekels. A total of some 12 gold vases and 7 silver vases24 • 11. 'MADE IN CRETE' OR 'MADE A LA CRETOISE'? Extraordinary though these texts are for their time and the possible international scenarios between different political entities that they envisage, yet it is necessary to exercise some caution in accepting them at face value. First, all these items are defined as kaptarltum, 'Cretan', an adjective capable of bearing a variety of meanings. Guichard stressed that defining an object as Cretan does not mean with absolute certainty it came from Crete. Theoretically it is also possible that an object was made 'a la cretoise' somewhere else, even perhaps in the 23 DURAND 1983,258-261; HELTZER 1989,13-14; CUNE 1994/2009,126-128; GUICHARD 1999,175-176; 2005. 24 CLINE 1994/2009, 126-128. The approximation in these figures is due to the fact that, as underlined by Guichard (1999, 171-173), it is impossible to define for certain the precise number of these goods, as sometimes the same vase is being recorded over and over again on different tablets. Some pieces recorded in the palace accounting have later vanished, given as gifts or exchanged with other potentates. Making visible the invisible: Cretan objects mentioned in the cuneiform texts of Mari 123 very workshops of the palace of Mari. In confirmation of this, he mentions another text in which Zimri-Lim seems to have 'ordered' a 'Cretan' ship decorated with lapis lazuli, but built for him in the palace of MarFS. We must remember here the international dimension of the art of the 11 millennium BC, when products circulated and were often imitated in the local ateliers26. For this reason Guichard reports an analogous example taken from the Aegean world. In a tablet of the Ta series of Pylos a prestigious vase is defined as ke-re-si-wo. The French scholar, quoting the interpretation of Godart, translates the term as 'made in the Cretan style'27. In fact the term ke-re-si-wo is very disputed. A heated debate surrounds it as to its meaning, from the decipherment of Linear B until today28. The term has also 29 been translated as 'furnished with horned handles': probably an ill-chosen phrase . The majority of experts considers the adjective as related to Crete, meaning both 'made in Crete' and 'made in the Cretan style'. No specific reason exists to favour one reading above the other. Local production of items, in imitation, is a well known fact for all the Bronze Age. In the last decades the application of archaeometric analysis to entire classes of archaeological materials has confirmed this, especially in the case of pottery30. The archaeological data on Cretan exports found on the Greek Mainland, for example, indicates that in the initial phases of such a process copies are lower in number than the real imports. Among the minoanizing objects, moreover, it is necessary to distinguish between items produced in continental Greece (but so similar to a genuine import as to suggest they were made by Cretan artisans that had moved to and worked on the Mainland), from local products mixing traits both local and foreign. Sometimes the difference is evident enough, as in the case of the two Vapheio cups. Both show scenes of bull-catching, but with critical differences in the choice of decorative motifs and style (Fig. 9a-b). Most scholars, in fact, define cup A as a genuine Minoan product (Fig. 9a), i.e. the work of a Minoan artist (in Crete or in mainland Greece), and cup B (Fig. 9b) as a Mycenaean imitation, created 31 by a mainland artisan trained in typical Cretan technology and style . With regard to the objects termed 'Cretan' in the Mari texts, it is the desire for something 'Cretan' that is important: not so much whether it was really made in Crete or produced locally in imitation. Such on-the-spot reproduction of an object evaluated as desirable because precious, foreign or simply because considered more functional and/or pretty, is not an unswerving rule. Imitations tend to arise after a degree of familiarity has been experienced, after imports have been circulating for a certain length of time. It may be necessary for the imports to become appreciated first and that some technology of production be learned. This learning can happen either through the local artisan's own trial and error or through the contribution of 25 GUICHARD 1999, 168. 26 GUICHARD 1993,44; CAUBET 1998; GUICHARD 1999. 27 CAUBET 1998,108; GUICHARD 1999,169; GODART 1990, 217-218; GUICHARD 2005. 28 Docs2, 498, 553; DMIC 11, 348; DEL FREO 1990. 29 BlRASCHI 1993. 30 MUHLY 2003a; FRENCH, TOMLlNSON 2004. 31 VASSILIKOU 1995,125-130. 124 Lucia Alberti craftsmen from the exporting country32. The stimulus can be provided by specific historical events. At the end of the Bronze Age, the downfall of the mainland Mycenaean palaces and the consequent end to a world that contained palatial workshops producing luxury objects for export was combined with the slowing down of the inter-Mediterranean trade caused by a feeling of continuous uncertainty (probably from the incursions of the Sea Peoples). Despite all this, in some areas of the eastern Mediterranean the production of Aegean-type pottery actually increased. The phenomenon of replication, as is often confirmed by archaeometric analysis, can in fact to be augmented when it becomes more difficult to find foreign items. What goods were copied? The majority, to now, are pottery vessels, while objects and vases in metal are very rare. As is well known, pottery is the commonest find in archaeological excavations, whereas metal items, exactly the goods mentioned most in the Mari texts, are more difficult to find (and so to assess if imitations) because metal is cast and recycled to infinity. In the wider context of the Mediterranean interconnections of the first half of the 11 millennium BC, it is plausible to think that most of the foreign items mentioned and found were genuine imports. The Cretans move early in their expansion to the east, and no specific factors in the Levant existed to promote internal reproduction. One other aspect needs to be considered that contributed to the value assigned to an original Cretan import: its exotic quality, its very foreigness. I do not think this is an exclusively modem attitude, but one every bit as valid in the ancient world33 • Why else do goods coming from Crete and other foreign countries get listed and exchanged as elite gifts? Why else are they worth copying? The value of an object is thus not represented solely by the quantity of precious materials in it, the technology used nor the style in which is made, but also by the long distance it has travelled. It is this multiplicity of aspects that make up its value as a whole. Ill. GOODS ON OFFER FROM THE CRETAN MARKET DURING THE 11 MILLENNIUM BC 1. LEATHER GOODS AND FOOTWEAR (FIGS. 2-7) The climate and so survival conditions on Crete do not permit the recovery of perishable goods, such as hides, but the rich iconographic heritage available to a certain degree fills this gap. Frescoes in particular, but even seals and figurines in the round all provide information on clothing and accessories worn by men and women of the time. 32 This is what happened in the central-western Mediterranean during the second half of the Il millennium BC. After a long connection that had brought Aegean products into the Italian islands and peninsula markets since Late Bronze I (in Aegean terms), during the Late Bronze III in particular in southern Italy many artisan workshops started to produce Aegean-type pottery. Recent researches employing both archaeological and archaeometric systems of analysis look to indicate that people coming from the Aegean and/or local people trained in the new Aegean technologies were involved in the local production. At the same time, on the other hand, there are clear proofs of local attempts being made to reproduce the same technological progresses as evident in the imported material. VAGNETIl, JONES 1988; VAGNEITI 1999; BEITELLI 2002. 33 COLBURN 2008. Making visible the invisible: Cretan objects mentioned in the cuneiform texts of Mari 125 a b c d Fig. 2 - BELTS AS TUBES AND AS BANDS (not to scale): a-b) Fresco from the Knossos palace with bull-leaping acrobats (after SAPOUNA-SAKELLARAKl 1971, pI. A: a-b); c) Model of cloth in faience from the Knossos palace (after VASSILAKlS N.D., 86); d) Fresco from the lustral basin of Xeste 3 in Akrotiri, Thera (detail after DOUMAS 1992, 142, fig. 105). 126 Lucia A1berti a b Fig. 3 - BELTS AS TUBES: a-b) Procession Fresco from the Knossos palace (after SAPOUNA-SAKELLARAKI 1971, pI. B: a-b). Belts were probably a fundamental element of clothing: so aiding the Cretan 34 preference for a figure with very slim waist . For men, the belt also plays a practical role too - to hold a knife, a dagger or some such: a fashion assuming also a social 35 meaning in time . In Minoan representations of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, belts seem of two types: one is thick and of a circular section, a sort of tube (sometimes doubled), that emphasizes the waistline (Figs. 2a-c, 3a-b); the other one is a flat band worn with two pendant strap-ends, set slightly lower on the hips (Fig. 2d). The first type is most associated with male figures, whereas the second one is more common on females, even if not exclusively S036. This fashion for belts distinguishes Cretan use from that typical in Mari and, in general, in the Near East, where a long tunic without any belt is frequently worn. It is also possible, then, that Cretan belts were appreciated just for their 'being different' from the common dress habits in Mari. The belts known in Protopalatial times and so contemporary to the Mari texts appear 37 quite simple . More decorative specimens come from the Procession Fresco of the Knossos palace and are dated to the Final Palatial period (Fig. 3a-b)38. They are belts of the first sort and are worn by males. Apparently they are made of three parts, the top and the bottom bands probably of cloth, tailored as a tube and filled with something giving them a certain bulk (wool?); the central band could be of leather, or even metal, and so looks more rigid in the representations. Every band is profusely decorated with motifs and is woven in different colours. 34 SAPOUNA-SAKELLARAKI 1971. The scholar presents a detailed typology of loincloths and belts, stressing that some of them were worn quite exclusively by people appearing overweight and long in the tooth. 35 MARCAR 2006. 36 I wonder if this 'fashion' could be in some way linked to the need to wear a high and thick belt to support the body when lifting weights. 37 SAPOUNA-SAKELLARAKl 1971,7-30. 38 The fresco, from the Entrance Corridor of the West Porch of the palace, presents three groups of males and females, richly dressed and sometimes carrying on objects (EVANS 1928, IT, 719-736; IMMERWAHR 1990,175-176; EVELY 1999, 229-232).