Bennet, John. The Structure of The Linear B Administration at Knossos.

The Structure of the Linear B Administration at Knossos
Author(s): John Bennet

Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 89, No. 2 (Apr., 1985), pp. 231-249
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
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The Structureof the Linear B Administration

at Knossos*
JOHN BENNET
Abstract
An analysis of the Linear B texts from Knossos and of
the archaeological data for LM II-III Crete permits conclusions to be drawn as to the extent and the administrative organization of Knossos' interests in LM III
Crete. It is postulated that Knossos dealt with outlying
areas indirectly through second-order centers, six of
which are identified. These second-order centers seem
also to have played an important part in the establishment of the administrative system at Knossos, probably
in LM II. Finally, three case studies of sites known both
from the documents and from excavation highlight the
importance of an integration of textual and archaeological approaches.
This article outlines an approach to the study of
LM III Crete from the point of view of the archaeologist and the Linear B scholar. Until relatively recently the two disciplines involved have been rather
exclusive, but it is the integrated approach which is as

crucial as the conclusions drawn from it. The two
bodies of data are, first, the Linear B documents preserved in the final destruction of the palace at Knossos,' documents of immense value in allowing us insights into the operation of an administrative system in
* This article is based on a paper deliveredat the LondonMycenaean Seminar on 4 May 1983. I am indebtedto J.T. Hooker and
J.N. Coldstream for allowing me to present my ideas there. The
article summarizes research carried out in the Department of Classics, Cambridge University, funded chiefly by the Department of
Education and Science, with additional funds from Sidney Sussex
College, the Faculty of Classics and the Drummond Studentship
Committee. I should like to record my special thanks to my research
supervisor, John Cherry, and my gratitude to John Chadwick,
Jack L. Davis, Tom Gallant, Paul Halstead, John Killen, Todd
Whitelaw and Tony Wilson for comments and suggestions.
' The main
corpus remains J. Chadwick, J.T. Killen and J.-P.
Olivier, The Knossos Tablets 4. A Transcription (Cambridge
1971). Some additional fragments and joins are published in the
following articles: L. Godart and J.-P. Olivier, "Nouveaux fragments de tablettes en lin~aire B de Cnossos," BCH 97 (1973) 5-22;
L. Godart and J.-P. Olivier, "119 raccords et quasi-raccords de
fragments dans les tablettes de Cnossos," SMEA 15 (1972) 33-50;
and L. Godart and J.-P. Olivier, "98 raccords et quasi-raccords de
fragments dans les tablettes de Cnossos," Minos 13 (1973) 113-29.
More recently, the following new fragments have appeared: J. Sakellarakis and J.-P. Olivier, "Deux fragments de tablettes en liniaire B de Cnossos au Mus&e National d'Athanes," AAA 5 (1972)
289-92 (Dd 8831); E. Hallager, "A Linear B Tablet Fragment
from Knossos," Kadmos 16 (1977) 24-25 (X 8832); R.G.D. Evely
and J.T. Killen, forthcoming in Kadmos (X 8833); J. Bennet and
the prehistoric Aegean. Second, there are the archaeological data pieced together over the past century for
the period after the LM IB destructions on Crete2:
LM II and LM III, or the "Post-Palatial" period.3
The term "Post-Palatial," as applied to the whole
of the period 1450 to 1100 B.C., is inaccurate, since,
for at least part of the time, the monumental building
at Knossos continued to function as the center of an
organization run by an dlite for the exploitation (and
possible reciprocal benefit) of a hierarchy of lesser
sites and individuals: in Aegean terms, a "palace."
The existence of this organization is both signalled
and illuminated by the presence of documents in the
palace at Knossos. Not a single scrap of a Linear B
tablet has yet been excavated elsewhere on Crete, and,
although an argumentum e silentio, I think this lack
indicates that Knossos alone had such an archive and
fulfilled the role of a central place in LM III Crete.4
This contention is supported by the way the Knossos
archive is widely scattered across the site (ill. 1). If
such an archive had existed elsewhere, I think it unlikely that it would have disappeared without trace
across an entire site. A parallel can be drawn with the
J.A. MacGillivray, "A New Fragment of a Sheep Tablet from
Knossos," Kadmos 21 (1982) 30-32 (Dv 8834).
2 The archaeological information for LM III Crete is now available with full bibliography in A. Kanta, The Late Minoan III Period in Crete. A Survey of Sites, Pottery and their Distribution
(SIMA 58, Goteborg 1980). The following provide some supplementary information: S. Hiller, Das minoi'sche Kreta nach den
Ausgrabungen des letzten Jahrzehnts (Vienna 1977) and D. Leekley and R. Noyes, Archaeological Excavations in the Greek Islands
(Park Ridge, N.J. 1975).
3For the term "Post-Palatial," see, e.g., N. Platon, Crete (Archaeologia Mundi, London 1966) 206-207.
4I do not meanto imply a total lackof administrativeactivityoutside Knossos (see infra), but I think that Knossos alone was centrally
processing information on clay tablets. Activity, perhaps subordinate to Knossos, is implied by the existence of the inscribed stirrup
jars. Similarly, the fact that ko-no-so-de ("to Knossos") can appear
on a text (C 5753) at least implies an extra-Knossian perspective, if
not a tablet actually inscribed elsewhere. (Interestingly enough, the
scribe concerned- 107-appears
to deal only with western matters.) Information may have been gathered (even recorded, on perishable materials) elsewhere, but it probably took its final form on
clay in the palace. How else can we explain the situation with the
sheep tablets, where one scribe (117) writes not only the individual
flock records (Da-Dg), but also the totalling records (Dn)?
231
American Journal of Archaeology 89 (1985)

fAJA 89
JOHN BENNET
232
A
LP
5 mr
-_27
125m
1
:,--
..
SWS
:
Ir
tt
91-500
Les than 1
)
-il
"
---
rITI
SOIE
OF DEPOSIT
(No.
of tablets)
W91-500
Ak
10-?90
SLess
than10
Ill. 1. Knossos.Schematicrepresentationof tablet findspots:palace,Arsenaland Little Palace. "A"= Arsenal;"LP"= Little

Palace. (Redrawn after Olivier, Les scribesde Cnossos[Rome 1967] 22)

THE STRUCTUREOF THE LINEARB ADMINISTRATIONAT KNOSSOS
1985]
233
Kea
KEY
0
50
KM
5 or more examples
Less
than 5
single example
Ill. 2. Crete. Locations of known deposits of administrative documents (tablets and roundels) in Linear A
distributionof administrativedocumentsin Linear A

on Crete (and at least on Kea and Melos, among the
islands). These documentsare subjectto conditionsof
preservationsimilar to those of Linear B tablets, yet
their distribution was widespread, if not plentiful in
each case (ill. 2). Further, the Linear B deposits of
varying size on the mainland are known from several
sites-Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes and Tiryns.
Thus, it is reasonableto assume no other LM III
site on Crete had a Linear B tablet archive. The inscribed stirrup jars (ISJs), which turn up both on
Crete and on the mainland, might be said to contradict this assumption by offering evidenceof a literate
center in West Crete. I deal with this question below,
but it is worth pointing out that if the ISJs are contemporary with the Knossos archive, then their area
of production is documentedas part of the Knossos
system. If, as many archaeologists argue, the ISJs
postdate the destructionof Knossos, then they merely
provide evidence of continuing literacy, not of a rival
center to Knossos. In either case, Knossos appears to
remain the sole central place before its destruction.A
5 For yet another attempt to providea descriptivenomenclature
for the LM III period, see E. Hallager, SMEA 19 (1978) 17, fig. 1.
6 This is a maximum figure based on a personal assessmentof
the TNs. It is greater than that derivablefrom the glossariesof M.
Ventris and J. Chadwick eds., Documents in Mycenaean Greek2
(Cambridge1973) 527-94 (102 TNs) and of L.R. Palmer, The Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek Texts (Oxford 1963) 403-66 (77
better term for the period before the destruction of

Knossos would then be the "Mono-Palatial"period,
which could carryboth a descriptiveand a chronological reference.5
KNOSSOS AND ITS SATELLITES
Although Knossos was alone as a center, we do

know that it dealt with otherplacesboth within its immediate area and outside it. This none-too-surprising
fact is demonstratedby the existenceon the tablets of
sign-groupswhich we can assumeare place-names,or
toponyms(TNs). The numberof these places attested
is just over one hundred-probably 103, includingall
probableand possible examples.6This figure is probably close to the actual total numberof TNs Knossos
recorded.In the first group of tabletsto be published,7
99 of the known TNs occur. Subsequentstudy has to
date broughtto light a further2,877 fragments(many
of whichjoin), but only four possiblenew TNs, two of
which are doubtful.At least 39 of the originalnumber
of TNs are attestedagain in this secondgroup of tablets, and possibly as many as 47.8
TNs), quoted in A.L. Wilson, "The Place-names in the Linear B
Tablets from Knossos: Some Preliminary Considerations," Minos
16 (1977) 72, Table I.
7 Scripta Minoa II, numbers 1 to 1,654, fromall over the palace
site.
8 I should like to thank Dr. J.T. Killen for suggestingthis line of

inquiry.

234
JOHN BENNET
TN
TN
PAITO
occurs59
KONOSO
occurs22
times
-1
? ' .
*
[AJA 89
..-
tames
-1
28
/*
*.
**SS0
*I
N.B. Findspots are not established for all the tablets, therefore the number of occurrences of a
TN in the whole corpus (top right) usually exceeds the number of examples plotted out
here.
TN
KUDONIJA
occurs17
TN DADAREJODE
times
occurs
ocus3
Ar
I
0
*0
00
0*
.0
"
-*
@0
0
0._>>:?
*
*.
Ill. 3. Toponym occurrenceby depositwithin the palace and its dependencies(four examples)

times
times
1985]
235
A cross-checkis affordedby looking at the distribution of findspots of tablets containing TN mentions,

four examples of which are shown in ill. 3.9 On this
diagram, the connectionof a tablet deposit with a notional symbol in the central court indicates an occurrence of that TN on a tablet in that deposit. I have
chosen three TNs ranging from high to medium frequency of occurrence,and a fourth (da-da-re-jo-de)of
low occurrenceand specializedfunction.The diagram
demonstratesthat mentionsof a TN are usually widely distributedwithin the palace, and rarely occuronly
within a single deposit, unless the TN represents a
site with a highly specialized function, like da-da-rejo-de. The largest class of TNs reflectingsuch a specialized function comprisesthose to which it seems offerings are sent, of which da-da-re-jo-deis one. There
are 24 of these by my count, 20 of which do not occur
in other functional contexts, and 14 of which occur
only once in the whole archive. It is thus unlikely that
we have missed many TNs entirely, and, if more have
been lost, they would most likely fall within the offerings class. Two of the new TNs alreadymentioned
occur in similarly specializedcontexts.
It ought not to surpriseus that TNs of the offerings
type occur rarely in the archive, since the function of
the majorityof the TNs suggests that they may be occupation sites. The same is not to be expected (in a
Minoan context at any rate) of a cult site, which could
have been located in a cave, or on a peak. Such TNs
will thus not usually refer to sites with other functions, unless the cult site lies close to an occupation
site (e.g., Amnisos?). It is also possible that cult TNs
might refer to a specificbuilding, or shrine (for example, da-da-re-jo-de perhaps?), or even to a divinity,
referenceswhich would again be unlikely to turn up
elsewhere in the archivein secular contexts.
Knossos was thus probablythe administrativecenter of a network of about one hundred named sites,
twenty or so of which played a specializedrole. But is
it necessarilythe case that the other TNs actually referred to occupationsites, which would thus be liable
to be recognizedarchaeologically?I think they probably are genuine occupationsites, since they not infrequently have personnel attested at them, or are mentioned as producingcloth, or both. It is difficultto see
how these two functions could be achieved at sites
other than occupationsites, and this patternof multiple function is commonto those TNs which seem not
to reflect sites with a specializedfunction.
Since many of the tablets deal with sheep or with
agricultural produce, it might be argued that some
TNs may refer merely to pasture areas or to land.
Such variabilityin TN referenceis unlikely, however,
particularlyas TNs against which sheep are recorded
often occur with personnel. Da-wo, for instance, has
2,440 sheep, but also occurswith mentionsof personnel and cloth.10With specificregardto sheep, I think
it implausible that they should be recordedagainst a
pasture name, since the interest of the palace was essentially in their wool and its processing into cloth,
which seems to have taken place at the site, as well as
at Knossos itself. In addition, the pasture area (and
therefore its name) is likely to vary annually, even
seasonally. I would argue that the tablets recording
flocks document the flocks belonging to a particular
locality (indicatedby the TN) under the charge of a
shepherd, whose name appears in majuscule at the
left of the tablet, indicatinghis importancein the palace record.It is the shepherdwho is the link between
the flock and its home base. I leave aside at this point
the vexed question of the "owners"or "collectors."1
We can thus distinguish most of the TNs against
which Knossos records its interests, and we can assume that in many cases they are the namesof occupation sites. There probably also existed a network of
sanctuary sites, which, although identified by TNs,
need not also have been occupationsites, as observed
above. The occupationsites ought to be detectablein
the archaeologicalrecord,12 althoughthe task of identifying all the sites on the ground and assigning them
their correctLinear B name must presumablyremain
impossible.Only when we have TNs which can plausibly be identified with a name attested from other
sourcescan we hope directlyto matchwhat we find on
the groundto what we have on the tablets.
9 For the reconstruction of many of the findspots, see L.R. Palmer, The Find-Places of the Knossos Tablets (Oxford 1963) and
J.-P. Olivier, Les scribes de Cnossos (Incunabula Graeca 17, Rome
1967).
o10E.g., Dn 1094.2 (2,440 sheep); Ak(2) 621.C (personnel); Lc(1)
526.B, or Le 641.2 (cloth).
See, e.g., infra ns. 26 and 27.
12
This statement does not imply that sanctuary sites are not ar-
chaeologically recognizable. TNs referring to such sites are, however, less easy to locate iri relation to other TNs because they occur
rarely, in specialized contexts, and because we cannot be absolutely
sure of what the TN refers to (cave, shrine, deity?). Thus, there is
no contextual support for a connection of di-ka-ta-de-e.g.,
Fp(1)
1.2-with Mt. Dikte, whereas ku-do-ni-ja's relative location can be
confirmed in this way. A-mi-ni-so among the cult TNs is a notable
exception (cf. infra n. 43).
APPROACHES
TO GEOGRAPHY
Extent
One such identifiable TN is ko-no-so (Knossos),

and there are now generally acceptedto be five more,
whose identificationgives us our first clue to the extent of the interestson the island of the Knossianad-

236
JOHN BENNET
[AJA89
N
KUDONIJ
APATAWA
Rethymnon
dd
KM8
~KEY
0
50
KM
KN
Knossos
AMINISO
Linear B known place-name
Malia
Modern place-name
Ill. 4. Crete.A possibledistribution

of Wilson'sgroupsI-IV, togetherwiththe locationsof theknownLinearB toponyms
ministration.13The six are mapped out on ill. 4 in
their Linear B syllabic forms. From east to west they
are: Amnisos, Knossos,Tylissos, Phaistos, Aptera (in
an archaic form /Aptarwa/) and Kydonia (modern
Khania). On a superficiallevel, these TNs suggest an
extent as far west as Khania, and as far east as Amnisos. But in practice,an identificationof this type needs
to be supported,for there are other TNs with plausible Greek correlateswhich are dismissed as unlikely
to refer to the place we now identify with that name.
One such example is ra-to (? = Lato), where the lack
of evidence for Minoan habitation at the site and the
contextualassociationsof the TN with other TNs not
in the present-day Lato area combine to tell against
such an identificationof the Linear B TN. Caution
must be exercised, however, for Minoan remains in
the Aptera region were little known until the relatively recentfinds there:the site at Soudha Bay, the Kalami chamber tombs and the settlement and tomb at
Stylos.14
The discovery of LM III remains in the west of

Crete has served to increase the likelihood of a far
'3 See, e.g., J.T. Killen, "The KnossosTexts and the Geography
of Mycenaean Crete,"in J.L. Bintliff ed., Mycenaean Geography
(British Associationfor Mycenaean Studies, Cambridge1977) 41.
14Soudha:Kanta (supra n. 2) 236; F. Matz ed., Forschungenauf
Kreta 1942 (Berlin 1951) 82-88; Jennifer Moody, personal communication. Kalami: Kanta 238; I. Tzedakis, "'AvacrTKa4
Mvwt'KOV NEKPoTa dov EL4 FEPLOX7VKakaalov XavWov,"AAA
2
(1969) 365-69. Stylos: Kanta 235 and "The Minoan Settlementof
the Northern Part of the Apokoronasand Minoan Apatawa," in
Aux origines de 1'Hellenisme.La Crete et la Gr&ce.Hommage
&
western extent for Knossos'administrativesystem. In

addition, a secondapproachhelps to support such an
estimationof the western extent. There will be more
to say on the subjectof relativegeographylater, but in
the Co texts ku-do-ni-ja and a-pa-ta-wa occur in as-
sociation with the TNs wa-to and o-du-ru-wo, TNs

which also occur on some of the ISJs found on the
mainland. Recent analysis by optical emission spectroscopy (OES) has shown that many of these ISJs
were made from clays whose provenanceis likely to
lie in West Crete.15In particular,those jars bearing
the TN wa-to all have a West Cretan 3 composition
type.16The likelihood is that these TNs lay in West
Crete, and thus the western component in Knossos'
administrationis confirmedbeyondreasonabledoubt.
A third method for establishing the area in which
Knossoswas interestedmight be termedthe ecological
approach. The starting point is the total number of
sheep recorded on the Knossos tablets: a little less
than 100,000, with allowance made for incompletely
preserved numerals. Theoretical and practical estimates suggest that the grazing requirementper anHenri van Effenterre (Paris 1984) 9-16.
'5 H.W. Catling, J.F. Cherry, R.E. Jones and J.T. Killen, "The
Linear B InscribedStirrup Jars and West Crete,"BSA 75 (1980)

49-113.
16 Catling et al. (supra n. 15) 86, nos. 5 (TH Z 849), 7 (TH Z
851), 8 (TH Z 852), 9 (TH Z 854). All have wa-to and are of West
Cretan /3 composition.TH Z 839 (not analyzed) has the TN o-duru-wi-jo and may have a West Cretan a composition,as it is decorated in light paint on a dark background(cf. BSA 75 [1980] 82).

1985]
THE STRUCTURE OF THE LINEAR B ADMINISTRATION AT KNOSSOS
237
num of an adult sheep (and the tablets are chiefly concerned with adult sheep) is in the region of one hectare of fallow land, possibly more in the case of more
marginal land." Thus, the minimum area required
by these 100,000 sheep would be about the same number of hectares.
In the Late Bronze Age the amount of land available for grazing was probably limited by greater tree
cover, settlement and agricultural constraints, the extent of which are indicated by the figure of 10,000[
units of grain, the produce of at least 1,000 ha.,"18
which is recorded for the da-wo area, a TN against
which 2,440 sheep are recorded. The presence of
greater tree cover is perhaps reflected in the correlation among greater sheep numbers, larger flock sizes
and locations on plains, as at Phaistos. This correlation indicates the importance of lowland grazing,
which may have had its advantages in ease of access to
the settlement for wool processing.19 As a result of
Groupings
These different approachescan give us an idea of
the extent of Knossianinterestsin LM III Crete, but
geographical analysis can be taken further. As was
hinted abovein the case of Aptera and Khania and the
other Co series TNs, we can assume that proximity
on a text-or within a series of closely relatedtextsindirectly represents actual geographical proximity.
Much has been done with the Pylos TNs in this respect, where the existence of the Hither and Further
provincesand the presenceof lists of TNs make matters easier.20 Although the Knossos documentsare at
first glance less susceptibleto such an analysis, it has
been undertaken with considerablesuccess, first by
Hart, then by Palmer, and more recently by Wilson
and McArthur.21 The general picture they present is
fairly consistent; because different techniques were
used in assessinglinks, the implicationis that this picture is genuine, and not an arbitraryimpositionof orthese limitations, it seems that perhaps two to three der on textual chaos. Particularlyimportantis the fact
times the minimum area would be required by these that Wilson and McArthurwere both using objective
100,000 sheep: that is, 200-300,000 ha., or between tests of co-occurrencebased on statisticaland computone quarter and one third of the island.
er analyses. Wilson applied statisticaltests to the TN
Such an estimate can give us only a minimum fig- associationsin order to establish their significanceas
ure, and cannottell us in which part of Crete this area systematic,non-randomco-occurrences.These signiflay. The estimate of one-quarter to one-third of the icant associationswere used as the basis for his TN
land area does not, however, contradictthe extent for groupings. McArthur, on the other hand, used TN
Knossian interests indicated by the identifiable TNs associations(expressedas a matrix) as the input to a
outlined above. Indeed, it is worth noting, in the light computer non-metric mapping program: multi-diof what I havejust mentionedabout lowland grazing, mensionalscaling (MDSCAL).22
that the region suggested by the identifiableTNs inHere I use Wilson's determinationof groupings
cludes four plains: the Mesara, the Rethymnoncoast- (see Table 1). Wilson analyzes a selectionof 29 TNs,
al plain, the Apokoronasand the relativelyflat hinter- which are necessarilyof high occurrenceand frequent
land behind Knossos.
co-occurrence.23They are indicated on ill. 5. The
7 P. Halstead, "From Determinism to Uncertainty: Social Storage and the Rise of the Minoan Palace," in A. Sheridan and G.
Bailey eds., Economic Archaeology. Towards an Integration ofEcological and Social Approaches (BAR International Series 96, Oxford 1981) 204.
18 p. Halstead, "Counting Sheep in Neolithic and Bronze Age
Greece," in I. Hodder et al. eds., Pattern of the Past (Cambridge
1981) 332-33, assumes the value for the major dry unit to be 96 1.:
see Chadwick (supra n. 6) 393-94. Halstead's calculations suggest
that the smallest land area that could produce such a yield is 2,000
ha., with one-half of that lying fallow. Fallow land could have been
(and probably was) used for grazing, and thus the minimum area
under crops, and therefore to be kept free of livestock, would be
about 1,000 ha. It should be noted that the figure of 10,000[ units
on the tablet F(2) 852 is incomplete: i.e., it is almost certainly larger.
19 Incidentally, the correlation does little to confirm (or disprove)
the existence of transhumance practices in the Late Bronze Age
suggested by J.L. Bintliff, Natural Environment and Human Settlement in Prehistoric Greece (BAR International Series 28, Oxford 1977) 630 and 653 (fig. 7). See also: B. Rutkowski, Cult Places
in the Aegean World (Warsaw 1972) 184, and L.V. Watrous, "Aegean Settlement and Transhumance," Temple University Aegean
Symposium 2 (1977) 2-6.
20
Cf., e.g., J. Chadwick, The Mlycenaean World (Cambridge
1976) 35-48, and, for a computer-based approach, J.F. Cherry,

"Investigating the Political Geography of an Early State by Multidimensional Scaling of Linear B Data," in Bintliff ed. (supra n. 13)
76-83.
21 G.R. Hart, "The Groupings of Place-names in the Knossos
Tablets," Mnemosyne 18 (1965) 1-28; L.R. Palmer, "Mycenaean
Inscribed Vases II. The Mainland Finds," Kadmos 11 (1972)
27-46, and "Context and Geography I: Crete," in E. Risch and H.
Miuhlestein eds., Colloquium Mycenaeum (Neuchltel
1979)
43-63; Wilson (supra n. 6) 67-125; J.K. McArthur, Place-Names
in the Knossos Tablets: Identification and Location (Diss. University of Monash, Australia 1979). I am indebted to DI)r.McArthur
for a copy of her dissertation, which is to appear as a supplement to
Minos. She has also provided a useful and comprehensive summary
of work on Knossian geography: "The Textual Evidence for Location of Place-Names in the Knossos Tablets," Minos 17 (1981)
147-210.
22 Wilson (supra n. 6),
e.g., 85-88 and 121-22. McArthur 1979
(supra n. 21) Ch. 13, pp. 332-53. On MDSCAL, see, e.g., Cherry
(supra n. 20) and D. Kendall in Bintliff ed. (supra n. 13) 83-88.
23 Wilson (supra n. 6) 91. In order for his statistical tests of associations to be valid, there had to be a sufficient number of cases.
Thus the many TNs which occur only once or twice in the archive
(see ill. 5, to the left of the bottom axis) and never in association had

238
JOHN BENNET
30_
[AJA 89
oI
TNs not used in Wilson's analysis
GroupI
GroupII
GroupIII
GroupIV
20
z
Group V (Amnisos, Knossos, Setoija)
a -A,K,S
I-,
10
z6
10
30
20
Frequency
of
40
Occurrence
50
660
of TN
Ill. 5. Frequencyhistogramof toponymoccurrencesin the whole Knossosarchive.On the "x"axis, the numberof times each
toponym occursin the whole archive;on the "y"axis, the numberof toponymsthat occura given numberof times. Thus, 31
toponymsoccuronly once, while only one (Knossos)occurs22 times. The TNs that make up Wilson's groupsare indicated.
(Total no. TNs = 103. Total no. occurrences= 1089)
TNs break down into five groups, which are, at this
stage, "closed": they could stand in almost any relationship to each other. By the presence of our identifiable TNs, however, we can begin to assign locations
to the groups. Group I contains Phaistos, and thus at
least partly falls in the Mesara plain. Group III contains Tylissos, which lies just over 10 km. west of
Knossos. Group V contains Knossos and Amnisos.
Group IV contains our ISJ TNs again, which, as we
saw, are probably western, and link in the Co series
texts to the known TNs Kydonia and Aptera.
Group I presents an anomaly: although it contains
Phaistos, whose location we know, it also contains da*22-to, which recent work has shown probably to have
a West Central context.24 With reference to ill. 4 we
can propose a solution to this problem, and assume
that the group lay in an are extending from the Mesara, west of Psiloriti, to the Rethymnon-Stavromenos
region on the north coast. To its west would lie group
IV, da-*22-to and *56-ko-we representing what Palto be excluded, leaving a basic 27 x 27 matrix of co-occurrences:
Wilson (supra n. 6) 120. Three western TNs with good contextual
control were added (o-du-ru-wo, si-ra-ro and wa-to) and ku-do-nija was subtracted, making a total of 29 TNs in the groups.
mer has usefully termed a "buffer zone,'25 or an overlap on the edges of groupings, represented on the map
by a broken line. To the east of group I in the north lay
the Tylissos group (group III), which was probably
the local Knossos area. For reasons given below, group
II probably lay to the east of group III. Group V may
represent a special case, and is discussed below.
Administrative Patterning
Thus far, we have relied on our TN fixed points to
assign locations to the various groups, but the inquiry
can be taken further by looking in more detail at the
occurrences within the archive of the TNs in the
groups. The results of such an inquiry not only support our geographical groupings, but also highlight
aspects of the structure of the administration itself.
Palmer first suggested that the presence of a second
personal name on certain sheep tablets might indicate
a third party in the relationship between the palace
and its sheep.26 He has advocated the term "owner"
24 Catling et al. (supra n. 15) 92.
25 Palmer 1979 (supra n. 21) 55.
26 Palmer (supra n. 6) 165-69, 178.

1985]
239
Table 1. The Toponym Groupings as Suggested by A.L. Wilson

I
II
III
IV
V
da-wo, da-*22-to, e-ko-so, e-ra, pa-i-to (Phaistos), ku-ta-to

pu-na-so, ra-ja, ra-su-to, ra-to, ri-jo-no,tu-ni-ja, do-ti-ja
a-ka, pu-so, qa-mo, qa-ra, ru-ki-to, su-ri-mo, ti-ri-to, tu-ri-so (Tylissos), u-ta-no
o-du-ru-wo, *56-ko-we, si-ra-ro, wa-to
a-mi-ni-so (Amnisos), ko-no-so (Knossos),se-to-i-ja
for this person, preferring it to the original suggestion

of "collector."27In this case, Palmer argued, the flocks
are not owned by the wanax or "king," but by a third
party. Both he and Hart observed that the number of
these "owners" seems to increase with distance from
the center at Knossos, and that their presence thus has
a spatial implication.28 Wilson pursued this suggestion further with reference to the sheep tablets, and
showed that it was his group I which has the largest
mean ratio of "owner" to non-"owner" flocks in
groups I to IV.29 (I have set his figures out in the final
column of Table 2.) This observation provided a degree of confirmation for his isolation of group I, and
helps to establish its location at one remove from the
center at Knossos.
At the opposite extreme, group III shows the lowest
ratio, which supports its proximity to Knossos. The
intermediate figure of Group II suggests an intermediate location.
Table 2 also shows the figures which I have computed for the frequency of occurrence of the TNs in
groups I to V. Again, group I has over 30% of the total
TN occurrences in the archive, and, more importantly, an average occurrence per TN nearly twice as high
as that of any other group. This figure suggests a high

level of administrative interest in this area, and the
correlation with high occurrences of "owners" may indicate that the "owners" are important to the administration, particularly in those areas separated from
Knossos. In contrast, the local group III has a low
"owner" figure, and a relatively low occurrence figure. There are also two documents-E 749 and Og
833-which list small amounts of grain and of an unknown weighed commodity against the TNs of group
III. This situation may be indicative of local exploitation of its immediate area performed directly by the
palace, thus requiring less explicit documentation.
We must also bear in mind that tu-ri-so controls this
speculation by providing independent evidence,
through its known location, that the group did lie
close to Knossos.
The arguments for the location of group II are
much less firm. This group contains no fixed points,
but there is a small amount of contextual evidence for
location on the eastern edge of the Knossos area. Tablet Le 654 lists ko-no-]si-ja, a-mi-ni-si-ja, se-to-i-ja
and tu-ni-ja. The first two are known and tu-ni-ja is a
group II TN. Se-to-i-ja, it is suggested below, proba-
Table 2: Frequency of Occurrence of TNs and Ratio of "Owner" to Non-"Owner" Flocks

in Wilson's TN Groupings
Group
I
II
III
IV
V
No. TNs
Percentagetotal KN
occurrence(whole group)
6
7
9
4
3
30.3%
16.3%
22.1%
4.4%
8.3%
27 Chadwick (supra n. 6) 201-202, 434, who accepts Palmer's

distinction between flocks belonging to the "king" and flocks belonging to other individuals.
Mean ratio "owner":

Percentagetotal KN
occurrence(per TN average) non-"owner"flocks
5.05%
2.33%
2.46%
1.10%
2.77%
0.49
0.22
0.09
(0.13)
(1.00)
28 Hart (supra n. 21) 10-15; Palmer 1972 (supra n. 21) 34.

29 Wilson (supra n. 6) 93, Table V.

JOHN BENNET
240
bly lay east of Knossos. Similarly, the flocks of the

"owner"a-te-jo are groupedsix in group II, two at seto-i-ja, and one at qa-sa-ro-we (whose relative location is not known at present), suggesting a link between se-to-i-ja and group II.3?
At a more subjective level, group II contains the

TN ra-su-to, which may represent a pre-Greek /lasunthos/, a plausible early form of the name Lasithi.
Faure and Thomopoulou both regardthe name Lasithi as ancient in origin, although they differ in their
exact derivations.31There is certainly archaeological
evidence for activityon the plateau in the LM III period, and Watrous believes it fell within the sphere of
Knossian interest at the time of the tablets.32
Group IV presents differentproblems. In terms of
frequency of occurrence, the notion of fall-off with
distance is clearly established by the group IV TNs,
which we assume to lie at the western edge of the area
of interest. They account for the lowest total, and the
lowest average occurrence per TN. It is, however,
surprising to see them low in the ratio of "owner"
flocks, as the model suggests that, at this western extreme, the farthest remove from the center, there
should be a higher proportionof "owners."In fact, the
lack of "owners"is illusory, and arises from the fact
that there are no recordsrelating specificallyto sheep
for this area of Crete. The livestockrecordsrelatingto
this region are of a differenttype-the Co documents,
an example of which is shown here:
Co 903
(107)
.1 wa-to/ a-ko-ra-jaOVISm60 OVISf270

CAPm49
.2 CAPf130SUSm17 SUSf41 BOSm2 BOSf4
These texts record more complete livestock assemblages:sheep, goats, pigs and cattle, in descendingnumerical order. Entries in the Co series are distinguished by the term a-ko-ra-ja, which, as Killen has
shown, probablyhas a significancesimilar to the presence of an "owner"name.33He has demonstratedconnectionsbetween these TNs and the Lc(2) set of cloth
productionrecords,which list the produce of mainly
"owner"workshops in this region, and display links
with a list of "owner"names on tablet B 798, written
by scribe 107, who also wrote the Co records.What
Killen has shown, then, is the logical extension of the
picture presented:namely, that the western TNs are
less "involved"in the administration, but that this
30 Wilson (supra n. 6) 92-93, n. 82.
dans la Crtte moderne,"
3' P. Faure, "Toponymes prihdlleniques
Kadmos 6 (1967) 62, and I. Thomopoulou, "Tb "Ovoja AaolL,"
Amaltheia 6 (1975) 137-43. The problem, however, is documenting the pre-Greek name beyond the end of the Bronze Age, and
before the Venetian period.
[AJA89
limited "involvement"is almost entirely carried on

through intermediaries:the "owners."Thus, the spatial distributionof TNs is shown to be linked to the
administrativeorganization.
If the presence of "owners" and administrative
practice are in fact linked, then the term "owner"is
itself probablyinaccurate.The notion of "ownership"
in the context of such an administrativesystem seems
anachronisticand to be based on the moderndistinction between the public and the private sector. Rather, the importance of these persons to the palace
(which is signalledby their being recordedon the tablets) seems to have been one of responsibilityfor overseeing production(and, no doubt,insuringits completion and the delivery of products to the palace) in
areas outside that nearest to the palace itself. I would
propose on these grounds that the term "overseer"
might be consideredas a replacementfor "owner."
Our considerationof the context of the TNs and
their organization thus points to a difference in the
way in which certain parts of Crete are handled by
the administration.Knossos appears to have had its
own regionwhich it administereddirectlyfor the most
part, while radiating out from it were regions where
indirect administration,signalled by the presence of
"overseers,"became more importantas a function of
distance and separation. At the farthest end lay the
western TNs, which occur less frequently in the archive, but were apparently managed almost entirely
through "overseers."
Second-order Centers
At this point we must bringgroupV into the discussion. The locationof two of its TNs we know (Knossos
and Amnisos), but that of the third (se-to-i-ja), we do
not. I am unsure of the status of group V as a geographical grouping, and believe that it is one point
where the objective analysis of associations breaks
down, for the grouping is largely achieved through
contextualassociationswith Knossositself. We know,
however, that Knossos is the center, and we might
then expect these co-occurrencesto be of a special
kind. By definition, Knossos, the administrativecenter, has an implicit link with any TN it records.34But,
when Knossos itself is actually mentionedin association with a TN, the link becomesmore important.We
can contrastthe occurrencesof Pylos within its system,
32 L.V.
Watrous, Lasithi, a History of Settlement on a Highland
Plain in Crete (Hesperia suppl. 18, Princeton 1982) 17-18.
in A. Morpurgo-Da33 J.T. Killen, "Linear B a-ko-ra-ja/-jo,"
vies and W. Meid eds., Studies in Greek, Italic and Indo-European
Linguistics Offered to L.R. Palmer (Innsbruck 1976) 117-25.
34 Cf. Cherry (supra n. 20) 79.

1985]
which are never in association with other TNs.35

Thus, there may be a difference in status for those
TNs which occur in association with Knossos. In
practice, Knossos only occurs with other TNs six
times out of a total of 22 occurrences.(Knossos is indicated by "K"on the bottom axis in ill. 5.) The actual co-occurrencesare set out in abbreviatedform in
Table 3.
What the first three examples show is a linking between Knossos and da-*22-to, se-to-i-ja, Amnisos,
Phaistos and most likely ku-ta-to.36 The contextis important, for As 40 lists personalnames, includingone
su-ke-re at se-to-i-ja. As(2) 1516, a tablet by the same
hand, also lists names, but of a special kind (they are
distinguished by the term qa-si-re-wi-ja) in three
groups by place. Here su-ke-re returns at the head of
241
the se-to-i-ja list, in the form su-ke-re-o, presumably a
genitive, which implies that he is in some way in

The context is, then, specialcharge of those men."37
ized, and further, it is fair to assume that, as da-*22to-a group I TN-occurs in As 40, the proximity
implied is not geographical.Similarly, E 777 has a
specialized context, linking three known TNs at opposite sides of the island in what appears to be a rations context.These TNs are not linkedby proximity,
but by status, as suspected.
We have, then, links on tablets among these TNs
which Wilson and others have used to imply a Knossian geographical grouping, comprising Knossos,
Amnisos and se-to-i-ja.38 We might ask why da-*22-
to and Phaistos are not included. The reason, of

course, is that their geographical-contextualassocia-
Table 3: The Co-occurrencesof Knossoswithin the Archive (Abbreviated)

1.
As 40
.1 ko-no-so
.2.3.4.5
.6
2.
As(2) 1516
3.
da-*22-to
se-to-i-ja
.2
.12
.20
ko-no-si-ja
ku-]ta-ti-jo
se-to-i-ja
E 777
.1
.2
.3
ko-no-si-ja
a-mi-ni-si-ja
pa-i-ti-ja
4.
Le 641
.1
.2
.3
pa-i-ti-ja....da-wi-ja
do-ti-ja......qa-mi-ja
ko-no-so.....tu-ni-ja
5.
Xd 168
.1
.2
ko-no-si-jo [
ru-ki-ti-jo [
6.
Xe 6011
.1
.2
]ko-no-so[
]e-ra[
35A. Sainer, "An Index of the Place-names at Pylos," SMEA 17
(1976) 51-52.
36 The apparatus in Chadwick et al., (supra n. 1) 26, suggests a
possible restorationas ]ra-ti-jo,or as ku-]ta-ti-joon As(2) 1516.12.

From the spacing to the left of ]ti-jo, I think two signs are more
likely. Also, I think that ku-ta-to, which occurs 78 times in the archive (more than any other TN), is more likely to have a high-level
status than ra-to, which appears less often in the archive(31 times).
7 I think the co-occurrenceof personal name and place-name,
together with the fact that the tablets are both by the same scribal
hand, puts the question of the identity of the two su-ke-resbeyond
reasonabledoubt.
38 Wilson (supra n. 6) 91; Palmer 1972 (supra n. 21) 37, 41.

242
JOHN BENNET
[AJA 89
tions lie elsewhere. Ironically, it is precisely because points to be made aboutthis TN. First, it occurson Le
of its known locationthat Amnisos is included,where- 654 with the abbreviation"wa", and on Lc(1) 525
as, on the basis of these documents alone, it has no with the full adjectivewa-na-ka-te-ra:
more right to inclusion than da-*22-to or Phaistos.
Le654
(103)
Se-to-i-ja is includedbecauseits locationis unknown,
.1
sup. mut.
.2
although it seems to associatewith group II, and thus
]si-ja[
.3 a-mi-ni-si-ja [
may lie east of Knossos. What these particular texts
.4 se-to-i-ja'wa' 2[
imply is the existence of a set of high-level TNs,
.5 tu-ni-ja 2[
which we can legitimately refer to as second-order
.6
we-we-si-jo 1[
centers-Amnisos, se-to-i-ja, Phaistos, da-*22-to and
ku-ta-to.
What is more, these second-ordercenters, or subcenters,are furtherevidencedby their presenceon the

Sc, Sd and So records.Amnisos occurs relatively frequently in the Sc texts, which recordchariots,horses
and tunics. An example from the Sd documentsdescribes ornate chariot bodies, the outcome of many
highly specialized productionprocesses, indicatedby
the string of descriptionsapplied to them:
Sd4413
(128)
.a a-ra-ru-]ja, a-ni-ja-pi,wi-ri-ni-jo,o-po-qo,
ke-ra-ja-pi,o-pi-i-ja-piCUR[
.b i-]qi-ja/ pa-i-to, a-ra-ro-mo-te-me-na,
do-we-jo,i-qo-e-qe, po-ni-ki[-ja
The descriptionsinclude the TNs Phaistos (as in the
example given), se-to-i-ja and ku-do-ni-ja. The So
series recordswheels in similar fashion-one pair at

se-to-i-ja, and three at Phaistos39:
So(1)4448
(130)
pa-i-to , a-mo-ta , pte-re-wa , te-mi-dwe-ta
ROTA ZE 3
Whether these chariots were actual war chariots,

or merely ornate vehicles (armored cars or RollsRoyces?), their symbolicvalue must have been important, and their distribution among our second-order
centers is telling. We are almost certainly correct in
adding Kydonia to our list of second-ordercenterson
this basis. This addition has an interesting consequence in respect to the "overseers"discussedearlier,
since it confirms the relationship of administrative
concernin Khania and the presenceof "overseers."
Not only does Kydonia have these ornate chariots,
but so does se-to-i-ja, which we had clearly isolated
as a second-ordercenter. Yet there are two further
39 I assume the chariots and wheels to be at the locations men-
Lc(1) 525
(103)
.a 'wa-na-ka-te-ra'
TELA3+TE40 LANA100[
.b se-to-i-ja,/ tu-na-noTELA!3 LANA[
Wa-na-ka-te-rais generally acceptedto relate to the
wanax, or "king."40But-the second point-in Wil-
son's analysis of the so-called "collector"to non-"collector"flock ratios, se-to-i-ja alone in group V has a
ratio of 1.00, the highest of all the groups.41This figure is difficultto explain if the presenceof such names
indicatesa separationfrom the wanax, as Palmer has
maintained.42
ARCHAEOLOGY
AND ADMINISTRATION
Origins
From an analysisof the textual evidencewe seem to

be able to sketch a picture of groupings among the
TNs, and also to isolate certain TNs which probably
functioned as second-order administrative centers.
These sub-centersare an importantlink to our second
body of data: the archaeologicalevidence. If we include Knossos, then four have a known locationKnossos(the center),Phaistos, Kydoniaand Amnisos.
It is significantthat all correspondto sites of some importance in LM I-two of them palaces, the third a
majortown with a Linear A archive,and the fourth a
"villa."
The status of Amnisos is, however, difficult to assess, as it lies close to Knossos, and may thus not be
separable from it as a center in the same way as the
other second-order centers are. Its importance is
shown by the varietyof functionsit fulfilled in the administration,43but it is clear that one of its chief functions was as a cult place (see, e.g., its occurrencesin
the Fp, Ga, Gg, and perhaps also in the M records),
tioned on the tablets because the TNs do not appear in the ethnic
form. By implication,we can assume that those tabletswhich do not
have a TN recordvehicles and wheels at Knossos.Confirmationis
perhaps offered by the tablet Le 641 (cf. Table 3) where cloth is
recorded against several ethnic forms, but against the te-pe-ja at
this particularcase. It is, however, worth noting that se-to-i-ja occurs with ka-to-ro in the Do texts, and also in the same group of
tablets in abbreviatedform (se): cf. J.T. Killen, "SomeAdjunctsto
the SHEEP Ideogram on Knossos Tablets," Eranos 61 (1963)
89-93. This informationsupportsthe identificationof se-to-i-ja as
a place of particularimportance.
42 Palmer (supra n. 6) 178.
(supra n. 6) glossary, p. 461.
21(1982) 33-63.
ko-no-so.
40 See, e.g., Chadwick (supra n. 6) glossary, p. 589, and Palmer
41 Wilson, (supra n. 6) 94, is right to stress the limited evidence in
43 Cf. S. Hiller, "Amnisos in den mykenischen Texten," Kadmos

1985]
243
which might suggest a status in the Knossos system

similar to that of pa-ki-ja-ne in the Pylos system--a
nearby and possibly specializedarea.44
The other three centerswhose names are recognizable have a similar history in LM II. Knossositself is
not destroyedin LM IB, although it does seem to suffer damage,45but it continues to function in LM II
and LM IIIA, and its pottery style was highly influential on the contemporarypottery preservedin limited deposits elsewhere on Crete.46I have plotted the
distributionof LM II materialin ill. 6,47which shows
only LM II material, not LM IIIA1, as I wish to define the earliest contactsafter the LM IB destructions.
Phaistos and Khania both occur on the map. This
pattern might help us look for likely locationsfor our
other second-ordercenters.
First, da-*22-to. We have seen that its connections
Second,se-to-i-ja. It is much less easy to assess the

possiblelocationof this TN, and what I offerhere as a
suggestion must be regardedas highly speculative.If
we look for anotherex-palatial site reoccupiedin LM
II to the east of Knossos, we can plausibly consider
only Malia.52 Se-to-i-ja's archival position, with its
clear second-ordercenter status, and its high "overseer"ratio, implying separationfrom Knossos,would
match the locationof Malia well. Arkhanesmight be
offered as a rival candidate,but I think it is unlikely.
It does not fall within the region east of Knossos,as it
lies only 8 km. almost due south. Also, although an
impressivearchaeologicalsite throughoutits history,
Arkhanes has not yielded well attested LM II material, which makes it difficult to place in a class with
the other sub-centers.
We ought to take accountof Crete farthereast than
are western and southern within group I,48 and a like- Malia, and ask why that area is not broughtinto conly location would be on the Rethymnoncoastal plain; sideration.First, within the contextualgroupingsand
a further possible confirmationis its occurrencein the the identifiable TNs, not one is securely assigned to
V(5) series texts, which may deal with coastal sites.49 the east of the island.53In the second place, if one
Rethymnon itself is not well known archaeologically, were, we might expect it to have similar characterisbut LM II pottery does occur there, notably the flask tics to the western TNs already examined, but none
publishedby Tzedakis,50and of course LM III cham- does, although the group II TNs, it is suggested,apber tombs are known in the town, although they have pear to have some intermediatestatus. Finally, there
been haphazardlyexplored.Outside the moderntown are no examples of LM II pottery from the east deto the east, the area of Stavromenoshas not yet been spite major excavationsat Gournia, Palaikastroand
excavated, and so has not yielded LM II pottery, but Kato Zakro. It is true that there is LM IIIA1 pottery
surface finds from the area point to extensive occupa- at least from Palaikastro and Myrtos, and possibly
tion in both LM I and LM III. It is also worth noting from Kato Zakro, but it is too late for what I should
the discoveryof LM III chambertombs at several lo- like to establish:namely, a more or less immediaterecations in the region."'
use after a LM IB destruction.54
44 This may sound like special pleading, but we can add the fact
that the records of military equipment at Amnisos (the Sc texts) are
of a kind different from the Sd and So records. A possible explanation for the discrepancy may be sought in the office from which
these military texts came: the "Room of the Chariot Tablets" deposit by the "124" group of scribal hands. This office shows no scribal
links to other offices, but strong links among its ten or more scribes
(cf. Olivier [supra n. 9] 66), and also appears to duplicate commodity records found elsewhere, as in this case: Sc duplicating Sd and
So. This state of affairs has not been adequately explained, but it
clearly reflects a separation from the main archive for the records
by hand "124," a separation which may be either chronological or
functional. In either case, the references to Amnisos acquire a peculiar status. (More work is necessary on this question, and I should
point out that this observation about the "124" records applies
equally to the references to tablet Ce 59, on which see infra.)
45 See, e.g., JHS-AR 1980-81, 75-92, and JHS-AR 1961-62,
26-27.
46 E.g., at Kommos: L.V. Watrous, Hesperia 47 (1978) 170; at
Khania: I. Tzedakis, "L'atelier de c~ramique post-palatiale i Kyd6nia," BCH 93 (1969) 413-14 (specifically referring to LM IIIA
influence); at Malia: M.R. Popham, "Cretan Sites Occupied between c. 1450 and 1400 B.C.," BSA 75 (1980) 166, and cf., e.g., O.
Pelon, Fouilles exdecutees Mallia. Exploration des maisons. . . 3
(Etudes Cr~toises 16, Paris 1970) 169.
47 The map is based on the references given by Popham (supra n.
46) 163-67.
&
48Cf. supra n. 24.

49Cf. J. Chadwick,"ACretan Fleet?"in AntichithCretesi: Studi
in onore di Doro Levi (Catania 1977) 199-201.
50so
I. Tzedakis, "Minoan Globular Flasks," BSA 66 (1971)
363-68, and C. Mavriyannaki,RDAC 1973, 83-84. The flask has
the inventorynumber TI95 in the RethymnonMuseum.
" Cf. especiallyS. Hood, P.M. Warren and G. Cadogan,"Travels in Crete, 1962,"BSA 59 (1964) 62-64 (LM II-III kylix stems
are mentionedon p. 64). For chambertombs in the area, see Kanta
(supra n. 2) 211-12 (Stavromenos),212-13 (Pigi), 214-15 (Maroulas), and 216 (Adele). All are within a radius of 6 km. of the
coast at Stavromenos.Recentlythe area has been re-examined,and
its importance confirmed:W. Schiering, W. Muiller and W.-D.
Niemeier, "Landbegehungenin Rethymnonund Umgebung,"AA
1982, 15-54.
52 Cf. the referencesgiven by Popham (supra n. 46) 167, and add
the referenceto an unpublishedEphyreangobletfragmentfromthe
palace site:J. Deshayes and A. Dessenne, Fouillesexdcutes Malal-
lia. Exploration des mnaisons...

1959) 123, n. 3.
2 (Etudes Cr~toises 11, Paris
3 See, e.g., Killen (supra n. 13) 45-46. This evidencewas further

confirmedby the recentre-analysisof the ISJs: Catling et al. (supra
n. 15) 91.
54Cf. Popham (supra n. 46) 166-67. The early LM IIIA deposit

from Myrtos is alluded to by G. Cadogan, "Pyrgos, Crete
1970-77," JHS-AR 1977-78, 82.

244
JOHN BENNET
[AJA 89
6B
.. .....
o.,.;::
50
I
KM
Ill. 6. Crete. Distributionof LM II pottery
There is not enough evidence to speculate on ku-tato here, but I think the general position is sufficiently
clear. These second-order centers not only have characteristics which distinguish them within the archive,
but they seem to have been reactivated early after
their destruction in LM IB, under Knossian influence. They seem also to have been centers in the LM I
period before their destruction. The point I wish to
make here is that these sites, defined both by archaeology and by study of the texts, may reflect the initial
stages of the Knossian administrative system after the
LM IB disturbances: it was established by reviving
sites which had previously existed as centers.
These sites remain as centers (and are detectable as
such in the archive) into the period from which the
tablets are actually preserved, but it is only in the LM
II period that they stand out clearly in the archaeological record. By LM IIIA1 the picture is already more
complex, as material of this period is more widely distributed, notably at sites other than the sub-centers
and in East Crete. By this time also, Crete seems to be
recovering, at least in terms of numbers of sites attested, and we can contrast the picture in LM II,
when there are perhaps seven known sites (ill. 6),

with that in LM IIIA1, when there are nearly fifty.
The number of known sites is even larger for the subsequent LM IIIA2 and IIIB periods. It might be objected that LM II material has also been found at Herakleion (Katsambas cemetery) and at Kommos, but,
strikingly, they are both coastal towns corresponding
to sites reactivated in LM II themselves: Knossos and
Phaistos.55
The establishment of a new administrative system
in this way ought not to surprise us, for the process is
well attested ethnohistorically. In a recent survey of
state organization with reference to Mesoamerica, it
is maintained that "assembling a large-scale system
apparently requires considerable preexisting organization."56 A parallel in the Aegean area may be the
expansion of Mycenaean influence into the islands:
an enlargement of an economic or exchange system,
which was presumably aided by the existence of an
organization that had arisen under Minoan influence.
In the case under consideration here, the pre-existing LM I administrative organization, which (whether or not Knossos was pre-eminent) reflected a re-
55 St. Alexiou, 'YrrePpolVwwLKOL TdcOL Al/LEvos KvUoroo (Ka-
before their dedication there.

56 R.E. Blanton, S.A. Kowalewski, G. Feinman and J. Appel,
Ancient Mesoamerica (Cambridge 1981) 20, where the parallel of
Alexander the Great's expansion of his empire by the incorporation
of political sub-assemblies is also given; cf. H. Simon, "The Architecture of Complexity," in H. Simon ed., The Sciences of the Artificial (Cambridge, Mass. 1969) 98.
(Athens 1967) passim (Katsambas),and Watrous (supra

TcraL/rri)
n. 46) 170 (Kommos). I do not regard the swords found at Kato
Symi Viannou (cf. A. Lembessi, Praktika 1973, 193, pl. 198a, and
ArchEph 1981, 15-16, pl. 2) as secure evidenceof LM II activity.
No LM II pottery is illustrated from the sanctuary, and one can
imagine that the swords may have been in existence for generations

1985]
gional division marked by the presence of centers in

several locations, may have provided the necessary
framework for Knossos to establish administrative
control in LM II. This thesis does not run counterto
any of the more conventionalhistorical explanations
of change in LM II Crete, such as Knossian militarism or Mycenaean invasion. The establishmentof a
new administration is marked in the archaeological
recordby change and disturbancein the periodimmediately following the LM IB destructions. Disturbances on Crete in this period are indicated by the
destructions in the Knossos region-notably at the
Unexplored Mansion-and at Malia, where the LM
II deposit was preserved by a destruction in House
E.57 Further, advocates of both sides of the dating
controversyagree that there was damage to and reconstructionof the palace at Knossosearly in the LM
IIIA period."58
Other indicatorsof change are the so-called "warrior graves" (or, more accurately, "burials with
bronzes")in the regions of Knossos,Phaistos and possibly Khania.59 These burials are remarkable for
their richness;they include (rather than being exclusively composedof) bronze weapons, and may represent a symbolicdisplay of status by a new ruling class
in support of their power. This symboliclegitimation
may be relatedto the slight evidencefor LM III reuse
of peak sanctuariescited by Cherry,and the changein
the symbolic repertoire of palatial decoration.60 The
distributionof the sites consideredabove, where LM
II material is attested, and their archaeological"fingerprints"are highly suggestive in the light of their
status in the administration at a later date. An
ob/vious archaeologicalchallenge is to find a site that
may match ku-ta-to.
Maturity
The sites just discussed appear to be high in the
hierarchy,both at this early date and certainlyalso in
the period of the operation of the system as we know
it: the period of the destructionin the palace which
57M.R. Popham, JHS-AR 1972-73, 50-61 (Unexplored Mansion). Popham also refersto a burnt LM II depositfrom Knossosin
"Late Minoan II Crete: A Note," AJA 79 (1975) 374. The burnt
nature of the Malia, House E deposit is referredto in Mallia Maisons 3 (supra n. 46) 169.
58 M.R.
Popham,
The Destruction of the Palace at Knossos
(SIMA 12, Gdteborg 1970) 60, 67; E. Hallager, The Mycenaean

Palace at Knossos(Stockholm1977) 17-50.
59 Cf. E.A. and H.W. Catling in M.R. Popham, E.A. and H.W.
Catling, "Sellopoulo Tombs 3 and 4, Two Late Minoan Graves
near Knossos,"BSA 69 (1974) 253-54.
o60Peak sanctuaries:J.F. Cherry, "Generalizationand the Archaeologyof the State,"in D. Green, C. Haselgroveand M. Spriggs
eds., Social Organisationand Settlement(BAR InternationalSeries
47, Oxford 1978) 429 and fig. 1; A.A.D. Peatfield, "The Topo-
245
preserved the texts. At this time, Knossos documents

an interest in at least 100 TNs. It is the period of destruction (the period in which the system attested was
actually functioning) that I propose to consider here
by taking three examples of TNs in the archive whose
archaeological correlates we know and which show
how archaeology and the tablets can complement each
other.
A. Tylissos
There is evidence for LM III habitation at the "villa" site. Although Hazzidakis' excavations seem to
have made difficult the reconstruction of the LM III
complex which existed over the LM I site, Barbara
Hayden has reinvestigated Tylissos in some detail,
and has good evidence for reconstruction and reuse in
the LM III period.61 In addition to Hayden's discussion of the reconstructed buildings, we can also note
Hazzidakis' discovery of LM III occupation remains
in tests 50 m. north, and 100 m. east of the excavated
area.62
Tylissos, then, was clearly an occupation site. In

the documents it occurs relatively infrequently--13
times in all, as we would expect for a TN referring to
a site in Knossos' immediate area. Among these occurrences are two which imply the presence of personnel:
a reference in a cloth tablet to tu-ri-si-ja women, and
a single tablet documenting men at Tylissos and u-tano. At least six flocks of sheep are also recorded
against the TN tu-ri-so.63 We have then a picture that
matches that sketched above (p. 235) of an occupation
site, whose involvement in cloth production and management of a number of flocks are indicated in the
texts.
Hayden's picture of the architecture can take us
further, however, for she argues convincingly for the
existence of a pier-and-door construction and a small
stoa in the LM III period.64 These features would
tend to indicate a certain status for Tylissos, something that can be supported by its other occurrences in
the documents. It is one of Wilson's group III TNsgraphy of Minoan Peak Sanctuaries,"BSA 78 (1983) 278-79.
Knossos palace decoration:see, e.g., S. Hood, The Arts in Prehistoric Greece (Harmondsworth1978) 65-70.
6' B.J. Hayden, The Development of Cretan Architecture from
the LM IIIA Through the Geometric Periods (Diss. University of
Pennsylvania 1981) 41-49.

62
J. Hazzidakis, Les villas minoennes de Tylissos (Etudes Cr&-
toises 3, Paris 1934) 3-4, 70-72. Recently a chamber tomb was

found nearby:JHS-AR 1980-81,44.
63 Personnel: Lc(1) 533; B 807 (?). Sheep: Da 8385; Db 1241,
1242, 1245; Dd 1244; Dh(1) 1243.

64Hayden (supra n. 61) 44 (pier-and-door),49 (stoa). The stoa
provides an interesting parallel to the small stoa at Ayia Triadha:
Hayden (supra n. 61) 52-55.

246
JOHN BENNET
the group that probably lay closest to Knossos. The

nine TNs forming Group III occur on two tablets,
which have the appearance of local taxation records-E 749 and Og 833:
E749
(136)
.1 qa-ra-jo,
GRA 25
.2 ru-ki-ti-jo
GRA 23[
.3 ti-ri-ti-jo
GRA [
.4 [su-]ri-mi-jo GRA[ ]T 2 'V 3'
.5 qa-mi-jo,
GRA 12 T 5
.6 u-ta-ni-jo,
GRA[
.7 pu-si-jo,
GRA 6[
.8.9 vacant
.10 vacat [
Og 833
.0 sup. mut.
.1 [su-]ri-mi-jo[
.2 [u-]ta-ni-jo[
.3 [ti-]ri-ti-jo
.4 qa-mi-jo
.5 pu-si-jo
.6 ru-ki-ti-jo
.7 tu-ri-si-jo
.8 qa-ra-jo
.9 to-so
(---)
M6
M6
M5
M9
M4
M9
M 47
Tylissos does not appear on E 749, but it does on Og

833, with an entry of about 4 kg. of an unknown commodity. On the analogy of similar lists from Pylos,65
this recording of relatively small amounts of a commodity from several locations may be a kind of taxation record, and, if so, we can then argue a certain
importance for Tylissos and the other eight TNs of
group III as local taxation points. Clearly, these nine
TNs are not the only sites in existence in the immediate region of Knossos, and they may well not be the
only TNs in this region to be recorded in the archive;
it is the way in which they are recorded that serves
both to identify them and to indicate their status. I
believe that Tylissos is a third-order center, a type
which possibly exists only in the Knossos area, and
has a different status from that of the second-order
centers already identified.
65 These are the Pylos Ma records which relate to those places
listed in the two provinces: cf., e.g., Jn 829 (Hither Province). For
discussion, see W.F. Wyatt, Jr., "The Ma Tablets from Pylos,"
AJA 66 (1962) 21-41, and C.W. Shelmerdine, "The Pylos Ma
Tablets Reconsidered," AJA 77 (1973) 261-75.
66
Cf., e.g., C. Renfrew and M. Wagstaff eds., An Island Polity:
the Archaeology of Exploitation on Melos (Cambridge 1982)
100-101,120.
67 I am indebted to Paul Halstead for the figures. One pair of
oxen can plow roughly a stremma (0.1 ha.) in a day. (This was the
original definition of a stremma.) If we assume a working season
[AJA 89
The status argued here for Tylissos is further supported by another list:
Ce 59
ASHM("124"c)
.1
/ we-ka-ta BOSm6 // da-wo /we-ka-ta
BOSm 6
].ma-sa
.2a
ta-ra-me-to
[.]-mo
.2b ku-]ta-to / we-ka-ta BOSm 10 // da-*22-to
/we-ka-ta BOS 6
.3a
[.]-mo
.3b ] tu-ri-so / we-ka-ta BOSm6 // ku-do-ni-ja/
we-ka-ta BOSm 50
This tablet documents oxen (probably "working"
oxen) at various localities spread over the island. In
the Aegean the ox is an expensive animal to maintain,
as it requires large amounts of food and water,66 so it
is not surprising to see the palace recording such a
resource. The oxen are documented at disparate locations from West to Central Crete, and three of the
sites (ku-ta-to, da-*22-to and Kydonia) are second-order centers.
The location of oxen in second-order centers is significant in itself, but in the case of Tylissos we can go
further and take note of the number of oxen-sixand the amount of land they could plow in a season:
perhaps 24 to 30 ha.'67 Tylissos also occurs in a textE(2) 668-in which 261 units of grain are recorded
against it. This figure could have been produced on
about 26 ha. of land, using mono-cropping, an area
that falls within our suggested plowing calculation. It
is thus tempting to see a link between the two figures-the oxen being supplied to produce at Tylissos
a certain amount of grain for the palace.
It must, however, be noted that da-*22-to also occurs in this series of grain texts, on E(2) 669, but with
only 70 units of grain, although the same number of
oxen appears against this TN on Ce 59. This figure
would not support the hypothesis, although a possible
explanation may be given by the presence of 45 units
of olives on the same E(2) document; perhaps they replace the "missing" grain. Unfortunately, the other
Ce 59 TNs do not occur in the E(2) series grain texts,
so further comparison is not possible.68
(November to February) of 120 days, of which 60+ are practicable,
then we reach a figure per team of 60 x 0.1 ha., or 6 ha. In practice
the rate could be better, and Halstead's figures for 19th c. Thessaly
suggest 8 ha. per pair per annum.
68 This frustrating situation, where a pattern appears to emerge,
but is neither proven nor disproven as a result of lack of evidence, is
all too familiar in Linear B studies. Having said that, it should be
noted that tablet Ce 59 (the "key" in this case) is by hand "124" c,
and the evidence it affords is thus conditioned by the factors already
mentioned (supra n. 44).

1985]
B. Phaistos and Ayia Triadha

The locationof pa-i-to we can assume to be known,
and to lie in the western Mesara at the site of Phaistos. We know that the palace at Phaistoswas reoccupied in LM II69and LM III, but nearby Ayia Triadha seems to have been the more impressive site in
LM III proper. At this site there was a monumental
building (Building A-D) possibly constructedin LM
II, and a series of other structures,includingthe large
stoa, which recent investigationssuggest was built in
LM IIIA2.70 The size of these structures suggests a
possible storage function.
On the documents Phaistos is often paired with a
TN da-wo. Against da-wo tablet F(2) 852 recordsan
entry of at least 10,000 units of grain-the produceof
between 2,000 and 6,000 ha. of land, depending on
the type of croppingused.71This scale of entry is unparalleled against a single TN elsewhere, and indeed
that amount of grain, as has been observed,72would
fill the entire central court at Knossos to a depth of
over one meter. Against this being a purely local production figure, we can appeal to the Ce 59 oxen records again,73where da-wo has only six oxen. Clearly
these six oxen cannot possibly plow even 1,000 ha. in
a season, assuming the other half lies fallow. They
may then have been used locally to produce da-wo's
contributionof perhaps 300 units to this massivetotal
figure. The figure of 10,000 units might then have
been storedat da-wo, but would representthe produce
of sites all over the Mesara. A parallel would be the
agricultural exploitation of the Mesara region in the
Roman period.74
We can speculate on where this massive amount
might have been kept. My calculation from figures
given in Hayden's study of the LM III buildings at
69 Popham (supra n. 46) 167, with references.
Building A-D: P.M. Warren, JHS 102 (1982) 275; Stoa: V.

La Rosa, "La ripresa dei lavori ad Haghia Triadha: relazione preliminare sui saggi del 1977," ASAtene n.s. 39 (1977) 318-42, esp.
340. Cf. also BCH 102 (1978) 760.
71 Cf. supra n. 18. The lower figure is for land solely under wheat
(including one-half lying fallow), the higher for inter-croppedland
(again with one-half fallow). In any one season at least 1,000 ha.
would be cultivated.
72 P. Halstead and J. O'Shea, "A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed:Social Storageand the Origins of Social Ranking,"in C. Renfrew and S. Shennan eds., Ranking, Resource and Exchange
(Cambridge 1982) 96.
70
73 Cf., however, supra n. 68 for the status of text Ce 59.
74I.F. Sanders, Roman Crete (Warminster 1982) 20-24, and cf.

BSA 71 (1976) 131-37.
75Hayden (supra n. 61) 55-57. L. Banti, ASAtene n.s. 3-5
(1941-1943) 28, and cf. Ausonia 4 (1909) Notiziario 37. For a
recent discussionof the Bastione,primarily in its LM I context, see
L.V. Watrous, "Ayia Triadha: A New Perspectiveon the Minoan
247
Ayia Triadha shows that an equivalentvolumeto that

of the central court at Knossos coveredto a depth of
over one meter could be achievedin the large stoa together with the so-called "Bastione."Indeed, Banti
suggested just such a function for the "Bastione."75
The presence of such a vast amount of grain in the
Mesara indicateseither a massive redistributioncenter for a large part of Crete,76or perhaps that the
grain was for exchange,as Knossosseems to have had
its own supply network for grain rations, which appears in the E(2) records. (It is perhaps significant
that da-wo's grain is stored close to the port at Kommos, with its large buildings J and T reused in LM
III.77)
C. Khania (Kydonia)
The third, and final, place-name whose archaeological implications I discuss lies in the west: ku-doni-ja, modernKhania. Much interesthas centeredon
this site, both in its own right as one of the most recently discoveredand spectacularly productive LM
sites on Crete,78and also as an outlying area of the
Knossosadministration.
I have argued abovethat the Kydoniaregion seems
to be handledindirectlyby Knossos.This observation
countersone of the argumentsagainst such an apparently important site being politically subordinateto
Knossos:if the site was a separate entity and had its
own site hierarchy,how was it that Knossoscould appear to deal directly with Khania's satellites, for example, on the Co records? I maintain that Knossos
does not deal directly with them, but indirectly,
through "overseers,"via the sub-center at Khania,
and that the apparentdirect recordingof sites is conditionedby the term a-ko-ra-ja.79
Villa," AJA 88 (1984) 131-32.
76 Chadwick,(supra n. 6) 157-58, 170 and 412, arrivesat a plausible monthlywheat rationof T2 (i.e., two of the secondlargestdry
unit, which is one-tenthof the majorunit), implying a yearly ration
of T24, or 2.4 major units; 10,000 units could then represent
10,000/2.4 annual rations, sufficient for almost 4,200 persons.
When converted into absolute values (cf. supra n. 18) and compared with ethnographic data for Greece, the range is from ca.
3,700 to ca. 4,900 persons, figures which bracketour ration-based
estimate nicely: see L. Foxhall and H.A. Forbes, "Ltroerpdla:
The Role of Grain as a Staple Food in ClassicalAntiquity,"Chiron
12 (1982) 44 and 65-68 for the values used. How long this amount
could have been stored would dependon the conditionof the grain
and the type of facility used, but losses over a Cretan winter could
have been considerable.
77 See, e.g., Hesperia 50 (1981) 218-24; 51 (1982) 184-85; and
53 (1984) 257-79.
78 Cf. Kanta (supra n. 2) 217-28 and Hiller (supra n. 2) 146-57.
79Cf. supra p. 240.

248
JOHN BENNET
The archaeologicalimplicationsof this observation

are twofold. First, we ought to be able to detect a
group of sites which show a direct economicrelationship with Khania, in much the same way as those of
group III appear to relate to Knossos. Perhaps the
distributionof Khaniote pottery wares locally, at Kalami, for example, or at Stylos, supports the idea of
such a relationship."8Local sites would thus still be
part of a Khanio-centriceconomicsystem,while Khania itself was politically related to Knossos,a form of
relationship which appears to have carried certain
economic obligations. The data from Jennifer Moody's survey in the Khania region should help us to
study such a patterning,and similar surveys in other
areas like the western Mesara or the Knossos region
would repay similar dividends.81
Second,and relatedto the first point, the emergence
of a distinctive Khaniote pottery style after the assumed early fall of Knossos is not necessarilyindicative of a loss of political control in Khania. Such an
assumption need not be warranted, for parallels offered by Peacock in his recent ethnoarchaeological
study of Roman pottery production suggest that an
improvement in pottery mass-productiontechniques
can lead to an increase in the mass-productionof
high-quality pottery at the local level.82In LM III
Crete, we see both an improvementin pottery technique over LM II, and the emergenceof local schools,
not only at Khania, but elsewhere,83the result of the
economicattractionof centers like Khania, and more
likely to be an index of a rise in complexity,not a loss
of overall political control.84 Pots, as Furumark
said,85are not political documents,and we should not
80
Kalami: Tzedakis (supra n. 14); Stylos: Kanta 1984 (supra n.
14) 12.
81See J.A. Moody, "KhaniaArchaeologicalSite Survey,"in D.R.
Keller and D.W. Rupp eds., Archaeological Survey in the Mediter-
ranean Area (BAR International Series 155, Oxford 1983)

301-302. I am indebted to Jennifer Moody for sending me some
preliminary data from her survey, which suggest a decreasein the
number of sites from LM I to LM III, but a more even spread of
them across the landscape, and a larger site size. Without further
data, however, it would be rash to speculate on these trends.
82 D.P.S. Peacock, Pottery in the Roman World: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach (London 1982) 39-43.
83 Cf. Kanta (supra n. 2) 288-93.
84It should be pointedout that we are still unsure of the nature of
any control Knossos may have exercised over sites it names in its
archive. For this reason, I prefer the term "interest."
85 A. Furumark, "The Settlement at Ialysos and Aegean History
c. 1550-1400 B.C.," OpusArch6 (1950) 200.

86
See J.-P. Olivier et al., Index gindraux du lindaire B (Incuna-
bula Graeca 52, Rome 1973) 97 for the six occurrencesof ke-rame-u and related words. In no case does the title seem to refer to
potters in their occupational capacity, although it clearly was an
occupationalname (e.g., PY Cn 1287). Contrastthe ka-ke-we (PY
Jn 301 etc.). The only occurrenceat Knossos is of ke-ra-me-ja, a
woman's name on Ap 639.7.
[AJA89
expect them to reflect accuratelythe extent of an administration, particularly when that administration
seems to have had no explicit concern with pottery
production,86or-apart from one notable exception-with any class of pottery.
The notableexceptionis the stirrupjar (SJ), whose
Linear B name we know to have been *ka-ra-re-u(cf.
PY Fr 1184 and KN K 778),87also representedby the
ideogram "210VAS and *210VAS+KA. This is the only
class of vessel which appears to occur in quantity on

the Knossos documents:between them, tablets K 700
and K 778 list 1,980 of the items denoted by the
"210VAS ideogram, those on K 700 distinguished by
the adjunct "ka"-the cruciformsyllabogramwhich

occurs on some ISJs.88 It is worth pointing out that
storage SJs (uninscribed)were common among the
finds from the latest phase of the Knossospalace: i.e.,
that after the major destruction postulated by
Evans.89
The abundance of such vessels in the palace in
what is thought to be the LM IIIA2 to IIIB period
ties in with the chronologicalcontexts of most of the
ISJs.90 Many of the ISJs have a provenancein West
Crete, although there is a group with a "ThebesKnossos"profile91and one ISJ (EL Z 1) has a West
Central Cretan provenance and bears the TN da"22-to. The findspots of ISJs on the mainland are
confinedto Mycenaean centers in the Argolid, Attica
and Boiotia. To date, none is known from Pylos, or
elsewhere in the southern Peloponnese. If the ISJs
were travelling from the west of the island, then it is
surprising that none has been discovered in those
parts of the mainland closest to western Crete. Their
87 We only have the plural form attested: ka-ra-re-we,
/khlarawes/: Chadwick (supra n. 6) 551.
probably
88See, e.g., Catling et al. (supra n. 15) 86-87 (nos. 12, 47, 79
and 87).
89Cf., e.g., Palmer (supra n. 9) 142-43, who quotes from Mackenzie's potterynotebooka passage suggestingthat at least 68 stirrup jars were found in the "Queen'sMegaron"area ("Areaof the
Fish Fresco"). J. Boardman, The Date of the Knossos Tablets (Ox-
ford 1963) pl. 14b, has a photographof the area in the course of
excavationin which the stirrupjars are in evidence.
90
Catling et al. (supra n. 15) 92-103. I prefer to follow Catling's
lower dating for the KadmeionISJs. The idea of a single palatial

building at Thebes seems extremely unlikely. There seem to have
been several buildings, some with ISJs, some with tablets, thus
matchingthe situationat Mycenae ratherthan that at Knossos:i.e.,
activity spread over several buildings and a large area, ratherthan
confinedto a single palatial building.
91 The problem is that the local clay compositions for the two
areas (or, at any rate, those assumed to be local) are similar and
thus it is impossible to state categoricallythat examples found on
the mainland come from the Knossosregion:cf. Catling et al. (supra n. 15) 83. The existence of an ISJ at Knossos (KN Z 1716)
helps to strengthen the assumption that the jars may have been
made from Knossianclay.

1985]
249
distribution appears to reflect a central outlet, although the OES analysis clearly indicates a western
place of manufacture for many examples. The ISJs
could thus be tied into the Knossos archive, and it
should not surprise us to find that the archive makes
no mentionof their export to the mainland,as explicit
referencesto the mechanismsof exchange are absent
from the documents.
The same is not true for the uninscribed SJs, for
two examples from the Menelaion excavationsare of
West Cretan provenance,92and examples are known
from Mycenae. We also know the name ka-ra-re-we
from the Pylos archive, but we have no evidence to
date as to whether or not these items were imported.It
seems that SJs were exported from West Crete to the
nearest parts of the mainland, but it is possible that
the lack of inscribed examples indicates a localized
trade, independent of Knossos, perhaps reflecting
Khania's semi-independentstatus.
Such a rationalizationof Khania'srelationshipand
the position of the ISJs fits the picture sketchedabove
for Khania and would not be controversial,were it not
for one fact-almost all ISJs (including the sole find
from Knossos itself: KN Z 1716) are dated to Late
Bronze IIIB contexts,a few possiblyto IIIA2, whereas the dating acceptedby many archaeologistsfor the
preservationby fire of the Knossianarchiveis the very
beginning of the LM IIIA2 phase. As long as the dating of Knossos remains as it is, we must accept the
contradiction,and attemptto explain it.
This explanation must remain one of the most important challenges to the archaeologist,for the dating
of the destructionat Knossosremains fundamentalto
any detailed understandingof the administrativesystem. The real problemwith establishinga date for the
destructionis that the palace site no longer exists. As
Kent Flannery's "Old Timer" remarks in a recent
semi-fictitious dialogue, "archaeology is the only
branch of anthropologyin which we kill our informants in the processof studyingthem."93
Catling et al. (supra n. 15) 79, Table 11 (nos. 107 and 108).
93K.V. Flannery, "The Golden Marshalltown:A Parablefor the
Archaeologyof the 1980s,"AmericanAnthropologist84 (1982) 275.
92
CONCLUSION
In a general way, the Linear B texts from Knossos

can indicatethe extent of the administrationand patterning within it in LM III Crete. The number of
places in which Knossoswas interestedwas probably
about 100. The fact that we know of nearly fifty LM
IIIA1 sites implies an original total far in excess of
that figure, allowing for the vagariesof archaeological
preservation. This figure suggests that, even if the
documentsdo belong to (the very end of) LM IIIA1,
Knossosis unlikely to have recordedits interestsin all
the potentiallydiscoverablesites within its area. This
situation is even more likely for the subsequent LM
IIIA2 and IIIB periods,in which preservedsite numbers are greater still. The implicationis that Knossos
was selective in its recording of sites (by means of
TNs), and I have offered the suggestion that there
existed second-ordercentersas a possibleexplanation
of how Knossosrelated indirectlyto the smaller sites.
This suggestionis offeredboth in its operationalcontext, for the period in which the texts are preserved,
and as a possibleexplanationof the growthof the system by incorporating pre-existing organizational
units. We are fortunatein the fact that five of our six
securely identifiableTNs seem to have had some importance in the administration:Knossos, the center;
Amnisos, a local specializedarea; Phaistos and Kydonia, second-ordercenters;and Tylissos, a third-order
center. In these cases, the specific archaeologicalremains at these sites can be related to the status of the
TN within the administrationand to its function, as
reflectedin the archive.
SIDNEY
SUSSEX
CAMBRIDGE
COLLEGE
CB2 3HU
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Bennet, John. The Structure of The Linear B Administration at Knossos.

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Bennet, John. The Structure of The Linear B Administration at Knossos.

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The Structure of the Linear B Administration at Knossos

Author(s): John Bennet

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The Structureof the Linear B Administration

exclusive, but it is the integrated approach which is as

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Ill. 1. Knossos.Schematicrepresentationof tablet findspots:palace,Arsenaland Little Palace. "A"= Arsenal;"LP"= Little

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THE STRUCTUREOF THE LINEARB ADMINISTRATIONAT KNOSSOS

distributionof administrativedocumentsin Linear A

better term for the period before the destruction of

Although Knossos was alone as a center, we do

8 I should like to thank Dr. J.T. Killen for suggestingthis line of

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THE STRUCTUREOF THE LINEARB ADMINISTRATIONAT KNOSSOS

A cross-checkis affordedby looking at the distribution of findspots of tablets containing TN mentions,

One such identifiable TN is ko-no-so (Knossos),

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Linear B known place-name

Ill. 4. Crete.A possibledistribution

The discovery of LM III remains in the west of

western extent for Knossos'administrativesystem. In

sociation with the TNs wa-to and o-du-ru-wo, TNs

Linear B InscribedStirrup Jars and West Crete,"BSA 75 (1980)

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THE STRUCTURE OF THE LINEAR B ADMINISTRATION AT KNOSSOS

1976) 35-48, and, for a computer-based approach, J.F. Cherry,

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TNs not used in Wilson's analysis

Group V (Amnisos, Knossos, Setoija)

26 Palmer (supra n. 6) 165-69, 178.

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THE STRUCTURE OF THE LINEAR B ADMINISTRATION AT KNOSSOS

Table 1. The Toponym Groupings as Suggested by A.L. Wilson

da-wo, da-*22-to, e-ko-so, e-ra, pa-i-to (Phaistos), ku-ta-to

for this person, preferring it to the original suggestion

as that of any other group. This figure suggests a high

Table 2: Frequency of Occurrence of TNs and Ratio of "Owner" to Non-"Owner" Flocks

27 Chadwick (supra n. 6) 201-202, 434, who accepts Palmer's

Mean ratio "owner":

28 Hart (supra n. 21) 10-15; Palmer 1972 (supra n. 21) 34.

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bly lay east of Knossos. Similarly, the flocks of the

At a more subjective level, group II contains the

.1 wa-to/ a-ko-ra-jaOVISm60 OVISf270

limited "involvement"is almost entirely carried on

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THE STRUCTUREOF THE LINEARB ADMINISTRATIONAT KNOSSOS

which are never in association with other TNs.35

the se-to-i-ja list, in the form su-ke-re-o, presumably a

genitive, which implies that he is in some way in

to and Phaistos are not included. The reason, of

Table 3: The Co-occurrencesof Knossoswithin the Archive (Abbreviated)

35A. Sainer, "An Index of the Place-names at Pylos," SMEA 17

possible restorationas ]ra-ti-jo,or as ku-]ta-ti-joon As(2) 1516.12.

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What is more, these second-ordercenters, or subcenters,are furtherevidencedby their presenceon the

series recordswheels in similar fashion-one pair at

Whether these chariots were actual war chariots,

From an analysisof the textual evidencewe seem to

(supra n. 6) glossary, p. 461.

41 Wilson, (supra n. 6) 94, is right to stress the limited evidence in