Kouros 2003 Overview

The Minoan Kouros Shrine at Palaikastro, Crete, Greece
Joseph Alexander MacGillivray

This grant is to support J. A. MacGillivray's participation in the preparation of two final reports on the excavations in the Bronze Age city beneath the Greek and Roman Diktaion at Palaikastro, Crete. The first, Palaikastro Building 1. Sacred Space in Transition, outlines the complex and turbulent history of this unique building at the northern edge of the Minoan city. Excavated by L. H. Sackett and J. A. MacGillivray on behalf of the British School at Athens from 1986 to 1989, Building 1 was constructed early in the LM IA period (16th c. BC) but revised following a major event, which we associate with the Minoan eruption in Thera. This building was subsequently destroyed during the upheavals in the LM IB period (15th c. BC) in Crete, but then rebuilt again in LM II, destroyed in LM IIIAI, and again in LM IIIAI-2 (13th c. BC) at the time of the final Knossos palace destruction. The presence of a terracotta figurine of a woman with upraised arms, together with a stone `horns of consecration', and the building's alignment to the Summer solstice (New Year's Day in neighbouring Egypt) lead us to believe that Building 1 may have been sacred, perhaps a temple, which makes it the only one, outside of the palaces, in a Minoan urban context.

The second final publication, Palaikastro Building 5. The Kouros Shrine, presents the building adjacent to Building 1 which, we believe, served as the temporary shrine with underground repository in the LM IB period (15`h c. BC) for the chryselephantine statuette dubbed the Palaikastro Kouros. Excavated by L. H. Sackett and J. A. MacGillivray in 1987 to 1991, Building 5 contained major destruction deposits of the two stages of the Late Minoan IB period, c. 1,500 to 1,450 B. C. E. These deposits included many cult vessels, such as rhyta and vases with double-axe motifs, as well as clay sealings - one impressed with an amazing hunter and ibex scene from a gold ring. Our temporary shrine interpretation is further supported by double-axe mason's marks carved in the building's north facade, the only such signs discovered at Palaikastro.