Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
Bronze Age Adyta: Exploring Lustral Basins as
Representations of Natural Spaces and Places
Leanne Michelle Campbell
(The University of Melbourne, Australia)
Abstract: The architectural feature known as a ‘lustral basin’ or ‘adyton’ is enigmatic
and highly intriguing. This paper will explore the Aegean adyta and their associated
archaeological artefacts and architectural features, including frescoes, pier-and-door
partitions or polythyra, and moveable artefacts, and will then consider various
interpretations of the evidence. Analysis and comparisons of adyta with other Bronze
Age artefactual and architectural evidence will reach the conclusion of corresponding
equivalence between adyta and underground natural spaces such as ‘peak
sanctuaries’ and ‘sacred caves’. These observations of equivalence are evidenced
by comparative analyses of architectural similarities as well as associated
archaeological artefacts.
The distinctive deep-set architectural spaces, found throughout the Aegean Minoan
civilisation, were first described as ‘lustral basins’ by Sir Arthur Evans, the nineteenth
and twentieth century British antiquarian, archaeologist and main excavator of
Knossos and of the Mycenaean and Minoan cultures: Evans named the ‘lustral
basins’ for the oil or perfume jars he found in their vicinity at Knossos, interpreting
these as evidence of anointing rituals already known from later eras.1 More recently
1
Arthur John Evans, The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the
Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos, IV: 2 (London: MacMillan,
1935), 905–9, 920–8; Nanno Marinatos, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 1993), 76–9; Martin P. Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion
and its Survival in Greek Religion, Second Revised Edition (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1968), 93–4.
1
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
these ‘small, sunken rooms’ have been referred to as ‘adyta’ by Nanno Marinatos,
and after Spyridon Marinatos, the great twentieth century Greek archaeologist and
excavator of Akrotiri, who was also the first to describe these features as imitations
of sacred caves built for chthonic purposes.2 The Greek word, ‘adyton’, literally
means “untreadable”, a “place of separation”, or a “holy of holies”.3 The
terminologies of both Marinatos and Evans infer and reference their underlying
interpretive and religious analyses of the functions of these architectural spaces,
drawn from classical and modern cultures, and are reflected in the language.4
Therefore, while tending to the terminology of ‘small sunken rooms’ for descriptive
objectivity, this paper will preferably utilise the term ‘adyta’ after Marinatos, but will
interchangeably use the terms ‘lustral basins’, ‘adyta’ and ‘small sunken rooms’
whilst investigating and drawing out the original propositions.
Geographical Range and Overview
We will begin by surveying these architectural features: these sunken chambers are
found throughout the Minoan and Minoanised Cycladic civilisations, ranging
geographically across Crete, and to Akrotiri on the island of Thera, modern-day
Santorini. They have been excavated in buildings ranging from the ‘palaces’, also
known as ‘cult centres’, through those buildings designated as less ‘palatial’ ‘villas’
and ‘houses’.5 The ‘Palace’ at Knossos contains three such unambiguous
architectural spaces, one sited inside and opposite the main ‘Throne Room’, as well
2
Louise A. Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis (Jonsered: Paul Åströms Förlag,
2000), 161; Nanno Marinatos and Robin Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan
Polythyron’, in Opuscula Atheniensia 16, no. 6 (1986), 60; Spyridon Marinatos, Excavations at Thera,
VI (Athens: Hē en Athēnais Archaiologikē Hetaireia, 1974), 129–136; Nilsson, The MinoanMycenaean Religion, 94; Donald Preziosi and Louise A. Hitchcock, Aegean Art and Architecture
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 94, 100, 122.
3
Nanno Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera: Reconstructing a Bronze Age Society (Athens: D. and I.
Mathioulakis, 1984), 14; Marinatos, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol, 81, 203.
4
Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis, 178.
2
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
as the ‘North Adyton’ (also known as the ‘North-West Lustral Basin’ after Evans) and
the ‘South-East Adyton’ (or, ‘South-East Lustral Basin’) respectively (a fourth
originally described by Evans as the ‘Queen’s Bath’ does not have the sunken floor
or stairs to confirm it as an adyton).6 Throughout Crete there are also two adyta
found in the ‘Palace’ at Phaistos, in Rooms 63d and 81; two adyta, the ‘North
Adyton’ and the ‘West Adyton’, in the ‘Palace’ at Zakros; and one in the ‘Palace’ at
Mallia, in ‘Quartier III.4’.7 Another adyton in Mallia’s Quartier Mu, inside Building A,
was described by Jean-Claude Poursat as the earliest-built example of a lustral
basin yet discovered.8 As well, two more adyta were excavated in Mallia in the
buildings designated Houses Delta Alpha and Zeta Alpha; two adyta at Tylissos in
Houses A and C respectively; and one at Palaikastro in House B.9 There is also one
exceptional adyton found outside of Crete, in Akrotiri’s Xeste 3 building on the
Cycladic island of Thera.10
5
Marinatos, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol, 40, 76–8.
Evans, The Palace of Minos. II: 1 (London: MacMillan, 1928a), 378–381; Louise A. Hitchcock, ‘The
Minoan Hall System: Writing the Present out of the Past’, in M. Locock (ed.), Meaningful Architecture:
Social Interpretations of Buildings (Avebury: Worldwide Archaeology Series, 1994), 36–8.
7
Pierre Demargne and H. Gallet de Santerre, Fouilles Exécutées à Mallia: Exploration des Maisons et
Quartiers d’Habitation I (1921 – 1948) (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1953), 43–8, 63–
100; Luigi Pernier, Il Palazzo Minoico di Festos II (Rome: Libreria Dello Stato, 1951), 163–191;
Nicholas Platon, Zakros: The Discovery of a Lost Palace of Ancient Crete (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 127–130, 174–184.
8
John C. McEnroe, Architecture of Minoan Crete: Constructing Identity in the Aegean Bronze Age
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 64–5; Olivier Pelon, Jean-Claude Poursat, René Treuil, and
Henri van Effenterre, “Mallia”, in J. Wilson Myers, Eleanor Emlen Myers, and Gerald Cadogan (eds),
An Arial Atlas of Ancient Crete (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 175.
9
Demargne and de Santerre, Fouilles Exécutées à Mallia, 43–8, 63–100; Jan Driessen, ‘The
Dismantling of a Minoan Hall at Palaikastro (Knossians Go Home?)’, in Philip Betancourt, Vassos
Karageorghis, Robert Laffineur and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier (eds), Meletemata: Studies in Aegean
Archaeology Presented to Malcolm H. Wiener as He Enters his 65th Year, Aegaeum 20 (Austin:
University of Texas at Austin, Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 1999), 230; Joseph
Hazzidakis, Les Villas Minoennes de Tylissos (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner 1934), 8–25,
32–47.
10
Demargne and de Santerre, Fouilles Exécutées à Mallia, 43–8, 63–100; Christos Doumas, The
Wall-Paintings of Thera, trans. Alex Doumas (Athens: The Thera Foundation – Petros M. Nomikos,
1992), 11–5; Driessen, ‘The Dismantling of a Minoan Hall, 230; Hazzidakis, Les Villas Minoennes de
Tylissos, 8–25, 32–47; Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’,
61–68; Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, ‘Iconography and Context: The Thera Frescoes’, in Robert Laffineur
and Janice L. Crowley (eds), Eikon: Aegean Bronze Age Iconography: Shaping a Methodology,
Aegaeum 8, Proceedings of the 4th International Aegean Conference, University of Tasmania,
6
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Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
Adyta: Architectural Descriptions
Architecturally, adyta are without exception small rectangular spaces which are
sunken below the adjoining rooms’ floor levels with stairs descending down into
them.11 To describe a famous example, the Knossos Throne Room’s adyton includes
the typical half-metre thick, stone balustrade running between the sunken floor of the
‘basin’ and the Throne Room proper.12 The ‘Throne Room’ is named for its carved
gypsum ‘throne’, which sits on a raised platform and is flanked by frescoes of griffins,
and notably with the throne’s back sculpted to symbolise and represent a mountainto
13
The benches which encircle the perimeter of the Throne Room continue along the
balustrade of the adyton; three columns are also set into the wide, stone balustrade
which separates the room from the basin’s sunken floor, which is accessible from the
Throne Room by an L-shaped series of stairs which descend down into the gypsumlined basin.14 Some adyta, such as at Mallia, Phaistos, Zakros and Knossos, are
formed either at the corner of, or on the edge of, a larger room with a balustrade
surrounding the remaining sides of the adyton.15 These balustrades are usually
Hobart, Australia, 6–9 April, 1992 (Liege: Université de Liege, 1992), 97; Clairy Palyvou, ‘Circulatory
Patterns in Minoan Architecture’, in Robin Hägg and Nanno Marinatos (eds), The Function of Minoan
Palaces (Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, 1987), 200; Pernier, Il Palazzo Minoico di Festos II,
163–191; Platon, Zakros: The Discovery of a Lost Palace of Ancient Crete, 127–130, 174–184.
11
Hitchcock, ‘The Minoan Hall System, 36–8; Louise A. Hitchcock, ‘Naturalizing the Cultural:
Architectonicized Landscape as Ideology in Minoan Crete’, in R. Westgate, N. Fisher, and J. Whitley
(eds), Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceeding
from a Conference held at Cardiff University, April 17–21 2001 (London: British School at Athens,
2001), 94; Marinatos, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol, 77–8; Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On
the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’, 68; John C. McEnroe, ‘A Typology of Minoan
Neopalatial Houses’, in American Journal of Archaeology 86:1 (1982), 5–6.
12
Evans, The Palace of Minos. IV: 2, 901–922; Evans, The Palace of Minos. I (London: MacMillan,
1921), 4–5; Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis, 160.
13
Nanno Marinatos, Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess: A Near Eastern Koine (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2010), 57–9, 66–7; John Younger, ‘The Iconography of Rulership: a
Conspectus’, in Paul Rehak (ed.), The Role of the Ruler in the Prehistoric Aegean, Proceedings of a
Panel Discussion presented at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, New
Orleans, Louisiana, 28 December 1992, With Additions, Aegaeum 11 (Austin: University of Texas
Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 1995), 191–192.
14
Evans, The Palace of Minos. IV: 2, 901–922;. Evans, The Palace of Minos. I, 4–5.
15
Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’, 63–68; McEnroe, ‘A
Typology of Minoan Neopalatial Houses’, 5.
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Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
interpreted as having been designed to allow either participants or viewers to
surround and witness the ritual being carried out inside the basin itself.
The early idea that these areas were literally used for bathing was invalidated by
Evans himself, along with confirming his defining terminology of these areas as
‘lustral’, as none of these ‘lustral basins’ contain any forms of drainage or plumbing.16
This is surprising because rooms complete with sophisticated drainage systems,
springs and wells, often built to run through indoor spaces, were commonplace in
ancient societies.17 Interestingly, some adyta, such as at Xeste 3, are situated
directly off spaces which include smaller rooms with drains and basins.18 Further,
early debate also addressed the solubility of gypsum, with which these adyta are
invariably lined.19 While these observations and analyses falsify20 the conjecture of
any literal type of bathing inside adyta, this may also in fact support Evans’ original
belief that symbolic religious ‘cleansing’ ceremonies were performed in the lustral
basins, after participants may have first bathed or cleaned themselves with the water
which flowed through these adjoining, drained rooms.21
16
Evans, The Palace of Minos. II: 2 (London: MacMillan, 1928b), 519–524; James Walter Graham,
The Palaces of Crete (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), 99–110; Marinatos, Minoan
Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol, 76–9.
17
Graham, The Palaces of Crete, 109–110; Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis,
160–161; Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’, 70–1.
18
Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis, 160–1; Hitchcock, ‘The Minoan Hall
System’, 28.
19
Evans, The Palace of Minos, II: 2, 519–525; Graham, The Palaces of Crete, 99–104.
20
The term ‘falsified’ is used in the philosophical tradition of Popperian methodology, where bold
conjecture, and encouragement of debate and disagreement and, indeed, active testing for possible
falsification of theories and interpretations and paradigms (also after Kuhn) allows for intellectual
growth in a field of knowledge; see Alan Francis Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1999), 59–63, 67–9, 121; Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 145–7; Karl Popper, Conjectures
and Refutations: the Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge. 1974), 34–8, 59–62.
21
Evans, The Palace of Minos, II: 1, 322–5; Evans, The Palace of Minos, II: 2, 519–525; Evans, The
Palace of Minos, IV: 2, 902, 937–8; Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis, 109–110,
160–161; Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’, 60;
Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, 73–84.
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Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
Chronologies
Dates of these buildings’ features can be arrived at through analyses of the strata’s
architectural features, and pottery styles and phases, in a dating method which was
calculated, applied and recorded by Evans. Indeed the chronology of Minoan and
also Mycenaean cultures, chronologies which still stand and which we continue to
use today, were Evans’ inventions and creations, based on his archaeological
analyses, as well as his comparisons with Egyptian chronologies of the same
temporal period. As the excavator, Evans was the first to date the lustral basins at
Knossos, based upon the pottery remains and potsherds which he unearthed above
the floor levels, to before the period LM IA (Late Minoan 1A), following the
Neopalatial MM IIIB (Middle Minoan) which is approximately 1700 to 1600 BCE.22
The filling in of the adyta during later eras appears to have been intentional, and
based on the strata, archaeological and artefactual evidence, some of the adyta
were filled in before subsequent buildings of Minoan Halls were added directly above
and over them.23
Phourni, Archanes, Crete
Excavations at Phourni, Archanes, also in northern Crete, have provided further
important and convincing links between the representations, symbolism and possible
functions of adyta and chthonic ritual. Phourni is a large Minoan cemetery site, which
includes the Tholos tombs, and an exceptional building has been designated
22
Evans, The Palace of Minos, IV: 2, 902, 937–938; Paul Rehak and J. G. Younger, ‘Review of
Aegean Prehistory VII: Neopalatial, Final Palatial, and Postpalatial Crete’, American Journal of
Archaeology, 102:1 (1998), 91–173.
23
Driessen, ‘The Dismantling of a Minoan Hall at Palaikastro’, 230; Jan Driessen, ‘To be in Vogue in
LM IA: the Minoan Hall in Minoan Architecture’, Acta Archaeologica Lovaniensia, 21 (1982), 32, 39,
43, 63.
6
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
Building 21.24 In fact, Building 21 has been recorded and described by the
excavators to be architecturally halfway between an adyton and a sacred cave.25
Unlike its surrounding structures, Building 21 has never revealed any remains,
human nor non-human.26 Further, and saliently, Phourni’s Building 21 includes not
only a deep-set, sunken floor, but also a descending staircase: these features and
architectural structure of Building 21, and their strong similarities to traditional adyta,
have been noted by the excavators.27 Building 21’s contents included pithoi, cooking
pots, conical cups, jars, jugs and potsherds which all date to LM IIIB, the end of the
Mycenaean period, that is, much later than the dates of the surrounding buildings
and tombs.28
Adyta with Associated Polythyra
Some of the adyta are associated with pier-and-door-type partitions, also known as
polythyra.29 These architectural features are most impressive as well as physically
closest to the adyton in Room 3 of Xeste 3 at Akrotiri on Thera: the polythyra or
multiple doorway-partitions which surround the side of Xeste 3’s adyton could either
be opened or closed, and the fact that the partitions were designed to be moveable
indicates a multiple and culturally complex use of the space.30 The pier-and-door
polythyron may have been alternately entirely opened, entirely closed, or partopened and part-closed, so that people in the adjoining room could clearly or only
24
J. A. Sakellarakis and E. Sapouna-Sakellaraki, Archanes, Crete (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1991),
85.
25
Ibid., 85–6.
26
Ibid., 85.
27
Ibid., 85–6.
28
Ibid., 84–6.
29
Palyvou, ‘Circulatory Patterns in Minoan Architecture’, 198.
30
Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture, 158–159; Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the
Minoan Polythyron’, 58–60; Palyvou, ‘Circulatory Patterns in Minoan Architecture’, 200.
7
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
just glimpse what was occurring inside the adyton.31 The pier-and-door partitions in
the vicinity of the Throne Room at Knossos could similarly be either part-opened or
part-closed, and partially or fully, with many and varied results of light or dark and
visibility or privacy or just a glimpse within the area which includes the Throne Room
and its associated adyton.
Photographic records and experiments and resulting analyses of this architectural
design at Knossos have been conducted by Lucy Goodison in order to observe their
natural light and shadows at various times of the year.32 Goodison has demonstrated
that the Knossos Throne Room’s adyton, despite being deeply recessed and
situated to the inside of the Throne Room, is deeply illuminated during the sunrise of
the midsummer solstice.33 She also demonstrated that the Knossos Throne itself is
illuminated during the dawn of the midwinter solstice, in fact this dawn lights up
whomever is sitting upon the stone seat.34 Goodison uses her own terminology and
describes the Throne Room and its adyton at Knossos as a “light trap”. 35 This
extraordinary and cyclical deep-reaching of the sunlight into this adyton at Knossos
is conclusive, whether the light is observed to have entered in through the pier-anddoor partitions added at a later date, or in earlier time periods coinciding with the
stratigraphy when the features were first built.36 Clearly, there may indeed have been
varied types of activities within the adyta, during different time periods, and at their
various geographies, and also within the one culture at different time intervals,
Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture, 158–159; Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the
Minoan Polythyron’, 60; Palyvou, ‘Circulatory Patterns in Minoan Architecture’, 198–9.
32
Lucy Goodison, “From Tholos Tomb to Throne Room: Perceptions of the Sun in Minoan Ritual”, in
Robert Laffineur and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier (eds), POTNIA, Deities and Religion in the Aegean
Bronze Age: Proceedings of the 8th International Aegean Conference, Goteborg, Goteborg
University, 12–15 April 2000, Aegaeum 22, (Liege: Université de Liege, 2001), 81–6.
33
Ibid., 85–6, 95.
34
Ibid., 82–3, 93–4.
35
Ibid., 81.
36
Ibid., 81, 85.
31
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further indicated by the many multiple possible positions of the screens of
polythyra.37 As is becoming evident, adyta and their uses are complex as well as
intriguing.
Adyta with Associated Frescoes: Xeste 3 at Akrotiri
The adyton situated in Room 3 of Xeste 3 at Akrotiri, on modern-day Santorini or
Thera, is extraordinary for a further important reason: this adyton is surrounded by
elaborate frescoes. The magnificent imagery includes abundant scenes of women:
on the ground level directly surrounding the adyton, a pre-pubescent girl (so defined
because of her shaved hairstyle which was only worn by children in Bronze Age
Aegean and Egyptian cultures) appears to be turning away or averting her eyes from
the rest of the scene; a young woman sits stooping with her hand to her head and
what appears to be a bleeding foot, or with blood running down her foot; a mature
woman, so interpreted for her heavier breasts and red blood-vesselled eyes, holds a
necklace and approaches the seated woman; to the right of the scene, Minoan
‘sacred horns’, seemingly an altar, is depicted with dark liquid, possibly a
representation of blood, or alternately of dye, crocus or plant oil, running down it.38
To the left, naked boys, holding containers, walk toward the women; directly above
the still woman in the ground-level scene, parallel to the second level of the building,
another female figure sits, with her back straight and her head high, between a blue
37
Hitchcock, “The Minoan Hall System”, 29; Marinatos and Hägg, “On the Ceremonial Function of the
Minoan Polythyron”, 59; Palyvou, “Circulatory Patterns in Minoan Architecture”, 200.
38
Ellen N. Davis, “Youth and Age in the Thera Frescoes”, American Journal of Archaeology 90:4
(1986), 399–406; Marinatos, Minoan Religion, 203–8; Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, 74–5;
Paul Rehak, “Imag(in)ing a Women’s World in Bronze Age Greece: the Frescoes from Xeste 3 at
Akrotiri, Thera”, in N. S. Rabinowitz and L. Auanger (eds), Among Women: From the Homosocial to
the Homoerotic in the Ancient World (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2002), 49; Younger, “The
Iconography of Rulership”, 174–6; Andreas Vlachopoulos, “Mythos, Logos and Eikon: Motifs of Early
Greek Poetry in the Wall Paintings of Xeste 3”, in Sarah P. Morris and Robert Laffineur (eds), EPOS:
Reconsidering Greek Epic and Aegean Bronze Age Archaeology, Proceedings of the 11th
International Aegean Conference/11e Rencontre égéenne internationale, Los Angeles, UCLA – the J.
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Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
monkey and a griffin; she is further surrounded by girls picking crocus (so interpreted
as pre-pubescent girls again because of their shaved children’s hairstyles and
relatively undeveloped bodies), also significant because crocus are used as a
painkiller for menstrual cramps, as well as to make yellow dye which appears to
have been exclusively worn by women throughout the Minoan culture.39
Nanno Marinatos makes the important observation that these frescoes include
representations of symbolism connected to the season of springtime.40 The adyton
scene in its entirety is most commonly interpreted as depicting a female-specific
ritual: possibly a celebration of sexual maturity, or an initiation of young women into
adulthood, as evidenced by the seated figure’s bleeding foot as an image of
menstruation, an interpretation also originally made by Nanno Marinatos. Further
alternative interpretations have suggested some type of more general fertility ritual
related to female sexual development.41 These have become the dominant and
popular interpretations of Xeste 3’s magnificent frescoes, however the details of the
ritual use or uses of the adyton nevertheless remain obscure.
Adyta: Associated Archaeological Artefacts
We now turn to the directly associated archaeological evidence: various moveable
artefacts were found inside some of the adyta when they were first excavated. As
well as the frescoes directly surrounding the adyton in Xeste 3 on Thera where, as
we saw, women of varying ages are portrayed conducting particular activities,
Paul Getty Villa, 20–23 April 2006, Aegaeum 28 (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Program in
Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 2007), 108–114.
39
Davis, “Youth and Age in the Thera Frescoes”, 399–406; Hitchcock, “The Minoan Hall System”, 28–
29; Marinatos, Minoan Religion, 207–211; Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the
Minoan Polythyron’, 59–60; Preziosi and Hitchcock, Aegean Art and Architecture, 125–128; Maria
Shaw, “The Aegean Garden”, American Journal of Archaeology, 97:4 (1993), 673–4.
40
Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, 74.
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alongside an image of a shrine in the shape of horns of consecration depicted
dripping with dark liquid, additionally, artefacts from inside Xeste 3’s Room 3
included ‘strainers’, rhyta in the shapes of beehives and other artefacts described as
ritual objects and treasuries.42 There has been one other adyton excavated, while
conducting work on a travel agency’s building in the Papadopoulos plot of the
Splatzia quarter of the city of Chania, that includes a fresco, extending from floorlevel, and reportedly in marble or gypsum veneer, the details of which are not yet
available to date.43
Further associated archaeological artefacts, rhyta, double axes, horns of
consecration and bowls were found inside the adyton at Phaistos.44 Sealings with
impressions interpreted as religious iconographies were also recorded inside the
adyton of Knossos’ ‘Little Palace’, as well as inside the North Adyton at Zakros.45
Thus associated objects can also include artefacts found very nearby. Arguably,
some of the basins themselves were mostly empty when unearthed – that is, the
objects are not necessarily found on the floor level of the basins – objects found
within these spaces are sometimes considered to have been used to fill in the basins
at later dates.46 On the other hand, for example, when the West Adyton at Zakros
was excavated, the strata immediately above the basin contained a highly decorative
amphora made from polychrome veined marble, with a skilled and carefully crafted
spherical body, double rim and coiled marble handles. The excavator, Nicholas
41
Marinatos, Minoan Religion, 203–9; Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, 78–84; Niemeier,
“Iconography and Context”, 98; Preziosi and Hitchcock, Aegean Art and Architecture, 125, 128; Shaw,
“The Aegean Garden”, 675.
42
Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, 74–75; Marinatos and Hägg, “On the Ceremonial Function of
the Minoan Polythyron”, 73.
43
M. Andreadakis-Blazakis, “The Basement Adyton or ‘Lustral Basin’ at Chania”, Athens Annals of
Archaeology 21 (1988), 56–75; Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture, 61.
44
Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’, 61–2, 73; Pernier, Il
Palazzo Minoico di Festos II, 163–191.
45
Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’, 73.
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Platon, states that even if this unique artefact came to be inside the basin only
through its location in the room’s vicinity, this intricate piece is nevertheless relevant
to the adyton and, indeed, confirms the reality of probable purification rituals being
carried out within the adyton.47
In addition to this amphora, the West Adyton at Zakros also contained a hammer, an
anvil and a saw which were found directly on the basin’s stairs, and which Platon
concluded had fallen into the basin’s vicinity from the above floor. He also recorded
scores of clay vessels and small white stone bowls found in the basin’s nearby
corridor which he surmised had also fallen from the floor above.48 Again, it is noted
that artefacts described inside the adyton can include objects found within the filling
of the basin and of a later date than the floor levels. 49 Nevertheless, such moveable
objects suggest that some significant rituals were performed inside the adyta, as we
shall also see presently in similar comparative archaeological analyses from ‘peak
sanctuaries’ and ‘sacred caves’.50 However, such interpretation still allows us only a
tantalising glimpse into imagined possible uses of adyta, and toward the end of their
time periods of uses before abandonment or destruction. These artefacts also do not
provide us conclusive evidence into earlier temporal and cultural functions of these
sunken areas.51
46
Driessen, “The Dismantling of a Minoan Hall at Palaikastro”, 230; Driessen, “To be in Vogue in LM
IA”, 32, 39, 43, 63.
47
Platon, Zakros, 127–129.
48
Ibid., 129.
49
Driessen, “The Dismantling of a Minoan Hall at Palaikastro”’, 230; Driessen, “To be in Vogue in LM
IA”, 32, 39, 43.
50
Platon, Zakros, 127–129; Bogdan Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1986), 15.
51
Ilse Schoep, “Assessing the Role of Architecture in Conspicuous Consumption in the Middle
Minoan I–II Periods”, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 23:3 (2004), 243–4.
12
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
Chthonic Similarities
Adyta are extraordinarily small and enclosed which is notable considering that they
are a central feature to many buildings. As we have seen through analysis of the
architecture, these sunken spaces are deep-set, often partially surrounded by
balustrades and enclosed by the surrounding walls against which they are built.
Some adyta can be almost completely closed off by varied and purposefully
designed openings and closings of associated polythyra, such as the adyton in Xeste
3 on Thera, and sometimes along with corresponding rooms, as in the adyton of the
Throne Room at Knossos. This makes them also somewhat inaccessible, particularly
considering that they may conceivably have been either semi-public or ritual
spaces.52 The enclosed nature and design of adyta, along with archaeological
records of possible rituals, immediately suggests similarities between adyta and the
depths of sacred caves.
We thus turn to wider-ranging and more holistic cultural and architectural evidence to
enlighten us further on possible uses of these spaces. As early as 1941, during
analysis of site excavations of buildings and associated adyta, Spyridon Marinatos
wrote of his perception of the similarities between these sunken architectural
features and the Minoan culture’s sacred caves.53 As he writes, “it may be that the
Minoans found in deep and dark caves the most suitable places of worship for their
great chthonic Goddess, who dwelt in the innermost parts of the earth, whence she
could send fertility and prosperity, as well as sterility and terrible earthquakes.”54
Then in explicitly comparing the caves with the adyta, Marinatos further writes, “It is
52
Goodison, “From Tholos Tomb to Throne Room”, 81–86; Marinatos and Hägg, “On the Ceremonial
Function of the Minoan Polythyron”, 58–9, 62–3; McEnroe, “A Typology of Minoan Neopalatial
Houses”, 5–7.
53
Spyridon Marinatos, “The Cult of the Cretan Caves”, The Review of Religion 5 (1941), 129–36;
Marinatos and Hägg, “On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron”, 60.
13
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
extremely probable that the curious subterranean constructions in Cretan palaces, of
which the so-called north lustral basin and the basin of the Room of the Throne at
Knossos are the best examples, were simply elaborate imitations of the caves. The
steps lead down to Mother Earth, where prayers could be better addressed to the
great chthonic Goddess.”55 These small, sunken rooms are certainly reminiscent of
an equivalent “descent into the earth”.56 In fact, when such architectural features are
analysed in the light of a culture which created ‘sacred caves’, in addition to ‘peak
sanctuaries’ situated at the tops of their mountain ranges, consideration of adyta as
exactly this – a symbolic descending into the earth – becomes a rational and
informative interpretation.
To further support similarities between adyta and sacred caves, the interplay of
darkness and light available inside adyta is reminiscent of the interplay of darkness
and light inside sacred caves, for example, the Kamares Cave into which daylight
reportedly reaches its deepest recesses. As discussed earlier, Lucy Goodison has
conducted photographic analyses and has evidence of the complexities of such
regular illuminations of light reaching periodically deeply inside adyta. These
structures might well have been designed and used for exactly this type of play
between light and darkness.57
In addition to the observable similar ritual nature of activities apparent in all these
locations, as based on analyses of the moveable archaeological evidence found at
the sites, architectural analysis also reveals that some caves and peak sanctuaries
54
Marinatos, “The Cult of the Cretan Caves”, 130.
Ibid.
56
Hitchcock, “Naturalizing the Cultural”, 94; Preziosi and Hitchcock, Aegean Art and Architecture,
147–148.
57
Goodison, “From Tholos Tomb to Throne Room”, 81–6; E. Loeta Tyree, “Diachronic Changes in
Minoan Cave Cult” in Robert Laffineur and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier (eds), POTNIA, Deities and
Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age, Proceedings of the 8th International Aegean Conference,
55
14
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
had artificial spaces. These may have been walls built in front of or inside them,
either originally or during subsequent Bronze Age eras. Most notable of these is the
site at Mount Juktas, where the entire sanctuary is ringed by walls whose bases
were some three metres wide. These walls were perhaps for protection of peoples,
for definition or separation of a holy place, or to make them even more ‘cave-like’
and enclosed, again reminiscent of the architecture of an adyton.58
Peak Sanctuaries: Mount Juktas
Peak sanctuaries and sacred caves range geographically across Crete, and their
temporal range begins and extends through the Minoan civilization, as well as
temporally beyond and into the Iron Age, as is evidenced by the stratigraphic
contexts and associated artefact analyses.59 Of some 2,000 caves and grottoes
across Crete, only 36 such rock caverns retain and show evidence of religious, cult
or ritual uses; and to date, there are at least 25 confirmed peak sanctuaries
throughout Crete, established by comparisons of artefact assemblages found
therein, as well as by their locations at the topographical ‘peaks’ of mountaintops, as
well as the ‘visibility’ both from and of the site.60
There are further sites which included the appropriate artefacts, or alternately
demonstrate the correct topography or environmental data, but are excluded from
Goteborg, Goteborg University, 12–15 April 2000, Aegaeum 22, (Liege: Université de Liege, 2001),
44–5; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean, 48.
58
Richard Bradley, An Archaeology of Natural Spaces (London and New York: Routledge, 2000),
100–1; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean, 73–9.
59
Camilla Briault, “Making Mountains out of Molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean: Visibility, Ritual Kits,
and the Idea of a Peak Sanctuary”, World Archaeology 39:1 (2007), 124–31; Steven Soetens,
Apostolos Sarris, and Sofia Topouzi, “Peak Sanctuaries in the Minoan Cultural Landscape”, Ninth
International Congress of Cretan Studies, Elounda, October 1–6 (n. c.: Society of Cretan Historical
Studies, 2001), 2–3.
60
Briault, “Making Mountains out of Molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean:”, 124–125; Alan Peatfield,
“The Atsipadhes Korakias Peak Sanctuary Project”, Classics Ireland 1 (1994); Alan Peatfield, “Palace
and Peak: the Political and Religious Relationship between Palaces and Peak Sanctuaries”, in Robin
Hägg and Nanno Marinatos (eds), The Function of Minoan Palaces (Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i
15
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
recognition as ‘peak sanctuaries’ because they do not conform to all of these
criteria.61 Of the 25 recognised peak sanctuaries, there are seven which are
especially considered to serve as representative examples, because their associated
artefacts as well as their locations conform to the category of ‘peak sanctuary.’ They
are currently the most thoroughly published and best excavated sites. These are
Mount Juktas in northern-central Crete, Kophinas in southern-central Crete,
Vrysinas, and Atsipadhes, both toward the west of the island, and Petsophas,
Traostalos, and Mount Plagia, situated closer to the eastern point of Crete.62
Mount Juktas, in central-northern Crete, is considered the most superbly
representative example of a peak sanctuary, including its chasm and fissures, first
excavated by Evans in 1909. Its surrounds were excavated by Spyridon Marinatos in
the mid-twentieth century, and more recently by Sakellarakis, including the
mountainside as well as close to its nearby village of Archanes.63 Abundant
excavated finds from the peak sanctuary at Juktas included stone altars and offering
tables, animal figurines in stone and clay, human figurines in terracotta, bronze and
lead, rhyta, pottery types encompassing bowls, jars, cups, goblets, pithoi, vases in
fine ware and coarse ware, animal bones, horns of consecration, and numerous
double axes, daggers and tools, both real and votive, and in clay and bronze, and
pottery engraved with the recognisable but as yet untranslated Minoan Linear A
Athen, 1987), 90; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean, 9–10, 47–8; Soetens, Sarris, and
Topouzi, “Peak Sanctuaries in the Minoan Cultural Landscape”, 2–6.
61
Briault, “Making Mountains out of Molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean,” 124, 137; Soetens, Sarris,
and Topouzi, “Peak Sanctuaries in the Minoan Cultural Landscape,” 6–8; Tyree, “Diachronic Changes
in Minoan Cave Cult,” 39.
62
Briault, “Making Mountains out of Molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean,” 125–7; Peatfield, “The
Atsipadhes Korakias Peak Sanctuary Project”.
63
Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki, Archanes, Crete; Briault, “Making Mountains out of Molehills
in the Bronze Age Aegean,” 127, 136; Alexandra Karetsou, “The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas,” in
Robin Hägg and Nanno Marinatos (eds), Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age
(Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, 1981), 137–8, 151.
16
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
script.64 Notably, these artefacts are very similar to some of those found within and in
the vicinity of adyta.
Sacred Caves: Psychro Cave
The Psychro Cave, named after the nearby village of Psychro as well as its natural
spring, is also known as the Dikteon Cave for its location on the northern side of the
Mount Dikte mountain ranges which are situated in the east of the island of Crete.65
Psychro is one of the most well excavated sites, beginning in the late nineteenth
century, by the Italian Federico Halbherr and Joseph Hazzidakis from 1886, as well
as by Evans in 1896, and then by Demargne and Hogarth from 1897: we possess
their continuing records of pottery fragments, conical cups, ashes and animal bones,
and bronze objects including small double axes, daggers, knives and spearheads
found between the stalactites, as well as seal stones, bronze pins, knives, rings and
figurines discovered beneath the waters of the permanent lake inside the cave, as
well as terracotta animals and male and female human figurines.66 In 1996, the
complete catalogue by L. Vance Watrous, of all the clay artefacts from Psychro, was
published, which he had been working on since 1975. This included scholarly
interpretations, analyses and comparisons with the other sites.67 Psychro is a deep
64
Briault, “Making Mountains out of Molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean,” 127; Bradley, An
Archaeology of Natural Spaces, 103; Donald W. Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in
Minoan Crete: A Comparison of Artifacts (Jonsered: Paul Åströms förlag, 1999), 32, 78; Karetsou,
“The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas,” 145–51; Alexandra Karetsou, Louis Godart, and Jean-Pierre
Olivier, “Inscriptions en Linéar A du Mont Iouktas,” Kadmos – Zeitschrift für vor- und frühgriechische
Epigraphik 24:1–2 (1985), 89–147; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean, 17; L. V. Watrous, The
Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro: A Study of Extra-urban Sanctuaries in Minoan and Early Iron Age
Crete (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 1996), 70–2.
65
David George Hogarth, “The Cave of Psychro in Crete,” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute
of Great Britain and Ireland 30 (1900), 90–1; Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro, 17.
66
Bradley, An Archaeology of Natural Spaces, 100; Federico Halbherr and Paolo Orsi, “Scoperte nell'
Antro di Psychro,” Museo dell' Antichità Classico 2 (1888), 905-10; Hogarth, :The Cave of Psychro in
Crete,” 90–1; Tyree, “Diachronic Changes in Minoan Cave Cult,” 42–3; Marinatos, “The Cult of the
Cretan Caves,” 129–36; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean, 11–2, 75–9; Watrous, The Cave
Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro, 17–8, 23.
67
Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro, 31–46.
17
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
‘double cave’, and includes two caverns known as the ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ chambers
or grottoes.68 The Psychro Cave is thus, in addition to being one of the best
excavated, also a good example of a deep, enclosed cave, suggesting that, when
choosing ‘sacred caves’, those that went naturally deeper into the earth were chosen
over those that were less enclosed.69
In 1900, Hogarth wrote of the excavation of an “altar in the middle of the grotto,
surrounded by strata of ashes, pottery, and other refuse, among which many votive
objects in bronze, terracotta, iron and bone were found, together with fragments of
some thirty libation tables in stone, and an immense number of earthenware cups
used for depositing offerings.”70 He explained how “[m]uch earth had been thrown
down by the diggers of the Upper Grotto, and this was found full of small bronze
objects. But chance revealed a more fruitful field, namely, the vertical chinks in the
lowest stalactite pillars, a great many of which were found still to contain toy double
axes, knife-blades, needles, and other objects in bronze, placed there by dedicators,
as in niches. The mud also at the edge of the subterranean pool was rich in similar
things, and in statuettes of two types, male and female, and engraved gems.”71
Sacred Caves and Peak Sanctuaries: Comparing Associated Archaeological
Artefacts
Comparative analyses of archaeological artefacts from all of these sites are recently
moving forward with a focus upon differences instead of upon similarities.72 An
emphasis on commonalities between the sites may allow us to glean generalised
68
Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean, 48.
Tyree, “Diachronic Changes in Minoan Cave Cult,” 43; Bradley, An Archaeology of Natural Spaces,
99; Marinatos, “The Cult of the Cretan Caves,” 129–36.
70
Hogarth, “The Cave of Psychro in Crete,” 90.
71
Ibid., 91.
72
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 2–4.
69
18
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
insights into Minoan ritual and culture.73 It is important to note, however, the
variations between sites and assemblages, rather than look for superficially unifying
similarities in what are clearly different sites.
For example, when we look at closely detailed comparisons of the artefacts, we may
well note the contrasts instead of the similarities: clay human figurines are recorded
from all of the peak sanctuaries, but were only found in two of all the sacred caves,
Psychro and Ida.74 Concerning interpretations, human figurines from Juktas have
been considered to be representations of worshippers.75 Clay representations of
votive body parts are also common from peak sanctuaries (though not found in all
the sanctuaries), however, such body parts have not been found in any sacred caves
except for the sculpted bronze (again not clay) leg recorded from the Psychro Cave
by Hogarth.76 These ‘votive limbs’ have been interpreted as dedications concerning
human health.77 In addendum, terracotta ‘limbs’ from Atsipadhes have been
alternately interpreted to be votive limbs, phalli, and arms broken from whole
figurines.78 Bronze human figurines have been found in all the caves except for
Mameloukou.79
Zoomorphic bronze figurines, as well as bronze jewellery, were only found at
Psychro.80 Zoomorphic figurines of clay animals have been found in vast numbers
from peak sanctuaries, and only in smaller numbers and in some of the caves: the
species of animals also varies, with bovines being the most common; as well as
73
Ibid., 2–5, 28–31.
Ibid., 5–6.
75
Karetsou, “The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas,” 146; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean, 85–
7.
76
Hogarth, “The Cave of Psychro in Crete,” 90–1; Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in
Minoan Crete, 5–6.
77
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 33.
78
Briault, “Making Mountains out of Molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean,” 125; Peatfield, “The
Atsipadhes Korakias Peak Sanctuary Project.”
79
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 7.
74
19
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
bovines, the peak sanctuary at Petsofas includes clay figurines of sheep, goats,
agrimi, dogs, birds, weasels, tortoises, and beetles.81 Juktas includes bovines, pigs,
birds, dogs, snakes, and beetles.82 No other sites encompass such a range of
species as Petsofas and Juktas: only sheep, beetles and fish at Traostalos; lambs,
birds and snakes at Plagia; pigs, dogs and birds at Thylakas; and birds, dogs, and
unidentified animals at Atsipades.83
Stone altars are found in some of the peak sanctuaries, and some of the sacred
caves, but not all of either.84 Pottery and sherds have been found across sites –
indeed, the polychrome style of decorative pottery now known as Kamares ware is
named for its first discoveries inside the Kamares Cave – and again with great
variations between all types and geographies.85 Ash deposits were recorded in more
peak sanctuaries and in only a few caves, yet animal bones were excavated in more
caves than peak sanctuaries.86 Artefacts inscribed with the as yet untranslated
Linear A script have been found at Psychro Cave, and at the peak sanctuaries at
Juktas, Petsofas, Ida, Vrysinas, Kophinas, Traostalos and Plagia.87
As Donald Jones concludes, “[w]hile there are some differences between the types
of artifacts at peak sanctuaries and those in sacred caves, the differences between
the offerings at those two types of site do not seem greater than those among peak
80
Ibid., 7.
Ibid., 5–7.
82
Ibid., 7, 78; Karetsou, ‘The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas’, 146; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the
Aegean, 85–87.
83
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 7, 77–9.
84
Ibid., 5, 11; Karetsou, “The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas,” 145; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the
Aegean, 55.
85
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 10; Karetsou, “The Peak Sanctuary
of Mt. Juktas,” 145; Marinatos, “The Cult of the Cretan Caves,” 131; Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the
Aegean, 55–71, 84–90.
86
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 12.
87
Ibid., 11, 14, 32; Karetsou, “The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas,” 145–51; Karetsou, Godart, and
Olivier, “Inscriptions en Linéar A du Mont Iouktas,” 89–147.
81
20
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
sanctuaries alone.”88 Citing the quote by Watrous that, “[d]espite substantial
variations in the offerings at the different peak sanctuaries, the impression gained is
that a similar cult was practiced at all of these shrines,” Jones then goes on to ask,
“can one reject the conjecture that the same cult was practiced in sacred caves
also?”89 Noting the similarities of artefacts found in Mallia’s Building B, Jones then
asks “[h]ow widely must the conjectures about cults at peak sanctuaries be extended
to other locations?”90
In fact, as Watrous writes, “[c]aves and peak sanctuaries are linked by their rites and
paraphernalia, including alters, animal sacrifice and cult meals, offering tables,
lamps, kernoi and horns of consecration. At both types of shrines offerings are
deliberately placed into the earth – into chasms, into rock clefts or in between
stalagmites. The same types of votives are left at caves and peak sanctuaries.”91
Nevertheless, Watrous states, we “must also be careful not to treat cult as if it were
monolithic”,92 and concludes that we can summarise “Cretan extra-urban shrines
were the meeting paces for mankind and the gods. Thus they were located near the
gods, on high places, and also in or next to a natural feature, such as a cavern,
spring, chasm, or rock cleft, which offered passage into the earth.”93
Sacred Caves / Peak Sanctuaries / Functions / Rituals
Indeed, it is important (as with the adyta) that we not presume to infer identical
functions nor uses to various ‘peak sanctuaries’ nor ‘sacred caves’, across or even
88
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 39.
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 39; L. V. Watrous, “Review of
Aegean Prehistory III: Crete from the Earliest Prehistory through the Protopalatial Period,” American
Journal of Archaeology 98 (1994), 734.
90
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 40.
91
Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro, 93.
92
Ibid., 92.
93
Ibid., 96.
89
21
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
within societies, geographies or temporalities.94 We do possess material evidence
from sacred caves and peak sanctuaries, which allow us to draw inferences that
rituals were performed, and we can attempt to reconstruct some of the details of
these rituals through the artefacts, although our knowledge of such does remain
tentative and drawn from interpretations of the archaeological artefacts which have
been found inside these sites.95 We can certainly infer, based upon the remaining
objects and our interpretations of their functions, some of the behavioural and ritually
repeated activities conducted in the peak sanctuaries and caves: despite all the
variations between geographies and types of vessels, the wealth of pottery
evidences consumption of foods and drink, as well as pouring rituals.96 Animal
remains and ash found at the sites is also consistent with food consumption. Also
intriguing are the symbolic statuary, such as figurines and miniature horns-ofconsecration which, without specific clear secular functional uses, suggest
interpretations with religious or sacred or cultic connotations.97
Although we do not presently have absolute knowledge of these cultures’ religious
and related belief systems, there have been various conjectures proposed.
Interpretive analyses have included agrarian rituals; human fertility rituals,
sometimes with the purpose of controlling human fertility; plus either female-specific
94
Graham, The Palaces of Crete, 107; Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture, 89; Hitchcock, “The Minoan
Hall System,” 29, 39–40; Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 5–7, 14, 33–4;
Evangelos Kyriakidis, Ritual in the Bronze Age Aegean: The Minoan Peak Sanctuaries (London:
Duckworth, 2005), 96–7; Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro, 92–6.
95
Kyriakidis, Ritual in the Bronze Age Aegean, 28–29, 52–53; Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus
at Psychro, 81–90.
96
Hogarth, “The Cave of Psychro in Crete,” 90–1; Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in
Minoan Crete, 31–3; Kyriakidis, Ritual in the Bronze Age Aegean, 53; Marinatos, “The Cult of the
Cretan Caves,” 129–36; Tyree, “Diachronic Changes in Minoan Cave Cult,” 45; Watrous, The Cave
Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro, 51–53, 71.
97
Hogarth, “The Cave of Psychro in Crete,” 90–1; Kyriakidis, Ritual in the Bronze Age Aegean, 18,
91–7; Marinatos, “The Cult of the Cretan Caves,” 129–36; Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at
Psychro, 47–50, 78–91.
22
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
or male-specific rituals or celebrations of sexual maturity or development.98 Further
interpretations include wider-ranging female- or male - specific rituals or celebrations
of cultural or social initiation.99 Other possible interpretations include rituals hoping or
asking for human health.100 Other interpretations have suggested a connection with
ancestor worshi
101
Furthermore, the mountains of Crete have been linked to the
Greek deity, Zeus. Hesiod’s seventh-century BCE Theogony describes the birth of
Zeus in a Dikteon Cave; Homer locates Hera and Zeus at Mount Ida in Iliad Book 14;
Ida is the birthplace of Zeus in Callimachus’ third-century BCE Hymn to Zeus; his
burial place is identified as Mount Juktas in Arthur Bernard Cook’s twentieth-century
Zeus; and is discussed by Evans, and Nilsson, who link this mythology of Zeus in
Crete with chthonic worship of a Mother Goddess of the mountains. 102 The Classical
mythology is less relevant to the Bronze Age millennia earlier, despite the idea that
this myth may have originated from the Minoan civilisation. Furthermore, as we have
seen, interpretations and comparisons with chthonic earth religions are based upon
direct observational and artefactual evidence.103
98
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete,33; Marinatos, Minoan Religion, 203–
13; Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, 73–84; Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro,
78–91.
99
Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in Minoan Crete, 33; Marinatos, Minoan Religion, 207–
218.
100
Hogarth, “The Cave of Psychro in Crete,”90–1; Jones, Peak Sanctuaries and Sacred Caves in
Minoan Crete, 33–4; Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro, 89–91.
101
Hogarth, “The Cave of Psychro in Crete,” 90–1; Kyriakidis, Ritual in the Bronze Age Aegean, 18;
Marinatos, “The Cult of the Cretan Caves,” 129–136.
102
Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, in G. R. McLennan (ed.), (Roma: Edizioni dell’Ateneo and Bizzarri,
1977); A. B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1914), 157; Evans, The Palace of Minos. I, 159; Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture, 67, 93; Karetsou,
“The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas,” 151–3; Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival
in Greek Religion, 534; Rehak, “Imag(in)ing a Women’s World in Bronze Age Greece,” 40; Rutkowski,
The Cult Places of the Aegean, 1–5, 17, 48–50; Watrous, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro,
18–19, 23–25.
103
B. C. Dietrich, “Minoan Religion in the Context of the Aegean,” in O. Krzyszkowska and L. Nixon
(eds), Minoan Society: Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium 1981 (Bristol: Bristol Classical
23
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
Discussion
Architectural and archaeological evidence supports the idea that adyta may in fact
have been designed to consciously symbolise natural features such as those seen in
caves and peak sanctuaries, and may be a representation of natural spaces which
descend down into the earth.104 These comparative analyses, between adyta and
sacred caves and peak sanctuaries, are important for our understanding of these
Bronze Age Aegean architectural spaces as well as of the cultures which created
and utilised them. Opponents to these interpretations may counter that, since adyta
are always located inside buildings, they must not represent natural spaces,
otherwise they would surely be situated outdoors even if attached to buildings. This
claim, however, ignores the very definitions of representation and symbolism.105 The
human imagination is capable of designing indoor spaces, such as the adyta, as
symbolic representations of natural, outdoor spaces. Indeed, the modern dualist
division between the ‘natural’ and the ‘human/artificial/unnatural’ is cultural-centric
and arbitrary, and not relevant to Bronze Age cultures.106 Perhaps the people of
these cultures would not even have understood our dualist natural/artificial
segregations and definitions, which after all may well be described as merely our
own cultural-centric way of seeing our world.107 There is certainly a difference
between creating an outdoor space inside a building, and creating a representative
space as is hypothesised by this comparison of the observed connections between
adyta and sacred caves and peak sanctuaries.
Press, 1983), 57; Marinatos, “The Cult of the Cretan Caves,” 129–36; Preziosi and Hitchcock, Aegean
Art and Architecture, 148.
104
Marinatos and Hägg, ‘On the Ceremonial Function of the Minoan Polythyron’, 60; Marinatos, “The
Cult of the Cretan Caves,” 129–36; Preziosi and Hitchcock, Aegean Art and Architecture, 147–8.
105
Hitchcock, “Naturalizing the Cultural,” 94; Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, 79–80; Niemeier,
“Iconography and Context,” 98; Shaw, “The Aegean Garden,” 675.
106
Bradley, An Archaeology of Natural Spaces, 103–104; Hitchcock, “Naturalizing the Cultural,” 97;
Shaw, “The Aegean Garden”, 661–3, 680–2.
24
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
Conclusion
Accordingly, if we accept the apparent connections and symbolic representation of
adyta with sacred caves and peak sanctuaries, we might also use this observation to
better understand Minoan culture. Any society which expressly recreates natural
spaces inside such formalised and official spaces as the Minoan ‘palaces’ and halls,
must place a particular value upon nature, naturalism, or naturalistic rituals. Such a
focus upon nature may have been based in recognition of the dependence of an
agrarian society upon natural forces. This does not necessarily indicate, however, an
idealised culture in ‘harmony’ with nature or between human members. By contrast,
it may in fact indicate an official or authoritarian effort to institutionalise the natural
landscape and the natural world, in an attempt to control either the natural forces or
dependent human beings.108
To conclude, although the interpretation that adyta may be symbolic reflections of
the natural world was proposed as early as 1941, this hypothesis has not yet been
thoroughly integrated into our overall knowledge, and is a valid and fascinating idea.
As has been demonstrated, there is much evidence to support this chthonic theory,
including architectural analyses, interpretation of the frescoes surrounding the
adyton of Xeste 3, as well as the similarities between moveable archaeological
artefacts from inside sacred caves and those found inside and in the vicinities of
adyta. Adyta are mysterious architectural features, and the more one learns of them,
of details such as their significant placement in many buildings, their enclosed
designs, including polythyra suggesting interplays of semi-covered views or of light
and darkness, the more one is intrigued by their possible functions, which remain
107
Bradley, An Archaeology of Natural Spaces, p 103–4; Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture, 81.
25
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
open to investigation. Comparisons of adyta with the natural landscape, and
resulting conjecture on their uses, may not have been sufficiently explored to-date
because of a modern concern to avoid depicting Bronze Age cultures as ‘naturefocused’ and over-idealised. As we have seen, however, recognition of such
architectural reflection of the natural landscape does not necessarily lead to such
modern cultural-centric conclusions. In fact, further analyses of adyta as symbolic
representations of the natural world can allow us deeper insight and recognition of
their possible purposes and functions, and analogously allow us greater knowledge
of the Bronze Age cultures which created and used such enigmatic and unique
architectural features.
108
Hitchcock, “Naturalizing the Cultural,” 97; Peatfield, “Palace and Peak,” 89–92; Schoep,
“Assessing the Role of Architecture in Conspicuous Consumption in the Middle Minoan I–II Periods,”
261–2.
26
Leanne Campbell, ‘Bronze Age Adyta’, Eras Edition 14, February 2013
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