Egypt and Crete in the Early Middle Bronze Age

EGYPT AND CRETE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE BRONZE AGE: A CASE OF TRADE AND CULTURAL DIFFUSION* Helene Kantor, whose work we are commemorating at this conference, was a member of the generation of scholars, which included Saul Weinberg, Edith Porada and John Pendlebury, who were confident about the close cultural interrelations of the Eastern Mediterranean. Today, in this postmodern era, our discipline is deeply divided on the issue of contacts and cultural diffusion between the East and the West. On one side of this controversy is the processualist school spawned by Binford and Renfrew, which scarcely recognizes any signs of significant cultural exchange between the Aegean and the Near East. At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe in the writings of Cyrus Gordon and Martin Bernal. Each side pursues its own agenda and arrives at its preconceived conclusions. In contrast, my contribution to this large subject is to present a paper which is strictly empirically based, and uses some of the perspectives — a systemic view of culture, internal competition as a force for social change, and the idea of material culture as an active agent in its own right — of the processualists and their successors.1 My focus is the period of the Eleventh - Twelfth Dynasties in Egypt, Middle Bronze I - IIA at Byblos and Middle Minoan IA - II on Crete, dating roughly from 2100 - 1750 BC. Most studies of Bronze Age trade in the Mediterranean present evidence of external contact between cultures, but do not go on to examine the internal effects of these contacts on the societies involved. Therefore this paper compares the intensity of Egyptian trade with Byblos, which is relatively well documented, with trade between Egypt and Crete so that we might be able to better understand how Egyptian trade effected the different institutions (viz. official religion, funerary practice, palatial administration) of Minoan culture during the MM I - II period. Egyptian Artifacts at Byblos Egyptian contacts with Byblos begin during the Old Kingdom.2 After the Sixth Dynasty, the history of Byblos is interrupted, but in the Eleventh Dynasty Egyptian inscriptions provide evidence that Egypt was once again trading with Byblos. Beginning with the XII Dynasty, the Egyptian pharaohs regularly sent expeditions to Byblos to procure local cedar wood, as well as goods, such as silver, lapis lazuli and other materials, originating from other areas of the Near East. Ebla was one of these more distant sources, as the Egyptian stone vases found at Ebla, now on display in the Idlib Museum, indicate. The Tod treasure from Egypt, with its mixture of silver and gold vases and ingots and lapis lazuli amulets, illustrates the kind of wealth that was pouring into Egypt via the Levant at this time. At Byblos, in return for these types of products, the Egyptians presented gifts to the gods in their temples and to the royal family.

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It is a pleasure to have read this paper at a session chaired by my former teacher, James Muhly, whose support and scholarly advice (including the suggestion of the topic of my Ph.D. thesis) have been helpful to me over the years. I would also like to acknowledge the aid of Jim Weinstein who supplied me with bibliography, and Harriet Blitzer who edited the manuscript. This article is a developed version of my original paper, in which I have tried to take into account some of the issues raised in subsequent discussions at the conference. For a basic presentation of cultural systemics in the Aegean, see C. RENFREW, The Emergence of Civilization (1972) 3-44, 489-504. For social competition, E. BRUMFIELD and J. FOX (eds.), Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World (1994) and T. EARLE (ed.), Chiefdoms: Power, Economy, and Ideology (1991). For artifacts as active agents in culture, see I. HODDER, Symbols in Action (1982). P. MONTET, Byblos et L’Égypte I-II (1929); M. DUNAND, Fouilles de Byblos I-II (1939); D.B. REDFORD, Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times (1992).

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These royal gifts appear in the dedications made within the temple precinct at Byblos beginning as early as the Old Kingdom and become numerous during the XII Dynasty. The earliest of the so-called Royal Tombs at Byblos, Tombs I and II, contained royal gifts, such the obsidian vase with the name of Amenemhat III and an obsidian box bearing the name of Amenemhat IV.3 At this time Byblite princes used Egyptian functionary titles and the royal cartouche to refer to themselves, while in Egypt, the goddess Hathor was given the epithet “Lady of Byblos.” Deposits of votives from the area of the temples at Byblos exhibit a strongly Egyptian f lavor. The famous Montet Jar from Byblos was filled with Egyptianizing objects and motifs, such as jewellery, seals, amulets and votives as well as representations of an ibis, apes, baboons, the uraeus and the Horus child.4 Other groups of votives at Byblos included Egyptian-type stone vases, private Egyptian statuettes, objects, figurines, and amulets depicting the lotus, Osiris column, scarab, bull, lion, hippo and the royal crown of Lower Egypt which were associated with Egyptian deities and the Pharaoh.5 This elite Egyptian(izing) material contrasts with the contents of local private tombs which contain little or no such items.6 The presence of many of these Egyptian motifs and titles at Byblos underlines the local nobility’s use of the powerful Egyptian status and their assimilation of Egyptian ideology for their own political enhancement. Contacts between Crete and the Near East How did the Minoans come in contact with Egyptian culture and what was the nature of this contact? Secure archaeological evidence of Minoan trade eastward first appears in MB I/MM I-II, in the form of Kamares ware vases found in Cyprus, at Ugarit, at Byblos and in Egypt.7 Given what we have learned about ancient trade, I would assume that these vases are for the most part secondary items in an exchange that consisted of more valuable products.8 Near Eastern documents from Mari, for example, mention Cretan weapons and clothing as well as tin to be sent to Cretans at Ugarit.9 Because Crete was poor in raw materials and “underdeveloped” relative to the Near East, it seems likely that it was Minoan mariners who first set sail for Levantine and Egyptian ports in search of silver, copper, tin, ivory and precious stones, in return for which they brought timber, and finished goods such as textiles, metal vases, weapons and decorated pottery.

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MONTET (supra n. 2) 155-59. MONTET (supra n. 2) 111-25 and pls. 61-64, 68; O. TUFNELL and W.A. WARD, “Relations between Byblos, Egypt, and Mesopotamia at the end of the Third Millennium B.C.,” Syria 43 (1966) 165-241; P. GERSTENBLITH, The Levant at the Beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (1983) 38-41; C. LILYQUIST, “Granulation and Glass: Chronological and Stylistic Investigations at Selected Sites, ca. 2500-1400 B.C.,” BASOR 290/1 (1993) 29-94. MONTET (supra n. 2) 61-109 and pls. 42, 44, 45, 47, 54; DUNAND, Byblos I (supra n. 2) pls. 40, 73 and 130. For the divine symbolism of the these motifs, see R. WILKINSON, Reading Egyptian Art (1992). A summary of MB I-II tomb contents appears in GERSTENBLITH (supra n. 4) 39, 42-44. The fullest evidence comes from the “tombeaux des particulars” at Byblos excavated by MONTET (supra n. 2) and several tombs from the area of Beirut and Sidon. See especially P. GUIGES, “Lebe’a, Kafer-Garra, Qraye. Necropoles de la region sidonienne,” BMB 1 (1937) 35-76; Idem, BMB 2 (1938) 27-72. Cyprus: J. STEWART, “The Tomb of the Seafarer at Karmi in Cyprus,” OpAth 4 (1962) 196-204; G. CADOGAN, “Early Minoan and Middle Minoan Chronology,” AJA 87 (1983) 514. CADOGAN also lists about a half dozen Middle Minoan vases from Byblos. See DUNAND, Byblos I (supra n. 2) pl. 177. Beirut: a MM II cup illustrated in P. WARREN and V. HANKEY, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (1989) pl. 12a. Egypt: B.J. KEMP and R.S. MERRILLEES, Minoan Pottery in Second Millennium Egypt (1980). The single most important contribution to our knowledge of this subject is G.F. Bass’ discovery and publication of the shipwrecks at Gelidonya and Kas: G.F. BASS, Cape Gelidonya (1967); Idem, “A Bronze Age Shipwreck at Ulu Burun (Kas): 1984 Campaign,” AJA 90 (1986) 269-96; G.F. BASS et al., “The Bronze Age Shipwreck at Ulu Burun: 1986 Campaign,” AJA 93 (1989) 1-29. For the role of pottery in Aegean trade, see L.V. WATROUS, Kommos III. The Late Bronze Age Pottery (1992) 169-70. For an excellent discussion of Minoan overseas trade, see M.H. WEINER, “The Nature and Control of Minoan Foreign Trade,” in Bronze Age Trade, 327-34.

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I do not know what exact routes the Cretans followed to get to Byblos and Egypt. It is probable that Minoan vases from Northern Cyprus are the sign of a route between Crete and Syro-Cilicia. The document at Mari, cited above, mentions Cretans at Ugarit. In the Levant, Minoans saw elegant metal vessels of Near Eastern workmanship which they subsequently imitated in clay.10 It is also clear that the Cretans came into contact with some forms of Egyptian culture indirectly, via the Levant. Minoan seals with Egyptianizing designs, for example, at times resemble Levantine models more closely than Egyptian examples.11 Although I cannot prove it, I think that given the prevailing NW winds in the Eastern Mediterranean and northward currents along the Levantine coast, the Minoans probably also sailed directly south and east, toward North Africa and the Nile Delta.12 Based on finds from Quartier Mu at Mallia, Poursat has also argued for some degree of direct Cretan knowledge of Egypt.13 Other forms of Cretan material culture acquired from Egypt, such as MM I - II clay coffins, are likely the result of direct contact since these forms do not appear in the MB I - IIA Levant.14 From Egypt, Cretan ships may have followed the conventional counterclockwise trade route home, or waited for southerly winds for a more direct route to the Aegean. Egyptian Objects Found on Crete Like the Levant, Crete experiences a series of settlement destructions and abandonments toward the end of the third millennium BC and there is very little evidence of Cretan foreign trade during this phase.15 The date, duration and nature of this transitional phase, which probably includes the EM III and early MM IA periods, is not well defined. Nevertheless, beginning at some point in the MM IA period, perhaps as early as ca. 2050 BC, signs of Cretan involvement in overseas trade become obvious.16 Middle Minoan IA pottery is known at Lerna, in Cyprus and probably on Samos. Cretan metalwork, namely daggers and jewellery, exhibit new details in their shape and technique that have parallels in Cilicia, Ugarit and Byblos. Thus, the chronological development of Minoan overseas contacts seems to follow the same pattern as that of the Near East: disruptions toward the end of the third millennium, followed by consolidation and revived foreign contacts at the beginning of the second millennium BC. It is during the Middle Minoan I-II period that signs of Cretan contact with Egypt, in the form of Egyptian imports and Egyptianizing objects, begin to appear in large numbers on

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L.V. WATROUS, “Review of Aegean Prehistory III: Crete from Earliest Prehistory through the Protopalatial Period,” AJA 98 (1994) 749, contra WARREN and HANKEY (supra n. 7) 131-34. See J. WEINGARTEN, The Zakro Master and his Place in Prehistory (1983) 101-105. Weingarten suggests the sealcarver (Zakro Master) at Kato Zakro had seen Syrian seals and that Cretan sealcarvers may have worked in the Amorite courts of Syria. For the winds and currents in the Eastern Mediterranean, see W. MURRAY, “Ancient Sailing Winds in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Case for Cyprus,” in V. KARAGEORGHIS (ed.), Cyprus and the Sea (1995) 3344. For Minoan trade routes, see WATROUS (supra n. 8) 176-78. J.-C. POURSAT, “Une thalassocracie au Minoen moyen II?,” in Minoan Thalassocracy, 87. See B. RUTKOWSKI, “The origin of the Minoan Coffin,” BSA 63 (1968) 219-28; L.V. WATROUS, “The Origin and Iconography of the Late Minoan Painted Larnax,” Hesperia 60 (1991) esp. 285-88. Summary in WATROUS (supra n. 10) 717-37. See now N. MOMIGLIANO and D. WILSON, “Knossos 1993: Excavations outside the South Front of the Palace,” BSA 91 (1996) 44 for an import from the Cyclades dated to EM III (P158). Data presented in WATROUS (supra n. 10) 729-36.

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Crete.17 I will focus on how these objects, and their contexts on Crete, compare with the types of Egyptian artifacts at Byblos. First of all, from the Byblite point of view, the most striking aspect of the Cretan assemblage of Aegyptiaca is actually what is missing. Egyptian royal and private gifts, so prominent at Byblos, are absent in MM I-II Crete. Such objects, e.g. the Khyan lid and the statuette of User, only begin to appear on Crete later on.18 Prestigious objects19 decorated with Egyptian royal iconography — the uraeus, the falcon, the solar disc, the pharaonic headdress — and items inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics are also conspicuous by their absence on Crete. In part, this absence must be due to Crete’s geographical and political position vis-à-vis Egypt. From an Egyptian point of view, Crete’s distance and lack of crucial raw materials may have made it appear as a relatively insignificant country, not worth an Egyptian expedition or mention in official records. Only later in the XVIIIth Dynasty does Crete enter fully into the Egyptian political and economic orbit. But this does not fully explain the lack of such objects in Crete. Many of the Byblos artifacts decorated with Egyptian royal motifs were locally made and Cretan artisans could certainly have made the same objects, had they chosen to do so. The clay relief of a sphinx from Quartier Mu at Mallia is exceptional in this regard, but given its material, does not necessarily suggest royal pretensions for its owner. Unlike the Byblites, the Minoans did not adopt the royal iconography of the Egyptians. One might object that this is not, in fact, very significant since it is generally thought that there is little royal iconography of any kind in Minoan art.20 However, I do not believe that this is the case. I think that the numerous representations of goddesses in Minoan art were meant to be understood primarily as figures complementary to the Cretan male royalty, who, through their intimate and unique relations with the king, legitimize his power.21 This same relationship is commonly referred to in Egypt where the Pharaoh is designated the son of Hathor or Isis, and is depicted being embraced and suckled by Hathor.22 While it is generally true that the Minoans shied away from Egyptian royal iconography, I am aware of one Protopalatial example found in an official context. In 1994 Judith Weingarten published a stimulating article on the sealings from the early palace at Phaistos.23 By distinguishing among the groups of some 1500 well preserved seals that were used on five different door pommels, she found that three seals seemed to have an important position in the administrative hierarchy of the palace, since they had been used many more times than any of the others. Two of these seals had traditional abstract designs (CMS ii 5, nos.165 and 168), but the third seal (CMS ii 5, no. 268/9) was decorated with a scene of a bull battering down a fortified settlement. From earliest times (as on the Narmer palette), this design was one of the most royal of Egyptian motifs.

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See the list of imports in C. LAMBROU-PHILLIPSON, Hellenorientalia (1990) 53-55 and J. PHILLIPS, The Impact and Implications of the Egyptian and ‘Egyptianizing’ Material Found in Bronze Age Crete ca. 3000 - 1100 B.C., Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto (1991). Phillips’ Ph.D. thesis is a useful discussion of material evidence of Aegean - Egyptian contacts from an Egyptian point of view. Her conclusions (pp. 334-45), that Egyptianizing objects found on Crete are largely the result of indirect, verbal descriptions, however, suffers from two faults: it ignores the evidence for Cretan contact with Egyptian culture in the Levant, and assumes that Egyptianizing objects in Crete can only be the result of Egyptian contact if they are completely identical to Egyptian prototypes. For another approach to Egyptianizing objects in Crete, see WATROUS (supra n. 10) 729-50. See also W. WARD, Egypt and the East Mediterranean World 2200 - 1900 B.C. (1971); P. WARREN, “Minoan Crete and Pharaonic Egypt,” in Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant, 1-18. Khyan lid: see WARREN and HANKEY (supra n. 7) 136. User statuette: PM I 286-90. As cited supra, notes 4-5. E. DAVIS, “Art and Politics in the Aegean: The Missing Ruler,” in Role of the Ruler, 11-22. This subject is discussed in greater detail in L.V. WATROUS, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro (1996) 109-110. See, for example, H. FRANKFORT, Kingship and the Gods (1948) 44, 143, 171-80; M. SALEH and H. SOUROUZIAN, The Egyptian Museum, Cairo (1987) nos. 34, 138. J. WEINGARTEN, “Two Sealing Studies in the Middle Bronze Age; I: Karahöyük, II: Phaistos,” in P. FERIOLI et al. (eds.), Archives before Writing (1994) 261-305.

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This sealing brings us to the question of Egyptian inf luence on the creation of Minoan administration and political structure. Fiandra has shown that the administrative system governing the storage and redistribution of goods in the First Palace at Phaistos is so similar to the many such systems in Egypt and the Near East that it must have been derived from the East.24 The distinctly Egyptian shape of the Phaistian door pommels also may point to the area where the Minoans actually learned about the administrative system. On Crete the Minoans devised two forms of writing for administrative purposes, the hieroglyphic script (which may be the earlier of the two) and Linear A.25 At Byblos, the Phoenician alphabet is thought to have been devised during the second millennium BC, probably by a local Byblite scribe knowledgeable of Egyptian hierogylphic script, who wanted an efficient writing system for the local Byblite language.26 Given the presence of Egyptian characters in the Cretan hieroglyphic script, it too may have been formulated under similar circumstances in Crete. It may be profitable to view the idea for the creation of the Minoan palaces in the same light. The new construction techniques used in these palaces, that is, their monumental ashlar facades, is Syrian,27 not Egyptian, but the plan of the palaces bears little direct resemblance to foreign models and thus is best understood as a local Cretan formulation. The archaeological evidence on Crete suggests that, for political matters, Cretan contact with Egypt offered the Minoans a stimulant rather than a model for imitation or adaptation, in contrast to what happened at Byblos. The evidence for Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects or motifs of a religious nature on Crete is more complex. On Crete, the sanctuaries comparable to the urban temples of Byblos and Egypt, were located on mountains and in caves. The prestigious nature of their offerings make it clear that these sanctuaries were the official, communal shrines of Minoan Crete.28 The offerings at these sanctuaries consist of a wide range of personal possessions as well as votives made especially for dedication, but rarely do they consist of Egyptian objects or motifs, as is the case at Byblos. Representations of Egyptian motifs found at Byblos that represent or are associated with gods, such as the Horus Eye, the falcon, the Osiris column, the baboon of Toth, the Tuart hippopotamus and the dwarf Bes, are missing from Cretan shrines. Two Egyptianizing objects found at Cretan sanctuaries, however, serve as warnings against interpreting religious Minoan iconography too literally. The first is the scaraboid beetle, figurines of which were dedicated at Cretan peak sanctuaries.29 These models have been viewed as depictions of pests, from which the dedicator was trying to obtain protection, but the fact that these (harmless) insects also occur as relief decoration on Minoan rhyta and on jewellery suggests that they were regarded as a sacred symbol, just as in Egypt and the Levant where they were associated with Ra (Khepri), the god of creation and renewal.30 The second exception is the so-called Minoan horns of consecration found at cave and peak sanctuaries.31 In Egypt the hieroglyph djew, identical to the horns of consecration, is the sign for mountain.32 This sign was used in a cosmic sense in Egypt to depict the twin mountains believed to be located at either edge of the world. Thus, Egyptian representations depict the

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E. FIANDRA, “A che cosa serviano le cretule di Festos,” in the Proceedings of the Second International Cretological Congress I (1968) 383-97; Idem, “Ancora a proposito delle cretula di Festos,” BdA 60 (1975) 1-25. J.-P. OLIVIER, “Cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B.C.,” WA (1988) 376-89. Note that the extraordinary 14-sided Archanes seal not only is inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphic motifs but also resembles the Middle Kingdom inscribed rods or wands worn by priests: cf. CMS IIi: 391/2 and J. BOURRIAU, Pharaohs and Mortals (1988) 115-16. A. MILLARD, “The Infancy of the Alphabet,” WA 17 (1988) 390-98. G. HULT, Bronze Age Ashlar Masonry in the Eastern Mediterranean (1983) 44-49, 66-67. WATROUS (supra n. 8) 73-81, 91-96. B. RUTKOWSKI, The Cult Places of the Aegean (1986) 89-91. WILKINSON (supra n. 5) 112-13; C. DAVARAS, “A Minoan Beetle-Rhyton from Prinias Siteias,” BSA 83 (1989) 45-54; WATROUS (supra n. 21) 83-84. See M. NILSSON, The Minoan - Mycenaean Religion (1950) 165ff; B. POWELL, “The Significance of the So-called ‘Horns of Consecration’,” Kadmos 16 (1977) 70-82. WILKINSON (supra n. 5) 134-35.

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sun god in his creative aspect (shown as a beetle), passing between the twin peaks of this symbol. While their exact significance eludes us, the beetle and horns of consecration found at Cretan shrines do seem to be linked conceptually with their Egyptian counterparts. It seems possible that at the time that the Minoans created their system of cult at rural sanctuaries, they may have been aware of Egyptian cosmology. Still, the overall absence of representations of Egyptian deities and their symbols would seem to imply that these deities did not play a prominent role at Minoan communal shrines, in contrast to the practice at Byblos. However, this conclusion may be premature, because Minoan deities (unlike their Near Eastern counterparts) do not appear to have ever been depicted by the Cretans in any of the wide range of their bronze, clay and stone or painted images. The sanctuaries of the Minoans were also different from the urban temples of the Near East, in that they were located in rural areas, on mountains and in caves. On Crete, sanctuaries and the range of symbols on dedications connect the gods with the underworld and with the organic world of nature.33 Thus, the form that Minoan cult took in its sanctuaries suggests that (at least some of) the gods were visualized pantheistically in the forces of Nature and this was the reason that they were not depicted in the conventional forms of Near Eastern iconography. In the area of funerary customs, however, the Minoans seem to have been more open to Egyptian ideas. In MM I-II Crete, traditional Minoan burials continued to be made in tholoi and house tombs, but some burials began to occur in clay coffins, a shape unknown in the Eastern Mediterranean at this time, except in Egypt. At Mallia, the monumental royal tomb built in MM I at Chrysolakkos may imitate the form of the Egyptian mastaba.34 For the first time, too, MM I-II burials included quantities of Egyptian funerary paraphernalia: stone palettes (for grinding cosmetics) the sistrum (for making music in the Afterworld) Egyptian types of stone vases (for perfumes, unguents, cosmetics): alabastra cylindrical vessels block vases goblets carinated bowls double vases miniature amphoras ceremonial shells clay models of bread loaves.35 The funerary concept that the deceased travelled over water (viz. the Nile River) to reach the Afterworld is well known in Egypt. The Minoans had clearly adopted this idea by the Late Bronze Age, but Middle Minoan I-II grave goods, e.g. seashells and water-worn pebbles found in tombs at Archanes and a clay ship model, probably from the Mesara, shows that this practice began much earlier.36 Despite the near absence of Egyptian objects and motifs at Cretan sanctuaries, the personal seals and amulets worn by many Minoan men and women indicate that Egyptian magical beliefs had been assimilated on Crete at a popular level. Minoan acceptance of Egyptian beliefs seems inferable from the fact that representations of Egyptian deities and

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For an overview and discussion of Minoan votive objects, see WATROUS (supra n. 21) 57-72, 81-96. Argument presented in WATROUS (supra n. 10) 728-29. See WARD (supra n. 17) 92-104; WATROUS (supra n. 10) 735-50; Idem (supra n. 21) 396-97; PHILLIPS (supra n. 17) 28-107. Shells: VTM, pl. 54:227, 228; cf. BOURRIAU (supra n. 25) 153, pls. 171a-c. Double vases: VTM, pls. 24:749, 39:1056, 40:5084, 43:1024; cf. W.M.F. PETRIE, The Funeral Furniture of Egypt (1937) pl. 26:489. Seashells are recorded from Tholos Tombs Beta and Gamma and Buildings 7 and 13 at Archanes; cf. WATROUS (supra n. 10) 725-28; C. DAVARAS et al., Minoan and Greek Civilization from the Mitsotakis Collection (1992) 107.

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motifs became extremely common on Minoan seals and amulets during the Middle Minoan I-II period. Without Minoan texts, however, we cannot be sure to what extent the Cretans borrowed Egyptian beliefs as well as artistic forms. Nevertheless, there are some indirect indications that the Egyptian images were deliberately chosen with a knowledge of their original meanings. It is not just that these images were used in the same way, as amulets, but also that the Egyptianizing motifs that occur in Crete are not a random sample of the large Egyptian corpus of amuletic motifs.37 Missing from the Minoan assemblage are a wide range of popular Egyptian amuletic types, including the numerous Egyptian deities of human form such as Horus, Isis, Ra, Osiris and Hathor, as well as animal-headed human forms (such as lion-headed Bastet), specific attributes of certain deities, such as the Osiris column, the Ma’at feather, the Horus eye, and royal symbols such as crowns, cartouches, or staffs. Instead, the Minoan motifs consisted overwhelmingly of a class called “amulets of assilimilation.”38 That is, they provided strength or protection by assimilating the powers that certain animals possessed naturally or by association with a kindred deity. The most popular of these Egyptian amuletic forms adopted by the Minoans was the scarab. The Minoans acquired genuine Egyptian scarabs39 and produced local versions of the form.40 Cretan sealcarvers also copied many of the shapes and motifs of Egyptian seals and amulets. Representations of Egyptian motifs on seals/amulets included:41 Bee (CMS II5: 314) Cat (CMS I: 423; II2: 3) Crocodile? (CMS IV: 32D) Double monkey (CMS IIi: 473) Griffin (CMS II5: 317-19) Hippo (CMS II2: 77) Lion (CMS IIi: 126, 419; II2: 48) Monkey (CMS II5: 297) Scorpion (CMS IIi: 307; II2: 240) Sistrum (CMS IIi: 126, 391, 392) Sphinx (ECS 137-39) Tuart (CMS IIi: 283; II5: 322) Minoan amulets/seals also imitated Egyptian shapes: Ape (CMS IIi: 20, 435) Claw (VTM, pl. 57: 489) Double lion (Aker) (CMS IIi; 25) Double monkey (CMS IV: 28) Duck (CMS IV: 5) Fly (CMS IIi: 379) Frog (VTM pl. 4: 386) Hedgehog (CMS IIi: 357) Hoof (CMS IIi: 170, 296; IV: 91) Leg (CMS IIi: 212, 407) Lion (CMS IIi: 130) Scarab (ECS 78-80) It is noticeable that many of these amuletic images (Bee, Cat, Frog, Hippo, Sistrum, Snake, Tuart) in Egypt were associated with maternal protection, particularly during childbirth.42

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See the admirable presentation of Egyptian amulets and their motifs in C. ANDREWS, Amulets of Ancient Egypt (1994). Ibid. 60-73. LAMBROU-PHILLIPSON (supra n. 17). PINI has identified an Egyptianizing group of seals made by a workshop located in southern Crete; I. PINI, “Eine frükretische Siegelwerkstatt?,” Proceedings of the Sixth International Cretological Congress, vol. A2 (1990) 115-28. This list is not exhaustive. PHILLIPS (supra n. 17) 191-334.

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Our comparison of early Middle Kingdom Egyptian objects at Byblos with those found on Crete allows us to draw some tentative conclusions about how each culture responded to contact with Egypt. At Byblos the nobility imitated the Egyptian political structure and the forms of the Egyptian state religion, whereas the Minoans apparently did not. The Cretan response was more selective. In some areas, as in the administrative system of the palaces, they seem to have accepted Near Eastern ideas wholeheartedly, but in other areas, such as their writing or their palatial architecture, they took Eastern concepts and developed their own versions of them. Byblite and Cretan assimilation of Egyptian culture was not a simple function of distance (i.e. Byblos was more heavily inf luenced by Egypt because it was nearer) nor was it the result of casual knowledge coming from contact during commercial dealings (whether direct or indirect). Crete is further removed from Egypt than Byblos and yet Minoan tombs show a much greater range of Egyptian(izing) funerary goods than do the private tombs of the Byblos region. On the other hand, at Byblos the temple precinct was crowded with Egyptian votives, which are all but missing at Cretan sanctuaries. At Byblos it is apparent that Egyptian ideas were embraced by the local elite and thus were adapted for cult in the urban temples, while funerary practice in the tombs of the common people shows little sign of Egyptian inf luence. At first glance, the Cretan reaction to Egyptian culture seems the reverse of the Byblite response. The Minoans showed little interest in the Egyptian gods at their sanctuaries, but did adopt funerary ideas, which would seem to have been introduced to the Minoan population at a popular level. The popularity of Egyptian(izing) artifacts in the tombs located in southern Crete would support such a hypothesis. This scenario for the way in which the Minoans accepted Egyptian personal religion (which resembles the popular spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire) may explain how the first Egyptian objects reached Crete: that is they were brought back by Cretan sailors, who had learned of their magical value in the East. But it does not explain why Egyptian funerary practices spread throughout Crete, when the numbers of actual Cretan imports in Egypt and Egyptian items in Crete are, in fact, exceedingly small. In order to understand the appearance of funerary paraphernalia (and the ideas associated with them) in Cretan tombs, this development must be viewed within its larger sociopolitical context. Cretan burial practices in Middle Minoan I-II were also transformed in other ways. Burials became individual, placed in single clay coffins or jars. In addition, the deceased was provided with a larger (mostly Egyptianizing) range of grave goods, that included the provisioning of perfumes, cosmetics, model offerings, animal sacrifices (i.e real food, as was the practice in Egypt), which indicates that at this time the individual Minoan was envisioned as having greater direct access to an eternal life in an Afterworld. Seashells, sea pebbles and a boat model found in Middle Minoan tombs hint that the deceased had to travel overseas to get to this Afterworld, an eschatological concept that surely was based on Egyptian ideas. The full meaning of this development on Crete is suggested by the development of funerary practices in Egypt, where a similar, widespread “democratization of the Afterlife” took place beginning in the First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom.43 In Egypt this change in burial customs can be seen in the elaboration of individual commoners’ tombs that for the first time include royal iconography, written magical texts, private stelae and large numbers of amulets. Egyptian texts explain two important features of this democratization: 1) the Egyptian population was given access to an elaborate Afterlife (previously limited to the elite), and 2) the individual earned the right to an Afterlife (through judgment before Osiris in the Underworld) by following the ethical and legal dictates of society. If a similar development took place in Crete, the appearance of Egyptian funerary paraphernalia in Cretan tombs should be understood as only one aspect of a larger transformation of social roles in Minoan society. During the era before Cretan contact with

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See J.H. BREASTED, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (1959) 142-256; R. FINNESTAD, “The Pharaoh and the ‘Democratization’ of Post-mortem Life,” in G. ENGLUND (ed.), The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (1987) 89-94. Amulets: ANDREWS (supra n. 37) 8-13.

EGYPT AND CRETE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE BRONZE AGE

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Egypt (EM I-III), Minoan cult was carried out largely within the communal cemetery, and would seem to have revolved around the importance of the living community’s ties with its deified ancestors. In Middle Minoan IA, the rise of multi-community, regional sanctuaries and the demise of communal burials are part of a redefinition of Minoan eschatology and worship. The Egyptian elements in Minoan tombs may indicate not just the acceptance of an Egyptianizing Afterworld, but also the idea that the deceased had to have lived a just life in order to earn an eternal Afterlife.44 As in Egypt, a just life in Crete was probably defined as fulfilling one’s duties to society. These duties were expressed in the new, communal religious ceremonies carried out in regional sanctuaries. The rituals carried out at these sanctuaries (and their societal correlates, i.e. male initiation, marriage and one’s rank/profession within society) were to a great extent the result of a new social contract brought about during the formation of palatial society.45 Understood in this light, the island-wide adoption of Egyptian funerary concepts by the Minoans was probably not a grass roots phenomenon somehow brought about by the simple “diffusion” of ideas between Crete and Egypt, although it may have begun in that fashion, but rather a part of the Cretan elites’ transformation of Minoan religion from a collection of strictly local chthonic cults to regional participation in extraurban sanctuaries.46 L. Vance WATROUS

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45 46

The characteristics of a pure life were recited by the deceased before Osiris on the Day of Judgment. They included abstention from falsehood, murder, theft, trespassing, blasphemy, social unrest, interference with or neglect of religious rites, acts detested by the gods, and conjurgation against the king. See R. FAULKNER, Book of the Dead (1985) esp. 27-34. WATROUS (supra n. 21) 78-81. I assume that these Minoan sanctuaries were under some form of state control, and that the basis of this control was the belief that the god(s) worshipped at the sanctuary was related by kinship to the ruling dynasty. This interpretation, though novel, is congruent with the archaeological evidence and is widely supported by cross-cultural practices. A similar process may also have taken place in Egypt at least by the beginning of the Middle Kingdom when the royal family claimed to have their origins at Abydos, the cult center of Osiris, king of the Underworld. See H. FRANKFORT, Kingship and the Gods (1948) 181-212, esp. 201-203. Thus, Rhadamanthys, son of Zeus and eponymous hero of Gortys and son of (He)Phaistos (Odyssey iv.564; Paus. VIII.53.5), became on his death the ruler and judge of the dead who lived on a faraway Island of the Blessed (Pindar, Olympian ii.75ff.; Pliny n.h. iv.58). World-wide, the creation of a theocracy has often involved the process of linking the ruling kinship group with the local god or deified ancestor; see D. WEBSTER, “On Theocracies,” American Anthropologist 78 (1974) 812-28.

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Discussion following L.V. Watrous’ paper: M. Sugerman: The kind of acculturation that you imply with the adoption of these administrative techniques and technologies would also imply a rather in-depth level of contact and of communication. I wonder if you have anything to support that? L.V. Watrous: Well, the answer to your question is obviously “No.” On the other hand, if you’ve dealt with archaeological material — one of the most interesting things about archaeological material is you get the same object, you get three archeologists, you come up with three different interpretations based on that. And you have — when you begin looking at archaeological material you have to assume at some point what this means in terms of what’s missing. I tend to assume that what we see is basically the tip of the iceberg. Other people don’t believe that. J. Hruby: I’m wondering by what mechanism you see this level of transfer taking place? By what level? How does this happen? L.V. Watrous: It’s a very good question. Obviously — I mean we can ask this question also — how exactly do the Greeks learn their alphabet? And when you read, presumably shippers are going to the Near East and they’re learning economic relations. And my guess is that it’s probably in some sort of commercial context. You go to Egypt, of course a commercial contact is likely to mean a royal one because you’ll be dealing with administrative people that are connected to the king. [For an answer to this question, see the revised version of my paper, above.]