Η ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΤΑΡΡΥΘΜΙΣΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΣΥΣΤΗΜΑΤΟΣ
Η ΓΕΝΕΣΗ
ΤΗΣ ΤΡΙΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΚΤΟΡΙΚΗΣ ΠΕΡΙΟΔΟΥ ΣΤΟ ΑΙΓΑΙΟ
Του ΒΑΣΙΛΗ ΠΕΤΡΑΚΗ
Η Τρίτη Ανακτορική περίοδος (η
«Μυκηναϊκή») παρουσίασε πρωτοφανή διοικητικά στοιχεία: Γεωγραφική επέκταση και τυπολογική
ομοιομορφία. Το σύστημα λειτουργούσε με δύο εγγενώς συνδεδεμένους τρόπους:
- Ένας γραμματικός (ο οποίος
χρησιμοποίησε το σύστημα γραμμικής γραφής Β σε πηλό, noduli,
"ετικέτες", και διάφορες μορφές πινακιδίων/tablets), και
- Ένας αφαιρετικός τρόπος ή
paraliterate, ο οποίος υποδεικνύεται από μια σειρά τύπων πήλινων σφραγίδων.
Τα διοικητικά κέντρα της
Γραμμικής Α, η Αγία Τριάδα, τα Χανιά και ο Κάτω Ζάκρος. Η Κνωσός, τα Μάλια, και
η Βόρειο-κεντρική Κρήτη. Παράλληλα η χρήση των κρητικών ιερογλυφικών. «Παραδοσιακά»
σχετίζονται η «Γραμμική Α» και η «Κρητική Ιερογλυφική», που θα πρέπει να
θεωρούνται ισότιμες. Το «Room of the Chariot Tablets» («Αίθουσα των Δισκίων των Αμαξών") Γραμμικής
Β.
Το αρχαίο πινακίδιο KN Sc 230 από το Room of Chariot Tablets της Κνωσού τέλη 15ου - αρχές 14ου αι. π.Χ. |
Για περισσότερα:
A TALE OF SYSTEM REFORM:
THE GENESIS OF THE THIRD PALACE PERIOD AEGEAN
LITERATE ADMINISTRATIONS[1]
By VASSILIS PETRAKIS
Compared to earlier Aegean systems, Third Palace period (‘Mycenaean’)
administrative activity featured unprecedented contextual restriction,
geographical expansion, and typological uniformity. The underlying system
functioned in two intrinsically connected modes: a literate mode, which
employed the Linear B writing system on clay string-nodules, noduli, ‘labels’,
and various tablet formats, and an adliterate or paraliterate mode, which is indicated
by a range of clay sealing types (mostly string-nodules, direct-object
sealings, direct-object string-nodules or combination nodules, noduli, and,
exceptionally, flat-based nodules). Document types employed in each mode
consistently occur at the same sites, a pattern that should indicate the
system’s coherence and encourage attempts to examine together the origins and
development of its ‘components’.
Research into the origins of this system has often focused on direct
comparisons with its – generally supposed – LM IB ‘parents’, represented by the
Linear A administrative documents from Ayia Triada, Khania, and Kato Zakro.
This approach relied heavily on the assumption that these administrations were
‘typical’ of their era. This assumption has scarcely been questioned, although
comparisons between these LM IB and Third Palace period administrations have
revealed unbridgeable differences. There is evidence for an apparent ‘mass
extinction’ of significant document types after LM IB (e.g. single-hole hanging
nodules and roundels), while the ‘page-shaped’ multiple-entry tablet functioned
very differently within the Linear A and Linear B systems. This has indicated
that the ‘parenthood’ of the Third Palace period system should be sought beyond
our extant LM IB assemblages. E. Hallager suggested direct associations with
certain sealing types (e.g. combination nodules), otherwise used alongside the
‘Cretan Hieroglyphic’ script.
The analysis presented showed that elements and features ‘traditionally’
associated with either the ‘Linear A’ or the ‘Cretan Hieroglyphic’ scripts
should be seen as equally responsible for a number of features in both the
literate and paraliterate modes of the Third
Palace period system. Given that the coherence of the system discourages
the isolation of specific ‘components’ that would suggest a multiple ancestry,
Third Palace period bureaucracies seem somehow to have emerged out of a
synthesis of features hitherto classified into rigid and even mutually
exclusive categories (‘Linear A’ and ‘Cretan Hieroglyphic’). This situation may
invite us radically to reconsider certain basic assumptions – both definitory
and taxonomic – that have so far framed our study of Aegean scripts and administrations.
In order to explain the critical conditions of such a seemingly
‘composite’ formation, close attention was paid to evidence suggesting a
concurrence of document types commonly associated either with ‘Cretan
Hieroglyphic’ or ‘Linear A’ in north-central Cretan assemblages (Knossos
‘Hieroglyphic Deposit’; Malia ‘Dépôt Hiéroglyphique’). The concentration of
dubitanda (documents classifiable etically both as ‘Cretan Hieroglyphic’ or
‘Linear A’) in the Knossos ‘Deposit’ and the overall similarity of its
composition (especially as far as the typology of inscribed documents is
concerned) to that of the Malia ‘Dépôt’ encourage the possibility that we are
dealing with two attestations of a more general phenomenon, specifically
localized in north-central Crete during the mature Neopalatial period
(following the MM IIIB or MM IIIB/LM I dates of the Malia and Knossos
‘deposits’, the latter advocated by Pini). This situation can no longer be
considered as ‘exceptional’, ‘anomalous’, or even ‘symbiotic’, but rather as an
actual regional feature of north-central Cretan Neopalatial administrations.
This particular environment, where elements elsewhere more neatly
classifiable as ‘Cretan Hieroglyphic’ or ‘Linear A’ could have naturally
co-existed, may be the most likely matrix for the genesis of the Third Palace
period literate administrative system, which exactly displayed a ‘composition’
of such features. This would allow us to place positively and squarely the
genesis of the latter system in north-central Crete, with the mature
Neopalatial dates of the Knossos and Malia ‘deposits’ as termini post quos.
This conclusion would be compatible with the exclusive use of Linear B as the
pan-Aegean administrative script after LM IB (and the concurrent abrupt disuse
of earlier scripts), at a period when the only arguably functional literate
administrative Aegean centre is located precisely in north-central Crete: LM
II–IIIA1 Knossos (even if one disagrees with placing the ‘Room of the Chariot
Tablets’ Linear B deposit at this period) features all the familiar symptoms of
what we might call ‘(secondary) formative period anxiety’ or ‘early post-reform
stress’, with its exploding monumentality and experimentation.
16 Ιανουαρίου 2013.
ΠΗΓΗ: 130 BICS-57-1 - 2014
© 2014 Ινστιτούτο Κλασικών
Σπουδών Πανεπιστήμιο του Λονδίνου.
ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΗ:
[1] Work
presented in this seminar benefited from a Michael Ventris Memorial Award received
by the author in 2011.
ΛΕΞΕΙΣ-ΚΛΕΙΔΙΑ: ΚΡΗΤΗ, ΚΝΩΣΟΣ, ΓΡΑΜΜΙΚΗ ΓΡΑΦΗ Α, ΓΡΑΜΜΙΚΗ ΓΡΑΦΗ Β, Ανακτορικη περιοδος, Μυκηναικη, ετικετες, πινακιδια πηλινες σφραγιδες,
Αγια Τριαδα, Χανια, Κατω Ζακρος, Μαλια, κρητικα ιερογλυφικα, Κρητικη Ιερογλυφικη γραφη
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