Rising and Setting Stars: Dynamic Elites
in Pre-and Proto-Palatial South-Central Crete

Joanne M. Murphy (University of Akron)

This study combines current mortuary and social theories with a detailed examination of the differences among the tombs and communities in the Mesara region of Crete to reveal the dynamic choices of individual communities in the use of similar burial forms. The orthodox interpretation of the social history of Pre- and Proto-Palatial South-Central Crete is that one elite group rose to power in each of the small-scale communities during approximately EM II, and then maintained and increased that power throughout the period. It is also generally assumed that each of the communities had the same trajectory of social development being successively egalitarian, big-men, and chiefdom.

This study examines the founding dates of the tombs and settlements and shows that the communities did not display the same pattern of organizational change; some with long-term occupation never ceased to be egalitarian societies, while others had a delineated hierarchy from their foundations. The overarching similarities from site to site of the locational relationship between the tombs and the settlements, the architecture of the tombs, and the classes of artifacts placed in the tombs reveal conscious and widespread aims to conceal social power struggles and changes among the elites. The subtle, but real, variations in each aspect of the mortuary system demonstrate that the uniformity was not absolute, and allow us to access some of the nuances and changing roles in the competing social groups.