Between the Mountains and the Sea: Exploring Sissi on Crete
(2020) 120th annual meeting of the American Institute of Archaeology — Location: Washington (2.January.2020)
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- Authors
Driessen, Jan 
- et. al.
- Abstract
- The Kephali hill at Sissi is a coastal site, located 4 km east of the palatial settlement of Malia. Excavations and survey by the Belgian School at Athens since 2007 have brought to light a settlement and a cemetery within a very dynamic landscape. Strategically situated opposite the Selinari gorge—the only access to East Crete—the site was occupied from 2500 to 1200 B.C.E., mirroring that of nearby Malia. Because of a similar diachronic occupation, the site presents indeed an ideal case study to explore the relationships through time between a first-order center (Malia)—where a palace would be built from the Middle Bronze Age or thetwentieth century B.C.E. onward (if not earlier)—and a secondary site in its hinterland (Sissi). This provides an interesting test case to compare intraregional material culture—both where production and consumption are concerned—and opens interesting research avenues to explore various forms of (in)dependency through time and the implementation of emerging social and economic links. The papers in the session largely follow a chronological order with first papers on the Prepalatial settlement (Caloi) and cemetery (Schmitt and Déderix). Driessen and Devolder, respectively, concentrate on the function and architecture of the Neopalatial courtcentered complex at Sissi—confirmed by the 2015–2019 excavations—which has added unsuspected angles of research and interpretation to this comparative study. A paper by Sager, Girardi, and Schmitt follows, on the funerary evidence of the Neopalatial-Postpalatial phases. There are also three specialist reports: one on the painted plaster from the settlement (Pareja), one on the micromorphological samples that allow a more refined household analysis (Magno), and one on the consolidation and outreach program that we are implementing (Claeys). This colloquium will allow us not only to present synthetic papers on the various sectors revealed (cemetery, settlement, central building) on the site, their parallels and importance, but also to discuss to what degree the excavations have added, modified, or confirmed past ideas on Minoan civilization.
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Citations
Driessen, J., & et al. (2020). Between the Mountains and the Sea: Exploring Sissi on Crete. Archaeological Institute of America. Annual Meeting Abstracts, 43(1), 104-110. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/31262 (Original work published 2020)