The Western Magazines and the West Façade of the Palace at Malia (Crete) during the Protopalatial Period

Devolder, Maud
(2016) Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Archaeology — Location: San Francisco (6.January.2016)

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  • Devolder, Maudorcid-logoUCLouvain
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Abstract
This paper presents unpublished results of a new architectural study of the Palace of Malia. It focusses on specific building techniques and materials which indicate the existence in the West Wing of a series of parallel rooms devoted to storage from the Protopalatial period onwards. These early Magazines are formed by walls constructed in layered rubble masonry, some of which survived the destruction of the building c. 1700 BC and were later incorporated in the Second Palace. This study moreover suggests that the Protopalatial façade of the West court is made of large blocks of sideropetra, the local grey-bluish limestone, erected on a leveling course of imported crystalline limestone. Such blocks were thoroughly reused in the Neopalatial complex in different forms (column bases, thresholds, lintels, and a kernos) and are now spread all over the building. The proposed restitution of the West Wing, including the façade of the West Court, indicates the quality in both layout and execution of the First Palace at Malia. In addition to its importance for the reconstruction of the architectural sequence of the palatial complex of Malia, this restitution has important consequences for the understanding of the socio-political background of the Protopalatial settlement. Indeed, it questions the primacy of agents outside the Palace in architectural innovation, an aspect which is explored by considering architectural developments at the scale of the whole site.
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Devolder, M. (2016). The Western Magazines and the West Façade of the Palace at Malia (Crete) during the Protopalatial Period. Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Archaeology, San Francisco. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/49646