WEALTH AND STATUS IN IRON AGE KNOSSOS

Antonis Kotsonas

55 citations0/0 files storedOxford Journal of Archaeology

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Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History Classical Antiquity Studies Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies

Abstract

Summary. Knossos Tekke tomb 2 is one of the richest tombs in the Iron Age Aegean, renowned for its deposits of gold. The tomb is widely attributed to a family of goldsmiths, who migrated to Knossos from the Near East. This article, however, questions this attribution. An alternative interpretation is pursued through surveys of the distribution of some luxury materials, amply represented in the Tekke tomb, in all known Knossian tombs. By setting the Tekke find against the large corpus of Knossian burial material, I identify the Tekke occupants as members of a local élite. This group is shown to have had privileged access to the products of a goldsmith's workshop, as well as to the sources of some lavish, mostly imported, raw materials, and to have regulated their distribution within Knossian society during the eighth century. The means through which the Tekke élite claimed and defended their wealth and status are assessed and their possible Late Bronze Age pedigree is conjectured.

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References

1986Introduction: commodities and the politics of value 1988The Social Life of Things 2000The archaeology of death and burial 1993Craft and the Kingly Ideal 1992Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art 1990Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State.1992The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World.1986Gift and Commodity in Archaic Greece

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