Documentary Evidence

Written records

Libation table from the Dictaean Cave, with Linear A inscription. Ashmolean Museum (inv. ae.1).
Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Archaeologists also, whenever possible, make use of written records. The nature of those records, and the problems in their interpretation, vary from epoch to epoch.

For the Bronze Age there are palatial records from various places in the Aegean and Near East. On Crete in the First Palace period Linear A was used both to dedicate objects, and for record-keeping.

Linear B tablets. Ashmolean Museum (inv. 1910.211, 212, 218, 1838.43).
Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

In the Second Palace period Linear B was used extensively for bureaucratic record-keeping, mainly lists of people and commodities such as wheat or chariot wheels!

Gortyn: view of law code inscribed on rear wall of Odeion (1982).
© Simon Price

In the Graeco-Roman epoch on Crete writing was used for a variety of public purposes: to record laws and public decrees; to dedicate objects and buildings; to commemorate individuals on their tombstones. For example, at Gortyn in the Classical period the community decided to inscribe the entire law code on the wall of a monument in the main square.

This text remained the official code of the city down to Roman times, when the monument was rebuilt as part of the rear wall of the city's council house. The law code gives very valuable information about the city's social organisation. Tombstones giving the name of the deceased can also be valuable: the pattern of names in two regions can show something of the pattern of contacts between those regions.

Marriage Settlement or Pasturage treaty between Skordyli and Valeriani, 1435.

Pasturage treaty between Skordyli and Valeriani (1435).
© Epetiris Etaireias Kritikon Spoudon.

In the Mediaeval-Modern epoch inscribed documents are less important, and instead we can make use of private documents (which existed in earlier epochs, but do not survive on Crete). For example, two families in the fifteenth century which had been engaged in a bitter and deadly feud over grazing rights in Sphakia decided in the end to come to terms, and cemented the new relationship with a marriage alliance between the two families. There survives a copy of the original document laying out the background and the terms of the marriage.

From this epoch we also have the writings of numerous western travellers who visited Crete. One of the most interesting of them is Robert Pashley, who toured round the island in 1834. His book is a splendid account of the monuments, history and social customs of the islanders. (See Unit 2 Session 1 Lesson 4 for a more in-depth look at Robert Pashley.)

Pause and Reflect 6

This tablet, now in the Ashmolean Museum, preserves parts of two lists of women working at Knossos.

A clay tablet inscribed with lines of ideograms, with some translation.
Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Linear B is the name of the script. Ap 639 designates this specific tablet. Now in the Ashmolean Museum, it preserves parts of two lists of women working at Knossos. Such lists are thought to be compiled in order to keep track of palace workers, and also to calculate the rations needed to feed them, and their dependent children. The words highlighted here come at the end of the first list.

The lists have a simple form: a name, the ideogram (sign) for WOMAN, and a number. There are also Xs, added after the unfired clay tablet had dried. These marks were presumably made as each woman or group of women was checked off by the palace official or scribe (who had only sometimes remembered to leave enough room for the Xs!).

The women are designated in various ways. Some are named individually, like Philagra in line 4. Others are named or grouped by their place of origin, like Phaistia in line 4, from Phaistos in south central Crete (near Kommos), or the 7 women from e-ra (line 5), located somewhere in central Crete. Some women have young children with them - ko-wa, Greek kore, girl; ko-wo, Greek kouros, boy - who were presumably too young to work. But one woman, *18-to-no in line 4, has a daughter identified only as tu (abbreviation for the Greek thugater, daughter), who was old enough to be counted as another adult woman.

The indented line 6 gives the total of the first list, 45 women with their children, 5 girls and 4 boys. The partially first list gives records for only 20-odd women plus 1 girl and 2 boys, so it is clear that quite a big piece is missing from the top of the tablet.

You might want to post your answer to the Discussion Forum to see how it compares with that of others in your group.

Documentary Evidence

Written records

Pause and Reflect 6

Further Reading