Emerging authority: A functional Analysis of the MM II settlement in Phaistos

After the standard publication by D. Levi and F. Carinci (Levi 1978-1980; Levi-Carinci 1988), the MM settlement of Phaistos has been the focus of a systematic research by a team under the direction of V. La Rosa and with the collaboration of F. Carinci. The researches, which included also 5 years excavations (2000-2004) are still in progress, but the first results show clearly that it is no more possible to read the development of Phaistos on the base of a dichotomy between a prepalatial and a protopalatial phases divided by the rise of the palace. Instead, the settlement and the palace had, during MM I-II, a more complex history than previous thought before they reach their final appearance in MM II. The aim of our paper is twofold. After giving a brief summary of the results of current investigations (Speziale 1996, 2001; La Rosa ed. 2001; La Rosa 2002; La Rosa Carinci 2007-2008; Caloi 2007; Palio 2007) our paper will focus upon the major and better known phase of the “protopalatial” settlement, which can now be dated to a mature MM IIB period (the so called Fase Ib Levi). The distribution of architectural features and of different classes of finds (pottery, stone tools, textile related tools, stone vases, luxury objects, seals) within the settlement will be analysed in order to reconstruct patterns of use and consumption, and to distinguish, when possible, storage and working areas, public and domestic spaces. Already in a preliminary phase of study, it is possible to adfirm that architectural changes in the palace during MM II (Tomasello 2001), seem to be due to changes in the relations between palace and territory, following a progressive formalization of the leading role of the major building, partly under the influence of near eastern palatial models of lifestyle (controlling devices, iconographical motifs, luxury objects etc.). Conspicuous consumption probably during ritual actions seems also to be one of the main way of action inside the palace. At the same time, there seems to be no difference in the use and consumption of pottery and other goods between the palace and the surrounding “houses”, suggesting a strict connection between both and casting doubts about the roles traditionally attributed to them. This complex relationship can be perhaps explained as the result of a long history having its root in the communal origin of the palace (see e.g. observations made by M. Relaki). On the other hand, however, a pure evolutionary approach does not take into consideration the many elements pointing toward the existence, in MM II, of a true central authority (see e.g. tablets and sealings). Discontinuities must be admitted, in Foucaultian terms, and the data at our disposal seem to confirm that the one of the major gaps in the history of the settlement happened just during MM II with the probable emergence of one group at the expenses of the others. The detail of the process escape us, and possibly will be never recovered, but this belongs to the limits of the archaeological research.