Cretan Austerity Revisited: A Pottery Perspective

The concept of austerity has been with us in studies of Archaic and Classical Crete in one form or another since the 1950s. Austerity has no real basis in the ancient literary depictions of Archaic Crete such as Aristotle’s account, nor does it figure in the rich epigraphic sources for Cretan political and social institutions. Instead, the concept emerged as archaeologists revealed enough about the 6th and 5th centuries BC to postulate a decline in artistic production in comparison to the Orientalizing renaissance of the 8th and 7th centuries. Archaeological studies since the 2000s have called into question much of the austerity premise, but not with pottery, where such a framework still has promise to develop a more nuanced understanding of Cretan social institutions.

This paper focuses on the Cretan pottery repertoire of the 6th and 5th centuries and formulates more precise definitions of austerity to shed light on andreion-style feasting events. The Cretan ceramic repertoire changes around 600 BC from a rich tradition of decoration and a variety of shapes in the 8th and 7th centuries to a lower level of plain monochrome pots without decoration, a change best expressed by a new cup form, termed a high-necked cup, a simple form devoid of decoration. The focus here will be on standardization as a measure of austerity. Every other shape associated with drinking and feasting is marginal and appears in very small quantities in restricted contexts. Standardization can be documented in a more systematic way with recent discoveries such as the refuse from feasts at Priniatikos Pyrgos and Profitis Ilias near Praisos that contained hundreds of cups. High-necked cups dominate these drinking and fine-ware inventories. Moreover, there is very little difference in the type from one Cretan producer to the next. Production is internally consistent across a very large island where we might have expected purely local or at most regional styles to emerge.

Network theory helps explain the Cretan changes in the ceramic repertoire and the broad consensus in the creation of a highly standardized cup type. It reveals a highly interconnected island, with local producers of the cup appearing at almost every point along the connecting lines, paths along which also flowed exported pottery from one Cretan producer to the next. This degree of information exchange and an interconnected grid suggest a “phase transition” model of mutual developments rather than a radial pattern from center to periphery. Furthermore, volumetric studies now provide a more objective measure of standardization for the high-necked cup form, and this paper will examine two assemblages of intact cups from a well at Knossos and a house at Aphrati, both central Cretan sites but separated by some distance and almost a century in time. In both deposits cups fell within a highly standardized range in size and volume, with an average volume of 900 ml. My explanation for this uniformity is that the new collective feasting venues of the 6th century resulted in new pottery types ensuring that participants would receive an equal portion of wine. A new standard was in place by around 500 BC, encompassed more than one Cretan polis, and remained stable over time. This homogeneity or leveling concept created a new tone as feasting practices expanded to include a large segment of the male population, one of the radical changes giving birth to the Cretan polis.