Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan (American School of Classical Studies at Athens)
After the Late Bronze Age settlement on the islet of Mochlos is abandoned in the middle of the 13th century B.C., there is no evidence of activity there until the early 7th century B.C. (The islet was then still connected to the shore by a narrow peninsula.) These nascent steps include acts of ancestral veneration in Late Minoan III tombs and in the abandoned houses of the Bronze Age settlement. The latter activity on the south side of the island is echoed by new occupation on the summit of the islet (Upper Mochlos) at about the same time or slightly later.
So far excavations in the area of Upper Mochlos have unearthed the remains of several structures, including one with a centrally-placed hearth and a bench, as well as considerable quantities of both local and foreign fine drinking vessels. The high vantage point of this 7th century B.C. settlement combined with such evidence for ritual drinking and feasting suggests that members of an exclusive group (perhaps a clan?) were congregating here for social occasions that involved developing claims of ancestral connections with the antiquity of the site. The new settlement was destroyed at the end of the 7th century, and, most importantly, its occupants did not return. Although Archaic Mochlos stands strangely isolated between two major, but geographically distant, Archaic sites in East Crete, namely Azoria and Praisos, its abandonment cannot be unrelated to similar developments in the neighboring Kavousi region and other contemporary, island-wide sites that thrived on clan-based politics. Its isolation is likely attributable to a paucity of intensive surveys and other excavations in the area.
The reoccupation of Upper Mochlos sometime in the second half of the 5th century B.C., after a hiatus of more than one hundred and fifty years, again probably reflects wider regional developments. Following Azoria’s destruction in the early 5th century, contacts between the coastal site of Priniatikos Pyrgos and off-island centers intensified, a trend that decreased in the middle of the century. This pattern has been interpreted as additional evidence for a “gap” in the history of Crete. The Mochlos excavations have, however, uncovered architectural remains and pottery assemblages that include Attic fine ware and transport amphoras from the Northern Aegean. This new evidence suggests that any gap, if it existed at all, did not last long, at least, not in East Crete.
The aim of this paper is to contribute new information to a wider discussion about the uniform (and still persistent) image of cultural isolation and decline that historian Ronald Willetts painted for the island for the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. Recent field work supports both patterns of homogeneity and heterogeneity in Archaic and Classical Crete. Excavations in summer of 2021 will flesh out the picture.