WINE AND OLIVE OIL FROM AN EARLY MINOAN I HILLTOP FORT (original) (raw)
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Dais: The Aegean Feast, edited by L. Hitchcock, R. Laffineur, and J. Crowley, 125-131. Aegaeum 29, 2008
One of the new components of the 2004 and 2005 Greek American excavations of the Bronze Age town at Mochlos was the introduction of an intensive program to collect organic residue samples from pottery. With the help of Dr. Andrew Koh, then at the University of Pennsylvania, the excavators developed a plan to apply non-destructive collection techniques to more than 600 sherds from the Early, Middle, and Late Minoan levels of the town. The results have been interesting, including the discovery of an assemblage of LM I equipment from Building C.7 that appears to be connected with the production of perfumed oils. In connection with the conference topic of feasting, the authors will examine a larger number of Middle Minoan II and Late Minoan I samples for traces of wine. The paper will focus on two sets of data to test the potential limits of our analysis. In the first section we examine three archaeological contexts from Building C.7 that appear to be connected with the production, storage, and consumption of wine in the Bronze Age town. In the second section we examine the possibility of screening a large number of shapes (e.g., amphora, jars, jugs, cups and bowls) that might have served as storage, serving, or drinking vessels for wine, but whose contexts did not immediately suggest such a specific function. In the conclusion to the paper we discuss how this new evidence for the production, storage and consumption of wine fills in the emerging picture of both household and ceremonial dining within the Late Bronze Age town.
In the mid seventies J. Melena identified the Mycenaean word ki-ta-no as a phytonym he located in Hesychius’ dictionary. The dictionary’s entry κρίτανος offers the term τέρμινθος as a synonym, meaning the plant τερέβινθος (terebinth, turpentine tree, Pistacia terebinthus), a bush or tree that grows to this day across the Mediterranean. While this identification of the Mycenaean word ki-ta-no with the terms κρίτανος-τέρμινθος-τερέβινθος is widely accepted, however, the nature of the product deriving from that specific tree is still vague. Did the Minoans consume its seeds, gathered its resin or put it to some other use? Based on archaeological, archaeobotanical, ethnographical, philological and Linear B data I propose that the mycenaean term ki-ta-no signifies the tsikouda, the small globular grapes of Pistacia terebinthus (or tsikoudia in Greek), which is the source of a tasteful, strong and particularly aromatic oil. It is then possible that the 18 tons of seeds/tsikouda recorded on Knossian tablets Ga 1530+1531 and Ga 1532, a quantity produced by approximately 360 trees, would provide, with present-day data, 4,500 litres of tsikoudolado. If the hypothesis put forth above is valid, then apart from the identification of a mysterious, for decades, ki-ta-no, a new study field opens up regarding Minoan diet. The Minoans possibly did not consume only olive oil, which had become, amongst others, the basis element of the Aegean Bronze Age civilization, but also a vegetable, oily substance, the tsikoudolado.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2021
This paper examines agriculture, farming and dietary resources in east Crete, and re-evaluates the role of grape and olive in its prehistoric economy, these being key in debates on the emergence of social complexity. To do so bioarchaeological, paleoenvironmental and landscape survey data from the Bronze Age town at Palaikastro and its territory are combined. The results indicate a highly compartmentalised landscape, including intensive crop cultivation and extensive animal herding with careful monitoring to maintain productivity. A heightened specialisation in ovicaprine management at Palaikastro and east Crete seems to be delineated. Marine resources were regularly exploited from easily accessible coastal areas. Other activities included viticulture since the Early Minoan period, with the possible involvement of several houses in wine-making. A final important activity in the area was large-scale olive tree management since the Final Neolithic period and through to the Late Bronze Age, that seems to be entangled with ovicaprine herding and grazing. Thus, the demand for olive oil production does not seem to have been the driving force behind the intensification of the tree management, at least initially, but a corollary of its use in other aspects of the local economy.
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, 2017
The turn of the 12th c. B.C. traditionally has been cast as a period of turmoil and upheaval in the eastern Mediterranean. Although recent scholarship qualifies "The Collapse", the dominant narrative continues to be one of disruption, regression and isolation. East Crete has been painted with a similar brush, having been described as "the wild country east of Dikte." Yet the century that followed the final demise of Bronze Age Knossos remains generally understudied, despite scholarly recognition of the region's importance for the reconstruction of both local Cretan and pan-Mediterranean histories at the end of the Late Bronze Age. As a small contribution to this discourse, we present here an interdisciplinary analysis of a noteworthy Late Minoan IIIC Early (ca. 1175 B.C.) stirrup jar from the Western Siteia foothills of East Crete. Organic residue analysis utilizing gas chromatography has allowed us not only to indetify the value-added product within the jar, a perfumed oil, but also to consider its individual ingredients in light of known craft practices and agricultural activity from the earlier Neopalatial period. Our results reveal surprising evidence of specialized craft continuity in East Crete at the conclusion of the Bronze Age which suggests a historical picture more complex than traditionally imagined. This will be the first in a series of OpenARCHEM studies of legacy objects employing both traditional and scientific methods. (in press, Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry vol. 17.2 (2017)
2012
The archaeology of the grape has been studied quite thoroughly from the angle of the technology of wine-pressing, wine making installations and the archaeobotany of the grape plant, its origin and dispersion. The grape though is elusive archaeobotanically, even in to wine-producing areas, due to the fact that traded wine is often filtered and can only be detected by chemical analyses. Monastiraki in Crete, though, a Middle Bronze Age site, has provided us with information on the organization of grape-pressing, methods of wine-making and, perhaps, offers insights into the organization of wine and vine products, data which other Prehistoric sites in Crete had not revealed so far.