Yasur-Lau Assaf. Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond
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332 louise a. hitchcock
Cult Room 49, which dated to Levels V–III; it included a massebah,
the remnants of an olive tree—possibly an asherah—in Level V only,
and two favissae (one from Level IV and one from Level III) (Aharoni
1975: 28–31, Fig. 8, Pl. 60).
9
Although we cannot recover such a good
context for ritual objects in domestic Cretan sites, the analogy of the
cult corner or small town shrine provides us with a means of account-
ing for the presence of such objects that ts with what we know of the
social practices and subsistence strategies of the region.
Gournia, Cult Corner in Western Court
Gournia is the site of a small palace of the second palace period (ca.
1700–1490/1450 bce) embedded in the center of a Minoan town in
northeastern Crete, on the bay of Mirabello (Preziosi and Hitchcock
1999: 104). e palace consists of a series of terraces with storage rooms
on a lower terrace to the west and nicer reception halls on an upper
terrace to the east. ese rooms are situated wholly on the northern
side of the small “central” court. As the central courts of other pal-
aces are completely surrounded by the wings of the palace, the central
court at Gournia seems more connected to the civic life of the town
(cf. Preziosi 1983: 78–83; Soles 1991). Access to the palace is gained by
following a paved roadway that runs along the western façade, which
conceals the storage magazines. As one approaches the entry ramp,
which leads to the northwestern corner of the central court and the
entrance to the palace on the northern side of the court, there is a
widening of the roadway that forms a very small or abbreviated west-
ern court, measuring just approximately 5 m × 15 m (Preziosi 1983:
80; Soles 1991: 35). It is irregular in shape, consisting of two squarish
recesses extending eastward and forming corners that are passed prior
to ascending the entry ramp to the central court.
e rst of these recesses, measuring about 3 m × 2.5 m, contains the
clearest architectural example of a baetyl, the Aegean version of a stand-
ing stone or massebah, in Minoan Crete (cf. Soles 1991: 49–52) (Fig. 2).
than the shrine at Tel Rehov and bear a closer resemblance to Post-Palatial (ca. 1190–
1000 or LMIIIC) town shrines.
9
Cult Room 49 was a small, benched room from Level V measuring 2.3 m × 3.3 m
and containing a rich assemblage of cult vessels (incense burners, chalices, lamps, jugs,
and a cooking pot) and a limestone altar; it may have been part of a larger structure
(Aharoni 1975: 27–29, Figs. 5–7, Pl. 6.2).
cult corners in the aegean and the levant 333
It is composed of a slightly curved slab of local conglomerate (ca. width
1 m × height 1 m). A cupule, which was pounded into a stone pave-
ment slab associated with the baetyl, has been interpreted as a place to
deposit oerings to the baetyl (Hood 2000: esp. 608–609). e cupule
would have resembled and hence referenced mortars used for grind-
ing grain, a commodity that may have been stored within the walls
of the palace in the storage rooms behind the baetyl. A baetyl may be
distinguished by its size and weight (cf. Karageorghis 1992: 212), by
being modied, situated in a prominent position, or by unusual color
or composition (Warren 1990: 202–203, 205, n. 63). Other than its size
and placement, there is nothing remarkable about the conglomerate
slab at Gournia until one considers the fact that upright slabs of living
rock occur in the surroundings of peak sanctuaries, as is particularly
notable around the sanctuary at Mount Trostalos in east Crete. is
may illustrate one more example of a Minoan palace bringing a fea-
ture of the landscape within the purview of a palace complex. Baetyl
hugging was depicted on some Minoan sealings (cf. Warren 1990) and
this activity has been associated with the potential inducement of an
altered state of consciousness (McGowan 2006) that may have taken
place at peak sanctuary sites and at Gournia. For individuals proceed-
ing through the western court to the palace, the baetyl served as a
Figure 2. Minoan palace at Gournia, Crete; west court/cult corner, baetyl;
view from south, ca. 1700–1490/50 bce (photograph by author).
334 louise a. hitchcock
visual cue referencing a deity, who sanctioned the authority of the
local political structure as embodied by the palace (Hitchcock 2007).
is constellation of features renders the western court at Gournia
distinct from those of the other palaces, and the small size of the asso-
ciated recess lends the location of the baetyl and its oering cupule the
appearance of a cult corner. In addition, its contextual relationship to
the building is not unlike the association of masseboth with gates as
mentioned above for Bethsaida and Tel Dan.
Kato Zakro, Palace, Small Dedicated Room
e second palace (ca. 1700–1490/1450 bce or MMIII/LMIA–LMIB)
at Kato Zakro on the eastern coast of Crete is organized around a
central court roughly 25% of the size of the larger palaces at Knossos,
Mallia, and Phaistos (Preziosi and Hitchcock 1999: 107). Its location,
unique water features, Linear A archive, processional road leading to
the harbor, and imports including copper ingots and elephant ivory
indicate its importance and have led archaeologists to assume that it
was built to facilitate trade with the Near East (Hitchcock 2000: 87–88;
94–97; Wiener 1987: 265). Another space that has attracted only mild
interest among Aegean scholars is a small, rectangular room, room
23, measuring 2.8 m × 2 m and appointed with two benches, a plaster
oor, and a drain. is entire constellation of features is interpreted by
Gesell (1985: 137) as a bench sanctuary and by Marinatos (1993: 101)
as a food preparation room for the dining hall located in the northern
wing of the palace. It is situated in the central part of the western wing,
between the small sunken room or lustral chamber, and archive room,
and in close proximity to the main gathering hall and storage area.
e nds, which include two piriform rhyta, two bronze plates with
lily design for a box, a grindstone, and cups decorated with double
axes (Platon 1985: 125), do not make a compelling case for a ritual
space. e small size of the room and distance from the dining hall
does not make a compelling case for a food preparation area either.
Barshinger (1988: 104) also accepted that room 23 was a bench sanc-
tuary based on its spatial centrality and proximity to the lustral basin,
while Hitchcock (2000: 54) observed that in terms of its form and size,
it could just as easily serve as a cupboard or a preparation area as the
nature of the nds do not suggest a shrine. e presence of plastered
surfaces, benches, a drain, and libation vessels in the form of rhyta are
cult corners in the aegean and the levant 335
characteristics of a cult corner as dened above, and reconsidering it
as a cult corner gives greater clarity to the arguments of Gesell and
Barshinger.
Mallia, Palace, Small Dedicated Publicly Accessible Cult Room
Like the rst palace at Phaistos, the second palace at Mallia (ca.
1700–1490/1450 bce or MMIII/LMIA–LMIB) also contained a set of
interconnected rooms that only communicated with the exterior of
the palace (Chapouthier et al. 1962: 9–11; Pelon et al. 1980: 213–218).
ese eight rooms (XVIII.1–8) are located at the southern end of
the western wing of the palace between the eight conical granaries
situated at the end of a processional way on the western court and
the main southern entrance. It is likely that most visitors would pass
by these architectural features upon entering the broad entry corri-
dor leading into the palace on the south. Cult equipment was pre-
dominantly found in XVIII.1, the rst room one would enter from
the exterior. is room was small, measuring approximately 3.88 m ×
3.48 m (Pelon et al. 1980: 214). e nds from room XVIII.1 included
a portable altar, tripod tables, vases, shells, lamps, and terracotta feet.
e altar, which was placed against the western wall, had a cross and a
star incised on it, symbols also engraved on one of the pillars support-
ing the domed granaries (Marinatos 1993: 101). Tubular vases were
placed around the altar and tripod-shaped oering tables were placed
indirectly in front of it, while the feet were lying close to the doorway
leading into XVIII.3 (Chapouthier et al. 1962: 9, Fig. 1). e close
relationship between this set of rooms, the granaries, and the southern
entrance suggests the possibility of related activities being carried out
in relationship to all of these features: for example, tithing or receiving
a ration of grain, engaging in ritual activity in Quartier XVIII, then
processing into the palace. Room XVIII.4, which was directly behind
room XVIII.3, contained a large number of vases and may have served
as a cupboard for activities carried out in the cult room, including the
distribution of special types of food or drink (cf. Hamilakis 1999).
10
Room XVIII.1 clearly ts the criteria of a cult corner, which, in this
10
Driessen and MacDonald (1997: 184) believe that the placement of the objects
indicates that a ritual was being carried out close to the time of the nal destruction
at Mallia.
336 louise a. hitchcock
case, is embedded in the palace but accessible only from the exterior
of the palace. Like the corner in the early palace at Phaistos, it had
features associated with the sea and with libation rituals.
Phaistos, Palace, Cult Corner in Court
In the northwestern corner of the central court in the second palace
at Phaistos are a total of four rectangular ashlar blocks arranged two
courses high, side by side and slightly recessed, to form a two-stepped
platform (Fig. 3). Further toward the center of the northern end of the
court, two niches ank a central entry corridor, corridor 41, that have
been traditionally interpreted as “sentry boxes” (Graham 1961: 170;
1970: 234, n. 31, Ill. 1; 1987: Fig. 50). ey were decorated with diago-
nal bands of linked rhomboids that cross in the middle and match the
decoration in a similar niche opening o corridor 41, forming a criss-
cross design (Evans 1921: 373, Fig. 271; Graham 1957: 258; 1970: 234).
11
ese two sets of features have been conated in some of the archaeo-
logical literature based on the imagery on a Minoan seal “said to be”
from Priene (Evans 1921: 377, n. 1) that depicts a bull either drinking
from a stone tank or looking into a box with a lattice-work pattern that
forms a border and a crisscrossed diagonal design on the tank. As a bull
drinks from the tank, a leaper is hurtling down upon the bull from an
unseen vantage. e depiction of the tank resembles the stepped plat-
form, while the crisscross designs on the seal replicate the crisscross
designs on the nearby niches.
Graham (1957: 260; also ompson 1986: 8) interprets the “tank” or
“box” on the seal as a platform and associates it with the stepped stone
platform in the northwestern corner of the court at Phaistos. Younger
(1995: 512–513) rejects this proposal based on the fact that the bull
is clearly looking into the tank/box and on the fact that the platform
in the northwestern corner of the central court was not only solid on
top, but had a terracotta tray with xed vessels attached to it as well
as fragmentary animal gurines, which were found on top of it when
11
Contrast Hitchcock (2000: 107–108), who has argued that the two niches ank-
ing the central corridor, corridor 41, form an arrangement known as a “tripartite
shrine” based on Shaw’s (1978: 438) observation that the niches at Phaistos are for-
mally similar to the balancing niches anking a central niche, as depicted on a vessel
known as the Peak Sanctuary Rhyton.
cult corners in the aegean and the levant 337
it was excavated. e corner location of the stepped ashlar-platform
and the nature of the nds including a tray and cult paraphernalia
found on top of it may better argue for the feature being a part of
the court reserved for use as a cult corner. is assessment is based
on criteria listed in the introduction, including the decorated drink-
ing vessels, corner location, and platform. In a Levantine context, it is
highly likely that the stepped platform would be interpreted as a high
place. Although the assemblage is dierent, the general arrangement is
reminiscent of Megiddo 2081.
Figure 3. Second Minoan palace at Phaistos, Crete; central court; detail of
platform in northwest corner, view from south, ca. 1700–1490/50 bce (pho-
tograph by author).
338 louise a. hitchcock
Mycenae, Gate, Cult Niche
e fortication of the acropolis at Mycenae began around 1340
bce and consisted of three construction phases, which progressively
increased the extent of the area under protection. e construction
of the famous “Lion Gate” belongs to the second phase of fortica-
tion when the citadel was nearly doubled in size some ninety years
later, around 1250 bce. At this time, a monumental passageway lead-
ing up to the citadel and known as the Great Ramp was constructed
over the broken slabs of the newly refurbished Grave Circle A and
an earlier ramp of hard-packed earth and pebbles. As discussion of
the Lion Gate tends to focus on its construction details, iconography,
and strategic purpose, a feature that has received only minor atten-
tion is the so-called guardhouse or gatekeeper’s lodge. is feature is
a small, raised chamber built into the wall and naturally sloping rock
within the Lion Gate on its eastern side. It is really more of a niche
than a room, measuring just 1.85 m (length) × 1.3 m (width) × 1.50 m
(height) (Iakovides 1983: 31), and it is smaller than the smallest such
room on the mainland at Gla, which measures just 2.4 m × 3 m.
12
Charitonides (1960: 1–3) suggested that it was a gate shrine dedicated
to the deity who protected the citadel in analogy with other proposed
shrines at Tiryns, Troy, and later classical sites, a purpose favored by
Iakovides (1983: 31) with little additional comment. While assigning
this space to a particular deity is dicult, a small space with little func-
tional purpose situated inside of a gate clearly ts a broader pattern
of locating cultic spaces in transitional areas as noted above. More
recently, large deposits of cultic material were found in and around
the “guardroom” of the West Gate at the Mycenaean citadel at Midea,
also in the Argolid. is material included ritual vessels, symbolic
items such as representations of gure-of-eight shields and seals, and
191 gurines including humans (both male and female) and animals,
which were complete and fragmentary, wheel made and abstract, and
included chariot groups (as detailed in Demakopoulou and Divari-
Valakou 2000). us, it becomes attractive to associate the idea of the
cult corner also with Mycenaean citadels and with the “guardhouse”
at Mycenae, despite the lack of nds.
12
In addition, the guardrooms at Gla were situated to the right of anyone entering, in
contrast to the niche at Mycenae, which was situated on the le (cf. Hood 1957: 12).
cult corners in the aegean and the levant 339
Cyprus
Kalavassos-Ayios Dhimitrieos, Small Dedicated Cult Room with
Libation Stone
Building X is a nely built, court-centered administrative structure
13
at the site of Kalavassos-Ayios Dhimitrios in southern-central Cyprus
(Preziosi and Hitchcock 1999: 204). Although it can be regarded as
monumental, at ca. 30.5 m × 30.5 m (South 1988: 223), it is relatively
small by Aegean standards. Building X dates to Late Cypriot (LC) IIC
(thirteenth century bce) and is composed of three wings organized
around a small, squarish central court. It is also known as the “Ash-
lar Building,” based on its striking and lavish use of ashlar masonry,
which is especially noticeable in the halls devoted to the storage of
gigantic pithoi on the west and northwest. e masonry was made
of dark calcareous “Tochni” sandstone (South 1991: 134; 1992: 133)
and is characterized by nely worked ashlar plinths with draed mar-
gins, rusticated central panels, and decorative bosses on the inside
and out, and topped by ashlar orthostats, also with raised central pan-
els and bosses. e main entrance is on the south, and next to it, on
the west, are the remnants of a staircase to the upper story (cf. South
1984: 21). e court would have been partially roofed by a portico
supported by two enormous pillar bases. e central court is set o
from the surrounding rooms by corridors that ank either side of it.
A second, subsidiary entrance on the northwest provided direct access
to the enormous pithos hall, which is supported by a central row of
monolithic ashlar pillars and forms the western wing of the building
(Hitchcock 1999). e entire arrangement indicates careful planning
on the part of the architect and the employment of a skilled team of
builders and masons.
Room A.162 is a small square room with a plaster oor measuring
ca. 5 m × 5 m at the far northeastern end of Building X. It consists
of a U-shaped space surrounding a smaller square room measuring
ca. 2.5 m × 2.5 m and accessed by an opening in the southeastern
13
e term “court-centered building” was proposed by J. W. Shaw and M. C. Shaw
(1993: 186, n. 152) to refer to a noncanonical Minoan building with a central court,
and it has since been adopted by others. is term, as well as the terms “central
administrative structure” or “ashlar building,” reects my preferences in discussing
monumental buildings on Cyprus.
340 louise a. hitchcock
corner by the long north–south corridor running along the eastern
wing. A large pit was cut through the plaster oor in the opening in
the southeastern corner of the squarish room, which extends to the
southern wall (S.251) of A.162 (South 1983: 100). A large at, rectan-
gular slab of stone (ca. 1.46 m × 1.13 m × 0.2 m), pierced in the center
by a square hole, covered the large pit (South 1983: 100; Russell 1986:
27–28). e covering block ts Webb’s (1977: esp. 124) description
of altar blocks used for pouring libations. e pit itself is gure-of-
eight shaped and is ca. 2 m wide and over 2 m deep, but narrows to
a smaller pit with the same shape. e shape of the pit is quite dis-
tinctive and calls to mind the shape of Aegean gure-of-eight-shaped
shields. e gure-of-eight shield was a cult emblem in the Aegean (cf.
Rehak 1984) that was represented elsewhere on Cyprus as gold jewelry
(Papadopoulos 1997: 179). e pit contained two clay cylinders with
Cypro-Minoan inscriptions, a stamp seal engraved with the gure of a
bull, some nondiagnostic LB pottery, and over 1 kg of caprid leg bones
indicating feasting (Russell 1986: 28; Hitchcock et al. 2008). Russell
(1986: 28) suggests that this unusual assemblage had a special signi-
cance. It is tempting to speculate that the deposit of objects commem-
orated an alteration to the building, or some other special event, while
the pierced block indicates ongoing libation ceremonies. e small size
of the room, special deposit of oerings, and possible ongoing use of
the pierced block for libations suggest that this room functioned as a
cult corner for Building X.
Myrtou Pighades, Modied, Small Cult Room
e East Building at Myrtou-Pighades (Taylor 1957: 5 Fig. 3, 11, Fig. 7;
Webb 1999: 45, Fig. 15) is another small, but monumental, court-cen-
tered building, which is comparable to similar small court-centered
buildings on Cyprus that employ ashlar masonry and include house
storage and/or industrial areas such as Building X at Kalavassos-Ayios
Dhimitrios (Hitchcock 2008). It is dated to the LCIIB–C transition
and to LCIIC (ca. thirteenth century bce) (Taylor 1957: 114; Webb
1999: 48). e main features of the East Building include a central
court, oriented north–south, which is anked by lateral circulatory
corridors and a series of side chambers. It measures 16 m east/west ×
20 m north/south (Webb 1999: 48), although the southern extent is
not clearly dened. Webb (1999: 48) documented a second architec-
tural phase, which resulted in reducing the size of the court to create
cult corners in the aegean and the levant 341
additional rooms on the north and the south. e western façade of
the East Building formed the eastern boundary of the public west-
ern court. is façade was distinguished by a bench running along it
with a series of pierced stones placed above it that may have served as
“tethering blocks” for sacricial animals (Taylor 1957: 12; Webb 1999:
44). e focal point of the western court is the reconstructed colossal
stepped altar topped by horns of consecration (Taylor 1957: 13–16;
Ionas 1985) surrounded by small square stones containing sockets for
the display of cult emblems.
A contiguous series of rooms (15–17, 20a–b) containing an assort-
ment of ritual paraphernalia and oerings occupy the eastern wing of
the East Building. eir substantial walls further indicate the impor-
tance of the building (Taylor 1957: Pl. 4c). A bench was added to the
central room, room 16, during Period VI; benches are typical features
of Aegean shrines and cult rooms and Levantine cult corners. e nds
associated with these rooms and the corridor indicate ritual practices
connected with metallurgy and bovines.
14
Notable among them were
an intertwined group of bronze stands and tripods, an oering stand, a
Mycenaean conical rhyton, and a clay stamp seal (room 15); a bronze
shovel covered with lumps of copper and slag, an inscribed plain white
jug, an oering stand, and the notched shoulder blade of an ox (room
16); lumps of slag and two more shoulder blades of oxen (room 17);
and another shoulder blade of an ox (room 20a) (Taylor 1957: 20–21;
Zeuner 1957: 97–102; Webb 1985, 1999: 48–50). In the corridor out-
side rooms 16 and 17 was more slag, long bones, and pottery (Taylor
1957: 20–21; Zeuner 1957: 99–100; Steel 2004: 176–177). Cypriot and/
or Mycenaean vessels were found in all of these areas. e small size
and lack of accessibility to these rooms may indicate ritual practices
and feasting of a private and restricted nature, the curation of feasting
remains, and ritual activity linked to metallurgy. e ritual activity
linked to metallurgy in relationship to rooms 16 and 17 may indicate
that they were industrial cult corners (cf. Gilmour 1995: 216). Koehl
(2006: 310) interprets rhyta associated with metallurgical remains in
the Minoan Unexplored Mansion at Knossos as being connected with
the possible performance of magic related to metalworking, which
reinforces this suggestion.
14
On the relationship between ritual and metallurgy in general, see Knapp (1986)
and Blakely (2006).