External Relations of Early Iron Age Crete, 1100-600 B.C.

• Author: Cline, Eric H.
• Position: Book Review

by DONALD W. JONES. Archaeological Institute of America, Monographs New Series, vol. 4. Philadelphia: THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM, 2000. Pp. x + 395, illus. $118.95. [Distributed by Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., Dubuque, Iowa.]

Donald W. Jones presents in this book a much-needed compilation and analysis of the imports into, and exports from, Iron Age Crete from the viewpoint of a variety of external areas, including mainland Greece, the Cyclades, the Near East and eastern Mediterranean, and the western Mediterranean. This publication continues a recent trend of cataloguing and analyzing such imports/exports to and from the Aegean by chronological period, an essential first step towards documenting the existence of foreign trade and contacts.

While Lambrou-Phillipson 1990, Phillips 1991, and Cline 1994 (see also now Cline 1999) dealt with international relations of the Aegean Bronze Age, only Skon-Jedele 1994 and Hoffman 1998 have recently treated those of the Iron Age Aegean. Skon-Jedele's magisterial work focused specifically on Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects in the Aegean, while Hoffman focused on Crete but was more interested in producing an analysis of immigrants and immigrant craftsmen than in compiling a comprehensive catalogue of imported objects. Thus Jones's new book fills an important gap and will become one of the mainstays in this subfield of Aegean archaeology, particularly for those interested in exploring Crete's contacts with the eastern and western Mediterranean during the Iron Age, whether or not such contacts are to be compared to the intense relations of the previous Late Bronze Age.

The opening two chapters are quite short. The first introduces the reader to the essential question: What is the physical evidence for foreign contacts and influences in Iron Age Crete? The second is a brief (three-page) overview of the objects found in the catalogues, tables, and appendices later in the book, accompanied by seven maps showing the various sites mentioned in the text.

Chapter three is concerned with how external influences were transmitted to Dark Age Greece--some seventy-odd pages contain discussions of ships, harbors, piracy, and travel. Chapter four represents the major textual analysis of the catalogued objects. Approximately ninety pages are filled with discussions and analyses of Crete's external relations during the Early Iron Age. An individual analysis of each of the Cretan sites which have imports is followed by a...