EGYPT AND CRETE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE BRONZE AGE: A CASE OF TRADE AND CULTURAL DIFFUSION*

Helene Kantor, whose work we are commemorating at this conference, was a member ofthe generation of scholars, which included Saul Weinberg, Edith Porada and John Pendlebury,who were confident about the close cultural interrelations of the Eastern Mediterranean.Today, in this postmodern era, our discipline is deeply divided on the issue of contacts andcultural diffusion between the East and the West. On one side of this controversy is theprocessualist school spawned by Binford and Renfrew, which scarcely recognizes any signs ofsignificant cultural exchange between the Aegean and the Near East. At the other end of thespectrum are those who believe in the writings of Cyrus Gordon and Martin Bernal. Each sidepursues its own agenda and arrives at its preconceived conclusions.

In contrast, my contribution to this large subject is to present a paper which is strictlyempirically based, and uses some of the perspectives a systemic view of culture, internalcompetition as a force for social change, and the idea of material culture as an active agent inits own right of the processualists and their successors.1 My focus is the period of theEleventh - Twelfth Dynasties in Egypt, Middle Bronze I - IIA at Byblos and Middle Minoan IA- II on Crete, dating roughly from 2100 - 1750 BC. Most studies of Bronze Age trade in theMediterranean present evidence of external contact between cultures, but do not go on toexamine the internal effects of these contacts on the societies involved. Therefore this papercompares the intensity of Egyptian trade with Byblos, which is relatively well documented, withtrade between Egypt and Crete so that we might be able to better understand how Egyptiantrade effected the different institutions (viz. official religion, funerary practice, palatialadministration) of Minoan culture during the MM I - II period.

Egyptian Artifacts at Byblos

Egyptian contacts with Byblos begin during the Old Kingdom.2 After the Sixth Dynasty,the history of Byblos is interrupted, but in the Eleventh Dynasty Egyptian inscriptions provideevidence that Egypt was once again trading with Byblos. Beginning with the XII Dynasty, theEgyptian pharaohs regularly sent expeditions to Byblos to procure local cedar wood, as well asgoods, such as silver, lapis lazuli and other materials, originating from other areas of the NearEast. Ebla was one of these more distant sources, as the Egyptian stone vases found at Ebla,now on display in the Idlib Museum, indicate. The Tod treasure from Egypt, with its mixtureof silver and gold vases and ingots and lapis lazuli amulets, illustrates the kind of wealth thatwas pouring into Egypt via the Levant at this time. At Byblos, in return for these types ofproducts, the Egyptians presented gifts to the gods in their temples and to the royal family.

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* It is a pleasure to have read this paper at a session chaired by my former teacher, James Muhly, whosesupport and scholarly advice (including the suggestion of the topic of my Ph.D. thesis) have been helpful tome over the years. I would also like to acknowledge the aid of Jim Weinstein who supplied me withbibliography, and Harriet Blitzer who edited the manuscript. This article is a developed version of myoriginal paper, in which I have tried to take into account some of the issues raised in subsequent discussionsat the conference.

1 For a basic presentation of cultural systemics in the Aegean, see C. RENFREW, The Emergence of Civilization(1972) 3-44, 489-504. For social competition, E. BRUMFIELD and J. FOX (eds.), Factional Competition andPolitical Development in the New World (1994) and T. EARLE (ed.), Chiefdoms: Power, Economy, and Ideology(1991). For artifacts as active agents in culture, see I. HODDER, Symbols in Action (1982).

2 P. MONTET, Byblos et Lgypte I-II (1929); M. DUNAND, Fouilles de Byblos I-II (1939); D.B. REDFORD, Egypt,Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times (1992).

These royal gifts appear in the dedications made within the temple precinct at Byblosbeginning as early as the Old Kingdom and become numerous during the XII Dynasty. Theearliest of the so-called Royal Tombs at Byblos, Tombs I and II, contained royal gifts, such theobsidian vase with the name of Amenemhat III and an obsidian box bearing the name ofAmenemhat IV.3 At this time Byblite princes used Egyptian functionary titles and the royalcartouche to refer to themselves, while in Egypt, the goddess Hathor was given the epithetLady of Byblos.

Deposits of votives from the area of the temples at Byblos exhibit a strongly Egyptianf lavor. The famous Montet Jar from Byblos was filled with Egyptianizing objects and motifs,such as jewellery, seals, amulets and votives as well as representations of an ibis, apes, baboons,the uraeus and the Horus child.4 Other groups of votives at Byblos included Egyptian-typestone vases, private Egyptian statuettes, objects, figurines, and amulets depicting the lotus,Osiris column, scarab, bull, lion, hippo and the royal crown of Lower Egypt which wereassociated with Egyptian deities and the Pharaoh.5 This elite Egyptian(izing) materialcontrasts with the contents of local private tombs which contain little or no such items.6 Thepresence of many of these Egyptian motifs and titles at Byblos underlines the local nobilitysuse of the powerful Egyptian status and their assimilation of Egyptian ideology for their ownpolitical enhancement.

Contacts between Crete and the Near East

How did the Minoans come in contact with Egyptian culture and what was the nature ofthis contact? Secure archaeological evidence of Minoan trade eastward first appears in MBI/MM I-II, in the form of Kamares ware vases found in Cyprus, at Ugarit, at Byblos and inEgypt.7 Given what we have learned about ancient trade, I would assume that these vases arefor the most part secondary items in an exchange that consisted of more valuable products.8Near Eastern documents from Mari, for example, mention Cretan weapons and clothing aswell as tin to be sent to Cretans at Ugarit.9 Because Crete was poor in raw materials andunderdeveloped relative to the Near East, it seems likely that it was Minoan mariners whofirst set sail for Levantine and Egyptian ports in search of silver, copper, tin, ivory and preciousstones, in return for which they brought timber, and finished goods such as textiles, metalvases, weapons and decorated pottery.______________________

3 MONTET (supra n. 2) 155-59.4 MONTET (supra n. 2) 111-25 and pls. 61-64, 68; O. TUFNELL and W.A. WARD, Relations between Byblos,

Egypt, and Mesopotamia at the end of the Third Millennium B.C., Syria 43 (1966) 165-241; P.GERSTENBLITH, The Levant at the Beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (1983) 38-41; C. LILYQUIST,Granulation and Glass: Chronological and Stylistic Investigations at Selected Sites, ca. 2500-1400 B.C.,BASOR 290/1 (1993) 29-94.

5 MONTET (supra n. 2) 61-109 and pls. 42, 44, 45, 47, 54; DUNAND, Byblos I (supra n. 2) pls. 40, 73 and 130.For the divine symbolism of the these motifs, see R. WILKINSON, Reading Egyptian Art (1992).

6 A summary of MB I-II tomb contents appears in GERSTENBLITH (supra n. 4) 39, 42-44. The fullestevidence comes from the tombeaux des particulars at Byblos excavated by MONTET (supra n. 2) andseveral tombs from the area of Beirut and Sidon. See especially P. GUIGES, Lebea, Kafer-Garra, Qraye.Necropoles de la region sidonienne, BMB 1 (1937) 35-76; Idem, BMB 2 (1938) 27-72.

7 Cyprus: J. STEWART, The Tomb of the Seafarer at Karmi in Cyprus, OpAth 4 (1962) 196-204; G.CADOGAN, Early Minoan and Middle Minoan Chronology, AJA 87 (1983) 514. CADOGAN also listsabout a half dozen Middle Minoan vases from Byblos. See DUNAND, Byblos I (supra n. 2) pl. 177. Beirut:a MM II cup illustrated in P. WARREN and V. HANKEY, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (1989) pl. 12a. Egypt:B.J. KEMP and R.S. MERRILLEES, Minoan Pottery in Second Millennium Egypt (1980).

8 The single most important contribution to our knowledge of this subject is G.F. Bass discovery andpublication of the shipwrecks at Gelidonya and Kas: G.F. BASS, Cape Gelidonya (1967); Idem, A Bronze AgeShipwreck at Ulu Burun (Kas): 1984 Campaign, AJA 90 (1986) 269-96; G.F. BASS et al., The Bronze AgeShipwreck at Ulu Burun: 1986 Campaign, AJA 93 (1989) 1-29. For the role of pottery in Aegean trade, seeL.V. WATROUS, Kommos III. The Late Bronze Age Pottery (1992) 169-70.

9 For an excellent discussion of Minoan overseas trade, see M.H. WEINER, The Nature and Control ofMinoan Foreign Trade, in Bronze Age Trade, 327-34.

20 L. Vance WATROUS

I do not know what exact routes the Cretans followed to get to Byblos and Egypt. It isprobable that Minoan vases from Northern Cyprus are the sign of a route between Crete andSyro-Cilicia. The document at Mari, cited above, mentions Cretans at Ugarit. In the Levant,Minoans saw elegant metal vessels of Near Eastern workmanship which they subsequentlyimitated in clay.10 It is also clear that the Cretans came into contact with some forms ofEgyptian culture indirectly, via the Levant. Minoan seals with Egyptianizing designs, forexample, at times resemble Levantine models more closely than Egyptian examples.11

Although I cannot prove it, I think that given the prevailing NW winds in the EasternMediterranean and northward currents along the Levantine coast, the Minoans probably alsosailed directly south and east, toward North Africa and the Nile Delta.12 Based on finds fromQuartier Mu at Mallia, Poursat has also argued for some degree of direct Cretan knowledgeof Egypt.13 Other forms of Cretan material culture acquired from Egypt, such as MM I - IIclay coffins, are likely the result of direct contact since these forms do not appear in the MB I- IIA Levant.14 From Egypt, Cretan ships may have followed the conventionalcounterclockwise trade route home, or waited for southerly winds for a more direct route tothe Aegean.

Egyptian Objects Found on Crete

Like the Levant, Crete experiences a series of settlement destructions andabandonments toward the end of the third millennium BC and there is very little evidence ofCretan foreign trade during this phase.15 The date, duration and nature of this transitionalphase, which probably includes the EM III and early MM IA periods, is not well defined.

Nevertheless, beginning at some point in the MM IA period, perhaps as early as ca. 2050BC, signs of Cretan involvement in overseas trade become obvious.16 Middle Minoan IApottery is known at Lerna, in Cyprus and probably on Samos. Cretan metalwork, namelydaggers and jewellery, exhibit new details in their shape and technique that have parallels inCilicia, Ugarit and Byblos. Thus, the chronological development of Minoan overseas contactsseems to follow the same pattern as that of the Near East: disruptions toward the end of thethird millennium, followed by consolidation and revived foreign contacts at the beginning ofthe second millennium BC.

It is during the Middle Minoan I-II period that signs of Cretan contact with Egypt, in theform of Egyptian imports and Egyptianizing objects, begin to appear in large numbers on

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10 L.V. WATROUS, Review of Aegean Prehistory III: Crete from Earliest Prehistory through the ProtopalatialPeriod, AJA 98 (1994) 749, contra WARREN and HANKEY (supra n. 7) 131-34.

11 See J. WEINGARTEN, The Zakro Master and his Place in Prehistory (1983) 101-105. Weingarten suggests thesealcarver (Zakro Master) at Kato Zakro had seen Syrian seals and that Cretan sealcarvers may have workedin the Amorite courts of Syria.

12 For the winds and currents in the Eastern Mediterranean, see W. MURRAY, Ancient Sailing Winds in theEastern Mediterranean: The Case for Cyprus, in V. KARAGEORGHIS (ed.), Cyprus and the Sea (1995) 33-44. For Minoan trade routes, see WATROUS (supra n. 8) 176-78.

13 J.-C. POURSAT, Une thalassocracie au Minoen moyen II?, in Minoan Thalassocracy, 87.14 See B. RUTKOWSKI, The origin of the Minoan Coffin, BSA 63 (1968) 219-28; L.V. WATROUS, The

Origin and Iconography of the Late Minoan Painted Larnax, Hesperia 60 (1991) esp. 285-88.15 Summary in WATROUS (supra n. 10) 717-37. See now N. MOMIGLIANO and D. WILSON, Knossos 1993:

Excavations outside the South Front of the Palace, BSA 91 (1996) 44 for an import from the Cyclades datedto EM III (P158).

16 Data presented in WATROUS (supra n. 10) 729-36.

EGYPT AND CRETE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE BRONZE AGE 21

Crete.17 I will focus on how these objects, and their contexts on Crete, compare with the typesof Egyptian artifacts at Byblos.

First of all, from the Byblite point of view, the most striking aspect of the Cretanassemblage of Aegyptiaca is actually what is missing. Egyptian royal and private gifts, soprominent at Byblos, are absent in MM I-II Crete. Such objects, e.g. the Khyan lid and thestatuette of User, only begin to appear on Crete later on.18 Prestigious objects19 decoratedwith Egyptian royal iconography the uraeus, the falcon, the solar disc, the pharaonicheaddress and items inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics are also conspicuous by theirabsence on Crete. In part, this absence must be due to Cretes geographical and politicalposition vis--vis Egypt. From an Egyptian point of view, Cretes distance and lack of crucialraw materials may have made it appear as a relatively insignificant country, not worth anEgyptian expedition or mention in official records. Only later in the XVIIIth Dynasty doesCrete enter fully into the Egyptian political and economic orbit.

But this does not fully explain the lack of such objects in Crete. Many of the Byblosartifacts decorated with Egyptian royal motifs were locally made and Cretan artisans couldcertainly have made the same objects, had they chosen to do so. The clay relief of a sphinxfrom Quartier Mu at Mallia is exceptional in this regard, but given its material, does notnecessarily suggest royal pretensions for its owner. Unlike the Byblites, the Minoans did notadopt the royal iconography of the Egyptians. One might object that this is not, in fact, verysignificant since it is generally thought that there is little royal iconography of any kind inMinoan art.20 However, I do not believe that this is the case. I think that the numerousrepresentations of goddesses in Minoan art were meant to be understood primarily as figurescomplementary to the Cretan male royalty, who, through their intimate and unique relationswith the king, legitimize his power.21 This same relationship is commonly referred to in Egyptwhere the Pharaoh is designated the son of Hathor or Isis, and is depicted being embracedand suckled by Hathor.22

While it is generally true that the Minoans shied away from Egyptian royal iconography,I am aware of one Protopalatial example found in an official context. In 1994 JudithWeingarten published a stimulating article on the sealings from the early palace at Phaistos.23By distinguishing among the groups of some 1500 well preserved seals that were used on fivedifferent door pommels, she found that three seals seemed to have an important position inthe administrative hierarchy of the palace, since they had been used many more times thanany of the others. Two of these seals had traditional abstract designs (CMS ii 5, nos.165 and168), but the third seal (CMS ii 5, no. 268/9) was decorated with a scene of a bull batteringdown a fortified settlement. From earliest times (as on the Narmer palette), this design wasone of the most royal of Egyptian motifs.

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17 See the list of imports in C. LAMBROU-PHILLIPSON, Hellenorientalia (1990) 53-55 and J. PHILLIPS, TheImpact and Implications of the Egyptian and Egyptianizing Material Found in Bronze Age Crete ca. 3000 - 1100B.C., Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto (1991). Phillips Ph.D. thesis is a useful discussion of materialevidence of Aegean - Egyptian contacts from an Egyptian point of view. Her conclusions (pp. 334-45), thatEgyptianizing objects found on Crete are largely the result of indirect, verbal descriptions, however, suffersfrom two faults: it ignores the evidence for Cretan contact with Egyptian culture in the Levant, and assumesthat Egyptianizing objects in Crete can only be the result of Egyptian contact if they are completely identicalto Egyptian prototypes. For another approach to Egyptianizing objects in Crete, see WATROUS (supra n.10) 729-50. See also W. WARD, Egypt and the East Mediterranean World 2200 - 1900 B.C. (1971); P.WARREN, Minoan Crete and Pharaonic Egypt, in Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant, 1-18.

18 Khyan lid: see WARREN and HANKEY (supra n. 7) 136. User statuette: PM I 286-90.19 As cited supra, notes 4-5.20 E. DAVIS, Art and Politics in the Aegean: The Missing Ruler, in Role of the Ruler, 11-22.21 This subject is discussed in greater detail in L.V. WATROUS, The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro (1996)

109-110.22 See, for example, H. FRANKFORT, Kingship and the Gods (1948) 44, 143, 171-80; M. SALEH and H.

SOUROUZIAN, The Egyptian Museum, Cairo (1987) nos. 34, 138.23 J. WEINGARTEN, Two Sealing Studies in the Middle Bronze Age; I: Karahyk, II: Phaistos, in P.

FERIOLI et al. (eds.), Archives before Writing (1994) 261-305.

22 L. Vance WATROUS

This sealing brings us to the question of Egyptian inf luence on the creation of Minoanadministration and political structure. Fiandra has shown that the administrative systemgoverning the storage and redistribution of goods in the First Palace at Phaistos is so similarto the many such systems in Egypt and the Near East that it must have been derived from theEast.24 The distinctly Egyptian shape of the Phaistian door pommels also may point to thearea where the Minoans actually learned about the administrative system. On Crete theMinoans devised two forms of writing for administrative purposes, the hieroglyphic script(which may be the earlier of the two) and Linear A.25 At Byblos, the Phoenician alphabet isthought to have been devised during the second millennium BC, probably by a local Byblitescribe knowledgeable of Egyptian hierogylphic script, who wanted an efficient writing systemfor the local Byblite language.26 Given the presence of Egyptian characters in the Cretanhieroglyphic script, it too may have been formulated under similar circumstances in Crete.

It may be profitable to view the idea for the creation of the Minoan palaces in the samelight. The new construction techniques used in these palaces, that is, their monumental ashlarfacades, is Syrian,27 not Egyptian, but the plan of the palaces bears little direct resemblance toforeign models and thus is best understood as a local Cretan formulation. The archaeologicalevidence on Crete suggests that, for political matters, Cretan contact with Egypt offered theMinoans a stimulant rather than a model for imitation or adaptation, in contrast to whathappened at Byblos.

The evidence for Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects or motifs of a religious nature onCrete is more complex. On Crete, the sanctuaries comparable to the urban temples of Byblosand Egypt, were located on mountains and in caves. The prestigious nature of their offeringsmake it clear that these sanctuaries were the official, communal shrines of Minoan Crete.28The offerings at these sanctuaries consist of a wide range of personal possessions as well asvotives made especially for dedication, but rarely do they consist of Egyptian objects or motifs,as is the case at Byblos. Representations of Egyptian motifs found at Byblos that represent orare associated with gods, such as the Horus Eye, the falcon, the Osiris column, the baboon ofToth, the Tuart hippopotamus and the dwarf Bes, are missing from Cretan shrines.

Two Egyptianizing objects found at Cretan sanctuaries, however, serve as warningsagainst interpreting religious Minoan iconography too literally. The first is the scaraboidbeetle, figurines of which were dedicated at Cretan peak sanctuaries.29 These models havebeen viewed as depictions of pests, from which the dedicator was trying to obtain protection,but the fact that these (harmless) insects also occur as relief decoration on Minoan rhyta andon jewellery suggests that they were regarded as a sacred symbol, just as in Egypt and theLevant where they were associated with Ra (Khepri), the god of creation and renewal.30 Thesecond exception is the so-called Minoan horns of consecration found at cave and peaksanctuaries.31 In Egypt the hieroglyph djew, identical to the horns of consecration, is the signfor mountain.32 This sign was used in a cosmic sense in Egypt to depict the twin mountainsbelieved to be located at either edge of the world. Thus, Egyptian representations depict the

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24 E. FIANDRA, A che cosa serviano le cretule di Festos, in the Proceedings of the Second InternationalCretological Congress I (1968) 383-97; Idem, Ancora a proposito delle cretula di Festos, BdA 60 (1975) 1-25.

25 J.-P. OLIVIER, Cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B.C., WA (1988) 376-89. Note that theextraordinary 14-sided Archanes seal not only is inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphic motifs but alsoresembles the Middle Kingdom inscribed rods or wands worn by priests: cf. CMS IIi: 391/2 and J.BOURRIAU, Pharaohs and Mortals (1988) 115-16.

26 A. MILLARD, The Infancy of the Alphabet, WA 17 (1988) 390-98.27 G. HULT, Bronze Age Ashlar Masonry in the Eastern Mediterranean (1983) 44-49, 66-67.28 WATROUS (supra n. 8) 73-81, 91-96.29 B. RUTKOWSKI, The Cult Places of the Aegean (1986) 89-91.30 WILKINSON (supra n. 5) 112-13; C. DAVARAS, A Minoan Beetle-Rhyton from Prinias Siteias, BSA 83

(1989) 45-54; WATROUS (supra n. 21) 83-84.31 See M. NILSSON, The Minoan - Mycenaean Religion (1950) 165ff; B. POWELL, The Significance of the

So-called Horns of Consecration, Kadmos 16 (1977) 70-82.32 WILKINSON (supra n. 5) 134-35.

EGYPT AND CRETE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE BRONZE AGE 23

sun god in his creative aspect (shown as a beetle), passing between the twin peaks of thissymbol. While their exact significance eludes us, the beetle and horns of consecration foundat Cretan shrines do seem to be linked conceptually with their Egyptian counterparts. It seemspossible that at the time that the Minoans created their system of cult at rural sanctuaries, theymay have been aware of Egyptian cosmology.

Still, the overall absence of representations of Egyptian deities and their symbols wouldseem to imply that these deities did not play a prominent role at Minoan communal shrines,in contrast to the practice at Byblos. However, this conclusion may be premature, becauseMinoan deities (unlike their Near Eastern counterparts) do not appear to have ever beendepicted by the Cretans in any of the wide range of their bronze, clay and stone or paintedimages. The sanctuaries of the Minoans were also different from the urban temples of theNear East, in that they were located in rural areas, on mountains and in caves. On Crete,sanctuaries and the range of symbols on dedications connect the gods with the underworldand with the organic world of nature.33 Thus, the form that Minoan cult took in itssanctuaries suggests that (at least some of) the gods were visualized pantheistically in theforces of Nature and this was the reason that they were not depicted in the conventional formsof Near Eastern iconography.

In the area of funerary customs, however, the Minoans seem to have been more open toEgyptian ideas. In MM I-II Crete, traditional Minoan burials continued to be made in tholoiand house tombs, but some burials began to occur in clay coffins, a shape unknown in theEastern Mediterranean at this time, except in Egypt. At Mallia, the monumental royal tombbuilt in MM I at Chrysolakkos may imitate the form of the Egyptian mastaba.34 For the firsttime, too, MM I-II burials included quantities of Egyptian funerary paraphernalia:

stone palettes (for grinding cosmetics)the sistrum (for making music in the Afterworld)Egyptian types of stone vases (for perfumes, unguents, cosmetics):

alabastracylindrical vesselsblock vasesgobletscarinated bowlsdouble vasesminiature amphorasceremonial shellsclay models of bread loaves.35

The funerary concept that the deceased travelled over water (viz. the Nile River) toreach the Afterworld is well known in Egypt. The Minoans had clearly adopted this idea bythe Late Bronze Age, but Middle Minoan I-II grave goods, e.g. seashells and water-wornpebbles found in tombs at Archanes and a clay ship model, probably from the Mesara, showsthat this practice began much earlier.36

Despite the near absence of Egyptian objects and motifs at Cretan sanctuaries, thepersonal seals and amulets worn by many Minoan men and women indicate that Egyptianmagical beliefs had been assimilated on Crete at a popular level. Minoan acceptance ofEgyptian beliefs seems inferable from the fact that representations of Egyptian deities and

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33 For an overview and discussion of Minoan votive objects, see WATROUS (supra n. 21) 57-72, 81-96.34 Argument presented in WATROUS (supra n. 10) 728-29.35 See WARD (supra n. 17) 92-104; WATROUS (supra n. 10) 735-50; Idem (supra n. 21) 396-97; PHILLIPS (supra

n. 17) 28-107. Shells: VTM, pl. 54:227, 228; cf. BOURRIAU (supra n. 25) 153, pls. 171a-c. Double vases:VTM, pls. 24:749, 39:1056, 40:5084, 43:1024; cf. W.M.F. PETRIE, The Funeral Furniture of Egypt (1937) pl.26:489.

36 Seashells are recorded from Tholos Tombs Beta and Gamma and Buildings 7 and 13 at Archanes; cf.WATROUS (supra n. 10) 725-28; C. DAVARAS et al., Minoan and Greek Civilization from the MitsotakisCollection (1992) 107.

24 L. Vance WATROUS

motifs became extremely common on Minoan seals and amulets during the Middle MinoanI-II period. Without Minoan texts, however, we cannot be sure to what extent the Cretansborrowed Egyptian beliefs as well as artistic forms. Nevertheless, there are some indirectindications that the Egyptian images were deliberately chosen with a knowledge of theiroriginal meanings. It is not just that these images were used in the same way, as amulets, butalso that the Egyptianizing motifs that occur in Crete are not a random sample of the largeEgyptian corpus of amuletic motifs.37 Missing from the Minoan assemblage are a wide rangeof popular Egyptian amuletic types, including the numerous Egyptian deities of human formsuch as Horus, Isis, Ra, Osiris and Hathor, as well as animal-headed human forms (such aslion-headed Bastet), specific attributes of certain deities, such as the Osiris column, the Maatfeather, the Horus eye, and royal symbols such as crowns, cartouches, or staffs. Instead, theMinoan motifs consisted overwhelmingly of a class called amulets of assilimilation.38 Thatis, they provided strength or protection by assimilating the powers that certain animalspossessed naturally or by association with a kindred deity.

The most popular of these Egyptian amuletic forms adopted by the Minoans was thescarab. The Minoans acquired genuine Egyptian scarabs39 and produced local versions of theform.40 Cretan sealcarvers also copied many of the shapes and motifs of Egyptian seals andamulets. Representations of Egyptian motifs on seals/amulets included:41

Bee (CMS II5: 314)Cat (CMS I: 423; II2: 3)Crocodile? (CMS IV: 32D)Double monkey (CMS IIi: 473)Griffin (CMS II5: 317-19)Hippo (CMS II2: 77)Lion (CMS IIi: 126, 419; II2: 48)Monkey (CMS II5: 297)Scorpion (CMS IIi: 307; II2: 240)Sistrum (CMS IIi: 126, 391, 392)Sphinx (ECS 137-39)Tuart (CMS IIi: 283; II5: 322)Minoan amulets/seals also imitated Egyptian shapes:Ape (CMS IIi: 20, 435)Claw (VTM, pl. 57: 489)Double lion (Aker) (CMS IIi; 25)Double monkey (CMS IV: 28)Duck (CMS IV: 5)Fly (CMS IIi: 379) Frog (VTM pl. 4: 386)Hedgehog (CMS IIi: 357)Hoof (CMS IIi: 170, 296; IV: 91)Leg (CMS IIi: 212, 407)Lion (CMS IIi: 130) Scarab (ECS 78-80)It is noticeable that many of these amuletic images (Bee, Cat, Frog, Hippo, Sistrum,

Snake, Tuart) in Egypt were associated with maternal protection, particularly duringchildbirth.42

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37 See the admirable presentation of Egyptian amulets and their motifs in C. ANDREWS, Amulets of AncientEgypt (1994).

38 Ibid. 60-73.39 LAMBROU-PHILLIPSON (supra n. 17).40 PINI has identified an Egyptianizing group of seals made by a workshop located in southern Crete; I. PINI,

Eine frkretische Siegelwerkstatt?, Proceedings of the Sixth International Cretological Congress, vol. A2 (1990)115-28.

41 This list is not exhaustive.42 PHILLIPS (supra n. 17) 191-334.

EGYPT AND CRETE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE BRONZE AGE 25

Our comparison of early Middle Kingdom Egyptian objects at Byblos with those foundon Crete allows us to draw some tentative conclusions about how each culture responded tocontact with Egypt. At Byblos the nobility imitated the Egyptian political structure and theforms of the Egyptian state religion, whereas the Minoans apparently did not. The Cretanresponse was more selective. In some areas, as in the administrative system of the palaces,they seem to have accepted Near Eastern ideas wholeheartedly, but in other areas, such as theirwriting or their palatial architecture, they took Eastern concepts and developed their ownversions of them.

Byblite and Cretan assimilation of Egyptian culture was not a simple function of distance(i.e. Byblos was more heavily inf luenced by Egypt because it was nearer) nor was it the resultof casual knowledge coming from contact during commercial dealings (whether direct orindirect). Crete is further removed from Egypt than Byblos and yet Minoan tombs show amuch greater range of Egyptian(izing) funerary goods than do the private tombs of the Byblosregion. On the other hand, at Byblos the temple precinct was crowded with Egyptian votives,which are all but missing at Cretan sanctuaries. At Byblos it is apparent that Egyptian ideaswere embraced by the local elite and thus were adapted for cult in the urban temples, whilefunerary practice in the tombs of the common people shows little sign of Egyptian inf luence.

At first glance, the Cretan reaction to Egyptian culture seems the reverse of the Bybliteresponse. The Minoans showed little interest in the Egyptian gods at their sanctuaries, but didadopt funerary ideas, which would seem to have been introduced to the Minoan population ata popular level. The popularity of Egyptian(izing) artifacts in the tombs located in southernCrete would support such a hypothesis. This scenario for the way in which the Minoansaccepted Egyptian personal religion (which resembles the popular spread of Christianitythroughout the Roman Empire) may explain how the first Egyptian objects reached Crete: thatis they were brought back by Cretan sailors, who had learned of their magical value in the East.But it does not explain why Egyptian funerary practices spread throughout Crete, when thenumbers of actual Cretan imports in Egypt and Egyptian items in Crete are, in fact,exceedingly small.

In order to understand the appearance of funerary paraphernalia (and the ideasassociated with them) in Cretan tombs, this development must be viewed within its largersociopolitical context. Cretan burial practices in Middle Minoan I-II were also transformed inother ways. Burials became individual, placed in single clay coffins or jars. In addition, thedeceased was provided with a larger (mostly Egyptianizing) range of grave goods, thatincluded the provisioning of perfumes, cosmetics, model offerings, animal sacrifices (i.e realfood, as was the practice in Egypt), which indicates that at this time the individual Minoan wasenvisioned as having greater direct access to an eternal life in an Afterworld. Seashells, seapebbles and a boat model found in Middle Minoan tombs hint that the deceased had to traveloverseas to get to this Afterworld, an eschatological concept that surely was based on Egyptianideas.

The full meaning of this development on Crete is suggested by the development offunerary practices in Egypt, where a similar, widespread democratization of the Afterlifetook place beginning in the First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom.43 In Egyptthis change in burial customs can be seen in the elaboration of individual commoners tombsthat for the first time include royal iconography, written magical texts, private stelae and largenumbers of amulets. Egyptian texts explain two important features of this democratization:1) the Egyptian population was given access to an elaborate Afterlife (previously limited to theelite), and 2) the individual earned the right to an Afterlife (through judgment before Osirisin the Underworld) by following the ethical and legal dictates of society.

If a similar development took place in Crete, the appearance of Egyptian funeraryparaphernalia in Cretan tombs should be understood as only one aspect of a largertransformation of social roles in Minoan society. During the era before Cretan contact with

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43 See J.H. BREASTED, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (1959) 142-256; R. FINNESTAD,The Pharaoh and the Democratization of Post-mortem Life, in G. ENGLUND (ed.), The Religion of theAncient Egyptians (1987) 89-94. Amulets: ANDREWS (supra n. 37) 8-13.

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Egypt (EM I-III), Minoan cult was carried out largely within the communal cemetery, andwould seem to have revolved around the importance of the living communitys ties with itsdeified ancestors. In Middle Minoan IA, the rise of multi-community, regional sanctuaries andthe demise of communal burials are part of a redefinition of Minoan eschatology and worship.The Egyptian elements in Minoan tombs may indicate not just the acceptance of anEgyptianizing Afterworld, but also the idea that the deceased had to have lived a just life inorder to earn an eternal Afterlife.44 As in Egypt, a just life in Crete was probably defined asfulfilling ones duties to society. These duties were expressed in the new, communal religiousceremonies carried out in regional sanctuaries. The rituals carried out at these sanctuaries(and their societal correlates, i.e. male initiation, marriage and ones rank/profession withinsociety) were to a great extent the result of a new social contract brought about during theformation of palatial society.45 Understood in this light, the island-wide adoption of Egyptianfunerary concepts by the Minoans was probably not a grass roots phenomenon somehowbrought about by the simple diffusion of ideas between Crete and Egypt, although it mayhave begun in that fashion, but rather a part of the Cretan elites transformation of Minoanreligion from a collection of strictly local chthonic cults to regional participation in extra-urban sanctuaries.46

L. Vance WATROUS

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44 The characteristics of a pure life were recited by the deceased before Osiris on the Day of Judgment. Theyincluded abstention from falsehood, murder, theft, trespassing, blasphemy, social unrest, interference withor neglect of religious rites, acts detested by the gods, and conjurgation against the king. See R.FAULKNER, Book of the Dead (1985) esp. 27-34.

45 WATROUS (supra n. 21) 78-81.46 I assume that these Minoan sanctuaries were under some form of state control, and that the basis of this

control was the belief that the god(s) worshipped at the sanctuary was related by kinship to the rulingdynasty. This interpretation, though novel, is congruent with the archaeological evidence and is widelysupported by cross-cultural practices. A similar process may also have taken place in Egypt at least by thebeginning of the Middle Kingdom when the royal family claimed to have their origins at Abydos, the cultcenter of Osiris, king of the Underworld. See H. FRANKFORT, Kingship and the Gods (1948) 181-212, esp.201-203. Thus, Rhadamanthys, son of Zeus and eponymous hero of Gortys and son of (He)Phaistos (Odysseyiv.564; Paus. VIII.53.5), became on his death the ruler and judge of the dead who lived on a faraway Islandof the Blessed (Pindar, Olympian ii.75ff.; Pliny n.h. iv.58). World-wide, the creation of a theocracy has ofteninvolved the process of linking the ruling kinship group with the local god or deified ancestor; see D.WEBSTER, On Theocracies, American Anthropologist 78 (1974) 812-28.

EGYPT AND CRETE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE BRONZE AGE 27

Discussion following L.V. Watrous paper:

M. Sugerman: The kind of acculturation that you imply with the adoption of these administrativetechniques and technologies would also imply a rather in-depth level of contact and ofcommunication. I wonder if you have anything to support that?

L.V. Watrous: Well, the answer to your question is obviously No. On the other hand, if youve dealtwith archaeological material one of the most interesting things about archaeological materialis you get the same object, you get three archeologists, you come up with three differentinterpretations based on that. And you have when you begin looking at archaeological materialyou have to assume at some point what this means in terms of whats missing. I tend to assumethat what we see is basically the tip of the iceberg. Other people dont believe that.

J. Hruby: Im wondering by what mechanism you see this level of transfer taking place? By what level?How does this happen?

L.V. Watrous: Its a very good question. Obviously I mean we can ask this question also how exactlydo the Greeks learn their alphabet? And when you read, presumably shippers are going to theNear East and theyre learning economic relations. And my guess is that its probably in somesort of commercial context. You go to Egypt, of course a commercial contact is likely to mean aroyal one because youll be dealing with administrative people that are connected to the king.[For an answer to this question, see the revised version of my paper, above.]

28 L. Vance WATROUS