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Malia Workshop (inaugurated Jan 2010; updated Oct 2020) 1

(FIG. 1) THE MALIA SEALSTONE WORKSHOP AND PICTOGRAPHIC WRITING IN CRETE

(ca. 1750 BCE)

(Fig. 2) In the early Middle Bronze Age, Crete saw the establishment of several administrative

centers: the three most important at Phaistos in south central Crete (the Mesara plain) and Malia

in east central Crete, destroyed ca. 1750 BCE, and Knossos in north central Crete which

probably then took over the island.

Fig. 3) The palatial centers in turn developed several systems of writing. Between 1900 and 1700

BCE, three, perhaps four, such systems appeared: first two or three pictographic systems (the

Phaistos Disc and its close relative, the Arkalokhori ax; and Cretan Pictographic) and perhaps

slightly later, (Fig. 4) the linear scripts, first the Archanes script and then Linear A. Cretan

Pictographic was apparently developed at Malia, Linear A perhaps at Knossos. These were the

two earliest administrative scripts to track contributions (taxes, if you will) in and out of the

palatial centers.

(Fig. 5) The palace at Malia in east central Crete had a separate administration quarter, (Fig. 6)

"Quartier Mu", situated northwest of the palace. The quarter consists of two large buildings, A

and B, and one smaller complex. Aside from its remarkable preservation, (Fig. 7) the quarter was

undergoing an audit at the time of its destruction (ca. 1750 BCE) and the preserved documents

allow us to track commodities as they entered the system, (Fig. 8) with sealstones, clay sealings

and labels, whose information was eventually summarised on 4-sided clay bars.


(Fig. 9) The smaller complex in the northeast corner of Quartier Mu consists of a short suite of

ramshackle rooms. These housed bronze smiths, potters, and, in the northernmost area, sealstone

carvers. The sealstone workshop has received much attention since it was excavated in 1956 and

the seals have been the subject of a thorough 2011 PhD dissertation by Maria Anastasiadou, now

of the Corpus of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals in Heidelberg and with us here today.

The sealstone workshop probably had a long life, maybe 75 years ending in the fire destruction

that destroyed both palace and quarter in the mid-18th c. BCE. The workshop itself is small and

may have accommodated only four artisans. Excavations retrieved the remains of bronze and

obsidian tools, a basin for water and lumps of clay for checking the work, and blocks of raw

stone, mostly soft, locally obtained steatite.

(Fig. 10) More importantly, the excavators found in the "atelier" 122 broken, unfinished, and

abandoned seals. Almost all of these are multi-facial prisms, mostly three-sided, and of steatite,

although one is of much harder breccia.

From a technical viewpoint, the atelier's sealstones are easy to describe: (Fig. 11) they are small

(about 1.5 centimeters long, almost the size of a penny), their three. occasionally four, faces

carry simple motifs: usually a single person, animal, object, design, or Pictographic inscription,

all positioned centrally on the seal face, with one or more filling motifs.

(Fig. 12) The carving is deep, basically a gouge, with a cross-sectional profile that is V-shaped

or canyon-like. Interior modeling is limited. The iconography, however, is intimate: here, two


women dance around a star (or the sun), one of the next door potters sits at his kiln, another

potter may be taking pots out to dry on a yoke, accompanied by a bouncy dog.

(Fig. 13) Because the carving technique and the seal shapes are so distinctive, it is possible to

attribute more than 800 seals to the Workshop. In addition to the 120+ seals found in the

Workshop, Anastasiadou has attributed some 625+ more; I have added an additional 36 plus

some 40 sealings and seal impressions. The 800+ extant and attributable sealstones from the

Workshop conventionally represent a hypothetical 5% of the total output of the Workshop, some

16,480 seals, arguing for an annual output of about 220 seals per year over its 75 years, or four

per week, or one per artisan per week.

(Fig. 14) The Malia palace has been hypothesized as the administrative center of a Malia state

with territory running from Chersonisos in the west to the Hierapetra isthmus in the east and

down to the south coast, a total territory of about 75,000 ha, although most of that territory is

occupied by Mt Dikte and the Lasithi plateau with year-round habitation zones mostly along the

coast.

As a comparison, the later, Mycenaean kingdom of Pylos (ca. 1225 BCE) occupied an area

twice the size with a population of some 50,000 people. If every citizen household in the Malia

state consisted of four people and had one of those 16,000 seals, that could imply a total

population of about 60-65,000. The Malia Workshop seals therefore constitute a "popular" group

of seals (my term), carved from local soft stones and numerous enough for general distribution.


(Fig. 15) After the Malia palace had been established, it soon embarked on a twin project to

record its citizenry, presumably in order to determine what it could contribute in the way of

commodities (pay taxes, if you will). Simultaneously, the palace began having seals made as

identity markers for its citizens and, t the same time, it invented a Pictographic writing system to

record assessments and collections.

(Fig. 16) The Malia Workshop group of seals was not the first "popular" group. There were at

least three before it, specializing in cylindrical stamp seals, with motifs carved on the ends,

primarily of dentine. First, a group of seals represented by sealings that accompanied

commodities sent to the Corridor Houses of southern Greece (around 2200 BCE). (Pl. 17)

Second, a contemporary group in central Crete (EM II-III) that did not impress sealings —

apparently because there was no centralized administration there at that time; later, contemporary

with Malia, a centralized administration was established, at Phaistos, and a third group of

cylindrical stamp seals impressed sealings there. For these three groups, the primary motifs were

weave- and spiriliform patterns with occasional animals, like spiders, and objects, like jugs and

harps.

(Fig. 18) But, since very few seals in these three groups are iconographically distinguished, let

alone distinguishable, their main purpose must have been to create a group identity that the seal-

owners participated in collectively. I imagine that the bureaucracies of the early Corridor Houses

and of later Phaistos successfully determined their tax payers either because, in the first case, the

population was small enough to be memorized or because, (Fig. 19) in the case of Phaistos, the

population could be managed as a group. In the Mesara plain, around Phaistos, wheat was the


major product, and collection could be easily managed by having contributors come to the palace

and pour their contributions into the four large, stone-lined pits in the west court.

(Fig. 20) The Malia prisms, however, carry a narrative iconography on their three or four faces

and this implies a richer relationship between seal and seal-owners. Let us examine this

relationship in more detail. I sort the motifs on the 820+ Workshop seals according to type

(people, animals, objects) and then alphabetically (man/woman, dogs/goats, boats/pots). (Fig.

21) For example, this prism in the NY Metropolitan Museum has a man on what I deem its

primary face, a goat on face 2, and a S-spiral on face 3. This order then appears in the sort-table

that I've entered at the bottom of the slide. If there is any other prism that also has a standing

man, a goat, and a design, it will appear immediately next to this one. (Fig. 22) And in fact there

is one, or rather there are two, though the second is not very similar. Organizing the prisms in

this way allows us to see similarities across faces, and I have highlighted the similarities in blue.

If any two prisms have exactly the same iconography, I highlight them in yellow.

(Fig. 23) The complete sort runs 25 pages in Times font, pitch 10. So, I show you only three of

these pages now. This is the first page, with the header row: a column for a running catalogue

number, a column for Anastasiadou's catalog number, information on the seal in the next four

columns (publication, shape, material, provenience), and then the iconography. The first seven

seals in the sort have blank or illegible faces, then come the seals whose primary face has

animals ("A"), the designs ("D"), then objects ("O"). You will see two pairs of prisms that are

somewhat similar, with a wild goat ("agrimi") on the prism's first face and a Z-whorl on the

second face or a boat. The third faces are different, so the prisms are highlighted only in blue.


(Fig. 24) Further along is page 15 of the sort: none of the prisms on that page are similar. So no

blue highlighting at all.

(Fig. 25) Page 18 of the sort, however, contains two pairs of prisms that are virtually identical,

one pair more so than the other. Here's the first pair, (Fig. 26) both known since the late 19th and

early 20th centuries. While the two do seem identical, especially the goats, the men walk in

different directions, and one of the pots has an added branch.

(Fig. 27) Here's the other pair of prisms. The top one was first published by Sir Arthur Evans in

1897 and given by him to the Ashmolean Museum in 1910. The second prism was acquired by

the Kelsey Museum of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1993. Sharon Herbert of the

Kelsey graciously looked into the circumstances of its accession and came up blank: no further

facts about it are known. Since this second pair of prisms is the only one among the 760+ that are

truly identical, my guess is that the Kelsey piece is a forgery.

This iconographic exercise strongly implies that every seal produced by the Malia Workshop

was essentially unique — intentionally so. How could it have done that? (Fig. 28) Keeping casts

or impressions would have been a possibility, but none were found in the Workshop. Another

way to ensure the individuality of the prisms was to have each prism correspond to a unique

circumstance — or individual. In 1974 Henri and Micheline van Effenterre suggested the three-

sided prisms presented something like a tripartite name (like my own).


I doubt that the Malia prisms do "spell" out a person's name, rebus-like. (Fig. 29) The prisms do

employ many of the same images that appear in the Pictographic script. For instance, jugs and

larger pots (amphorae/pithoi) are used as phonetic signs in the script and as simple images on the

seals; they probably refer to the potters in the building next door. Boats and bull faces are also

signs in the Pictographic script and they also appear by themselves on the seals — as well as in

the harbor and nearby fields.

(Fig. 30) It's as if the Malia prisms prescribed each individual as a visual string of images. But

the repetition of these common images (dogs, birds, fish, boars) implies that the sealstone carvers

did not ask what the eventual owners wanted on their seals — that would have taken too long

and would have produced a chaotic system of references. No, they created common and simple

images on the seals first, and then the seals were given out to the people.

(Fig. 31) Who gave the seals out to the people? My guess is that since the seals are numerous

enough to reflect a deliberate accounting of the citizenry, the distribution of seals was handled by

the administrators, the sealstone-carvers's next-door neighbors in Buildings A and B of Quartier

Mu.

(Fig. 32) The recent work of Dimitris Nakassis on the people of Pylos (2013) demonstrates that

each name in the Pylos Linear B tablets probably corresponds, each one, to one individual. There

were no duplicate Johns or Helens amongst the citizenry of Pylos. Each recorded name

corresponds to a unique individual — much as my sort on the Malia Workshop seals

demonstrates a one-to-one correspondence between prism and owner.


At Pylos, such order must have been imposed from above. I imagine the Linear B scribes

assigning "official" names to the citizens doing important work for the palace, names that the

scribes would have used when recording these workers and their work. The Pylos scribes used

family or descriptive names rarely, like here in line 4: Zamios a Pylian — in general, such names

would not have been succinct enough for Linear B.

Can such a pared down onomastic system be detected in the earlier Pictographic and Linear A

lexicons? To test this, I removed from both scripts words attested by only one or two

syllabograms, transaction terms, isolated single signs, logograms, fractions etc. This left a small

number of words that could be NAMES, 477 in Linear A and 242 in Cretan Pictographic. As one

would expect, in each script several NAMES do appear on different documents from the same

site. But few words appear on documents from two or more sites.

(Fig. 33) In Linear A, six words appear on documents from two sites, three examples from Ayia

Triada in the south and Zakros in the east, and one pair each from Ayia Triada and Knossos in

the north, from Ayia Triada and Khania in the west, and from the neighboring sites of Zakros

and Palaiokastro both in the east. In each case, the name is the contributor of produce. Such a

name could indicate a personal name or a place name.

(Fig. 34) But in two cases the name is also inscribed on a pithos or jug with the number of units

wine also inscribed — in these two cases it would make sense if the name were that of the wine-

producing area.


These two cases may imply that all six occurrences of a word at two different sites refer to

localities. And this would make sense: localities have names that are recognized by many people

and communities, whereas a person will have a localized name.

(Fig. 35) The situation with Pictographic documents is different. Cleaning up the lexicon along

the lines already mentioned leaves 242 different words. One hundred of these appear once on one

sealstone each; I presume these are personal names. Six words appear many times on sealstones,

most with no known provenience. These are probably not transaction terms but they could be

words with rather generalized meanings, like "contribution" or "dedication."

(Fig. 36) Several words appear only at Knossos or at Malia and in multiple documents that form

sets. I presume these are personal names or names of tax-paying local regions. (Fig. 37) Four

pairs of words appear at Knossos, one in each pair on a seal, the other inscribed on a document. I

presume that we have here the name of a Knossian official and their seal.

(Fig. 38) One personal name, however, appears on Pictographic documents at two sites. At

Malia, a sealstone bearing the name RE-PI-• (vel sim.) was excavated at Malia Quartier Mu, and

a nodule from the same building was impressed by a second seal with this name. The name also

appears on a bar-tablet from Knossos. There, RE-PI-• is recorded as being responsible for a

shipment of 10 cows, presumably from Malia to Knossos but 11 (documented by tally marks)

actually arrived. Apparently this deviation in the shipment details had to be documented in full.


Since very few personal NAMES recur at more than one site in both Linear A and Cretan

Pictographic, it is probable that this practice of scribes assigning "official" names, one per

individual in the administration region, was established early, perhaps first in Quartier Mu,

through this double system: by sealstone iconographically and by name lexographically in the

local script. It is a system that has had a long life.

(Fig. 39) Thank you for your attention!


re were earlier large groups of seals before those of the Malia state. The earliest was designed for

Early Bronze Age administation centers in southern Greece, the so-called Corridor Houses (ca.

2200 BCE). We have hundreds of sealings impressed by this group and from them we can

imagine bifacial cylinder stamps with weave patterns incised on the two ends, with an occasional

animal like a spider or object like a jug.

Writing was not invented at this time, although (Fig. 12) a stamp incised with signs looking

remarkably like Egyptian hieroglyphs proves that writing was known. Why was writing not

invented? Presumably because it was not needed. The commodities contributed consisted

primarily of two types, grain that could be stored in jars and sealed with cylindrical rollers, and

some commodity that could be contributed in small boxes (I guess elite textiles). If each

subregion sent its contributions to the Corridor House together, regional administrators could

vouch for their region's compliance and these would not have been so numerous that they could

not be memorized by the bureaucrats that took in the contributions and broke their sealings.

`After the destruction of these Corridor Houses there was virtually no seal activity on the

Mainland for several hundred years.

In Early Bronze Age Crete, there was the reverse situation, an equally large group of dentine

stamps but no administrative centers that demanded contributions. We think of these stamps


more as personal items, identifying their owners as individuals belonging to some larger group

identity but not participating in a formalized social administration.

This would then set the stage for the next development: a centralized palatial/administrative

system that relied on a number contributors too many to be memorized by the scribes responsible

for recording their periodic contributions. Writing would have to be invented for recording those

contributors and there had to be some way of identifying these people.

Early in the Middle Bronze Age, the first palaces are built, after which writing is invented. (Fig.

13) The earliest writing in Crete occurs in four distinctly different forms, the unique Phaistos

Disc and related Archalokhori Ax, (Fig. 14) a problematic and ill-represented stage of a linear

script (the so-called Archanes script), and then the two fully formed linear scripts, Cretan

Pictographic (Fig. 15) and Linear A. The Pictographic script appears on both clay documents and

sealstones; Linear A seems to have been created slightly later but it appears only on clay

documents.

The first fully fledged linear script, Cretan Pictographic, thus appears first on clay documents

from the palace at Malia, including Quartier Mu, and on some seals made in the Malia

Workshop.

(Fig. 16) In this chart of Pictographic signs, you will notice that several signs in the syllabary

appear on Malia Workshop seals as isolated images. For instance, jugs and larger pots

(amphorae/pithoi) are used as phonetic signs but on some Malia seals they probably refer to the


potters next door. Ditto boats and bull faces — they're signs in the Pictographic syllabary but

they also appear by themselves on the seals and in the harbor and fields nearby.

Since one of the Pictographic seals from the Workshop is of "breccia" (Fig. 17), CMS II 2.168),

an unusually hard stone for the Workshop, we may imagine that it belongs to the final days of

the Workshop's life, when it was beginning to experiment with engraving hard stone seals.

Such a hypothetical chronology, with Pictographic writing developing alongside the Workshop's

increasing sophistication in carving and iconography, begs a question: was there a more precise

connection between the two developments?

So, was the Workshop participating in the administration's development of writing?

The implication of these surveys of names among the Linear B documents at Pylos and among

the Pictographic and Linear A documents in Crete is that palace administrations were assigning

"transaction" names to individuals who were conducting business with the state, as soon as

writing was being invented.

For the Malia Workshop, such a conclusion woulld explain the localized iconography of the

prisms, the prevalence of scenes involving potters: the seals were not carved with individuals in

mind but with individualistic iconographies that could transferred to individuals.


Thus, the Malia Workshop was conducting a kind of backwards census: carving out prisms to

give to the citizens along with (I'm guessing here) the transaction names that these prisms

represented.

What would be the purpose of such a counting of citizens? Much like the doling out of citizen

numbers and identity cards in any polity: to prepare the state in advance of what services it could

expect from its citizenry (e.g., taxes) and what services it needed to provide. I think immediately

of food and wine at religious and social gatherings like pilgrimages to peak sanctuaries and the

annual bull-leaping festivals.


I do not think that seals in general referred to aspects of a person, either onomastically or

characterisitically (Kilian-Dirlmeier 1987). But the prisms of the Malia Workshop came close, as

if giving way to mounting pressure from a growing population, a "critical mass", that was

forcing the administration to come up with a better accounting system of the Malia citizenry than

simply memorizing people and their place in the state.

What we're dealing with here is the attempt to devise a controlled onomastic system

words in Pictographic/Linear A mostly names, not duplicated

people of pylos had single names, not duplicated but could be repeated in other kingdoms, so

their onomaswtic system was standardized?

purpose: to be able to record individual contraibutions/taxes/duties to the administrtation

Since Pictographic writing was developing alongside the late Workshop, it would seem that

writing eventually obviated the analagous relationship between multi-facial seals and a citizen's

identity.

performed on a large number of seals, some from the Malia Workshop itself, many more

attributed to it, and an even greater number of seals implied originally, makes it seem that the

Workshop was cooperating in a type of census for the recently emergent Malia state where every

seal was unique, corresponding to a unique person.

The Purpose of the Malia Prisms


If the Malia prisms were meant to correspond to the citizens of the Malia-Lasithi state and to

identify them by some sort of iconographic/pictographic nomenclature,1 then the prisms were

meant to function like identity cards in a census-like process. The discussion above concerning

how many seals the Workshop may have produced over its 75 year lifespan suggested 54,640, of

which most would have been prisms. Such a figure corresponds to a reasonable number of male

citizens in the Malia-Lasithi state, suggesting a total population of some 200,000, if every male

citizen was the head of a household of four individuals.2

Since some Malia prisms, primarily those in hard stones (and created therefore late in the life of

the Workshop), carry hieroglyphic inscriptions which may be (late) development from the

possible onomastic significance of the Malia prisms, it is obvious that they play some role in the

development of writing.

1 The motifs on the prisms are too numerous and too varied to have functioned phonetically like a rebus or pictographic system. Yet of the 555 different, polysyllabic words in Linear A (counting only those that are complete, unambiguous, and unligatured), most are trisyllabic (232, 42%), dissyllabic being the next most numerous (146, 26%), followed by words of four syllables (106, 19%), five (41, 7%), or more (25, 6%). Of the 656 prisms, three-sided prisms (643, 98%) far outstrip four-sided prisms (13; 2%). If the prisms corresponded to personal names, they might be analogous to the shorter Linear A words, those of two or three syllables that comprise the bulk of the Linear A vocabulary.2 Rehak and Younger 2001, 398, cite sources for estimates of 300-340 people per densely populated hectare. A total population of 200,000 would therefore densely occupy 588-667 hectares, or approximately 6 square kilometers. The Malia state probably took in most of the Malia plain (from Chersonesos to Sisi, roughly 15.36 km2), the Lasithi plateau (66 km2), and probably the western Mirambello bay (to the Hierapetra isthmus), certainly enough area for even a thin population of 200,000.


!!

Since the Malia Workshop belonged to the earliest palace there, we may tentatively suggest that

the earlier appearnce of writing, the Archanes script, developed first, before the first palaces, and

that the products of the Malia Workshop post-date the appearance of the first palaces and the

Pictographic script that appears on Workshop seals had been invented earlier and was only

developed further in the Workshop.

There are 52 Workshop seals and six sealings from Quartier Mu that carry Pictographic

inscriptions.

At the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, therefore, there were two main but separate

purposes for seals, as personal items in Crete and as administrative tools on the Mainland.

Seals from the Malia Workshop impressed sealings at Malia and elsewhere, so they combined

both purposes — they also added a third purpose, to provide written information in the form of

short Pictographic inscriptions on one or more of the prism faces.

At first, a small group of multifacial seals combined both purposes and added a third, written

information. This group, known for its leafy borders, was the precursor to our Malia Workshop

group. It too featured people, animals, and objects on the several faces of the cubes, and an

occasional string of five Pictographic signs that, in the later script called Linear A, spells A-SA-

SA-RA-NE, "dedication" according to Brent Davis. Since seals in this group impressed sealings,

the group also functioned as personal, dedicated items, and as administrative tools.


The group's seals also impressed sealings

This tradition of bifacial seals with weave patterns continues in Crete, From Crete, at the

beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, a small group of multifacial sealstones, often cubes,

impressed a few sealings mostly at Knossos, and several of these carry written signs. This group,

the Border-Leaf Group

There are other large groups of seals that date to the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. From

southern Greece, a group of bifacial stamp seals dating to the late 3rd millennium , a

contemporary group of

what was the place of the MA group

what was its output?

what was its purpose?

what was its relationship to the development of writing?


Most (just over 300 seals) entered museums and private collections early in the 20th century

without sure proveniences, but where provenence is known (just under 300) , the Malia

sealstones primarily come from the site and plain of Malia itself and from elsewhere in east

central Crete, but very rarely outside this limited geographic area.

All the seals excavated from the Workshop itself look as if they had been discards or pieces the

craftsmen were working on when the complex was destroyed. Of the published pieces, 90 are

broken or blank while the remaining 23 look unfinished with incomplete motifs or backgrounds

that retain preliminary scratches not yet polished away; several do not have their stringholes cut

(cat. xxx). The whole group of seals from the Workshop is, however, sufficiently homogeneous

in style to be the work of one generation; indeed, if the seals from the Workshop are rejects,

unfinished pieces, or apprentice practice pieces, they might represent the accumulation of

abandoned work prior to some cleaning that may have taken place at regular intervals — we may

be seeing the accumulated refuse of less than a year's activity.3

The style of the Malia Workshop seals is deceptive..

Almost all the Malia Workshop sealstones are prisms (657 out of 765 seals [impressions

omitted]; 91%), and most of these are three-sided with elliptical faces (346 of the 657 prisms,

53%), but some had circular (117, 18%), rectangular (116, 18%), or square faces (78, 12%). A

3 Anastasiadou 2011b, 60.


few of the prisms are four-sided with rectangular faces (14, 2%).4 The rest (66 seals, 10% of the

entire output [again, impressions omitted]) consist of stamps, of which cones or conoids are the

most common (27 of the non-prisms, 41%), but there are also simple stamps (lathed stamps or

Petschafts, and pyramids). Most of these are unifacials, but a couple are bifacial, including a few

disks and reels.

With the exception of the schist button and the "white piece," all the seals found in the Workshop

are of soft steatite — with one further exception: CMS II 2.150 of conglomerate (Mohs 5-6, cat.

115) (Fig.).

Attributable to the Workshop on the basis of style and motifs are more hard stone seals (Fig.):

CMS II 2.217 of marble? (cat. 348) and III 181 said to be of rock crystal, but actually of fluorite

(cat. 021), both Mohs 4, and at Mohs 5-6 the silicates III 226 of cornelian (cat. 398), III 230 (cat.

230) of chalcedony, III 229 of jasper (cat. 344), and III 216 (cat. 131) and VS 3.356 (cat. 209),

both of conglomerate, in fact very likely from the same conglomerate block from which was cut

cat. 115 from inside the Workshop.

The presence of these few harder stone seals, both within the Workshop and attributable to it,

implies the possibility that towards the end of its career the Workshop was experimenting with a

new technique, the horizontal bow drill (Fig.) that could, with a slurry of sand and water, cut and

drill stones harder than steatite (Mohs 2-3). Steatite is soft enough that it can be cut with a copper

or obsidian knife.5

4 One of these is unique in the Malia group, a thick rectangular plate (CMS VI 25, cat. 526).5 Younger 1981 for the technique of creating a sealstone, including the invention of the horizontal bow drill. Minoan seals made after the Malia Workshop all use the horizontal bow


Previous scholars who have studied the Malia Workshop seals have called the style crude6 and,

before the actual workshop was excavated, some even dated stray finds to the Early Minoan

period (e.g., those in CMS II 1). When I first examined (in 1969) the button seal with dog from

Ayia Irini in Kea (CMS V 487, cat. 671; Fig.), I dated it to the Early Bronze Age until I became

familiar with the seals found in the Malia Workshop (e.g., II 2.173, cat. 170; Fig). 7

Perhaps it would be better to describe the style, not as crude, but as presentational, uncluttered,

clear and forthright, simple, bold, and easily legible. If NeoPalatial and Final Palatial seals are

"high art," one would be tempted to call the Malia Workshop seals not art at all. And in a way

they are not, for if the seals were meant to be forthrightly legible, then the Workshop's main

purpose was to present the motifs as clearly as possible, not to create "monuments."8

Once the Workshop's style is recognized, it is possible to attribute to the Workshop an

astonishing number of seals, over 750.9 Undoubtedly many more are unpublished and still others

will be found by future excavations. What percentage of the total output has survived is

unknown, but we might be able to reach an approximate number if we imagine that a craftsman

took two days per steatite seal to shape the seal, carve the design, drill the stringhole, and polish

drill; see Younger 1993, xxi-xxii.6 source crude style -- get from MA7 Younger MA thesis "The Iconography of Early Cretan Seals" (University of Cincinnati, 1969).8 I use the term "monument" in the technical art-historical sense, as a work deliberately designed to last a long time; cf. Thucydides's intention that his history should be a κτῆμα εἰς ἀεί, a "possession for ever" (Thuc. 1.22.4).9 Anastasiadou (2011b, vol. 2) catalogues a total of 626 seals that she attributes to the Workshop (those from the Workshop itself with an additional 486 attributable to the Workshop on technical and stylistic grounds). I add 129 more for a total of 765.


the face. The 765 surviving products would thus attest to over 1530 days of one person's constant

activity (no weekends or time off): slightly over 4.2 worker-years, implying 182 seals per

worker-year. If the life of the Workshop spanned most of MM II, as the excavators believe, a

period that lasted almost a century, say 75 years, and if the activity of the Workshop was

consistent and unabated (no weekends or time off), we might expect one of its workers to have

produced some 13,660 seals (182 seals per worker-year x 75 yrs) during the Workshop's lifetime.

This would mean we possess 5.6% (765/13660) of one craftsman's work, a figure that is

consistent with other estimates of the original number of seals given the number of surviving

pieces: if there were four craftsmen, then we could imagine a total output of the Workshop at

54,640 seals, of which less than 1.5% has survived.10

While most of the Malia seals have been found in the Palace (both the ProtoPalace and Quartier

Mu) and surrounding buildings, others come from farther afield, and these are instructive for

suggesting the Workshop's reach — and therefore Malia's (Appendix; Fig. 101). Many seals

come from the Lasithi plain, considered by some scholars to have been a province of the Malia-

Lasithi state,11 and areas immediately east of Lasithi. In this Malia-Lasithi state (Fig.), seals have

been found at every major and minor site: Milatos just beyond Malia where the modern road

leaves the coast, Olous and the general region around Mirambello bay, Kritsa to the south,

10 Betts and Younger 1982, 171-72, estimated that some 4500 Late Bronze Age hard stone seals and their sealings have survived, and they calculated that if there were 57 workshops (in Crete 3 per generation [25 years], 1600-1450; 3 at Knossos, 1450-1375, and 3 per generation on the Mainland, 1600-1300 BCE), and if each workshop worked for one generation (25 years), and if each workshop produced one hard stone seal a week (52 per year), we might expect a total of (57 workshops working 25 years making 52 hard stone seals per year) 74,100 seals. If so, the percentage of surving hard stone seals would be (4500/74100) 6%, a figure that hypothetically supports the hypothesized percentage of one Malia artisan's surviving seals, 6.66%.11 Betancourt 2007; Knappett 1999; Davaras 1990(1986), 11: (agreeing with Poursat 2010) Lasithi belonged to Malia, whose territory may have extended as far as Mochlos.


Gournia and Vasilike at the north end of the Hierapetra isthmus, the island of Mochlos, Petras at

the east end of Siteia bay, and, at the extreme east end of Crete, Palaikastro and Kato Zakro.

Apart from the Malia Workshop pieces that impressed sealings within the nearby Quartier Mu,

its seals were also used to impress pots at Papadiókambos and Petras, on the coast west and east

of Siteia, respectively, and a loomweight from Kato Zakro in the east.

Far fewer seals made their way west of Malia to the Pediada plain, Knossos, and Archanes

(Fig.). One Malia Workshop seal (#699) was buried with the deceased in ChT 38 in the Final

Palatial cemetery of Armenoi above Rethymnon, but that cemetery has yielded many early seals

and it seems likely these had been heirlooms or deliberately collected.12 A few Malia Workshop

seals have been found in the Mesara, in the Koumasa, Platanos, and Kouse tholoi. Outside

Greece, a Malia button seal comes from House C at Ayia Irini in Kea (CMS V 487, Fig., cat.

671).

Malia Workshop pieces were also used to impress 34 sealings at Malia, Phaistos, and Knossos.

Almost all of these sealings date contemporary with the Workshop, but two, both from Knossos

(cat. 763 and 764), probably date to the Final Palatial period. And one stamp (CMS VS 1B, no.

322, cat. 735; Fig. 104) impressed the center of a MM roundel found on Samothrace, a unique

position for roundel impressions.

The concentration of Malia Workshop pieces around Malia, Lasithi, and regions east therefore

contrasts markedly with the paucity of pieces found in central and western Crete and outside

Crete. The Malia Workshop seals, therefore, seem discrete in time and region, with a few strays

12 what?


here and there. We might imagine, therefore, that the Malia Workshop seals characterize,

glyptically, the ProtoPalatial Malia-Lasithi state, its reach, and its citizens.

The Iconography of the Malia Workshop

The iconography of the Malia seals is, like the number of the surviving seals themselves, a

revelation (Fig. 105). Up until the Malia Workshop, the natural world had been poorly

represented on Aegean seals. A dog (CMS V 120) and a few spiders (e.g., V 57) appear on EH II

sealings(Fig.); many lions (e.g., II 1.249), a few agrimia, some spiders and the first few humans

(II 1.385a) appear in the EM III Parading Lions/Spiral group (Fig.; more on this group below);

and the MM IA-IIA Border/Leaf group (Fig.; more on this group below) abandoned the exotic

lion but did not develop the figural repertory beyond a few agrimia (II 1.126a), a few people (II

1.391k), the first boar (II 1.64d), and the first boat (II 1.287b).

Abandoning this reticence, the Malia Workshop exhuberantly depicts people, animals, and man-

made objects. The iconography is complex, distributed mostly over the three (and occasionally

four) faces of prisms (Catalogue, Part A), plus a few single faces of stamp seals (Catalogue, Part

B).

The Catalogue lists every seal excavated from the Malia Workshop and those that can attributed

to it. While the reason for this inclusive list will become clear, it makes for a complicated

organization. Let me explain its arrangement.


The Catalogue is created as a table that can be sorted by the word-processing program,

Microsoft Word. It is divided into three parts, the prisms (part A), non-prisms (part B), and

impressions (part C).

The three catalogues are arranged in columns that first number the seals sequentially from 1

to 765. Column 2 gives the seal's citation in Anastasiadou's PhD dissertation (2011b).

Columns 3-6 give bibliographic citations (usually CMS volumes), seal shape, seal material,

and provenance (often abbreviated).

The remaining columns present the iconography. For the non-prisms (part B) and

impressions (part C), this presentation is simple, limited as it is to one and occasionally two

face (and therefore one or two columns)s.

For the prisms, however (part A), the iconography occurs on three or four faces and

consequently take three or four columns to present (columns 7-9 for the three-sided prisms

and columns 7-10 for the four-sided prisms).

The purpose of the catalogue, however, is not just to present a catalogue of the known products

of the Malia Workshop but also to make clear the iconography on the various faces of the prism.

To allow the reader to see the iconographic relationship among th eprism faces, I have

divided the iconography into five themes, prioritized people first ("man/men,"

"woman/women"), then animals (abbreviated "ani"), objects (abbreviated "obj"), and designs


("des") and/or Pictographic writing signs (most being cited in Olivier & Godart 1996

[CHIC]). Thes five iconographic themes are prioritized in the order just given (people in

column 7; animals in column 8; objects in 9; and designs/writing in column 10).

Within each subcategory, there are further prioritizations: quadruped are mentioned before

waterbirds or fish and before spiders. Thus, if a prism (e.g., CMS VS 1A, no. 56) carries a

dog, a quadruped, and a spider on its three faces, the animals are cited in that order: ani:

dog?; ani: quad; and ani: spider.

Within each column, the individual entries are given in alphabetical order and in more detail

(e.g., ani: dog; obj: pot jug 2) followed by the letter of the face on which it actually appears

in the primary publication (ani: dog c; obj: pot jug 2 c).

The lists also give refinements in the iconographic themes. There are subcategories (e.g., for

people: "man: man sit" and "man: man stand" with further subcategories like "man: man sit,

bow" = man sits holding a bow). Similar subcategories exist for the animals (e.g., "ani:

dog").

Pots are the most common object depicted and the most varied. All pot depictions are

grouped together (as "obj: pot") and then subdivided by type of pot (e.g., "obj: pot jug"; "obj:

pot pithos") and by how many (e.g., obj: pot jug 2).


Since sorting in Microsoft Word goes alphabetically left to right in a statement, I denoted

plural depictions by giving the number after the citation; thus, "goat head 2" stands for "2

goat heads" — the plurals, "men and women," however, form their own subcategory.

Let us take an example (Fig.): cat. 440 is CMS III 188 (Anastasiadou 2011b, no. 295). It is a

three-sided prism of steatite (provenance unknown) with rectangular faces (3RPr), on which

appear a sitting man on published face a, a goat head on face b, and a S-spiral on face c. By

priority, the man appears in column 7 under "side 1," the goat head (part of an animal) in

column 8 ("side 2"), and the design in column 9 ("side 3"). Thus: "man: man sit a; ani: goat

head b; des: S c."

Prioritizing the iconographic themes in this way means that seals with similar themes on the

different faces will appear in two adjacent rows.

For instance, if a three-sided prism (e.g., cat. 055 [CMS VI 48]) has an animal (boar) on

published face c, a bird (waterbird) on face a, and an animal (spider?) on face b, the prism is

described as having an animal ("ani: boar") in column 7, an animal ("ani: wb") in column 8,

and an animal ("ani: spider?") in column 9. And if another three-sided prism (e.g., cat. 056

[CMS VI 80]) also has a boar and a bird on two faces, but an object (pot) on the third face,

the prism is described as having an animal ("ani: boar b") in column 7, an animal ("ani: bird

wb, fish a") in column 8, and an object ("obj: pot pithos c") in column 9.


These two seals appear in adjacent rows because they have similar motifs on two of their

three faces, but the reader can see how the third face of these two seals carries a different

motif.

To mark the similarities between such seals with similar iconographies, I have

highlighted some entries in blue (like the examples above): seals highlighted in blue

share similar but not exact iconographies.

There are, however, two pairs of seals that share exactly (or almost exactly) the same

iconography across all three faces: cat. 484 & 485 (CMS VI 65, XIII 1) and cat. 504 &

505 (VIII 100, IV 8D); these seals are highlighted in yellow. They are discussed in more

detail below ("Combinations of Motifs").

In the iconographic list, one can easily see that the Malia Workshop presents a few more boars

and scorpions than do earlier stylistic groups, but lots of fish, waterbirds, dogs and dog protomes,

goats, agrimia (with long horns), and the isolated ("erased") animal heads and bucrania; there are

also several bulls, and one scene with a cow suckling a calf (cat. 126), a motif that appears

frequently on Neo- and Final Palatial seals. Among the man-made items, pots are the most

numerous (amphoras, jugs, and pithoi), followed by boats, and the enigmatic "Linear Support

with Globular Attachments" (LSGA, discussed below).

Such scenes and combinations of iconographic elements can imply narration, like the cow

suckling her calf — this is another innovation of the Malia Workshop.13

13 Walberg 1986


The most interesting scenes, of course, involve people. A few seals depict women; one (cat. 654,

NYMM 26.31.143; Fig. 106) could be the earliest instance of a woman carrying or "crossed" by

an upright animal, another motif that appears on NeoPalatial seals.14 A Phaistos seal impression

(cat. 761, CMS II 5.323; Fig. 107) carries two young women, identifiable by their long single

backlocks of hair and by their skirts. And another seal (cat. 623, VI 34a; Fig. 108) depicts two

women, arms up, flanking a star or rosette, an association that we see again on seals in the LM I

Cretan Popular Group (e.g., II 3.17).15

Depictions of men, however, are more numerous. The head of a youth with long backlock

appears once (cat. 652; CMS XII 15; Fig. 109) but the rest are presumably adults. Many are fat

with distended bellies like beer-guts (e.g., VI 1A.43b, c; cat. 561; Fig. 111); and a few have

possible erections (cat. 477, VII 6; cat. 430, VIII 111; cat. 521, IX 24; Fig. 110). A hunting scene

may be implied on cat. 715 (VIII 12), which depicts a man with a bow and his dog, while on cat.

588 (VI 44c) another dog yaps and leaps about its master while he carries a yoke (LSGA?).

Besides the scene of two women flanking a star, there are other depictions that seem religious. A

line of men, one or more of whom raise an arm (cat. 611, CMS II 2.159; cat. 622, III 158, Fig.

112; cat. 626, IX 5D; cat. 629, XI 298), looks much like the later processions of people saluting

(e.g., I 313 from Pylos). And several seals present trussed animals, apparently ready for sacrifice

or butchering: a calf (cat. 550, VI 36, Fig. 113), kids (cat. 300, XIII 15D; cat. 201, III 208, Fig.

14 Sakellarakis 1972.15 Goodison 1988, 1989.


114), and dogs (cat. 200, XII 66; cat. 201, XII 45; cat. 269, X 34; cat. 300, II 2.143; and perhaps

cat. 453, HM 2391, Fig. 115).

The "Linear Support with Globular Attachments" (LSGA) is frequently depicted: the motif

consists of a stick to which three or more large bulbous objects are attached along its length, each

by a pair of short lines. While the LSGAs can appear by themselves, singly and in pairs, men

more commonly hold them, often either over their shoulders like a yoke (e.g., cat. 560, CMS XI

122b; cat. 588, VI 44c, Fig. xxx), or vertical with the bulbous objects rigidly to one side like stiff

banners in the wind (e.g., cat. 544, II 2.224a). Several identifications have been suggested,16 but

none is wholely convincing; loomweights (enlarged for recognizability) or round-bottomed

containers (cauldrons or large pots) seem most plausible. Since "Linear Supports with Globular

Appendages" show up only on Malia Workshop seals, it is possible the object was a localized

fad.

A few other Malia seals depict weapons and hunting. Men wield swords and a shield on one seal

(cat. 517, CMS I 414, Fig. 119), hold a spear (cat. 573, II 2.302, Fig. 120) or bows and arrows

(cat. 524, II 2.98, Fig. 121), and carry a yoke with two trussed agrimia (cat. 577, VI 25, Fig.

122). The common depiction of dogs and agrimia, sometimes with short spears above their

backs, supplements the theme of hunting.

The most common scene, however, involves men with pots; one seal impression depicts a man

and woman leaning over a tripod cauldron (cat. 764, CMS II 8.275, Fig. 123). Men sit with pots,

16 Evans, SM 131-32, suggests transort vessels and most other authors have agreed (e.g., Yule 1980: 166-67, and Younger 1969 and 1995: 336). Burke 1997, however, suggests loomweights.


touch them, and hold jugs over pots. One scene (cat. 623, VI 34, Fig. 124) carries a man seated,

his arm out to touch an amphora placed within a striated arch that has been interpreted as a kiln.

This focus on pottery has puzzled scholars. Two interpretations are attractive, however: 1) these

scenes refer to beer and the making of beer, and it is tempting to view the fat men as having

drunk much, waving their jugs enthusiastically over large beer pithoi (cat. 550, II 2.237?; cat.

610, VI 60; cat. 556, XI 206; cat. 560, XI 122; cat. 561, VS 1A.43, Fig. 125);17 or 2) since a

pottery workshop was situated next to the Malia sealstone workshop, it is possible that all these

scenes depict the seal cutters' next-door neighbors and their doings18 — including, perhaps, men

with a yoke (the LGSA) carrying newly thrown pots outside to dry.

Combinations of Motifs on the Prisms

While earlier seal groups include many seals with two faces engraved, the motifs are usually and

monotonously the same. The Parading Lions/Spiral Complex (EM III), for instance, consists

primarily of short, bifacial dentine cylinders with lions that "parade" around the periphery of the

large face while the smaller face carries spiriliform patterns (e.g., CMS II 1.3). Most seals in the

PL/S Complex, therfore, look very much alike. Similarly, the Border-Leaf Group (MM I)

consists of disks, gables, and an occasional cube with a caprid or other animal centered on each

face and hatched triangles pendant from the periphery (e.g., II 1.64, 1.126) or just hatched forms

in the center and hatched triangles as filler. They too all look similar.

17 Katz and Maytag 199118 Wingerath 1995, 22-48.


In the catalogue of Malia Workshop seals, there are 641 three-sided prisms, 13 four-sided

prisms, and three gables (one with four, one with three faces, and one with one face preserved)

and therefore a possible 1983 individual faces (several, however, have been broken away ["not

preserved"], were never engraved ["blank"], or are illegible ["?"]). If we remove those

indeterminate faces (183) from the database, we have a total of 1800 legible faces.

The Malia prisms thus present three or four decorated faces on which occur the five basic themes

(P=people, A=animals, O=objects, D=designs, and S=Hieroglyphic signs). There are thus 25

possible thematic sequences (5x5 themes) using just the basic themes.19

Many prisms carry the same three themes. For instance, animals on one face, pots on a second,

and designs on a third (11 prisms) or animals on one face, "Linear Supports with Globular

Attachments" on the second, and designs on the third (13 prisms). The following chart presents

some common triplets that occur on 10 or more seals:

Face 1 Face 2 Face 3 Number of seals

man/men man/men animals 16 (PPA)

man/men animals animals 60 (PAA)

man/men animals design 47 (PPA)

19 P = person, A = animal, D = design, S = signPPP PPA PPO PPD PPSAAA AAP AAO AAD AASOOO OOP OOA OOD OOSDDD DDP DDA DDO DDSSSS SSP SSA SSO SSD


man/men ani: dog design 10 (PA[dog]D)

animals animals animals 37 (AAA)

animals animals design 72 (AAD)

animals ani: bucrania design 12 (AA[buc]D)

animals obj: pots design 11 (AO[pot]D)

animals obj: "LSGAs" design 13 (AO[LSGA]D)

While some combinations of motifs occur repeatedly (as above), most Malia prisms present rare

combinations of motifs. Here is a selection of combinations that occur fewer than ten times.

Face 1 Face 2 Face 3 Number of seals

man/men man/men man/men 2 (PPP)

man/men man/men object 6 (PPO)

man/men man/men design 3 (PPD)

man/men, "LSGA" animals animals 8 (P[LSGA]AA)

man/men, pots animals design 7 (P[pot]AD)

man/men, bow ani: dog anything 2 (P[bow]A[dog]-)

man/men, bow obj: pot anything 3 (P[bow]O[pot]-)

man/men obj: pot design 2 (PO[pot]D)

man/men obj: ship design 2 (PO[ship]D)

man/men object design 5 (POD)


man/men ani: bucrania design 5 (PA[buc]D)

animals obj: ships design 8 (po[ship]D)

ani: dogs ani: birds design 4 (A[dog]A[bird]D)

ani: boar hieroglyphs 1 (A[boar]S-)

ani: spider obj: pot 3 (A[spider]O[pot]-)

ani: spider hieroglyphs 2 (A[spider]S-)

hieroglyphs hieroglyphs hieroglyphs 7 (SSS)

hieroglyphs hieroglyphs design 1 (SSD)

The two charts reveal interesting contrasts. For instance, having animals (AAA) appear on all

three faces is common (37 occurrences), but having all men on the three faces is rare (2

occurrences). Having animals on two faces is common (148 occurrences), but having animals on

all three is only one-quarter as common (37 occurrences). Specifying the animal or object results

in even fewer occurrences.

It is apparent, therefore, that the combination of motifs on the different faces of the prisms was

not random. Certain combinations are frequent, others are rare, as if some seals belonged to a

larger, more acceptable concept and other seals belonged to a set of infrequent or unpopular

concepts.


The seals highlighted in blue have two or three faces that are similar.

For instance, cat. 156 and 157 (CMS III 167 and IX 1; Fig. xxx) present all three faces whose

motifs are similar, though the specific motif on the third face is slightly different:

156: ani: dog a ani: buc b obj: pot amphora 2 c

157: ani: dog? a ani: buc b obj: pot jug 2 c

Similarly, cat. 156 and 158 (CMS III 167 and 175; Fig.) present two faces whose motifs are

similar but the third side has a different specific subject:

156: ani: dog a ani: buc b obj: pot amphora 2

158: ani: dog c ani: buc b obj: ship a

And cat. 140 and 141 (CMS III 197 and I 419; Fig.) present three motifs that are identical in

subject, though they are all rendered slightly differently.

140: ani: dog a ani: bird wb b ani: bird head cross c

141: ani: dog c ani: bird wb b ani: bird head rosette a

On cat. 140, the two dogs run regardant in different directions (left on cat. 140, right on cat.

141); the waterbird on cat. 140 has no wing, on cat. 141 the wing is raised and striated; and

the cross on cat. 140 has four bird heads while the rosette on cat. 141 has five.

Of the 657 prisms, I note over 200 pairs or trios of prisms that have two or three similar faces

highlighted in blue) —but their motifs are merely similar; they are not identical.


Two pairs of prisms, however, have identical (or nearly identical) subjects on the three faces.

And these I have highlighted in yellow.

Cat. 503 and 504 (CMS VIII 100 and IV 8D; Fig.):

503: man walks a ani: goat obj: pot amphora

504: man walks a ani: goat obj: pot pithos?, branch

Cat. 483 and 484 (CMS VI 65 and XIII 1; Fig.):

483: man stands a ani: buc b ani: ant 2

484: man stands a ani: buc b ani: ant 2

In the first pair, there are slight differences: the man walks left on cat. 503, right on 504; the

amphora on 503 stands alone, a branch or serrated line accompanies the pot (pithos?) on 504.

The difference in the men's direction is subtle, but it and the addition of the branch, taken

together, enable us to distinguish the two seals apart with confidence.

In the second pair, however, the differences are hardly noticeable: on cat. 483, the man and

"ants" are larger than those on cat. 484, and the ant bodies on 503 are drilled. Otherwise, the two

seals are identical.


It is these last two prisms, and only these two, that are identical among the 657 prisms. From

their initial publication dates alone (CMS VI 65 in 1897 and XIII 1 in 1954)20 it is possible that

the latter is a copy of the former.

But the purpose of this paper is not to "out" a possible forgery but to highlight the fact that each

of the other 650 seals are unique.

Other large seal groups, in contrast, produced sets of basically identical seals, as if deliberately.

It is difficult to distinguish one EH Lerna sealing from another (e.g, CMS V 58 from 59) or

among the EM bifacial stamps with parading lions on one end and curvilinear designs on the

other (e.g., II 1, no. 224 and III 5). In the Cretan Popular Group (LM I),21 many seals present

simple animals that are difficult to distinguish one from the other (e.g., the dogs/lions on CMS VI

347-352). In fact, in the Late Bronze Age this trend increased to the point where several seals

could "look-alike," as if interchangeable (e.g., CMS II 7, nos. 128, 129A, and 129B; I 144 and

145 from Mycenae ChT 515; and the pairs V 499 and 500 from Ayia Irini, Kea, and VS 1B 38

and 40 from Phylakopi, Melos).22 This trend continued even into the Mainland Popular Group

(cf. CMS V 401 and 402). 23 In this last group only one seal impress a sealing (VS 3, no. 373), as

if emphasizing that the members of this group may not have been intended to impress sealings.

20 CMS transcribes the information that CMS VI 65 purportedly comes from Milatos near Malia. For CMS XIII 1, the Kelsey Museum has no further information about its provenance (pers. comm. Sharon Herbert, 12 April 2011).21 Younger 1983b.22 Pini 2006; Younger 1999. 23 Dickers 2001; Younger 1987.


But the craftsmen in the Malia Workshop apparently deliberately created seals that were not to

be confused. How did they do this? How could the Malia sealstone makers produce a vast

quantity of seals with three or four faces, each of which, both seal and its multiples faces, was

basically unique?24

I can only think of two procedures that would have produced such a large number of basically

unique seals created in one workshop.

1. The Artists Kept a Physical Database.

The craftsmen could have kept track of their work by keeping impressions and organizing

them according to some retrievable system. Impressions in clay or plaster25 would have

been cumbersome. A single clay tablet could have accommodated 10 or so impressions

but it would be difficult to file these impressions separately, and individual impressions,

one set per prism, would have taken up a great amount of space. I personally have many

boxes of plasticine impressions of the seals I have personally seen (Fig. xxx). If the Malia

Workshop artists had kept clay impressions I would have expected some of them to have

been fired hard in the same conflagration that fired the impressed nodules from Quartier

Mu. But no impression from the Workshop has survived. Cuttlefish bones have been used

traditionally by jewelers to cast metal jewelry.26 And in 1982, I saw on display in the

24 After the Malia Workshop's destruction, prism seals are uncommon, and while they do not present many similarities in motif, they were not, at the same time, all made by one workshop. Overlaps in motif can therefore be expected, given the conventional nature of seal stone iconography (it is around this conventionality that Younger 1988 is organized).25 Theophrastus, de Lapidibus 63-69, records that artists made casts of their gems in plaster.26 A website goes through the process of casting jewelry with cuttlebone moulds: J. Hall, "Cuttlefish Casting," https://www.ganoksin.com/article/cuttlefish-casting-method (22 February 2010; accessed 3 October 2020). And other websites refer to such casting as "traditional" (e.g., http://narrajewel.com/cuttlefish-bone-casting/

http://narrajewel.com/cuttlefish-bone-casting/


Paestum Museum a cuttlebone from a Roman tomb with numerous impressions of signet

rings (Fig. 130). In a fire, like that which destroyed the Malia Workshop, such

cuttlebones, had there been any, would not have survived.

Such a system of keeping impressions of finished seals would have demanded an

organizing system based on a "principle of continuity," where a motif continues to be

assumed until another is cited. To get a sense of what this would look like, here are seals,

cat. 144-150, first written in full and then written with ditto marks (") for the elements

that remain the same.

144 VI 54 ani: dog b ani: bird wb a des: cross c

145 I 417 ani: dog c ani: bird wb a des: Z b

146 II 2.222 ani: dog c ani: bird wb b ? a

147 II 2.93 ani: dog a ani: bird wb c ? b

148 BM

1936.7-

21.1

ani: dog a ani: bird wb b ? c

149 XIII 79 ani: dog 2 ani: boar 3 ani: bird wb 2

150 III 199 ani: dog a ani: buc b des: hatched meander

c

144 VI 54 ani: dog b ani: bird wb a des: cross c

https://juliathompson.co.uk/courses-workshops/silver-cuttlefish-casting/http://kjartworks.net/Informationaboutcuttlefishcasting.html).

https://juliathompson.co.uk/courses-workshops/silver-cuttlefish-casting/


145 I 417 " " des: Z b

146 II 2.222 " " ? a

147 II 2.93 " " "

148 BM

1936.7-

21.1

" " "

149 XIII 79 " ani: boar 3 ani: bird wb 2

150 III 199 " ani: buc b des: hatched meander

c

By creating a list of possible motifs organized by the continuity principle, sealstone

carvers could have kept track of their products by simply working down the list and

avoiding any duplication.

Such a list would be possible, since Hieroglyphic and Linear A documents employ a

similar system whereby a statement is considered relevant for subsequent entries until


there is a new statement,27 as in the following example of a Linear A tablet from Ayia

Triada:

HT 20

name commodity fractional amount

QE-KU-RE DI J

CAPm F

SA-RE-JU F

WA E

*188+KU J

That is, HT 20 actually records a distribution of commodities DI (commodity unknown)

and CAPm (male goat) both listed against name QE-KU-RE, with another distribution of

27 In Linear B, the assumption of the continuity principle is discarded and duplicate entries are completely written out, following a pleonastic principle. An example is PY An 172:PY An 172.1: ]ra-pte , wo-wi-ja-ta .2: ] , pe-re-ku-ta.3: ]ki-jo-qe-u , e-ro-ma-to , VIR 1 .4: ]mi-to-no , e-ro-ma-to , VIR 1 .5: mu-ko , e-ro-ma-to VIR 1 .6: da-ka-sa-na-ta , e-ro-ma-to VIR 1 .7: di-wo e-ro-ma-to VIR 1 .8: sa-ri-qo-ro , a-we-u-pi VIR 1 .9: ma-ta-i , a-we-u-pi VIR 1.10: ]-a2-ta , ro-o-wa [ VIR 1.11: o-nu[ ] ta-ra-ke-wi[ ] VIR 1 .12: vacat .13: vacat Lines .1-.2 give a heading concerning tailors (ra-pte); the next nine lines present a list of nine names and the places they are associated with, followed by the fact that each name is one man (VIR 1). All the men's names are different but several come from the same place (lines .3-.7: five men from e-ro-ma-to; .8-.9: two men from a-we-u-pi). In spite of the repetitious information, all of it is written out; there are no abbreviations, no assumptions of continuity, no "dittos."


CAPm against name SA-RE-JU along with two additional commodities. In the following

transcription entries in small pitch were not written out but assumed:

HT 20

name commodity fractional amount

QE-KU-RE DI J

QE-KU-RE CAPm F

SA-RE-JU CAPm F

SA-RE-JU WA E

SA-RE-JU *188+KU J

For 656 prisms such a list would encompass 656 lines (as does the catalogue). As a

comparison, most Hieroglyphic texts, when normalized, present one line of information;

a few texts present lists of more than 10 lines (e.g., CHIC #118 has 11 normalized lines

of text). For a final list of 656 seals organized as above, we would have to imagine at

least 66 documents of 10 lines or so each. Such would not have been an efficient system,

especially as the list was being compiled.

2. The Artists Created Unique Prisms That Corresponded to Unique Situations.

A second solution is more plausible: each seal corresponds to a unique situation, the most

obvious being a unique person to whom the seal would be a unique analogue: "owner"

and "possession." If this were the case, it would be tempting to imagine that the motifs

carried some kind of personal or semiotic message. If so, many seals could share motifs


on one face and could share several on two faces, but statistically we would not expect

many, if any, duplicates across all three faces.

In other words, while there are lots of men named "John" in the U.S., lots of men

surnamed "Younger," and lots with the name "Grimes," but there a web seaarch for "John

Grimes Younger" pulls up only me.28 If, therefore, each Malia Workshop seal

corresponded to an individual person, this would explain the uniqueness of each seal

(apart for the identical pair mentioned above), their wide but centralized distribution, and,

outside Malia Quartier Mu, their findspots in non-administrative contexts.

The frequency of seals sharing pairs of motifs (those hightlighted in blue) suggests that

they may have held meaning for owners who were similar in certain ways. Perhaps the

prisms with pots on one side and animals on another were owned by potters (like the

potters in Quartier Mu);29 perhaps several prisms with ships and animals might have been

designed for nearby fisherfolk; perhaps prisms with hieroglyphs might have been

intended for the administrators in Buildings A and B. While the last seems plausible

(literacy may not have been commonplace in the Middle Bronze Age), the first two

suggestions imply meaningful relationships between seals, their iconography, and their

owners. This is doubtful. From the Vapheio cist, for instance, come 29 seals that break

down into iconographic groups: five with bulls (CMS I, nos. 234-238), four with lions

attacking bulls (251-254), three with women and caprids (220-222), three with lions

28 A Google search (September 15, 2015) on "John Grimes Younger" pulls up several "John Grimes," "John Young," and "John Younger," but no person with all three names. My cousin has a similar but not the same name, John Younger Jackson, both of us with our mother's maiden name as our middle name.29 Wingerath 1995, 22-48.


(244-246), two with robed men (223, 225), two with genii (231, 232), two with men

hunters (224, 227), two with scratching dogs (255, 256), and six unique seals (230, 242,

257, 258, 260, 261). It is difficult to imagine how all these iconographic groups relate

equally to a single individual.30

The idea that each Malia Workshop prism relates to a single individual is not new.31

Evans concluded, even on the basis of the relatively few prisms that he saw, that "the

seals were designed to convey information regarding their owners" and since "these

figures were not chosen at haphazard … the collective group on the different sides of the

stone has a connected and cumulative meaning."32 More thoroughly, Henri and Micheline

van Effenterre examined some 350 prisms with about 900 faces, entering their

iconography into a database and sorting it, much like the present catalogue here.33 They

concluded: though some prisms were similar, "Il n'y a pratiquement pas deux prismes

pareils sur les 300: le prisme est bien 'individuel'."34 In fact, they went so far as to

postulate that the sides of three-sided prisms conveyed specific information about the

names of their owners:35 "Le prisme, qui orte généralement une triple figuration, semble

être un objet charactéristique de propriété individuelle," which they speculated might

correspond to some onomastic scheme:

30 Kilian-Dirlmeier 1987 imagines several different personae for the Vapheio deceased: priest, hunter, king, warrior. Undoubtedly that person could indeed be all these, but how does the iconography of the seals relay that information?31 Anastasiadou 2011b, p. 2, is aware of this idea, but an examination of it fell outside the scope of her dissertation.32 Evans 1894, pp. 301 and 322. Branigan 1969, pp. 7-8, agrees.33 H. and M. van Effenterre 1974."Vers une grammaire de la glyptique créto-

mycénienne," CMS Beiheft 0, 22-29. Boppard 1974.34 H. and M. van Effenterre 1974, p. 27.35 H. and M. van Effenterre 1974, p. 22


prénom patronyme nom de tribu/nom propre

nom patronyme démotique ou nom professionnel

praenomen nomen cognomen

The van Effenterres also noted that very few women appear on Malia prisms (only nine

seals and sealings in the present catalogue, cat. 652-656, 758, 764, 765), implying that the

Malia Workshop seals were appealing almost exclusively to male interests and

occupations.

The Purpose of the Malia Prisms

If the Malia prisms were meant to correspond to the citizens of the Malia-Lasithi state and to

identify them by some sort of iconographic/pictographic nomenclature,36 then the prisms were

meant to function like identity cards in a census-like process. The discussion above concerning

how many seals the Workshop may have produced over its 75 year lifespan suggested 54,640, of

which most would have been prisms. Such a figure corresponds to a reasonable number of male

citizens in the Malia-Lasithi state, suggesting a total population of some 200,000, if every male

citizen was the head of a household of four individuals.37

36 The motifs on the prisms are too numerous and too varied to have functioned phonetically like a rebus or pictographic system. Yet of the 555 different, polysyllabic words in Linear A (counting only those that are complete, unambiguous, and unligatured), most are trisyllabic (232, 42%), dissyllabic being the next most numerous (146, 26%), followed by words of four syllables (106, 19%), five (41, 7%), or more (25, 6%). Of the 656 prisms, three-sided prisms (643, 98%) far outstrip four-sided prisms (13; 2%). If the prisms corresponded to personal names, they might be analogous to the shorter Linear A words, those of two or three syllables that comprise the bulk of the Linear A vocabulary.37 Rehak and Younger 2001, 398, cite sources for estimates of 300-340 people per densely populated hectare. A total population of 200,000 would therefore densely occupy 588-667 hectares, or approximately 6 square kilometers. The Malia state probably took in most of the


Since some Malia prisms, primarily those in hard stones (and created therefore late in the life of

the Workshop), carry hieroglyphic inscriptions which may be (late) development from the

possible onomastic significance of the Malia prisms, it is obvious that they play some role in the

development of writing.

Dating the Origin of Writing in Crete

The date for the development of writing in Crete is dependent on the history of bureaucratic

administration, which in turn is dependent on the chronology of early Cretan seals. From EM II-

III Crete we have fewer than a hundred seals but, unlike the contemporary mainland, almost no

seal impressions. Only six impressed sealings and two impressed loomweights have been

excavated from EM II and III contexts;38 it thus seems virtually certain, at least for now, that

Crete did not then have a bureaucratic recording system that relied on impressed clay sealings.

The seals come in a bewildering array of shapes, most made of stone, clay, and dentine (bone

and hippopotamus ivory, occasionally elephant ivory). Most of these early seals are preserved

because they were buried with their dead owners. If they were not primarily administrative tools,

at least they were personal items.

Malia plain (from Chersonesos to Sisi, roughly 15.36 km2), the Lasithi plateau (66 km2), and probably the western Mirambello bay (to the Hierapetra isthmus), certainly enough area for even a thin population of 200,000.38 Seal impressions from Crete. EM II: CMS V 20, a jar sealing from Myrtos (chevroned cross); a jar sealing from Trypiti (parallel lines or zig-zags; CMS II 6, no. 273); two unpublished sealings from Knossos, West Court house (feathered spiral; and concentric circles; CMS II 8 ??); and an impressed disc loomweight from Palaikastro, house D 32 (BSA 1939-40, fig. 27; quirks). EM III: CMS II 8.6, sealing from Knossos (parading lions); sealing from Kato Symi (parading lions; EM III?; Ergon 1993, fig. 101); and an impressed disc loomweight from Palaikastro (chevroned cross; source).


Against the bulk of EM II-MM II seals, mostly geometrical chunks of dentine and steatite

carrying simple linear motifs,39 a major stylistic group is prominent: the two faces of bifacial

stamp cylinders (usually of dentine, hippopotamus tusk or elephant ivory) carry different motifs,

usually parading lions on one face and spirals on the other — thus the group's composite name,

the Parading Lions/Spiral Complex.40 Although the date of the PL/S Complex depends primarily

on one impressed sealing from an EM III context at Knossos (CMS II 8.6; Fig. 71), many other

members of this group come from contexts that cluster about this period.

The next major stylistic group, the Border/Leaf Complex, seems to develop out of the Parading

Lions/Spiral Complex.41 B/L seals often use some of the PL/S designs, like the hatched leafy

bifoils and lions that are thicker and more solid than the typically lean PL/S lions. While the

animals now stand singly in the center of the seal, the encircling border is now decorative, a

hatched border from which hatched triangles fill available areas around the central motif.

The date for the Border/Leaf Complex depends primarily on numerous seals from the Archanes

and Lebena tholoi (EM III-MM IA contexts) and from a tholos at Gournes Pediada (MM IA/B

context). 42 It is probable that the group had a long life and may have overlapped the Malia

Workshop early in MM II (below). In terms of technique, the drilled circular dots on CMS IV 42

(Fig. 87), apparently produced by a wood drill,43 also appear on early products of the Malia

Workshop (e.g., what). And in terms of iconography, B/L seals also present early narratives.

39 Yule 1980, pages on EM II-MM II seals consists of geometrical chunks of dentine and steatite carrying simple linear motifs40 Yule 1980, pages on Parading Lions/Spiral Complex; v41 Yule 1980, pages on Border/Leaf Complex.42 Younger, 1988b.43 photograph


One of the two sloping sides of a three-sided gable, CMS II 1.287 (Fig. 94), carries a boat sailing

over dolphins. A cube made of hippopotamus ivory, II 1.64 (Fig. 96), from Ayia Triada has six

faces, including one that presents a boar on what may be a sacrificial table and another that may

depict a gaming board with game pieces.

The earlier PL/S animals march about their seal's periphery or stand contorted in order to

emphasize the circularity or torsional quality of the circular seal face or to give it an ambivalent

orientation. In contrast, B/L animals, and all animals from now on, stand upright in the center of

the seal face, balanced by filling motifs, even when the seal face is circular. This single

viewpoint demands a single orientation for the seal, a "right way up" — a compositional

imperative that becomes standard for the rest of glyptic history, and one that influences the later

coins of the Iron Age. This consistent, upright orientation also implies that there is a correct way

to "read" a seal — seals have become "legible."

More importantly, a few B/L seals carry what seem to be versions of Pictographic signs. One

complex B/L seal, CMS II 1, no. 391 (Fig. 89), is a bone triple-cube with handle, from Archanes

Phournoi (EM III-MM IA context); it presents 14 decorated faces. The base of the "Baton"

carries a rosette. Five faces carry caprids among fillers. These caprids appear on three large

outlined faces arranged along one side, on the middle face of an adjoining smaller side, and on

the handle; they seem, therefore, to cluster in a discrete area. The remaining faces seem to carry

Hieroglyphic signs.44 Five signs are problematic, and these are restricted to smaller faces, the two

flanking one of the caprids and to the other side of the baton with three small faces. While one of

44 Yule 1980, 209-210, first identifies the "Arkhanes script"; Schoep 2002, 23 wonders if it is an early form of Linear A.


these smaller faces carries a man carrying a bucket, the others carry typical Hieroglyphic signs: a

sistrum or rattle (CHIC *057, predecessor to Linear AB 67, KI), a bucket or basket (*054?,

predecessor to AB 45, DE), a leg (*010, predecessor to AB 73, MI), and a hand (*008 or *009).

The second side of the Baton, with large outlined faces, carries a three-sign group now difficult

to make out and a common and well-known word CHIC 042-019-019-095-052

, spread over two faces CHIC 042-019-/-019-095-052 / . This word

corresponds to Linear A 057-031-031-060-013 JA-SA-/-SA-RA-ME with with

differences, Pictographic *042 , presumably /A/ for Linear A 057 JA and sign *095 with

unknown phonetic value for Linear A 060 RA.

The word, A/JA-SA-SA-*095/RA-ME reccurs in the so-called "Libation Formula" where it has

commonly been identified, from Evans on, as the name of a Minoan goddess. 45 But recently

45 Only Linear A presents the Libation Formula in full: a phrase or sentence of eight words inscribed on a wide variety of objects, stone libation tables, cups, ladles and altars, inked terracotta cups, and a silver pin, most of which were dedicated at peak sanctuaries. In Linear B values, the Libation Formula reads as follows: 1) T/A-TA-I-*301- and variants; 2) word; 3) word; 4) JA-SA-SA-RA-ME; 5) U-NA-KA-NA-SI; 6) I-PI-NA-MA; 7) SI-RU-TE; and 8) I-NA-JA-PA-QA. The last four words from U-NA-KA-NA-SI to I-NA-JA-PA-QA do not change much. The first word T/A-TA-I-*301- appears in many variations which are difficult to resolve. Word three is always different, perhaps the name of the dedicant. The second word seems to be a placename: e.g., A-DI-KI-TE (Mt Dikte?), I-DA (Mt Ida?), and other words including TU-RU-SA (Tylissos) and SE-TO-I-JA (perhaps Malia or Archanes). It is impossible to suggest a translation for the Libation Formula with any confidence, but its appearance on stone offering tables and ladles at peak sanctuaries makes it clear that it is a religious dedication, something like "So-and-so dedicates this to Such-and-such (Asasara?) at such-and-such place" plus extra words. And if this is so, then the word J/A-SA-SA-RA which appears in Hieroglyphic on seals, should also be a word with a religious use.


Brent Davis had debunked that identification, and has suggested that the word means

"dedication" or "offering" (vel sim.). 46

This word occurs on several other early seals, again separated into two parts, an initial

and the rest of the word : CMS II 1, nos. 393 (Fig. 98) and 394 both B/L seals from

Archanes Phournoi (MM IA context); and II 8, nos. 51, 54, 56 and 57 from a small deposit of six

sealings to the southeast of the later palace at Knossos (MM IA context).

The date of the earliest Cretan writing is thus certain: MM IA, in the late PrePalatial period, on

seals of the Border/Leaf Complex and consisting of at least a couple of words including the

frequent and conventional A-SA-SA-*095-NA (CHIC 042-019-/-019-095-052 /

).

The Hieroglyphic script continues to be written into the Protopalatial period, at least for a short

time; documents come from four main deposits, Malia Quartier Mu (MM II late), Petras (MM

IIB), Malia Palace (MM [IIB-]III), and the Knossos Hieroglyphic Deposit (an assemblage of

material from the end of the Long Corridor in the West Wing and surrounding area). Since the

sealstones that impressed the Knossos sealings were all hard stone seals, the impressed sealings

at least should date to MM IIB-III. No Hieroglyphic document can be dated later than MM III.

Hieroglyphic and Linear A overlap not only in time but, to a limited extant, in vocabulary. The

Hieroglyphic word A-SA-SA-*095-NE also appears as JA-SA-SA-RA-ME in Linear A

46 B. Davis 2011, 2014 forthcoming.


inscriptions (but not in Linear B), mostly on stone libation tables dedicated at peak sanctuaries.

The Linear A transaction terms may appear in Hieroglyphic: Linear A KO-RU ("total") and

Hieroglyphic 044-049 and Linear A A-DU and Hieroglyphic 009-054- /A-DE/

(CHIC 060c).

Chronologically, Linear A documents appear either contemporary with or soon after the first

appearance of Hieroglyphic writing. The earliest document may be ARKH Zc 8, a painted larnax

rim which the excavators first dated to an EM II-MM IA context but later called it "Old Palace

period" (i.e., MM IB at the earliest). The first sign looks Hieroglyphic, like a bull head, CHIC

*012 ; the other two signs are definitely Linear A: TA-JE. If the inscription is indeed a mix

of scripts, it may well be very early. Aside from this example, the other early Linear A

documents date to MM II (ARKH Zf 9; PH 6-19, 22, 24-28, 30 [Haghia Photini], Wb 33-36, Wc

37-41, 43, 44, 46, 52, 55, Wg 45, and Wy 42; and SAM Wa 1), possibly to MM IIA (KN 40

from Knossos, South House, carrying a badly legible fraction). The bulk of datable Linear A

documents, however, comes from later contexts dated to MM III (Kea, Knossos, Malia,

Phaistos), to LM IA (Gournia?, Thera), and to LM IB (Arkhanes, Haghia Triada, Kea, Khania,

Petras, Pseira, Pyrgos, Zakros).

The latest Linear A inscriptions are found on a LM II pithoid jar, KN Zb 40, the stone door jamp

of the Kephala tholos (LM II), a sealstone from the Armenoi cemetery, ARM Zg 1 (LM II/III

A1-III A1-2 context), and a barely legible dipinto on a LM III A1-2 figurine, PO Zg 1.


In summary, Hieroglyphic was invented first, in MM IA (just before the foundation of the first

palaces in MM IB) and it appears first on seals from Archanes and Ayia Triada; Linear A

follows immediately in MM IB, or soon after, in MM II, and appears first on documents

primarily from Phaistos. From then until MM III, Hieroglyphic and Linear A were being written

contemporaneously, with Hieroglyphic documents at Malia Quartier Mu (MM II) and Malia

Palace (MM III), and Knossos Palace (?) and with Linear A documents at Phaistos (MM II),

Malia Palace (MM III), and Knossos Palace (MM IIIB?).

From this evidence, it is possible that Hieroglyphic originated in central Crete first (or possibly at

Malia) in MM IA and Linear A originated at Phaistos slightly later in MM II.

SEAL GROUPS WRITING PALACES

EM III Parading Lions/Spiral

MM IA Border/Leaf Hieroglyphic

MM IB ProtoPalaces

MM IIA Malia Workshop Linear A

MM IIB KN

PH

f i r e d e s t r u c t i o n s

MM III ? NeoPalatial


Although the two scripts share several signs, which may have had similar phonetic values, it is

not immediately clear why two such different scripts should have developed more or less

contemporaneously unless they represent two different regional and/or administrative practices

and/or two different languages or dialects (Schoep 2002, 22-23).

!!

Besides corresponding to a census, such "identity card" prisms must also have facilitated the

administrative registration of taxes paid as symbolized by the stamped impressions of these seals

on sealings accompanying commodities delivered to the palaces. There are, however, not many

of these impressions: aside from 10 pot or loomweight impressions, there are only 34 impressed

sealings (cat. 722-765). Obviously the owners of these prisms, i.e. the general population of the

the Malia-Lasithi state, practiced a "low frequency" of seal use.47

It probably is not coincidental that the Malia prisms were being produced as Cretan Pictographic

writing was being developed — or that the late, hardstone prisms in the Workshop were using

Pictographic signs. If the identity-card-like character of the prisms was linked to the semantic

purpose of Cretan Pictographic then we could add to the common assumption that writing was

invented for administrative purposes the notion that the population of the Malia-Lasithi state had

become too large to memorize and that administrators invented writing to assist them in

47 Weingarten 1983, 7-29, discusses the frequency of seal use, a theme explored in her subsequent studies of seal use.


remembering/recording who had "paid their taxes." That is, the invention of writing coincided

with, or just after, the attainment of a critical mass in population whereby memorization of the

tax-paying population was now impossible.48

The fact that few Malia Workshop prisms actually impressed surviving sealings implies that their

assumed purpose (to identify tax-payers) was not realized. Instead, Pictographic and Linear A

writing must have advanced quickly enough to supplant the sphragistic identification of the

general citizen body in MM II. By MM III, Linear A had supplanted Pictographic and, we might

assume, a different system of collecting contributions had developed: rather than direct

contributions (i.e., contributions from each individual directly to the state), contributions may

have been pooled from separate regions;49 that is, "collectors" may have gathered contributions

from individuals and/or from individual regions, obviating the necessity to memorize, or record,

everyone who contributed.

48 Symonds 1883, section III, discusses how F. Carlier, Department of Police in charge of Morals noticed, for the first time, the number of male prostitutes that had been charged with soliciting: 3049 Parisians out of a total population of 2,300,000.49 Scgieo 2002, 194.


outline

(FIG. 1) The Malia Sealstone Workshop and Pictographic Writing in Crete (ca. 1750 BCE)

(FIGs. 2-4) Middle Bronze Age, Crete (ca. 1750 BCE)Quartier Mu, part of the first palace (ProtoPalace) built ca. 1900-1750 BCE, destroyed by fireadministration center

after the ProtoPalace is built(FIG. 5) writing is invented an administration using writing and a sealing system is adapted from the Near East

(FIGs. 6, 7) sealstone & pottery & bronze workshops

(FIG. 8) administration centercommodities brought in from outside (taxes)accompanied by labels ("crescents", "medalions"), sometimes impressed by sealsthese are summarized onto prismatic "bar" inscriptions in Cretan Pictographicburned ca. 1750 BCE, probably as administrative control passed from local Malia to the

broader control of Knossos over most of the island

(FIG. 9) sealstone workshop(FIG. 10) 122 broken & unfinished seals found IN the workshop along with bronze & obsidian points120 seals are homogenous

in shape (mostly 3- and 4-side prisms)in technique (gouged)in material (mostly soft stones [Mohs scale 3-4] like steatite, fluorite)in iconography

men(FIG. 11) some womenanimals (mostly dogs & goats)designs (curvilinear patterns, rosettes)

(FIG. 12) minority carry Pictographic inscriptions on harder stones (5-6 Mohs scale) –final phase of the Workshop?

(FIG. 13) some 770 seals can therefore be attitributed to the Workshoprenumber faces so the iconography can be sorted(FIG. 14) chart

"Popular" workshops, seals for the people(FIG. 15) earlier "Popular" workshops: southern Mainland toward the end of the Early

Bronze Age(FIG. 16) slightly familiar with Egyptian writing, but did not produce their owndestroyed culture about 2200 BCE

(FIG. 17) writing did develop, but in Crete and some 300 years later (MM I) (FIG. 19) pictorial and pictographic iconography of the seals


a few close relationships between pictorial and pictographic images(FIG. 20) purpose of the Workshop

724 sealstones1-facial stamps 74 = 74 faces2-sided (bifacial) stamps 9 = 18 faces3-sided prisms (346, 84, 78, 112) 508 = 1524 faces4-sided prisms 112 = 448 faces

40 seal impressions 40 = 40 faces total sealstones represented 743 = 2104 faces / single images

(FIG. 21) repeated images across multifacial seals?reminder of sorting methodblue = 2 sides similaryellow = 3 sides similar

(FIGs. 22-47) repeated images across multifacial seals?

(FIG. 48) 2 pairs of prisms carry the same scene across their 3 faces, both in subject and in detail

(FIG. 49) CMS VIII 100 / CMS IV 8D

(FIG. 50) CMS VI 65 / CMS VIII 1

how is such heterogeneity, even uniqueness, achieved?(FIGs. 51, 52) a filing system? like a collection of casts — nothing like this was found in the

Workshopmore plausibly, each seal was made as an analogue to the unique ownernot that each face of a prism corresponded to a tri- or quadripartite name (Given, Middle, Sur

name) or to three- or four-aspects of a person's personality or professionsbut that the 3 or 4 faces present an almost certain unique "password" analogue to a person''s

identity in the Malia state

if so, the Malia Workshop was producing "identity cards" for citizens of the Malia state, all hypothetical 15,000 of them, each, let us say representing a household of 4 making a total population of some 60,000

Nakassis, Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos, hypothesizes that the population of the Pylos state was about 50,000 (ca. 1225 BCE) with a land mass that was over twice the size of any purported Malia state


amphorabranch vii 28bbuccat octopuscauldron ii 8.275chisel = ii 2.134c?circles A301 =? ii 2.135 carriedclothcrocus scorpion ii 2.153ccross pomée ii 2.112 "paramecium" = II 2.126b = *081dogdonkey/red deer iii 168, vi 25 star ii 2.106, ii 2.131c, =? *033, A47 =

vs 1a 43b, xii 83bii 2.154b

eyefig LSGA =? *034, *091fly = xi 11b? fishglovegoat, goat head vi 36b, ii 2.125 spiderhandharp ii 2.86a bird, waterbirdhatchetjugleg spirals, S-, J-linesman, squatting xii 70cpig/boar ii 2.88a, lotspinpitchersaw trussed dogship/boat ii 2.195c, iii 232, xi 81asword iii 214, vs 1a.325 anttreewomanX2 ii 2.155carrow ii 2.103, ii 2.121, vi 88b; vi 68a (spear)sieve boargateencircled group xiii 80b, ii 2.156a swastikabow ii 2.164c, iv 12d, ii 2.158c

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