The purpose of the grant will be to study and publish the Neopalatial stratigraphic, ceramic and architectural sequence of the Palace at Malia (ca. 1700-1430 BCE), located on the north coast of Crete, Greece, and excavated in 1915 and 1919 by the Service of Cretan Antiquities, and between 1922 and 1992 by the French School at Athens. The second largest after Knossos, the Minoan Palace at Malia is set on a low eminence on a fertile coastal plain. Our knowledge of the Protopalatial site – ca. 1900-1700 BCE – has benefited from detailed investigations and impressive discoveries over the past 50 years, but the Neopalatial settlement is still understood only superficially. This is mainly owing to the lack of investigation of the sequence of the Palace throughout the Middle Minoan IIIA, Middle Minoan IIIB, Late Minoan IA and Late Minoan IB sub-phases that form the Neopalatial period, which makes it difficult to assess the local and regional role of this edifice but also its relation with its peers on Crete.
Based on a detailed study of the excavation notebooks, graphic and photographic evidence, standing architectural remains, and ceramic material kept in Malia and in the Archaeological Museum in Herakleion, this project wishes to contextualize the ceramic and architectural evidence related to the different sub-phases of the Neopalatial period within the Palace and to answer key questions related to the occupation or abandonment of the edifice during the Middle Minoan IIIA and B phases (ca. 1700-1600 BCE), the impact of the eruption of the Santorini volcano on the Palace in Late Minoan IA (ca. 1600-1510 BCE), the state of the monument during the Late Minoan IB phase (ca. 1510-1430 BCE), and the date and causes of its final destruction. Besides implementing open-access data and research platforms available online via the website of the French School at Athens, the project will produce the final monograph of the Neopalatial sequence of the Minoan Palace at Malia, thus completing research begun more than 100 years ago on the site by Greek and French archaeologists.
The publication project is directed by Drs.Maud Devolder and Iro Mathioudaki.
