Defining Transitional Early Minoan III – Middle Minoan II Ceramic Phases at Archanes and North-central Crete, Greece

The purpose of the present research is to define the Early Minoan III - Middle Minoan II pottery phases in north-central Crete, at the crucial time of transition from Prepalatial to Protopalatial, by studying in detail all the ceramic material yielded by excavation in Burial Building 19, and comparing it to material from other earlier or contemporary tomb contexts of the Phourni cemetery, as well as to ceramic material from other Early Minoan and Middle Minoan sites in central Crete, both cemeteries and settlements. The comparative study of this pottery deposit, which is based on stratigraphical and not merely on subjective stylistic criteria or seriation, and of contemporary deposits from other tombs at Phourni, which form an extensive and representative corpus of ca. 1000 vases, will generate first a local typological and chronological ceramic scheme defining the EM III - MM II pottery sequence at Archanes and reflecting, to a large extent, that of north-central Crete; as such, it will then affect the traditional dating of several well-known but poorly stratified pottery deposits in central Crete, thus necessitating their re-evaluation and incorporation into the Archanes ceramic scheme, which at the end of the process will have been transformed and elevated to an integrated regional ceramic scheme.