Published by the Swedish Institute at Athens. Distributed by Astrom Editions The function of the “Minoan villa”. Proceedings of the Eight International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 6–8 June, 1992 Edited by Robin Hägg These twenty papers, presented at an international conference in Athens, deal with various aspects of the so-called villas in Neopalatial Crete and their possible predecessors or equivalents in the preceding, Protopalatial period. They are followed by transcripts of the discussions of the symposium. Among the problems treated are: the origin of the “villa system”, the definition of the “villa”, the architectural analysis of buildings and building complexes, the magico-religious background of the “villa”, the role of religious painting, the origin of the Cretan andreion, and a study of ceramic exchange between towns and outlying settlements in Neopalatial eastern Crete. Special discussions concern the functional analysis of the architecture, administration and bureaucracy, with special reference to seals, sealings and Linear A tablets and political geography. Contents ‘Preface’, 7 Henri van Effenterre & Micheline van Effenterre, ‘Towards a study of Neopalatial “villas”: modern words for Minoan things’, 9–13 Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, ‘The origins of the Minoan “villa” system’, 15–19 J.A. MacGillivray, ‘The Cretan countryside in the Old…
