Archaeology Lecture with Tia Sager

Tia Sager (University of Toronto) will speak on "The Poetics and Politics of Space in Late Bronze Age Crete (LM II- LM IIIC)". Lunch will be at 12, the lecture at 12:30.

Lecture Abstract:
The Minoan palaces and their elite architecture have captivated the scholarly imagination for over a century, to the extent that these unique monumental complexes have become synonymous with Bronze Age Crete. Significant scholarly work has focused on the emergence and standardization of palatial architecture during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, and subsequently on the novel architectural developments of the Early Iron Age (ca. 1100-800 BCE) following the decline of the palaces. However, few studies have systematically explored the architecture of the intervening periods (ca.1450-1100 BCE), during which architecture on Crete experienced a gradual transformation as a result of innovation and experimentation driven by necessity and scarcity (Hayden 1981; Driessen and Macdonald 1997; McEnroe 2010). During these periods, known as the Final Palatial (LM II-IIIA1) and Postpalatial (LM IIIA2-IIIB), destroyed buildings were scavenged for their useable components, old houses were repurposed and subdivided, dwellings became smaller, and occupation was sparser than it had been previously. At the same time, the ceramic evidence for imports indicates that Crete remained an integral part of a highly interconnected Late Bronze Age world even after the collapse of the palaces. This complex and contradictory period witnessed the emergence of a distinctly Cretan vernacular architectural language, influenced by longstanding vernacular traditions, elite architectural tropes, and the evolving needs of a community in flux. This talk presents the findings of my dissertation project (University of Toronto, 2023), which integrated architectural life histories with Space Syntax Analysis and a phenomenological approach to provide a diachronic perspective on the architectural transformations that transpired on Crete from the decline of the palaces to the conclusion of the Late Bronze Age.