7.5: Focussing in on Linear A

Returning now to LA administration, it seems that a link exists between the architectural context of deposits and their composition and function (Schoep 2002b: 25). Although few documents have been found in primary contexts, it is nevertheless possible to identify three commonly occurring groupings (Schoep 1995: 57). “Full combination deposits” always contain single-hole hanging nodules, alongside tablets and other sealings; as the single-hole nodules are postulated to hang from the highest-level records, on perishable materials, these deposits may be ‘archives’ (Schoep 1995: 61). This seems to be supported by their location, in central buildings (including Malia Palace, Zakros House A, and the ‘villa’ at Ayia Triada), usually on an upper floor in residential quarters, clearly separated from storage or work areas, and by their association with valuable objects (Schoep 1995: 61, table 3, 62). ‘Single type deposits’ consist of direct object sealings, tablets or noduli, and most seem to be in the location in which they functioned; the direct object sealings are found in magazines suitable for bulk storage, as at Monastiraki, while tablet or noduli deposits can also occur in smaller-scale storage rooms, for example, Houses I, Chania or FG, Gournia (Schoep 1995: 62–63). “Limited combination deposits” fall somewhere in between; deposits from the ‘villa’ at Ayia Triada and Zakros Palace contain tablets and sealed documents, in workshop or storage areas, while other deposits contain only sealings, such as the flat-based nodules and roundels from Phaistos (Schoep 1995: 63). One of the Ayia Triada deposits, tablet HT 24 and 45 uninscribed noduli, found in an area used for storage, points towards these being active, working (and possibly linked) documents. All noduli are nearly identical and impressed with the same seal, their uniformity indicating they had been prepared on the spot for distribution, and as the tablet records 47 units of something, it is tantalising to suppose the noduli are ‘receipts’, prepared in advance of the tablet’s expected delivery (Krzyszkowska 2005: 162; Schoep 1995: 63).

The distribution of documents within settlements has been taken to indicate three levels of administration, central, decentralised and private; significantly, roundels and single- and two-hole hanging nodules are not found in private administrative contexts, suggesting their use is a prerogative of central administration (Schoep 1996: 80). The absence of single-hole nodules could suggest that ‘archives’ on perishable materials are not kept in private houses (Schoep 1996: 80).

This prompts the question of how visible each document form would be? Tablets and noduli are the most widespread documents, occurring on their own, in private buildings as well as those connected with the central administration (Schoep 1996: 79), so are potentially more visible than documents kept in central building ‘archives’, which are stored, together with precious objects, upstairs in residential quarters (Schoep 1995: 62). However, all of these are, broadly speaking, ‘elite’ contexts, the central buildings as the seats of some sort of regional power, and the private dwellings marked out by their architectural elaboration and spatial organisation (Schoep 1996: 78–79). As such, it is likely that access to the documents within these buildings is in general restricted to those living or working there, and, as Michailidou suggests, “ordinary people presumably did not come into contact with the typical ‘document’ of a tablet” (Michailidou 2000–2001: 8).

There are two possible exceptions to this, however: the roundel and the ‘active’ nodulus (that is, when it is being used, prior to archiving). According to Weingarten’s (1990a: 19-20) reconstruction, noduli are mobile and transferable documents, being carried by travellers as a form of identification, or to exchange for goods and services, or acting as dockets to claim ‘payment’ for work done. Thus, they would be visible to a wide range of people, including some, such as labourers or those offering lodgings, who are unlikely to be creators of documents themselves; significantly, they use seal impressions rather than script to convey the necessary information. While some roundels, receipts held by the central administration for goods it issues, are created by a seal-user and scribe who are both employed within the administration, others are not (Hallager 1996: 115), suggesting that the seal-user came into the central building from outside. While Hallager (1996: 120) interprets the number of seal impressions on the roundel as a device to protect the individual from fraud on the part of the administrator, an alternative interpretation is that it enables a potentially illiterate seal-user to confirm the quantity of goods received. It does seem likely, then, that ‘ordinary people’, in the course of interacting with the central administration or local elites, would use roundels and noduli rather than other document forms, and moreover, that these two are geared towards use by those who cannot necessarily write, or read much beyond the limited range of ideograms used. Having said that, if the seal-user is impressing a roundel to verify receipt of a certain quantity of goods, this would require some numerical literacy.

Interestingly, given our tendency to focus on administrative documents, it is also possible that some non-administrative inscribed objects might have equal, potentially greater, visibility to the general population. The Inscribed Stone Vessels (ISVs), which have an inscription carved on the top face or sides, are probably the most visible to a wide sector of society, being found amongst the offerings at open-air peak sanctuaries, as well as in domestic contexts (Schoep 1994: 11). There are far fewer ISVs than non-inscribed examples — 4% of the stone vessels in the peak sanctuary of Iouktas have inscriptions (Karetsou et al. 1985: 102) — but they are found mixed together with other votive objects, so are presumably involved in the same rituals (Schoep 1994: 19). Inscriptions occur on crudely carved, simple stone vessels as well as better-made ones, and although a few examples from Iouktas may have been made specifically to be inscribed, on most the inscription is dependent on the shape of the vessel (Schoep 1994: 19, n. 113). The two inscribed hair or dress-pins from tholos tombs at Mavro Spelio and Platanos, on the other hand, may have been shaped deliberately to provide a surface suitable for engraving (Alexiou and Brice 1976: 20; see also Flouda, this volume).

Unlike the text on the administrative documents, which are ‘interrupted’ by ideograms and numerals, most non-administrative inscriptions are continuous and written to be aesthetically pleasing, but their function is uncertain beyond what they contribute to the intrinsic meaning of the object, either in the context of elite conspicuous consumption, and/or ritual activity (Michailidou 2000–2001: 18; Schoep 2002a: 14, 17). This could be another example, as with the ISJs above, of adding writing to make an artefact into a textual document (Knappett 2008a: 152), in the case of the inscribed pins or ring, a text perhaps to be ‘read’ with the fingers as you put the object on, or, if the support is the significant component, of giving an otherwise ephemeral prayer or dedication a solid and permanent form.

The extent to which these patterns of administration map onto political organisation is uncertain. The appearance of matching impressions from a small number of metal signet rings on flat-based nodules at Thera in Late Minoan IA and various Cretan sites in Late Minoan IB has been taken as evidence that Knossos is the paramount centre at this time, issuing official documents to subordinate centres, sealed by precious-metal seals engraved with propagandistic imagery (Hallager 1996: 207–209; Krzyszkowska 2005: 189–191). Several of the assumptions underpinning this can be questioned though: that high-quality gold rings could only be made at Knossos, for example, or that the iconography is exclusively Knossian, and these documents and their sealings are perhaps better regarded as evidence for a particular sort of communication between elite groups within and beyond Crete (Krzyszkowska 2005: 189–191).

The lack of standardisation visible in LA use, with different shapes and formats of document type, suggests, rather, that local administrators are acting independently, and this could reasonably be a reflection of regional centres managing their own affairs, whilst communicating inter- regionally using the flat-based nodules (Schoep 1999b: 220). Political or ideological control does not always imply economic or administrative control, of course, but if a single centre is controlling most of Crete at this point, its power is insufficiently centralised to influence local administration procedures (Schoep 1999b: 220).

In reviewing the evidence for LA use in the Second Palace Period, one gets an impression of a widespread use of writing on several media, and for several purposes, with either the writing support being manipulated to add meaning to the text (as with the clay administrative documents) or the other way around (as might be the case with some of the non-administrative objects). Although examples of writing are relatively widespread in the landscape, this need not necessarily equate to widespread literacy, not least because it seems likely that writing is principally an elite activity, and furthermore, that restricted contexts of use possibly mean that ordinary, non-writing, people might well interact with only a single kind, or a small range, of documents, creating a sort of sub-category of literacy, where understanding part of a text’s meaning derives largely from the form of its support and context of use.