DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7525#0106
494
The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos.
into account in the numerical results of the present researches. The numbers of
shaft-graves and pit-caves actually existing in the cemetery may have been more
nearly on a par than seems to be implied by the above tabulated list of the
hundred graves opened. The negative phenomenon of the non-discovery as yet of
contemporary shaft-graves and pit-caves in other parts of Crete also loses much
of its importance.
The actual number of the intact tombs with which we have to deal is thus
reduced to sixty, distributed as follows among the different classes :
Chamber-tombs . . . . 18
Shaft-graves . . . . 25
Pit-caves . . . . . 17
The shaft-graves and pit-caves were constructed for the interment of indi-
viduals, and the evidence supplied by these when intact is of a comparatively
simple kind. Once closed they were intended to remain so. Chamber-tombs, on
the other hand, are in the nature of family vaults. They were reopened at
various times for successive interments, and their earlier deposits were therefore
continually liable to disturbance. There are abundant indications here, as in the
case of the similar tombs of the lower town of Mycenae,a that the peculium of the
former dead was not always respected by those who took part in the later inter-
ments. There can be no doubt that' metal objects of all sorts were especially
liable to abstraction on these occasions, so that the absence of arms, metal vases,
or jewelry in an interment of a chamber-tomb does not always mean that such
were not originally placed within it. Sometimes we have the actual evidence of
this. Thus in Tomb 49 an ivory mirror handle was discovered, but there was no
trace whatever of the original metal disc which had accompanied it. The special
phenomena afforded by the large Chamber-tomb Ko. 14 have been already dealt
with above.
That a certain proportion of those interred in this cemetery were extremely
poor may be gathered from the fact that in a series of undisturbed interments
nothing was found beyond the actual remains of bones. Out of twenty-five intact
shaft-graves eight contained no relics, and two more only a few beads besides the
bones. Three very poor interments occurred among the eighteen pit-cave burials,
and two of the undisturbed chamber-tombs supplied nothing beyond the decayed
a See Tsountas and Manatt, Mycensean Age, 147.
The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos.
into account in the numerical results of the present researches. The numbers of
shaft-graves and pit-caves actually existing in the cemetery may have been more
nearly on a par than seems to be implied by the above tabulated list of the
hundred graves opened. The negative phenomenon of the non-discovery as yet of
contemporary shaft-graves and pit-caves in other parts of Crete also loses much
of its importance.
The actual number of the intact tombs with which we have to deal is thus
reduced to sixty, distributed as follows among the different classes :
Chamber-tombs . . . . 18
Shaft-graves . . . . 25
Pit-caves . . . . . 17
The shaft-graves and pit-caves were constructed for the interment of indi-
viduals, and the evidence supplied by these when intact is of a comparatively
simple kind. Once closed they were intended to remain so. Chamber-tombs, on
the other hand, are in the nature of family vaults. They were reopened at
various times for successive interments, and their earlier deposits were therefore
continually liable to disturbance. There are abundant indications here, as in the
case of the similar tombs of the lower town of Mycenae,a that the peculium of the
former dead was not always respected by those who took part in the later inter-
ments. There can be no doubt that' metal objects of all sorts were especially
liable to abstraction on these occasions, so that the absence of arms, metal vases,
or jewelry in an interment of a chamber-tomb does not always mean that such
were not originally placed within it. Sometimes we have the actual evidence of
this. Thus in Tomb 49 an ivory mirror handle was discovered, but there was no
trace whatever of the original metal disc which had accompanied it. The special
phenomena afforded by the large Chamber-tomb Ko. 14 have been already dealt
with above.
That a certain proportion of those interred in this cemetery were extremely
poor may be gathered from the fact that in a series of undisturbed interments
nothing was found beyond the actual remains of bones. Out of twenty-five intact
shaft-graves eight contained no relics, and two more only a few beads besides the
bones. Three very poor interments occurred among the eighteen pit-cave burials,
and two of the undisturbed chamber-tombs supplied nothing beyond the decayed
a See Tsountas and Manatt, Mycensean Age, 147.