It is paradoxically at the height of the Mycenaean palaces that glyptic art loses its status as the principal form of relief art. The making of gold signet rings, whether on Crete or the mainland, ceases around the moment when the palace of Knossos is destroyed in 1370 bc; that of hard semi-precious sealstones stops shortly after, and does not go beyond the end of Late Helladic (LH) IIIA (J.-C. Poursat, in Driessen and Farnoux 1997, 387–90). No stylistic evolution can be discerned on seals discovered in later contexts.

Admittedly, palatial administrations still use sealing systems to manage what goods come in and out. At Knossos, the latest of its archival documents could date to c.1300 bc; subsequently, only a few sealings on jars exist (Krzyszkowska 2005, 216–17, 223–31).

This concluding chapter has three objectives: (1) to review the central threads of contemporary material culture research; (2) to assess material culture theoretical approaches and perspectives that offer greatest potential for future development of the field; and (3) to define material culture and the future of material culture studies in relation to the traditions of disciplinary practice.

The Second Palace period runs from the widespread destructions around 1700 bc, which bring an end to the Protopalatial period, to another major destruction horizon at the end of Late Minoan (LM) IB, c.1450 bc. The latter destructions, often accompanied by fire, have most often been attributed to war-like incursions linked to the arrival on Crete of Mycenaeans, but earthquakes could also have contributed. A combination of these two factors is probable, with natural disasters encouraging hostile actions. Most Cretan sites are then left in ruins, and notably the palaces of Malia, Phaistos, and Zakros definitively so. It is the end of the second palaces. In terms of relative chronology, the period covers both the end of the Middle Minoan (MM III) and the beginning of LM I.

As a domain of enquiry within the study of material culture, “technology” occupies a very paradoxical place. It is at the same time pervasive, infusing subfields such as design, art, infrastructure, or the digital, and yet it is conspicuously absent as a distinct topic compared to, for instance, religion, art, or consumption. This chapter explores the history of thinking surrounding the concept of “technology” and its components of technical activities, objects, and systems.

This chapter on engagement and authority explores the role of material culture in negotiations of power, in gifting, as regulatory tools, and as modes or tools of empowerment and connection or conversely, dispossession and exclusion. The chapter is inspired and informed by the author’s work on heritage projects in South America.

Considerable quantities of human and animal figurines have been found on the peak sanctuaries of Crete. They are sometimes accompanied by clay models of anatomical parts, arms, and legs – healing offerings that occur in cult places of many periods. The peak sanctuary of Petsophas, next to Palaikastro, is one of the best known for this period (Rutkowski 1991). Cult caves, like those of Arkalochori, or Psychro on the Lasithi plateau (Watrous 1996), have produced similar finds. Figurines and zoomorphic vessels also come from urban sanctuaries and burials (Jones 1999).

This chapter examines repatriation and indigenous meanings, values, and uses of their material cultural heritage. What is the legacy of conquest that postcolonial scholarship and advocacy are challenging, and how are they doing so? How and why are the perspectives, means, challenges, and accomplishments regarding indigenous populations reclaiming ownership of cultural heritage different around the world?

During the neopalatial period, many stone vases are produced, much more elaborately than before, by highly specialised artisans working for the palatial elites, whether it is to do with prestige objects or vases for cult use, as with the zoomorphic rhyta mentioned in Chapter 23. This change is clear in the choice of materials, in the making of complex forms, and in their decoration, which sees the addition of carved relief scenes. Those from the villa of Haghia Triada, like the group of stone vases found in the Sanctuary Treasury of the Zakros palace, are among the best examples of this expertise.

Increasingly scholars engage with the role of the material world in relation to social movements and the importance of the material world in limiting and expanding efforts for social justice. Regulation of space, use of objects to uphold or erode bias, and construction of objects as political tools are but some of the relationships outlined by scholars who position the material world as more than a backdrop to social change, but inherent to political and social actions.

The establishment of a sedentary way of life in permanent villages; the beginnings of agriculture (cultivation of cereals and pulses) and animal domestication, which together replace hunting and gathering; and, not long after, the use of pottery: these are the profound changes that mark the shift from the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic to Neolithic culture. The Neolithic developed gradually from c.10,000 bc, initially in the ‘Fertile Crescent’ from Mesopotamia to northern Syria, then across the entire Near East. In Europe it established itself first in the Balkans, along the Danube, before reaching the Aegean world around 7000 bc.

The conditions under which this process of ‘Neolithisation’ occurred are still hotly debated. The Neolithic was in all likelihood introduced into Greece by an influx of farmers from the Levant and Anatolia – small groups ended up mixing with local populations, bringing their animals, cereals, and new practices.

Forgers of antiquities have been active across all domains of archaeology ever since artefacts unearthed through excavation, whether legal or illegal, generated publicity and attained significant market value. This happened very rapidly in the case of Aegean art (H.-G. Buchholz, Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 1, 113–35). Very shortly after Schliemann’s excavations at Mycenae, from 1883, reports appeared of a workshop making fake Mycenaean signet rings in the Peloponnese (Milchhöfer 1883, 59, n. 1). Evans’s work at Knossos from 1900 gave a major boost to the manufacture of fake Minoan antiquities.

Such discoveries took place in conditions especially favourable to forgery. The looting in Greece and Turkey of Hellenistic cemeteries at Tanagra (near Thebes in Boeotia) and at Myrina (near Izmir) released numerous terracotta figurines (the ‘Tanagras’) onto the market from the 1880s onwards. Several workshops made multiple copies, especially on Crete.

On the mainland it is the palatial sites of the previous period that we know most about. Recent excavations have shown that, at least in the Argolid, at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Midea, fortifications were repaired and citadels continued to be occupied. At Tiryns, Building T, an assembly hall for the community, replaces the grand palatial megaron on the upper citadel (J. Maran, AA 2000, 1–16; J. Maran, in Laffineur and Hägg 2001, 113–22); it is built on the spot where the Throne Room was previously. It consists of two rooms, a vestibule to the south and an elongated room to the north, divided by a row of columns (AE2, fig. 338); the central hearth has gone. In the great court, a platform replaces the old circular altar. At Midea, the new structure that replaces the old megaron also has a central row of columns (G. Walberg, Aegean Archaeology 2, 1995, 87–91).

Who were the mycenaeans? Bronze Age Greeks. Conventionally, this name is given to the inhabitants of mainland Greece in the Late Bronze Age: it’s the period during which, following the apparent poverty of the preceding period (Middle Helladic (MH)), the Argolid (around Mycenae), but also other regions such as Messenia (around Pylos), sees a spectacular development and tries to compete with the Crete of the Second Palaces.

Still, this definition calls out for nuance and precision. The adjective ‘Mycenaean’ was first applied to the ‘pre-Homeric’ remains found at Mycenae and neighbouring sites; that’s to say, to its material culture. It then took on a chronological meaning (the ‘Mycenaean period’) insofar as these remains belonged to an historical period thus far unknown (other than through the Homeric poems).

Continuity with helladic traditions is most clearly witnessed in pottery; however, Crete and the Cyclades do exert a decisive influence during Late Helladic (LH) I. Thereafter, in LH IIA (which corresponds to Late Minoan (LM) IB, the main period of palatial pottery on Crete), any stylistic distinction between Minoan and Mycenaean vases tends to fade away.

Aside from the obvious continuities, the pottery of this period has some new features, in both shapes (Figure 40.1) and decoration. These trends may seem at odds. On the one hand, decoration abandons the naturalism of the previous period, even on Crete; on the other, a ‘pictorial’ style emerges that will last until the end of the Bronze Age. In both cases there is a more or less pronounced break from Neopalatial pottery.

How does conflict (both enacted and potential) change, shape, destroy and otherwise modify and affect material culture? In addition to these questions, this chapter examines how “things” can act as propaganda, as mechanisms of survival, and as creations of the destabilizing and stabilizing effects of war, peace, and the gray area in between. As scholars increasingly interrogate the meaning and chronology of war, peace, occupation, and the definition of categories such as refugee, how do they incorporate material culture?