Description
The monumental buildings which in the southern sector of Haghia Triada were built in the Late Minoan IIIA-B - circa 1350-1200 BC- (Megaron ABCD, Stoa FG, Sacello H.), were brought to light in the first excavation campaigns, carried out on the site between 1902 and 1914 by Federico Halbherr, assisted by Enrico Stefani and - for just one year - by Roberto Paribeni. The buildings were partially explored later in an excavation carried out by Luisa Banti in 1939 and in the archaeological investigations directed by Vincenzo La Rosa (1977-2012). Their systematic edition is presented here, in the light of the analysis of the architectural remains and of the archaeological data deducible from the archive documentation, analyzed analytically. The study, which fills a gap in the edition of the results of the Italian excavations in Crete, proposes hypotheses for the reconstruction of the structures examined and expands the framework of knowledge for the site of Haghia Triada, affected between the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC by an imposing building activity, comparable - for the same chronological period - with the sites of mainland Greece
Introduction
The non-edition of the monumental buildings of TM III present in the southern sector of Haghia Triada by at least two generations of scholars undoubtedly has a simple explanation in the personal vicissitudes that the protagonists of the memorable field discoveries made between 1902 and 1914 went through. However, it would perhaps not be wrong to believe that the unfortunate series of events that prevented F. Halbherr and E. Stefani first, then L. Banti, from reaching this edition probably added to a lesser general interest for the chronological period. in question.
In fact, concrete attention to the Crete of TM III dates back only to the years following the deciphering of linear B: in the 2s, following the controversy over the dating of the Knossian tablets, it became clear that the destruction of the palace of Knossos, with its tablets in linear B, placed by A. Evans in TM II, had to be lowered at the beginning of TM IIIAXNUMX or at the end of TM IIIB. (…).