Heirloom or Antique? Import or Imitation? Objects with Fictive “Biographies” in Early Iron Age Knossos

During the Early Iron Age, Knossos was one of most important cities Aegean. In addition to objects from elsewhere in Aegean, a wide range Cypriot, Phoenician and North Syrian imports has been discovered Age Knossian cemeteries. certain cases, these grave goods predate their funerary context by century. This paper examines stylistic contextual dating imports, an attempt associate, point view, items with practices Knossians. Grave deposited same cemeteriesalso included local imitations Late Bronze Near Eastern imports. It is suggested that members elite treated contemporary objects, which belonged stylistically either or traditions, on hand, Minoan tradition, other as if they were antiques and/or heirlooms. this way, is, appropriating ancestral past community, could establish maintain authority. For reason, “fake” keimelia heirlooms had acquire new complex “biographies”.