Plaster float
Π10424
Stone
Fair (cracks)
Length: 22.5 cm.
Phaistos
Palace, Room LI ("astraki")
Middle Bronze Age, Protopalatial period, Middle Minoan II period:
1800 -1700 BC:
Gallery:
IICase:
16Exhibition thematic unit:
Middle Bronze Age - Late Prepalatial-Protopalatial period (2200-1700 BC). From small communities to townsLife in the settlements
Description
Stone tool (plastering float) for laying and more particularly smoothing plaster on floors and walls. Its material (red stone) and consequently its weight (around 4 kg), as well as its extensive wear (lines and networks of cracks) indicate that it was used for tamping, smoothing and polishing floors rather than vertical wall surfaces, for which light wooden floats, now lost, must have been used. The float is a rectangular slab with rounded narrow sides and a lengthwise arched handle of circular section in the centre of the upper surface. There are deep parallel grooves in the polishing surface from use. The float was found in fill associated with the construction of the Old Palace of Phaistos. It may have been dumped there when it became too worn to use. This is the earliest example of one of the most characteristic tools used in building, specifically plastering, with later parallels from other sites (e.g. Gournia and Malia).Bibliography:
Levi D.,1976, Festos e la civilta minoica, vol. Ι, p. 83, pl. 241 I. Shaw J. W., 1971. “Minoan Architecture: Materials and Techniques”, Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene, XLIX [N.S. XXXIII], p. 214, n. 4.Author:
D. S.Photographs' metadata