Bone amygdaloid plaques
Ο-Ε161-194
Bone
Good
Length: 3-3.9 cm. Width: 1.5-1.9 cm. Thickness: 3.5-4 cm.
Knossos
Palace
Middle Bronze Age. Neopalatial period, Middle Minoan ΙΙΙ period:
1700-1600 BC:
Gallery:
VI
Case:
56
Exhibition thematic unit:
Late Bronze Age - Neopalatial period (1700-1450 BC). Private and public life. Bread and circuses
Daily life. Personal care
Description
This set of approximately 170 amygdaloid or fish-shaped bone plaques, with various combinations of incisions in their surface, was found in a deposit in a drain-shaft in Knossos in the first excavation season.
Various explanations for their use have been proposed. In his first publication of the material, Arthur Evans suggested that they were inlays from domestic furniture. He later changed his mind, arguing that they were actually gaming pieces. This interpretation, also supported by modern scholars, is borne out by the various combinations of incisions and the suspension hole in the surface of the plaques. Given that similar objects from the same assemblage are in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, it is believed that a detailed, comprehensive recording and statistical analysis could solve the puzzle of their use.
Bibliography:
A. Evans, "Knossos Report",
Annual of the British School at Athens 7 (1900-1901), 117-120. A. Evans,
The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos, Vol. I, 227-228, Vol. III, 405-409.
Author:
K. A.
Photographs' metadata