| Although political economy on Crete is usually directly connected with the Minoan palaces, this paper seeks to assess political economy outside the realm of the palaces. By assessing social practice and especially the creation, communication and dissemination of what Baines and Yoffee (2000) have termed ‘high culture’, we can get an idea of the power dynamics in Minoan society. Although the traditional palatial model implies that ‘high culture’ was controlled and monopolised by the Minoan palaces, I believe it is hard to project this model back in time to the earliest buildings with central courts (EM IIB Malia) and to the MBA buildings because of the anachronistic assumptions that may be involved. High culture was not a unidirectional and centralised affair, as was the case in the Mycenaean polities on the Greek Mainland. This can be made clear by reconstructing power dynamics at different levels: within the settlement, within the wider region (or landscape) and at an island-wide level. |
