Santuari cretesi tra gli inizi dell'età del Ferro e l'età arcaica nel quadro dei contatti con il Mediterraneo orientale

Cretan cult buildings of the Early Iron Age, although scarcely standardized, show certain peculiarities whose recurrence contributes to outline an architectural tradition that develops alongside, and in some respects independently, of the rest of the Greek world. These peculiarities, that appear in the archaeological record, reflect the specificities which exist at the religious and cult level. This situation is generally attributed to two complementary factors: the first is constituted by the high degree of survival of the Bronze Age tradition in Crete, while the second consists in the early predisposition of the island to absorb foreign cultural aspects, above all from the Near East, largely due to the position it occupies along the Mediterranean routes connecting East and West and the Aegean with North Africa. Cretan sanctuaries are a particularly interesting field of investigation not only because of the importance they play within social and political dynamics, both local and regional, but because in some cases they also constitute the privileged meeting places between individuals belonging to different cultures. The present work pays particular attention to the spatial, architectural and cult aspects of the Cretan sanctuaries between the Early Iron Age and the Archaic period starting from a table recording of the same, in which data emerging from excavations or surface surveys is analytically collected and the interpretations of archaeological evidence are updated to the current state of research. Through this work of synthesis and in the light of the general framework of contacts that the island had with the outside world, particularly with the regions of the south-eastern Mediterranean, I try to investigate if and to what extent such relations between different cultures may have contributed to Cretan religious and architectural developments in the Early Iron Age. Particular attention is given to the case of Cyprus, an island characterized by a different socio-political evolution, which lies, however, along the same Mediterranean routes, and plays a mediating role between the Near East and the Aegean, entertaining with Crete a tight network of contacts which start already in the XI century B.C.