THE SEALING STRUCTURES OF MINOAN CRETE: MM II PHAISTOS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS.

Summary. Middle Minoan Knossos shares in the sealing evolution which we have seen elsewhere on the island (SSMC I): the earliest sealings are placed directly on objects, a practice which, in time, generally yields to nodules which hang on cords (first crescents, then prismatic types) and flat-based nodules which were pressed over leather strips, presumably parchment documents. We have no LM IB sealings from Knossos, a site which might have been expected to have evolved its own local version of the Minoan sealing system. Sealings from the final destruction deposits at Knossos are at once closer to the earlier practices from Phaistos and to the later system known from the mainland. The mainland connection is seen in a reduction of sealing shapes (especially the disappearance of flat-based nodule types) and in a non-intensive, non-elite pattern of seal use.