Burial Building 19 at Archanes: A study of prepalatial and early protopalatial funerary architecture and ritual

Burial Building 19, which is located in the southern part of the Phourni cemetery at Archanes, Crete, is a Minoan collective tomb of particular interest for its unique architectural form, its undisturbed burial deposits, the great variety of burial customs, the evidence of social ranking, and the stratified Middle Minoan IA-IIA pottery deposit. The architectural study of the tomb, which presents a peculiar ground-plan (rectangular exterior, apsidal interior) with three thick corbelled walls and a continuous external buttress, as well as the amount and shape of the collapsed masonry suggest a stone roof in the unique form of a semi-vault. Thus, Burial Building 19 combines elements of both the tholos and the house tomb, each characteristic of a different region of Crete, a fact which may reflect a population amalgamation and perhaps a political conbination of two different Cretan elements at Archanes at the dawn of the first palatial societies. The careful excavation and study of the tomb revealed a well-defined stratification of four successive burial layers, and a tripartite pattern in the distribution of the finds in each layer which facilitates their further chronological classification into sub-divisions of each phase and permits a precise theoretical reconstruction of the tomb\u27s undisturbed burial deposits. The study of these deposits reveals a great variety of burial customs, thus throwing new light on the Minoan funerary ritual and tracing its evolution in the Prepalatial and the Early Protopalatial period. An open-air fixed altar in the adjacent area of an unpaved court, and an indoor one surrounded by the most important burials were the focal points of the funerary ritual. The application of criteria such as the types of grave goods, the position inside the tomb, and the funerary treatment produces interesting evidence of social ranking. The study of burial containers elucidates the phenomenon of burial individualism, its evolution within the collective burial tradition, and its possible social dimensions. Finally, the combination of several variables suggests a population unit consistent with a family lineage, which according to all indications must have had a high social status in the local community