The Find Places of the Knossos Tablets

MR S. Hood’s article on the date of the Knossos tablets (Antiquity 1961, 4) is much to be welcomed as providing a further opportunity of removing mis- conceptions. In view of the magnitude and the contentiousness of the issues it is fortunate that the question can be reduced to one of simple physical location. No scholar can date a tablet from its physical appearance. There is no such thing as an LM II tablet. This is a pottery classification. The chronology is determined by the ceramic associations. Thus we simply ask where and in conjunction with which particular pieces of pottery these inscribed lumps of clay were found. A simple pattern of enquiry is imposed, which, I hope, will be followed by future contributors to the discussion. I first identify the particular deposit by their Scripta Minoa II numbers and then quote my sources for their location.