ABSTRACT
One of the most striking qualitative and quantitative transformations in the mainland archaeological record of the twelfth to eighth centuries concerns sanctuaries. Shrines dating back to the transitional period between LHIIIC and Early Protogeometric have now been identified at the Amyklaion in Lakonia, Kalapodi in Phokis, the Polis Cave on Ithaka, Olympia, MendePoseidi in Chalkidike, and Isthmia in the Corinthia – in a wide scatter of regions whose political development varied greatly.1 By contrast with Crete, where there is ample evidence of physical continuity from the Late Bronze Age at open-air sites (such as Kato Symi) and those within settlements (as Kavousi),2 as well as the continued use of such Bronze Age imagery as the goddess with the upraised arms,3 there is as yet no mainland Early Iron Age sanctuary which definitely predates LHIIIB2,4 and LHIIIC/Submycenaean seems a real phase of transition. Even the sanctuary at Kalapodi, of central importance to the Archaic and Classical Phokian ethnos, dates back no further than the transition between LHIIIB2 and LHIIIC Early. It should, however, be stressed that the discontinuity lies primarily in physical location and to significant, if varying, extents in the material expression of religious belief (especially the nature of votives). The continuity or otherwise of whatever social power resided in priesthoods or the provision of resources, or of aspects of ritual practice itself, are separate issues.5 Certainly, the richness and diversity of the material record, particularly in areas like Elis, Arkadia and Phokis which are awkward for models centred on perceptions of the polis as an autonomous city state, requires discussion of the values, power structures, material practices and physical contexts inherited, acted upon, developed or rejected through the centuries before the late eighth and seventh centuries. Clearly, therefore, if we are to avoid perpetuating untested assumptions about the nature of contemporary society, later religious practice cannot be used as a filter through which to view evidence from the preceding centuries.6
