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Volume 97 No. 1
January 1993
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Cretan Cylindrical Models
Rebecca Mersereau
This paper is a study of cylindrical architectural models produced on Crete between Late Minoan IIIA2 and the Orientalizing period. In previous literature these models have been associated with the Italic hut urn tradition, similar models from Syria, representations on Minoan sealstones, ephemeral shrines, granaries, and tholos tombs. After analyzing their physical characteristics and establishing their chronological range, I argue that these cylindrical models were creations of native Cretan inspiration and that their form is derived from the contemporary ceramic repertoire, not from architecture. Such an abstract form of model was acceptable because the intention of the representation was to symbolize an architectural space rather than to depict any specific architectural type.
For reasons of contextual associations and distinctions, expectations based on cross-cultural studies of religious behavior, and the remarkable chronological correspondence between the rise, floruit, and decline of these cylindrical models and that of the cult of the so-called Minoan goddess with upraised arms (MGUA), it is suggested that in LM III these models were used in the worship of the MGUA at the level of the household unit. The changes seen in the distribution and form of the models from the end of LM III through their final appearance in the seventh century are indicative of transformations in both the function of these models and the cult of the MGUA.
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