Clash of cultures or melting pot? Some identity issues in the southern Balkans and Crete: material cultures during the 2nd millennium BC

After an introduction on the political and cultural activities of Sir Arthur Evans in the Balkans before his moving to Knossos, the paper introduces a brief discussion about the possibility of detecting different cultural identities through the material assemblages. The case-study presented concerns the changes that occurred in the Knossian burial customs during the mid- 2nd millennium BC. After a first phase in which the funerary landscape around the palace is marked by multi-chambered tombs with hundreds of buried individuals and assemblages with many conical cups, new impressive burial customs appear around the mid-15th century BC. In the northern sector of the Knossos valley, previously not occupied by burials, singlechamber tombs with a long dromos and different approaches to depositions appear with very rich assemblages of weapons, jewellery and a new pottery set. This funerary custom is very similar to the burial uses of Mainland Greece and in the past has been interpreted as the proof of a Mycenaean presence at Knossos in that period. Later, in the Mavro Spileo cemetery, it is possible to detect signs of hybridization processes, with tombs and assemblages showing both old/local and new/foreign traits, testifying to the creation of a new material culture.