The LM III Frescoes from the Villaggio at Hagia Triada: New Observations on Context and Chronology

This paper deals with the LM IIIA1-A2 frescoes discovered in the Villaggio of Hagia Triada. Drawing on an analytical interpretation of Halbherr’s and Paribeni’s excavation daybooks, and taking advantage of an unpublished plan drawn by Enrico Stefani in 1911, it tries to solve three main problems: 1) the exact location of the groups of frescoes belonging to the Fossa degli affreschi, namely the «Great Procession» and «Woman and Altar» respectively. It is argued here that they were found on the floor of room A of Casa VAP, not far from the East and South walls, making it plausible that they originally belonged to the decoration of that room. A third assemblage, the «Little Procession», dated to LM II/IIIA1, might possibly be identified with a group of frescoes that Halbherr discovered under the floor of room B of Casa VAP in 1911. 2) The chronology of both the creation and destruction of these assemblages: the frescoes from the Fossa degli affreschi were created in ripe LM IIIA2, and fell from the walls of Casa VAP after its abandonment in LM IIIB; the «Little Procession » could have been destroyed, perhaps in a fire, during early LM IIIA2. A lowering in date of the creation of the Painted Sarcophagus (late LM IIIA2) is also suggested. 3) The wider context of the frescoes of Casa VAP. The latter is the only residential building discovered to date at Hagia Triada, and should have belonged to the household which was in charge of the site from LM IIIA2 through LM IIIB. The frescoes belong to a main figurative cycle, which was probably intended to mark the beginning of an entirely new era in the political history of the settlement.