THE MIND OF AN OCTOPUS. AN LM IIIB CEREMONIAL STORAGE JAR FROM HAGIA TRIADA AND THE THEORETICAL VALUE OF MYCENAEAN CAPACITY MEASURES

Four decorated storage jars, unearthed in the early excavations at Hagia Triada on Crete, stand out as to both shape and decoration amongst the few entire vessels belonging to the LM IIIB abandonment context of this site. Besides their practical function, such vessels indirectly attest to the first-level political role that this site played as a sanctuary-town in Final Palatial Crete, first within the borders of the state run by Knossos and then in the period following the latter’s collapse. One of these vessels, in particular, is characterized by the presence of a group of nine brushstrokes beneath its rim that cannot be interpreted as a motif and most plausibly represents a counting/measuring device. By drawing on recently developed software-based methods of calculation, the capacity of this vessel can be precisely estimated; at the same time, the Linear B evidence related to the Mycenaean capacity measures is reassessed in light of Chadwick’s identification of a unit, called S or T, equal to litres 9.6. The storage jar from Hagia Triada enables one to put forward that the unit was slightly lower (between litres 9.15 and 9.40), substantially confirming the accuracy of Chadwick’s reasoning and making it possible to support his original assumption that the value of the highest Mycenaean capacity measure was ca. litres 93.