General introduction

1Despite covering a span of about a century between 1300 and 1200 BC, the Late Minoan IIIB (hereafter LM IIIB) phase remains a blurred episode of the Minoan civilisation. Seminal works (e.g. Kanta 1980; Hallager & Hallager 1997; Driessen & Farnoux 1997; D’Agata & Moody 2005) and a growing number of recent publications on a range of Cretan sites and archaeological assemblages (for a last update, see Karetsou & Girella 2015: 222, n. 637) have illustrated how this period has long been underappreciated and difficult to apprehend. Though originally considered a period of decline (Evans 1928: 551; Popham 1964: 8-9) archaeological data now suggest both a time of regional prosperity, with some areas witnessing “a population explosion […] which suggests favourable conditions of subsistence and growth” (Kanta 1980: 322) and one of “turmoil […] inferred from a series of destructions and abandonments of sites” (Kanta 2001: 13) which, in several instances, put an end to