This paper is adapted from a dissertation submitted to the University of London in 1980 as partial fulfilment of an M.A. degree in Aegean Archaeology. The dissertation was a study of Minoan peak sanctuaries based primarily on the published sources. My research is continuing with a doctoral thesis examining all available evidence for Minoan rural shrines; that is, peak sanctuaries, sacred enclosures, and cave shrines. I wish to thank the many archaeologists who have helped me; particularly I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor J. N. Coldstream, and to Professor Bogdan Rutkowski for their advice and encouragement. In addition I am grateful to my fellow student Christine Morris for reading through my script and for help with the distribution map.

¹ Possible sites such as the Mycenaean shrine at Apollo Maleatas near Epidaurus or Troullos on Kea may strictly be classed as hill shrines, but they do not reflect the same cult system as the Minoan peak sanctuaries that I argue for here.

² The first sites to be investigated and classed as peak sanctuaries were Petsopha, and Iouktas, , published respectively in BSA 9 (1902–1903) 356–87Google Scholar and PM 1 (1921) 153–9. Even Platon's general study in KrChron 5 (1951) 96–160 only identified eleven sites. Since 1956, however, Paul Faure's field-work has identified more than fifty possible peak sanctuaries. See BCH 80 (1956) 95–103; 82 (1958) 485–515; 84 (1960) 189–220; 86 (1962) 36–56; 87 (1963) 493–508; 89 (1965) 27–63; 91 (1967) 114–150; 93 (1969) 174–213; 96 (1972) 389–426; 102 (1978) 629–40. Faure's surveys have been followed up by the excavations of Davaras. The latter's excavations of many sites is complemented by Mrs. A. Karetsou's long-term excavation of Mt. Iouktas; see PAE (1974) onwards. Rutkowski's general study of peak sanctuaries, Cult Places in the Aegean World (1972) 152–88, came a little too early to include the work of Davaras and Karetsou. Nevertheless, his work provides a solid foundation for all future study of Minoan shrines; many of his conclusions have been confirmed by the later excavations.

³ Rutkowski, op. cit. 321–3.

⁴ In my thesis I shall reassess evidence for the claimed sites and from that produce a revised catalogue and distribution map. In the key to the map here I have asterisked the sites which I feel to be definite or probable peak sanctuaries.

⁵ Faure, , BCH 93 (1969) 174–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 96 (1972) 389–426 passim; Rutkowski, op. cit. 184–5.

⁶ Faure, , BCH 96 (1972) 402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Rutkowski, op. cit. 185.

⁸ Rutkowski, op. cit. 153–5.

⁹ Philippson, A., Das Klima Griechenlands (1948) 157 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Platon, , Zakros (1971) 165.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid. 167.

¹² Faure, , BCH 91 (1967) 121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ Davaras calls this site Prinias, but to avoid confusion with the Iron Age site in Central Crete, I shall follow Faure in referring to this site as Zou.

¹⁴ Blackman, and Branigan, , BSA 72 (1977) 13–84.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Bintliff, , Natural Environment and Human Settlement in Prehistoric Greece (British Archaeological Reports, Supplementary series 28, 1977) 145–70.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid. 151.

¹⁷ The Ayiopharango model is an inspired idea. There is, however, reason to doubt the identification of the five hill sites as peak sanctuaries. My own arguments will be fully presented in my thesis, but briefly: the sites are chronologically too early; they are too low in relation to the high mountain walls of the narrow valley; there are no figurine finds; none of the hills is visible from any other. In consultation Professor Branigan has agreed that they do not fit the proposed definitions of Minoan peak sanctuaries, but insists that they must be shrines, perhaps some form of EM sacred enclosure.

¹⁸ Myres, , BSA 9 (1902–1903).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Modhi, : ADelt 27 (1972) B2 652Google Scholar; Traostalos, : KrChron 17 (1963) 405–6.Google Scholar

²⁰ Karetsou, , PAE (1974) 228–39Google Scholar, (1976) 408–18, (1977) 417–42. (1978) 232–58, (1979) 280–1.

²¹ Karetsou, , PAE (1974) pl. 179c.Google Scholar

²² Karetsou, , PAE (1976) 408–18.Google Scholar

²³ Those best substantiated are Petsopha, Traostalo Modhi, Pyrgos, Gonies, Kophinas, Vrysinas, and Iouktas.

²⁴ Rutkowski, op. cit. 186.

²⁵ Rutkowski, , ‘The Decline of the Minoan Peak Sanctuaries’, Atti e Memorie del I Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia (Rome 1967) i. 163–8.Google Scholar

²⁶ Thera and the Aegean World (1978). In particular see the article by Cita and Ryan, ‘The Deep-Sea Record of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Last 150,000 Years’ 45–60. This amends the earlier arguments of Ninkovitch, and Heezon, , ‘Santorini Tephra: Submarine Geology and Geophysics’, Proc of the 17th Symposium, Colston Research Society (1965) 413–53.Google Scholar

²⁷ Popham, , Antiquity (1974) 58.Google Scholar

²⁸ Hood, , ‘Traces of the Eruption Outside Thera’, Thera and the Aegean World (1978) 681–90.Google Scholar

²⁹ Popham, , BSA 75 (1980) 163 8.Google Scholar

³⁰ Karetsou, , Ergon (1978) 62.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid.

³² Ibid.

³³ Rutkowski, op. cit. (1972) 173.