Keos and the Eastern Aegean: the Cretan Connection

E VIDENCE for contact, direct or indirect, between the Cycladic Islands and the Eastern Aegean in the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age has hitherto been almost nonexistent. 1 The overseas commercial enterprises of those island settlements about which we know most (Ayia Irini on Keos, Phylakopi on Melos, Akrotiri on Thera) operated primarily, although not exclusively, along a line running roughly south-north, between Crete and the Greek mainland: the "Western String" route.2 The large numbers of imports in the Western Cyclades can generally be classed as Minoan, Helladic, or Cycladic (viz. Melian products in Keos, Theran at Phylakopi, etc.). The identification of Eastern Aegean artifacts at Ayia Irini may, therefore, at first seem surprising. The question of how they reached Keos is in some ways more interesting than the objects themselves. There is, as we shall see, no compelling evidence for direct commercial contact between these two areas, although we should not rule out occasional visits by fishermen or free-lance traders, who must always have been on the lookout for new opportunities or for resources to fall back on in hard times. More plausibly, the material may have come indirectly via Crete, for the Minoans had been active in the Eastern Aegean from Middle Minoan II-III onward.3 The ceramic evidence from Ayia Irini comprises a rare but highly diagnostic class of pottery, found usually in levels of Late Cycladic (LC) I and II date (equivalent to Keos