Dance or procession? A ritual scene on a fruit-stand from Protopalatial Phaistos, Crete

A1well-known Middle Minoan (MM) II fruit-stand from the Palace at Phaistos provides important evidence for exclusive ritual performances at the palatial level. The pictorial scenes depicted on this vessel represent a unique collection of themes very rarely encountered in Minoan Protopalatial iconography; they comprise a component of a larger corpus of revolutionary religious and iconographic ‘propaganda’ for which the Palace of Phaistos was the driving force in MM II. This paper will discuss the scenes depicted on the fruit-stand and its context. Recent discoveries from the area of Rampa Ellenistica, west of Lower Court LXX, will add some more important parallels, reinforcing the significance of human iconography and processions in the southwest area of the palace.