“semitisches pantheon”. eine “männliche tyche” - MOSAIKjournal.com

110|ANASTASIA CHRISTOPHILOPOULOU
households in Katalymata exemplify this kind of “least complex
spatial behaviour” with very limited space available per inhabitant.
In these examples the household reflects a concentration of observable
relations between the different generations, age groups,
and classes of the community, kin and the division of labour between
these.
The next criterion relates to social-psychological factors operating
within a settlement, and the different spatial-behavioural implications
of a household placed either centrally within the community
or on its margins. “Centrally” placed households within a
settlement have generally optimal possibilities through accidental
meetings to develop contacts with the rest of the households/structures
and possibly to exercise control over other units.
Certainly the prominent example of the household around courtyard
H21 in Zagora, “centrally” placed within the rest of the
households was also socially most “central” among the other domestic
units. The impact of this effect should be expected to increase,
where the size and the number of households in the settlement
increases.
However, this theory, implying that dominant households and
important communal facilities are normally located in the centre
does not seem to apply in all the cases of larger settlements that
appear as agglomerations of dwellings, as in most of the Greek
Early Iron Age examples. In settlements such as Karphi, Crete
where a large concentration of agglutinative buildings occurs in the
centre of the settlement provides an example of a number of
“high-investment buildings” (both in terms of quality of construction
and of significant architectural features), such as the cluster of
the megara, placed marginally. These cases suggest a different “theory”
and this is exactly where elements such as difficult topography
and elevation come to play a significant role: In settlements where
dwellings are not placed on a plain, isotropic and visually open surface,
topography and elevation are two factors far more important
than centrality in signifying dominant positions.
The question emerging then, is to what extent it is safe to employ
in archaeology these “general or universal models” created by
social space theorists such as C. A. Doxiadis in order to understand