The Dams and Water Management Systems of Minoan Pseira by Philip P. Betancourt (review)

In Cassel’s Weekly of 2 June 1926, Dilys Powell wrote of Knossos:

The indication of a drinking trough, the corn bins and stable-like cobbling of the basements, the polished cement floors of the rooms above, so convenient to swab out, are all so many features designed for the convenience of man and beast, and include arrangements in keeping with a modern “hydro,” writes Sir Arthur. It is touching to note the Pavilion, where, presumably, the guests dined, was decorated with a frieze representing that most edible of birds, the partridge! And, as if not content with all these comforts, the Minoans seem to have gone one step further toward twentieth-century hygiene. There are signs that hot water was laid on in the bathroom!¹

This quote is symptomatic of the twentieth-century western European fascination with the modernity of the water management system of the Palace of Minos at Knossos.

However, Knossos was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Dams and water management systems are a more general feature of Aegean Bronze Age architecture, having appeared in more recent excavations and field surveys at a number of Minoan and Mycenaean sites, most famously at Pseira, Gournia, and Choiromandres Zakros on Crete and at Tiryns, the Kopais, and the area around Gla on the Greek mainland. In this fabulous small book—easily read in a single sitting—Philip Betancourt provides a cogent overview of the dams and water management systems of the Minoan island of Pseira off the north coast of Crete in the Bay of Mirabello. In so doing, he provides the first monograph-length study of the water management systems of not only a Minoan site but also an entire island, albeit a small one.

Excavations, together with associated field survey of the Bronze Age port and island of Pseira, uncovered the remains of an extensive water retention system, with the primary aim of controlling water runoff and making it available for human use, especially in agriculture. The ultimate aim was not just the control of water but also its conservation. To this end, large dams with associated reservoirs, as well much smaller “check-dams” to ravines, were constructed in various parts of the island, in addition to retaining walls designed to prevent erosion and to supplement the area to be planted. The rugged topography of the island, however, was unkind to more traditional archaeological survey methods and, in many places, intensive survey was simply not possible. Fortunately, the acquisition of a differential global positioning system unit came to the rescue, and it gave Betancourt and his collaborators the opportunity to take a new look at the evidence of the water management of the island.

The study proceeds methodically with a short introduction that sets the chronological and material culture stage. Chapter 2 turns to the Pseiran agricultural crisis in the middle of the second millennium bc, mustering what evidence there is for climate changes. It is also in this chapter where the agricultural and animal husbandry underpinnings of the Pseiran economy are brought to the fore. It is in the longer Chapter 3 that the water management systems of Pseira are fully described, augmented by black-and-white photographs of good quality as well as line drawings. Chapter 4 provides more synthetic comments and discussion of the material. It is arranged under headings that respectively deal with the terraces, the water management systems, as well as the all-important date of the water conservation projects. The chapter ends with an account of the early history of embankment dams. Betancourt casts his net wide, turning to the evidence of Mesopotamian documents that, despite the limited archaeological evidence for their existence, leave little doubt that dams and canals were critical for irrigation. He also brings into the discussion the Old Kingdom dam at Sadd el-Kafara in Egypt, built of earth and faced with stone, as well as information...