The multi-chamber tombs in Mavro Spilio: a Cypriot origin?

The necropolis in Mavro Spilio, lying 600 m to the north-east of the Palace in Knossos, was built between the end of the Proto-palatial and the beginning of the Neo-palatial periods. It is of interest particularly for the architecture of its oldest tombs. These constructions are distinctive, both within the necropolis and among Cretan funerary works. The aim of the present paper is to analyse the architectural similarities between the Knossian multi-chambered tombs with several graves in Cyprus, to shed light on whether the particular shape of these Cretan tombs stemmed from an outside influence. Such a hypothesis was first formulated by Evans, and later revised by Pini. It was always assumed that multi-chamber tombs evolved from the typical Cretan collective tomb (the tholos), revisited in the single chamber tomb dug into the rock from the Late Minoan I period onwards, but this may be an over-simplified interpretation.