The mention of textile workers brings us to the realm of industrial production, a complex enterprise involving administration of all three possible variables: resources, people and processes. Here too, though, palatial control was far from uniform. The records attest to a wide range of occupations, from net makers and workers in wool, to highly specialised makers of prestige goods with such titles as blue-glass worker, armourer, inlayer and goldsmith. In light of the observations made so far, it should be no surprise that the various occupations attract different degrees of administrative attention. Some specialised craftsmen appear only once or twice in the extant records, and in a context other than their profession, as the royal armourer does in connection with a land lease. Industries where the centre controlled production more directly receive much more detailed coverage.
The tightest control, and the most complete in that it covered every stage of the industry, is shown in the Knossos records of textile production. Sheep flocks were monitored at the centre, and the palace intervened when necessary to keep them up to the desired size. It also set targets for wool production from these flocks (KN D-series; Killen 1964). Similar detail is apparent in records of cloth production. As Killen (1974) has shown, for example, the palace scribe H 103 recorded pro- duction targets for te-pa cloth (TELA ! TE), and the wool amounts needed to meet these targets (KN Lc[1]). He also recorded allotments of wool (KN Od[1] 562), and in due course the delivery of the finished cloth (Le). Another type of textile for which production targets are recorded in the Lc(1) series is pa-we-a ko- u-ra; deliveries and inventories of this variety are documented by a different scribe (H 116) in the Ld(1) series (Killen 1979). Killen has shown how the latter cloth was separately documented because it received extra decorative treatment at the hands of ‘finishers’ (a-ke-ti-ri-ja); H 103 also monitored the activities of these
experts on KN As(1) 602, 605 (Killen 1979: 168). Though it supervised produc- tion of several kinds of textiles, the centre did not produce *146, the garments requisitioned through taxation; that was manufactured locally, and fell outside of palatial record-keeping (see above, section 3).
Records of the Knossos textile industry, then, display a much closer familiar- ity with the production process than in any area so far considered. For the first time, we can see the centre setting specific production targets, tracking wool from the sheep’s back every step of the way to a finished garment. Workers were referred to by name, there were a number of specific terms for different types of textiles, and a specific scribe was assigned to monitor cloth receiving its final treat- ment at the hands of specialist finishers, as opposed to cloth which came from weavers’ workshops directly to the palace. For this industry, then, every aspect was under palatial control: resources, people and processes.2The wool allotted to
weavers was called ta-ra-si-ja, talansia, a technical term meaning, like Classical Greek talasia, ‘an amount issued for processing’. At Pylos, too, textile production was palatial business, and one record suggests that here too ta-ra-si-ja allotments were made to weavers. The word can be restored on La 1393.1, and another tech- nical term, de-ka-sa-to, ‘he received’ may stand at the beginning of the line. Thus the tablet records receipt of textiles made with a ta-ra-si-ja allotment: the textile in question is TELA ! TE. This type of cloth was made under the ta-ra-si-ja system at Knossos, and Le 642 is a comparable receipt record, using both that word and de-ko-to, another form of the verb de-ka-sa-to. It seems therefore that the same allocation system was in use for certain textiles at both places (and also at Mycenae, where a wool allotment on MY Oe 110 is called ta-ra-si-ja). There are several differences, though, at least to judge from extant records. Shearing records are lacking at Pylos, probably because of the time of year when normal administrative life there abruptly ceased. Is this also the reason we do not have production targets for varieties of textiles, as at Knossos, though a similar range of types is attested? Or is this a difference in the way Knossos and Pylos moni- tored their industries? There is reason to suspect that variations did exist among state administrations (Shelmerdine 1999), and it has been observed that the textile industry in the state of Pylos was more centralised than its Knossian counterpart (Killen 1984). That is, a greater proportion of the work monitored took place at the centre itself (where most of the weaving groups were located, for example), thus presumably under direct palatial supervision. Pylos might therefore not have needed to track so extensively the progress of wool allotments from an outlying
80 .
2 Some flocks were under the direct supervision of ‘Collectors’ rather than the palace. While opinion differs on the precise role of these people, who are attested at Knossos, Pylos and Thebes, it seems clear that they are of elite status. Their authority was either derived from the palace (Driessen 1992: esp. 212–14) or of independent, local derivation (Bennet 1992: esp. 96–9). Either way, their involvement in flock management, and in palatial documents relating to this topic, does not lessen the sense that the central authority was directly interested in their efforts as well as those of other flock supervisors.
weaving group to the centre, or to a finishing workshop, as happened at Knossos. What we find instead are numerous records of weaving groups: women, with their children, and the rations allotted to their support (Pylos Aa, Ab, Ad-series).
The ta-ra-si-ja system, of allotting resources and collecting the finished product, also governed bronze-working at Pylos, and wheel-making as well at Knossos (Duhoux 1976: 69–115; Killen 2001).3 It involved close control of resources and
their allocation to craftsmen. Killen (2001) observes that this system was employed especially, though not exclusively, in decentralised industries, and those involving many low-level workers and one raw material, like bronze-working. In the case of Pylos bronze-working we lack the specific correlation of allotments to specific finished products which are so prominent a feature of Knossian textile and wheel records. It was suggested above that the lack of such records in the Pylian textile industry might be because more of the production took place at the centre itself. However, the bronze-workers were operating outside the centre, at locations around the state. So perhaps this is another difference between the way Knossos and Pylos monitored palatial industries.
In contrast to this arrangement is that which governed the perfume industry. Though documented at Knossos, the production process is most explicit in the Pylos records. Work presumably took place at Pylos itself, since no other locations are mentioned; and it involved both a large number of ingredients and a small number of rather elite-status craftsmen; the opposite of conditions which pre- vailed in ta-ra-si-ja industries (Killen 2001). In this case, too, the palace allocated raw materials to the craftsmen, but the degree of supervision was less. Perfumers operated independently once they received their supplies; thus the degree of nec- essary trust in the craftsmen was greater. Another consideration may be that bronze (though admittedly not wool) was an intrinsically more valuable com- modity than any given perfume ingredient, though the finished product was a prestige good designed for export as well as local use. In this non-ta-ra-si-ja indus- try the resources were still carefully controlled, but the people and the processes less so.
Different forms of compensation were also used for workers in different indus- tries. As Gregersen (1997) has discussed, some received land grants in return for their work, while others were ‘paid’ in kind, that is supported with food. I shall examine elsewhere the possibility that these different types of compensation cor- relate with the relative status of the work product, the worker and the customer involved. As noted in section 2, elite craftsmen in particular might receive land. The examples used there were a royal armourer and a royal potter; the former working with valuable materials, the latter with a mundane occupation but an elite customer. Workers compensated in kind include the Pylian textile workers, probably of quite menial status, and other craftsmen. An illuminating contrast is found among the perfumers at Pylos (Killen 2001: 174–5, 179–80). Eumedes, who
receives a finished product of the industry, OLE ! WE, from Kokalos on PY Fr 1184, reappears as a landholder on Ea 812 and Ea 820 (and probably on Ea 773, though his profession is not stated there). As recipient of another perfumer’s work he is clearly the higher in status of the two. It is perhaps significant, then, that Kokalos is a recipient of rations on PY Fg 374, and does not appear on extant land records. Bronzesmiths also appear to have been variably compensated. Fifteen smith names appear on the land-holding tablets at Pylos, some on the texts referring to land in the religious sector of pakijana, others on the Ea series. Their profession is not stated, but it is plausible that smiths and landowners with the same name were the same individuals.4No smiths appear on ration tablets, as
far as can be told, though two sword or dagger makers (pi-ri-je-te-re/-si) did receive food payments (PY Fn 7). Yet another perquisite applied to them, however; they were among the groups that received exemptions from taxes (Ma series) and flax contributions (Na series) at Pylos. It must be remembered that such smiths were probably working only part-time for the palace. At Pylos they numbered 300–400;5one-third of them with no ta-ra-si-ja allotted. Even the two-
thirds with allotments, though, would not be kept busy year round on the amount of metal actually supplied. Surely they worked only part-time for the centre, and had other customers as well. Yet their appearance on Pylos Jn records even when not currently employed, and their tax exemptions, clearly shows their importance to the centre and the fact that the palace took precedence over other obligations. One other form of payment must be included here; commodities offered by the centre in return for either goods (like alum, PY An 35, An 443) or services (payment to a netmaker and a weaver on PY Un 1322). These are marked by the word o-no, whether this is a word meaning ‘payment’ or a weight measurement (DMic II, s.v.). The compensation in such cases could include oil, textiles and/or foodstuffs: a wider and more valuable variety than ordinary food rations. In contrast to palatial industries, here the centre appears just as a consumer, and the transactions seem to have been occasional rather than part of a regular employer–employee relationship.