This passage discusses Minoan buildings constructed during the Bronze Age on the Greek island of Crete.

Although the term “Palace” is widely used and deeply ingrained in Minoan archaeology, Driessen has remarked that the term has been used to describe a number of quite different things and that there is no consensus on what the term signifies. The debate usually centers on the presumed functions of the buildings. Evans assumed that the buildings known as Palaces had several roles including royal residences, administrative centers, economic centers, manufacturing centers, and cult centers. Over the years, each of those functions has been called into question. For example, I. Schoep notes “The use of the term Palace carries with it a whole host of perhaps unhelpful baggaqe, which consciously or unconsciously encourages interpretation of the ‘Palace’ as the residence of a royal elite, occupying supreme position within a hierarchical social and political structure”; she suggests using the more neutral term “court-centered building” instead. The problem however, comes not from the architectural label one applies, but from making unwarranted assumptions about how the Palaces were used. I use the word “Palaces” (capitalized to signal its arbitrariness) not to imply a range of functions but to refer to a group of buildings that share a set of formal elements.