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An Archaeological Survey on the South Coast of Crete, between the Ayiofarango and Chrisostomos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

D. J. Blackman  and
K. Branigan
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Extract

This report describes twelve archaeological sites discovered and briefly surveyed in September 1971 by a team from the University of Bristol, led by the writers. The work was completed in three days, following a more extended and intensive survey of the Ayiofarango catchment area. Our attention was concentrated on the two harbour sites just east of the mouth of the Ayiofarango valley, at Kaloi Limenes and Lasaia, and on the evidence that they had attracted human occupation throughout antiquity (Plate 5a). Nevertheless, the whole of the coastal strip from the mouth of the Ayiofarango valley to the ruined church at Chrisostomos was examined (Fig. 1), and the areas between the gorge and the sites just west of Kaloi Limenes (SC1–5) and between Kaloi Limenes and the tholoi and Roman farmstead overlooking Lasaia (SC8–9) do seem to be empty of evidence for occupation at any period before the present.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 70 , November 1975 , pp. 17 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1975

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References

1 We hope to present the results of this survey and the excavation of the Early Minoan tholos at Ayia Kiriaki, in further issues of the Annual.

2 The fabric of which these sherds were made we have called Type Fabric (henceforward TF) T. This forms one of a series of Type Fabrics which we were able to identify in a stratified sequence of four levels in the Ayiofarango catchment area by the spring at Ayia Kiriaki, see n. 1. Full details of the sequence and the Type Fabrics will be published in the Ayiofarango report. TF T is a brittle, dark purplish-brown fabric with brick-red core, recognizable as a ‘cooking-pot’ ware.

3 ADelt xxiii (1968) Chron. 2, 405 and pl. 367; cf. Alexiou, S., ADelt xxii (1967) Chron. 2, 483.Google Scholar This or the near-by tomb (SC3) are the likeliest sources of the EM II pottery ‘from Kaloi Limenes, clearly from a looted prepalatial tomb’, which reached Herakleion Museum in 1964: Alexiou, , ADelt xx (1965) Chron. 3, 552Google Scholar; cf. Branigan, The Tombs of Mesara 172, no. 78, where the reference must be corrected (also, nos. 18–19 are less likely, being close to Lasaia). The same is probably true of many of the other EM objects which have reached the Museum and the Metaxas Collection in recent years from ‘the Kaloi Limenes area’: Alexiou, , ADelt xix (1964) Chron. 3, 439Google Scholar; xx (1965) Chron. 3, 551; xxi (1966) Chron. 2, 406; xxii (1967) Chron. 2, 482. However, the EM tombs in the Ayiofarango catchment area cannot be excluded; cf. the seals acquired by the Metaxas Collection whose provenance is given as Pigaïdakia: Sakellarakis, I. A., ADelt xx (1965) Chron. 3, 563.Google Scholar

4 Op. cit. 170.

5 See n. 1.

6 See n. 1.

7 S. Alexiou, ILN 6 Aug. 1960, fig. 20, bottom row, centre.

8 Xanthoudides, S., The Vaulted Tombs of Mesara (1924) 73–5, Pl. XLa.Google Scholar

9 This is site E23 of the Ayiofarango survey, see n. 1.

10 See n. 2. 7 sherds of TF G (coarse brick-red fabric with many brown and white grits, sandy texture), including the hole-mouthed jar rim; 5 of TF D (pale buff with pinkish core, rounded brown grits); 1 of TF C (pale red fabric with white and brown grits).

11 The best description is that by Spratt, (Travels and Researches in Crete (1865) ii 1–7)Google Scholar; in his day Fair Havens was uninhabited except for two coastguards maintained by the monastery hegoumenos. The site is not mentioned in nineteenth-century or earlier censuses. At the beginning of this century it had a customs post, but by implication no other habitation; the two main offshore islands were uninhabited: Noukhakis, I., Kritiki Chorographia (Athens, 1903) 131–4.Google Scholar It had twenty-two inhabitants, all male, in 1928. The current British Admiralty Chart, No. 1633 (Harbours and Anchorages on the South Coast of Kriti: Ormos Kalón Liménon (1966), is based on the Greek Chart of 1962, No. 107; better for archaeological purposes is the original 1861 edition of the British chart, No. 2724, produced from the 1852 survey. Our map (FIG. I) draws on these. Contours are taken from Chart 1633, which reproduces alternate contours from the Greek chart. Neither defines the contours, but the hill north-west of Kaloi Limenes (Kaloyero Korfi) is 880 ft. high according to Spratt, 257 m. according to the wartime British G.S.G.S. map. The contours taken by us appear therefore to be at 25 m. intervals.

The article by Bürchner, , RE x. 2 (1919) 1756–7Google Scholar, should be ignored; it places Kaloi Limenes on the north-east coast of Crete. See also Delatte, A., Les Portulans grecs (1947) 77–8.Google Scholar The French research vessel Calypso prospected the sea bed off Kaloi Limenes and studied the beaches in 1955: Blanc, J. J., Annales de l' Institut Océanografique, Monaco, N.s. xxxiv (1958) 158 ff.Google Scholar

12 Alexiou, S., ADelt xxii (1967) Chron. 2, 488.Google Scholar

13 C. Buondelmonti in the early fifteenth century saw ‘ruins of large houses’ by the harbour, but he may be referring to the warehouses on the shore at Lasaia (Descriptio insularum archipelagi [ed. Legrand, E., Paris, 1897] 106, 141).Google Scholar

14 Faure, P., BCH lxxxix (1965) 38.Google Scholar

15 This may well have happened at Matala: see Blackman, , Proc. Third Cretological Congress, 1971 (1973) 14–21.Google Scholar

16 Relazione 1630: see Spanakis, S. G., Mnimeia tis Kritikis Istorias, V (Herakleion, 1969) 17–18.Google Scholar Basilicata adds this to his description of the port in his ‘Nota di tutti li Porti’, where he says that it is secure for 10 galleys and 20 or more navi except in an Ostro, Sirocco, or Sirocco Levante; he implies a small population in the area. He includes in his ‘Nome delle cento Città’ the ‘city of Bonum Situs and the port now called Calus Limniones’ (op. cit. 48); and points out in his notes on the defence of the Kingdom of Candia that the beaches here and at Tsoutsouro are the only ones suitable for an enemy landing between Piryiotissa and Hierapetra (op. cit. 196–7). He appends an evocative plan, dated 1614 (op. cit., pl. 44). On the Arab landing see Krit. Chron. xx (1966) 52.

17 Traces of illicit excavation by the road from Kaloi Limenes to Lasaia were noticed already in the 1950s: Krit. Chron. xiii (1959) 387. Material now in Herakleion Museum which certainly comes from Lasaia includes 3 funerary stelae (one of Classical date recovered from the sea in the Lasaia area); two late fifth-century stelae, one inscribed, also probably came from this site; and the Metaxas Collection has acquired several Hellenistic objects originating from here (Alexiou, S., ADelt xxiii (1968) Chron. 2, 402Google Scholar; C. Davaras, ibid. 405 and pl. 368α; Pini, I., Marburger Winckelmann-Programm (1968) 39 f.Google Scholar; Alexiou, , ADelt xxiv (1969) Chron. 2, 412, 415).Google Scholar Road construction in 1964 revealed 3 cist graves 3 m. deep and 1·1 0·4 m., which produced Hellenistic figurines and pottery, a silver ring, and a necklace of clay beads (Alexiou, , ADelt xx (1965) Chron. 3, 555).Google Scholar

18 Branigan, op. cit. 150 fig. 33 (cf. Catalogue, p. 170); also illustrated in Branigan, , The Foundations of Palatial Crete (1970) 163 fig. 38.Google Scholar

19 Brief report by Davaras, in ADelt xxiii (1968) Chron. 2, 405–6 and pl. 368β.Google Scholar

20 Warren, P., Myrtos (1972) 230–1 pl. 78b–d.Google Scholar

21 Faure, P.RA (1966) I, 52, 58–9, 63Google Scholar; Branigan, K., Copper and Bronzeworking in Early Bronze Age Crete (1968) 51.Google Scholar

22 See n. 2. TF N is a hard, buff fabric with reddish core, and heavy fast-wheel marks on the inside surface.

23 See n. 1.

24 The ancient testimonia and modern references are conveniently collected by Guarducci, M., Inscriptiones Creticae I (1935) 105–6.Google Scholar Add, however, J.-N. Svoronos, Numismatique de la Crète ancienne (1890; repr. 1972); and now Marinatos, Sp., ADelt xv (1933–1935) Parart. 78–9Google Scholar; Pendlebury, J. D. S., The Archaeology of Crete (1939) 22, 24, 374Google Scholar; P. Faure, loc. cit. (n. 21). Recent looting seems to have been mainly of the necropolis, but Davaras has reported some disturbance of the city site also (cf. n. 17).

25 Op. cit. ii. 7–10.

26 Faure, P., Krit. Chron. xiii (1959) 177, 184, 190, 196, 198, 204–5.Google Scholar See also Spanakis, S. G., Krit. Chron. xi (1957) 290.Google Scholar

27 Loc. cit. (n. 21). These natural resources may well have attracted the interest of the more powerful Gortyn. Faure has noted sherds on the peak of Kerkelos, north of Lasaia (375 m.; BCH xcvi (1972) 395); this was outside the area of our survey.

28 Op. cit., no. 3.

29 The harbour was illustrated already by Basilicata (op. cit., pl. 43) with the caption ‘anchorage of Paleo Molo’, a name which confirms the view that the mole is an ancient construction; he (p. 50) located here ancient ‘Idabria’ (Idauria).

30 Spratt does not comment on possible changes in sea-level here; he wrongly interprets the structures on the shore as part of a sea defence. J. J. Blanc, op. cit. (n. 11) 199, deduced a constant sea-level here since antiquity; cf. Hafemann, D., AbhAkMainz, math.-nat. Kl. (1965) 12, 680–1.Google Scholar

31 TF D. See n. 10.

32 TF D and TF G. See n. 10.

33 TF D. See n. 10.

34 Hood, M. S. F., ‘Isles of Refuge in the Early Byzantine Period’, BSA lxv (1970) 37–45.Google Scholar These, however, were for refuge from the Slavs, which cannot be the case in Crete. The island was used as a refuge in the nineteenth century (Spratt, op. cit. II 7), and the visible buildings may date from that period; the island was uninhabited at the end of that century: Noukhakis, loc. cit. (n. 11).

35 See n. 1.

36 These sites will be discussed in a further article. See n. 1.

37 Branigan, op. cit. (n. 3) 149–50.

38 The Archaeology of Crete (1939) 369–76; Vagionia (south-east of Gortyn) 375.

39 E19; E5 and W2A. See n. 1.