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Minoan Sites in the Far West of Crete*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

M. S. F. Hood
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Extract

When Pendlebury wrote his book The Archaeology of Crete (1939) so few sites of the earlier Minoan periods had been recognized in the parts of Crete west of Mt. Ida that he was led to suggest that this region, over a third of the island in area, was virtually unsettled before L.M. III times. Some years earlier Marinatos had commented upon the fact that, whereas there was evidence of occupation in the west of Crete both during Neolithic times and at the end of the Late Minoan period, hardly any relics assignable to the Middle Minoan period had been identified there. Since then many more caves with traces of Neolithic or Early Minoan occupation have been noted in western Crete, especially during the last few years owing to the researches of M. Paul Faure. At the same time a number of open settlements have been identified, with evidence of occupation during the flourishing period of the Minoan civilization between M.M. I and L.M. I.

Notable among these are a couple of sites in the extreme south-west corner of Crete (A. 1, 2), ‘literally at the back of beyond’, as Pendlebury described it. The first of these by the Monastery of Khrisoskalitissa (Virgin of the Golden Stairs) was noted by Pendlebury, who claimed to have found L.M. I sherds there. But much of the pottery recovered by us in 1963 from this and the site at ‘Thrimbokambos’ (A. 2) further south appears to be rather M.M., and some of it M.M. I or earlier (E.M. II) in character.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 60 , November 1965 , pp. 99 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1965

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References

1 AC 35, 47, 184, 239. But he noted that occupation of the area immediately west of Mt. Ida had begun as early as MM. III (ibid. 148).

2 Höhlenforschungen in Kreta (1928) 7 f.

3 BCH lxxx (1956) 95 f.; lxxxii (1958) 495 f.; lxxxiv (1960) 202 f.; lxxxvi (1962) 36 f.

4 AC 184.

5 AC 232.

6 Marinatos, , Höhlenforschungen in Kreta (1928) 6 f.Google Scholar and fig. 4.

7 Except for a stone jug handle found by Levi in the island of Gavdhos, (Art and Archaeology xxiv (1927), 183).Google Scholar Fragments of stone vases have now been found by Mr. I. Tzedakis at Khania.

8 Spratt, ii. 204–6.

9 Kirsten, , FK 120–1.Google Scholar

10 FK pl. 63, in the area of ‘I’ south of ‘Gericht’.

11 In the south-east corner of the Square on the site of the new building beside the Aptera Restaurant on the west (FK pl. 63, immediately south of the tip of the main centre bastion (no longer visible!) of the Venetian defences).

12 The western end of the island was tilted upwards. Spratt (ii. 230 f., 237 f., and passim) estimates the rise of the land in this part of the far west as between 23 and 24 feet, and on the south coast as much as 26 feet. For changes of sea level throughout Crete see BSA liii–liv (1958–9) 265 f.

13 BSA lix (1964) 52 f.

14 A tholos tomb inside a settlement would be unusual. But there is a small tholos tomb attached to one of the buildings examined by Platon at ‘Galana Kharakia’ near Vianos in South Crete (KK x (1956) 417.Google Scholar Cf. BSA lix (1964) 83). Evans in his early travels refers to other instances of what he took to be tholos tombs incorporated in houses, notably at ‘Omales’, ‘town of castles’, in Lasithi (The Academy 20.6.1896, 513), and ‘Siromadres’ near Ziro in East Crete (ibid. 4.7.1896, 17).

15 Plain burnished red ware was common in the E.M. II horizon at Mochlos (Seager, , Explorations in the Island of Mochlos (1912) 96).Google Scholar

16 Minoan road terraces have been identified in many parts of central and east Crete, notably in the upland Lasithi area. A road supported by vestiges of Cyclopean terraces was noted by Spratt (ii. 181) leading from the west up to the Omalos plain in the White Mountains. Pendlebury, (AC 377)Google Scholar classifies this as of uncertain date but post-Minoan.

17 BSA lix (1964) 93, pl. 17 b, c.

18 Ibid., 52 f.

19 For high-footed E.M. II goblets see PM i. 74 and figs. 40, 46 D and E. Contrast the smaller goblets with low feet characteristic of M.M. I (PM i. 173, fig. 122, Nos. 7, 9, 10). These are very common at Knossos during M.M. IA; but occur in M.M. IB when they are sometimes made on the fast wheel. The evidence from Mochlos suggests that in East Crete the high-footed E.M. II type of goblet continued into the local E.M. III, which now appears to be contemporary with M.M. I at Knossos (Seager, , Explorations in the Island of Mochlos (1912) 57Google Scholar, VIII c). There may have been a similar survival of the high-footed type of goblet into M.M. I in the far west (see p. 112).

20 ADelt iv (1918) 152, fig. 12, nos. 86–88. Xanthoudides there calls them lids. Cf. Pendlebury, , BSA xxxvi (1935–6), 52 f.Google Scholar with full discussion. Evans regarded them as ‘kernoi’ (PM i. 75). Cf. Seager, , Mochlos 71, fig. 40.Google Scholar

21 See p. 100, n. 11.

22 FK taf. 63, in the area of ‘I’ south of ‘Gericht’.

23 PM i. 36 f., fig. 5; BSA xlviii (1953) 123 f.