In the spring of 1962 workmen digging the foundation shafts for the construction of a house at Atsalenio hit upon two Geometric tombs. Atsalenio is a quarter outside Heraklion, midway between the city centre and Knossos. The site of the tombs, which is the property of the contractors, D. Ritsopoulos and D. Serdherakis, lies about 100 metres to the west of the road to Knossos and about 200 metres to the north of the modern graveyard of Atsalenio. As the tombs were just outside the Knossos area of the British School, although belonging to the Geometric cemeteries of Knossos, I undertook their excavation as Epimelete of the Archaeological Service.
The site of the tombs, like most of the adjacent area, was a vineyard before building began, and the soil was cultivated to a depth of c. 0·7 m. This had destroyed the roofs of the tombs. The digging of the foundation shafts for the building had also destroyed all but the beginning of the dromos of Tomb A and had just reached the upper level of its burials before work was halted. Nearly all Tomb B, too, had been destroyed; the sherds from it were recovered for the most part from the earth thrown out by the builders.