Early Christian pottery from Knossos: the 1978–1981 finds from the Knossos Medical Faculty Site

Abstract

Here is presented, along with a revised overall site-plan indicating findspots, the late material from the BSA excavations in the northern cemetery area of ancient Knossos, prior to the construction of the present University buildings. These finds were excluded from the major published site-reports. They relate to the Early Christian martyrion-church complex noted in the preliminary site report. Dating from the period c. AD 400–650, they comprise some small deposits within the church complex, items placed in some of the many ossuaries (osteothekai) surrounding it, and in particular a well/cistern filling datable to c. 620–640 which may signal the end of use of the church (though perhaps not of the cemetery). The ossuary finds document a widespread sixth and seventh century burial custom—did the practice of depositing pots in funerary contexts then cease, due to religious censure? The well finds include the normal ‘export’ wares of the period, along with a class of Cretan(?) imitations of the African and Phocaean fine wares. Some wheelmade lamps have parallels from elsewhere in Crete; a class of very simple coarse bowls could be locally made. Several vessels bear graffiti, in particular a Phocaean Red Slip dish with two Christian dedicatory texts.