Minoan Settlement Research Articles

British Archaeology Abroad, 1967

The School's main excavation of 1967 was at Knossos, where work was resumed after an interval of five years. In addition, under the sponsorship of the School, Mr E. S. Higgs's excavations in two Palaeolithic caves in Epirus were rounded off and Dr P. Warren excavated an Early Minoan settlement on the South coast of Crete. Outside Greece, the School sponsored further survey work at Tocra in Libya and a supplementary excavation season at a Byzantine-Frankish castle in Cyprus.The latest radiocarbon datings available confirm that the Asprochaliko and Kastritsa caves are to a large extent complementary. Only the former includes Middle Palaeolithic deposits (one of them dated around 40,000 BC), but for the Upper Palaeolithic period the two together have provided the only known full succession between France and the Levant. At Kastritsa, the 1967 campaign exposed successive beaches within the caves formed by periodical changes in the level of the Lake, the latest datable about 22,000 BC.

Some Ancient Sites in South-West Crete

With the idea of drawing attention to the fact that the whole of Crete including the most westerly parts had been occupied during every phase of the Minoan Bronze Age, if not earlier in Neolithic times, I recently listed sites of those periods known to me or reported by others in the province of Khania. Between 27 and 30 April 1966, my wife and I visited two areas on the south-west coast of the island (Fig. 1) where no Bronze Age sites appear to have been noted. These were (A) west of Palaiokhora (Fig. 2), and (B) between Sfakia and Frangokastelli (Fig. 3). Two small Minoan settlements were identified near the sea in area (A), and scattered traces of Minoan occupation in (B). The pottery seemed to reflect occupation during the flourishing period of the Minoan civilization between Middle Minoan I and Late Minoan I rather than earlier or later. The most westerly site visited (A. 7) might yield to excavation an interesting picture of what a small Minoan settlement in a remote area was like. In addition to the Minoan, a number of later, Greek and Roman, sites were observed. The most important of the Roman sites is B. 7 in the middle of the plain by Frangokastelli with substantial remains of an early Christian basilica church.

British Archaeology Abroad, 1965

Mr. A. H. S. Megaw, Director of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, reports: Excavation was resumed in the summer of 1965 on all three sites currently assigned to the School for investigation: a Neolithic settlement in the Cyclades (the first such to be systematically excavated), a Minoan settlement in Kythera, and an important Bronze Age site in Euboea which continued in occupation until the Geometric period. At the first two the planned excavations have been completed. At Saliagos, an islet near Antiparos, Professor J. D. Evans (London) and Dr A. C. Renfrew (Cambridge) in their final campaign identified three phases of Neolithic occupation, homogeneous in culture, and, pending confirmation by the C14 method, at present assigned to the early 4th millennium B.C. (PL. XVII~T).h e central building complex of the last phase was found to be enclosed by a perimeter wall, over I m. thick at one corner, to which a semicircular bastion-like structure gave the impression of defensive purpose. Wellstratified deposits exceeding 2 m. in depth yielded more of the characteristic pottery (with usually rectilinear decoration in white paint on a dark burnished surface) and more evidence of a rich chipped stone industry, chiefly of Melian obsidian, Two fragments of marble vessels and a schematic 'violin-idol' are noteworthy local antecedents for the Early Cycladic marble industry. An incomplete marble figurine of a fat seated woman was also found, of the type familiar from finds in Naxos and in mainland Greece. The principal domesticated animal attested was the sheep and there is little evidence of wild species. The preserved grain included emmer, einkorn and two-row barley, while over 40 species of marine molluscs were recorded.

Excavations at Palaikastro VI

The first excavations at Palaikastro, undertaken in the years 1902–6 by Bosanquet, Dawkins, and others, coincided with the first great period of research and discovery in Minoan Crete. They ran concurrently with Evans's early seasons at Knossos and with Hogarth's work at Zakro, not far from Palaikastro, and were in a true sense pioneer work. The series of reports which appeared in the Annual from 1901/2–1905/6, together with the later supplementary volume of Unpublished Objects and two final articles prepared for publication by various hands, built up a systematic and clear picture of one of the largest and perhaps the best preserved Minoan settlement yet excavated in Crete.The work was undertaken on a major scale, in the third season employing up to seventy workmen for nearly three months. It produced evidence for occupation in the area from the Neolithic to the end of the Late Minoan period, with a continuing cult of Dictaean Zeus from Geometric down to Hellenistic and Roman times. In addition some careful anthropological work was done, and the phases of occupation were tied in with those of the other Minoan sites known at the time.

The Archæology of Crete

IT was in 1894 that Sir Arthur Evans made his o*o first journey in Crete, and in 1899 that his excavation of Knossos commenced. His own account of “The Palace of Minos” began to appear in 1921 and was completed in 1936. From time to time others have tried to summarize both the progress of discovery in Crete and the general bearings of it on the prehistoric archaeology of the Mediterranean. But Mr. Pendlebury's book is the first thorough and satisfactory account of the work of many travellers and excavators; his numerous maps show how vast an accumulation there has been of observations and finds, and the lists of sites appended to them how much he has himself contributed by persistent exploration, covering now every district of the island. As curator formerly of Knossos, where the Palace and its surroundings have been made over by Sir Arthur Evans to the British School of Archaeology at Athens, he has not only written an invaluable “Handbook to the Palace”, but has also himself examined and catalogued the stores of classified objects from every room and corridor, and from every stratum from the neolithic tell on which the Minoan settlements stand, to the sparse relics of classical antiquity, when the site had become a ‘no-man's-land’ in the outskirts of the Greek and Roman city. After directing excavations at Tell-el-Amarna, the Egyptian site most closely connected with Eugean peoples in the fourteenth century B.C., just after the fall of the ‘Palace’ regime, he has devoted himself to a series of small but most significant excavations in the Lasithi district of Crete itself, on sites ranging from the earliest human occupation to the turbulent age which intervenes between the latest Minoan and the earliest Hellenic periods. Here are, therefore, all the qualifications for an “Introduction”, as the author modestly describes it, to the archaeology of Crete. The Archaeology of Crete An Introduction. By J. D. S. Pendlebury. (Methuen's Handbooks of Archaeology.) Pp. xxxii + 400 + 43 plates. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1939.) 30s. net.

The Scheria of the ODYSSEY

Two main views of the country called in the Odyssey the Land of the Phaeacians or Scheria are current among Homeric scholars. Some think it is, or is in, the island known to the ancients as Corcyra, and that the people who are described as living in it were ordinary flesh and blood mortals. The other view, the belief of the majority, though of great variety, is that Scheria is in fairyland or some other supramundane sphere, and a creation of the poet's fancy. In Class. Rev. XXIV. 204 Mr. Evelyn-White says, after quoting Monro, that it ‘cannot be disputed’ that the Phaeacian and other adventures of Odysseus are Märchen, so the matter is as good as closed. But as many of the Homeric choses jugées of last century have been proved of recent years to be unsubstantial, it has seemed worth while to examine the fairyland theory afresh. I begin with a survey of the literature of the question, and shall then inquire in a second paper what Homeric foundation there is for the supernatural theory. Elsewhere I shall endeavour to show that Homer describes a real people, and that Scheria can be fitted into the Mediterranean world, as we now know it, of the latest Minoan or Mycenaean period, and is in fact a Minoan settlement in Corcyra.

Excavations at Plati in Lasithi, Crete

When I was at Candia in the autumn of 1913, Dr. Hatzidakis, the Ephor of Antiquities, told me that a report had reached him of a Minoan site near the village of Pláti in the plain of Lasithi, and suggested that the School should apply for a permit to excavate it. Before leaving Crete I made a preliminary inspection of the site, and the prospects seemed to justify the School in undertaking the work. The local account was that a woman had had a dream that by digging in a certain place a church bell would be found. The villagers accordingly dug a hole in the place indicated, and found not a bell but an early piece of wall and some fragments of obsidian. A report of the discovery was made to the authorities by the scholarch of Tsermiádo, the chief village of Lasithi, and it was this document to which Dr. Hatzidakis called my attention.The usual kindness of the Cretan authorities produced the required permit, and by the 25th of April the site had been measured by the government engineer in accordance with the law now in force, and we were able to begin the work. This lasted for exactly a month, until the 25th of May, the number of men employed being for the most part about thirty, and resulted in the discovery of the Minoan settlement described in the second section of this report. The party consisted of Messrs. J. P. Droop, R. M. Heath, and M. L. W. Laistner with the Director in charge throughout.