<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Antiquity, Project Gallery: Melas</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../articlestyles.css"> <meta name="Author" content="Patrick Gibbs"> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">  </script> </head> <body> <a name="Top"></a> <a href="javascript: history.go(-1)">Previous Page</a> <a href="../projindex.html">Back to Project Gallery</a> Antiquity Vol 80 No 308 June 2006 <h1>Excavation of a Minoan settlement at Fournoi, Karpathos: a preliminary report of the third excavation season in 2005</h1> <h3><a href="#author">Manolis Melas</a></h3> <table align="center" border=0 cellspacing=15 width=98% align="center" colspan=2> <tr> <td class="article" width=50%>The excavations at the settlement of Fournoi (2001-2005) are part of a research program by the Democritus University of Thrace and has been financially supported by INSTAP. The settlement is located in the southern part of the island of Karpathos (latitude 35.26 35, longitude 27.08 49, altitude c. 43m). It is only a few hundred metres away from the sea which washes the broad, flat and fertile plain of Kato Afiartis. The selective surface survey in that plain brought to light several prehistoric and especially Minoan sites. One of these is Fournoi, with another site at Kontokephalo already excavated (Figures 1 & 2). The coastlines and associated (prehistoric) harbours to the east, south and south-west are visible from the settlement. From a preliminary examination of the pottery it is clear that we are dealing with a Minoan (or Minoanizing) settlement that flourished in the period between MM IIB LM IA, or 1750-1500 BC. This settlement appears to have been in constant contact with Crete. The Karpathos island group was an essential part of the Minoan orbit, and perhaps it formed one of the Islands of the Great Green, referred to by Egyptian texts in association with Keftiu (Minoans). </td> <td class="article" align="center" width=50%><a href="javascript:newWin('images/fig1big.jpg','690','1359')"><img class="article" src="images/fig1.jpg" alt="Figure 1" border=0></a> Figure 1. Map of the island of Karpathos with MM IIB-LM IA sites. Click to enlarge. </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="article" align="center"><a href="javascript:newWin('images/fig2big.jpg','690','882')"><img class="article" src="images/fig2.jpg" alt="Figure 2 (Click to view)" border=0></a> Figure 2. Map of Afiartis with Minoan sites. The settlement at Fournoi is top left. Click to enlarge. </td> <td class="article"> The inhabited area at Fournoi was confined to the eastern fringes of a low hill and to its northern, flat and infertile, extension immediately below and east of a low and rocky cliff. The settlement covered an elongated area of about 5 acres. The location and layout of the settlement show which criteria determined its choice: access to physical resources (mainly cultivable land and avoidance of it for building activities), short distance from - and good view of - the sea, direction of the sun and protection from the winds. The results of the 2001-2004 excavations at Fournoi were significant as they included the remains of stone foundations and clay floors from two houses, as well as remnants of field-walls associated with the houses (Figures 3 & 4). A summary of the results from 2005 is given below. </td> </tr> <td class="article" align="center" colspan=2><a href="javascript:newWin('images/fig3big.jpg','1040','742')"><img class="article" src="images/fig3.jpg" alt="Figure 3 (Click to view)" border=0></a> Figure 3. Sketch plan of the area excavated in 2001-2005. Click to enlarge. Open-air and semi open-air activity areas on the small south-western plateau This is a low rise in the ground, that is defined on the north-west by a fallen massive rock shelter; opposite, a sort of loose, elliptical and gently sloping stone terrace was constructed (Figure 5). At the fringes of the plateau it meets a massive retaining wall made of worked rocks and rubble masonry, probably part of a rectangular circuit wall. A section was opened in front and along the fallen rock of the collapsed rock shelter. <td class="article" align="center"><a href="javascript:newWin('images/fig4big.jpg','690','507')"><img class="article" src="images/fig4.jpg" alt="Figure 4 (Click to view)" border=0></a> Figure 4. The Minoan house excavated in 2004. Click to enlarge. </td> <td class="article" align="center"><a href="javascript:newWin('images/fig5big.jpg','690','560')"><img class="article" src="images/fig5.jpg" alt="Figure 5 (Click to view)" border=0></a> Figure 5. View of the plateau from the south, with the fallen rock shelter and part of the terrace and associated wall. The two transverse walls of the presumed enclosure have more or less vanished (middle left and right on the photo). Click to enlarge. </td> It seems that initially, at some time during the Cretan Old Palace period and before its collapse, the rock shelter was intended for various activities. A section of (cobbled) stone pavement was found, as well as parts of clay and slab floors. One of the slabs bears along its upper surface a shallow hewn channel of as yet unknown function. The occurrence of two or three millstones gives indications as to the type of activities carried out. The final processing of building materials, shown by the accumulation of great numbers of stone flakes, points to other kinds of activity. This first phase of occupation and activity seems to end clearly with an earthquake, perhaps at some time towards the end of the Old Palace period; it resulted in the sudden collapse of the rock shelter that crushed the associated structures and tool equipment. Immediately afterwards, the second phase begins, marked by protection works and readjustments along the edge of the fallen rock shelter, where a single-faced wall was probably built. A wall opposite to this wall, whose foundations are preserved, seems to belong to the same enclosure program, as did two associated transverse walls, both now almost completely vanished. The area immediately south-west and below the fallen rock shelter appears to be one of the most convenient in the whole settlement for settlement and /or daily activity, as it lies in a leeward position protected from the west by a series of rock shelters. The human presence here is documented by deposits of floor substructures and surfaces, as well as by associated pottery. Auxiliary structures on the north-eastern fringes of the settlement This area extends along a series of rock shelters and lies some eighteen metres north-east of a Minoan transverse path adjacent to a Minoan building complex. Interesting architecture was uncovered, but the minimal amount of mostly undiagnostic associated pottery, has been of little value. However, abundant pottery, Minoan and late Roman, has been collected from the fields that border the sector on the east and north-east. The excavated area may be divided into two parts. Minoan auxiliary building The north-eastern end of this area was probably the first to be used, since here we have evidence of Minoan occupation of an artificial terrace that seems to have included a roofed structure. From the south corner of this terrace, in front of a (Roman) jamb, a low flat and elongated rock formation begins that appears to have been used as a substructure for a wall foundation. The latter seems to carry on to the north-west, as indicated by a series of three partially overlapping stones. There is strong evidence of a transverse wall that started from the middle of the previously mentioned wall and probably ended up half way from the opposite wall. In all probability it is a roof support or buttress wall (Κοντοτοιχ&iota = truncated wall) widely known in the traditional architecture of the area and seen in the Minoan house excavated further south in 2004 (Figure 4). An ostentatious stone enclosure on the fringes of the settlement This enclosure consists of a relatively large, elongated and slightly inclined space. It seems to have been unroofed and was most probably intended to be used as a pen. The long south-eastern wall was well built. Its beginning and end are defined by conglomerate blocks / door-posts, which functioned as part of a system of entrances evidently current during the Late Roman period. There is evidence that these jambs were probably inserted into re-used Minoan foundations. An equally well built transverse wall abuts the north-western wall. The appearance of its buttressed foundations, as well as of the small rock shelter that collapsed upon it, indicates that this wall fell down during an earthquake, apparently during the course of the Late Roman period. The other two sides of the enclosure were protected by rock shelters and by the transverse wall that separated the two sections of the area, or by the elliptical terrace wall at the north-eastern edge of the settlement. From the evidence offered by the pottery, which is abundant in the fields in front of the excavated structures, as well as from structural and stratigraphic details, it is deduced that the above area was first used during Minoan palatial times as part of the excavated Minoan settlement. Some two thousand years later, human activity reappears in the form of animal husbandry, during the final stages of the Late Roman period. As the excavation has come to an end, by way of a conclusion and on the basis of the evidence provided by the architectural remains and using analogies with the traditional farming hamlets of the island, we offer a conjectural reconstruction of the settlement and its geographical context (Figure 6). </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="article" align="center" colspan=2><a href="javascript:newWin('images/fig6big.jpg','1040','496')"><img class="article" src="images/fig6.jpg" alt="Figure 6 (Click to view)" border=0></a> Figure 6. Reconstruction of the settlement after M. Melas, drawn by Akis Thomaidis. Click to enlarge. </td> <td class="article" colspan=2> </td> </tr> <tr> <tr> <td colspan=2> <hr width=80%> <a name="author"></a>Manolis Melas: Assistant Professor, Demokritus University of Thrace, 69 100 Komotini, Greece (Email: emelas@he.duth.gr) <a href="#Top">Back to Top</a> </td> </tr> </table> <a href="javascript: history.go(-1)">Previous Page</a>  </body> </html>