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Richard B. Seager excavated the Minoan town and cemetery at Pseira
in 1906-1907, but the work was not fully published. The Temple
University excavations (1985-1994) under the direction of Philip P.
Betancourt and Costis Davaras conducted an intensive surface survey
of the island. The results of the survey on the small island off
the northeast coast of Crete are published in two volumes. Pseira
IX presents the results from the intensive surface survey.
Richard B Seager excavated the Minoan cemetery on Pseira, a small
island off the northeast coast of Crete, in 1907, although this
work was never published. More recently, the Temple University
excavations (1985-1994) under the direction of Philip P Betancourt
and Costis Davaras conducted an intensive surface survey of the
cemetery area, cleaned and drew plans of all the visible tombs, and
excavated tombs that had not been previously investigated. The
results of these new excavations are published in two volumes. This
volume, Pseira VI, covers the methodology that was employed in the
investigation, the topography of the cemetery area, details of
Seager's campaign, the ceramic petrography for the cemetery
pottery, and the results of the intensive surface survey. The
survey showed that the cemetery was first used in the Neolithic
period, and that it was abandoned in Middle Minoan II, before the
expansion of the nearby town in the Late Minoan I period. It also
demonstrated that the cemetery was larger than the area suggested
by Seager, and that the funerary customs included burial in jars,
even though no examples of this burial type have been excavated.
Richard B. Seager excavated the Minoan town and cemetery at Pseira
in 1906-1907, but the work was not fully published. The Temple
University excavations (1985-1994) under the direction of Philip P.
Betancourt and Costis Davaras conducted an intensive surface survey
of the island. The results of the survey on the small island off
the northeast coast of Crete are published in two volumes. Pseira
VIII presents the results from the corollary studies that accompany
the surface survey. The surface survey is presented in Part IX.
Richard B. Seager excavated the Minoan cemetery at Pseira in 1907,
but the work was never published. The Temple University excavations
(1985-1994) under the direction of Philip P. Betancourt and Costis
Davaras conducted an intensive surface survey of the cemetery area,
cleaned and drew plans of all visible tombs, and excavated tombs
that had not been previously excavated. The results of the cemetery
excavations on the small island off the northeast coast of Crete
are published in two volumes. Pseira VII presents the results from
the excavation and cleaning of the 19 tombs that still exist at the
Pseira cemetery. The cemetery is remarkable for the diversity of
its tomb types. Burials were in cist graves built of vertical slabs
(a class with Cycladic parallels), in small tombs constructed of
fieldstones, in house tombs, and in jars. Burials were communal, as
is usual in Minoan cemeteries. Artifacts included clay vases, stone
vessels, obsidian, bronze tools, jewelry, and other objects.
The Hagia Photia Cemetery takes its name from the nearby village on
the northeast coast of Crete, 5 km east of modern Siteia. This
large Early Minoan burial ground with over fifteen hundred Cycladic
imports was discovered in 1971. A total of 263 tombs were excavated
as a rescue excavation in 1971 and 1984. Among the 1800 artefacts
are some of the earliest known Cretan discoveries of several types:
the grave goods come mostly from the Kampos Group, an assemblage of
artefacts known mainly from the Cyclades. Similarly, the tombs
represent an architectural style and a series of burial customs
that are foreign to Crete but familiar from elsewhere within the
Aegean. In fact, the cemetery has such close parallels from the
Cyclades that it has often been regarded as a Cycladic colony. The
burial contents are an extremely interesting body of evidence for
the study of the formative phases of Minoan Crete.
In 1962, after a period of secret looting, the location of a shrine
for the Greek Goddess Eileithyia was discovered by the police in
south-central Crete at the modern town of Tsoutsouros, ancient
Inatos. The cave dedicated to this ancient goddess of childbirth
and motherhood was excavated that year by Nikolaos Platon and
Costis Davaras on behalf of the Archaeological Museum in
Herakleion. It was filled with remarkable votive gifts including
over 100 items of gold along with Egyptian figurines and seal
stones, bronze objects, and hundreds of clay figurines. The dates
of the shrine's use extended from before 2000 B.C. to the Roman
Imperial period. Many of the clay images are especially appropriate
for this deity because they include pregnant women, embracing
couples, figures in preparation for childbirth, mothers holding
babies, and a young child in its crib. A Greek language book
highlighting the shrine and its major discoveries is now translated
into English. It provides images, catalog entries, and explanatory
texts for the most important discoveries from this unique shrine.
The finds from the cave at Hagios Charalambos in the Lasithi Plain
illustrates secondary burial practices in Early and Middle Bronze
Age Crete. The cavern adds to our knowledge of Early and Middle
Minoan Lasithi and illuminates the function of the cave at Trapeza,
which has close parallels for most classes of objects found at
Hagios Charalambos. Most of the pottery from the site is made
locally, but a selection of imports from elsewhere in Crete ranges
in date from EM I or earlier to MM IIB. The pottery shows a shift
in the use of imports during the site's history, reflecting a
change in economic and/or political dominance and influence in
Lasithi. Typical of pottery associated with burials, the types of
vessels were mostly used for pouring and drinking liquids. Other
small vessels probably contained precious oils, liquids, and
unguents. The local offering tables would have been carried by a
short stem and could hold a liquid or solid offering. The pottery
shows that the people who deposited their dead in the secondary
burial cave at Hagios Charalambos were in contact with ceramic
production centers in East Crete, the Mesara, Knossos, the Pediada,
and Malia. This range of influences speaks not only of trade
relations and political spheres of influence but also of tastes in
pottery production and consumption.
This is the fourth volume in a series of final publications on the
joint American-Greek archaeological excavations at Pseira in
northeast Crete. The site is a seaport dating from the end of the
Final Neolithic until the Late Minoan period. Pseira IV publishes
the architecture and associated finds from 39 locations in Areas B,
C, D, and F in the Minoan town of Pseira. The Bronze Age settlement
is located on Pseira Island, off the coast of Crete in the Gulf of
Mirabello. Pseira, IV
This volume provides a catalogue of the ancient Egyptian imports
and Egyptianising artifacts found in 1962 during the excavation of
a cave near Tsoutsouros (ancient Inatos), Crete, Greece. The cave
was a sanctuary dedicated to the Minoan and Greek goddess
Eileithyia, the little known goddess of childbirth and motherhood
whose offerings depict pregnant women, women in labour, and couples
embracing, among other motifs. The Aegyptiaca of the Minoan and
Mycenaean eras on Crete signify the political and economic
relations between the Aegean rulers and the Egyptian royal court.
Several of the objects are Egyptian scarabs, which certainly
represent official Egyptian-Cretan affairs, especially those dating
from the reign of Amenophis III to the end of the eighteenth
Dynasty. Many of the objects catalogued come from the 10th to 7th
centuries BC, linked to veneration of the goddess of childbirth and
motherhood. The volume is illustrated with colour photographs
depicting statuettes, seals, and vessels found at the site.
The publication of the Hagia Photia Cemetery is planned in three
volumes. The first volume, which has already been published
(Davaras and Betancourt 2004), presented the tomb groups and the
architecture. The second volume about the excavation of the Hagia
Photia cemetery focuses on the pottery. The third volume will
present the obsidian, stone finds, metal objects, and other
discoveries. The Early Minoan I tombs at Hagia Photia included the
largest assemblage of vessels in Cycladic style known from Crete as
well as vases from production workshops in Crete. The pottery is
extremely important for several reasons, including the definition
of the EM I ceramic styles that were being used as funerary
offerings in this part of Crete, the establishment of the
chronological synchronisms between Crete and the Cyclades, and
information on the history of the Minoan pottery industry. When
compared with other deposits from EM I Crete, the pottery helps to
establish a better understanding of the ceramic development within
the first Minoan time period.
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