CHANIA - 1999

Chania. 63 Daskaloyianni Street (Papadopoulou and Kaniamos properties). M. Andreadaki-Vlasaki (Director General of Antiquities, Ministry of Culture and Tourism) reports on excavations in the 1990s. Parts of an extensive area of construction of mid Neopalatial date were found in the north-south street and surrounding plots.

In the Papadopoulou plot, the earliest evidence of habitation (two mudbrick walls) dates to the third millennium. From Neopalatial time parts of eight rooms were located with three phases of reuse. A lustral basin (at present unique in West Crete) sited at the east of these is attached to the Minoan Halls (Rooms 7 and 9) and adjacent to a lightwell (Room 6). Only 2m square internally, it was accessed via two small flights of steps at the north, on the south side of which is a parapet ending in a wooden column. At the east was a viewing point from a raised corridor with a wooden grill. The stairs and floor are paved with limestone slabs set in red plaster; the walls are painted to floor level, each divided into square panels decorated in imitation of veined marbles, with a spiral frieze higher up. The pillar at the base of the stairs has a particularly vivid and colourful pattern. The Lustral Basin was destroyed in a fire in LM IA related to the Theran eruption, and was immediately filled in and sealed. In the fill were many conical cups, three deep buckets, part of a rhyton, two clay loomweights and part of a schist lid. The top was closed by an earth floor, which transformed the once sunken space into a typical ground-floor room; further repairs and additions occurred on two occasions. The whole space was used for food preparation. All was destroyed in LM IB. Thereafter, in LM II, three of the eastern rooms were cleaned out and re-used, and some small-scale construction was undertaken in the west. Further structures were put up in both LM IIIA and IIIB.

The northwest border of the Neopalatial house was identified in the adjacent Kaniamos plot to the north. From this a two-channelled conduit leads into a large yard area at the west. Over successive floors of chipped sandstone were placed a large number of conical cups, some with pierced bases. Remnants of fires were found along with cups and cooking vessels, intermixed with bones of young pigs, sheep/goat, cattle and wild-agrimi horns. This complex is part of a much more extensive development in Daskaloyanni Street that contains lightwells, Minoan Halls, a large courtyard, an outdoor exedra, a hearth with associated animal remains, a ritual bothros and a series of basement rooms. A considerable system of conduits connects the building’s interior with the external yard and exedra. Numerous conical cups signal the overall ritual character.