GALATAS - 2005

Galatas. G. Rethemiotakis (Heraklion Museum) reports that excavation along the eastern external wall of the north wing of the palace revealed a stepped entrance way. Large quantities of Late Minoan IA pottery and some animal bones were found, together with a bronze pin and tweezers. The south wing of the palace was completely uncovered. The fill was no more than 0.5m deep, and the western part of the structure had been destroyed by modern cultivation. Two rooms, one with a plaster floor, were separated by a corridor leading to the central court. These rooms contained a pithos, domestic pottery, and many querns and grindstones. In the northwest part of the wing was a stone rectangular exedra facing onto the central court, and in contact with a rectangular construction previously interpreted as an altar. Outside and to the south of the south wing was a rectangular structure or platform with a standing stone on the north side. This arch-shaped stone has a worked base. Finds comprise large pots and basins, communion cups, fragments of stone offering tables, two bovine figurines and a jug with relief birds. In a cutting in the rock were three Middle Minoan IB cups, an amphoriskos, jug and tumbler. Within the stairwell of the Late Minoan IB building 2 a hut shaped rhyton was uncovered