PACHEIA AMMOS Pefka - 2008

Pacheia Ammos, Pefka. S. Apostolakou (Director, ΚΔ' ΕΠΚΑ) reports on an exploratory excavation conducted just SE of the rescue excavation at Alatsomouri.
Upon removal of the topsoil, 7 rectangular cuttings in the soft limestone were revealed, evenly spaced ca. 2m apart. These are described by the excavator as vats or basins (Fig. 1). To the N of this row, 2 larger rock-cut depressions were found: the 1st is round (2m di.), while the 2nd, a small distance to the E, measures ca. 4m x 2.5m and is 0.5m d. (within it a well had been excavated to a d. of 8.5m).
The only preserved remains of walls lie between basins 4 and 5: these form a T-shape, with 1 row of small stones preserved. Between these walls were found fragments of murex shell. Due to the shallowness of the fill, excavation across the entire area yielded only a small amount of pottery and very few stone tools from most of the basins, plus a small quantity of murex shell. However, investigation of basin 2, and in particular the deep well, produced more than 50 crates of pottery, apparently all of the MMIIB period, together with a large number of stone tools, a few clay loomweights, shells, animal bones and a few bones of an adult male human. Flotation of the soil provided palaeobotanical evidence as well as carbon.
More than 100 vessels have so far been restored, including tripod cooking pots, prochoes, a bottomless tripod vessel, pithoi and amphorae with characteristic MMIIB decoration, carinated cups, conical cups, basins and a few examples of Kamares Ware. From the well also comes a 3-sided steatite seal which appears to be a product of the Malia workshop.
The number and position of the vats or basins, the deep well and the channel which connects it with one of the rectangular basins, the troughs dug in the ground, the murex shells between the basins, a pithos base found full of shattered murex shells, the type of stone tools and the large quantity of utilitarian coarse pottery (cooking pots, amphorae, basins, pithoi and spouted cups), often with unusually thick walls, suggest that this is an industrial area for the working of murex and the dyeing of wool purple (and perhaps with other plant and mineral colours as well). It has been argued that the production of purple dye began on Crete during the MM period, due to the discovery of murex shells with pottery of this period at sites such as Kouphonisi, Palaikastro, Kommos and now Pacheia Ammos and Chrysi in E Crete. Yet very few sites have been identified as installations for the production of purple dye and/or dyeing works, and these are mostly outside Greece and of more recent periods. It is hoped that organic residue analysis from samples taken from more than 600 sherds will provide further evidence of the activities undertaken at this site.