GALATAS Pediados - 2000

General Information

Record ID

1815

Activity Date

2000

Chronology

Bronze Age - Middle Bronze Age - Late Bronze Age

Key-words

Palace - Architectural revetments - Stone - Public area - Domestic space

Type of Operation

Excavation - Research excavation

Institution

Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Ηρακλείου (Archaeological Museum of Heraklion)

Localisation

Toponym
Galatas

Linked Record

1992 1994 1994 (1)1997 1999 1999 (1)20002000 (1)2001 2002 2002 (1)2003 2004 2004 (1)2005 2006 2007 2008 2008 (1)

Report

Galatas. G. Rethemiotakis (Herakleion Museum) reports on the 2000 season at the Palatial site and settlement (see previously AR 47 [2000-2001], 127-28, along with work in 1997 and 1999). Only elements additional to previous reports in AR are added here. The use of stones other than the more mundane sorts is noted - e.g. gypsum for pillar bases, schists for floors and limestone as in the lightwell of room 48b. Room 39, behind the entrance off the central court, has a plaster floor and a bench along the northern and western walls; it also had a large window (as does room 40) and two doors at the northeastern and southwestern corners. The large, rectangular room 42, with a plaster floor, had divisions at floor level in dressed stone: it was used for storage (a large jug remained), and had a gourna and a bench to the south. Several rooms here have windows onto the central court. Room 46 had a number of vases at its southeast, including an inscribed stirrup jar and animal bones. Room 45 has a bench on its southern side and traces of burning on its earthen floor, along with cups and juglets. Room 41, with a plaster floor, had a few vases and a stone offering table. Room 44, which had been cut off from the original circulation pattern before the site’s destruction, produced LMIA pottery; above the floor was a layer of collapsed schist slabs from an upper floor. Room 47 contained vessels fallen from above, with plaques of limestone. The staircase in rooms 50-53 has a double placement for two flights, with associated gypsum bases, probably reflecting an original partition wall. The small unit 49 had many domestic vases. Corridor 52 leads to rooms 48b-54, a typical Minoan hall with lightwell, colonnade and polythyron, a plaster floor and coloured-stone decoration (Fig. 1). The ashlar blocks of the lightwell and colonnade bear masons’ marks (tridents, H and stars). Rooms 55 and 56 are clearly subsidiary to room 54: 55 had a plaster floor and a small rectangular hearth in the northwestern corner. From the southwestern corner of the lightwell, a door leads to room 48a where an ascending staircase is set in the middle. Broadly, the ceramics are LMIA in date, continuing to the destruction of the Palace. External parts of the complex were revealed to the east and west. To the east is a fine wall of dressed stone, in places up to 2m high. Much MMIIIB pottery was unearthed (having been dumped after an earthquake): this is mostly heavy domestic ware, but finer vessels are also represented, with cups in their hundreds in all the forms known in the Neopalatial repertoire being witness to feasting in the northern wing. To the west, between the Palace wing and the eastern side of building 2, was a small enclosed yard originally linked to the west entrance of the palace.

Author

Don EVELY

Bibliographic reference(s)

Unpublished field report: G. Rethemiotakis (Herakleion Museum); ADelt 55 (2000), Chr, 1016-19