Fournou Koryfi

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Fournou Koryfi archaeological site

Fournou Koryfi ( Greek Φούρνου Κορυφή ), also Phournou Koryphi , is an archaeological excavation site in the southeast of the Greek island of Crete . It is located in the municipality of Ierapetra in the Lasithi regional district about two kilometers east of the village of Myrtos (Μύρτος). The excavated remains of the settlement on a 66 meter high elevation off the coast date from the early Minoan period in the 3rd millennium BC. Chr.

history

Fournou Koryfi is located above the coastal road about 100 meters as the crow flies off the south coast of Crete. Another Minoan settlement, Myrtos Pyrgos, was discovered 1.7 kilometers west of the archaeological site . The latter, like Fournou Koryfi, existed in the early Minoan period of phase FM II A, but was continued to be inhabited in FM II B after both settlements were destroyed by large-scale fires. In Fournou Koryfi, settlement activity comes to an end after the destruction horizon in phase FM II B. The excavation of the settlement, discovered in 1962, took place in 1967 and 1968 for the British School at Athens under the direction of Peter Warren . An evaluation of the excavation results was published by him in 1972.

Cult center on the southwest side

According to Peter Warren, two successive settlement phases of the 200-year-old settlement are assumed. It originated in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. On the top of the hill. The settlement phase in FM II A was followed by a second, larger area in FM II B, ending with a fire disaster that led to the abandonment of the place. According to the findings of the excavation, no later resettlement took place. The excavation site occupies an area of ​​1250 m². According to Warren, the settlement was surrounded by a stone wall with two entrances, reinforced by a bastion at the south entrance . The cell-like, one-story buildings were built from large irregular stones and adobe bricks in a row. They were whitewashed on the inside and some painted red, from which remnants could be found. Next to the residential complexes there were small open spaces, of which the one on the southwest side of the settlement has remains of a paving with large stone slabs, which could possibly have taken up an approximately rectangular area of ​​12 m².

"Goddess of Myrtos"

Peter Warren interpreted the approximately 90 rooms of phase FM II B in Fournou Koryfi as a settlement for 100 to 120 people who lived in a group, a clan or an extended family, without any signs of hierarchy . The prehistorian and archaeologist Keith Branigan disagreed , who came to the conclusion based on the excavation results that it was a "villa" of a locally important person. The northern, very small rooms were said to have been stores and workplaces for washing and processing wool, in preparation for the manufacture of clothing. There was agreement in the localization of a cult complex in the south-western area, where in two adjoining rooms a skull of a 20 to 30-year-old man obviously deliberately placed there without further skeletal remains and the "goddess of Myrtos", a holy vessel ( rhyton ) in the form of a woman , both of which are considered cult objects. Warren thought ancestor worship likely.

"Altar stones" (right side) next to the place where the "Goddess of Myrtos" was found

The archaeologist Todd Whitelaw made a reassessment of the excavation findings . He spoke of five to six households of four to six people who lived in the settlement in FM II B. This would correspond to a population of 25 to 30 people with comparable activities within their household units or families. With six shell stones found , four of flat and two of thicker plates, this number roughly corresponds to the number of nuclear families settling in Fournou Koryfi after Whitelaw. These are stones with recesses arranged in a circle, possibly rubbing stones , which later developed into kernoi . Whitelaw doubted the location of the "Goddess of Myrtos" as a public sanctuary. He sees a residential and farm building here, comparable to the others in the settlement. For Whitelaw, the small differences in the quality and quantity of the finds is an indication of the small status differences between the families living in Fournou Koryfi.

Beaked flagons in Vassiliki style of Fournou Koryfi

In addition to bones and shells, there were various ceramic vessels and fragments in the Koumassa and Vassiliki style in Fournou Koryfi , including a number of jugs . The Vassiliki style is named after the Vassiliki site about 20 kilometers away . Other finds indicate that in addition to living rooms, kitchens and storage rooms, there were also workshops for ceramics production, weaving mills and rooms for wine and olive processing.

The "Goddess of Myrtos" is considered to be the most important find from Fournou Koryfi. It is a 21.1 cm high terracotta figure that is now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Agios Nikolaos . Its location (coordinates: 35 ° 0 ′ 23.9 ″ N, 25 ° 36 ′ 32.9 ″ E ) immediately south of the oval construction of two stone blocks was the reason to view it as an altar from which the figure could have fallen. At a height of 13 cm, the "altar" is 66 cm long and 44 cm wide. The northern altar stone consists of local sandstone, the southern one of different colored conglomerate rock from another location. A practical use of the "goddess of Myrtos" can be ruled out. The only opening to the cavity of the bell-shaped stylized woman's body is in the 9.1 cm large jug that holds the figure in her left arm. Arms, breasts, the existing ear and chin of the "goddess" without feet and with the extra-long neck were added, nose and mouth formed, the eyes pressed in a ring. The figure is painted red, showing the eyes, collars, clothing and pubic triangle as well as a decoration of the miniature jug in the left arm.

There is a 1:40 scale model of the Fournou Koryfi settlement in the Myrtos village museum. It was modeled by museum administrator John Atkinson based on Peter Warren's excavation report.

  • Excavation site

  • West side of the settlement

  • South entrance

  • Central settlement area

  • Northern building

literature

  • Peter Warren: Myrtos: An Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete (=  The Annual of the British School at Athens . Supplementary volume 7). Thames and Hudson, London 1972, ISBN 0-500-42007-6 (English).
  • Stefan Hiller : The Minoan Crete after the excavations of the last decade (=  meeting reports of the philosophical-historical class . Volume 330 ). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1977, ISBN 978-3-7001-0176-5 , p. 77-79 .
  • Todd Whitelaw: Ceramic production traditions at Myrtos Fournou Korifi . In: Robert Laffineur, Philip P. Betancourt (eds.): Texnh. Craftsmen, Craftswomen and Craftsmanship in the Aegean Bronze Age (=  Aegeum . Band 16 ). Université de Liège / University of Texas, Liège / Austin 1997, p. 265-274 (English, digitized version ).
  • Costas Davaras: Guide to the Antiquities of Crete . Eptalofos, Athens 2003, ISBN 960-8360-02-1 , p. 236-238 ( online ).
  • Todd Whitelaw: House, households and community at Early Minoan Fournou Korifi: methods and models for interpretation . In: Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond (=  British School at Athens Studies . Volume 15 ). British School at Athens, London 2007, p. 65-76 (English).
  • Esther Widmann: The Archeology of the Household in the Cretan New Palace period . Master thesis. Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg 2007, Myrtos – Phournou Koriphi, p. 21–25 ( digitized version [PDF; 23.6 MB ; accessed on February 7, 2018]).
  • Krzysztof Nowicki: Myrtos Fournou Korifi: before and after . In: Cretan Offerings: Studies in honor of Peter Warren (=  British School at Athens Studies . Volume 18 ). British School at Athens, London 2010, p. 223-237 (English, digitized version ).
  • Gerald Cadogan: Myrtos: From Phournou Koryphi to Pyrgos . In: Kevin T Glowacki, Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan (Ed.): ΣΤΕΓΑ. The archeology of houses and households in ancient Crete (=  Hesperia Supplements . Volume 44 ). American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton (NJ) 2011, ISBN 978-1-62139-003-9 , pp. 39-49 (English).
  • John Atkinson: A Small-Scale Reconstruction of the Settlement at Myrtos Phournou Koryphi . In: Kevin T. Glowacki, Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan (Ed.): ΣΤΕΓΑ: The Archeology of Houses and Households in Ancient Crete (=  Hesperia Supplement . Volume 44 ). American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton (NJ) 2011, ISBN 978-1-62139-003-9 , pp. 27–38 (English, edu.gr [PDF]).
  • Todd Whitelaw: Feasts of clay? Ceramics and feasting at Early Minoan Myrtos: Fournou Korifi . In: Y. Galanakis, T. Wilkinson, J. Bennet (Eds.): Αθυματα. Critical essays on the archeology of the Eastern Mediterranean in honor of E. Susan Sherratt . Archaeopress, Oxford 2015, p. 247–259 (English, discovery.ucl.ac.uk [PDF; 882 kB ]).
  • Todd Whitelaw: The divergence of civilization: Fournou Korifi and Pyrgos . In: Colin F. Macdonald, Eleni Hatzaki, Stelios Andreou (eds.): The Great Islands: Studies of Crete and Cyprus presented to Gerald Cadogan . Kapon Editions, Athens 2015, ISBN 978-960-6878-91-6 , pp. 41–48 (English, digitized version ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Fournou Korifi. Minoan Crete, July 12, 2015, accessed December 21, 2016 .
  2. ^ Nancy H. Demand: The Mediterranean Context of Early Greek History . Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2011, ISBN 978-1-4051-5551-9 , pp. 120 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ↑ a b c d e Ingeborg Witzmann: Bronze Age fixed altars on Crete. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna 2009, p. 5 ( PDF; 28,150.4 KB ).
  4. ↑ Yasemin Leylek: Public rooms in the Minoan culture. Dissertation, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität zu Heidelberg 2012, p. 224 ( PDF; 13749.72 KB ).
  5. ↑ a b Minoan Settlements of Pirgos and Fournou Korifi near Mirtos. Explore Crete, accessed December 21, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Yasemin Leylek: Public rooms in the Minoan culture. Dissertation, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg 2012, p. 226 ( PDF; 13749.72 KB ).
  7. ↑ Yasemin Leylek: Public rooms in the Minoan culture. Dissertation, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg 2012, p. 228 ( PDF; 13749.72 KB ).
  8. ↑ Ingeborg Witzmann: Bronze Age fixed altars on Crete. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna 2009, p. 9 ( PDF; 28,150.4 KB ).
  9. ↑ Ingeborg Witzmann: Bronze Age fixed altars on Crete. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna 2009, p. 7 ( PDF; 28,150.4 KB ).
  10. ↑ a b Ingeborg Witzmann: Bronze Age fixed altars on Crete. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna 2009, pp. 11–12 ( PDF; 28,150.4 KB ).
  11. ^ Antonis Vasilakis: Crete . Mystis, Iraklio 2008, ISBN 978-960-6655-30-2 , pp. 103 .
  12. ↑ The Mirtos Museum. www.mirtoscrete.gr, 2016, accessed December 21, 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Fournou Koryfi Archaeological Dig Site  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Mirtos Fournou Korifi. In: Digital Crete: Archaeological Atlas of Crete. Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Institute for Mediterranean Studies(English).;
  • Fournou Korifi. Minoan Crete, July 12, 2015, accessed December 21, 2016 .
  • The Early Bronze Age on Crete. (PDF) Myrtos Fournou Korifi in southeast Crete. University of Vienna, January 16, 2014, pp. 35–40 , accessed on December 21, 2016 (13,947.86 KB).
  • Fournou Koryfi. The Megalithic Portal, accessed December 21, 2016 .
  • Antiquities of Myrtos. Destination Crete, accessed on December 21, 2016 .

Coordinates: 35 ° 0 ′ 24.5 ″  N , 25 ° 36 ′ 33.3 ″  E