Fourni (Crete)
Fourni or Phourni ( Greek Φουρνί ) is a hill near Archanes on Crete , on which there is a necropolis of the same name ; The latter is considered to be one of the largest of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean .
The elongated hill is in front of the Giouchtas to the northwest. A footpath leads from Ano Archanes to the necropolis, from Kato Archanes there is a car road. The dead were buried here over a period of more than 1000 years (2400–1200 BC). 26 buildings and hundreds of burials of different styles with an abundance of precious grave goods were found. The necropolis contains, among other several Tholos - and domed tombs, an ossuary , a cult cave , the remains of an administrative and commercial building from the period between about 1300 v. And the 3rd – 4. Millennium BC Most of the finds are now in the Archaeological Museums of Heraklion and Archanes.
Dome tomb A
The dome grave A gave the hill its name - Fourní von Foúrno , German: "oven" . For centuries the farmers knew the part of the grave dome that towers above the earth. It is reminiscent of an oven. Equipment had been stored in it and served as a hiding place during the German occupation.
In 1965 Giannis and Efi Sakellarakis dug the grave from the first half of the 14th century BC. Chr. From. In the main room with a diameter of 4.31 meters they found some remains of burials that had been looted. A horse sacrifice was buried on the side wall and the skull of a bull in the side wall. In a 3.67 m² side room behind it stood a decorated, sealed sarcophagus, a footstool with ivory trimmings, and clay and bronze vessels.
The age and gender of the buried person could not be determined from the bones. From the lack of weapons and the abundance of household items and jewelry - necklaces, rings, seals, gold, and iron beads - Sakellarakis concluded that this was a woman from the first half of the 14th century BC. Acts. According to the finds, she must have been an important personality, because the pieces of jewelry are almost as numerous as those of the contemporary chamber tombs of Knossos put together. The 8-shaped shields on the footstool, the motifs of the rings and seals, the ornamentation with cult horns on the sarcophagus and the animal sacrifices all indicate that she was also a priestess.
Mycenaean burial district
To the north of dome grave A, parts of painted sarcophagi and rich grave goods were found in seven grave shafts. Only a few pieces of bones were found from the dead and the state of the sarcophagi concludes that the graves were not plundered, but rather the dead were reburied. Steles adorn the top of the graves. A round 2.70 m deep pit, bothros , was found nearby , which was probably used for libations and gives an indication of the special social position of the people buried there. Rich grave goods were also found in these graves: bronze and stone vessels, mirrors, ivory work and seals.
See also
literature
- 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. 101-110 u. 188-190 .
- Efi Sapouna-Sakellarakis, Jannis Sakellarakis: Archanes. Archanes excavation. Prize of the Athens Academy 1983 (= Ekdoteke Athenon. Travel Guide ). Ekdotete Athenon, Athens 1991, ISBN 960-213-246-9 .
- Giannis Sakellarakis: Το νεκροταφείο στο Φουρνί. In: Archeologia ( Αρχαιολογία ). Number 53, December 1994, pp. 16-21. Online (greek)
- Diamantis Panagiotopoulos: The Tholos grave E of Phourni near Archanes. Studies on an early Cretan grave find and its cultural context (= British archaeological reports [BAR]. International series 1014, ISSN 0143-3067 , also: Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 1996). Archaeopress, Oxford, 2002, ISBN 1-84171-294-9 .
- Alexandros Lahanas: A ceramic depot from Archanes and its importance for the development of Middle Minoan ceramics. Dissertation, University of Freiburg 2004 ( PDF download; 10.04 MB ).
- Eberhard Fohrer: Crete . 15th edition. Michael Müller Verlag, Erlangen 2005, ISBN 3-89953-192-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerhard Prause: A palace - like that of Knossos. New puzzles at the cradle of European cultures. Zeit Online , September 16, 1977, accessed February 12, 2017 .
Web links
Coordinates: 35 ° 14 ′ 42.5 ″ N , 25 ° 9 ′ 31.8 ″ E