Palace of Petras

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Petras archaeological site

The Palace of Petras ( Greek Ανάκτορο Πετρά Anaktoro Petra ) is an archaeological excavation site in the northeast of the Greek island of Crete . It is located on the southern edge of the small town of Petras in the municipality of Sitia in the Lasithi regional district . The oldest building remains of the small palace complex come from the Middle Minoan old palace period in the 2nd millennium BC. Chr.

location

The archaeological site of Petras ( Πετράς ) is located about 1.5 kilometers southeast of the city center of Sitia ( Σητεία ) and 400 meters south of the Bay of Sitia ( Όρμος Σητείας ) on the north coast of Crete on the Aegean Sea . The main town of the Lasithi regional district, Agios Nikolaos , is 36 kilometers to the west. The palace and surrounding structures were excavated from 1985 under the direction of Metaxia Tsipopoulou and have been open to the public since 2006. The entrance to the excavation site is located on a Venetian tower built in the late 16th or early 17th century .

Coastal plain in front of Sitia

In Minoan times, the palace of Petras, standing on a hill about 40 meters high , dominated the coastal plain further south, which is irrigated by the small river Pendelis potamos ( Πεντέλης ποταμός ) and some streams. Settlement remains have also been discovered on the hills to the northeast, southeast and south of the palace hill. At the time the palace was in existence, the water level of the Aegean Sea reached to the foot of the hills, between which two safe anchorages lay. In the hinterland there were some larger buildings called "Minoan villas", such as in Klimataria , Achladia , Zou and Agios Georgios , as well as the Minoan summit sanctuaries of Piskokefalo and Prinias .

history

Pre-palace period

Already in the Copper Age (4500-3200 BC ) there was a well-organized, flourishing settlement on the northeast of the palace hill located Kefala ( nordεφάλα ). At a height of about 65 meters, settlement remains from two stratigraphic phases were found, the first from the transition from the end Neolithic to the early Bronze Age , consisting of 3 to 4 partially preserved buildings with curvilinear walls and artificially created cavities in the bedrock, the second from the beginning of the early Minoan period (FM I) with rectilinear walls that formed a series of rectangular rooms with benches and platforms. In addition, there was evidence of copper processing , the oldest remains of this activity on Crete, as well as a large number of obsidian blades , cores and tees, which point to the processing of the volcanic rock glass . A preliminary examination of the ceramic shards collected here indicates possible connections to the southern Dodecanese . On the northeastern hill there was also a pre- and old-palace cemetery, a burial site from the early to middle Minoan phases FM I to MM I A, including jewelry, seals and ceramics of the Cycladic type, similar to that of Agia Photia , and a late Minoan settlement from SM III C.

West of Sector III

The earliest settlement of the hill, on which the Palace of Petras later arose, is dated to the early Minoan phase FM II, from which various finds come from stratigraphic trenches below the palace. At the northern end of the plateau a complete house from FM II with two rooms and an outbuilding has been preserved. The floor was made of good quality red plaster. One of the rooms contained a stove carved into the floor. Several basin-like depressions in the bedrock to the east and northeast of the plateau indicate industrial activity related to water. Of particular interest is a plant for the production of purple dye from FM II to III, which was discovered in the west of Sector III. At the end of the pre-palace period in ΜΜ Ι Β, one or more buildings stood on the grounds of the palace, which had the same orientation as the later structure. They were leveled to make way for the palace. Some remains of the walls and floors of these buildings, associated with ceramic finds, including Kamares ware , have been excavated under the west wing of the palace.

Old palace time

Covered central courtyard

The palace of Petras was built in the Middle Minoan period MM II A (1900–1800 BC), a little later than the much larger Minoan palaces of central Crete. An at least two-story building stood on an area of ​​2500 m², built in different places using ashlar masonry . Of the regularly cut blocks, 29 were provided with incised characters, similar to brick stamps, mostly double axes, stars or branches. A 4.20-meter-wide staircase connected the magazines built later on the lower terrace with the 17.6 × 7.6-meter central courtyard, which faces south-east to north-west. The latter had a well-preserved plaster floor with an integrated drainage system . At its northwest corner was a square room with an entrance to the west. To protect the structures, the stairs and the central courtyard were covered with gravel after the excavations.

Protrusion of the retaining wall

During the construction of the palace in MM II A, a retaining wall was built on its north side with a massive tower-like protrusion towards the sea. Whether this was used to monitor the entrance to the port can no longer be traced today. At the same time, a fortification wall with towers was built on the coast at the foot of the hill. It was probably used for defense and is unique in Crete because of its dimensions.

The cult area was located in the southwest of the palace building. Its south wall was lined with vertical plates ( orthostats ) and a 4 meter long plastered bench was installed in the central area of ​​the area. There was a hieroglyphic archive in the western part of the palace. It was in a room on the upper floor, accessible by stairs, above a gate. When the palace was first destroyed, the contents fell into the area of ​​the gate, which was not cleared afterwards and remained blocked. The clay tablets with Cretan hieroglyphs , seals of more than 40 different seals, a bronze pen, which possibly had a wooden handle, and various bowls and beakers were preserved. Several of the clay tablets were incompletely labeled. The hieroglyphic archive of Petras is considered to be the best preserved in Minoan Crete.

New Palace period

North magazines

Around 1700 BC BC, during phase MM II B at the beginning of the New Palace period , the first palace building was destroyed by a fire, probably caused by an earthquake. In the late Minoan period SM I A (1600–1480 BC), changes and additions were made to the reconstruction of the building. In the cult area, for example, the central room with the bench was separated by two walls and filled. The square room in the west, in which 600 fragments of a plaster sacrificial table with fresco decorations were found, was still used as a place of worship. The elongated room to the east was connected to the central courtyard. The north magazines were built to the north below the central courtyard. They had at least two floors, which were connected to each other by a staircase, the roof supporting massive pillars made of ashlar stones and contained 36 large pithoi, some of which were embedded in circular cavities . The south wall of the magazine is preserved up to a height of 1.80 meters.

The settlement around the palace was probably at its greatest extent during the time of the new palace. This is evidenced by the foundation walls of a rectangular tower-like protrusion, which was discovered during excavation work in the course of the construction of the path for viewing near the entrance to the excavation site, almost at the foot of the hill. There were also fragmentary remains of houses in the area.

House I.1
Stone wine press

From the entrance up halfway to the remains of the palace, the walls of two larger houses can be seen. House I.1 in the eastern part of Sector III was a two-storey building on a floor area of ​​240 m². It was built in the late Minoan phase SM I A (1600–1450 BC) on the foundation walls of a neo-palace period house with a similar orientation. The first floor consisted of two storage rooms, a kitchen, a room with a stone wine press and a room that held storage glasses. When the building was destroyed at the end of SM I A, probably as a result of an earthquake, parts of the upper floor fell to the ground floor, from which it was concluded that the living rooms, a dining room and verandas as well as a loom were located above. Of the ceramic finds, 56% of them from the upper floor, only about a third was made from the yellowish clay of the Petras area, the greater part came from Roussolakkos ( Palekastro ), where more orange clay was used. The house had an east and a west entrance, with a paved road starting south of the latter, which probably led to the palace.

House II.1

The neo-palace period house II.1 was built 1650–1500 BC. BC and was used until the late Minoan period SM IB. The two-storey building, erected on over 200 m², had a light shaft, a hall with a well-preserved plaster floor, a staircase partly carved into the rock to the upper storey and a facade made of ashlar. While the upper floor, where good quality ceramics, stone vases and other artefacts were found, was used for residential purposes, as in House I.1, weaving weights and drains testify to a textile production on the ground floor, where fabrics were dyed immediately after production. Several documents in linear A from the building suggest that production is dependent on the palace. Linear A written documents from SM I B also come from the area of ​​the palace's magazines, where two corresponding tablets were found. It cannot be said whether there was a corresponding Linear A archive in Petras. After several destruction of the palace in SM I A, presumably due to natural causes, the storage space was enlarged in phase SM I B and the central courtyard on the east side was made smaller by a kind of 4.80 meter wide stoa .

The last palace building of Petras was destroyed in SM I B by a fire in which the upper floor collapsed and debris covered the central courtyard. There are signs of a repopulation of the palace area as well as on the sides of the hill on a small scale in SM III A (1400–1300 BC). In the Byzantine period of the 12th century, the palace hill served as a cemetery, whereby the Minoan layers were not disturbed.

  • Excavation site

  • Tower-like projection at the entrance

  • Northwest wing of the palace

  • Hieroglyphics archive in the northwest wing

  • Cult area in the southwest of the palace

literature

→ See also: Petras Excavations, Bibliography

  • Robert Carr Bosanquet: Excavations at Petras . In: The Annual of the British School at Athens . No. 8 . Macmillan, London 1902, pp. 282–285 (English, digitized version [PDF; 184 kB ; accessed on March 15, 2018]).
  • Konstantinos Christakis: Minoan pithoi and their significance for the household subsistance economy of neopalatial Crete . University of Bristol, Bristol 1999, The palace of Petras (Fig. 87), p. 121–122 (English, digital version [PDF; 21.6 MB ; accessed on January 7, 2018]).
  • Metaxia Tsipopoulou, Maria Emanuela Alberti: LM IB Petras: the pottery from Room E in House II.1 . In: Thomas M. Brogan, Erik Hallager (eds.): LM IB pottery: relative chronology and regional differences (=  Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens . Volume 11, 2 ). The Danish Institute at Athens, Athens 2011, ISBN 978-87-7934-573-7 , pp. 463–498 (English, digital version [PDF; 2.1 MB ; accessed on January 7, 2018]).
  • Metaxia Tsipopoulou: Excavation of the Pre- and Protopalatial Cemetery at Petras, Siteia 2015 . In: Kentro . tape 18 . INSTAP Study Center for East Crete, Philadelphia 2015, p. 7–11 (English, digitized version [PDF; 3.3 MB ; accessed on February 7, 2018]).
  • Metaxia Tsipopoulou: Petras, Siteia I: A Minoan Palatial Settlement in Eastern Crete. Excavation of Houses I.1 and I.2 (=  Prehistory Monographs . Volume 53 ). INSTAP Academic Press (Institute for Aegean Prehistory), Philadelphia 2017, ISBN 978-1-931534-85-7 (English, excerpt [accessed January 12, 2018]).

Individual evidence

Linear A board from Petras
  1. ↑ Petras Excavations: Topography. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Final Neolithic or Chalcolithic (4500-3200 BC). Foundation of the Hellenic World, December 14, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b Petras Excavations: Hatziyiannis plot. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Petras Excavations: Surface surveys. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Petras Excavations: DE and N. Tsakalakis Property. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Petras Excavations: M. and E. Tsoupaki plot. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  7. ^ A b Petras Excavations: Non Palatial Remains In The Area Of The Palace. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Petras Excavations: Sector III. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Petras - the main phases of the palace. The first palace. Minoan Crete, 2016, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b c d e Petras Excavations: Palace. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  11. ↑ a b c Petras. The Central Court. Minoan Crete, 2016, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Petras Excavations: Retaining Wall Of The Palace. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Petras Excavations: The Protopalatial Fortification Wall. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  14. ^ A b Petras Excavations: The Cult Area Of The Palace. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Petras Excavations: Τhe Hieroglyphic Archive. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Petras Excavations: North Magazines. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Petras Excavations: A Neopalatial Building. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Petras Houses 1 and 2. Ceramic finds. Minoan Crete, 2016, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Petras Excavations: House I.1. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  20. ↑ Petras Excavations: House ΙΙ.1. petras-excavations.gr, 2010, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Petras - the main phases of the palace. Destruction and recovery. Minoan Crete, 2016, accessed January 11, 2018 .

Web links

Commons : Palace of Petras  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 35 ° 11 ′ 49.5 "  N , 26 ° 6 ′ 53.7"  E