Gournia

Template:Short description Template:Infobox ancient site

Gournia (Template:Langx) is the site of a Minoan palace complex in the Lasithi regional unit on the island of Crete, Greece. Its modern name originated from the many stone troughs that are at the site and its original name for the site is unknown.<ref name=":2">[1]Watrous, L. Vance, et al., "Excavations at gournia, 2010–2012", Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 84.3, pp. 397-465, 2015</ref> It was first permanently inhabited during the Early Minoan II periods (approximately between 2650-2100 B.C.E) and was occupied until the Late Minoan I period (approximately between 1700-1470 B.C.E.).<ref name="Buell20175">Buell, D. Matthew, and John C. McEnroe, "Community building/building community at Gournia", Minoan Architecture and Urbanism: New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment, pp. 204-227, 2017</ref> Gournia is in a 6 mile cluster of with other Minoan archeological sites which includes Pachyammos, Vasiliki, Monasteraki, Vraika and Kavusi. The site of Pseira is close but slightly outside the cluster.<ref name=":1">[2]Richard Seager, "The Cemetery of Pachyammos. Crete", University museum, Anthropological publications, University of Pennsylvania, 1916</ref>

ArchaeologyEdit

File:LM IB abstract and geometric style - Zigzag Workshop - ovoid rhyton from Gournia - Herakleion AM 1861.jpg

Late Minoan IB (1925-1875 B.C.E.) Rhyton found at Gournia. The ovoid Rhyton is abstract and geometrically styled.

File:Gournia Minoan Palace 1.jpg

View of the ruins of Gournia from the Northeast.

Harriet Boyd-Hawes first excavated the Minoan village for three field seasons in 1901, 1903 and 1904. Boyd and her team were able to expose nearly the entire town, uncovering sixty houses, the cemetery, a road system connecting everything and a central building which she called "the palace".<ref name=":32">Template:Cite book</ref> Similar "palatial" complexes have been found throughout Crete and while recent scholarship have contested this original interpretation, the term 'palatial complex' remains the scholarly term for them despite being a misnomer.<ref name=":32" /> They also excavated at the site of Vasiliki which lies one mile further in on the isthmus.<ref>Boyd Hawes, H., B.E. Wiliams, R.B. Seager, and E.H. Hall, "Gournia, Vasiliki, and Other Prehistoric Sites on the Isthmus of Hierapetra, Crete", Philadelphi, 1908</ref> In 1971, 1972, and 1976 Jeffrey Soles and Costis Davaras conducted supplementary modest excavations at the site.<ref>Davaras, C., "Γουρνιά", ArchDelt, B, 28, pp. 588–589, 1973</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1973 a lost notebook of Hawes was recovered which contained detailed descriptions and findspots of the recoveries.<ref>[3]Silverman, Jean, "A Lost Notebook from the Excavations at Gournia, Crete", Expedition 17.1, pp. 11, 1974</ref> From 1992 until 1994 Vance Watrous conducted a survey of the site and its surrounding area.<ref>Watrous, L.V. D. Haggis, K. Nowicki, N. Vogeikoff-Brogan, and M. Schultz, "An Archaeological Survey of the Gournia Landscape: A Regional History of the Mirabello Bay, Crete, in Antiquity", Prehistory Monographs 37, Philadelphia, PA: INSTAP Academic Press, 2012 Template:ISBN</ref> After cleaning seasons in 2008 and 2009, from 2010 until 2014 Vance Watrous excavated at the site.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Gallimore, S., and K.T. Glowacki, "Stratigraphic Excavations within the Gournia Palace 2011-2014", Abstract, Archaeological Institute of America 119th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, vol. 41, Boston: Archaeological Institute of America, pp. 345, 2017</ref>

Many of the archaeological finds from Gournia are held at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum and a few at the Penn Museum.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

LayoutEdit

The main town of Gorunia is located 150 to 200 meters South of a coastal ridge which is itself located 100 meters South of the Northern Cretan coast.<ref name="Buell20175" /> On this coastal ridge sits the Sphoungaras cemetery.<ref name="Buell20175" /> The town itself is centered around the palatial complex which is located on the central-West side of the town.<ref name="Buell20175" /> The South side of the town contains a public court while the North side contains a trench dividing the town from the Northern cemetery which lay 80 meters North of the trench between the town and the coastal ridge.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="Buell20175" /><ref name=":0" /> Scholars D. Matthey Buell and John C. McEnroe also label other sections of the town with the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, H and I.<ref name="Buell20175" /> Section E, F and I of the town lay on the North side of town but South of the North Trench.<ref name="Buell20175" /> Section A, B, C and D lay on the East side of the town while Section H lays on the Southwest side.<ref name="Buell20175" />

HistoryEdit

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White Bull's head rhyton

Occupation at the site began early in the Early Minoan I/II periods (3100-2200 B.C.E.) and by Early Minoan II (2650-2200 B.C.E.) it had become a sizable town.<ref name="Buell20175" /> In the Early Minoan II/III periods, burials began in rock shelters on the Sphoungaras ridge (with direct inhumations at Deposits A and B nearby) and on the north ridge (rock shelters V and VI and one built tomb, House Tomb III, which continued in use until the Middle Minoan IA period). In the Middle Minoan IA period (2100-1925 B.C.E.) five additional House Tombs were built (I, II, IV, VII, and VIII).<ref name="Buell20175" />

During the Middle Minoan IB period (1925-1875 B.C.E.) substantial construction began which was later destroyed in the Middle Minoan II period (1875-1700 B.C.E.).<ref name="Buell20175" /> Rebuilding occurred in the Middle Minoan III period, which included the palace complex.<ref name="Buell20175" /> The site reached its largest extent sometime between the Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan II periods (between 1750 and 1470 B.C.E.).<ref name="Buell20175" /> It site covered an area of about 1.68 hectares and included about 64 houses, the palace complex and a 500 square meter town square. It had a cobblestone street system of over one half kilometer in length.<ref name="Buell20175" /> This occupation was destroyed in the Late Minoan period IB (1625-1470 B.C.E). As at other Minoan sites all the Linear A tablets were found in that final layer.<ref name=":2"/> A Linear A roundel (sealing) from the LM IA period was also found.<ref>[4]Younger, John, "The Myrtos–Pyrgos and Gournia roundels inscribed in Linear A: Suffixes, prefixes, and a journey to Syme", The Great Islands. Studies of Crete and Cyprus presented to Gerald Cadogan, hrsg. v. Colin F. Macdonald, Eleni Hatzaki, Stelios Andreou, pp. 67-70, 2015</ref> Other Minoan sites including Zakros to the east and Hagia Triada to the west followed the same sequence of building and destruction.<ref name=":42">Monaco, Carmelo, and Luigi Tortorici, "Effects of Earthquakes on the Minoan 'Royal Villa' at Haghia Triada (Crete)", Creta antica 4, pp. 403-417, 2003</ref> While the causes of this destruction at Gournia are unknown, at Hagia Tradia they are known to be the result of major seismic events.<ref name=":42" />

The settlement was later reoccupied in the Late Minoan III period (1420-1075 B.C.E.)/Mycenae period by Mycenaeans which included the construction of a megaron.<ref name="Buell20175" /><ref>[5]Younger, John G., "The Gournia Megaron", RA-PI-NE-U. Studies on the Mycenaean world offered to Robert Laffineur for his 70th Birthday, hrsg. v. Jan Driessen, pp. 391-398, 2016</ref>

CemeteriesEdit

File:M ller 60freigestellt.jpg

Octopus Stirrup Jar found at Gournia, now in the Heraklion museum.

Sphoungaras cemeteryEdit

The Sphoungaras cemetery's natural rock shelters, openings in the rock, provided the Minoans for a suitable space to bury their dead without the need for physical labor to create or build tombs.<ref name="Buell20175" /> The cemetery was in continuous use for the continuous settlement of the site by the Minoans.<ref name="Buell20175" /> Inhumation was the preferred mode of body disposal from early Bronze Age until the pithos burial, where the bodies were placed inside a large storage container.<ref name=":0" /> This method was introduced and became the norm around 1900-1800 BC. These burials were first excavated by Harriet Boyd and later revisited by Richard Seager in 1910 and by Soles and Davaras in 1970.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":0" /> Some of the artifacts found were various types of complete vases, jewelry, and seals made out of ivory.<ref name=":0" />

North cemeteryEdit

The North cemetery was first discovered by Boyd and her team in 1901, she discovered what she described as “intramural burials,” later coining the term “house tombs” to refer to them.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5">Soles, Jeffrey S., "The Early Gournia Town", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 149–67, 1979</ref> Unlike the cemetery in Sphoungaras, people were buried in built structures here.<ref name=":0" /> The remains were deposited in no particular order in a charnel house manner.<ref name=":0" />

Tomb IEdit

The house tomb is a square building measuring approximately 4 meters on all its sides.<ref name=":5" /> It is located on the east slope of the North cemetery. It was first excavated by Boyd and revisited in 1971 by a different team of archaeologists, yielding numerous artifacts presumed to be funerary offerings. Among the findings were two small vases, a miniature jug, a mug with no handles from the Middle Minoan IA period (2100-1875 B.C.E.) found in situ; as well as a silver kantharos, two bird's nest bowls, a pair of bronze tweezers, stone vases, seals, jewelry and fragmentary sarcophagi with remains of 8 skulls and other unidentified bones.<ref name=":5" />

Tomb IIEdit

Together with Tomb I, the second house tomb are the best preserved funerary structures in Gournia. Unlike Tomb I, this house tomb is rectangular and consists of two rooms; it is the only tomb that has an altar.<ref name=":5" /> Altars are commonly found outside of tholoi, round structures where the dead were commonly deposited, in other sites from the South of Crete.<ref name=":5" /> Nonetheless, both Tomb I and II would have appeared like normal houses to outsiders without the presence of the shrine due to the use of the same construction techniques and architectural style applied to build the town's structures.<ref name=":5" />

Some of the artifacts found in this house tomb were stone seals, fruitstands, three bronze tweezers, terracotta vases, cups, jugs, pithoi, and larnakes.<ref name=":5" /> Among these were fragmentary bones with only one salvageable skull. The accumulation and pattern of deposition of the human remains suggest that these were moved to the side once fully skeletonized to make space for more bodies.<ref name=":5" />

GalleryEdit

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Walkway at Gournia
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Stairs at Gournia
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Building foundation at Gournia
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Stone Blocks at Gournia
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Gournia Layout
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Terraced structure at Gournia

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

Template:Authority control Template:Minoan civilization