email
Lato, Crete, Greece

Greece: Crete - Panagia Kera, Lato, Gournia
April 2023

Panagia Kera Lato Gournia
Panagia Kera, Crete

The interior of the lovely Byzantine church of Panagia Kera is literally covered with old frescoes.

Lato is a fascinating Hellenistic city with many evocative remains.

Remains of densely packed residences are mostly what is left of the Minoan town of Gournia.

Panagia Kera

Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete

 

This Byzantine church standing in olive groves outside the village of Kritsa has a wonderful array of frescoes dating from the 15th to the 17th centuries.

Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete

 

Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete
Panagia Kera, Crete

 

Lato

Lato, Crete
View inland from Lato over a fertile valley of olive groves and orchards.

Lato and Knossos were the most interesting places we saw on Crete.

Built high up overlooking the plains and coast not far from Agios Nikolaos this ancient city has yielded artefacts demonstrating habitation as far back as the 12th century BC in Minoan times.

The remains of the buildings to be seen today date from the Classical-Hellenistic period, 4th and 3rd centuries BC.

Lato, Crete
Approaching the main entrance gate to Lato.

The city was surrounded by a strongly fortified wall with entrance gates. The main gate in the north west of the wall was the most impressive and this is the entrance used by visitors today.

Lato, Crete
The entrance passage inside the main gate of Lato.
Lato, Crete
The main gate.

Through the main gate a short entrance passage leads to the start of the main street of the city which heads uphill at a steep incline at right angles to the passage.

Lato, Crete
One of the residences on the main street.

 

Lato, Crete
The main street leading up the hill.

 

The street was lined with shops and workshops on one side and residences standing on terraces on the other, seven in all. Almost every house excavated at Lato had a rock-cut cistern for storing rain water.

Lato, Crete
Workshop (or shop) on the main street. There is what looks to be a small water cistern against the back wall on the right, covered by a metal plate.

Lato, Crete
Detail of decoration on the stone bowl.
Lato, Crete
Shops and workshops on the main street.
Lato, Crete
Stone bowl with decoration on the rim.

At the top of the main street is the agora, the public meeting space of the city, centred between the north and south acropolises and the east and west residential neighbourhoods.

Lato, Crete
The hill is the north acropolis. The fenced area is the water cistern with the monumental staircase behind and the remains of the stoa to the left.

Around the agora were ranged a stoa, a covered walkway supported on columns, to the west, and an exedra, an open, seated area, on the south side. In the central space there was also a small temple and a large public water cistern.

Lato, Crete
The agora from the north acropolis. In front the cistern, behind the small temple, and behind that the rectangular exedra.
Lato, Crete
The public water cistern.

On the north side of the agora a monumental staircase, also used as a meeting place and maybe for watching spectacles or debates, leads to a prytaneion.

Lato, Crete
The large hall of the prytaneion.
Lato, Crete
The prytaneion.
Peristyle courtyard with the large hall behind.

The prytaneion was a large building where the city's rulers would receive official visitors, hold meetings etc. It consisted of a peristyle courtyard on the east and a large hall with a central hearth, also serving as a dining room, on the west.

Lato, Crete
Lato, Crete
Large temple on the south acropolis with a small altar around 5.5m to the east (foreground).
Lato, Crete
Fine stonework in the wall on the northern edge of the large temple area...
Lato, Crete
...and also in the temple wall.
Lato, Crete
The agora from the south acropolis.

South of the agora there is a large temple, and a theatre area on the lower slopes of the south acropolis.

Lato, Crete
The south acropolis.
Lato, Crete
The blocks of stone served as a pedestal for a cult statue inside the large temple.

The remains of the theatre area consist of an exedra and (largely missing) rows of seats, partly cut into the bedrock and partly built. The total capacity would have been around 350. It is supposed that the audience would watch performances or events in the rectangular space to the north.

Lato, Crete
The theatre area with remains of an exedra and, alongside in the foreground, seating.
Lato, Crete
Dragon Lily

 

Clearly Lato was a large, important city.

It's an interesting place to visit in a lovely location with wide views inland and out to sea.

Lato, Crete

 

Gournia

Gournia, Crete
Remains of Gournia with Mirabello Bay beyond.

 

A Minoan city around 3500 years old on on a small hill to the south side of Mirabello Bay.

Gournia, Crete
Found at Gournia, now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum; dating from 2100-1900 BC.

There has been a settlement of some kind here since 3000BC in Neolithic times.1 The remains to be seen today date from around 1700BC when buildings were levelled and new ones built, including, for the first time, a palace.

It is estimated that the town had a population of around 4,000 living in small houses densely packed together. Little is left of the buildings, mostly the bases of walls of the houses and minimal remains of the palace.



Gournia, Crete
The remains of a small shrine in the northern part of the site.
Gournia, Crete

As well as a residential area, the northern part of the site had industrial activity with evidence of potteries (the remains of eleven kilns have been discovered) and bronze working (ingots, slag and moulds have been found).

Gournia, Crete
Double rim ritual ewer and rhytons of various types for liquid offerings found at Gournia. Dating from 1600-1450 BC.
Heraklion Archaeological Museum
Gournia, Crete
The remains of a mud brick wall can be seen within a basement room of this house - similar mud brick was used in the construction of upper storeys of buildings, only the ground floor was stone.

Gournia, Crete

There was also a small shrine north of the palace where three statuettes of goddesses with snakes wrapped around their bodies and raised arms were found. Also an offering table, lamp stands decorated with snakes, and figurines of birds and snakes. All were found on the rear wall where there is a bench.

Gournia, Crete
Gournia, Crete

Gournia, Crete
The rough, upright stone, set at the corner of a street has been interpreted as a sacred stone or "baetyl".

The palace, on the south side of the town, was probably the administrative centre and residence of the the town's leader. It was built on three terraces climbing the hill. The ground floor had store rooms and bathing facilities and there were residential quarters on both the ground and the next level up, where there were also workshops and an archive.

On the south side there was a public courtyard which, unusually for Minoan palaces, was outside rather than surrounded by the wings of the palace. Religious ceremonies and celebrations would have been held here, the people watching from steps.

Gournia, Crete
Steps around the public courtyard of the palace.

 

References

  1. Minoan Crete, Bronze Age Civilisation: Gournia