Phylaki is a modern village and the archaeological site of an ancient
Minoan
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...
cemetery on
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
.
Archaeology
The site, discovered in 1981, is a
Late Minoan IIIA tholos tomb
A beehive tomb, also known as a tholos tomb (plural tholoi; from Greek θολωτός τάφος, θολωτοί τάφοι, "domed tombs"), is a burial structure characterized by its false dome created by corbelling, the superposition of suc ...
. At least 9 burials were made here.
Artefacts found included a gold necklace which contained 28 rosettes of gold, fifteen
seal stones, amulets, bronze weapons and bronze utensils. Ivory decorations from a wooden box include: the heads of warriors in boar's tusk helmets, Plaques found are decorated with wild goats, sphinxes and "figure of eight" shields.
This area was used as a dump sight for the town, which may have preserved it from damage to the smaller items that were hidden under the trash and animal bodies.
References
* Swindale, Ia
"Phylaki"Retrieved 11 Feb 2006
External links
* http://www.minoancrete.com/phylaki.htm
1981 archaeological discoveries
Minoan sites in Crete
Tombs in Greece
Beehive tombs
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