In Part I, a survey of the Minoan town at Palaikastro recording architectural features and sherd densities is presented. The survey allows for the town limits to be drawn and the probable location of the town centre to be identified. Possible approach routes are noted and an extension of the town to the Promontory and East Beach areas is examined. Part II is a report on building materials at Palaikastro and the Minoan quarries at Ta Skaria, where large quantities of calcareous sandstone were extracted. A magnetic survey of the central, unexcavated part of the site is presented in Part III. A short report on ancient remains at Kouremonos is given in Part IV. Part V is a summary of the previous parts, pointing out important results such as the evidence for ribbon development along approach routes in MM III/LM I and the likelihood that almost 1,000 cubic metres of calcareous sandstone used in ashlar masonry were extracted from the Minoan quarries but remain unaccounted for at Palaikastro. An appendix describes in full two deposits disturbed by ploughing.
In BSA 74 (1979) 1–80, an account was given of MM III and LM I buildings and their contents uncovered in 1975 at Knossos during a rescue excavation undertaken by the British School, in the northern half of the Staphylakis field, on the south-east flank of the acropolis (Site Plan, Fig. 1). In that account reference was made (p. 4) to the discovery of other ancient features within the heavily ploughed area. The more important of these finds are briefly described in what follows, to complete the summary publication of the results of the 1975 operation.Full details of the circumstances in which this investigation was undertaken are given in BSA 74, together with acknowledgements to all those who assisted the authors on the site and in the preparation of the material for publication. A brief account of the whole excavation appeared in AR 1976–77.
A second season of new excavations was undertaken at Palaikastro in 1987 in the area of Building 1, partially revealed last year, and in the adjacent fields to the south. Two new structures were denned, Buildings 3 and 4, and most of the plan of Building 1 traced. Features suggesting that Building 1 was public and played a role in the religious life of the town in LM I are the high quality of its construction, a possible grandstand with stone horns of consecration, a large well-built drain at the entrance, its unique orientation, and the discovery of the torso and arms of a male chryselephantine statuette fallen from an upper storey into an open area near the building. The other buildings are not yet well-defined. Building 3 was constructed in LM I and re-occupied in LM III, but no inner partition walls have been found. An area with pier-and-door partitions and mudbrick walls was built against the southwest wall of the building and destroyed in LM IB. Building 4 seems to belong to the LM III period, although we have not yet investigated below the floors of the re-occupation period. Destruction deposits of the LM IIIA2/B period suggest an earthquake.
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