Monastiraki Katalimata: Excavation of a Cretan Refuge Site, 1993-2000 (Prehistory Monographs) - Hardcover

Nowicki, Krzysztof

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1931534241 ISBN 13: 9781931534246

Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press (Institute for Aegean Prehistory), 2008

Synopsis

The natural terraces hanging high on the northern cliff of the Cha Gorge at the site of Monastiraki Katalimata in eastern Crete were discovered as an excellent refuge site for the first time about 5,500 years ago. At first sight, Katalimata looks like an extreme refuge place where one might expect small groups of people hiding for a brief time during the most serious period of threat. Excavation of the largest of the terraces, however, has shown that use of the place was often long-lasting and more complex. The most interesting result of the project was the identification at Katalimata of almost all the same phases known from elsewhere in Crete (and, in some cases, the broader Aegean region) as periods of disturbances, relocations, and destructions. The pottery, when compared with the material from Chalasmenos and neighbouring sites near Kavousi, allows the site to be placed in a well-established historical context in relation to the general breakdown of LM IIIB settlement pattern around 1200 B.C. This monograph provides a detailed discussion of the six occupational phases recorded on the largest of Monastiraki Katalimata's terraces (Final Neolithic, MM II, LM IB-IIIA1, LM IIIC, Early Byzantine, and Late Venetian to the 17th century A.D.) and offers a reconstruction of the site's role in the context of Cretan history.

About this title

Review:

This book is valuable for those interested in landscape studies and ceramics for almost all cultural periods in Crete. Nowicki has walked, slept, eaten, found water, and lived within this environment, forming close friendships with the shepherds who know it best. Consequently, he has documented not just the sites themselves but also the territory between. No one individual working on the island knows more about how these sites evolved or related to one another within complex environments. Few, if any, have been as enterprising or as brave, and the partial results of this lifetimes achievement can be found in this concise and well-organized volume.' (Barbara J. Hayden AJA Online Book Reviews)

About this edition

• Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press (Institute for Aegean Prehistory)
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1931534241
• ISBN 13: 9781931534246
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 275