The Mnemonic Landscape of the Necropolis of Petras in Siteia

Metaxia Tsipopoulou presents the excavations of the unplundered Pre- and Protopalatial necropolis at Petras, near Siteia in northeastern Crete. Investigated since 2004 on the Kefala hill opposite the Minoan palace and urban settlement, the cemetery covers more than 4,500 square metres and was used by elite groups from c. 2900 to 1750 BC. Drawing on theoretical approaches by Keith Branigan and Yannis Hamilakis, Tsipopoulou examines how architecture, circulation routes and communal food and drink consumption formed a mnemonic space honouring the community's ancestors.

The lecture outlines the settlement on Hill I, including the Middle Minoan IIB destruction deposit of the palace and its Cretan hieroglyphic archive, before turning to the 29 house tombs and burial rock shelter on Hill II. Finds include Early Cycladic marble figurines, gold and silver jewellery, hippopotamus ivory and steatite seals, and osteological material studied by Sevi Triantaphyllou. Tsipopoulou then compares the two Protopalatial open ceremonial areas attached to the tombs. Ceremonial Area I, linked to the monumental House Tomb 2, featured a stepped platform, a tripartite facade and controlled access; archaeobotanical study by Evi Margaritis identified carbonized figs, almonds, grapes and olives alongside two sizes of plates and footed lamps. Ceremonial Area II, serving seven house tombs, yielded over 500 kilograms of broken pottery, stone vessels smashed with pounders, vases with plastic animal and floral attachments, and a local clay sphinx rhyton. The talk concludes with the Late Minoan III ritual complex built over the long-abandoned cemetery.