Anavlochos 2022 topographical map (L. Fadin, B. Guillaume, F. Gaignerot-Driessen)
Two votive deposits (1 and 2) were identified and excavated on the summit of the mountain.
Deposit 2: During the Late Minoan (LM) IIIC period, votive terracottas were deposited on a small rocky peak located overlooking the slope of Kako Plaï. The material was recovered from three rock cavities located in the highest scarps of the cliff. It consists of more than 150 terracotta fragments of LM IIIC zoomorphic solid figurines and hollow wheel-made figures depicting bovids, equids and birds and models, which were standing in the rock cavities and were generally found smashed in situ.
Deposit 2 from the South-West (Gaignerot-Driessen et al. 2020: fig. 18)
Selection of terracottas from Deposit 2 (Gaignerot-Driessen et al. 2020: fig. 19)
Deposit 1: From the PG period onwards, a new kind of votive offerings was deposited 150 m to the West of Deposit 2, at a place that we labelled Deposit 1. More than 700 fragments of terracotta figurines and plaques were recovered from the crevices of an outcrop of bedrock overlooking a terrace where no architecture was found, but which allowed the gathering of a large group of people.
Orthophotograph of Deposit 1 (Gaignerot-Driessen 2022: fig. 5)
Most of the material comes from pockets of soil that had accumulated in the cavities of the bedrock, but eroded fragments obviously fallen from the outcrop of bedrock were also found around and below it. The figurines and plaques recovered from Deposit 1, which almost exclusively depict female figures, are provisionally dated from the PG period through the Classical period, the earliest ones being modelled by hand.
Terracottas from Deposit 1 (Gaignerot-Driessen 2022: fig. 6)
The Early Archaic period is particularly well represented. Among the most attested types are figurines representing naked female figures; plaques depicting female figures wearing a high polos; plaques showing a pair of dressed female figures with a polos; plaques featuring sphinxes with a polos; protomes of naked female figures.
Selection of terracottas from Deposit 1 (Gaignerot-Driessen et al. 2020: fig. 16)
The sealstone cavity during excavation (Gaignerot-Driessen 2022: fig. 8)
However, one cavity located in the highest and northernmost part of the outcrop of bedrock stands out for the material it yielded: (1) a very eroded mold-made Early Archaic figurine of a naked maiden of a kind not attested elsewhere in Deposit 1; (2) the body of a Late Geometric horse figurine showing ancient breakages; (3) a worn steatite bead with geometric engraved motifs preserved on one side; and (4) a Middle Minoan II, or Protopalatial, prismatic seal very likely originating from Malia. Based on the taphonomy and chronology of the finds, this distinctive assemblage was likely deposited during a single event in the Early Archaic period at the earliest. The chronology, heterogeneous nature and state of preservation of these objects suggest that they had been collected from elsewhere and then offered at Deposit 1 as curated objects (keimelia).
Assemblage from the seastone cavity (Gaignerot-Driessen et al. 2020: fig. 26)
Based on the pottery recovered, both the settlement and the necropolis were seemingly abandoned by the end of the first half of the 7th c. BCE. However, the votive material recovered from Kako Plaï and Deposit 1 shows that both remained visited until the Classical period. From Deposit 1 notably come Archaic plaques showing a female figure walking to her left, holding a flower in her left hand and what seems to be a bud in her right hand. Classical figurines depicting kourotrophoi seated women and maidens holding what seems to be a hare were found in abundance at both places.
The ongoing study of the terracottas from Deposit 1 uses 3D imagery to specify the processes of production and fragmentation of the artefact. In order to better visualize and present Deposit 1, a 3D animated model of the cavities of the bedrock was produced, in which the 3D models of the terracottas are progressively inserted.
Bibliography:
F. Gaignerot-Driessen forthcoming. Before the Polis: Recent Excavations at Anavlochos, Lasithi (2017-[2020]2022), in I.D. Fappas and P.P. Iossif (eds), Αρχαιολογικές Συμβολές. Ανατολική Κρήτη (Archaeological Contributions 5), Museum of Cycladic Art: Athens.
F. Gaignerot-Driessen, P. Baulain, R. Channell, G. Erny, B. Jagou, A. Lattard, R. Machavoine, S. Sorin 2023. Fouilles de l’Anavlochos V: La nécropole et l’agglomération urbaine du vallon central, Bulletin archéologique des Écoles françaises à l’étranger 4.
F. Gaignerot-Driessen 2022. Votive Keimelia from Crete: Homeric Perspectives on a 7th Century Deposit of Curated Objects, Hesperia 91.2, 251-278.
F. Gaignerot-Driessen, M. Anastasiadou, P. Baulain, G. Erny, C. Judson, A. Lattard, R. Machavoine, O. Vanwalleghem, V. Vlachou 2020. Fouilles de l’Anavlochos II: La nécropole de Lami, le sanctuaire de Kako Plaï et ses abords, le dépôts votif 1 et ses abords, les terrasses du sommet Nord-Ouest, Bulletin archéologique des Écoles françaises à l’étranger 1.
F. Gaignerot-Driessen, P. Baulain, G. Erny, C. Judson, R. Machavoine, O. Mouthuy, O. Vanwalleghem 2020. Fouilles de l’Anavlochos I: La nécropole de Lami, le sanctuaire de Kako Plaï et les dépôts votifs 1 et 2, Bulletin archéologique des Écoles françaises à l’étranger 1.