Vasiliki – an Early Minoan settlement that gave its name to a pottery style

The excavation lies beside the village of Vasiliki (Βασιλική) on a low hill known as Kastelli, or to the local people as Kefali, “head”. It is about two and a half kilometres from Pachia Ammos and eleven from Ierapetra, some two kilometres inland from Mirabello Bay. Investigation began in the first years of the 20th century with the American mission led by Harriet Boyd, who was uncovering nearby Gournia at the same time; the real work on the hill was done by her colleague Richard Seager, whose campaigns, begun in 1903, came to an end in 1906. What came to light was a settlement of the Early Minoan II period, belonging to the years between about 2600 and 2300 BC. Vasiliki is thus one of the first Minoan places at which a considered arrangement of lanes, houses, courts and working rooms can be recognised.

The position explains the early prosperity. The hill stands at the northern end of the Isthmus of Ierapetra, the narrowest part of the island, across which runs the shortest route from the north coast to the south, between the mountains of central and of eastern Crete; and the fertile valley at its foot provided grain, oil and pasture. On the summit stood a large principal building with storerooms and workrooms, the “House on the Hill”, long regarded as a forerunner of the later palaces. Around 2300 BC this building burned down; but the hill was settled again – there is no sign that it was ever deserted or taken over by newcomers – and later building phases of the Middle and Late Minoan periods overlie the older walls.

The House on the Hill

What the excavators found bears witness to remarkable skill in building. Rectangular rooms are linked by long corridors, and the south wing was the largest part of the complex. The ground floor was of small rubble stones set in clay mortar mixed with chopped straw, the upper floor of mud brick; let into the walls were wooden beams lying parallel to the line of the masonry – unusual at so early a date – which held the structure together in earth tremors. The inner walls were coated with a hard lime plaster coloured red, applied in stages, first a coarse mix of clay, lime, straw and pebbles and then a fine layer that took the paint; it still adheres in places today – an early relative of the plaster surfaces on which the Minoan frescoes were later painted. The building had a paved court, adjoined by a light well or a channel cut into the rock.

After a short campaign by Nikolaos Platon in 1953, Antonis Zois systematically re-examined the hill from 1970 onwards on behalf of the Archaeological Society at Athens, working until 1982 and returning in 1990. His excavations showed that what Seager took for a single building consists of several houses succeeding one another in time, known to scholarship as the “Red House” and the “West House” – substantial dwellings of a prosperous village community, not a palace in miniature. The Red House, named after its plaster, came first and was probably itself two adjoining houses; the West House was added against it as an annexe, used for storage and for weaving, to judge by the many loom weights found there.

“Vasiliki style”

The finds from the hill gave their name to a particular class of Minoan pottery. The vessels have a lustrous slip, red-brown to black, with blotches and rings that recall veined stone or the bark of a tree. The effect was achieved not by ordinary painting but by controlled firing: the potter let more air reach some parts of the surface and less reach others, so that the slip oxidised unevenly. The result was “Vasiliki ware” – one of the early records of technical and artistic experiment in Aegean pottery, and the first really distinctive Minoan style. Typical shapes are beaked jugs with a far-projecting spout, the so-called teapots with a long, narrow spout, and hemispherical cups, alongside dishes, spouted bowls and goblets. The ware was not made at Vasiliki alone; it appears in eastern Crete early in the period and then becomes the dominant fine ware throughout the east and south of the island. Besides the pottery, moulds for bronze tools and weapons were found. The best pieces are on display in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, others in Agios Nikolaos.

The long history of the hill

The settlement did not vanish after the Early Minoan period. Archaeologists distinguish building phases of the Middle Minoan period (about 2100–1700 BC), in the first part of which the village reached its greatest extent and to which belongs “House A”, standing at a junction of lanes and with interior walls of mud brick; of Late Minoan I (1600–1450 BC), when building went on at the north-east corner; and even of Late Minoan III C (1200–1100 BC). There are also isolated traces of a Roman presence. Fire destroyed the village more than once – in Early Minoan II and again late in the Middle Minoan age – and each time it was rebuilt. On the neighbouring hill of Kefala a sanctuary of the late period was discovered, from which come clay goddesses with upraised hands, one of them enthroned. Vasiliki is therefore not merely a brief episode of the earliest age but a place where the development of a settlement can be followed over many centuries.

Today the excavated area lies right beside the modern village; an asphalt road runs up to the fence, and the path to the site is signposted a few hundred metres along the turning for Vasiliki from the main road between Mirabello Bay and Ierapetra. The view carries across the olive groves of the isthmus to the cleft of the Ha Gorge. The site is fenced and not permanently open; a visit is best arranged through the custodians of the Gournia excavation, and certain areas can be entered only in the company of specialists. Care is called for: the exposed walls, the clay floors and the sherds on the surface are fragile – keep to the paths and pick nothing up.