Tholos beach and the island of Psira

A few kilometres north of Kavousi a narrow asphalt road that winds through a broad olive grove comes to an end at the beach of Tholos (Θόλος), some 29 kilometres east of Agios Nikolaos and 23 north of Ierapetra. It is a strip of sand and shingle open to the sea, shelving gently and well suited to a quiet day’s bathing; tamarisks line the approach and give a little shade. There are no sunbeds or umbrellas, but there are tavernas, plenty of room to park and, at the far end, a small mooring for boats. What is open depends on the season. Two smaller coves lie close at hand: Legameni, a tiny inlet about 800 metres to the west, and Malavra, two kilometres east along a dirt road, beneath sheer cliffs.

Off the coast, barely two kilometres from the nearest point of the mainland and a little over three from the beach itself, lies the island of Psira (Ψείρα). The name means simply “louse” and alludes to the outline of the bare ridge of rock. It is supposed that in antiquity the island was joined to the mainland by a shoal and was cut off completely only as the coastline changed; what is certain is that the sea level has risen since Minoan times and that parts of the old shore are now under water. Psira was the site of a large Minoan settlement, on ground that had been occupied since the end of the Neolithic in the 4th millennium BC. Remains survive of residential quarters, workshops, shrines and tombs, belonging mainly to the heyday of Minoan civilisation between about 1700 and 1450 BC.

Psira and its seascape

Psira was part of the sea traffic of Mirabello Bay. Its people lived by farming, fishing and trade, and the sheltered coves allowed contact with Kavousi, Mochlos and other places in eastern Crete. The settlement spread over a spit of land on the south-east side and covered one and a half to two hectares: some sixty closely packed, two-storeyed stone houses along stepped lanes, an open square, a shrine – but no palace. A broad flight of steps led up from the harbour. On so dry a rock the islanders farmed terraced plots, which they manured with household refuse, and built dams to catch the winter run-off. The finds – pottery, stone vessels, obsidian, bronze tools, jewellery and the traces of craft production – show that this was no chance encampment on the shore but an ordered community of prosperous merchants, craftsmen, fishermen and sailors with connections far beyond Crete; a sealstone found here is engraved, fittingly, with a ship.

The site was discovered by the American Richard Seager, who dug here in 1906 and 1907. From 1984 to 1992 Philip Betancourt, for Temple University, and the Greek archaeologist Kostis Davaras continued the work systematically. Among the best-known pieces are a large jar decorated with bulls’ heads and olive sprays and a painted stucco relief of two richly dressed women, now in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion; there are also ritual pouring vessels in the shape of a bull and of a basket marked with double axes, and a pear-shaped one painted with dolphins. Around 1450 BC the town was violently destroyed, like so many on the north coast, and only a remnant of the population lingered among the ruins; sherds of the 7th to 9th centuries AD attest a later, modest use in Byzantine times. Ancient wrecks lie in the waters around the island, among them a Minoan ship found in the early 2000s by the Greek underwater archaeologist Elpida Hadjidaki – still a great rarity. Excavated between 2005 and 2009, it yielded more than two hundred clay vessels of about 1800–1700 BC, chiefly amphorae and large jars for wine or oil, together with the crew’s cooking pots, cups and fishing weights; from the spread of the cargo the vessel is reckoned to have been between ten and fifteen metres long. The cemetery belonging to the town, west of the houses, has been only partly uncovered; it includes rock shelters, cist graves, jar burials and tombs built in imitation of houses, and went out of use during the Middle Minoan period.

Around Tholos, too, there are traces of the early use of the coast, including Roman buildings and remains of settlement. A hundred metres west of the beach stand the ruins of a long Roman storehouse measuring 56 by 9.60 metres: a granary that served as a staging post on the sea route from Alexandria to Rome and may still have been in use under the Venetians. In the Second World War German troops badly damaged the building and dug shelters around the bay. So the coast here brings several periods together: the beach of today, the Minoan monuments of Psira and the later commercial buildings on the mainland.

The beach today

Tholos offers not only a day by the sea but also the view across to the archaeological island. In a strong wind the sea can be rough; in high summer it then stirs up the bottom and turns the water a milky pale blue. There is hardly any natural shade on the open shore. Psira can be reached only by organised boat – usually from Tholos or Mochlos – and the rules protecting the site must be observed; the island has neither harbour nor jetty.