Kalyvia: A Final Palatial Cemetery in the Territory of Phaistos, Crete

The necropolis of Kalyvia was discovered by chance in September 1901 by a young shepherd from the village of Petrokephali, who came across the fragments of a large bronze laver, two travertine alabastra, some pieces of gold and a stone vessel imitating a triton shell. The first rock-cut chamber tomb discovered (Tomb 1) was mistakenly considered a tholos tomb for some time, due to its large and round plan (its diameter, ca. 5 m, makes it the largest chamber tomb across the island outside Knossos by this time). Twelve more tombs were excavated in the following month by Stephanos Xanthoudides, who was also able to recover the finds that had already been retrieved by the locals. In 1902, another chamber tomb was excavated by the Italian Archaeological Mission directed by Federico Halbherr and Luigi Savignoni.

Together with the nearby cemeteries at Hagia Triada and Kamilari, Kalyvia is part of a “Great Minoan triangle” of funerary areas in the plain of the Mesara on Crete. Still, it remains unparalleled in South-central Crete in several regards. The nearby cemeteries at Hagia Triada and Kamilari, in fact, took advantage of the presence of earlier circular tombs of monumental character, thereby affirming an explicit bond to the generations that had lived in those territories over the centuries. Unlike these, the Kalyvia cemetery appears as an entirely new establishment, as no earlier tombs were located on this and the nearby hills to the north of the Geropotamos river. A major distinction between these cemeteries is represented by the usage of clay coffins or larnakes. No burial of this time is documented at Kalyvia; on the contrary, the latest ceramics, early LM IIIA2 in date, come from four tombs of the cemetery and attest to the progressive decrease and eventual disappearance of the local community. Unlike the larnakes, several references to traces of carbonized wood and dark brown soil, on both the floor and inside the pits excavated within the floor of a few chamber tombs can be considered as an indirect attestation of the presence of wooden biers or coffins. In the necropolises of Knossos, it has been conclusively shown that this is a chronological clue that points to an early date of the Kalyvia tombs; a local differentiation from other groups that used larnakes in early LM IIIA2, however, cannot be ruled out. Rather, it appears that the people that were buried in the Kalyvia cemetery seem to have stood apart from the other communities of contemporary western Messara and that it probably boasted a direct relationship, possibly including kinship ties, with the center of Knossos.

The typology of the tombs of Kalyvia recalls the contemporary cemeteries of Knossos and northern Crete as well. Besides the chamber tombs entered through long dromoi, in particular, the presence of a single shaft-grave can be considered as particularly meaningful. Cretan shaft-graves, later and smaller than those of the Greek mainland, are mostly represented in the Zapher Papoura cemetery at Knossos (33 tombs), where the earliest Cretan ones can be found, still LM II in date. In LM IIIA1, six further examples have been recently excavated at Chania and one has been detected at Sissi in 2021. The derivation of the Cretan shaft-graves from the earlier and larger shaft-graves of the Greek mainland is a matter of discussion. By LM IIIA1, at any rate, it is safe to consider such a typology of tombs as a peculiarity of north Crete. Therefore, to make sense of the presence of such a tomb type in the territory of Phaistos it is necessary to hypothesize a strong “Knossian connection," one that supports the arrival from Knossos in LM II or LM IIIA1 of a group who settled in the territory of Phaistos and buried his dead at Kalyvia. This is quite a rich tomb, as it contained a few bronze mirrors, the remains of a few bronze vessels, precious necklaces, and a stone pedestalled lamp.

The other burial assemblages are meaningful as well. Kalyvia boasts the largest corpus of jewels in gold and semi-precious stones in south central Crete, that comprises more than sixty necklaces, bracelets, rings, and pendants, made of agate, cornelian, crystal, glass paste and faience; the same holds true of the hard-stone seals and the gold seal-rings. The non-sphragistic rings are of outstanding quality as well; one of them belongs to a very rare group of rings having the bezel decorated with glass in the so-called cloisonné technique. Some necklaces have straight parallels in the contemporary tombs of the Dendra, Mycenae, and Thebes. Bronze vessels, retrieved in at least three tombs, hint at feasting practices that are widely documented by a limited group of similar LH/LM II-IIIA1 sets retrieved in tombs of Archanes, Knossos and Chania on Crete, and Dendra and Mycenae in the Greek mainland. Amongst them, some possible heirlooms stand out, such as a large laver (diameter, 0.56 m) whose rim is decorated in relief on the upper surface with a foliate band (outer edge) and a row of pearls (inner edge). A nearly perfect match for such an outstanding item is the LH IIA laver from Tomb Epsilon of Circle B at Mycenae; accordingly, an LM IB chronology is highly plausible for the Kalyvia laver as well. Bronze razors and mirrors are frequent, one of the latter being accompanied by an ivory handle; eventually, the famous Sandars type C1 sword from tomb 8, with the hilt decorated throughout with a double foliate band, attests to the local presence of at least one (and possibly two) “warrior grave” (nowadays dubbed “tombs with weapons”). Unlike these, the ceramics were substantially sorted out at the time of the excavation, bringing about the disappearance of both undecorated and open shapes. Despite this, however, the original reports make it clear that kylikes and cups were retrieved, as in the richest tombs excavated at Sellopoulo by M. Popham. Such vessels have been documented in the tomb excavated by the Italian Archaeological Mission in 1902; a few clues can also be retrieved from Xanthoudidis’ notebook of the excavation of tomb 1. The surviving twenty-five vessels are almost all closed shapes. Amongst them, the relatively high number of piriform jars (one of them being a Mycenaean import) remains unparalleled in western Messara but is widely matched in the tombs at Chania and Knossos. Most of vessels are LM IIIA1 and LM IIIA2 early; a small group of LM II vessels, that include a juglet and a piriform jar (HM 1607 and HM 1597 respectively), plausibly attests to the building of the first tombs of the cemetery at a ripe or final moment within this phase or at the LM II-IIIA1 transition. All in all, it is safe to conclude that the cemetery was used for ca. fifty or sixty years, i.e. a two-generation span. 

Thanks to its many connections with the major Cretan palatial site of Knossos, that include the origin of several artifacts, rare tomb types, funeral rituals and the composition of funerary assemblages, the cemetery of Kalyvia is pivotal to investigate the extent of the interconnection between Phaistos, the plain of the Messara and the wider Knossian state at an early stage of its development (Late Minoan II – Late Minoan IIIA2, or ca. 1450-1350 BCE). In fact, by this time only a bunch of Linear B tablets discovered in the palace of Knossos mention Phaistos (pa-i-to). Therefore, this new study of what is the largest cemetery so far known in South-Central Crete will make it possible to address important longstanding questions regarding the cultural and political interaction and the mobility of groups within Crete and between Crete and the Greek Mainland in the aftermath of the end of the Neopalatial period.

This publication project is directed by Dr. Santo Privitera.