DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12762#0108
CHAPTER VIII
KALATHIANA
I. DESCRIPTION
In conversation with an oldest inhabitant, I heard that two years before the description
great earthquake in Crete (1856) the people of the village of Kalathiana and
the small villages near by had made a find of gold objects, together with some
knives of copper and vases of stone and clay. I was guided to the spot and
found a tholos tomb and settlement.
Kalathiana lies about one hour to the north-west of Gortyna in the deme
of Zaros Mesaras.
According to the story a badger burrowed there, and was seen by a peasant
to dislodge a piece of gold sheeting. This got about, and the villagers dug
at the spot and found most of the contents of the tomb. They pulled down
about half the circuit wall to its foundations and ransacked the burial stratum.
The numerous gold objects they sold at once as bullion to the pedlars of Sphakia.
The other things they either destroyed at the time, or, what with the
earthquake and the passage of years, they lost them.
With this information I went to the place and at once found the remaining
half of the tholos outside the village of Kalathiana showing on the surface,
and round about traces of an ancient settlement at a spot called oi TpovaXoi.1
The tholos was fairly large and must have been particularly rich in objects
of value, most of which the villagers got, but the little that had escaped their
attentions we collected about fifty-five years later by completely cleaning out
the tomb and sieving the earth.
The western half of this tholos (which we will call K) is left (Plate XLIV a). tholos k
The inner diameter was 9-45 m., the wall is 2*10 m. thick, and stands to a height
of 2-46 m. inside and 2-70 m. outside. The doorway has disappeared with the
eastern half. The inward lean of what is left is very plain. The tomb is built
of large and small stones in the usual way but has an appearance of unusual
regularity, due to the use of a local stone called by the present inhabitants
/caXa/ioVer/Da, which has the peculiarity of splitting into regular blocks that look
as if they had been dressed while really quite unworked.
The tomb was strongly and carefully built, and I think had been plastered
inside with white clay. Traces of this can still be seen, but may of course be
fortuitous.
1 See p. 54, note 1.
L i
KALATHIANA
I. DESCRIPTION
In conversation with an oldest inhabitant, I heard that two years before the description
great earthquake in Crete (1856) the people of the village of Kalathiana and
the small villages near by had made a find of gold objects, together with some
knives of copper and vases of stone and clay. I was guided to the spot and
found a tholos tomb and settlement.
Kalathiana lies about one hour to the north-west of Gortyna in the deme
of Zaros Mesaras.
According to the story a badger burrowed there, and was seen by a peasant
to dislodge a piece of gold sheeting. This got about, and the villagers dug
at the spot and found most of the contents of the tomb. They pulled down
about half the circuit wall to its foundations and ransacked the burial stratum.
The numerous gold objects they sold at once as bullion to the pedlars of Sphakia.
The other things they either destroyed at the time, or, what with the
earthquake and the passage of years, they lost them.
With this information I went to the place and at once found the remaining
half of the tholos outside the village of Kalathiana showing on the surface,
and round about traces of an ancient settlement at a spot called oi TpovaXoi.1
The tholos was fairly large and must have been particularly rich in objects
of value, most of which the villagers got, but the little that had escaped their
attentions we collected about fifty-five years later by completely cleaning out
the tomb and sieving the earth.
The western half of this tholos (which we will call K) is left (Plate XLIV a). tholos k
The inner diameter was 9-45 m., the wall is 2*10 m. thick, and stands to a height
of 2-46 m. inside and 2-70 m. outside. The doorway has disappeared with the
eastern half. The inward lean of what is left is very plain. The tomb is built
of large and small stones in the usual way but has an appearance of unusual
regularity, due to the use of a local stone called by the present inhabitants
/caXa/ioVer/Da, which has the peculiarity of splitting into regular blocks that look
as if they had been dressed while really quite unworked.
The tomb was strongly and carefully built, and I think had been plastered
inside with white clay. Traces of this can still be seen, but may of course be
fortuitous.
1 See p. 54, note 1.
L i