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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
In 1959 Professor N. Platon excavated a Neolithic well, unique in Crete, in the vicinity of the modern village of Kastelli Phournis in E. Crete. It is located in the Phourni plateau at an elevation of c.400 m. With the exception of two EM I sherds, pottery forms a very homogeneous assemblage. It includes 34 handmade and thick-walled vases, and 138 undiagnostic sherds. Necked jars prevail, and all shapes are fully adapted to the special function of this group, that of drawing and transporting water. This assemblage finds close parallels at FN Phaistos and occasionally at the FN Eileithyia cave and the FN Nerokourou open settlement. Data on local hydrology and modern subsistence economy give us a good idea of the use and purpose of the well in Neolithic times.
1 The fieldwork for this study was carried out in July–August 1984, and was funded by a grant from the London University Senate House Central Research Fund. It included Museum work and inspection of the findspot. The author wishes to thank the excavator. Professor Nikolaos Platon, for permission to publish the pottery assemblage. She is indebted to the then Director of the Herakleion Museum. Professor Y. Sakellarakis, and the Museum staff for their help and practical advice. She is also indebted to the then President of the village of Kastelli Phournis, Mr N. Staikos, the priest, Mr P. Kostakis, and the villagers for giving her much information about the location and excavation of the well and about the subsistence economy of the modern village. She has also benefited greatly from advice given by her supervisor, Professor J. D. Evans. Finally, she is grateful to Dr J. A. MacGillivray for taking the photographs of the pottery at Herakleion Museum.
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9 The author would like to thank Professor Platon for this photograph.
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16 Vagnetti (n. 12), fig. 59, 1–2.
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21 Vagnetti (n. 12), fig. 58. 5.
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29 Vagnetti (n. 12), fig. 66. 6.
30 Vagnetti (n. 23), figs. 17. 36; 27. 152.
31 Evans (n. 12), 227, fig. 37. 43–4, 48.
32 Vagnetti (n. 12), 59, 69, figs. 57. 21–2; 63. 6–10.
33 Evans (n. 12), fig. 37. 45–6; Vagnetti (n. 12), fig. 63. 23.
34 Without microscopic examination it is difficult to tell whether burnishing was done on previously slipped surfaces.
35 At LN Knossos and FN Phaistos, the largest settlement sites in Neolithic Crete, this distinction is mainly based on the type of surface treatment. Coarse ware is unburnished, fine ware burnished. As a rule, coarse ware is thicker-walled and has coarser clay. At the same time, the quality of burnish on fine ware varies a great deal (Evans (n. 12), 225; Vagnetti (n. 12), 54; 63).
36 Vagnetti (n. 23), 59.
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40 Ibid., fig. 62. 22.
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51 Evans (n. 12), 194.
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