Orientations of Tombs in the Late-Minoan Cemetery at Armenoi,Crete

Athanasia Kanta , The Late Minoan III period in Crete: A survey of sites, pottery and their distribution (Studies in the Mediterranean Archaeology, lviii; Goteborg, 1980), 211.

Hood S. Warren P. , “Ancient sites in the Province of Agios Vasilios, Crete”, Annals of the British School at Athens, lxi (1966), 163–91.

Stefan Hiller , Des minoische Kreta nach der Ausgrabungen des letzten Jahrzehntes (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 1977), 203.

The tomb contained a stone amulet with a combination of two ideograms in Linear A, dating from the end of Late Minoan IB (c. 1450 b.c.), and pottery from Late Minoan II-IIIA1/A2 (1450–1380). The amulet may well have been a family heirloom, and so its presence does not prove that the tomb was in use prior to the middle of the fifteenth century: Helen Papadopoulou, “The tholos tomb of the Late Minoan Cemetery at Armenoi of Rhethymnon: A structural approach”, paper (in Greek) read at the 7th International Cretological Conference, Rhethymon, Crete, August 1991, to appear in the Proceedings of the Conference.

For brief reports on 107 of these, see Iannis Tzedakis , “Armenoi (Rhethymon)”, Archaiologikon Deltion, Chronicles, xxv (1970), 476–7; xxvi (1971), 513–16; xxvii (1972), 639–44; xxix (1973–74), 917–21; and xxxi (1976), 368–72.

Tina McGeorge , “A crime in the Late Minoan II period”, Archaiologia, no. 11 (May 1984), 12–16, p. 13; idem. “Mythical pygmies and giants: New data on the stature of the Minoans”, Cretike Hestia, Period D, ii (1988), 9–18, p. 11 (both in Greek).

McGeorge P. J. P. , “New elements on the average duration of life in Minoan Crete”, Cretike Hestia, Period D. i (1987), 9–13 (in Greek).

Iannis Tzedakis , “L'atelier de céramique postpalatiale à Kydonia”. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, xciii/1 (1969), 396–418.

On these see for example: Helen Papadopoulou, “Mycenean burial customs in Minoan culture: Grave-stelae from the late Minoan cemetery at Armenoi-Rhethymnon”, paper (in Greek) read at the II International Mycenean Conference, Rome-Naples, October 1991, to appear in the Proceedings of the Conference; Iannis Tzedakis, “Larnakes of the Late Minoan cemetery at Armenoi of Rhethymnon” (in Greek). Archaiologika analekta ex Athinon, iv/2 (1971), 216–22; Ingo Pini , Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel, v/1 (Berlin, 1975), 197–224.

Even Tomb 178, the only tomb without a well-defined axis, faces roughly east.

The sanctuary has been excavated, but the excavation has not yet been published. See the brief announcement by Kostas Davaras, “Vrysinas-Rhethymnon”, Archaiologikon Deltion, xxviii (1973), Chronicles , 583–4 (in Greek). On Cretan peak sanctuaries, including Mt Vrysinas, see the articles (in French) by Paul Faure in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, lxxxvii (1963), 493–508, espec. pp. 504–7; lxxxix (1965), 27–63, espec. pp. 49–51; xci (1967), 114–50, esp. pp. 127, 131; xciii (1969), 174–213, espec. pp. 185–6; and xcvi (1972), 389–426, espec. p. 397.

Quantities of clay votive offerings, including hundreds of fragments of what had been figures of bulls, were found here. According to Faure (op. cit. (ref. 11, 1965), 51), the deity worshipped on Mt Vrysinas was Dictynna, “mistress of the mountains”, identified later with Artemis the huntress and rearer of children, who was associated with the moon in the west of Crete. It is by no means certain that the sanctuary was concerned with worship of a lunar goddess, but its orientation, and the association with Dictynna, make this a possibility.

See for example Watson G. S. , Statistics on spheres (New York, 1983), 4–6.

For example, in the late seventeenth century, according to a contemporary author, “One end of every Church doth point to such a Place, where the Sun did rise at the time the Foundation thereof was laid …; and by the standing of these Churches, it is known at what time of the Year the Foundations of them were laid” ( Henry Chauncy Sir , The historical antiquities of Hertfordshire (London, 1700), i, 88: Cited by Dinsmoor W. B. , “Archaeology and astronomy”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, lxxx (1939), 95–173, pp. 101–2.

Interestingly, the wish to orientate a grave to face sunrise on the day of construction is the likely explanation of why the severely classical symmetry of the Cape Observatory in South Africa is marred by the grave of the first astronomer, Fearon Fallows, which occupies a prominent position in front of the building but is askew its line of symmetry.