Room 1 at the top of the hill

This extremely important Early Minoan site is situated on the top and upper slopes of a steep hill, overlooking the Libyan sea, a few hundred metres from the present-day village of Myrtos and even closer to another Early Minoan site, Pyrgos, which lies between Fournou Korifi and the modern village. It is important because it belongs to only one period of Minoan history -- EM II -- and therefore gives vital information about this period which may not be so readily available at other sites where EM II deposits cannot be so clearly defined.

The site was excavated by Peter Warren in 1967 and fully published within a few years. Warren detected two distinct periods of development -- the first occurring in Early Minoan IIA and the second in Early Minoan IIB at the end of which the site was destroyed by fire. The first phase of development occupied a much smaller area than the second phase of about 100 rooms which Warren interpreted as a single communal settlement for about 100-120 people (perhaps a clan or extended family) living in one group without signs of hierarchy.

Branigan, on the other hand, using the same evidence provided by Warren, interpreted the site as being the "mansion" of a local important person, a headman or chief. He also suggested that some of the highest rooms to the north end of the site, which were very small, had not be lived in but had been used to hold a series of tanks used in the washing and processing of wool in order to prepare it for the manufacture of clothing.

View of the South entrance

A radically different interpretation of the evidence was produced by Todd Whitelaw. He looked again at the way the site had originally been constructed and the use each of the rooms had been put to. As a result, he was able to reinterpret the site as having housed five or possibly six nuclear families with four to six members, making a likely total population of between 25 and 30. Each of the five or six "clusters" could be seen to have housed the same variety of activities -- cooking, specialised work activities like weaving, storage of produce, vessel storage, domestic rooms etc.

Whitelaw believes that the settlement grew slowly over time from an initial settlement of a single household while the small variation in the quality and quantity of materials found does not suggest a large status differential between the families living there.

View of the southern end of the site, looking from the south-west

The construction and maintenance of large walls around parts of the settlement suggest that on some matters the families worked together, though the evidence suggests that on a day to day basis the families were economically independent of each other. The fact that evidence was found for only two weaving looms might indicate, however, that specialised crafts were divided up between the families, all of whom would most certainly have been related to each other. It is not known how this settlement would have related to other settlements but certainly there would have been a need to for the young to marry people from outside the settlement.

The site was so thoroughly excavated and reported, in comparison with other Early Minoan sites that there is no evidence from elsewhere to support the interpretation of Whitelaw, who looks to the Early Minoan tombs of the Messara for support for his view that the basic unit of social organisation in much of Early Minoan Crete was the nuclear family.

View of the southern part of the site, looking from the south-east

However, Whitelaw recognises that a small number of sites show evidence of much more complex social organisation including Mochlos, Phaistos, Mallia and Knossos. He points out that "it therefore becomes important to realise that there are qualititative (organisational) and not just quantitative (areal) differences between communities such as Myrtos and those represented by the Mesara tombs, and major sites, such as those that later developed into the palatial centres."

Despite claims that the Minoans lived in peace and did not need to build fortifications, it is interesting to note that Fournou Korifi, like Pyrgos and Trypiti -- also on the south coast -- is built on the top of a small, but steep, hill with good views in both directions along the coast.

PHOTOGRAPHS: Unfortunately the site was completely overgrown when I visited it, making it impossible, with very few exceptions, to photograph individual rooms. The site is fenced and is not generally open to the public.