Scavi della Missione archeologica italiana a Festòs. Le indagini delle campagne 2021-2023.

In 2021 the archaeological mission of Phaistos started the new five-year program The forms of the settlement in Phaistos between the Neolithic and the Late Roman Period (2021-2025). The activities included both excavation campaigns (2022- 2023) and study campaigns (2021-2023), of which the preliminary results are presented here. The excavation campaigns investigated the area to the W and NW of the archaeological area, clarifying various aspects left open by previous excavations. The soundings brought to light the continuation of the Neolithic wall already identified in 2002 (Sounding 3), a sequence of floor levels dating back to between the EM III and the MM IIB period (Sounding 7), an enchytrismos burial of the MM III (Sounding 1 West), and a series of stratigraphic sequences dating between LM IIIC and the archaic period (Soundings 1, 3, 8). Noteworthy is the discovery of a bronze panoply in Room OO (Sounding 5). For the most recent phases, a complex of Hellenistic rooms was re-excavated whose position was not certain (Sounding 2, Rooms n1-3), and Hellenistic levels were brought to light in Soundings 4 and 7.