Building E | The Sissi Archaeological Project

High on the southern slope of the hill, the exploration of Zone 5 has provided substantial remains of large Building E, destroyed by fire at a middle stage of the LM IIIB phase. It is separated from the main Building CD on the top of the hill by a large open area, and to the south it is fringed by a man-built terrace delimited by large retaining walls. As is usual in Minoan architecture, Building E was adapted to the natural topography, with a succession of terraces and the recurrent integration of bedrock into the walls. It is composed of twelve covered spaces (spaces 5.1 to 5.9 and spaces 5.11 to 5.13), while to the north the large open area was used for the discarding of materials connected to specific events implying the consumption of food and drink, especially in large pits FE081 and FE087, In this open space, there is also evidence for the dumping, preparation and storage of building materials (perhaps for recycling), some of it related to cleaning and rebuilding operations in Building CD, possibly after the mid-LM IIIB earthquake destruction of Building CDE.

Schematic plan of Building E (© Sissi project)

Views of Building E from the west (left) and south (right) (© Sissi Project)

Several points of entry into Building E were identified to the south, from the terrace towards spaces 5.1, 5.4 and 5.5. Because of erosion and a change in level in this part of the hill, we did not manage to identify an entrance on the west side. The same goes for the north side where erosion has eradicated walls down to bedrock. Future exploration may still reveal an additional access from the east but most probably Building E was mainly accessed from the south, from the present site entrance along the slope which leads to the terrace. The finds from Building E shed light on domestic life at Sissi during the LM IIIA2-B period. A variety of containers – such as cups or jugs –, beehive fragments, ground tools used notably for the processing of food, the leftovers of meals – animal bones and a large number of shells – were retrieved, together with several copper alloy tools generally used in carpentry. A bath-tub larnax decorated with an octopus motif as well as a snake-tube (a stand decorated with wavy plastic handles not unlike the shape of a snake) and a poppy-rhyton were found fallen on top of a series of cooking vessels in space 5.13, suggestive of perhaps a shrine on the upper floor and a kitchen on the ground floor.

Tripod stone mortar resting upside-down in space 5.8, with, between two of its legs, the mortar (© Sissi Project)

Opium-poppy rhyton from space 5.13 (© Sissi Project)

The architecture of Building E is remarkable in the way the builders ingeniously adapted the edifice to the natural configuration of the hill. It was constructed in distinct terraces following the bedrock slope which itself was used as floor in several of the rooms (spaces 5.4, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8 and 5.9), though in some cases it was cut in order to offer a flat regular surface (space 5.13). In space 5.2, the bedrock was especially cut in order to serve as a support for a large rubble wall and, east of spaces 5.7 and 5.8, a foundation trench for a wall which also grazed the bedrock is still visible. The preliminary study of the architectural remains suggests that most walls of Building E belong to a single architectural program. Exceptions concern some subdivisions of rooms which happened at a later stage during the history of the building (e.g. the wall separating spaces 5.2 and 5.3, once a single architectural space) and the reduction in width of several accesses (between spaces 5.2 and 5.3 and 5.2 and 5.6). The successive floor levels in several of the rooms (5.2 and 5.8, but no doubt more testing would produce more examples) illustrate the long occupation of the building which was destroyed by a violent fire most probably in the middle of the LM IIIB period, possibly provoked by and associated with an earthquake (cf. Building CD). Since the north part of the complex, Building CD, was rebuilt and reoccupied after this earthquake episode, the discovery of a large lead vessel hidden under the pebble floor in the south-west corner of space 5.8, as well as other metal tools in Building E, is intriguing.

At several spots beneath Building E tests revealed the presence of earlier occupation of the hill. These go back to the EM II period as far as isolated ceramic fragments are concerned, but an EM III/MM I deposit was found in close connection with a red earthen floor in the open area north of Building E, cut by the southern façade of Building CD. In fact, the early remains of occupation mainly come from the northern open area. In addition to these EM III/MM I ceramics associated with architectural remains, several MM IIIB deposits were found, indicating the presence early onwards of an open area, but also of substantial architectural remains. The pottery is under study by Roxane Dubois.

Indeed, immediately north of space 5.13, the remains of two MM IIIB rooms were discovered, which had been partly demolished by the construction of Building E. The floor of the easternmost space, 5.18, was covered with a white plaster which originally also covered the rubble walls. Several cups were found fallen on the floor, together with a large fragment of a stone lid. Beneath was found a MM IIB fill. The westernmost room, 5.19, was shaped to the north by the cutting of the bedrock, which also formed its floor. Floor and walls were covered with a red and blue painted plaster. Several vases were found in the destruction layer here, partly disturbed to the south by the construction of the north wall of space 5.13, and to the west by the construction of the main terrace wall bordering the open area to the west. Interestingly, it appears that the floor of space 5.13 on which were found the remains of the early LM IIIB fire destruction initially belonged to the MM IIIB space 5.19. This floor was relatively well-preserved and originally painted with a dark blue pigment and a red band and when our plaster specialist Athina Kritikou lifted this floor, she came across an earlier painted floor that had black, orange, grey-blue, deep red and perhaps yellow paint and snaplines (N. Pareja in Sissi V, 625-626.). Painted wall and floor fragments were also found elsewhere in the area. Space 5.18 had its walls painted with a bright red with possible traces of blue. All should date to the Neopalatial period, but some may have still be on the walls when they were reused in LM IIIB.

The building program of the advanced Late Bronze Age period was very likely set in motion already in the Neopalatial period, as suggested by the connection between the walls of Building E with the main western terrace wall. Indeed, this wall itself covers a MM IIB-IIIA cup deposit (5.10), providing for a construction date somewhere after the MM IIIB destruction of spaces 5.18 and 5.19 and the Neopalatial deposit.

Maud Devolder