Phaistos

Phaistos lies on three hills near the Mesara plain and the river Geropotamos, from where one can see Psiloritis (Mount Ida), the sacred cave of Kamares and the Asterousia mountains to the south. The earliest evidence of occupation at Phaistos goes back to the end of the Neolithic period (end of the 4th and beginning of the 3rd millennium BC). At the beginning of the Bronze Age, Phaistos was the ancient capital of the southern and central region of Crete during the Old Palace period and housed the best-known palace on the island at that time (La Rosa, 1992: 232). Studies of the pottery in the deposits of the settlement have shown continuity in the occupation of Phaistos from the end of Late Minoan III to the Iron Age (La Rosa, 1992: 235). For the Archaic period, pottery remains of the Orientalising period, and of the Archaic period in general, are rare. A law inscription found in the bed of an irrigation channel near Chalara dates from the end of the 6th century BC. This inscription, older than the Gortyn Code, mentions property of a mother and an agora. It was probably displayed in a public building and is an important source of information on the topography of Archaic Phaistos (La Rosa, 1992: 235). Finds of the Classical period are few: vases, terracottas and coins. The Hellenistic settlement underwent a remarkable expansion, becoming as large as the Minoan city. The palace area was entirely covered with houses, there was a precinct or a temple of Apollo or Asclepius, and the Hellenistic city was surrounded by a defensive wall (La Rosa, 1992: 238).
Phaistos was dominated in the second half of the 3rd century BC by Gortyn, a city with which it shared its border. That polis destroyed Phaistos in the 2nd century BC and the city was never rebuilt. In the Roman period Phaistos was no more than an isolated khóra with only a few farmsteads (La Rosa, 1992: 238).