Kommos: An Excavation on the South Coast of Crete, Volume IV : The Greek Sanctuary

Kommos, a coastal site in south central Crete, has a long history highlighted by a prosperous Minoan settlement and port and a post-Minoan Greek sanctuary.

Volume IV of the series documents the excavation of Kommos, focusing on the sanctuary and covering the full spectrum of its use and development during its life span from c. 1020 B.C. to A. D. 200. It thus provides a unique perspective on the history of religion and cult from the sub-Minoan to the early Roman Imperial periods.

Produced in two parts (text and plates), the book includes individual chapters on the architecture and stratigraphy (J.

W. Shaw); the Greek inscriptions and the many graffiti (E.

Csapo, D. Geagan, A. Johnston); the votive sculpture (M. C. Shaw); the remarkable series of stratified Greek, Phoenician, and Roman pottery deposits (P.

Callaghan, A. Johnston, P. Bikai, J. Hayes); the miscellaneous finds (numerous authors); and the flora and fauna (D.

Reese, M. Rose, T. Shay, and J. Shay), with emphasis on evidence for animal sacrifice.

A concluding chapter by J. W. Shaw synthesizes the evidence presented and places the sanctuary at Kommos in perspective with Cretan temple and cult development. Using an interdisciplinary approach to over a thousand years of activity, the contributors have produced a definitive study of a Greek sanctuary in this volume.