KHAMALEVRI
(“Allaria”) Rethymno, Crete.
A Minoan and Graeco-Roman settlement about 12
km E of Rethymno. The site seems to have been first
occupied during the Middle Bronze Age, and occupation in the Late Bronze Age, Geometric, and archaic
periods is suggested by pottery recovered from the
site. More intensive occupation, and most of the surviving
and visible remains, however, belong to the Hellenistic
and Roman eras.
The main Graeco-Roman city was situated on the rising ground E of the modern course of the stream and
just above the shore. Apart from Roman house walls
visible in the cliff face by the shore, there is little to be
seen of the city itself. Tombs belonging to its cemeteries during the Roman period, however, can be seen to
both E and W. A third cemetery area lies to the SW
where groups of rock-cut chamber tombs and rock-cut
graves can still be seen.
Outlying remains of some interest include traces of a
Late Minoan sanctuary, which continued to be used as a
sacred site during the archaic and Classical periods,
situated on the hill of Kakavella, 400 m SW of the city.
Material from the site is stored both in Rethymno and
the Herakleion museums, and there are also some interesting finds in the collection of Khamalevri School.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. Faure, “Nouvelles recherches de
spéléologie et de topographie Crétoises,”
BCH 85 (1960)
202-5; M.S.F. Hood, P. Warren, & G. Cadogan, “Travels
in Crete, 1962,”
BSA 59 (1964) 62-66.
K. BRANIGAN
