LEBENA
(Lendas) Kainourgiou, Crete.
On
the Libyan Sea, a small Hellenistic and Roman settlement centered around the medicinal springs. The settlement was founded in the 4th c. B.C. probably as a spa,
but during the Roman period it grew and prospered as
one of the two harbors of Gortyn. It was probably not
abandoned until the 9th c., some time after the building
of a Byzantine basilica which was later covered by the
church of Haghios Joannis.
Several of the principal buildings of the settlement can
still be seen, most of them directly connected with its
function as a spa. Overlooking the center of the harbor
is a close-set complex of buildings dominated by the
Temple of Asklepios. The cella, with a floor of marble
slabs and mosaic panels, retains its altar and the two
columns which stand immediately before it. North of
the temple is the building known as the Treasury, built
in the 2d or 1st c. B.C., and fronted by a monumental
marble staircase. At right angles to the staircase and the
temple was a long abaton, at the E of which was situated the Temple of the Nymphs. The temple complex
formed an angle around the source of the healing waters
while S of the complex were two basins for medicinal
bathing.
Closer to the shore, traces of other buildings can be
seen. The largest is a long, narrow building which
seems to have been subdivided into many small rooms,
each with an apse overlooking the harbor. This seems
likely to have been the main hostel for visitors to the
spa. Whether or not the large building to the S also
served as a hostel is less certain. Walls belonging to
much smaller buildings situated on the opposite, E, side
of the harbor are identified as the remains of domestic
houses.
A number of inscriptions from the site, mainly relating to the cures obtained there, are kept in the Herakleion museum together with the rich array of Early
Bronze Age material recovered from five circular communal tombs excavated in the vicinity of Lebena.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Halbherr & I. Piginoni,
Rendiconti
dell' Academia Lincei (1901) 291ff; G. Gerola,
Le Antiche chiese di Lebena a Creta (1915); L. Pernier &
L. Banti,
Guida degli Scavi Italiano in Creta (1947) 67-75
MP.
K. BRANIGAN
