Frontispiece 3 of 3 Kommos V - Restored view (C. Dietrich) of the Southern Area 1300 BC view south-east, excluding slipway(s) or Gifford’s tombolo

Professor James Wright’s video “Revisiting The Ancient Port of Kommos” , presented by The National Arts Club, summarizes the importance of Kommos in the Aegean Bronze Age and  discusses the ongoing conservation efforts for the site.  The current conservation plans …

Dr. James Wright “Revisiting the Ancient Port at Kommos” video Read more

By James C. Stratis and Jill Marrington A tribute to Professor Oliver Rackham’s multi-disciplinary contributions to understanding Crete The Kommos Conservancy’s original conceptual plan1 for the Kommos archaeological site, in south central Crete was to plan for Kommos to be …

A Synthesis of Cultural and Environmental Studies Read more

An update to issues represented in our  24 February 2011 article “The Chinese are Coming”  01 November 2016   by James C. Stratis It was five years ago that we posted the blog “The Chinese are Coming”1, a title which mimics the British …

Foreigners at Cretan Entry Ports Read more

Kommos Artifacts. bead-seal with bird-woman,Terracotta figurine, Bulls head Rhyton. Background: lilly fresco fragments.

Poetry and Art with further musings on the ancient stories in the context of the Cretan Bronze Age  09 December 2015            Introduction by R. C. Bigelow Kate Tempest’s poem, Icarus, is a dynamic, interesting, and …

Kommos and Myths Read more

one up one down Tempest burnt wing

Kate Tempest: A 21st Century London Poet – Musing and Rapping on Greek myths 04 April 2015     by James C. Stratis We can be inspired by words, the art of words as in the inspirational art of poetry. Previously1 …

Greek Myths & the Art of Words Read more

Kommos Archaeological Site Master Planning Coordination 14 March 2014       by ASCSA Director James Wright At the 2014 annual OPEN MEETING of the American School of Classical Studies of Athens, Dr. James Wright discussed the progress made in …

James Wright: on Kommos, 2014 Open Discussion Read more

 Multidisciplinary Field Projects January 4, 2014     by Joseph W. Shaw Introduction. Excavations at Kommos in Crete were carried out in two phases, from 1976 through 1985 and from 1991 through 1996. The publication of the site consists of …

Publication Logistics in the Kommos site publications Read more

Εμπνευσμένο από τον τόπο, η ποίηση μπορεί να ενισχύσει την εμπειρία του επισκέπτη 29 Σεπτέμβριος 2014   Από τον James C. Stratis Τι ήχοι, τι μουσική, τι πεζογραφία και ό, τι ενέπνευσε τη ποίηση συμπληρώνει την έμπνευση που προέρχεται από …

Ποίηση και Τόπος Ιθάκη / Ithaka Read more

Inspired by place, poetry can enhance the visitor experience. 29 September 2014   by James C. Stratis What sounds, what music, what prose and what inspired poetry can supplement the inspiration derived from a place especially an ancient pre-historic place …

Poetry and Place — Ιθάκη / Ithaka Read more

Ένα βίντεο σχετικά με τη διατήρηση και την ανάπτυξη του αρχαιολογικού χώρου του Κομμού σε βιώσιμο δημόσιο αρχαιολογικό πάρκο. A You-Tube video in Greek about the conservation and the development of the Kommos archaeological site into a sustainable public archaeological …

Κομμος Ενα Μινωικο Λιμανι 3.650 Ετων Read more

Posted for James Stratis Jan Driesen of the Universite Catholique de Louvain has brought to our attention a video of Jeremy Rutter’s presentation entitled Late Minoan IIIB at Kommos : an abundance of deposits, a dearth of clear sub-phases, and …

Video – Kommos pottery at the end of Minoan phase – plenty and fade to black Read more

Kommos V the Monumental Minoan Buildings at Kommos presents the southern area of the excavations which includes the monumental buildings found at the site. In addition to chapters written by the principle excavators at Kommos, Joseph and Maria Shaw (JS …

A Review of “Kommos V” Read more

This post is a somewhat modified version of a talk that I presented to the Egyptian Study Society of Denver Colorado on 21 January 2014. It was intended for a general audience; thus, it includes some information that is already …

A Cretan Conundrum Read more

Posted for James Stratis. During the fourth season of the Kommos excavation in 1979 the team from the University of Toronto, discovered, amongst other finds, two faience statues of Egyptian deities – Sekhmet (AB85) and Nefertum (AB86). The fact that …

The Egyptian gods of Kommos Read more

Building P Minoan Shipsheds by Joe Wynn

By Alexander Assaf Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.~Nikos Kazantzakis The bright sun beat down on the plains overlooking the distant Rocky Mountains. In the midst of this landscape ouzo flowed, the crowds dined on saganaki …

The Kommos Virtual Reconstruction Project Read more

Ένας κλίβανος κεραμικών γεμάτος με είδη κεραμικής, που χρονολογείται στην Υστερομινωική  περίοδο  IA  (1500 Π.Κ.Ε) , χτίστηκε  στα ερείπια μιας πρώην  Μεσομινωικής στοάς (1700 Π.Κ.Ε). Έτσι ερμηνεύτηκε σε μια δημοσίευση της Αμερικανικής Σχολής Κλασικών Σπουδών στην Αθήνα από τον A. …

Ερμηνευτικό θέμα 1: ΥM IA κεραμικός κλίβανος στην νότια περιοχή Στοά Read more

AHEPA flyer final 111712 Flyer Text: Kommos was an inhabited site for 2000 years and it includes a Minoan emporium and seaport town with a later Hellenistic Greek temple sanctuary. This archaeological site adjacent to the beach and sea was …

Kommos Archaeological Park: Conservation, Education & Sustainable Job Creation in Greece Read more

Fig 1. Akrotiri Thera fresco segment. Fig 2. Minoan ship reconstruction Hania, Crete Posted for James Stratis: I received a tweet, copied below, of a brief notice from Bernard Knapp, Friday 11 January 2013 that made me think of L. …

A Lakonian (Minoan?) Shipwreck Read more

  The disappointment of the Gaddafi government’s stewardship at Cyrene An important Hellenic-Roman heritage site in eastern Libya, as recounted in a  recent Kathemerini article by M. Abbas, reminded us of the planning that the Kommos Conservancy continues to invest …

Capitalizing on Existing Assets: Infrastructure and Planning Read more

We learned from an article in Ekathemerini on 24 February 2011 that Greece has committed to evacuating 15,000 Chinese from Libya, which is south of Kommos across the sea. This is another sign of the intergovernmental cooperation that is so …

The Chinese Are Coming Read more

In Athens there has been planning and implementation for 25 years on a project called the Unification of Archaeological Sites, which connects pedestrian pathways to different archaeological sites. This  walkway across history and infrastructural improvement  provides the heritage tourist safety, …

The Future of the Great Minoan Triangle Read more

Humor and the need to make the Kommos excavation relevant and meaningful to a wide ranging audience. The subject matter is fascinating, the context is amazing and the interpretation will need to be accessible!

The Kommos kiln, described in a previous Blog entry is but one architectural feature of the site that deserves interpretation. The site also yielded many artifacts besides the architectural legacy of the former inhabitants. Chief amongst the artifact categories is …

Interpretive theme 2: artifacts – pottery Read more

The American and European economic downturns have caused a postponement of the previously planned continuation of the Master Plan development for construction documents ( efarmogis –εφαρμογις) and the necessary government Ministry of Culture and Tourism ( Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού και Τουρισμού) …

Summer Work Season Plan Read more