Μοchlos the small fishing village with a big history

Greece

Mochlos is a small bare island located just 150 meters from the mainland. From the name of the island and the opposite settlement has the same name. It is the Venetian Scoglio di Muflo and the area belongs to the community of Tourlotis, from which it is 9 km away. In the Bronze Age, when the sea lev

                                               

el was lower, it was definitely a peninsula that was connected to the mainland by a narrow strait, which on each side had a small port to protect ships depending on the weather. At this point the depth does not exceed 2.5 meters.

 Mochlos became an important center of the Minoans due to its location. Excavations began in 1908 by the American archaeologist R. Seager, who discovered many mass graves built on earth as houses dating back to the Middle Minoan period (2200–2000 BC). They are located on a hillside in the western part of the island. The tomb-houses had rectangular apartments and probably belonged to noble families, judging by the magnificent gold jewelry and diadems discovered there. Among the finds are a series of magnificent seal stones and a silver cylindrical seal from Mesopotamia, attributed to the time of the Akkadian Sargis, magnificent stone vessels and double votive axes. The most important find was a gold ring, representing a naked deity, seated on a strange ship that had just left a small house on the rocky shore, with his hands in a farewell pose. The bow of the ship has the shape of a horse's head and the stern of a fish tail.


 The ruins of the Minoan settlement in the southern part of the island
In the southern part of the island facing the land, there are the ruins of a large settlement of the Middle Minoan and Late Minoan period that was repopulated in the classical years.

 In the northern part of the island there are the ruins of a fortification that protected a large Roman settlement with continuity in the Byzantine years. On the opposite shore inhabited since the Neolithic period were found two fish tanks of Roman times.

 The row of pottery of Mochlos is considered one of the most important of the Minoan times. Steatite was used as a material in various shades: green, black, gray, marble, alabaster and limestone using the veins.

 The Seager excavations did not exhaust the Mochlos area either scientifically or inventively. In more recent research, more careful cleaning and fixing of the already excavated parts by the curator of antiquities Kostis Davaras, in 1971 other wonderful finds were found, among which the proto-Minoan (3000–2800 BC) silver "compass" stands out, in in which an original gold diadem was found with antennas with a stamped printed representation of animals.

 In 1986, an extensive Late Minoan cemetery began to be unearthed at Limenaria. 9 unmarked tombs carved into chambers were excavated. The dead were in sarcophagi or burial pits. More than a hundred vessels were collected, most of them decorated, as well as a seal stone with a deer representation.

Today, Mochlos is a tourist attraction.

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