This review covers recent archaeological work on Early Iron Age to Classical Crete, focusing on research conducted and published in the 2010s. Proceeding from the west to the east part of the island, and encompassing material ranging from the 12th to the mid-fourth century BC, this study finds that, overall, the field is flourishing, despite the challenges created by the international financial crisis and the constraints posed by the global pandemic. In the last decade, the major archaeological projects which focus on Crete for the period under examination continued with their fieldwork and finds research, while new projects were also established. Additionally, as many as eight archaeological museums were opened, reopened, or are about to open. Nevertheless, final publication of large bodies of Cretan material from the period in question remain scarce, a condition which is more severe on the western half of the island. Notwithstanding its floruit, research on Early Iron Age to Classical Crete is often treated as relatively marginal, and – arguably – rather inconsequential to the grand narratives of Greek history, and art and archaeology. This paper traces the roots of this problem and shows that current work on the archaeology of Early Iron Age to Classical Crete has full potential for revolutionizing the largely Athenocentric paradigm which still pervades the study of ancient Greece.

Politics and research agendas have had a major role in shaping the archaeology of Crete. This article focuses on the history of research on Lyktos, one of the most important ancient cities of the island, to explore the impact of academic and non-academic factors on archaeological fieldwork. Relying on wide-ranging archival research and extending from the Renaissance to the early twenty-first century, the analysis covers the fluctuation of international scholarly interest in Lyktos, the often abortive plans for excavations by numerous British, Italian, German and Greek archaeologists, and the ways in which fascination with the ancient city relates to broader political and disciplinary history. I also synthesise the small-scale fieldwork conducted at the site and reconstruct its archaeological landscape from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period, offering several new insights in local topography and material culture. This work challenges the characterisation of Lyktos as a ‘phantom city’ and highlights the significance of the site for the archaeology of Crete.

Homeric archaeology long dominated the study of early Greece, but new approaches have recently revolutionized the field. Drawing from these approaches, I offer a regional and diachronic analysis of Homeric stories about Crete, an assessment of the reception of these stories by the island's inhabitants throughout antiquity and an account of their impact on medieval to modern literature and art. I find that Cretan interest in Homer peaks in the Hellenistic period, but also argue for the much earlier familiarity of some Cretans with stories that underlie the Homeric epics. This argument relies on an analysis of the archaeological assemblage of a Knossian tomb of the 11th century BC, which includes a range of arms that is exceptional for both Aegean archaeology and the Homeric epics. In the epics, this equipment is carried by the Knossian hero Meriones, whose poetic persona can be traced back to the Late Bronze Age on philological and linguistic grounds. Based on this, and on current understandings of performance at death, I argue that the Knossian burial assemblage was staged to reference the persona of Meriones, therefore suggesting the familiarity of some Cretans with early stories that eventually filtered into the Homeric epics.

Minos Kalokairinos is renowned for his discovery of the Minoan palace of Knossos. However, his pioneering investigations of the topography and monuments of Greek and Roman Knossos, as laid out especially in his Cretan Archaeological Journal, have largely been overlooked. In the Journal, Kalokairinos offers invaluable information on the changing archaeological landscape of Knossos in the second half of the nineteenth century. This enables the identification of several unknown or lost monuments, including major structures, inscriptions and sculptures, and allows the location of the context of discovery to be assigned to specific parts of the ancient city. Additionally, the Journal offers glimpses into the collection of Knossian antiquities and their export beyond the island. Antiquities from the site ended up in Athens, and as far afield as Egypt and western Europe, and have hitherto been considered as unprovenanced. They are here identified as Knossian and are traced to their specific context of discovery, with considerable implications for our understanding of the topography, the monuments and the epigraphic record of the ancient city.

Located in west-central Crete, the ancient city of Eleutherna attracted considerable scholarly interest at the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Drawing on largely unpublished archival information, this paper sheds light on the first archaeological explorations of the site, describing their aims, scope, vicissitudes, and results. Emphasis is given on the plans that the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens developed for Eleutherna and the excavations conducted there, first by the local ephor, E. Petrulakis, and then by the British School at Athens. The ‘discovery of Eleutherna’ is assessed with reference to the shifting scholarly agenda of Cretan archaeology in that period and its relation to major developments in the island's political history.

Η Ελεύθερνα, μια αρχαία πόλη ευρισκόμενη στο κεντρικό προς δυτικό τμήμα της Κρήτης, προσήλκυσε το έντονο ενδιαφέρον των αρχαιολόγων κατά τα τέλη του 19ου και τον πρώιμο 20ο αιώνα. Αντλώντας πληροφορίες από αδημοσίευτο κυρίως, αρχειακό υλικό, η παρούσα μελέτη επιχειρεί μια ανασύνθεση των πρώτων αρχαιολογικών ερευνών στην αρχαία πόλη, εξετάζοντας τα κίνητρα και τους στόχους τους αλλά και τις δυσκολίες και τα αποτελέσματά τους. Έμφαση δίδεται στα σχέδια της Ιταλικής Αρχαιολογικής Σχολής Αθηνών για την Ελεύθερνα, αλλά και στις ανασκαφές που διενέργησαν στη θέση πρώτα ο τοπικός έφορος αρχαιοτήτων, Ε. Πετρουλάκις, και αργότερα η Βρετανική Σχολή Αθηνών. Η «ανακάλυψη ιης Ηλεύθερνας» εξετάζεται σε σχέση με τις μεταβαλλόμενες ερευνητικές προτεραιότητες της κρητικής αρχαιολογίας της περιόδου αλλά κοα σημαντικές αλλαγές σιην πολιτική ιστορία του νησιού.