Itanos

The archaeological research program at Itanos began in 1994 under the scientific patronage of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of Rethymno and the French School of Archaeology at Athens. In collaboration with the XXIVth Ephoria of Prehistorical and Classical Antiquities, a team from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne conducted an archaeological survey in the surroundings of Itanos.

Adopting a full GIS-compatible registering method, the archaeologists surveyed an area of about 20 sq. km. The area of Itanos offers an exceptional site that has been largely unoccupied by any human settlement of some importance since the Middle Ages. It appears as a fossilized map of the ancient occupation. After several campaigns, the team has brought together a huge quantity of informations, that has now to be analysed in order to produce an historical synthesis on the human occupation of this region of Crete. About 110 sites have been recorded, ranging from Final Neolithic to Medieval period, with a majority of Minoan settlements.

Since 2006 a searchable database offering the records of the survey has been made available online on the website of the French School of Archaeology [link to http://prospection-itanos.efa.gr/]. In collaboration with the Institute for Mediterranean Studies, we decided to associate this primary database with a GIS platform, which will soon unify all kind of topographical data available for the peninsula of Itanos, beginning with the digital elevation model and a chronological distribution of archaeological sites. Progressively enriched with new layers of data, this GIS platform will eventually offer to the archaeologists a powerful interpretive tool, integrating the physical conditions of the landscape at the core of the historical explanation.

Itanos Survey GIS