SANTORINI
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF AKROTIRI
THE 6 BUILDINGS THAT HAVE BEEN UNCOVERED
Xeste 3: Two-storey high buildings with 14 rooms on each floor where the wall paintings “Altar” and “Saffron Gatherers” were found.
The frescoes decorated the walls of both the ground floor and an upper storey. On the ground floor, the northeastern part of the room was occupied by a sunken "lustral basin" of Minoan type. At the level of the upper storey, young women on the north and east walls gather crocuses in a rocky landscape and bring them from both sides to a central "goddess" seated on a platform supported by altars on the north wall. Immediately flanking the "goddess" to left and right and in postures of worship/adoration are a monkey and a griffin respectively. On the north wall at the ground floor level, three more girls appear as follows: at the left, a girl walking right and holding out a necklace in one hand; in the center, a seated girl facing right and clutching her forehead in pain because she has hurt her foot, which is bleeding; and at the right, a girl walking left but facing right toward the door or altar on the east wall. The east wall is entirely occupied by what appears to be an ashlar wall with an elaborately decorated, closed door at its center, directly above which is a pair of "horns of consecration" dripping with a red substance which is likely to represent blood; the "wall", "door", and "horns of consecration" may all together constitute a large altar toward which the attention of all the girls on the north wall is directed. Other fragmentary figures, including more girls as well as at least one male figure, were found.
Sector B: Probably 2 buildings together. In the first one, the wall paintings “Antelopes” continuing on two or three walls and the “Boxing Youth”, in a narrow wall, were found. In the second one, the “Blue Monkey “Fresco was uncovered, closely comparable to a more fragmentary and stylistically somewhat earlier composition found in the palace at Knossos.
The West House: Small building where the wall painting “Fisherman” and “Flotilla” was found. It is made up of two rooms. The first one shows two life-sized nude fishermen in narrow panels below a frieze of variable width on the upper wall showing a fleet of ships moving between two towns (south wall; 40 cms. high), a riverine landscape (east wall; 20 cms. high), and a religious ceremony on a hill and warriors disembarking from their ships in two seemingly distinct scenes (north wall; 40 cms. high). The frieze ran along the west wall as well, but little of this portion of it has survived.
The Second room has A series of life-sized stern cabins (ikria) on the north wall, a thin partition shared with the other room which bore the fleet scene on its other side; a life-sized "priestess" from the east jamb of the doorway connecting both Rooms; flower pots with lilies on the two jambs of a window in the west wall, the sill and the lower jambs of the same window being painted to resemble veined stone such as marble or gypsum.
Complex Delta: With is made up of four houses, where the wall paintings “Spring” were found.
House of the Ladies: A rich private house. The west half of the room features life-sized clumps of papyrus, while in the east half two life-sized women dressed in a Cretan fashion wait on other figures who are largely missing.
Xeste 4: A public building
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SANTORINI
ISLAND
