The Byzantine basilica church at Knossos

The Hellenistic and Roman city of Knossos occupied a broad plateau extending northward of the Minoan Palace towards the sea. For nearly a mile from the Palace the fields are studded with the debris of occupation. One of the great Roman town houses was partly excavated before the War by Mr. R. W. Hutchinson and the work has been continued by Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gough, now of the British Institute in Ankara. A splendid series of second- to third-century mosaics has been discovered depicting the Dionysiac cult. The city, however, had a Christian community at least as early as about A.D. 170, for in that period Eusebius records the name of a Bishop Pinytus, who earned a reputation for being a zealous moral reformer, and was regarded as an influential figure among correspondents of Bishop Dionysius of Corinth. In the Patristic period Knossos continued to be an important Christian centre, its bishop being present at the Councils of Ephesus, 431, Chalcedon, 451, and Nicaea, 787. The see of Knossos is also mentioned in lists of sees drawn up in the reign of Justinian, and in the eighth century. Between 731 and 787 it seems to have ranked as Protothronos , or second senior bishop. On the Bulgarian episcopal list of 980 Knossos is still recorded among the Cretan bishoprics. To judge from examples known from North Africa, such as Timgad, Djemila, and Tipasa, the main early Christian centre was likely to be outside the city walls where the cemeteries were located. There would be found the Christian area , and there, too, the earliest centre of worship. At Knossos it seems that a small stream which used to run in an east-westerly direction from the area of Fortetsa, until its course was altered to one slightly farther south when the new hospital was built, marked the boundary between the city and cemetery area

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  Matteo G Randazzo•JOURNAL OF GREEK ARCHAEOLOGY•2020

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  Open Access•Anna C Moles, Hazel Reade et al.•Journal of Archaeological Science…•2022

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• Agiasmatsi

  Open Access•Jane M Francis, Jane Francis et al.•The Annual of the British School…•2000

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  Open Access•Antonis Kotsonas•The Annual of the British School…•2025

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  Open Access•Rebecca Sweetman•The Annual of the British School…•2017

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• Sinclair Hood (1917–2021)

  Open Access•Gerald Cadogan•The Annual of the British School…•2021

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• The Roman mosaics of the Knossos Valley

  Open Access•Rebecca Sweetman•The Annual of the British School…•2003

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• Squatters’ Rights

  Rebecca Worsham•Journal of Mediterranean…•2022

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  Open Access•Anna C Moles•International Journal of…•2023

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• I.— The Christian Antiquities of Tripolitania

  Open Access•J B Ward Perkins, R G Goodchild•Archaeologia•1953

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• Early Byzantine and Later Glass Lamps

  Grace M Crowfoot, D B Harden•The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology•1931

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