Preliminary Report of Excavations at the Harbor of Phalasarna in West Crete

The Classical and Hellenistic town of Phalasarna is situated in far western Crete on the neck of Cape Grambousa. It is mentioned in the works of several ancient geographers, with particular note taken of its closed harbor. Sometime in the first century B. C. the town was destroyed, and its location was not rediscovered until the 19th century. The harbor is today on dry land owing to the 6-9 m uplift of western Crete, and excavation by the Department of Antiquities of West Crete has begun to uncover unusual harbor structures. A large round fortification tower, one of four that surrounded the port, built in the second half of the fourth century B. C., has largely been excavated. All structures uncovered so far are artificial, so the harbor resembles a κώθων, an excavated basin connected to the sea by a channel. The absence of any signs of a separate commercial harbor, the presence of military structures, and further circumstantial evidence lead to the conclusion that the town was one of the famous Cretan pirate nests, possibly one of those destroyed by the Romans in the mid-first century B. C., when the Mediterranean was cleared of all pirates.