THE SO-CALLED VILLA DIONYSOS AT KNOSSOS

Abstract

The excavated part of the building known as the Villa Dionysos consists of a peristyle court with rooms on three sides. The rooms have fine mosaic floors, found in a remarkable state of preservation. The excavator, Michael Gough, believed that the building was an isolated structure intended for the practice of Dionysiac cult, and he interpreted his finds in the light of this conviction. After his last season of work in 1971, his views were expressed in a short report (Catling 1972, 21–2). Gough died in 1973 having published no further details of his four seasons of work on the site and, except for some diaries and photographs, many of the records are lost. The pottery from his excavations was, however, fully published in 1983 by John Hayes, and the mosaics were published by Rebecca Sweetman in 2013. Further study of the site, together with the pottery evidence, indicates that the peristyle and its associated rooms were the public reception area of an elaborately decorated Roman domus of the second century AD, and that adjacent buildings to the south may have been the private quarters of this house. A large cistern, connected to the aqueduct, provided a copious water supply. The Dionysiac imagery of the mosaics, together with the extraordinary range of imported wine amphorae found on the premises, suggest that the owner may have prospered through the wine trade.