Another Warrior-Grave at Ayios Ioannis near Knossos

Abstract

Position. This tomb (Knossos Survey 5) lay about 130 metres east along the most southerly of the roads leading from the main Knossos-Herakleion road to Ayios Ioannis, and some 160 metres due south of the Late Minoan shaft-grave discovered in this area in 1950.The tomb, although of modest size and mutilated before excavation, has more than ordinary interest from the presence in it of a gold cup, the first recorded from an excavation in Crete. The arms accompanying the single warrior buried in the part of the tomb preserved to us were by no means exceptional in point of decoration and adornment; but they represent the most complete and formidable armoury of Bronze Age weapons that has yet been found in Crete, standing comparison with such ‘royal’ collections of weapons as those from the Mycenae shaft-graves or the Dendra tholos tomb.