Itanos

Itanos (Greek: Ίτανος) is a former municipality in the Lasithi regional unit, eastern Crete, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Siteia, of which it is a municipal unit. Its territory is rich in ancient archaeological sites, notably a Minoan city in Roussolakkos and the ancient Greek city Itanos in Erimopolis. The Minoan settlement was called Utana (cf. Linear B U-ta-ni-yo [KN E 749]). Herodotus recorded that the settlers from Thera (modern Santorini) who founded Cyrene owed their knowledge of the coast to an Itanian trader named Corobios.

Population 2,514 (2001). The seat of the municipality was in Palaikastro.

References

Itanos (city)

Itanos was an ancient Greek city in Crete. Its ruins are now visible in Erimopolis, in the modern district of Itanos.

Herodotos is the first Greek historian we know who mentioned Itanos.

The archeological site of Itanos is open to the public. It is possible to see the ruins of houses, city walls and Christian churches. Many Greek inscriptions were found in situ; the most famous one, kept now in the monastery of Toplou, relates a decision by the Roman Senate about Itanos' conflicts and territorial disputes with the neighbor cities Praisos and Hierapytna.

The site has been excavated recently by an international team under the supervision of the Ecole française d'Athènes and the local Archaeological Ephoria.

Slab from the Basilica

Slab from the Basilica

Basilica

Basilica

Basilica from above

Basilica from above

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External links