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Modern Description: Πάνορμος - Harbor town, possibly Panormos and/or Apellonia, with Minoan through Roman remains sacrificed to build the Capsis hotel in Ag. Pelagia, Irakleio, Crete.
The fertile area of Hagia Pelagia, with its leeward anchorages and advantageous natural environment, has been inhabited since Minoan times. In his monumental work, The Palace of Minos, Arthur Evans talks about Minoan harbour remains and well-built walls on the Souda cape. He records a large scatter of surface ceramics, dating to the early Minoan times, as well as Late Minoan tombs, and illustrates a seal of hematite. In 1972, Stylianos Alexiou and Athanasia Kanta identified the area where Evans recovered the LM IIIB vases, today at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, with the water-course at the NW part of Souda, known as Kladisos, which ends up in a bay north of the main bay of Hagia Pelagia. According to oral testimony, chamber-tombs dug into the ground were visible about 40 meters from the sea. Surface concentrations of ceramics and stone-heaps are also noted on the coastal heights northwest of the bay of Hagia Pelagia, as well as in the locations of Lenikos, Kampos, Tsikalohoma and Kalami. Excavations on the cape of Souda, in the area of the small church, partly a cave, of Hagia Pelagia, have brought to light the heart of the Hellenistic settlement of Panormos/Apollonia, founded over Minoan deposits. The settlement of the Prepalatial period was barely preserved, while the remains of the Old and New Palace periods were found in good condition, with finds suggesting contacts with Phaistos, Knossos and the Cyclades, such as the painted nippled-ewer, today at the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion. In a better condition too were preserved the Postpalatial building remains that mark the last phase of the Minoan settlement, which was violently destroyed by fire in the LM IIIB period. The presence of just a few LM IIIC sherds marks the last phase of the prehistoric settlement here. Souda was inhabited again in Geometric period. The historical city made its living by sea trade and piracy. Stone anchors and dense ceramic concentrations at the bottom of its double natural coves testify to the intensive use of the space as an anchorage, especially during the Hellenistic and Roman times. The notable significance of the port of Hagia Pelagia and the bays flanking it is highlighted on the Venetian maps and in the texts of the travellers, as well as by a series of coastal guard-houses at Avgokephalo and Mononafti.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panormos_(Crete)
Wikidata ID: Q60791434
Trismegistos Geo: 33266
DARE: 41489

Info: Paraplous/Coasting 2023

Παραπλούς/Coasting, by Calliope Galanaki, Christina Papadaki and Theotokis Theodoulou (2023?), Chersonnesos Municipality and Ephorate of Iraklio, academia.edu

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