Vaulted Tomb of Stilos

The tomb is situated at the westernmost part of the hill Azoires, south of Aptera and east of the country road that leads to the modern village Stilos Apokoronou. It was excavated in 1961 by N. Platonas and K. Davaras, upon suggestion of a civilian.

It is a monumental vaulted tomb of the local governor of the area, with a circular, stone-built chamber and a long, built corridor. The first to be studied was the vault of the tomb with the circular stone-built chamber (diameter of 4,30m), which was found looted. From the sherds of the lowest layer of the chamber the tomb was dated in the late Minoan III Β period (about 1390 - 1190 π.Χ.). In the relieving triangle, over the lintel of the entrance (0,70m in height), twelve cups of the late Hellenistic period were found, which indicates that sacrifices for the dead took place there. Similar vessels of the Hellenistic times were also found in the road, but also in the ground. .

The tomb opened to the visitors in 1970, when K. Davaras studied its stone-built road (20.80m in length) and the remaining part of the entrance barrier was removed. In the same year K. Davaras excavated an important part of a Minoan settlement in the SE side of the hill Azoires. The settlement, to which the vaulted tomb probably also belonged, is associated with the Aptera of the Minoan times, known in Linear B tablets as A-pa-ta-wa. The settlement is believed to have been founded in the early Minoan times and abandoned in the late Minoan ΙΙΙ C period (about 1190 - 1070 B.C.).

(Authors: Vanna Niniou, Angeliki Tsingou, Archaeologists)