The island was explored in 1906–1907 by Richard Seager and partially documented by Halvor Bagge in ink and watercolors based on photographs (University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1910), and more minutely examined in 1984–1992 by
Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras, for
Temple University. Archaeological materials in this seaport, sited above its harbor, to which it was connected by cliffside stairs, span the period from the end of the
Neolithic in the 4th millennium to the
Late Bronze Age, with the cultural high point being Early Minoan to Late Minoan IB. At that time the prosperous town of some 60 buildings was ranged round its open square (
plateia), with a single large building that occupied one side. Like many contemporary Late Minoan IB sites, it was violently destroyed, 1550–1450
BC. A remnant of its population cleared spaces in the rubble and for a time continued to dwell in the ruined town.
Minoan civilisation . A
Minoan seal-stone from the site representing a ship is a reminder that the
harbour was essential. The Minoan community supported itself by fishing and subsistence agriculture: They deeply tilled and terraced agricultural sites where they
manured the thin limy soil with human waste from the settlement. They did not enclose their planting sites, as the island's much later
Byzantine practice was, a sign that goats did not roam free in Minoan Pseira; neither were pigs kept. Dams collected seasonal
run-off, for water was scarce on the island, though the
Aegean region was less dry in the second millennium BCE than now.
Minoan cemetery Consistent with the long period of occupation, burials in the
necropolis west of the town are of five kinds:
Neolithic rock shelter burials;
cist graves built of vertical slabs with
Cycladic parallels; small rock-built tombs; jar burials; and tombs imitating houses.
Artifacts from the
necropolis included clay vases, stone vessels,
obsidian, bronze tools and jewelry. Burials broke off in
Middle Minoan, before the town underwent its
Late Minoan expansion. The Late Minoan I building that occupies the northern side of the
plateia, cautiously identified as a "civic shrine", featured painted
stucco bas-reliefs in its upper floor and retains a
fresco fragment of two women in Minoan dress of complicated woven design who face one another. Excavations at Pseira have been clouded by successive development in prehistoric stages obfuscating respective earlier stages, in contrast with more clearly defined strata in
Knossos, for example.
House of the Rhyta Excavation at the House of the Rhyta disclosed evidence for some Minoan
cult practice that add to our understanding of some Minoan rites, though the core meaning they evoked escapes us. In three different structures cult activity involved the use of
rhyta, drinking vessels in several forms, all with a hole at the base, a
bull-shaped vessel,
triton shells, and
chalices, and a large number of cups. "Cult practices involving large numbers of rhyta continued into successive periods in the Late Bronze Age, as is demonstrated by an interesting religious structure at
Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria) with 15 rhyta, including
Mycenaean and Minoan examples," Betancourt observes. Chemical traces in a rhyton suggest
barley,
beer, and
wine. All of these ritual vessels were stored in between their periodic seasonal use, when large groups would gather in upper-floor rooms that had lime-washed and painted stucco reliefs on the walls and a floor that was ritually whitewashed (in the building fronting the
plateia) or paved with stone slabs (House of the Rhyta). In the House of the Rhyta, there was a kitchen space below, too substantial for the occupants of the building alone; it had a corner hearth, a mortar built into bedrock in the opposite corner, and grinding rocks. The drinking rites that were observed in the upper room were apparently accompanied by feasting.
Hoard A hoard found by Seager near the lower harbor included a rhyton in the shape of a basket decorated with
double axes, pear-shaped rhyta decorated with dolphins, a bull-shaped vessel, and a jar decorated with
ivy — which in a Greek context would indicate the presence of
Dionysus — among other goods. ==Archaeological publications==