Pseira

Pseira is an islet in the Gulf of Mirabello in northeastern Crete with the archaeological remains of Minoan and Mycenean civilisation [1]. The island was explored in 1906–1907 by Richard Seager and partially documented by Halvor Bagge in ink and watercolors based on photographs, and more minutely examined in 1984–1992 by Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras [1]. 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 [1]. At that time the prosperous town of some 60 buildings was ranged round its open square, with a single large building that occupied one side [1]. Like many contemporary Late Minoan IB sites, it was violently destroyed, c. 1550–1450 BC [1]. 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 [1].