Paleocastro is nowedays a small village located at the eastern end of the Crete Island. Ruins of this Minoan town are two kilometres east from the village of Palaikastro. The Bronze Age town is of unknown name but some authors identified it with Dikta. The site has been occupied from at least Early Minoan period. The prooved inhabitation of the small settlement dates to ca 2900 BC. The population of Kastri expanded and by about 1900 BC a large, well-planned town existed. Around 1760 BC the earthquake severely damaged the town prospering with overseas contacts, including Egypt and Asia Minor. After the rebuilding of the town the next earthquake and flooding ca 1628 BC caused much damage once again. After the extensive rebuilding the time of Late Minoan IA period (ca 1600-1500 BC) was a time of prosperity. Rich merchants had a spacious houses and storage rooms with finely decorated pottery and stone vases. Their transactions weredocumented on tablets written in Linear A. The catastrophic volcanic eruption on Thera (modern Santorini) destroyed also Paleokastro because it caused earthquakes and rained down ash. Once again after the rebuilding, in the early fifteenth century Paleokastro as many other settlements on Crete was damaged with a sequence of fires caused by some invasions. Thr rebuilding and reconstruction after that in LM II - LM IIIA (ca 1450-1350 BC) the prosperity returned. After the next earthquake ca 1300 BC the town seems to have been slowly abandoned. Inhabitants moved and settled for a time (LM IIIC) up on Kastri. Eventually at the end of the 12th century the site was abandoned.
Sources:
- Didier Vivier, Athéna Tsingarida: Facing the Sea : Cretan Identity in a Harbour-city Contexte. Some Remarks on the Early Development of Itanos in: Cretan Cities:Formation and Transformation, Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2014, pp. 165-182
- http://www.palaikastro.com/Ancient_sites.php?Language=EN