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makeITcrete's Guide to the Dorian City of Lato, Crete, Greece
Introduction
Welcome to the makeITcrete guide to Lato, one of Lassithi's best preserved yet little visited historical cities. Sitting on a 'saddle' between two peaks high in the hills, the ancient city is bounded to the North and South by steep slopes reaching up to the resoective summits and to the East and West by slopes dropping sharply down. This formidable defensive position made it one of the region's most important cities of its time.
Lato, unlike many of the other researched and excavated sites on Crete, is Dorian rather than Minoan in age and characteristics and its period of importance and major occupation dates from approximately the fourth to second centuries BC. Lato lies close to the village of Kritsa (turn right off the road up from Agios Nikolaos) and occupies an imposing hilltop position from where it was able to defend its population and launch attacks on the nearby city of Olous, the remains of which now lie in the waters close to modern Elounda, the anatagonism between the two cities being rooted in traditional allegiances to the rival powerhouses of Knossos (often supported by Lato) and Gortyn (often supported by Olous) although the support of lesser city states within such loose federations was often interchangeable or fickle to say the least.
Photographic Guide to the site (100+ pictures)
Main Gate | Steps | Terraces | Shops and Workshops | Portico / Stoa | Central Cistern | Sanctuary / Temple | Agora | Exedra | Prytaneion | Houses of the Prytaneion | Temple House | Great Temple | Altar | Theatral Area |
Walls / Ramparts | Cisterns | Surrounding Area | Miscellaneous
