Chryssolakkos Necropolis

 archaeological site, Minoan, fenced area

The Protopalatial burial complex of Chrysolakkos is a rectangular ossuary or a monumental house tomb, a stone tomb built above the ground in the form of a house, common in Eastern Crete, occupying an area of approx. 1,200 sq. m.
The building owes its monumentality to its facades: the northern and western are made of large carved stone blocks and the southern and eastern of upright slabs. The surrounding area was paved, today badly preserved. A series of seven square bases along the eastern aspect indicates that there was once a portico here. Protopalatial plastered rooms, which seem to have been used for burial rituals, were found under the paved floor of the portico.
Internally, the building is divided into at least 40 rectangular burial chambers; the famous golden bee pendant was found in one of them.
A low fluted base of stucco with a cylindrical cavity in the centre, placed mid-way alongthe burial complex's east side, seems to have been used as an altar for libations.
A stone table with shallow cavities placed in two circular rows around a deeper central cavity stands on the outside of the tomb’s NW corner. The cavities of the kernos were probably used for offering small quantities of agricultural products to the gods or the dead.
The necropolis of Chrysolakkos due to the unique architecture and finds was considered to be closely connected to the palatial complex.