Matala
MATALA, PR. [MATALIA]
Lies on a tiny bay 8 km N of Cape Lithinon on the Gulf of Matala. Now a small fishing village, it was in Roman times one of the two outports or epineia of Gortyn, the other being Lebena. In prehistoric and Classical times it may have served as the port of Phaistos, the alternative site for the prehistoric port being Kommos, just beyond the headland to the N. Matala is described by Strabo as 130 stades from Gortyn and 40 stades from Phaistos (10.4.11,14); mentioned by Ptolemy (3.15.3) as Matalia and by the Stadiasmus (323-24) as a city with a harbor. Near Matala was the “lisse petra” where Menelaus' ships were wrecked on his journey home from Troy (Od. 3293ff): probably Cape Nysos, the cape between Matala and Kommos, but possibly Cape Lithinon itself.
Subject to Phaistos in the 3d c. B.C., Matala was captured in ca. 219, along with Lebena, by young Gortynian exiles at war with their elders (Polyb. 4.55.6); and when Phaistos came under the control of Gortyn in the mid 2d c. B.C., Matala became a second port for Gortyn.
On the N and S sides of the bay are over 100 chambers cut at several levels in the calcareous sandstone cliffs. Many of these certainly served as tombs, with benches and side-niches for offerings cut in the rock, and a floor level below the entrance level. Some chambers investigated recently contained lamps of the 1st and 2d c. A.D. On the S side of the bay some of the chambers are now submerged, with their floors 1.8 m and their thresholds 1.5 m under water (Lembesi), which shows that there has been a relative rise in sea level, at least partly owing to land subsidence; Evans' estimate of a relative rise of 5 m is, however, excessive. At the SE corner of the bay there is a deep cutting in the cliff, 5.8 m wide and at least 38 m long, with a rock-cut floor and side-chamber: a slipway, probably covered, for a warship; probably Graeco-Roman in date, but possibly later. The stumps of rock-cut bollards of uncertain date line the seaward edge of the rock shelf along the S side of the bay. No other remains of harbor installations can now be seen; in antiquity ships would have moored, as today, in the S part of the bay, protected from the prevailing SW wind. The sandy E shore of the bay is exposed and pounded by surf; an apparent platform in its center is a natural formation of beach rock.
The ancient settlement lay mainly on the hill S of the bay, where Spratt saw “vestiges of a small walled fortress, built with mortar and small stones.” An inscribed base of the 2d-3d c., of a statue of Artemis Oxychia, was found here recently, and marble fragments, columns, and foundations, perhaps of granaries or warehouses, in the plain at the head of the bay. The visible ancient remains are almost entirely of the Roman period, but remains of the Classical period may be assumed to lie beneath; tombs of the 4th c. B.C. have been found in the vicinity. No coins of Matala are known, and very few inscriptions. There is little trace of Bronze Age occupation at Matala, but Kommos has evidence of occupation in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and also in the Geometric period.
BIBLIOGRAPHYT.A.B. Spratt, Travels and Researches in Crete II (1865) 20-23; A. Evans, PM II (1928) 86ffM; Creutzburg, “Matalia,” RE 14, 2 (1930) 2179; M. Guarducci, ICr I (1935) 239-40, 269; G. Crile & C. Davaras, Kret. Chron. 17 (1963) 47-49; A. Lembesi, Praktika (1969) 246-48; D. J. Blackman, “The neosoikos at Matala,” Proc. 3d Cretological Congress, 1971 (1973) 14-21; see also Brit. Adm. Chart 1633M.
D. J. BLACKMAN