Lecture by Ourania Kouka, University of Cyprus

Excavations conducted in the middle of last century in the area of Hera Temple have demonstrated – besides the religious use – the use of Heraion also for settlement purposes in the second half of the 3rd mill. BC. During this period an Early Bronze Age (EB) settlement with early urban characteristics, dating in the late EB II-EBIII (2500-2000 BC, Heraion I-V) periods and contemporary with Troy, Liman Tepe, Poliochni on Lemnos, Thermi on Lesbos, ect. was flourishing in the most fertile plain of the island of Samos.

The excavations conducted 2009–2013 north of the Sacred Road testified the erection of the settlement in the Middle-Late Chalcolithic/Final NL (Ch/FN, 4500–3200/3100 BC), as well as five phases of impressive house architecture and part of a communal building dating in the so far unknown EB I-early II (3200/3100–2550 BC). These finds represent the earliest settlement core of Prehistoric Heraion North of the Sacred Road, which was fortified and from which the extensive urban settlement of the last part of the EB emerged and extended up to the Temple area. Moreover, a part of the EB II-III fortification (2200–2000 BC) has been discovered, that marks the limit of the huge EB settlement towards East.

Besides, three phases of impressive fortification walls and house architecture testified for the first time the existence of an equally with the Early Bronze Age flourishing settlement of the Middle Bronze Age (MB) (2000–1700 BC) with connections to Western Anatolian coast, the Cyclades, Mainland Greece and the palatial Minoan Crete. The MB settlement at Heraion with strong contacts already with the Old Palaces of Crete can be characterized as the missing link between the early urban settlement of the EB and the Late Bronze cult place for fertility following the Minoan ritual typikon, at least a millennium before the Sanctuary of Hera received a Panionic glory.