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= Phourni at Archanes = Phourni is located at 70100 Epano Archanes, Heraklion, Greece—located on a hill in north-central Crete. It is a Minoan Greek Cemetery that was established in 2400 BC and lasted until 1200 BC. It was crucial for Minoan burials as many successful ones happened at this site. The burials consistently and proactively engaged the community of the Minoans. The largest cemetery in the Archanes area was discovered in 1957 and excavated for 25 years by Yiannis Sakellarakis, beginning in 1965. The cemetery is around 6,600m square that embodies 26 funerary buildings in various shapes and sizes.

Funerary Practices
People were buried in either “House Tombs” which are rectangular long and narrow chambers or tholos tombs which are rounded structures that were built into a hillside. The funerary practice has been discovered to have two different processes. The first is a decaying of the human bones in one place and then putting those bones in a final separate place. There is also evidence that skulls received more attention than other bones during the burial practices.

Monuments of the Site
The Mycenaean Grave Enclosure is a part of of the funerary complex towards the northern area of the cemetery. It had seven different rectangular house tombs. Tholos Tomb A had been found with various offerings like bronze and ivory vases, gold signet rings and necklaces, beads, and glass-paste. Tholos Tomb B was found to be the greatest in size and most complex structure in the cemetery that has a tholos in the middle of it along with twelve rooms. Tholos Tomb C is a construction built above the ground in the south west area of the cemetery. There is evidence of burials put into sarcophagi (stone coffins) with numerous offerings. Tholos Tomb D was found to be a wealthy female burial that is dug into hard stone. The body of the woman was laid on a wooden board. Tholos Tomb E is thought to be the initial funerary building created at the site, containing multiple burials and offerings. Along with the five tholoi, there are 26 buildings on the site.

Excavation of Seal Stones
A seal stone is one of the various artifacts that archaeologists uncovered in the time of the Bronze Age in Greece, specifically in Phourni. They were created on stones or wood with a design or symbol imprinted on them. They were used for many purposes including jewelry, a form of identification, and to show ownership of someone or something. Seal stones were personable, as they distinguished Minoans from one another through their status, identity, religion, or record-keeping modes. The Minoans would place one’s seal stones in the grave with the person who had died, marking the particular significance of a seal stone regarding the life and death of a Minoan. Seal stones offer implications about technology, craft, religion, economy, and hierarchal society amongst the Minoan civilization.