PHAESTUS

Greek Phaestos, ancient city on the western end of the southern plain of Crete, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from the sea. The site was occupied from the 4th millennium BC, and its importance grew in the Early and Middle Bronze ages (c. 3000-c. 1600 BC). In the latter period its palace was first built and later remodeled. In the Late Bronze Age, about 1400 BC, it was destroyed in the same earthquake that destroyed Knossos and other sites on Crete. It was reoccupied in the final phase of the Late Bronze Age (13th century BC) and was widely known in classical and Hellenistic times (c. 6th-1st centuries BC) until neighbouring Gortyn eclipsed it under the Roman Empire.