Tylisos, also known as Tylissus, Tilissos, and Pyrgos Tylissos, is an attractive and modern town located within the central area of Crete, in Greece. This town combines modern life and constructions with ancient buildings and spots, offering this way an interesting mixture of attractions. It is important to know that, while visiting Tylisos, tourists could meet a very interesting ancient Minoan sanctuary as well as the remaining of a Minoan town.
The first archaeological discoveries brought to light in Tylisos took place between 1910 and 1914, when a group of experts excavated the area. From these discoveries, archaeologists could deduct that this place was already inhabited in the period known as the Early Minoan II. Besides this, these archaeologists could also discover a Sanctuary constructed during that period of time and which was used until the period known as Late Minoan IA.
There is a wide variety of ancient constructions and objects available for tourists to meet during their visit to Tylisos. Among these ancient objects and buildings, there is, for example, an aqueduct with a clay pipes system, several houses, a cistern, many objects with Linear A inscriptions, clay figurines representing humans and animals, and stone horns.
The Minoan town located in Tylisos occupied an important territory and was inhabited by a long period of time, a fact which can be easily stated through the variety of constructions dating from many different époques that were discovered in this area. The most antique constructions discovered in this area where three houses that would date from the periods known as EM II and MM II, and although they were partially destroyed in the period called IM IB, some structural elements remained unchanged.
When visiting the Minoan town of Tylisos, tourists would find three main constructions called House A, House B, and House C. House A consists on a large building divided in two main parts, a storage area on the north side and a residential area on the south side. House B, was smaller and simpler than House A and was mainly used for storage purposes. The last construction, House C, had a chapel on the southern part connected by a corridor to the western and northern parts where the residential area and storage rooms would be.