Azoria

[2] At Azoria, Boyd excavated a single trench on the summit of the southernmost peak, finding a puzzling series of circular structures superimposed on a large rectangular building.

Excavation has identified stratification (archaeology) showing a distinct phase of architectural renovation involving significant changes in the way that the settlement was used and how public and private space was organized.

In this phase transition, there is evidence for broad-sweeping alterations to the landscape of the site, the construction of monumental buildings, and the reorganization of both civic and domestic space, suggesting aspects of town planning.

Although the site has a long history of use—occupied in the Final Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Early Iron Age—the most visible remains are the houses and communal buildings of Archaic date (600–500 BC).

It has been argued that in Cretan cities, the activities of the domestic or private symposium, typical of Archaic Athenian contexts, were transferred to supra-household communal but segregated feasting venues such as the andreion.

The finds from the main hall of the Monumental Civic Building—roasted leg joints of sheep and goat; chick peas and legumes (found preserved in pots on the floor); drinking and dining wares; stone kernoi (offering tables) carved into the top step of the bench, and a Minoan-style kernos lying face down on top of the bench—indicate that it was used for public banquets and formal cult activities; it may have had ceremonial functions similar to those associated with magistrates' buildings (prytaneion) commonly identified in Greek city-states such as the neighboring poleis of Lato and Dreros.