Gournia (Greek: Γουρνιά) is the site of a Minoan palace complex in the Lasithi regional unit on the island of Crete, Greece.

[2] Gournia is in a 6 mile cluster of with other Minoan archeological sites which includes Pachyammos, Vasiliki, Monasteraki, Vraika and Kavusi.

Boyd and her team were able to expose nearly the entire town, uncovering sixty houses, the cemetery, a road system connecting everything and a central building which she called "the palace".

[2] In the Early Minoan II/III periods, burials began in rock shelters on the Sphoungaras ridge (with direct inhumations at Deposits A and B nearby) and on the north ridge (rock shelters V and VI and one built tomb, House Tomb III, which continued in use until the Middle Minoan IA period).

[2] Rebuilding occurred in the Middle Minoan III period, which included the palace complex.

[13] Other Minoan sites including Zakros to the east and Hagia Triada to the west followed the same sequence of building and destruction.

It was first excavated by Boyd and revisited in 1971 by a different team of archaeologists, yielding numerous artifacts presumed to be funerary offerings.

Among the findings were two small vases, a miniature jug, a mug with no handles from the Middle Minoan IA period (2100-1875 B.C.E.)

found in situ; as well as a silver kantharos, two bird's nest bowls, a pair of bronze tweezers, stone vases, seals, jewelry and fragmentary sarcophagi with remains of 8 skulls and other unidentified bones.

[16] Nonetheless, both Tomb I and II would have appeared like normal houses to outsiders without the presence of the shrine due to the use of the same construction techniques and architectural style applied to build the town's structures.

[16] Some of the artifacts found in this house tomb were stone seals, fruitstands, three bronze tweezers, terracotta vases, cups, jugs, pithoi, and larnakes.

The accumulation and pattern of deposition of the human remains suggest that these were moved to the side once fully skeletonized to make space for more bodies.