D11 Sokaràs – Vákiotes and Vólakas

At the northern edges of eastern Messará, two kilometres northeast of Sokarás, on top of a rocky hill with full horizon view on all sides, there have been found significant remains of a rock-carved settlement. The name of the town is unknown, the excavations few and far between, but it is certain that, besides the strategic importance of the place, for many a year it had been a wine-production area, as the remains suggest. “At the foot of the rocky hill (altitude about 400m.) a rock-carved vertical surface about three meters in height meets a horizontal also rock-carved floor. There is a tomb on the vertical surface and on the floor there is a rock-carved grape press, with a collection basin on the slope. The question is: Which is the most ancient? Which was carved first? A few meters further above, right after an impressive rock-carved staircase, the excavation has unearthed a “wine-house”, whose floor (4,80mx3,80m) was used as a grape press during harvesting.. It looks like the floor of a rock-carved house, west of the citadel at the ancient region of Meliti, of the classical era. (There is a large collection basin --2,40mx1,40m x1,55m—at the western side and a series of carvings and small canals” (Manolioudis, 2014, Dionysus)