was the seat of a Christian bishop: bishop Euphratas constructed a large basilica in the mid-seventh century. The attacks of caliph Harun Al-Rashid in the later eighth century, together with another earthquake in 796, and the subsequent Arab rule in Crete, led to the final abandonment of the site. Following the occupation of the island by the Republic of Venice, a Catholic diocese was established, still a Roman Catholic titular bishopric today. Public exhibitions in 1993 and 1994, and especially the comprehensive exhibition of 2004 at the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, have introduced the archaeological site to the general public. On the last occasion the Louvre lent the seventh-century BCE "Lady of Auxerre", now given a definitive Cretan context with comparable finds at Eleutherna. See also Museum of Ancient Eleutherna Eleutherna Bridge List of ancient Greek cities Notes Bibliography Nicholas Chr. Stampolidis, Eleutherna on Crete: The Wider Horizon. In Aruz, J. and Seymour, M. (eds). Assyria to Iberia: Art and Culture in the Iron Age, Metropolitan Museum of Art symposia, pp. 283–295, Yale University Press, 2016. Anagnostis Agelarakis, The anthropology of Tomb A1K1 of Orthi Petra in Eleutherna. A Narrative of the Bones: Aspects of the Human Condition in Geometric-Archaic Eleutherna (Athens, 2005). Kotsonas, Antonis, The Archaeology of Tomb A1K1 of Orthi Petra in Eleutherna: the early Iron Age pottery (Heraklion, University of Crete, 2008). S. Andreas Koudellou, Eleutherna 2006-2009, The University of Crete, January 10, 2009. External links Museum of Ancient Eleutherna Ancient Eleutherna from the Greek Ministry of Culture Eleutherna 1998 Overview Cretan city-states Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Crete Roman sites in Greece Populated places in ancient Crete Former populated places in Greece Iron Age sites in Greece Populated places in Rethymno (regional unit)