The focus in Area B1 was on exploring the central room of the complex entered from the south, establishing the date of the south wall in relation to the cult-related Middle Bronze Age deposits. The central room proved to contain a central hearth of an unusual construction, formed of large coarse sherds laid flat. This hearth form is well known from the contemporary Levantine coast but not typical of the Cretan Late-Bronze to Iron Age and not known elsewhere at Karphi. It overlay a hearth or cooking area associated with Middle Bronze Age pottery of the same type as found previously in this zone, suggesting conscious reference to previous use of this area. Around the hearth were a variety of burnt food remains including quantities of various types of cereal grains (emmer, einkorn barley) indicating that these were kept close to hearth for everyday use (and destroyed in the final destruction). C. Henkel's work on the water-floated soil samples which our team carried down from the mountain so carefully and willingly also revealed several concentrations of whole grapes or raisins, burnt before they could be eaten.

Middle Bronze Age deposits filled the rock crevices through the whole area under the LM IIIC building suggesting the assumed open-air auxiliary area for the peak sanctuary on Karphi was extensive. The south wall of the Iron Age house was founded over this material and no bounding features have yet been found for the latter. However in exploring the east wall for the central room of the LM IIIC complex, revealed this year, the NW corner of what appeared to be an earlier, likely Middle Bronze Age, structure was exposed – the first architecture potentially associated with this phase of use at Karphi. Beyond the east wall lay heavily burnt destruction deposits clearly indicating the presence of a third LM IIIC room/house on the east side of the complex. A doorway in the wall links it to the central room. 

In Building A1, work in 2024 cleared away the deep layers of wall collapse over nearly the whole extent of the north room, exposing roof fall, the remains of a trample floor, the interior NE corner and part of a central hearth formed of layered clay like the others our work has documented at Karphi. The 2024 trench also ran outside the building to the N to extend on the W the trench placed there in 2023. Our study of material found large sherds from the numerous pithoi in this building are spread not only through the two rooms as noted in 2008 but also outside through the large doorway, (now revealed to be over 1m wide), as a result of one or more rough clearance operations following abandonment and before collapse of the walls. Along with pithos sherds, including a further sherd of a giant pithos found in the 2008 tests, our study noted a strong preponderance and variety of fine drinking and serving wares. Cooking vessels are by contrast relatively rare, often at the larger end of the scale, and some seem never to have been used, suggesting cooking here may have happened sporadically. A range of food crops were identified in the area of the hearth including lentil, grape and olive as well as grass pea and ryegrass, insurance-type crops also found elsewhere on the site. There are few animal bones and little trace of regular cooking buildup near the hearth. A number of the rare clay stands recovered in the 2008 tests have now been identified from the 2023-4 excavations, additionally suggesting a specialised use for A1. An interesting new discovery in floor deposits here comprised two pieces of attractive, silvery haematite, a unique find which does not seems accidental at this period of earliest iron making in Crete, during which the building was abandoned.

Area MG1 continued to reward a large-scale investment of time and personnel. There were multiple aims in 2024 – to clear deposits in the the south and central buildings; main rooms and storerooms to bedrock, including removing the baulk from the 2008 tests left over most of the hearth in the south room; to explore the narrow 2023 exposures to the north and east of the building complex; to complete excavation of the west side of the central building; and to explore the apparently intrusive building of which a SE corner seems visible in the northern exposure.

As we expected, undertaking these tasks changed and enhanced our understanding of this high-status building complex. Exploring the western part of the central hall building revealed more of the richly packed storerooms, the N room in particular containing three or four large pithoi and a truly outsize coarse stirrup jar,-  the largest we have ever seen - along with much fine serving and pouring ware. Beyond the W wall, which sits on a bedrock shelf, there are traces of another almost parallel N-S wall at a lower level on the slope about 0.8m to the W. This will be explored in the 2025 season. Clearance of residual deposits over bedrock suggested much disturbance of the E wall of the hall building: outside it in the E exposure an area in which the bedrock resembles an naturally or artificially stepped street was revealed, with some detruction debris in it: the area of the E doorway seemed greatly disturbed, with much stonefall inside the hall to its W. As in the W doorway of the hall, a single mud brick or plinth may have been incorporated in the doorway in some way and was found lying outside it. An E-W wall adjoining the E façade S of the doorway suggests an odd, assymmetrical shelter or porch associated with the building.

Opening a narrow trench to explore the façade of the S building we did find the N end of a third space, likely a porch/anteroom, attached to the latter structure. The E wall of this anteroom may be eroded since it sits close to the current edge of the summit. This produces a megaron -type plan for the S building, Interestingly, the space seems to have been used as a semi-external refuse area, as prefigured by our findings of rich animal bone deposits in a silty matrix in the same area in the 2008 tests. Many weathered sherds from different vessels appeared to have been deposited over time herein a deposit 0.5m thick.

Interesting discoveries arose from the removal of the baulk and hearth in the south building's main room. One or more sets of horns, just as found near the SW corner of the hall in 2023, were found adjacent to the W wall S of the doorway: they were perhaps originally part of a striking wall display. Around the hearth and to the SE of the column base in the centre of the room were found a fallen concentration of wooden beams or members and several ceramic vessels. In the upper levels of the baulk within this room were numerous sherds of later Iron Age cooking pots as recovered in 2008, indicating later specialised use of the area. For the first time in 2024, other forms of later Iron Age vessel types were also recovered, predominantly cups.