The Hagios Charalambos ossuary is a Minoan secondary burial site that presents evidence for the
Minoan funerary custom of ancestor veneration. The Hagios Charalambos ossuary is located in
the Lasithi Plain and contains an expansive occupation that spans from the Neolithic Period to
the Late Bronze Age (1150 B.C.). The ossuary has yielded a number of historical Minoan
funerary customs through the occupation of a natural cave as an emotional landscape, the
extreme use of secondary burial through the collecting and redepositing of human remains, and
evidence for ritual feasting. Through the use of the mortuary theory of ancestor veneration and
human osteology, I attempt to fill in the gaps of knowledge surrounding Minoan funerary
customs. This application of mortuary theory and genetic similarities of the Minoans buried
within the ossuary with the earlier Neolithic farmers of the Lasithi Plain suggests that the Hagios
Charalambos ossuary is a location deeply rooted in the Minoan understanding of their Neolithic
origins.