{{Short description|Greek term describing a shelter or lodging}} {{Redirect-distinguish-text|Metaton|Mettaton, a fictional character from the video game Undertale}} thumb|Nida Plateau - Mitata '''Mitato''' ({{langx|el|μιτάτο}}, archaic form: {{lang|grc|μιτᾶτον or μητᾶτον}}, from {{langx|la|metor}}, "to measure off/to pitch camp") is a term meaning "shelter" or "lodging" in Greek.
Appearing in the 6th century, during the Byzantine period it referred to an inn or trading house for foreign merchants, akin to a caravanserai. By extension, it could also refer to the legal obligation of a private citizen to billet state officials or soldiers. Alternatively, in the 10th century, Constantine Porphyrogenitus uses the term to refer to state-run ranches in Anatolia.<ref>Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, p. 1385.</ref>
In modern Greece, and especially on the mountains of Crete, a ''mitato'' (in the plural ''mitata'') is a hut built from locally gathered stones to provide shelter to shepherds, and is used also for cheese-making. Mount Ida (also called Mount Psiloritis) in central Crete is particularly rich in flat stones suitable for dry stone construction.<ref>Antonis Plymakis, ''Koúmoi-Mitáta kai Boskoi sta Leuká Ori kai Psiloriti'' ("Shepherd's huts and shepherds in the Lefka Ori and the Psiloritis"), Chania, 2008, 630 p.</ref><ref>[https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/pastoral-life-in-the-mountains-of-crete/ Harriet Blitzer, Pastoral Life in the Mountains of Crete. An Ethnoarchaelogical Perspective], in ''Expedition'', vol. 32, No 3, 1990, pp. 34-41; archived [https://web.archive.org/web/20160421135131/http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/pastoral-life-in-the-mountains-of-crete/ here] (on the shepherd's huts of Eastern Crete.</ref><ref>Sabine Ivanovas, ''Where Zeus Became a Man (with Cretan Shepherds)'', Efsthiadis Group Editions, 2000, 183 p. (Life in the corbelled dry stone huts of central Crete).</ref>
==See also== * Vernacular architecture
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * {{in lang|fr}} [http://pierreseche.chez-alice.fr/cabanes_anogia.htm Cabanes d'estive (''mitata'') des environs d'Anogia en Crète centrale (Grèce)] (Summer shepherding huts (mitata) in the vicinity of Anogia in central Crete, Greece)
{{Huts}}
Category:Byzantine secular architecture Category:Byzantine law Category:Crete Category:Mountain huts Category:Vernacular architecture Category:Pastoral shelters