This paper reconsiders the 'Temple House', a building excavated in 1969-70 on the Temple terrace of the site of Lato in eastern Crete. While the building was dated to the Hellenistic (HL) period and identified as domestic space by the excavator, a restudy of the material from the excavation, combined with an examination of the excavation notebooks, and observations on site, reveal a more complex history of use, unusual architectural details, and a heterogeneous range of dates (from Late Minoan (LM) IIIC to HL) and functions, suggesting original funerary and post-funerary cult contexts. It is possible to recognize the remains of a Subminoan (SM)/Protogeometric (PG) burial and evidence for an Early Iron Age (EIA) and HL tomb cult, allowing a reconsideration of the history of Lato and the process of city-state formation in eastern Crete.