April 24, 2012 – The Minoans

Today we managed, in spite of poor GPS directions and two maps with conflicting information, to see the Minoan sites of Phaistos and Agia Triada (Church of the Holy Trinity).  We were amazed to see such old ruins in such amazingly good condition.  After an afternoon on the beach, we returned to our hotel for a second blissful night.

 It was another driving day for me.  I must say, driving in Crete is, on the whole, a more pleasant experience than driving in Turkey.  At least in that the back roads are generally smoothly paved and when you do have to squeeze through the narrow lanes of a small village there are not nearly the numbers of people, chickens, dogs and goats to watch for.

A street Ian drove down earlier today.  The mirror on the electric pole lets you know if anyone is coming -- in this case, a white truck is just around the corner.

Sometimes the only way to get across a stream is to go right through.  Ian says you get used to it after a while.

Today we went to Phaistos, the second largest Minoan Palace complex so far excavated.  There are, I believe, about 5 major Minoan palace complexes known.  Phaistos was much the same as Knossos in plan.  It had its monumental staircase and courtyards, storage rooms and what they believed to be the rooms for the “king” and “queen”.  Phaistos is the palace where the famous Phaistos discs were found.  These discs were inscribed with a type of pictogram writing known as Linear A.  Linear A has yet to be deciphered, and so the writing on the discs can not be read.  The discs may also represent the very first use of printing type, as the similarity between the individual characters of the same type are so exact as to seem to have been stamped by the same piece of “movable type”.

The Minoans have always held a special fascination for me and seeing the evidence of a society complex enough to rival Egypt at a similar early date is amazing.  The palace complex has two phases one from 1900-1700 BC and another from 1700 to 1450 BC.  The break seems to have been due to a catastrophic earthquake.  However, there are traces of earlier construction stretching back to about 3000 BC.

This collection of stone implements was created by people who lived well over 3500 years ago.  That is a mortar and pestle, in the centre, not a super large prehistoric lemon reamer.

These "steps" are really seats, and this is where the bull vaulting audience would sit.  These are from the old palace.  Only the top four rows were left above the courtyard of packed earth in the new palace.

Ian asked me to put this in to illustrate his blog.  This piece of floor tile is over 3900 years old.  It is protected by a little fiberglass roof.

When I took the picture, I thought these were wells, but they are really pre-Minoan (and pre-historic) shaft tombs called dolos.

The hall of magazines, or storage rooms.  A Minoan Palace wasn't just where the kings lived, it was a storage area, a place for tax collection (in kind, since money didn't exist yet) a court, and a religious centre.  They tended to be built high up on rocks.  Therefore, while the cities have long been farmed into oblivion, the palaces, on waste ground, still survive.

After viewing Phaistos we ventured on to Agia Triada.  This is the site of both a Byzantine church with surviving frescos from the 1300’s, and of another Minoan complex.  The church is tiny and makes use of some spolia (fragments from the Minoan site).  In fact there is one block that seems to have the double axe head on it that is sacred to the Minoans.  However, I haven’t found anything to confirm that yet.

14th C Frescoes from the church of Agia Triada.

Since by the time we finished at Agia Triada it was 2:00 PM, it was too late to attempt another archaeological site so we decided to head to the beach.  We were close to Malata, so we went there.  It is famous for having been a hippy hangout in the 1960’s.  We went down to the beach by the ruins of ancient Komos, the site was closed, but there is a good view from up top anyway.  The beach there is a mixture of soft sand and firm but smooth sandstone; apparently with a “family” section on one side of a bluff and a nude section on the other.  We went halfway in between the two sections, and though we wore beach attire, we changed on the beach, so…  We had a lovely swim.  The water down here on the Libyan Sea (the stretch of the Mediterranean between Crete and North Africa) was about the same as Matheson Lake or Thetes Lake in mid July – cold getting in, but nice once you are there (those that live in Victoria, British Columbia Canada will understand the comparison).

The beach near Komos. The flat rocks are slabs of sandstone.

After or swim we climbed out into the 26 degree heat and spent an hour or so reading our books.  We went back to the hotel for another amazing meal in the dining room, then spent a while watching the bats before turning in.  One thing it takes a while getting used to is that there is essentially no tide here, so the only way a beach gets cleaned is when there is a storm, or when it is raked.  No tide comes in to smooth away everyone's footprints.

Tomorrow we have planned a hike in the morning, and hope to see Gortyn in the afternoon.  We are both enjoying having a few nights in the same bed!