Recently, I decided to visit Crete to see the ancient cities that became the cornerstone of our modern culture. They were the precursors of 21st century Western civilization.
We flew from Athens to Heraklion and stayed in a lovely small hotel overlooking the harbor and the Venetian fortifications. (Unfortunately, the hotel appears to now be closed.)
At the center of Heraklion is a square with a medieval marble fountain, known as the Morosini Lion’s fountain. On the sidewalks around the fountain, there are shops that sell one of the best Cretan treats called “bougatsa” that the locals have for breakfast or elevenses. It’s made from phyllo dough stuffed with either a savory cheese filling or a thick sweet custard filling and is sprinkled with a cinnamon/sugar mix.
The Kirkór shop is the oldest and most famous of the bougatsa emporia around the square. Add a cup of Greek coffee or a sour cherry cold drink, and you have a spectacular snack. These shops have been feeding foreigners and locals for almost 90 years.
The Palace of Knossos has been called the first and oldest actual city of Europe because it was a city, not just a palace. In the second millennium B.C.E., the inhabitants of this city had flush toilets, hot and cold water baths, clean water supply lines, and a sophisticated drainage system that separated septic waste from clean rainwater.
The Knossos site was an urban complex settled around 7000 B.C.E. during the Neolithic period. By about 2000 B.C.E., it had become a town of 18,000 people. According to archaeologists, at its peak just after 1700 B.C.E., the population had grown to about 100,000 individuals.
We don’t know what the inhabitants actually called themselves, but we call them “Minoans” because that matches up with myths written in ancient times about the Cretan inhabitants and their “wise” king, Minos.
In 1952, Michael Ventris finally deciphered the city’s name in the Linear B script as Ko-No-So. Therefore, we finally learned that the name passed down through the ages as Knossos was not that far off.
We know that the inhabitants of the city venerated bulls from the frescos and stone horn-shaped sculptures around the site. Those images match up with the Minotaur legend of ancient Athens. A fresco on a wall that was excavated by Sir Arthur Evans shows images of bull jumping, a non-lethal form of games with the bulls.
Within a few months after the beginning of the excavations, Evans and his team realized that they were uncovering an intricate, interconnected maze of over 1,000 rooms on three to four levels. The modern term “labyrinth” actually means “the place of the Lavrys” in the ancient Cretan language. A lavrys is a double ax, another emblem of Minoan Crete, which would be perfectly fitting!
Evans called this a “Palace,” although some of the spaces were living quarters, artisans’ workshops, work rooms, food kitchens, religious and administrative spaces, and storage rooms with giant clay jars used to store wheat and barley, olive oil, wine, and honey – everything needed to keep a large urban complex functioning. There were also throne rooms, bedrooms, baths, and dining rooms.
Evans and his team kept working through 1935, even reconstructing portions of the buildings. The architecture of the “palace” is monumental for the period. But the Palace of Knossos is not the only early urban complex we know about in Crete.
Knossos is located on the northern side of the island, a bit south from modern Heraklion, a centrally located city and harbor that’s halfway between the east and west ends of the island. However, there is another almost as large Minoan urban complex – the “Palace” of Phaistos (or Phæstos or Festos – the spelling depends on which linguist you talk to).
It’s located on the southern central coast of the island facing the southern Cretan Sea, about 39 miles south of Heraklion. It was the second most important Minoan urban center after Knossos and still enjoys an awe-inspiring setting, though it isn’t as impressive as Knossos because no partial reconstructions have taken place.
A twin gate leads to a central courtyard, which measures 55 meters (180.45 feet) by 25 meter (82 feet), and features porticos supported by columns on two sides. “Royal apartments” were located in the northern part of the palace facing the majestic mountains.
It’s in this palace complex that the Phæstos Disk was discovered in 1908. The disk is from the middle or late Minoan Bronze period, bearing a text in an unknown script and language still undeciphered.
The disc was found in the basement of an underground “temple depository.” Its purpose and original place of manufacture remain in dispute. The disk is about 15 cm (5.9 inches) in diameter and is covered on each side with spiral text consisting of a total of 241 occurrences of 45 distinct signs. These were created by pressing individual stamps onto the soft clay before firing.
While it isn’t clear that it’s indeed a type of script, most decipherers assume that it is. Linguists are still doubtful whether the inscription is long enough to be unambiguously interpreted.
The northeast wing of the “palace” is assumed to have been Bronze Age artisans’ workshops, and we can see the remnants of a furnace in the courtyard that was once used to smelt metal. Both “palaces” are worth visiting at least once in a lifetime. After all, these places represent the very early beginnings of the Western civilization.
Manos Angelakis is one of the founders, the former Managing Editor for 25 years, the current Managing Editor Emeritus, and Senior Food & Wine Writer of LuxuryWeb Magazine. He is an accomplished travel writer, photographer, and food and wine critic based in Hackensack, New Jersey. As a travel writer, he has written extensively about numerous cities and countries. Manos has also been certified as a Tuscan Wine Master and has traveled to wine-producing areas in order to evaluate firsthand the product of top-rated vineyards. In the past year, he has visited and written multiple articles about Morocco, Turkey, Quebec City, Switzerland, Antarctica, and most recently the South of France. Articles in other publications include Vision Times and Epoch Times.
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