with superb views over the plain of Mesara to the Libyan Sea. I am not by nature very exacting when it comes to exploring ancient remains. It doesnât really give me any great satisfaction to know whether this niche or that was actually the family shrine, or precisely how high the staircase was, orâin any detailâhow the water pipes were all joined up. I would only forget these things again. Making precise identifications on these Minoan sites is a headache anyway, for clues are scanty, and on-site information even scantier. Wandering here on a summer morning with the evidence of ancient life all around one, the olive groves and vineyards covering the plain below, the majestic peaks of Psiloritis rising to the north and the warm breath of Africa against your faceâit is difficult to imagine a pleasanter way of spending an hour or two.
In 1908, inside a small chamber at Festos, one of the most famous finds in the history of Minoan excavation was made, the disk of baked clay, later to be known as the Festos Disk, dating from around 1700 B.C. Its provenance is still disputed, but the evidence indicates that it was made in Crete. At present housed in the Archaeological Museum of Iraklion, it is something truly to marvel at, a solid disk roughly six inches in diameter, completely covered back and front with ideographs inscribed in spiral form from the circumference to the center, 241 signs in all, among them running figures, heads crowned with feathers, ships, shields, birds and beasts and insects, each one impressed with great care on the wet clay using some kind of stamp. And all this several thousand years before Gutenberg!
Despite a century of efforts to decipher the script, no agreement has yet been reached. Various theories have been advanced. Was it a hymn to the Lord of the Rain, a set of building instructions, a list of provisions for the army, an anthem to a pantheon of gods? Some pretty unlikely solutions have been offered. At different times, linguists have sought to demonstrate that the text derives from Basque, or Finnish, or Magyar.
The road back to Iraklion branches northward at Agii Deka, and soon afterward runs past the ruins of ancient Gortyn, which was a Minoan city but saw its greatest power and importance in the classical period, first under the Greeks and then under the Romans. Three momentous landings outline the story of the city, the first of themânaturally, since this is Creteâmythological. Zeus, having fallen in love with Europa, a daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre in Phoenicia, assumed the form of a beautiful white bull. He seemed so gentle, the girl was enchanted by him and was eventually persuaded to climb on his back. Before she knew what was happening, she was riding out to sea, on the way to Crete. He brought her to Gortyn, where they became lovers. One of their three sons was Minos, whose throne room we got a thirty-second view of at Knossos. Crete then, not only gave Europe its name, it was where Europe began, a truth Cretans have always known.
The second landing occurred in the first century A.D. , that of Titus, the disciple of St. Paul, who appointed him first bishop of Crete and gave him the task of overseeing the early Christian church on the island. âFor this cause I left thee in Crete,â the Apostle says in his Epistle to Titus, âthat thou shouldst set in order the things that are wanting.â Paulâs opinion of the Cretans, as we have seen, was not very high. Titus was martyred at Gortyn, and the ruins of the sixth-century basilica of the cross-in-square type that was built on the site of his martyrdom are among the most impressive to be seen here, with three apses and a section of the vaulting still standing. Under the Romans Gortyn became capital of the province of Crete and Libya, with a population of a quarter million, and it continued in wealth and importance under the Byzantines, who took over the island in A.D. 330.
The third
In 1908, inside a small chamber at Festos, one of the most famous finds in the history of Minoan excavation was made, the disk of baked clay, later to be known as the Festos Disk, dating from around 1700 B.C. Its provenance is still disputed, but the evidence indicates that it was made in Crete. At present housed in the Archaeological Museum of Iraklion, it is something truly to marvel at, a solid disk roughly six inches in diameter, completely covered back and front with ideographs inscribed in spiral form from the circumference to the center, 241 signs in all, among them running figures, heads crowned with feathers, ships, shields, birds and beasts and insects, each one impressed with great care on the wet clay using some kind of stamp. And all this several thousand years before Gutenberg!
Despite a century of efforts to decipher the script, no agreement has yet been reached. Various theories have been advanced. Was it a hymn to the Lord of the Rain, a set of building instructions, a list of provisions for the army, an anthem to a pantheon of gods? Some pretty unlikely solutions have been offered. At different times, linguists have sought to demonstrate that the text derives from Basque, or Finnish, or Magyar.
The road back to Iraklion branches northward at Agii Deka, and soon afterward runs past the ruins of ancient Gortyn, which was a Minoan city but saw its greatest power and importance in the classical period, first under the Greeks and then under the Romans. Three momentous landings outline the story of the city, the first of themânaturally, since this is Creteâmythological. Zeus, having fallen in love with Europa, a daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre in Phoenicia, assumed the form of a beautiful white bull. He seemed so gentle, the girl was enchanted by him and was eventually persuaded to climb on his back. Before she knew what was happening, she was riding out to sea, on the way to Crete. He brought her to Gortyn, where they became lovers. One of their three sons was Minos, whose throne room we got a thirty-second view of at Knossos. Crete then, not only gave Europe its name, it was where Europe began, a truth Cretans have always known.
The second landing occurred in the first century A.D. , that of Titus, the disciple of St. Paul, who appointed him first bishop of Crete and gave him the task of overseeing the early Christian church on the island. âFor this cause I left thee in Crete,â the Apostle says in his Epistle to Titus, âthat thou shouldst set in order the things that are wanting.â Paulâs opinion of the Cretans, as we have seen, was not very high. Titus was martyred at Gortyn, and the ruins of the sixth-century basilica of the cross-in-square type that was built on the site of his martyrdom are among the most impressive to be seen here, with three apses and a section of the vaulting still standing. Under the Romans Gortyn became capital of the province of Crete and Libya, with a population of a quarter million, and it continued in wealth and importance under the Byzantines, who took over the island in A.D. 330.
The third
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