I left off as we were headed out to Knossos, the Minoan civilization some people call the “birth of Western Civilization.” It was pretty amazing and advanced for the time – which was 2000+ BC. King Minos was the ruler the civilization was named after. But it was a matriarchal society in that the women held the power. The chief goddess was a woman usually shown with large bare breasts indicating fertility. They held the property and “money.” There weren’t any coins but talents were traded for equal value. The people were part of what has now been identified, by DNA, as the Mediterranean race – dark, curly hair, darker skin, big bum, small waist, and some other characteristics. People in southern Spain, Southern Italy, Egypt, Greece, and all along the north Africa coast share these characteristics, in this period.
These ruins were discovered by a Cretan in 1890 something (his name also happened to be Minos!). Then an archaeologist named Evans from England, I believe, settled here, purchased the surrounding land and began excavating and actually rebuilding some of the parts, based on the wonderfully preserved murals depicting life in the time. The artifacts, many beautiful pieces of gold and stone jewelry, pottery and a small disc with pressed symbols and pictographs (none of which have been deciphered) are on display in the archaeological museum near the well preserved Venetian walls surrounding Heraklion. We visited that later in the day.
We went around with an English speaking guide (E10 each) and it was really necessary. There were no labels to tell what things were, like the throne room, the queens bath (her bathroom had a stream of water running under it – first indoor toilet!!) They had a plumbing system with water pumped down from the nearby towns up mountain. They had a kind of amphitheatre. They had the first “sidewalk” that led to a prince’s separate accommodations from the king (our guide said even in those days kinds wanted to get away from their parents!). Apparently Evans is considered to have done wonderful reconstructions and very authentic. It stopped in the 1930s I believe.
This is the reason many cruise ships in the Aegean stop at Heraklion, to see Knossos. Not too many other special tourist sites.
Today, however, I met Portia downtown and we visited a wonderful Eastern Orthodox church, St. Titus (he was a pal of St. Paul, and was also a contemporary of Jesus). He’s the patron saint of Heraklion. We also visited a Roman Catholic church (Crete was controlled by the French for a short time and the Venetians for a couple of hundred years. Of course, then by the Turks in the Ottoman empire, then the Germans during the war, and finally independent. I think it became part of Greece in the early 20th century.
Two most famous Cretans are El Greco (there’s only one of his paintings here somewhere) and Nikos Kazanzakis (we visited his very simple grave, along with his wife’s, on top of the Venetian wall on our way home tonight.
Have I seen any evidence of the financial crisis that Greek is immersed in? Only in conversations with Demetri, Portia’s brother-in-law, whose pension has been cut E300/month so far. Many people are being laid off. Unemployment I believe is like at 30%. Tourism is way down, although I see a lot of Germans and others. They own a condo that has been for rent and vacant for over 8 months. Portia said many people are moving back to property they own in the countryside and doing subsistence farming, things are so bad. Prices are WAY higher than the way they used to be. We paid like $36 for a lunch for two of us at the beach – Portia thought that was outrageous. She’s been coming here for over 30 years.
Tomorrow I bus for 2 hours over to Chania, a picturesque town to the west. I’m staying one night in the Old Town and then hope to take a different way back here. I am booked on the ferry to Santorini on Thursday early and will spend 3 nights there, flying to Athens on Sunday. So far Greece has been wonderful! Portia is planning to come back in 2014. Who knows, I may be with her!
Yasas!! (something like that means hello/goodbye!)
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