The Minotaur cafe

Which is next door to Labyrinth Souvenirs.

Say what?

That statue of Marcus Aurelius is a fine example of good Roman art; however, this depiction of Hades and Persephone just made me laugh. Who knew that the three heads of the fearsome Cerberus were all the size of chihuahuas?

Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them

By 36 BC Knossos was a Roman colony. I love this bust of Marcus Aurelius in the museum.

Minoan culture

Sarcophagi in the museum.

The pyramids at Giza are only a few hundred years older than Knossos, and the Minoans are sometimes described as the first civilization in Europe. But we don't actually know very much about them. They used two forms of writing, a kind of hieroglyphics and later, Linear A, that we can't read. We don't even know what they called themselves. Referring to them as the Minoans—derived from the myth of King Minos—was popularized by Arthur Evans.

Random things I saw at Knossos

The Grand Staircase

This staircase has four levels, which I think is pretty impressive for a something built almost four thousand years ago.

Cats in Greece

Of course there was a cat. There were always cats.

Pithoi

These giant storage containers are some of the few authentic relics left in place on the site. Although everyone still refers to it as a palace, this was less a royal residence and more of a religious and administrative center. With a LOT of storage.

Update: I just noticed that this is entry number 5000 in this blog. Wow. I keep thinking I'm going to have to give it up, but whatever happens this is kind of an accomplishment.

The original

The original relief fresco of the bull from the North Gate is in the museum.

The North Gate

A reconstruction, of course—basically anything that has a column or a fresco on the site is a reconstruction, many of them done by Arthur Evans and his team (how Evans basically bought the site and got himself first dibs on everything is a really interesting story of archaeological wiliness.)

Some of the reconstructions, like the fresco of the three ladies from the museum that I posted previously, may be complete inventions. The architectural reconstructions, like this gate, are (I hope) more reliable.

As I was saying

A model of the palace in the museum.

Knossos

Or, rather, the archaeology museum in Heraklion. Most of the art and artifacts worth seeing at the palace of Minos at Knossos are actually in the museum, like this fresco, rather than at the site itself.

The site is still very much worth visiting, but if you are expecting another Ephesus or Olympia, you will be very disappointed. It's much, much older, for one thing; parts of the palace were first built around 1900 BC, and it was destroyed in 1350 BC. So while the size of the site is mind-boggling—archaeologists now believe that the myth of the Labyrinth was based on the palace itself—a lot of what you will see is ditches and stone walls, with some reconstructed elements to give an idea of what the palace looked like a few thousand years ago.

Saturday reflections

At the archaeology museum in Heraklion, Crete.

Stations of the cross

On the other side of the mountaintop, there's a giant cross, and the path leading up to it has 14 marble shrines representing the Stations of the Cross.

I don't think I've thought about the Stations—representing the events in the Passion of Christ—for decades, but when I was in grammar school we went to the church every Friday afternoon during Lent to do the stations. It started with the First Station, Jesus is condemned to death, and ended with the Fourteenth, Jesus is laid in the sepulchre, and there was a set of prayers we recited for each station. Our family bible had a set of fairly disturbing and graphic paintings (I used to have nightmares about the Eleventh Station, Jesus is nailed to the cross) but the church just had fourteen metal plaques. I actually liked the Stations of the Cross liturgy, the chanted prayers and the Benediction at the end with incense and music, and especially coming out into the sunshine afterwards and getting to go home early.

I left the church intellectually and emotionally when I was still in high school, but you never forget the rituals. When I took the picture of the Third Station, I knew automatically that it depicted Jesus falling for the first time.

And there were goats

I'd mentioned that at Delphi we heard goats but never saw them. Filerimos made up for it; there were at least a dozen goats hanging out on the hillside with the peacocks.

View from the top

The monastery is on top of a mountain with beautiful views of the island on every side. The tunnel of cypresses leads from the monastery to the overlook where I took this picture.

Another day, another monastery

The Filerimos monastery in Rhodes. The monastery was built in the 15th century by the Knights of St. John; there's a ruined temple to Athena from the 3rd century BC in the front yard.

Bright sun at midday is never the best for photography, but when you're a tourist that's usually what you have. I could, and did, lighten the harsh shadows in this picture, but it looks as though it was taken in the evening. Which is actually a nice effect.

Déjà vu all over again

The first time I went to Rhodes, in 2009, I posted this:

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On our way back from Filerimos, we stopped at a ceramics shop, and it took me several minutes to realize it was the same one I'd been to 14 years ago. The potter has an electric wheel now, and he was working indoors instead of out in the yard, but I was happy to see that the family is still in business.

Sunday bird blogging

Peacocks at the Filerimos Monastery in Rhodes.

Technically, peacocks are birds, even if they seem more like minimally animated decorative objects. Who love to shriek.

Saturday reflections

A window in the old town in Rethymno. It looks like a poster for a Tim Burton-directed film of Cretan fairy tales.