We really did need to get to be early on Saturday night since our breakfast the next day was at 6 am. We were leaving the ship at 7:30 a.m. to go to the island of Crete!
We chose to explore the Minoan palace of Knossos--1st European Civilization (?) Really, I don't know history. I know it was really old.
I also know that a lot of people in in the early 20th century tried "Restoring" these ruins, ruining them further in the process. As time goes on, our knowledge grows and ability we have to learn about what was really there grows, as does the ability to truly restore them to the original form.
Below are photos of our wanderings through the ancient Minoan Palace. It was quite amazing. Old.
Everything in Greece is old. ;-) And we loved it!!
Mike. Trudging along like the good trooper he is.
We will see the front side of this wall on our way out. But the country side is quite agrarian. Olive Oil is a big product and has been for a long time. This particular site has been destroyed a number of times by earthquakes and such. And of course, conquerors.
Above and below is the throne room. A hard rock chair. I hope they fluffed it with pillows or something for the king!
And there was pretty "art" around. I don't know if they were parts of murals or what. But they did have bright colors!
I think they worshiped bulls. Maybe? You'll have to read about it if you are interested in knowing because I honestly couldn't tell you. But there were a lot of bull "things" around. Bull pictures. Bull statues. Statues of bull horns. And the royal tributes were given to the king in the form of olive oil.
Of course, all these old places are still undergoing archeological studies and excavations. Above, you can see where the tarp is covering a site to the left. Under the dark doorway above is a large urn. A zoomed in picture of it is below--two photos below.
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| This is under the tarp area. The urns they excavated from the stone "boxes" were in great shape--because the stone "boxes" or holes preserved the urns. They were big! See photo below. That is one of the urns that was below the tarps in the square stone enclosures. It's about 3 to 4 feet tall. |
This is a large bunch of urns placed at the main road entry for people of the country to enter the palace area (through a gateway of bulls horns sculpture) and dump their olive oil tributes into these big BIG vase things.
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| There are some stone carved bulls horns just off this walkway to the left. It looks kind of like they are fans of University of Utah. ha |
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| Yes, it was a very large palace area and we just saw the red line area. Many rooms, many people, many riches. |
In the midst of the bull-worshipping population was this carved Greek cross, indicating Christianity. (But who knows when it was put there ?)
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| There's a big red bull under this palace pavillion/porch area. |
I just really was impressed by these pine trees on the property of this Minoan Palace. They have LOT of pine cones!!!
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