Day 20- Pachia Ammos

Today was arguably the most beautiful day of the whole trip, particularly the ending. But first, we made a few stops at local Minoan archeological sites known as Malia and Gournia.

Remember the features of every Minoan civilization? Here are a bunch of them in one sequence! This is a lustoral basin, the deep pit with steps used for washing (just remember that only the foundation remains, so this would almost certainly be a much deeper hole).

This megaron, or king's throne room, is situated right next door to the lustoral basin. If you notice, the four walls are comprised of the pier and door style architecture to allow air circulation and light to enter the room.

These mountains, while beautiful, also served a purpose for the Minoans. Remember that the civilizations did not have any formal churches or temples on site, performing their rituals in the multi-purpose courtyand and in small shrines to their snake goddess. However, they did find small figurines in these mountains over the city, likely meaning they practiced their faith at these "peak sanctuaries," as close to their gods as possible.

Here is the central courtyard around which all of the other rooms in this palace are constructed. In the center with the glass above it is what is known as the altar depression, where a wooden altar for religious ceremonies and sacrifices would have been held (but of course the wood is no longer there). The grand staircase leading to the reception room is located where all the people are standing to the left. Another set of steps is located just out of frame to the left as well.

 

Several of these pithoi still exist on the site. These paricular ones are made of clay and are quite extravegantly designed (we're not sure what these vessels actually held).

These circular holes were actually build up out of the ground several thousand years ago and we used as grain silos. There were eight of these storage facilities in the southwest corner of the palace, each having this same function.

Heidi is standing in what is known as a light well. Very similar to a pier and door construction (at least in terms of function), these long shafts were used to allow light to enter the palace while allowing air to circulate throughout the area.

This active dig sight is thought to be the Agora of the palace, where most of the economic activities occurred. Across from where Brittney is standing is known as the crypt, where more expensive pieces, possibly jewelry, were sold and stored for safe-keeping, while other magazines (storerooms) are located just behind her (the dig site is actually in an L shape with Brittney in the corner).

 You can see the light wells and the central court in this model of the palace (the light wells are the long rectangular holes in the ceiling just to the left of the court).

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The next stop was Gournia, though archeologists debate what function this area had for the Minoans. Archeologists on site believe this was a palace for the king of the region, as there is a central courtyard with lustoral basins, storerooms, and a small central courtyard. However, the fact that the surrounding rooms around these features appear to be homes of other villiagers with narrow outdoor streets make it appear more like a small city with a larger home for the head official. Whatever you believe, this site is still pretty cool.

A great look at the site from a distance.

This is the newest dig site in the city. These are the remnants of small homes outside the main head official's home. We have to remember that these people were much smaller than we were, both in width and height, so these homes were the perfect size.

This stone was purposely placed outside the walls of the central court, and is appropriately called the sacred stone. Not more than 5 meters away is a small shrine to the gods or godesses of the civilizations (though no formal temple, like I said earlier).

Taken from the central court, this is the grand staircase into the "palace". Behind this set of steps are a series of magazines where food and drink were likely stored.

And one last look at the hillside where Minoan homes once stood.

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The Institute of Aegean Prehistory at East Crete was founded in 1991 by an American organization dedicated to the excavation, cleaning, preservation, analysis, and publication of all kinds of East Cretan artifacts, regardless of the nationality of the archeologists. Ever since it's founding, they have found the most innovative ways to show the world the wonders of Crete from the Paleolithic Era to the late Geometric period by analyzing pottery, stone tools, jewelry, bones, and seeds, just to name a few. Here are the highlights of our guided tour (oh, and just a side bar- this is where Heidi has worked for the past 22 years).

This machine is used to sift out the smallest artifacts from soil samples collected from Cretan sites all around the island. A small shower head makes the water bubble up like this, forcing the smallest seeds and broken pottery into a fine cheesecloth seive. The larger pieces, like stones and pottery are left in the green bags, where they can be analyzed. The most important finds from this process are the petrified seeds from the Minoans, as it tells archeologists and botanists what the people must have been eating and growing more than 3000 years ago.

This stoa contains all of the findings of most of the Cretan sights around the Institute. Most of these pieces came from the Knossos dig site where new pieces of pottery were found. In the summer, these tables will be full of pieces, awaiting cleaning and analysis.

These are pieces of pottery awaiting drawing and further analysis. When it comes to pottery, each piece must be cleaned, drawn (either by hand or digitally using programs like Photoshop or other similar programs), measured, analyzed, and sometimes pieced back together if there is an archeological significance to the piece. As far as analysis is concerned, professionals use the process known as ceramic petrography, when a very thin piece of the pot is placed on a slide and put under a special light-filtering microscope, where they can tell the mineral composition of the ceramic. From this they can possibly te where the pot came from, where it has been, and with other chemical tests what the pot contained originally.

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Paccia Ammos (Heidi and Michalis' summer hometown) means "thick sand" in Greek. I'll let you guess why it got that name.

And now for the HIGHLIGHTS!

What I do to keep everyone up to date on what we do... On the way back to the bus from the beach, I definitely walked directly into a street sign.... Oops...