Σπήλαιο Στραβομύτη | |
  Shown within Greece | |
| Location | Crete |
|---|---|
| Region | Greece |
| Coordinates | 35°15′0″N25°8′59.9″E / 35.25000°N 25.149972°E Coordinates: 35°15′0″N25°8′59.9″E / 35.25000°N 25.149972°E |
Stravomyti Cave is an ancient Minoan cave on Crete.
Σπήλαιο Στραβομύτη | |
| Shown within Greece | |
| Location | Crete |
|---|---|
| Region | Greece |
| Coordinates | 35°15′0″N25°8′59.9″E / 35.25000°N 25.149972°E Coordinates: 35°15′0″N25°8′59.9″E / 35.25000°N 25.149972°E |
Stravomyti Cave is an ancient Minoan cave on Crete.
The Stravomyti Cave is 400 meters above sea level on Mt. Juktas' southwest slope.
The Stravomyti Cave first saw use during Neolithic times, as a refuge and burial. During the Early Minoan period, the quality of pottery suggests that people lived in the caves. Thereafter, it was used for storage and worship.
The cave may have once been a shrine to a female deity - Artemis, Diktynna or perhaps Eileithyia.
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from c. 3500 BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000 BC, and then declining from c. 1450 BC until it ended around 1100 BC, during the early Greek Dark Ages. It represents the first advanced civilization in Europe, leaving behind a number of massive building complexes, sophisticated art, and writing systems. Its economy benefited from a network of trade around much of the Mediterranean.
Zakros is a site on the eastern coast of the island of Crete, Greece, containing ruins from the Minoan civilization. The site is often known to archaeologists as Zakro or Kato Zakro. It is believed to have been one of the four main administrative centers of the Minoans, and its protected harbor and strategic location made it an important commercial hub for trade to the east. Flinders Petrie related Zakro with Tjeker of the Sea Peoples.
A mountain in north-central Crete, Mount Juktas, also spelled Iuktas, Iouktas, or Ioukhtas, was an important religious site for the Minoan civilization. Located a few kilometers from the palaces of Knossos and Fourni and the megaron at Vathypetro, Mount Juktas was the site of an important peak sanctuary in the Minoan world. At the base of Juktas, at Anemospilia, is a site that has suggested to some that the Minoans practiced human sacrifice, but the evidence is currently somewhat in question.
Mount Ida, known variously as Idha, Ídhi, Idi, and Ita, is the highest mountain on the island of Crete, with an elevation of 2,456 metres (8,058 ft). It has the highest topographic prominence of any mountain in Greece. A natural park which includes Mount Ida is a member of UNESCO's Global Geoparks Network.
Gouves is a village and former municipality in the Heraklion regional unit, Crete, Greece. Since the 2011, local government reform it is a part of the municipality Hersonissos, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 94.963 km2 (36.665 sq mi). It lies around 20 km (12 mi) east of Heraklion.
Karfi is an archaeological site high up in the Dikti Mountains in eastern Crete, Greece. The ancient name of the site is unknown; "Karfi" is a local toponym for the prominent knob of limestone that marks the peak of the site, especially when viewed from the north. Located approximately 1100 meters above sea level, and overlooking the northern entrance to the Lasithi Plateau, the dramatic situation of Karfi is somewhat akin to that of the famous Inca site of Machu Picchu in Peru. While there is some evidence that the site was used during the Middle Minoan period as a peak sanctuary, Karfi is best known as a large and extensively excavated town of the Late Minoan IIIC period at the beginning of the Greek "Dark Ages."
Minoan pottery has been used as a tool for dating the mute Minoan civilization. Its restless sequence of quirky maturing artistic styles reveals something of Minoan patrons' pleasure in novelty while they assist archaeologists in assigning relative dates to the strata of their sites. Pots that contained oils and ointments, exported from 18th century BC Crete, have been found at sites through the Aegean islands and mainland Greece, on Cyprus, along coastal Syria and in Egypt, showing the wide trading contacts of the Minoans.
Minoan peak sanctuaries are widespread throughout the island of Crete (Greece). Most scholars agree that peak sanctuaries were used for religious rites. In all peak sanctuaries human and animal clay figurines have been found. Clay body parts, also called votive body parts, are also found in most peak sanctuaries. These open-air sanctuaries are found high in the mountains of Crete.
Sacred caves and peak sanctuaries are characteristic holy places of ancient Minoan Crete. Most scholars agree that sacred caves were used by the Minoans for religious rites, and some for burial. While all peak sanctuaries have clay human figurines, only Idaeon, Trapeza and Psychro have them among the sacred caves. Clay body parts, also called votive body parts, common among peak sanctuaries, appear in no caves with the exception of a bronze leg in Psychro.
Kamares is a village in south-central Crete, Greece. It is the location of an archaeological site of a Minoan sacred cave. The sacred cave at Kamares is slightly offset from a saddle in the Psiloriti Range virtually aligned with the location of nearby Phaistos. Some of the best examples of Middle Minoan pottery have been recovered from the Kamares cave. Kamares has provided the type name for Kamares ware, a ceramic type dating from MM IA, or the First Palace Period. This pottery is a light-on-dark polychrome ware, with forms including jugs and cups.
Psychro Cave is an ancient Minoan sacred cave in Lasithi plateau in the Lasithi district of eastern Crete. Psychro is associated with the Diktaean Cave, one of the putative sites of the birth of Zeus. Other legends place Zeus' birthplace as the Idaean Cave on Mount Ida. According to Hesiod, Theogony, Rhea gave birth to Zeus in Lyctus and hid him in a cave of Mount Aegaeon. Since the late nineteenth century the cave above the modern village of Psychro has been identified with the Diktaean Cave, although there are other candidates, especially a cave above Palaikastro on Mount Petsofas.
Arkalochori is a town and a former municipality in the Heraklion regional unit, Crete, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Minoa Pediada, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 237.589 km2 (91.734 sq mi).
Tylisos is a town and a former municipality in the Heraklion regional unit, Crete, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Malevizi, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 131.064 km2 (50.604 sq mi). Population 2,867 in 2011. It is an ancient Minoan peak sanctuary and town. The Municipality of Tylisos was created in 1999 and includes 11 villages. The economy is based on agriculture, mainly grape cultivation and olive cultivation. At the same time stock farming of sheep, goats and chickens and beehive farms are abundant.
Amnisos, also Amnissos and Amnisus, is the current but unattested name given to a Bronze Age settlement on the north shore of Crete that was used as a port to the palace city of Knossos. It appears in Greek literature and mythology from the earliest times, but its origin is far earlier, in prehistory. The historic settlement belonged to a civilization now called Minoan. Excavations at Amnissos in 1932 uncovered a villa that included the "House of the Lilies", which was named for the lily theme that was depicted in a wall fresco.
Eileithyia Cave was a sacred cave dedicated to the goddess of childbirth, Eileithyia, on the island of Crete, that was used from the Neolithic era to the Roman, with worship flourishing in the Late Minoan period. It has been suggested that rock formations within the cave resemble female figures, most prominently a stalagmite in the centre that appears as a standing female.
The Heraklion Archaeological Museum is a museum located in Heraklion on Crete. It is one of the greatest museums in Greece and the best in the world for Minoan art, as it contains by far the most important and complete collection of artefacts of the Minoan civilization of Crete. It is normally referred to scholarship in English as "AMH", a form still sometimes used by the museum in itself.
The Lasithi Plateau, sometimes spelt Lassithi Plateau, is a high endorheic plateau, located in the Lasithi regional unit in eastern Crete, Greece. Since the 1997 Kapodistrias reform, it is a municipality whose seat is Tzermiado and the second biggest village is Agios Georgios. The municipality has an area of 129,9 km2.
Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete. In the absence of readable texts from most of the period, modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological evidence of such as Minoan paintings, statuettes, vessels for rituals and seals and rings. Minoan religion is considered to have been closely related to Near Eastern ancient religions, and its central deity is generally agreed to have been a goddess, although a number of deities are now generally thought to have been worshipped. Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the bull and the horns of consecration, the labrys double-headed axe, and possibly the serpent.
Trapeza, Crete is a Neolithic and Bronze Age sacred cave on the island of Crete in Greece. Some of the Bronze Age pottery finds at Trapeza are similar to specimens recovered at Knossos and Vasiliki.
The Skotino Cave is one of the largest caves in Crete.
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