‘Minoan’ Archives
Measuring the Past
Turning southwest from Mirabello Bay, we drive through Kritsa village and up towards the Lasithiotika mountains. We are on our way to visit the research site of our friend Sabine, an archaeologist who is studying a Minoan farming community in a remote forest. It’s not an exploration you might imagine (no digging in ancient ruins), [Read More]
Last Day of Digging
We revisit the Minoan town of Gournia to learn what new things have been discovered at those excavations. Sadly, we find the project is wrapping up for the summer. Many of the student workers are gone, and some of the areas are covered with heavy fabric and soil, to shelter them from the weather. A [Read More]
Designing a City – Malia Revisited
A road trip is needed to learn more about an ongoing excavation at Kefali Hill near the village of Sisi. It is not far away, so we set off in the morning to have a look. The only difficulty in the journey is surviving the traffic lunacy of Malia, a town where adolescent tourists run [Read More]
Under the Excavation
As we noted in an earlier report, excavations are a lot like peeling away the layers of a tall cake – where the newest layers are on top and the oldest on the bottom. You don’t know what is in the layer below until you actually get there. And getting there is a delicate and [Read More]
Palace to Peak
After exploring modern Arxanes, we decide to look into nearby archaeological sites uncovered during the past several decades. These might shed more light on the culture of ancient Arxanes, and help us understand why this palace was built so near Knossos. We have found that experts disagree about using the word “palace” to describe the [Read More]
