Last Day in Crete

Our plane didn’t leave until 9PM that night, so we spent the day in Heraklio. The most notable thing about that day was going to the archaeological museum. Actually, it was just a small exhibit of some of the more important artifacts—the entire museum was closed for renovations, and that contains tens of thousands of artifacts from ruins like the ones we visited all over the island. Still, I got to see the Phaistos disc (BIG deal for me) along with some other neat stuff:

The Phaistos Disc is a Minoan artifact found in Phaistos, one of the palaces I visited. It's estimated to be about four thousand years old. It's a disc of fired clay with symbols punched into it in a spiral pattern, and it's special because it's the first known example of an actual typeface--it was made by pressing pre-made stamps into the clay. It's never been translated.



There were other cool things at the museum, including this clay model of an entire Minoan house, also probably dating from around 2,000 BC:



This lady holding snakes is a goddess whose statue is found in Knossos, Phaistos, and other important Minoan sites. Nobody knows what the Minoan religion was like, but this lady clearly played a big part, because her statue was found in small indoor shrines and in Minoan homes all over the island.



After the Minoan civilization collapsed, some Minoan villagers lived in the Cretan highlands for centuries after. They kept their religion, as can be seen from some more crudely-formed versions of this goddess from later times:



There were also original versions of important Minoan murals, like this one:



A while after that, we went to the airport--and the ride home was uneventful. The trip to Crete was unforgettable--and I'm already dreaming of getting an apartment in Chania and learning Greek. Maybe someday....