{"id":3635,"date":"2011-09-07T16:52:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T20:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3635"},"modified":"2018-08-04T21:32:42","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T01:32:42","slug":"tuesday-september-7-2011-phaestos-and-aghia-triada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3635","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday, September 7, 2011 \u2014 Phaestos and Aghia Triada"},"content":{"rendered":"

The only dif\u00adfi\u00adcul\u00adty in get\u00adting the rent\u00aded car was hav\u00ading to hitch\u00adhike to the near\u00adest town (22 km) to make the arrange\u00adments, with\u00adout yet being cer\u00adtain that we would get it. But we made the trip in two rides. There was no has\u00adsle. We got a lit\u00adtle Nis\u00adsan man\u00adu\u00adal shift.<\/p>\n

So we made for the remain\u00ading planned sites: Aghia Tri\u00ada\u00adda and Phaestos.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

View from Phaestos. The val\u00adley would have been just as pro\u00adduc\u00adtive in Minoan times.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>

The West Plaza at Phaestos \u2014 clear\u00adly a place of assem\u00adbly. The func\u00adtion of raised path\u00adways is unknown.<\/p><\/div>\n

Phaestos con\u00adformed to the pat\u00adtern set by Knos\u00adsos, thought it had some dis\u00adtinc\u00adtive fea\u00adtures, and the site has some lat\u00ader intru\u00adsions from the Hel\u00adlenis\u00adtic era. I was sur\u00adprised by noth\u00ading. The site has much less visu\u00adal dra\u00adma for the vis\u00adi\u00adtor, because of the absense of fan\u00adci\u00adful recon\u00adstruc\u00adtions like those Evans made at Knos\u00adsos. But to the archae\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal eye, it is very rich. The \u201cthe\u00adatri\u00adcal\u201d area of the west\u00adern plaza is par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly inter\u00adest\u00ading to me. It looms much larg\u00ader than it\u2019s equiv\u00ada\u00adlent at Knos\u00adsos, and the mason\u00adry is par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly fine. It def\u00adi\u00adnite\u00adly sug\u00adgests an assem\u00adbly place much more than a mere pas\u00adsage from one place to another.<\/p>\n

\"Typical<\/a><\/p>\n

But Aghia Tri\u00ada\u00adda was anoth\u00ader ket\u00adtle of dol\u00adphins. Every\u00adthing about the place is bizarre. Con\u00adven\u00adtion has it that it was a \u201cvil\u00adla\u201d rather than a \u201cpalace.\u201d I don\u2019t know what the hell it was, but it wasn\u2019t a vil\u00adla. Some of the struc\u00adtures are so enig\u00admat\u00adic that I\u2019ll be think\u00ading about them for a long time. I took lots of pho\u00adtographs of all the sites, and I\u2019ll prob\u00ada\u00adbly pore over them for a year before I real\u00adly under\u00adstand the things I\u2019ve seen in the last few days. [see the Phaestos and Aghia Tri\u00ada\u00adda gal\u00adleries, following]<\/p>\n

For exam\u00adple, there\u2019s a build\u00ading with an immense stone bench fill\u00ading most of it, but fac\u00ading what are clear\u00adly two dou\u00adble doors. The hinge holes are clear\u00adly vis\u00adi\u00adble, and they could be noth\u00ading oth\u00ader than a set of \u201cFrench doors,\u201d but the room the open into is bare\u00adly wider than the bench it con\u00adtains. The drainage tun\u00adnels are very com\u00adpli\u00adcat\u00aded, and much fanci\u00ader in con\u00adstruc\u00adtion than I had imagined.<\/p>\n

Right with\u00adin the site of Aghia Tri\u00ada\u00adda, only a few meters from the main build\u00adings, there is the well-pre\u00adserved Byzan\u00adtine church of Agios Geor\u00adgios Galatas which was recon\u00adstruct\u00aded in 1302 and con\u00adtains fres\u00adcoes of the four\u00adteenth cen\u00adtu\u00adry. The church is obvi\u00adous\u00adly still in use, since we saw recent votive offer\u00adings inside.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Church of Agios Geor\u00adgios Galatas<\/p><\/div>\n

But these things will bore most of my read\u00aders. This morning\u2019s jaunts brought to a close the archae\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal part of my vis\u00adit, except for a tho\u00adlos tomb that we came across acci\u00adden\u00adtal\u00adly while lost in the back roads. We devot\u00aded the rest of the day to dri\u00adving around the moun\u00adtains. First we poked into the south cen\u00adtral coastal range. It\u2019s very rough coun\u00adtry, and we were forced to turn back when the roads turned into four-wheel-dri\u00adve grade. We then turned our atten\u00adtion to the cen\u00adtral range, com\u00ading as close as we could in a car to the high\u00adest moun\u00adtain in Crete, known to out\u00adsiders as Mt. Ida (but it isn\u2019t the name used by Cre\u00adtans). We drift\u00aded west\u00adward into a maze of deep val\u00adleys, vol\u00adcanic plugs, and fold moun\u00adtains. It would be hard to imag\u00adine roads more devi\u00adous, a land\u00adscape more labyrinthine, views more spec\u00adtac\u00adu\u00adlar, or vil\u00adlages more pre\u00adcar\u00adi\u00adous\u00adly perched upon crags and mountainsides.<\/p>\n

Peo\u00adple are pleas\u00adant. Most Cre\u00adtans can man\u00adage a bit of Eng\u00adlish, espe\u00adcial\u00adly if you trou\u00adble to open with for\u00admal\u00adi\u00adties in Greek. There is noth\u00ading vis\u00adi\u00adble on the island of the creepy police state we wit\u00adnessed in Athens. In fact, I don\u2019t recall yet see\u00ading a sin\u00adgle cop or police car.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The only dif\u00adfi\u00adcul\u00adty in get\u00adting the rent\u00aded car was hav\u00ading to hitch\u00adhike to the near\u00adest town (22 km) to make the arrange\u00adments, with\u00adout yet being cer\u00adtain that we would get it. But we made the trip in two rides. There was no \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ap-blog-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3635"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7674,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions\/7674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}