Knossos

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Knossos was another uber-touristy bus tour haven in which we were sandwiched between groups so you had to move quickly from room to room because the group behind you wanted to see your 'room' but you couldn't go too fast because then you would be impinging on the group ahead of you. I'm not sure how much I will get out of the visit until I get home and review my photos with my notes as it was pretty hard to view while we were there. I really like our guide for this part of the trip, Lina, as she explained what was original, what was reconstructed and what the latest 'truth' is thought to be to help you imagine what the palace might have been like in Minoan times. It is an ENORMOUS complex with 1300-1500 rooms on several levels with vast amounts of storage space and surprisingly, running water! Before 1380 BCE, it had cold running water for the baths and a sewage system to remove the waste from the palace toilets and flush it away!

The Herakleion Archaeological Museum was absolutely fascinating, full of interesting artifacts from the Minoan era. There were some very primitive 'fat ladies with breasts' but there were also some fairly detailed and relatively 'anatomically correct' statues considering how primitive their tools must have been 4500-3500 years ago. It makes me rethink the reason behind the gumby-like flatness of the Archaic period and think that it might have been more a style choice than a lack of ability due to inexact knowledge and/or tools as I read before coming here. Maybe it was considered more chic to imitate the styles from far away Egypt than to use native designs that any Cretan could see, kind of like now where people like to decorate with exotic things that show how much they have travelled rather than something that anybody could buy at a local shop.

Like the Spartans, the Minoans had strong women and the ruler may even have been a woman? The snake goddesses were very important at Knossos. Women were shown participating in the bull game fresco where they grabbed the bull by the horns, vaulted onto its back and then off the backside. NOT for the faint of heart or the weak of body! We women really got short-changed when the sky gods moved in and displaced the goddesses.

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