Arrived in Athens around 9 a.m., Monday (August 2008).

The taxi dropped us off at Hotel Central in the Plaka district. The block we were on was full of shops selling Greek Orthodox icons and black clerical clothing. It was unbearably hot. We immediately set out to find the Acropolis, even though we had gotten almost no sleep during the flight.

As we made our way to the Acropolis, we walked through the Plaka and passed by the Roman agora. Surprised by the number of stray dogs and cats everywhere. All the dogs were passed out in the sun. They looked dead. All the shops in the Plaka – and, as we would later find out, most of Greece – are exactly the same. They all sell worry beads, magic eye jewelry, fake pottery, postcards, cheap bags, T-shirts, olive oil soap, and olives. It’s amazing they can stay in business at all.

We gradually made our way to the Acropolis. Surprised by lack of signs. We saw one crudely made handwritten sign with an arrow, but that was about it. We passed through a neighborhood that resembled a Cycladic island, whitewashed with blue paint on the doors. It would have been cute except for the litter and sickly-looking animals.

Finally reached the entrance to the Acropolis. We paid 12 euros for a ticket that also gave us access to other archaeological sites in Athens. We climbed up the steps in the heat of the middle of the day. The Parthenon was breathtaking, as was the Erectheion with the caryatids. I couldn’t believe I was actually there. Too bad there was scaffolding covering practically everything. Had a panoramic view of Athens. The stone on the ground was dark red and very slippery. There were pieces of the building scattered all over the site.

Me in front of the Parthenon

Temple of Olympian Zeus

On Tuesday we went to the nearby Hotel Arethusa to wait to be picked up for our three-day Classical tour. Of course there was a yellow dog in front of the hotel, which kept running after motorcycles and making us nervous. But on the whole the stray dogs we saw were very calm and almost seemed drugged. I guess they try to move as little as possible in the heat.

Our tour guide was called Angela and we later found out she had been born in the 1920s. She was very spry and coherent, though. She gave the tour in English and Italian, since there were a lot of Italians in our group. Our bus passed by the Temple of Poseidon and Tiryns, I think. Our first stop was Corinth, where we saw a ship passing through the canal. Only one ship could go through at a time. There were olive trees everywhere, kind of like Spain.

Next we stopped at Mycenae, which was amazing. It was hard for me to take it all in. Saw Grave Circle B, Grave Circle A, Lion Gate, megaron, etc. It was extremely hot and we had to rush through it because our time was so limited. In all the sites we visited I was struck by the mixture of languages — Italian, Spanish, German, and Greek of course. Also lots of Australian and some British accents.

Grave circle at Mycenae

Then we continued on our journey to Olympia, where we were staying at the Hotel Amalia, a Greek chain. The room here was much bigger than the one in Athens, though kind of dated. It had a nice swimming pool. We went to the buffet in the hotel for dinner, which was actually pretty good. We sat next to a nice Mexican couple who spoke several languages fluently. I think the man was a lawyer. He said his son owns an Italian restaurant in Mexico City, and that we should visit if we were ever in the area. Later we went out to sit out by the pool, where we saw bats flying overhead.

On Wednesday we went to Olympia. The site is covered in ruins, statue pedestals, and fallen columns. Saw the site of the Temple of Zeus, which has one reconstructed column and some of its mosaic floors still intact. The column drums are massive and heavily eroded.

Temple of Zeus at Olympia

Then we went to the Olympia museum, which had many of the statues from the pediments of temples at Olympia, and the Hermes of Praxiteles. It was really crowded in the museum because it was overrun by tour groups, including some from a Caribbean cruise ship. It got very noisy and I could barely hear our tour guide, who had a heavy accent to begin with.

We had lunch in another place with heavy, traditional Greek fare. At first they brought us out prepared food like pork chops and moussaka, but then we asked to see a menu and got salads instead. I can’t imagine the average Greek eats this kind of heavy lunch very often.

We then drove on to Delphi, where we were staying in another Amalia Hotel. The bus had to navigate a number of hairpin turns on the side of a mountain to reach the modern town, which only had two or three one-way streets. The buffet and rooms here weren’t quite as good as the last Amalia’s. We had an excellent view of the mountains around Delphi, though. We watched the swallows swoop down and drink water from the pool.

That night we walked around the modern town of Delphi, which is tiny, with two or three steep roads. I bought some olive oil soaps with glass eye magnets glued on them. There were some nice restaurants with great views of the mountains and the same kind of touristy shops we saw in Athens. We saw a pregnant woman and wondered what would happen if someone had a medical emergency there, since the town is so remote.

On Thursday we went to the museum and archaeological site of Delphi. The museum has some very impressive pieces, including ivory and gold statues of Artemis and Apollo, the omphalos, and the Delphi charioteer. I tried to have a picture taken next to the charioteer but they don’t allow posing, I don’t know why. Then we went to the archaeological site and walked up to the Temple of Apollo. There were a lot of swallows flying around the columns of the temple. It was an awe-inspiring sight.

Temple of Apollo at Delphi

After we had climbed to the stadium, we went to the Temple/ Tholos of Athena, which is outside the gate to the archaeological site. An Italian woman from our tour trailed along, though we couldn’t communicate very well.

That was the end of our three day Classical tour. Most of our group was continuing on for the four-day tour, which included a trip to Meteora. The bus dropped us and the rest of the people returning to Athens off at the Amalia Hotel, where we had to wait about two hours for a tour bus heading in the opposite direction. We spoke to a nice young Australian couple from our group while we waited. They were shocked that Americans get so little vacation time, while Australians generally have a month or two off. They had done a Louis cruise prior to this tour and liked it. They went on and on about how the unlimited drinks package wasn’t worth it. Finally a bus came and we waited for the tour guide to call our names, as Angela had said they would. But the tour guide just stood there chatting to some other tourists, so we hopped on the bus without further ado. We later overheard the guide saying that she was from Crete but was married to a Japanese man.

The bus stopped at a more traditional Greek town on the way back from Delphi. It was much larger than the town we had stayed in the night before, but we only had about ten minutes there. We didn’t trust the tour guide to make sure we were on the bus before taking off, so we didn’t stray very far. It’s a ski resort in the winter and specializes in fur.

Went back to Athens and ate at the Noodle Bar near Hotel Central, since we were getting sick of heavy Greek food. We only saw two or three Asian restaurants during our trip. Afterwards we headed to Syntagma to see the Parliament building. Went into the metro station where there was an exhibit showing what they had found when they were constructing the station, including a skeleton and everyday items from antiquity. We also visited the Hotel Grand Bretagne off Syntagma Square, which has one of the most luxurious lobbies I’ve ever seen. Even here, though, there were stray dogs outside. We were going into the better hotels in hopes of finding tourist brochures, but still no luck. We couldn’t figure out why there were practically no brochures anywhere. We had read online, before coming to Greece, that on August 15 there was to be a fireworks display over the Parthenon for the Night of the Full Moon, but the people at our hotel didn’t seem to know anything about it. The Greek Ministry of Tourism doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job.

As we were walking by the Parliament building, we saw three guards dressed in brown uniforms with pom-poms on their boots. All of a sudden they started raising their legs perpendicular to their bodies and stomping their feet as they marched. It was quite a show. We followed them back to Syntagma Square in front of the Parliament building, where we saw the changing of the guard ceremony in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier. It was impressive, but their movements reminded us of Monty Python’s Funny Walk skit. After the ceremony, the guards had to stand in the heat for an hour and not move a muscle. I had my picture taken next to one of them.

On Friday we took the metro from Monastiraki to the National Archaeological Museum. It was a little hard to find – of course no signs. The museum was amazing. It was like a pilgrimage for me. I saw all the Mycenaean artifacts excavated by Schliemann, some of the Akrotiri frescoes (only the boxing boys, the antelopes, and the Spring fresco – I assume the rest are in the Fira museum), Cycladic idols – including one that was almost as tall as I am, bronze sculptures, arrowheads from Thermopylae, classical sculpture and vases, etc. Unfortunately the museum closed early because of the holiday (Dormition of the Virgin), so I had to go through everything a little quickly. The museum ‘guards’ were dressed very casually – a little too casually, in some cases – and spent most of their time chatting with each other and telling people not to touch the glass.

Me outside National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Grave goods from Mycenae

After we got back from the museum, it was too hot to do much else. Most of the non-touristy spots in Athens were ghost towns because all the Greeks had left for the holidays. We stopped at a crepe place near Victoria station for a late lunch, but the crepes weren’t nearly as good as the ones in Astoria.

We went back to Monastiraki for dinner, to a gyro/kebab place that had a ton of pictures on the wall and looked really popular. We sat in the middle of a crowded street, though, which was not very relaxing. We didn’t know what/how to order. I got Doner pork with pita bread because I kept seeing them carve it off of the spit, but it was terribly salty and fatty. Mom’s chicken was mediocre. We sat next to a young couple from Texas who had just come from Egypt. We had a lot of food left and I asked them wrap it so I could give it to one of the many beggars who had approached me earlier, but I didn’t see anybody on the way back.

Side notes: Hotel Central’s breakfast buffet was okay, but not as good as Amalia’s. They had unappetizing wet eggs and limp bacon (as Europeans in general seem to make it), yogurt with honey (my favorite – I had this almost every day), lots of pastries, watermelon, etc. Apples and apple juice were hard to come by.

We watched the Olympics on Greek TV throughout our trip. They focused on Greek athletes, though, who on the whole weren’t doing too well. One Greek athlete was winning in ping pong, so they spent a lot of time on that. I was surprised they almost never showed gymnastics, which I was most interested in seeing, I guess because the Greek gymnastics team had already lost.

On Saturday we went to the Benaki Museum, which took us some time to find. We were dying in the heat. We walked through the National Botanical Gardens and saw more guards stationed along the perimeter, and stayed for a changing of the guard ceremony there. The park is nice but a bit dull, except for the path lined by gigantic palm trees. The Benaki Museum is a blindingly white building with Benaki’s small private collection of Greek art. It reminded me a little of the Frick. The antiquities were good but not terribly exciting. They had an excellent ancient gold jewelry collection, though. The best part of the museum was the exhibit showing traditional Greek costumes, especially wedding dresses. They were beautifully embroidered, but we wondered how people could wear this heavy clothing in such a hot environment. We also saw an exhibit of early-twentieth century photographs of Greece. We had lunch on the museum’s pretty roof terrace – a sandwich (hard to find in Athens!) and almond cake. We also finally found some brochures on what to do in Athens. None of the booklets mentioned the Night of the Full Moon, though.

We walked around the Plaka some more and saw the Acropolis from different angles. We had a delicious Greek salad and chicken kebab in a cute Greek restaurant called the Cave Under the Acropolis, or something like that, in the shadow of the Acropolis. The Greek salad had a whole block of feta cheese on it. It was very pleasant there, though a wasp kept harassing me until the maitre d’ killed it. They seemed to charge us for bread without telling us. In general, I found Greek bread to be dense and tasteless. I was also surprised that in restaurants, they never give you olive oil even though their country is practically swimming in it.

We then walked up to the Acropolis. It was the Night of the Full Moon, and the site was free that evening although we still couldn’t figure out if there were going to be fireworks. Most of the people going up to the Acropolis were native Greeks. It was as if they had kept it a secret from the tourists because they wanted the site to themselves. By the time we reached the Parthenon it was almost dark out. They turned off all the lights so that the Acropolis was lit only by the moon. It was very beautiful. I think the Parthenon was more impressive at night than during the day. We stayed for a while and confirmed there were no fireworks, and left as the moon was rising over the Parthenon. I think the site stayed open till 2 a.m.

Parthenon, Night of the Full Moon

Then went back to Syntagma Square so we could see the guards in the daylight. They were wearing different uniforms because it was Sunday – white skirts and blouses with dark blue embroidered velvet vests, and pom pom shoes. They stood under their awnings without moving a muscle. Sometimes a soldier in fatigues came and wiped the sweat off their faces and adjusted their tassels. Then some policemen started moving the crowd off to the side and across the street. They cleared a huge space, almost the entire square in front of the Parliament building, and we didn’t know what was going to happen. Eventually we heard a band coming and saw them turning the corner followed by a huge body of guards dressed in the same white uniforms with blue vests, walking and stomping their feet in unison. It was very impressive – and unexpected. They were accompanied by the requisite scruffy stray dog, which trotted along at the head of the parade. Once they entered the square, the people rushed in to see them, and we went off to the side because it was too hot and crowded for us to push our way through. They did the changing of the guard ceremony and then left the same way they had come.

Greek guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Parade at Syntagma Square

Walked through the Plaka again and were harassed by people trying to get us to eat at their restaurants. Wound up eating in a Greek pizza place outside in the heat. The cheese had a distinctive Greek flavor and was pretty good. Later on I had a frappe in an un-airconditioned Greek café, because everyone was drinking them throughout our trip. It’s basically just iced coffee in a tall glass. It’s strong and gritty, and I didn’t see what all the fuss is about. It was one of the few things with ice in it, though, and it definitely woke me up for a while.

Went back to our hotel, showered, and took a dip in the hotel whirlpool facing the Acropolis, but this got boring after a while. Read A Room with a View on the roof. There were no umbrellas on the roof, which was stupid, so we had to use a wall for shade. It was relaxing, though. We went back to the restaurant under the Acropolis and got Greek salads again.

On Monday we were picked up at our hotel and driven to Piraeus for our cruise on the MV Aquamarine. Boarding the ship was easy enough, and they took our picture and gave us a boarding card that had to be scanned every time we went on or off the ship. The ship had a photographer who took everyone’s picture whenever we got on or off the ship, so they could sell us these pictures later. Our cabin was small but it had everything we needed. If anything, the bathroom was larger than the one we had in the Hotel Central, and there was no frosted glass door. We had two portholes because we had booked an outside cabin. We were told to assemble at 11:30 in the Aquamarine lounge so the tour director for the English-speakers, Sharon, could give us a run-down on how the ship and the excursions worked. We had to do a few odds and ends like register our credit card, sign up for a dinner time for the nights when we didn’t have buffets (the times offered were 7:30 and 9:30 and by the time we got there the 9:30 one was filled up; the earlier time worked out fine, anyway), and finalize our excursions (we signed up for two more tours, Santorini and Patmos, because it sounded like they were the easiest and most efficient ways to see the islands).

After that we had a safety drill where we had to put on our life preservers and assemble on the main deck next to our assigned lifeboats. An employee came and told us to take off our shoulder bags and readjusted our life preservers, making them really tight. Of course the ship photographer came and took pictures of everyone. Last year one of the Louis cruise ships had run aground at Santorini and sunk, so we wondered if that’s why they were doing this drill. The captain walked around the deck and gave his approval, and then we were allowed to go back to our cabins. Next we walked around the ship and took a look at the pool on the top deck, which was already full of people swimming and sunbathing and who had presumably skipped the safety drill. We never used the pool because it was too crowded. There were a lot of people sunbathing and getting burned to a crisp. Many of them were overweight and wore tiny bikinis or Speedos that let their stomachs hang out for all to see. We were surprised by how many people were smoking. We tried to find a place to read and relax. It was nice looking out at the water, but none of the lounge chairs had umbrellas, so it was a challenge to find shade. They had a lunch buffet out on deck and one in the Bistro downstairs.

Our ship, the Aquamarine

When we got off the ship we had to get on a bus that took us to the center of town for seven euros. Mykonos was beautiful. Almost all the houses were painted blue and white, and there were lots of restaurants with tables practically on the water. The first thing we saw were octopi drying on the mast of a beached boat. The shops here seemed much more unique and interesting than the ones in mainland Greece. There were jewelry and craft shops, art galleries, restaurants, some gay bars, boutique hotels, etc. We walked through the residential streets, which were quiet and peaceful. I saw some beautiful cats and kittens, including one mixed-color one that lived in a hole in the pavement and stared at me with the widest eyes I had ever seen.

Mykonos kitten

Mykonos towel

Sunset over Mykonos windmills

On Tuesday we went to Kusadasi/Ephesus, Turkey, in the morning and Patmos in the afternoon. We had a funny tour guide for Ephesus. His name was George and he had bluish-gray eyes and kept referring to himself in the third person. At the end of the tour he gave all the females magic-eye bracelets as gifts. The bus passed through Kusadasi on the way to Ephesus. It looked like a clean and modern city, with lots of resorts and large hotels, carpet and jewelry workshops. Before going into the archaeological site, we stopped in a bazaar where they sold pashmina scarves, bags, more magic eyes, and “fake genuine watches.”

Genuine fake watches outside Ephesus

Cat on pedestal, Ephesus

Library of Celsus, Ephesus

We walked around the small capital of Patmos (Chora), which had a street with unique craft shops, but couldn’t stay there very long. Then we went down to Skala, the main village of town. This town was very pretty, with whitewashed buildings and bougainvillea. I saw the cutest orange kitten sleeping among the bougainvillea petals and desperately wanted to take it home.

Kitten sleeping on Patmos

On the ship that night we had a sit-down dinner and were seated with a Japanese couple who currently lived in Belgium and a Cypriot man and a gigantic American woman who lived in Hawaii. The Cypriot man didn’t stop talking to the Japanese couple about all things Japanese. The American woman was friendly enough but kept talking about all the luxury cruises and vacations she had been on, including two around-the-world cruises on the QE II, and how this cruise was far inferior to those. She later told us a story about how the QE II had been hit by a 75-foot wave one night. We sat with the same people for dinner the next night. We preferred the buffet dinner to the sit-down dinner, because we could choose a little bit of everything and we didn’t really want waiter service anyway.

On Wednesday we spent the entire day at Rhodes. We wandered through the medieval Old Town, saw the Avenue of the Knights, the mosques, etc. The architecture was beautiful but was obscured by the gaudy tourist shops, which had the same cheap knick-knacks we had seen almost everywhere else on our trip. It was extremely hot and humid there, so we retreated back to the ship for lunch and a shower, then went back out in the afternoon and walked around the modern city outside the Old Town’s walls. We saw the site where the Colossus of Rhodes used to stand, where there’s now a column with the stag. The column with the hind had apparently been taken away. I was surprised there was no sign or marker there with a depiction of the Colossus; I only saw it on tourist memorabilia. The cats of Rhodes were big and squat and not as pretty as the ones on the other islands. I tried to buy some Greek delight but couldn’t get the merchant’s attention.

That night at the sit-down dinner it was elegant-dress night; some people dressed up and we wore nicer clothes than usual. They gave us better food that night, and after the entrée they turned off the lights and all the waiters came out with flaming Baked Alaska, which was really good. Then the waiters got together and serenaded us for a few minutes.

On Thursday we went to Heraklion, Crete, early in the morning on an excursion. The tour took us to Knossos, which was amazing. The site was larger than I expected. I know the reconstructed portions are controversial, but I thought it really made the place come to life. I bought a book on the site. Throughout the cruise we kept seeing this woman whom we called Zsa Zsa Gabor, because she had clearly had a ton of plastic surgery, with huge lips and fake blonde hair. She always carried around a parasol and asked her husband to take her picture about every thirty seconds. She kept pushing her way to the front of the tour. The only question I heard her ask on the tour was about the signet ring worn by one of the Minoans shown on a reconstructed fresco: “Would they wear that for life?” she asked. The tour guide said she didn’t know. On the whole the guide gave a fairly good summary of theories about Minoan life.

Knossos, Crete

Knossos stairway, Crete

Heraklion Archaeological Museum

Oia churchbells, Santorini

Oia, Santorini

We had a buffet dinner that night which seemed a little worse than the previous nights’. Everyone seemed kind of pissed off that it had taken so long to get off the island and that the buffet was so crowded. We picked up our passports from the ship, which had held them for the last four days. Although the food was generally mediocre, I really liked the fruit carvings that they had the dining rooms throughout the cruise. There was one with a man’s face carved in a yellow melon, and another with a woman’s face carved in a watermelon, along with fish, flowers, etc.

That was the end of our cruise. The next morning we docked in Piraeus and got a cab to the airport. Overall it was a great trip, though I didn’t like Greece as much as Spain, France or Italy. The landscape isn’t as beautiful, the people aren’t as polite, the food and shopping have no variety, and it’s hard to get information about things. But the sites are amazing. I would like to go back to the Cyclades in the off-season, especially Santorini and Mykonos. It’s still hard to comprehend how many really important sites and artifacts I’ve seen over a very short period of time.

This morning, I received an email, and a pm, from someone who was right ticked off with a terrible photo that was up on my website.

It was a tiny photo of my knitted Minoan Goddess of the Bees.

OOPS!

So, I spent the day, not only re-doing the photo, but building a beautiful new pdf of the knitting pattern for the Minoan Goddess of the Bees.

She looks lovely now!

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Many years ago, I was reading a book about ancient Greece.

There were a couple of tiny drawings of little figures that were engraved on pottery and furniture from Crete about 1700 BCE.

I fell in love with the tiny images and have been working with them ever since.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

They were called, ‘Minoan Dewdrop or Bee Goddesses’ sacred to the goddess, Persephone.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

They are known as ‘Melisae’.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

The pattern for the knitted Minoan Goddess of the Bees is available at: http://www.crone-findlay.com/knitteddollpatterns.html

At Booksquawk, January 7th, 2012

Divine destiny is a deep-seated theme throughout. Constant regional earthquakes are interpreted by the ruling priestesses as omens, and most everything is imbued with celestial meaning. The reader is immersed in a vivid culture of devoted spirituality. Athene must be appeased with violent sacrifice and every year that sacrifice is the queen’s latest consort – a man who bested all other competitors for the honor of living large for a year and then allowing his blood to consecrate Crete’s soil.

see more

At Historical Novel Review, January 7th, 2012

Set amongst the mystery of the Minoan Labyrinth and the heart-pounding thrill of the bull-dancing ring, The Year-God’s Daughter is the first volume of The Child of the Erinyes, a sweeping epic of a series spanning time from the Bronze Age to the near future. see more

Reviews At Amazon, 2011 and 2012: read them all

Awesome Indies Approved

Mr. Gyros was recommended to us by some online food critics. The reports were overwhelmingly positive. That was enough for us to seek them out. I have long been a fan of Greek & Mediterranean food — especially the fast, comfort food variety. Gyros, Souvlaki, Fried Zucchini, Spanakopita, Falafel, Moussaka, Calamari, Baklava, etc. This love affair can be traced back to my youth. And no, I do not have any Greek ancestry. Far from it. I’m just about as Anglo as you can get. But I do know good ethnic cuisine when I taste it.

As a teenager, I dined frequently at Knossos in Vienna, VA. Great place, but sadly not around any longer. Mr. Khan treated us like family … always obliging when we pestered him for the largest portions possible or for extra Tzatziki dipping sauce (made with Greek yogurt, cucumbers and other seasonings). Former Knossos owner George Bilidas (the longtime Greek God of Northern Virginia’s culinary scene) still operates The Amphora, a killer 24-hour diner in Vienna.  

Mr. Gyros is housed in a strip center in Palm Beach Gardens, FL

Greek sweets (like Kadaifi seen above) are a must @ Mr. Gyros

The Gyro Platter at Mr. Gyros is very nicely done. Tons of freshly sliced meat (the usual beef & lamb combo), a cup of thick white tzatziki sauce, really good pita bread, lots of fresh sliced onion, lettuce, and tomatoes. It comes with a Greek salad, rice pilaf, or fries. We strongly recommend the Greek salad. It is excellent and fortified with crumbled feta cheese, kalamata olives, and the ubiquitous green pepperoncini.

Just look at the spicy sliced meat, folks. And those super fresh veggies. This is really fine stuff. In fact, Mr. Gyros was recently voted a “Best Casual Dining” winner by the Palm Beach Post. Beer and wine are also offered if you choose to turn your meal into a regular celebration. We are just plain happy to have found this gem of an eatery. Owners John and Yianna are doing it right at Mr. Gyros. We don’t live in the PBG area, but my parents spends about 6 months each year on nearby Singer Island. That means we shall return … and you can bet that Mr. Gyros will be on our dining agenda.

MR. GYROS – 10901 N. MILITARY TRAIL, PALM BEACH GARDENS

(561) 627-3979; www.mrgyrosflorida.com

Lunch and Dinner 7 days a week; major credit cards accepted

Updated on March 23, 2013

The Ryukyuans have a legend that refers to the Other Realm, an island paradise, which they call Nirai Kanai (ニライカナイ) [Atsushi].  The orientation of this paradise depends upon the cultural source of the legend and is, alternately, east or west across the ocean. Nirai Kanai is the source of life, fertility, and wealth ["Nirai"]; of grain (especially rice); of both good and bad fortune [Atsushi]; and of the sun as well as of fire [Kunio 1950: 239].  Most importantly, Nirai Kanai–or Neriya Kanaya ["Wind"] and Niruya Kanaya [Atsushi]–is the place from which the Okinawans originated [Reichl 62].  Observes Perez [1998: 2], “Third- and fourth-generation city dwellers, when asked where they are “from”, still name the furasato (“old home”) of their ancestors.  .  .  . [T]he Japanese think of themselves as members of an ancient village.”

Between 1918 and 1919 CE, Stephen Xanthoudidis excavated a two-storeyed site on the north shore of Minoan Crete, 13 km east of Heraklion and just east of Amnisos.  He published his findings about Nirou Khani in 1922 ["Nirou"].  Considering the relative luxury of the construction, the forty-room villa is thought to have belonged to a high priest.  It is believed that Nirou Khani–the “Minoan Megaron”–was built during the 16th century BCE (MM III).  The villa was finally abandoned after it was destroyed by fire in the 15th century BCE (LM IB) ["Minoan Megaron"].  This fire appears to have been part of an event horizon that destroyed many Minoan sites, including the palace at Haghia Triada ["History"]. Moreover, this destruction may be the source of the bad fortune that is mentioned in the legend of Nirai Kanai.

Among the LinA texts, there are variable references to Nirou Khani.  Notably, there are two texts from Palaikastro (PK) that respectively include NA.RU and NA.RU KA.[ ].JA.

• (PK Za 11)                 NA.RU        KA.NA.       (TI)
• (PK Za 12)                 NA.RU        KA.[NA].JA.(SI)

There are also two texts which suggest Neriya Kanaya:

• (HT 115)            *407.NU.RU.JA
• (PK Zc 13)                 NU.RI.JA

And there are multiple texts that elide /ra/,/ri/,or /ru/ so that NA.R[U] is represented as /na/. Three from unique sources are included here:

• (KO Za 1)                   NA             KA.NA.      (SI)
• (PK Za 8)                   NA             KA. NA      (SI)
• (TL Za 1)                    NA             KA. NA      (SI)

Research suggests that, not only can the Ryukyuan Nirai Kanai be identified with Knossos of Minoan Crete, but also that Knossos was likely an outpost of the Khâtian trade empire, which was centered in Anatolia.

“Prince of Lilies” with the distinctive hairstyle of the Khâti and the Minoans.

In 1903, around the time that Sir Arthur Evans was exhibiting his archaeological finds in London [“Evans”], Gaston Maspero’s History of Egypt was going to press.  In his book, Maspero describes the male characteristics of a particular culture, as depicted by the Egyptians:  The men were short and squat.  In youth, they had broad, full shoulders, but, in maturity, they tended toward obesity.  They had long, heavy heads; flattened foreheads; prominent eyebrows, noses, and cheekbones; small, oblique, and deeply set eyes; fleshy mouths that were framed by deep wrinkles; and moderate chins.  Their flesh was “a yellowish or reddish white but clearer than that of the Phoenicians or [the] Amurru.”  While they shaved moustaches and beards, they grew their hair, which they “divided into two or three locks and [which they] allowed to fall upon their backs and breasts.”  Their costumes comprised (1) “a sort of loin cloth, [which was] more or less ample according to the rank of the individual,” and which was bound with a belt; (2) sometimes a short-sleeved shirt; (3) a red or blue “scanty mantle”, which was “fringed like that of the Chaldeans” and which “they passed over the left shoulder and brought back under the right”; (4) thick-soled shoes with upturned toes”; and (5)  gloves that extended “halfway up the arm.”  The king wore a tall, pointed hat, which rather resembled “the white crown of the Pharaohs”.  Altogether, their dress material was better and thicker than that of the Egyptians or the Syrians [Maspero 1903].  The mantle, as described by the Egyptians, appears to be identical to the Greek ἱμάτιον (imation), which has been described as “a square piece of cloth thrown over the left [shoulder] and brought round over or under the right shoulder” [L&S 1846: 2nd ed.].  Compare LinB I-MA-DI-JO (PY Ea 29).

Those who are familiar with the Minoan type will recognize the dolichocephalic shape of the Minoan head, the ubiquitous loin cloth, the upturned shoes (see also Hood [1971: 98]), and, ultimately, the distinctive hair style.  However, Maspero is describing not the Minoans but the Khâti (Khâtti or Hatti), a tribe “of doubtful race and language” who dwelled among the Amanus and Taurus mountains in southern Turkey.  So extensive was the Khâtis’ territory that it was called the greater Khâti by contemporaries of Thutmosis III.  Moreover, “Khâti the Great” has been compared with Khani-rabbat, an Assyrian term, which appears to refer to “Khani the Great” or part of Cappadocia [Maspero, Part B].  The Khâti would later be absorbed by the Hittites, who retained the name, Land of the Hatti [“Hatti”].

Compare “Khani the Great” not only with Nirou Khani but also with the Minoan root, KA.NA-, and the Japanese kuni (国), which means region, country, or home or home country, or, archaically, land or earth.  Here, it also may be noted that, in Japan, Kinai is a term for an ancient division that comprised five provinces ["Kinai"] around Nara, Japan’s imperial capitol ["Nara, Nara"].  Moreover, the significance of Khania in western Crete should also be examined in this context.

There are two interesting side notes that should be considered when evaluating the Japanese/Anatolian association: first, the Japanese kanji for Turkey (土) also means soil, earth, or ground;  second,  both Nihon (日本),  the Japanese name for Japan, and Anatolia (from the Greek ἀνατολή), are derived from references to the rising sun.  Indeed, Japan is the Land of the Rising Sun, from sun (日) + origin (本).

Assyrian Trade Routes

It has been speculated that the Khatian center of influence was Kaneš (Kanesh) [“Hatti”]. Central to the success of Kanesh was the large merchant quarter (karum) ["Kultepe"], which can be translated as merchant organization ["Karum"].  The Turkish word for institution or agency is kurumu.  Wood [1996:211] states that, as early as 1800 BCE, Assyrian kings understood that luxury and surplus revenue could be gained through the control of trade and of natural resources such as metal ["Chariot"].  Likewise, the Khâti were known for their metalworking [Kassian 2010:311].  While Wood has speculated that the Mycenaean Knossos comprised “tiny foreign [perhaps Anatolian] communities”, it is more likely that Knossos provided a refuge during and after the Hittite invasion.  The Kultepe period, ca. 2150-1950 BCE [Dayton 1971:62], coincides with the rise of Knossos [Mellersch 1970:62], with the entry of the Greeks into Greece [Palmer 1961:20], and with the appearance, ca. 2000 BCE, of the first Minoan writing system, as evidenced on stone seals [Gordon 1958:245].

The prominence of NA.RU KA.NA.SI in the LinA libation texts befits Knossos, inarguably the grand center of the Minoan “paradise”.  Compare KA.NA.SI to the LinB KO-NO-SO (e.g. KN Ak 626) and KO-NO-SI-JO (e.g. KN Am 600+).  While the Athenians did not adopt ω (long O, or omega) until the archonship of Euclides (403 BCE), the Ionians, who were descendants of the Mycenaeans [Giusepi], sometimes used ω for α (alpha) [L&S 904]: thus, the shift from KA.NA.SI to KO-NO-SO.  Phonetically, the LinA /si/ consistently shifts to the Japanese /shi/, since Japanese does not recognize /si/.   Consequently, KA.NA.SI would likely have been pronounced Kanashi.  In Japanese, Kanashi refers to Kanash, which appears identical to the Anatolian Kanesh.

It is significant that the majority of LinA texts have been found at Haghia Triada, while the majority of LinB texts have been found at Knossos.  What conclusions are to be drawn from these facts?  If Minoan Crete was, indeed, a Kultepian (or Kaneshi) outpost, perhaps Haghia Triada, which was occupied as early as EM I ["Hagia Triada"], was the site of the original settlement. Further support for this hypothesis may be found in the Haghia Triada (HT) texts, which contain countless references to toponyms in what appear to be trade itineraries.  Perhaps Haghia Triada, too, was called Kanashi before the palace at Knossos overtook it as the center of the island’s prosperity, following the former’s destruction during the 15th century BCE.  Another significant fact is that none of the texts that contain references to KA.NA.SI come from either Knossos or Haghia Triada.

As for the Greek meaning of Knossos, according to Liddell and Scott, κνώσσω (knosso) means “to sleep” [L&S 439].  When compared to similar Japanese definitions, which follow, sleeping may be construed as sloth or complacency.  Plato offers a clue about these alternate constructions in his discussion about Atlantis in Critias:  “[They] practiced mildness united with wisdom.  .   .  . and contentedly bore .  .  .  . the mass of gold and other property; nor were they deceived by the intoxication of luxury or rendered intemperate through wealth” [adapted quote in Mellersh 1970:30-31].  Mellersh adds that, when the day came “when they could no longer uphold these divine and lofty virtues,  .  .  . Zeus visited upon them their just retribution.”   Whether Atlantis is an allegory about Minoan or Mycenaean Crete is a question that will not be debated here.  Nevertheless, as enlightening as is Plato’s allegory, the preceding definition of Knossos is not wholly satisfying, because it appears to be a reanalysis.

A more satisfying analysis begins with Mellersh [1967:98], who states that “Crete was by tradition the birthplace of metal-working.”  While Mellersh appears to be on the right track, the preceding discussion suggests an earlier Anatolian origin for metalworking, which employed copper, electrum, gold, iron (more valuable than gold), lead, and silver.  However, tin for bronze-making was likely imported.  Anatolian metalworking processes included cloisonné and filigree, granulation, chasing and repousse, lost-wax casting, metal inlay, and sweating and soldering [“Anatolia”].  Indeed, it is believed that the early Minoans, between 3400 and 2200 BCE, were influenced by the middle Anatolian bronze age, as evidenced by the findings at Knossos [“Prehistory”].

Nevertheless, Mellersh’s assertion is aligned with at least two related Japanese definitions and at least three related Greek definitions.  The first is the Japanese kanashiki “anvil”.  At the root of the word is the kanji (金) for both kane “metal; money” and kin “gold”.  Interestingly, however, kanashibari has two definitions–(1) “sleep paralysis” and (2) “being tied down with money”–at least one of which echoes the Greek reference to sleep.

Kνησί-χρυσός (knesi-khrusos) is a Greek term that is defined as scraping or gnawing gold [L&S 439].  However, knesi may be compared Neša (Nesha), the Hittite name for Kanesh ["Kultepe"].  The Hittites were known as the Nesi.   So, knesi khrusos may literally mean Kaneshi gold.  As a reanalysis, however,  knesi khrusos likely refers to engraved (carved) gold, via γράφειν (graphein) “to scratch, scrape, or graze” [L&S 169].

The implications of the Greek notion of carving may be understood in the art of statuary.  Chadwick [1976:101] states that, in classical times, there were “many references to wooden statues of very great antiquity known as xoana,”  a word that is derived from ξόανον (xoanon).  While Euripides describes xoanon, generally, as an image or a statute, Xenophon describes the same as “an image carved from wood” [L&S 540].  That these images were exclusively carved from wood appears to be a modern assumption.  Donohue [1998] asserts that xoanon is etymologically associated with a manufacturing process rather than with a specific material.

However, debate centers around whether xoanon is rooted in ξέω (xeo), “to shave” or in ξύω (xuo) “to scratch or scrape” [Donohue 1998:11].  While the latter root appears to mirror the definition of knesi-khrusos, there is no difference between shaving and scraping, so the debate between xeo and xuo amounts to hair-splitting.  Compare ξόανον with χόανος (khoanos), from χεῶ (kheo) “to pour”.  Xωνεύω (khoneuo), a derivation of khoanos, means “to cast into a mold” [L&S 1846: 2nd ed.].

A comparison of knesi-khrusos, xoanon, and khoanos suggests that the materials were later associated with the manufacturing processes or with general workmanship.  Consequently, while the Minoan KA.NA.SI (kanashi), the Japanese kane, the Anatolian Kanesh, and the Greek khoneuo appear to have strong associations with metal, these terms may generally refer to workmanship, as suggested by the Greek knesi.  Likewise with xoanon, which appears to primarily be associated with imagery or representation, whether worked or unworked.  As the testimony [Donohue 1998:1-48 of 403] demonstrates, xoana [as agalmata (statue)] were “bound and nailed and fastened, melted, filed, sawn, polished, [and] carved” [44] and  comprised a variety of materials or guises:

• ivory [7];
• a grape vine [26];
• wood and quicksilver [30],
• wood, generally, or pear wood;  a spear; or a mixture of bronze, gold, iron, lead, silver and emerald, hematite, sapphire, and topaz [44];
• stone, generally [46];  and
• “stones or bronzes” [48].

Compare, also, KA.NU.TI (HT 97), which, as the Japanese kanuchi “smithing; blacksmith”.  While it is not yet clear to which place KA.NU.TI refers, it is enough for the moment to have a foundation for research.  Knesi also suggests the verb, to knead, which, in its broad sense, means “to manipulate”.  Indeed, the Japanese word for knead is neru, which, in this context, may mean “to refine or to temper”.  Moreover, neru, in its broad sense, refers to becoming:  “to attain, to succeed, to bear fruit, and to be exchanged for”.

NA.RU has some related definitions that emphasize sound: “to resound; to ring”.  However, neru, with its similarity to the Greek Nirou Khani, suggests “refinement” as the most likely meaning of NA.RU.  Consequently, with the emphasis on metalworking, Naru (Neru) Kanashi may simply mean “refined [metal] workmanship”.  This definition does not rule out the possibility that naru is a reanalysis that refers to the sound of industry.

Here, it should be noted that, while references to NA.RU or NA KA.NA.SI typically include the prefix /u/, its lack of emphasis in this discussion should be regarded not so much as an oversight but as a relegation to lesser status, since unaru is reminiscent of the earlier reference to sound–to buzz or to hum–and uneru is distantly reminiscent of the earlier reference to kneading in its application to roads or to landscapes–to wind, to surge, to swell, and to undulate.

Turning again to phonetics, as with the phonetic shift from /si/ to Japanese /shi/, initial and medial /ti/ shifts to Japanese /chi/.  Consequently, the variation, KA.NA.TI (kanachi) (PK Za 11), may be perceived as a spelling error.  However, final /ti/ may also shift to /tou/, which, in a place name, is a suffix that designates an island (see KO.SA.I.TI in Toponyms).  Therefore, KA.NA.TI may be pronounced either kanachi or kanatou.  Pronounced in the former manner, kanachi may be a transitional word: kanashi > kanachi > kanuchi.  Pronounced in the latter manner, however, KA.NA.TI may be kanatou (kanato), perhaps “island of Kana”, which brings the discussion full circle to Kanai and which may refer to its metalworking industry.

While this discussion has taken a somewhat cautious tone, I fully anticipate that the support for the hypothesis–regarding Knossos as an outpost of the Anatolian Kanesh–will only grow as scholars explore the implications raised in the analysis.

Post script:  This discussion would be incomplete without emphasizing the frequency with which LinA words yield Japanese given names, surnames, and toponyms.  This phenomenon is no less true for the words in the preceding analysis.  Consequently, Japanese names include Kanashi, Kanaashi, Kanachi, Kanayashiki (from KA.[NA].JA.SI), Kanuchi , Naru, and Nuriya.  Packard [1974: fn 17] observes that personal names are often derived from both toponyms and occupational terms.

RELATED REFERENCES:

1. The Minoan “Seki
2. Mino: The Fertile Land
3. Toponyms in Linear A Texts
4. Toponyms in Linear A Texts: KU-RU-MA

INTERNET REFERENCES:

1. Anatolia.  EncyclopediaBrittanica.  2012.  Ret. on 07 Mar 2012.  <brittanica.com>.
2. Atsushi, Hatakeyama.  Nirai Kanai.  Encyclopedia of Shinto.  2007. Ret. on 02 Sep 2011.  <eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp>.
3. Bronze-Age Aegean Harboursides. The Thera Foundation. org.  Ret. on 10 Sep 2011.
4. Chariot.  Wikipedia.org. Ret. on 08 Dec 2011.
5. Evans, Arthur J[ohn], Sir.  Dictionary of Art Historians.org.  Ret. on 26 Feb 2012.
6. Giusepi, Robert.  The Glory That Was Greece.  The History of Ancient Greece. 1998.  Ret. on 29 Jan 2012.  <historyworld.net>.
7. Hagia Triada.  Wikipedia.org. Ret. on 04 Feb 2012.
8. Hatti (Hattusa).  The History Files.  2012. Ret. on 29 Feb 2012. <historyfiles.co.uk>.
9. History of Aegean Civilization.  History World.net.  Ret. on 08 Sep 2011.
10. Karum. Adventures of Archaeology Wordsmith.  Ret. on 11 Feb 2012.  <archaeologywordsmith.com>.
11. Kinai. Wikipedia.org.  Ret.  on 12 Sep 2011.
12. Kultepe. Wikipedia.org.  Ret. on 23 Jan 2011.
13. Linear B Transliterations.   Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B.  Edited by Kim Raymoure. Deaditerranean: Dead Languages of the Mediterranean.  Ret. on 13 Dec 2011.
14. Minoan Megaron. Interkriti.  2011.  Ret. on 08 Sep 2011.  <interkriti.org>.
15. Nara, Nara.  Wikipedia.org.  Ret. on 12 Sep 2011.
16. Nirai Kinai. Kozyndan.com.  2010. Ret. on 08 Sep 2011.
17. Nirou Khani.  UK.Digiserve.com. Ret.  on 02 Sep 2011.
18. Prehistory of Anatolia.  Wikipedia.org.  Ret. on 07 Mar 2012.
19. Repousse and chasing. Wikipedia.org.  Ret. on 23 Jan 2012.
20. Wind From South.  Amami Network Plaza.   Ret.  on 02 Sep 2011.   <amami.or.jp>.

PRINTED REFERENCES:

1. An Intermediate Greek/English Lexicon: Founded Upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell and Scott’s Greek/English Lexicon [L&S].  1992. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2. Chadwick, John.  1976. The Mycenaean World.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Davaras,  Costis. 1976.  A Guide to Cretan Antiquities. Parkridge, NJ: Noyes Press.
4. Dayton, J. E. 1971. The problem of tin in the Ancient World.  World Archaeology. Vol. 3,  No. 1 (Jun.): 49-70.
5. Donohue, A.A.  1988.  Xoana and the Origins of Greek Sculpture.  The American Philological Association: American Classical Studies, no. 15.  Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.
6. Gordon, Cyrus H. 1958. Minoan Linear A.  Journal of Near Eastern Studies.  Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct.): 245-255.
7. Hood, Sinclair. 1971.  The Minoans: Crete in the Bronze Age.  Ancient Peoples and Places.  London: Thames and Hudson.
8. Liddell, Henry George, and Scott, Robert [L&S].  1846. A Greek/English Lexicon based on the the German Work of Francis Passow. 2nd Edition.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9. Kassian, A.  2010.  Hattic as a Sino-Caucasian language.  Ugarit-Forschungen: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Altertumskunde Syrien-Palästinas.  Ugarit-Verlag Münster, pp. 311-446.
10. Kunio, Yanagita. 1950.  On the Palace of the Sea God. Minzokugaku Kenkyu 2.
11. Maspero, G. 1903. The History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12).  Edited by A. H. Sayce.  London: The Grolier Society Publishers.
12. Mellersh, H.E.L.  1967.  Minoan Crete. Life in Ancient Lands. Edited by Edward Bacon.  New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
13. Mellersh, H.E.L. 1970.  The Destruction of Knossos: The Rise and Fall of Minoan Crete.  New York: Weybright and Talley.
14. Packard, David W. 1974.  Minoan Linear A.  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
15. Palmer, Leonard R.  1961.  Mycenaeans and Minoans.  London: Faber and Faber.
16. Perez, Louis G.  1998. The History of Japan. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
17. Reichl, Christopher A.  Transplantation of a Ryukuan New Religion Overseas: Hawaiian Ijun.  Japanese Religions.  Ret. on 18 Sep 2011.
18. Wood, Michael.  1996.  In Search of the Trojan War.  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To be ten years old and living in a foreign country is a blessing. It allows one to broaden the mind at an impressionable age. To be a Military Brat and used to moving constantly is to understand that you are an Ambassador to the World, and to live the rest of your life with that understanding.

From the ages of eight to eleven, I lived on the island of Crete, Greece. My father was stationed at Iraklion Air Station – a staff sergeant between the port city, Iraklion and the sea-side town, Hersonissos, where we lived for a year before moving on base. These were the mid-70s, and America had just celebrated the bi-centennial. We were black Americans at that, stared at wherever we went. Whether it be the ruins of Knossos palace where the ghost of the Minotaur lurked, cobblestoned villages high on Mount Edna or outdoor Markets in the bustling towns and cities, the reaction was the same: smiles, stares and friendly greetings, because black Americans were an anomaly back then, rarely seen by foreigners outside of the United States. We enjoyed a freedom of expression and action that has not been lost upon me and has formed the person that I am today. I lived each day in a state of wonder, exploring my surroundings with other American children.

I remember one Greek family quite well. A husband, his wife and their son, Monoli. They lived a few houses down from us, in the town of Hersonissos. Behind our house lay a few more old houses and an olive grove that marked the end of town. Past the grove, the island rose precipitously into the sky. I remember it as a wall of green, crisscrossed by slate-gray roads and the alabaster veneer of tiny walls, climbing the mountainous slope.

From the roof of our apartment, I could see the blue-purple waters of the Mediterranean sea. The houses were of different designs, but conforming to a type that might be called tropical, being painted a uniform white and stylistically box-like. The buildings were separated by narrow streets that, in those years, held more donkey and scooter traffic than automobiles.

Each morning my sister, Maya, and I would catch the American bus to school with the other Brats, always a wild bunch, given to loud expression and unruly solidarity. The dramas of childhood were no different for us than with other kids, even though we were being raised in a foreign country. Our play was no different from normal American childrens, unless you count speaking non-native languages and playing on exotic beaches, valleys and mountainsides as unusual. Past the 8th Grade, the Brats were sent to the mainland to Zaragoza, Spain to live in dormitories and attend school.

Each afternoon, we would get off the bus down on the main street through town and walk up the hill; me, Maya, and a few other children who lived near us. Monoli would be out front every day, running around, pretending he was riding a scooter. He spoke no English, but he and I would smile at each other and play in the same vicinity, although we never really played together. There was something of a rivalry between the Greek kids and the American kids. Our little gangs would throw dirt clods and chase each other through the back streets, cursing the best we knew how, with us Americans using the Greek words for shut up and other terms that we thought were curse words, but probably werent.

There was one house in particular, a small, gray-boarded shack with dirty, dark windows that we were particularly afraid of. It was the house of the Octopus Man. I dont recall why we called him that, or why we were afraid of his house, since I dont remember ever seeing him. But we did used to sneak up to the window and peer cautiously within then run, screaming away to gather in small groups, whispering about what we had seen inside.

Monolis family was friendly with my own. His mother spoke a little English, and got along well with my mother. I dont ever remember our fathers ever speaking, but then, fathers dont run households; mothers do. For 6 months, we lived on that hill in Greece, overlooking the sea before the relationship between our families progressed to the point where we were invited into their home. I was very excited by this and remember being quite impatient on the eve of our visit.

With my parents leading the way, we marched to Monolis door. His mother answered with a beautiful smile, ushering us in. Their house wasnt so different from our own, although they owned theirs and lived in both the upper and lower apartments, while we lived only in the upper apartment of our building.

The smell was wondrous, but before I could determine its source, Monoli took my hand and pulled me back to his room, where he enthusiastically began showing me Greek comic books, in black and white. We were having a great time, so I was very surprised when my father came to the room, not 15 minutes later, to tell me it was time to go.

As we walked back to the front door, Monolis parents were in the hall with my mother and sister, their expressions anxious. I took this time to look around, and in the room immediately to my right, there was a table, laid out with all kinds of food. I could see what I later learned was calamari, cooked squid, and snails, and other steaming, scrumptious dishes. There was so much food, the table was piled high with it. I wanted to eat, wanted to try the snails and the other unfamiliar food, but, at the time, I remember thinking that we must not be invited to dinner, because we were apparently leaving without getting to eat. I remember being disappointed, but leaving with my family, never to return again.

After that, Monoli didnt smile at me anymore. His face would drop and he would get quiet when I walked by, or his mother would call him into the house. I never saw my mother speak to his again, either. Being so young, I had no conception of social mores and what happened when they were broken. It wasnt until many years later that I found out we had left their house without eating because my parents didnt recognize the food and felt uncomfortable, leaving despite our hosts protestations. My parents hadnt realized that we had been invited to dinner, but when they found out, rather than sit down to eat they had decided to leave.

We had broken a social code, a human code, and, thereafter, were shunned by that family. I knew something had happened, something that had disturbed some somnolent archetype, provoking an automatic response that was primal in nature. But those were undercurrents that I would only become aware of as an adult, remembering.

At the same time, I learned that it was possible to form bonds with people from different countries despite the fact that we didnt speak the same language. To be an American, an Ambassador to the World from the Greatest Country in the World, was imprinted upon us, reinforced every day by the Pledge of Allegiance at school, and at 1200 hours and 1700 hours, when the Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America would play on the base-wide intercom and all traffic would still in nationalistic reverence.

I would put that prescient knowledge into practice years later when I became a soldier, stationed in Germany, living with and loving people with whom I had little in common other than a shared sense of humanity, potential and a love of art, music and dancing.

I sometimes wonder how Monolis life has turned out. And when I think of that little island and the two years that we lived there, my heart warms, in synch with the tropical sun and the crashing of frothy, emerald waves upon oil-dotted, white sands.

Maya visited Crete again some years ago and told me that the island had changed; become more touristy, with hotels and dirt replacing older homes and open spaces filled with the distinctive, ochre grass. The magical, tree-sheltered brooks and seemingly ancient courtyards that embellish my recollections may still exist, but the echo of our lives on that distant island is long gone, as is the official, American presence. But the olive groves, craggy, cliff-side highways and ancient trees still recede from the coast up into the highlands, where the crass visitation of ogling sight-seers is much less intrusive or destructive to native life.

Someday I hope to return to Crete with my children, so they can perhaps glimpse some echo of my distant and unusual past in the excitement of my expressions and memories. I firmly believe that we can only know who we are by reconciling ourselves with who we have been. By projecting the best of now and then into the future and who we want to become.

1. The artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also, a group engaged in such artifices and intrigues.

Merriam Webster gives these examples:

1. a cabal plotting to overthrow the government.

2. a conspiracy theory about the existence of an international cabal devoted to world domination.

I thought it would be interesting to have “cabal” in the Bronze Age Mediterranean mean something else, very different yet somehow linked to its modern-day definition.

In The Greek Myths, Robert Graves has these things to say. He uses the word tanist the same way I use “cabal.”

“Once the relevance of coition to child-bearing had been officially admitted,  man’s religious status gradually improved, and winds or rivers were no longer given credit for impregnating women. The tribal Nymph, it seems, chose an annual lover from her entourage of young men, a king to be sacrificed when the year ended; making him a symbol of fertility, rather than the object of her erotic pleasure. His sprinkled blood served to fructify trees, crops and flocks, and his flesh was torn and eaten raw by the Queen’s fellow-nymphs – priestesses wearing the masks of bitches, mares, or sows. Next, in amendment to this practice, the king died as soon as the power of the sun, with which he was identified, began to decline in the summer; and another young man, his twin, or supposed twin – a convenient ancient Irish term is ‘tanist’ – then became the Queen’s lover, to be duly sacrificed at midwinter and, as a reward, reincarnated in an oracular serpent.

When the shortness of the king’s reign proved irksome, it was agreed to prolong the thirteen month year to a Great Year of one hundred lunations, in the last of which occurs a near-coincidence of solar and lunar time. But since the fields and crops still needed to be fructified, the king agreed to suffer an annual mock death and yield his sovereignty for one day – the intercalated one, lying outside the sacred sidereal year – to the surrogate boy-king, or interrex, who died at its close, and whose blood was used for the sprinkling ceremony. Now the sacred king either reigned for the entire period of a Great Year, with a tanist as his lieutenant; or the two reigned for alternate years; or the Queen let them divide the queendom into halves and reign concurrently.

The title Hecate (one hundred) apparently refers to the hundred lunar months of the king’s reign, and to the hundredfold harvest. The king’s death by a thunderbolt, or by the teeth of horses, or at the hands of his tanist, was his common fate in primitive Greece.

The twins’ mutual murder recalls the eternal rivalry for the love of the White Goddess between the sacred king and his tanist, who alternately meet death at each other’s hands.

The column, on which the Death-in-Life Goddess perches, marks the height of summer when the sacred king’s reign ends and the tanist’s begins. (At the heliacal rising of two-headed Sirius.)

This combat is mythologically recorded in the story that the Olympic Games began with a wrestling match between Zeus and Cronus for the possession of Elis, namely the midsummer combat between the king and his tanist; and the result was a foregone conclusion – the tanist came armed with a spear.

The historical setting of the Scylla myth is apparently a dispute between the Athenians and their Cretan overlords not long before the sack of Cnossus in 1400 BC. The myth itself, almost exactly repeated in the Taphian story of Pterelaus and Comaetho, recalls those of Samson and Delilah in Philistia; Curoi, Blathnat, and Cuchulain in Ireland; Llew Llaw, Blodeuwedd, and Gronw in Wales: all variations on a single pattern. It concerns the rivalry between the sacred king and his tanist for the favor of the Moon-goddess who, at midsummer, cuts off the king’s hair and betrays him. The king’s strength resides in his hair, because he represents the Sun; and his long yellow locks are compared to its rays.

In The Year-god’s Daughter, The Thinara King, and In the Moon of Asterion, the sacred king has a tanist, but I didn’t want to use that term. In my timeline, the word is “cabal.” At Mycenae, it simply means “brother,” but on Crete, the word “cabal” has twin meanings: brother and killer. The cabal is the king’s “tanist,” or symbolic “brother,” who also kills him, thus turning him into a god.

In the course of the series, the word “cabal” gradually and eventually transforms into its modern definition, which plays a part in the story.

Skotino Cave

In The Year-god’s Daughter, Aridela, Selene and Iphiboë sneak out of the palace to meet their fates. They travel by cart to Skotino Cave, which even these days attracts large numbers of tourists. It lies some distance to the east of Knossos.

Of course, in the Bronze Age, this cave would have had another name. I chose for my story The Cave of Velchanos.

Within the walls of Skotino, Aridela’s life forever changed.

Published July 14, 2009

The Palace of Minos at Knossos

Hera

Zeus’s wife, his sister Hera, goddess of marriage and women

We see the evolution from the earth goddess Hera to the Minoan sacred marriage as described in the book the Iliad XIV, to 346-351

Minoan religion
The main deity of the Minoan religion was a female goddess mother goddess of the type associated with wild animals or snakes, or to the soil fertility and birth

It is not known if they are separate deities or different aspects of a single goddess, but the analogy with some Asian cultures seems to confirm

The mother goddess who watches over the fertility of nature, as the case appears as the mistress of animals, the serpent-goddess or the goddess of the family

She was a young husband, who watched over the animals, represented as a tamer of wild beasts or armed with a bow placed with a lion at his side

It symbolizes the deification of the annual cycle

After the invasion Achaean, it will be identified with Zeus

Some Linear B tablets of Knossos mention the names of Hera, Athena, Zeus and Poseidon

Cave Psychron, place of burial in ancient Minoan, becoming at that time following a place of worship for the goddess, in which Paul Faure Ariane wants to recognize

It remains in use in the Archaic period, and a few offerings found date from classical times, Hellenistic and Roman

In the cave of Zeus on Mount Ida, the cult is attested only from the Late Minoan and remains the most likely date from the period called “geometric”

Geometric period denotes one of the five periods in the history of ancient Greece, from approximately 900 to 750 BC. J.-C

His chronology is based on the study of ceramics, characterized in Attica, Euboea and Argolis, decorated with a patterned semi-circles or concentric circles drawn with a compass

Egyptian papyri tell us that the Minoan priestesses had powers feared and famous …

The central figure of the Minoan pantheon is a goddess represented with a long skirt with ruffles, a small rounded apron on the front and a fitted bodice revealing ample chest the goddess of snakes, mother goddess

The male god only takes human form late

Cretan religion expressed by offerings, dances and games such as boxing or fighting bullfights

Costume of the mother goddess

Lessons can be learned from the characteristics of the Cretan costume, unique to this period of history

Cretan fashion that brings out the bare-breasted bodice was originally the preserve of a goddess

First it was a ritual costume endorsed by the priestess before becoming one of the female population of Crete

The Cretan costume is the most original of antiquity

He is the only one to make a clear distinction between the clothing of both sexes

This is the first truly sewn costumes have appeared in the history of costume

Minoan writing

The Cretans of antiquity had three scripts called protohistoric from Evans, Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B

From the time Prepalatial, isolated signs appear on vases or buckets

Only 270 documents, all from Crete (mainly Knossos and Malia), tell us about the hieroglyphic writing using a variety of ideograms

It seems to have a dual function, administrative and accounting

It disappears at the time of the second palace, and it is impossible to say whether she wrote the same language as that expressed by the following linear with A

In line A, syllabics were collected 1427 documents

But it retains all its mystery: only a dozen signs are now understood

The Linear B, derived from Linear A is used to write in Greek Archaic

Which there are 4621 documents, found both in Greece and Crete

Two Englishmen, Mr. Ventris and Chadwick JM, succeeded in 1953 to decipher

The Linear B writing Mycenaeans

The tablets of Knossos thus provide evidence of their presence on the island

History of Crete

From 7000 BC. BC (Neolithic period), the island is invaded by people from Anatolia, the Minoan, engaged in farming and livestock

The Minoans were not Greek, and they have nothing in common with them

It could not decipher a very small part of their written language (they were writing …)

Minoan society was very rich thanks to its trade across the Mediterranean Archaeological excavations indicate that this wealth was shared by all members of the community

The many written documents that have been deciphered show that the movement of goods in the warehouses of the state, was strictly managed and controlled

The standard of living was very important

In the palace, were found plumbing sophisticated, beautiful murals, plaster reliefs and discoveries during

The Minoans had free time and spent a lot of sports, religion and the arts

The remains of art found show a polytheism with several goddesses including a Mother Goddess

The earliest pottery are found at Knossos and Phaistos

The priesthood was reserved for women, but it seems that the king also had religious functions

They practice the cult of mother goddess, fertility goddess

The role of women as heads of religion, business leaders, merchants, craftsmen and athletes, was prominent in Minoan society

The government was based on a monarchy supported by a well-organized bureaucracy

A Prepalatial period, from 2600 to 2100 BC, new immigrants from the east, probably from Anatolia also

These new residents know how to work bronze, ceramics, jewelry, the glyptic (stone engraving) and settled mainly in the Gulf of Mirabello and the plains of Messara

A paléopalatiale period of 2100 to 1650 BC, Crete take a dominant position in the Mediterranean

They trade with Asia Minor, Phoenicia, Greece and Egypt

The cities boast magnificent palace-like labyrinth at Knossos, Malia, Zakros and Phaistos

Then the period of 1650 to 1450 Neopalatial BC, is the height of the Minoan dynasty of Minos

At the end of this period, there are traces of a huge fire that destroyed all

It is assumed that the eruption of Thera in Santorini

Eruption followed by earthquakes and tidal waves, which have totally eradicated the Minoan civilization

In the period from 1450 to 1200 Postpalatial BC, what remained was destroyed by the invasion of Mycenaean

Since 1600 BC, the Mycenaean Crete covet, but only after the weakening of the Minoan, from the ravages of Santorini, they can put their plans into action

The center of the Mediterranean world moves from Minoan to Mycenaean, from Crete to Mycenae

The Minoan palaces were completely devoid of fortifications unlike the fortresses of Mycenae and Tiryns

It seems that the Minoans had nothing to fear, at least in conventional weapons of the time …

Until the eruption of Santorini …

We come there to the idea of fortifying our cities today?

Geography of Crete

Nicknamed little Greece, she is the largest of Aegean Islands

256 km long and wide at the maximum of 62 km, its climate is mixed because of his hectic relief

It’s always warmer on the south coast

In winter it’s cold and snowing

In the spring, is a botanical paradise and there are over 1600 different plant species

In summer it is hot, but the air is made bearable by the north wind

In autumn, the weather is rainy

Knossos

City of Crete, in the plain of Kairatos on the road across the island in the middle from south to north, 5 km from the sea and Heraklion

Homer known as the capital of mythical king Minos, who gave his name to the Minoan civilization, it is the classic Roman times one of the great cities of Crete

Of chance finds of Schliemann attract attention, but when the island became independent, it is Sir Arthur Evans (1851-1941) who gets the grant of the mining

Outstanding discoveries reveal when a new civilization of the Bronze Age Egyptian artifacts and helped establish the chronology.

The occupation of the site is very old, the Neolithic levels especially thick and rich

In the Bronze Age (ca. 2100-1900 BC.), The appearance of metal, and especially the use of seals show the progress of the technical and policy

This is what the Middle Bronze built the first palace, whose remains are too limited to allow a precise reconstruction

The architecture of the era is best represented in Phaistos and Malia especially

But it also comes at a luxury goods in gold, ivory and a particularly fine ceramics, colorful decor, ceramics Camarès

The first palace disappear all over Crete, around 1750 BC. AD, for reasons that remain unknown

After a period of stagnation, they are reconstructed according to a canonical central courtyard was an important religious function, serving as the famous games bullfighting arena known by several frescoes

Stores received oil, grains and other products by farmers due

Rooms in the basement housed the sacred snakes

There are also ceremonial rooms, including the throne room, and apartments for Minos and his family

The set is developed on several acres and sometimes over five floors

Cretan myths

Crete was the site of many episodes from Greek mythology

Zeus was born, protected by his mother Rhea against his father Cronos, wishing to eat

He was born in a cave on Mount Dictated, or Mount Ida according to other sources

These are the nymphs and the Curetes who raised

This is where it turned into a bull abuses his captive, Europe, giving birth to Minos

The wife of Minos, Pasiphae, having sinned with a bull sent by Poseidon, gave birth to the Minotaur

He was imprisoned in the labyrinth built by the architect Daedalus, by Minos

Some archaeologists recognize the palace of Knossos as the site of the labyrinth

The trick of Ariadne and Theseus’ courage will make it possible to kill the Minotaur and the labyrinth out

The Minotaur was dead, Daedalus and his son Icarus must escape from the island to escape the wrath of Minos

Daedalus built wings of wax then to leave the island from the air, but Icarus to fly drunk, approaches too near the sun …

Legend of Ariadne

Seduced by Theseus, it helps him to escape from the Labyrinth

Against the promise to marry her, she provides a thread that unwinds behind him to find his way, only way to overcome the labyrinth has only one entry, but after killing the Minotaur, the hero , preferring all men as her sister Phaedra, abandoned on the island of Dia

She finally left the island to follow the god Dionysus, who took him to Lemnos

It took him several children Ceramos, Thoas, Oenopion, Eurymedon, Phli, and Préparathos Staphylos

According to other traditions, she died of grief or was put to death at the request of Dionysus by Artemis at Dia

Another version of this abandonment of Ariadne as a requirement because of a storm on the boat when Theseus there, having to leave to avoid losing all the crew and forced the abandonment would be because of the neglect of Theseus to change the sails of his ship They should have been replaced by white if the hero had beaten

A mist surrounds the boat and upset the memory of Theseus, sent by the gods punishment for his betrayal

Aegean hero’s father, watching the return of the ship

When he saw the black sails, a sign of mourning and failure against the Minotaur, he throws himself into the sea that now bears his name

So a hero mourning, despite his victory against the monster that Theseus returns to his kingdom

In 1954, the government of Egypt announced that it was to build the Aswan Dam, a project that proposed to flood a valley containing priceless treasures of ancient civilizations.  Despite opposition from Eygpt and Sudan, UNESCO launched a worldwide safeguarding campaign, over fifty countries contributed and the Abu Simbel and Philae temples were taken apart, moved to a higher location, and put back together piece by piece.  At last the World was collectively protecting its treasures and hopefully never again will something magnificent like the Colosseum of Rome or the Parthenon of Athens be torn down and destroyed by following generations of rebuilders.

Building on this international success the United States then came up with the idea of combining cultural conservation with nature conservation and a White House conference in 1965 called for a World Heritage Trust to preserve ‘the world’s superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and the future of the entire world citizenry.’ The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968 and they were presented in 1972 to the United Nations conference on Human Environment in Stockholm.  A single text was agreed and the ‘Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage’ was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16^th November 1972.

Today there are eight hundred and seventy-eight listed sites and it isn’t easy to get on the list and to do so a nomination must satisfy impressively difficult criteria which in summary consist of culutral criteria:

to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius; to exhibit an important interchange of human values; to bear a unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition; to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or landscape; to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement; to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance,

and natural criteria:

to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance; to be outstanding examples representing major stages of Earth’s history, to be outstanding examples representing significant ecological and biological processes; to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-site conservation of biological diversity.

It is hardly surprising that with forty-seven listed sites Italy has the most but for those who think of Spain as nothing more than a country of over developed costas with concrete condominiums, marinas and golf courses it might be a shock to learn that Spain has forty-three sites and is second highest in the exclusive list.

On every visit to Spain I seem to be visiting a World Heritage Site so when I counted them up I was interested to discover that I have been to twenty and that is nearly half of them.  In 2005 I visited Barcelona in Catalonia and saw the works of Antoni Gaudi and Palau de la Música Catalana and the Hospital de Sant Pau. Then in 2008 I saw the Historic Centre of Córdoba,  the  Caves of Altamira in Cantabria, the Old Town of Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral, Alcázar and Archivo de Indias in Seville.  In 2009 in the motoring holiday around Castilian cities I visited the Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct,  the Historic Walled Town of Cuenca, the Historic City of Toledo and the Old Town of Ávila.

Even before I knew anything about World Heritage Sites it turns out that I have visited two more in the days of my beach type holidays, although when I went to these places neither of them were yet on the list.  In 1988 I holidayed on the island of Ibiza which was accepted onto the list in 1999 in recognition of its biodiversity and culture.  The following year I went to Tenerife and took a cable car ride to the top of Mount Tiede, a national park that was accepted to the list in 2007.  I have also visited Benidorm but for some reason that doesn’t yet seem to have made the list.

Even though they weren’t World Heritage Sites at the time I visited them I am still going to count them but the final two might be a bit dubious but anyway here goes.  In 1984 while driving back through Spain from Portugal I drove with friends through the city of Burgos which was accepted in that year because of its Cathedral and in Galicia in 2008 while visiting Santiago de Compostella I managed to drive over parts of the Pilgrim Route, which exists on the list separately from the old city itself.

Next time I go to Spain I am going to pay more attention and see how many more I can visit.

Turning for a moment to Greece it will surprise no one that the Acropolis and the island of Delos are both on the list but due to mistakes made in submitting the application form by the Greek Ministry of Culture in 2005 then for the time being Knossos is not there.    Everyone is accusing everyone else for this mistake and the Prefect of Iraklion blamed both the Ministry and UNESCO for leaving Knossos off the updated list of World Heritage Sites in 2006.  I am surprised that a site that important even has to bother with an application.

In 2001 I went to Crete with my son Jonathan and while we were there we visited the ancient site of the Palace of Knossos.  This is the largest archaeological site on the island and was the ceremonial and political centre of the ancient Minoan civilization and culture who once lived there.

According to Greek mythology, the palace was designed with such complexity that no one placed in it could ever find the way out and King Minos who commissioned the place to imprison the hideous Minotaur kept the architect prisoner to ensure that he would not reveal the palace plan to anyone. 

The architect was Daedalus who was a great inventor and he built two sets of wings so he and his son Icarus could fly off the island and escape.  Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun because the wax that held the wings together would melt but Icarus was young and impulsive and flew higher and higher until the heat metled the wax that kept his wings together wings and he fell to his death in the Aegean sea.  Daedalus escaped and gave the palace plans to the Athenian King Theseus who travelled to Crete and found and killed the Minotaur.

The ruins at Knossos were first discovered in 1878  by a local man, Minos Kalokairinos, and the earliest excavations were made.  After that several Cretans attempted to continue the dig but it was not until 1900 that the English archeologist Arthur Evans purchased the entire site and carried out massive excavations and reconstructions. 

These days archaeology is carefully regulated and supervised by academics who apply scientific rigour (except for Tony Robinson and the Time Team of course) to make sure that history isn’t compromised but it was very different a hundred years ago when wealthy amateurs could pretty much do as they pleased and went around digging up anything that they could find of interest and aggressively reinterpreting it.

Evans employed a large staff of local labourers as excavators and within a few months had uncovered a substantial portion of what he named the Palace of Minos, at the same time applying the description Minoan on the people who lived there, although no one really knows what they called themselves four thousand years ago when the Palace was constructed.  In the Odyssey which was composed centuries after the destruction of Knossos, the poet Homer called the natives of Crete Eteocretans, which means true Cretans and these may have been descendants of the Minoans. There is much disagreement over the value of Evans’ work because experts argue that some of his reconstructions are inaccurate, unresearched and constructed from unsuitable material, including concrete.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the scholars arguments I have to say that it does make the site a whole lot more interesting than just a few old walls and foundations and some of the experts have been forced to agree that in some places the concrete has actually helped preserve the original building, especially on steps that would otherwise have been worn away by thousands of visitors over the last hundred years.

After considering the issue I think I agree with Henry Miller who wrote in the Colossus of Rhodes: “There has been much controversy about the aesthetics of Sir Arthur Evans’s work of restoration.  I find myself unable to come to any conclusion about it; I accepted it as a fact.  However Knossos may have looked in the past, however it may look in the future, this one which Evans has created is the only one I shall ever know.  I am grateful to him for what he did…”

We left the holiday village of Agios Nikólaos early in the morning and arrived in Knossos an hour or so later and paid our entrance fees.  Once inside we were approached by a local guide who looked as though he was stuck in a 1960s hippie culture time warp and somehow he persuaded me to part with €10 to join his guided tour.

This isn’t something that I would normally do but on this occasion I was pleased that I did because he provided an informative and amusing tour and we learned that the Palace had one thousand interlocking rooms and enjoyed the comforts of an elaborate system of water supply and drainage systems as well as flushing toilets, air conditioning and paved roads.  The Palace was not the home of one privileged individual but housed a complete community and included artisans workrooms, shops and food processing centres and it served as a central storage point, and a religious and administrative centre for the north of the island.

Even at fourteen, Jonathan was cultivating an impressive mean streak and he became very concerned when two non-payers joined the guided tour and tagged along, he kept trying to draw this to the attention of the guide who eventually responded to the hints and asked them to pay up, much to his satisfaction.  Actually I think freeloading in this way is quite good fun so long as there isn’t a spoilsport like Jonathan around!

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture that flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC but it came to a dramatic end sometime between 1550 and 1630 BC as a result of the eruption on the island of Santorini which is about one hundred kilometres north of Crete.  This eruption was among the largest volcanic explosions in the history of civilization that measured six on the Volcanic Explosivity Index and is just about as big as you can get.  The Yellowstone eruption, six hundred and forty thousand years ago, was the biggest ever and measured eight.  So this would have been a fairly big bang and when it went off you would probably want to be standing well back because it ejected an estimated sixty cubic kilometres of material as it blew the devastated island apart.

To get a sense of perspective try to imagine the county of Essex rising sixty kilometres into the air into the earth’s mesosphere (a terrible thought I agree) and you can get a sense of just how much material that is.  Actually it probably wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Essex blew up in this way, except we would lose Stansted airport I suppose.

As it happened, one hundred kilometres was not far back enough and the eruption devastated the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri on Santorini which was entombed in a layer of pumice and created a huge tsunami that engulfed the island of Crete and destroyed the Palace of Knossos and many other Minoan coastal settlements.  Archaeologists believe that the eruption created a crisis in Minoan society (well I imagine it would) and with trade and agriculture seriously disrupted they were easily conquered by the Mycenaeans from mainland Greece who took their place on the island of Crete.

Athens and Ancient Greece

The Acropolis Museum in Athens

Baring, Anne & Cashford, Jules. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an image, 1991
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths, 1955
Hawkes, Jacquetta. Dawn of the Gods, 1968
Kerényi,Carl. Dionysos: Archetypal image of indestructible life, 1976
Markale, Jean. Women of the Celts, 1972
Pellegrino, Charles. Unearthing Atlantis, 1991
Rush, Anne Kent. Moon, Moon, 1976
Walker, Barbara G. The Womans Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, 1983

Partial Bibiography:

Barnard, Mary (translated). Sappho, 1958
Bell, Robert E. Women of Classical Mythology, 1991
Butler, Alan. The Goddess, the grail, and the lodge: tracing the origins of religion, 2004
Castleden, Rodney. Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete, 1990
Castleden, Rodney. The Knossos Labyrinth, 1990
Chadwick, John. The Mycenaean World, 1976
Chadwick, John. Linear B and Related Scripts, 1987
Christ, Carol, P. She Who Changes, 2003
Condren, Mary. The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, religion and power in Celtic Ireland, 1989
Cottrell, Leonard. The Bull of Minos: the discoveries of Schliemann and Evans, 1953
Dickinson, Oliver. The Aegean Bronze Age, 1994
Durant, Will. The Life of Greece, 1939

Easwaran, Eknath (translated). The Upanishads, 1987
Eisler, Riane. The Chalice & the Blade: Our history, our future, 1987
Ellis, Richard. Imagining Atlantis, 1998
Farnoux, Alexandre. Knossos: Searching for the legendary palace of King Minos, 1993
Feuerstein, Georg. Sacred Sexuality: the erotic spirit in the worlds great religions, 1992
Fraser, Antonia. The Warrior Queens, 1988
Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess: a sweeping visual chronicle of the sacred female and her reemergence in the cultural mythology of our time, 1989
Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess, 1989
Goodrich, Norma Lorre. Priestesses, 1989
Grant, Michael. Myths of the Greeks and Romans, 1962
Grant, Michael. The Ancient Mediterranean, 1969
Graves, Robert. The White Goddess, 1948
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology, 1940
Harrison, Jane. Prolegomena to the study of Greek religion, 1903
Hawkes, Jacquetta. The Atlas of Early Man, 1976
Homer. (Robert Fitzgerald, translated). The Iliad, 1974
Homer. (Robert Fagles, translated). The Odyssey, 1996
Houston, Jean. A Mythic Life, 1996
Johnson, Buffie. Lady of the Beasts: the Goddess and her sacred animals, 1994
Kerényi, Carl. Eleusis: Archetypal image of mother and daughter, 1967
Kerényi, Carl. Athene: Virgin and Mother in Greek religion, 1978
Lane, Richard J. & Wurts, Jay. In Search of the Woman Warrior: four mythical archetypes, 1998
Leonard, Linda Schierse. The Wounded Woman, 1982

Mackenzie, Donald A. Crete and Pre-Hellenic: Myths and Legends, 1917
Matthews, Caitlín. Voices of the Goddess: a chorus of sibyls, 1990
Mellersh, H.E.L. The Destruction of Knossos: the rise and fall of Minoan Crete, 1970
Meyer, Marvin W. (editor). The Ancient Mysteries: sacred texts of the Mystery Religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, 1987
Mountainwater, Shekhinah. Ariadne’s Thread, 1991
Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother: an analysis of the archetype, 1955
Nilsson, Martin P. The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology, 1932
Petrocheilou, Anna. The Greek Caves: a complete guide to the most important Greek caves, 1984
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Gaia & God, 1992
Runnels, Curtis, & Murray, Priscilla M. Greece Before History: an archaeological companion and guide, 2001
Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 1991
Shlain, Leonard. The Alphabet versus the Goddess, 1998
Sjöö, Monica & Mor, Barbara. The Great Cosmic Mother: rediscovering the religion of the earth, 1987
Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: a collection of Pre-Hellenic myths, 1978
Stone, Merlin. Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood: a treasury of Goddess and heroine lore from around the world, 1979
Stone, Merlin. When God was a Woman, 1976
Sykes, Bryan. The Seven Daughters of Eve: the science that reveals our genetic ancestry, 2001
Taylour, Lord William. The Mycenaeans, 1964
Walker, Barbara G. The I Ching of the Goddess, 1986
Warren, Peter. The Aegean Civilizations, 1975
Wilde, Lyn Webster. On the Trail of the Women Warriors: the Amazons in myth and history, 1999