When I was a high school student, I was very fascinated by Greek culture and its myths, including that of Minos. The myth tells that Minos, king of Crete, had a labyrinth built to close us inside the Minotaur, born from the union of his wife with a bull, after a scar on Poseidon, having promised him the sacrifice of that bull, sent by the divinity, and never killed because it was considered too beautiful an animal to sacrifice.
Crete is a fantastic Greek island, surrounded by an incredible sea and here the Minoan civilization was born and developed around 2000 BC. and here the palace of Knossos was built, devoid of defensive walls and a symbol of Cretan hegemony on the Aegean Sea. The palace was built on several floors, each floor was characterized by a large number of rooms and corridors and thus was defined as a labyrinth. The palace of Knossos was dated around 2000 BC but was destroyed by an earthquake and a second palace was built on its foundations around the 16th century BC.
The palace of Knossos was built around a clay court where gymnasts performed and hovered over bulls, a sacred animal for the Cretans, defying death like the gladiators of the Colosseum. Particular of the palace are the famous bathrooms of the queen's apartments which, according to in-depth studies, would be the most advanced of all antiquity, with underground ducts, sewers, drainage channels, hot water always available, probably exploiting the heat deriving from the inside. of the mountain through a complex system of canals.
The Cretans painted exceptional works on the walls of the palace of Knossos with the classic profile view typical of Egyptian art. The reason for this particular representative technique is the cause of the continuous commercial and cultural exchanges between the Cretan and Egyptian civilizations that they imported and modified because here, for the first time, the images were not used to represent concepts and symbols as in art. Egyptian, but to embellish the places of life. Many subjects, both pictorial and sculptural, represent nature in all its beauty, major restoration works have brought to light ancient paintings in which the skill of the artists and the innovative techniques used were really evident.
The area on which the palace of Knossos stands and develops is huge, equal to about 22 thousand square meters, a huge territory placed in the center of nature, indeed surrounded by it, on the height of the island of Crete in order to better observe the sea from all directions. Walking along the perimeter of the city it is possible to observe the foundations of the palaces and houses, temples and barracks, under a hot summer sun but surrounded by a constant breeze coming from the sea and with a magnificent panorama that repays all the hardships .
I took a lot of photos because I am convinced that they can provide much more detail than I can write. Seeing the remains of one of the most ancient civilizations of which we have testimony is really very exciting, as well as observing those millenary remains that could tell us thousands of stories.