MetaFilter posts tagged with crete

Knossos

homunculus — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:16:14 -0800

Knossos: Fakes, Facts, and Mystery. "The masterpieces of Minoan art are not what they seem... The truth is that these famous icons are largely modern. As any sharp-eyed visitor to the Heraklion museum can spot, what survives of the original paintings amounts in most cases to no more than a few square inches. The rest is more or less imaginative reconstruction, commissioned in the first half of the twentieth century by Sir Arthur Evans, the British excavator of the palace of Knossos (and the man who coined the term 'Minoan' for this prehistoric Cretan civilization, after the mythical King Minos who is said to have held the throne there). As a general rule of thumb, the more famous the image now is, the less of it is actually ancient."

The Fastest Feet in Crete

bokeh — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:07:38 -0800

"He wore a black Cretan shirt, his clothing was in tatters and his patched boots - the semi-detached sole of one of which was secured to its upper with a thick strand of wire - were coming to bits on his feet. ..It was gruelling work, but in an interview many years later Psychoundakis made light of the hundreds of miles he covered at a run: "I felt as if I were flying, so light and easy - just like drinking a cup of coffee." A humble shepherd with a love of literature, George Psychoundakis, AKA The Cretan Runner, was an integral part of the resistance during the Nazi invasion of Crete (sorry, clunky Flash Gallery, but worth it for the moustaches). He would regularly run at night for miles across rugged mountain landscapes, carrying messages and equipment for the Allies. When the war was over, he was rewarded with a medal, and imprisonment for desertion. He was discovered in confinement by Patrick Leigh Fermor, who arranged his release, and translated Psychoundakis' compelling life-story, The Cretan Runner. Before his death in 2006, he spent his retirement translating the works of Homer and, in a final act of irony and humanity, tending the German war cemetery in Maleme. Lots more at John Dillon's Battle of Crete site.

Minoa destroyed by tidal wave 1500 BC

stbalbach — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:15:59 -0800

Recent scientific evidence suggests the Minoa civilization on Crete was wiped out by a massive tidal wave around 1,500 BC, the same time the Santorini volcano erupted, 70 km north of Crete, up to ten times more powerful than the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. "Perhaps we now have an explanation of [the Atlantis myth] - a folk memory of a real ancient civilisation swallowed by the sea."

Cyclops? Or Elephant precursor

djspicerack — Tue, 21 Jan 2003 12:30:51 -0800

Did Noman find it? Scientists on the Greek isle of Crete have found what could prove to be a "cyclops". Truly, it is a creature whose skeleton has been found in pieces, and there is a significant hole in the skull for the opening to the trunk, which people many, many years ago might have "invented" the stories of what this creature was when they found its remains. That is, if you don't believe that the stories brought to us through spoken word and attributed to the blind man, Homer...

lagado — Tue, 24 Sep 2002 23:06:51 -0800

In 1900 a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck of an ancient merchant ship off the tiny island of Antikythera near Crete. The corbita, dating from the first century B.C., was heavily laden with treasure of all kinds, original bronze life-size statues, marble reproductions of older works, jewelry, wine, fine furniture and one immensely complicated scientific instrument. The Antikythera mechanism was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox with dials on the outside and a complex clockwork assembly of gears inscribed and configured to produce solar and lunar positions in synchronization with the calendar year. By rotating a handle on its side, its owner could read on its front and back dials the progressions of the lunar and synodic months over four-year cycles. The device has been estimated to be accurate to 1 part in 40,000. (more inside...)

talos — Fri, 25 May 2001 05:11:57 -0800

Amazing Photo of real hand to hand combat. The page is in Greek but the (600K) picture on top is, I think, worth your while. This is a photo taken by a British liaison officer to the partisans in the Greek island of Crete during WWII (named John Eberson or Emberson), as a group of guerillas confronts a German patrol. What is amazing is the fact that Emberson reached for his camera instead of his gun... This is the closest view of a combat situation I've ever seen captured on film - does anyone know of anything similar on the web? Caption translation inside this thread's comments.