Crete: Mallia and Gournia Archaeological Site and INSTAP Archaeology Study Center

Day one in Crete!

Malia

Our first day in Crete began bright and early. We were separated into two buses, both with their own itinerary for the week. My bus, bus B, was the bus filled with students primarily interested in Archaeology . The two professors in charge of our bus split us up once again, to make tours easier. My professor was named Anne. She teaches the "Archaeology of Athens" course and is absolutely fabulous. 

Our first adventure was at Malia.

Storage Magazines

Malia is the third largest Minoan Palace excavated on Crete. It is massive and parts of it are very well preserved. Much of the site is constructed of clay brick. Normally, this would have deteriorated over time and exposure to the elements. However, Archaeological evidence shows that much of the Palace was set ablaze, thus, preserving the skeleton of the structure.
The best example of this would be the storage magazines. They were used to store Oil. It is theorized that the site was ignited during an earthquake. . There is also evidence that shows some layering of materials. This means that over time, the structure was rebuilt or renovated as it changed hands.
It was very cool to be able to walk around these ancient sites. The palace was obviously the main attraction, but an entire town was build in the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, the remains of the town, including a graveyard, were not open for public viewing. This is a reflection of Greece's economy. There wasn't enough staff to properly monitor the area. 

For the pictures I took, 

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The password is "CYAMalia"

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Anne and the Stone Slab

The next place we visited was Gournia.

Gournia is another Minoan Palace, however, not as well preserved. It is located right on the coast of Crete, which explains how prosperous a place it was in ancient days. Evidence shows that Gournia was excellent for wine production, as well as metal work. Ancient Seals have been discovered on it's pottery, seals that can be found all over Crete. This helps paint a picture of how goods traveled back then. It's location was perfect, as it is right next to a natural harbor. It has everything an early civilization needed in order to thrive with limited technology. Its proximity to the water, however, proved to be its undoing.

Gournia

Archaeologists thought it very curious that remains in Gournia gave the impression that everyone just stopped one day and walked away. Like Malia, this is due to another natural disaster. There seemed to be a volcanic eruption on the neighboring island of Santorini that caused a Tsunami wave to crash over Gournia, thus wiping out the settlement unexpectedly. 

For the pictures I took,

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The password is "GourniaSite"

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Both Sites had the makings of your typical Minoan Palaces. 

This includes a central court of which the rest of the palace would be based around.

Each had their own Stone Slab to carry out Sacrificial Ceremonies. The central court itself is thought to hold many ritual purposes. 

It is not entirely clear how there palaces were governed. Some evidence points to a ruling family, whereas other pieces of evidence would suggest that a ritualistic figure was in charge. In some theory's, the Ruler was the head of ritual. There is no clear evidence for either case.

There is also evidence that these structures were at least two levels, which shows how advanced these civilizations were.

Lustrial Basin at Malia

One structure found in all the sites we visited that I find particularly interesting is the presence of the "Lustrial Basin." Like many other sections and rooms of these ruins, the specific purpose for the Lustrial Basin is unknown. Some believe that they were for bathing. It is argued that the absence of a drain would prove this to be incorrect, but as Anne said "Thats what you have slaves for." The fact that these structures are usually lined with a stone called "Gypsum" is better evidence against them being bathes. Gypsum erodes in water. Their decoration and how well preserved the gypsum suggests that they were of some importance. Gypsum is a pretty white stone, so it is easy to see why someone would want to line their structures in it, but using it as a bath doesn't make since. The best guess at this point is that it was used for ritual purposes.

The last visit of the day was to the INSTAP Archaeology Study Center.

Conservation Center

Holy pottery pieces, Batman.

Storage

This was really interesting, because we got to see how the artifacts get  processed. INSTAP is basically the Archaeology haven of Hellenic studies, and of course, Anne had a hand in the beginning of it. Archaeology programs from all over Crete bring their artifacts to this center to conserve and process them. We got to see how scientists determine where a type of pottery originated from, which is awesome to track trade patterns. We got to hear about the process of reconstructing old pieces of pottery and other artifacts. We even got to see their storage space where there is thousands upon thousands of artifacts stored there that have been processes and much of which is unpublished material. There is a librarian, who works on a year long grant to be there. She gets to work on organizing the library, which is really just putting all their sources on the internet right now. This library has literally everything published about Cretan archaeology. She also just gets to stick around and learn from the Archaeologists who file in and out of the place. This position is up for grabs yearly. It sounds fantastic. Things to keep in mind for the future? I think heck yes.

 For all of the INSTAP pictures,

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The password is "INSTAPisCool"