|
HERAKLION, CRETE, GREECE - General Information, Places to Visit
|
|
GREECE,
CRETE, CITY OF HERAKLION
|
|
Heraklion,
also Heraklio, Iraklion or Irakleio is the major city and capital
of the island of Crete. It is also the capital of the prefecture
of the same name. It has an international airport named after
the writer Nikos Kazantzakis. The ruins of Knossos, which were
excavated and restored by Arthur Evans, are nearby.
|
|
GREECE, CRETE, HOW TO GET TO HERAKLION
|
|
Heraklion
Transportation: The city has
an international airport code HER. There are several flights
a day from Athens to Heraklion, with Aegean Airlines or Olympic
Airlines. From April to early November, there are many direct
charter flights to Chania from the UK, Germany, Scandinavia and
other European countries. You can also get to Heraklion by boat.
There are daily boats to the port of Heraklion from Athens, Piraeus
port. There also connections by boat to Heraklion from many Aegean
islands.
|
|
GREECE, CRETE, HERAKLION - HISTORY
|
|
Heraklion
is close to the ruins of the palace of Knossos, which in Minoan
times was the biggest centre of population on Crete. So it is
very likely that there was a port here as long ago as 2000 BC.
There is however no archaeological evidence for such a port. Other
very important Minoan era ruins are found in or around Archanes
village a few km after Knossos, in Anemospilia, Fourni and Vathipetro.
The present city of Iraklion was founded in 824 AD by the Saracens
an Arabic Muslim people. They built a giant ditch around the
city for protection. They named the city Khandak, meaning 'moat',
after the ditch. The Saracens allowed the port to be used as a
safe haven for pirates, much to the annoyance of the nearby Byzantine
Empire. In 961, the Byzantines attacked and defeated the city,
slaughtered all the Saracens, looted the city and burned it to
the ground. They remained in control of the rebuilt Khandak for
the next 243 years. In 1204, the city was bought by the Venetians
as part of a complicated political deal which involved among other
things, the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade restoring the deposed
Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelus to his throne. The Venetians
improved on the ditch by building enormous fortifications, most
of which are still in place, including a giant wall, in places
up to 40m thick, with 7 bastions, and a fortress in the harbour.
The name Khandak became Candia in Italian. The city retained the
name of Candia for centuries, and the whole island of Crete was
often called Candia as a result. After the Venetians came the
Turks of the Ottoman Empire. They besieged the city for 22 years
in a bloody war in which 30,000 Cretans and 120,000 Turks died.
The Venetians eventually handed it over in 1669. The city was
renamed during the Turkish occupation to Megalo Kastro big castle.
During their occupation, the harbour silted up, so they moved
most of their business to Hania in the west of the island. The
city only became truly Greek with the withdrawal of the Turks
in 1898. At this stage, the Greeks decided to rename the city
to something Greek, so they chose the name Iraklion, meaning City
of Heracles Hercules, after the port of Heracleum which had
existed somewhere in the locality in Roman times. The biggest
monument of the city is the Venetian medieval fortress Rocca al
Mare also known as Koules located on the port.
|
|
GREECE, CRETE, HERAKLION - KNOSSOS
|
|
Knossos
alternative spellings Knossus, Cnossus, Gnossus is the largest
Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete, probably the ceremonial
and political center of the Minoan culture. Knossos, also known
by its romantic name of the Palace of Minos, was discovered by
Sir Arthur Evans in 1894. However, the civil war in Crete against
the Turks intervened, and it was not until March 16, 1900 that
Evans was able to purchase the entire site and conduct massive
excavations. Assisted by Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, who had already
distinguished himself by his excavations on the island of Melos,
and Mr. Fyfe, the British School of Athens architect, Evans employed
a large staff of excavators and by June of 1900 had uncovered
a large portion of the palace. The site has a very long history
of human habitation, beginning with the founding of the first
Neolithic settlement in ca. 7000 BCE. Over time and several different
phases of growth that had their own social dynamic, Knossos grew
in size until, by the 19th to 16th centuries BCE during the 'Old
Palace' and the succeeding 'Neo-palatial' periods, the settlement
possessed monumental administrative and religious central building
i.e., the Palace but also a surrounding settlement of 5000-8000
people. A long-standing debate between archaeologists is whether
the Palace acted primarily as an administrative or religious center
or, more likely, was a combination of both in a theocratic manner.
Other important debates consider the role of Knossos in the administration
of Bronze Age Crete, and whether Knossos acted as the primary
center, or was on equal footing with the several other contemporary
palaces that have been discovered on Crete. Many of these palaces
on Crete were destroyed and abandoned in the early part of the
15th century BCE, possibly by the Mycenaeans, although Knossos
remained in use until destroyed by fire about one-hundred years
later. One of the more remarkable discoveries at Knossos was the
extensive murals that decorated the plastered walls. All were
very fragmentary and their reconstruction and re-placement into
rooms by the artist Piet de Jong is not without controversy. These
sophisticated, colorful paintings portray a society who, in comparison
to the roughly contemporaneous art of Middle and New Kingdom Egypt,
are conspicuously non-militaristic. In addition to scenes of women
and men linked to activities like fishing and flower gathering,
the murals also portray athletic competitions, likely of a ritual
nature, in which youths performed daring acrobatics on the backs
of charging bulls. Toreador Fresco Ariadne's throne. The centerpiece
of the palace was the so-called Throne Room. This chamber has
a dramatic chair built into the wall, facing a number of benches.
This room has a tank which it is speculated was used as an aquarium.
Other parts of this extremely large palace include spacious apartments
with running water in terra-cotta pipes, flush toilets; long halls
with storerooms containing huge ceramic jars used to store grain;
the world's earliest-known amphitheater with tiers of stone steps
seating 200, and religious shrines. The palace is about 130 meters
on a side and since the Roman period has been associated as the
source of the myth of the Labyrinth.
|
|
