Palace of Zakros

Minoan palace

The palace of Zakros ( modern Greek Ανάκτορο της Ζάκρου ) is the fourth of the great Minoan palaces of Crete and is located in the extreme east of the island near Kato Zakros (Κάτω Ζάκρος) directly on the sea. The original name of the site could have been Dikta .

history

The discovery of the fourth Minoan palace after Knossos , Phaistos and Mallia was pure accident. A farmer from the mountain village of Zakros , four kilometers away , who had his fields on the fertile small plain on the beach, repeatedly came across numerous large and precisely hewn blocks and fragments of vases while plowing. When the excavations began in 1961, it was initially believed that a Minoan trading town such as Roussolakkos near Palekastro had been found. However, when the excavations were intensified, a fourth Minoan palace was found which, in contrast to the previous one, was largely intact and not looted.

This metal furnace in Kato Zakros, excavated by Nikolaos Platon in 1961, is considered to be the oldest found so far. The air supply to the furnace, in which ores and charcoal were piled up, was controlled by ducts. The liquid bronze was able to flow out through a pouring hole.

Countless clay pots and vases made of crystal were found in the surrounding houses that did not belong directly to the palace. The finds are exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion and the Museum of Sitia .

Surroundings

West of Kato Zakros, a gorge runs through the mountains towards Zakros (corresponds to the last section of the European long-distance hiking trail E4 in Crete). The caves in the rock walls of the gorge were used for burials in Minoan times. Because of the many human remains, the gorge was named " Gorge of the Dead " (Φαράγγι Νεκρών).

literature

Nikolaos Platon: Zakros: The Discovery of a Lost Palace of Ancient Crete. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.
John G. Younger / Paul Rehak: The Material Culture of Neopalatial Crete. In: The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age, ed. v. Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, Cambridge 2008, 140-164.

Individual evidence

^ George L. Huxley: The ancient name of Zakro . In: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies . Volume 8, 1966, pp. 85-87 .

Web links

Commons : Palace of Zakros - collection of images, videos and audio files

Archaeological site in Zakros. Ministry of Culture and Sport (Greece), accessed March 10, 2017 .
Zakros. Minoan Crete, July 12, 2015, accessed March 10, 2017 .

35.098163888889 26.261313888889Coordinates: 35 ° 5 '53.4 " N , 26 ° 15' 40.7" E

[1] George L. Huxley: The ancient name of Zakro . In: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies . Volume 8, 1966, pp. 85-87 .