"This is a great day for Ierapetra." The words of the vice-mayor of the town, which few people have heard of outside Crete, seem to be a kind of provincial bragging, an attempt to impress the local press. In fact, Argiris Pantatsis, vice-mayor of Ierapetra, greatly downplayed the significance of the discovery: if the first conclusions of archaeologists are confirmed, the "great day" will come not only for his city, but also for Crete, Greece and all specialists studying the Minoan civilization.
The first civilization of Europe, the Palace of Knossos and his famous frescoes, King Minos and his labyrinth, the legend of the Minotaur, the cult of the bull and the double ax, the Phaistos disc that cannot be deciphered, the eruption of a volcano on the island of Thira (Santorini) as one of the reasons for the decline of the great people and connection with the legend of Atlantis - even those who have never been interested in the Minoan civilization and have not been to Crete, have heard at least something of the above.
First Minoan Larnax found at Kentry (Ierapetra).
Only Ierapetra - a former fishing village and now a tiny town on the southern coast of Crete - has always been a stranger to this celebration of ancient life. Nothing outstanding has ever been found here: all the few Minoan artifacts presented in the local museum have been found in the villages adjacent to Ierapetra. On the archaeological map of Crete, the Ierapetra region stands out as an unattractive void for scientists and tourists.
Map of Crete with major archaeological finds. The yellow arrow points to the area of Ierapetra.
August 8, 2018 for Ierapetra came the same "great day": found! All publications of Crete reported about an outstanding find. On August 9, the first news was supplemented with details: two intact Minoan burials were found, perhaps there is a third nearby. On August 11, the major news site Greek Reporter published a list of the most important archaeological discoveries in Greece over the past ten years, and the “freshest” find in Ierapetra topped the list.
Promotional video:
The circumstances of the discovery are rather curious: chance is still the archeologist's best friend, but this find took a whole chain of accidents.
A farmer from Kentry, a village on the outskirts of Ierapetra, was about to park his car in the shade of olive trees. Suddenly, the ground under his car subsided, and a man-made object, similar to a stone with a relief image, was found in the resulting hole.
“The ground under the car sagged because the olive-tree irrigation pipe broke and the whole area was flooded. When trying to park a heavy car, the wet soil underneath just collapsed. The farmer immediately called in specialists, and it turned out that an important archaeological find had been made by chance,”Argiris Pantatsis, vice-mayor of Ierapetra, told reporters.
"Wow, I parked on someone's grave," said the discouraged farmer.
An object that looked like a stone turned out to be a clay larnax - this is how sarcophagi of the pre-Greek period are called, when the (Greek) word "sarcophagus" did not exist. Nearby, in the same cavity, archaeologists who arrived at the site discovered a second larnax.
One is shaped like a bathtub, the other is a clothes chest. This is how the sarcophagi of the Late Minoan period III, created almost 3500 years ago, should look like. The find is the rarest: the graves were not looted, both were perfectly preserved and human remains were found in each.
The cavity in the collapsed soil turned out to be a tomb. According to reports in the Greek press, however, it is not clear which one: vaulted (tholos) or domed. Both types were common in the late Minoan III period. The dimensions of the tomb (4 * 4 meters), clay larnaxes, burial gifts (24 ceramic vessels with colored reliefs and images) made it possible to attribute the burials to 1500-1400 BC. The remains in the tomb under the olive trees belong not to the noble, but to the wealthy inhabitants of ancient Crete.
“While examining the territory, we noticed another area with sagging soil, a few meters from the place where the first larnaxes were found. The second cavity was formed in the same way as the first - quite by accident, as a result of excessive watering due to a broken pipe. I have already looked into this pit and am sure that there is definitely a third larnax there, at least. But this should be confirmed by archaeologists who have already begun excavations here,”the curious vice-mayor of Ierapetra (who is responsible, among other things, for the development of tourism) told reporters.
Excavation of late Minoan burials in an olive grove at Kentry, Ierapetra.
Urgent excavations at the farm site were led by Yannis Papadatos, a professor of archeology called on the occasion from the University of Athens. He was joined by 15 archaeological students from all over Greece, for whom the chance to participate in such a study may be the only one in their life.
“The significance of this discovery for our history and culture is simply enormous. At the same time, this is our answer to those who said, they say, there were no Minoans in Ierapetra. There were!”, - said, as you might have guessed, absolutely happy Argiris Pantatsis, vice-mayor and great patriot of little Ierapetra.
Maria Myasnikova