(via the port of Heraklion)
An old fort of the middle ages still guards the habour entrance at Heraklion, but otherwise there is little to recommend the city of Heraklion itself, except as a gateway to Knossos.
No one knows for sure where the Minoans originated, but
it seems likely, especially when looking the frescos and faces of those depicted
in them at Knossos, that Egyptians immigrated to Crete founding the Minoan
culture. Knossos is the site of King Minos' Palace, who
according to myth, was the son of Zeus and Europa. Poseidon gave Minos a rare
white bull to be sacrificed but when he refused to make the sacrifice because of
greed and arrogance, Poseidon punished Minos by causing Minos' wife to fall in love with the divine bull producing a half human,
half bull monster called the Minotaur which Minos imprisoned in the Labyrinth.
Because one of Minos' sons was killed in Athens during the Athenian games, Minos
imposed a tribute of seven young men and seven maidens to be
sent annually as
food for the Minotaur. It was the hero Theseus who eventually ended the tribute
by entering the Labyrinth and killing the Minotaur. And, to honor him, when
Theseus died he was entombed in the Temple of Hephaistos,
near the Acropolis in Athens. This myth is the subject of Mary Renault's
well known novel The King Must Die, published in 1958.
There is no doubt that Twain and his fellow
"pilgrims" would have been fascinated by
Knossos, but alas the site
was completely unknown in 1869, though surely Twain and most other Americans
heard much about the discovery later in the 19th Century. The first artifacts
from the site were recovered as early as 1878. Many, including Heinrich
Schliemann excavator of Troy and Mycenae, tried to buy the site from its
Turkish owners but none succeeded until a British archaeologist and keeper of
the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Sir Arthur
Evans, finally negotiated the purchase in 1900. Evans' name has since been
strongly connected to this site and today, a bust of Evans
stands near the entrance to this historic site. Excavation of Knossos continues
to the present.
The site of Knossos is extremely interesting and has
produced many objects which have been used to illustrate countless textbooks,
and are thus widely recognized. This phenomenal Palace covered about five
and
one half acres and was made up of 
many rooms and related buildings. The
Throne
Room has been reconstructed as well as the King's
Megaron (chambers) and a portion of the Propylaem,
with its procession
fresco. Everywhere the Palace
incorporated brilliantly
colored frescos
incorporating double axe heads, bulls, stylized, bull horns, dolphins (as in the
Queen's Chamber), and many other symbols
important in Minoan culture. One fresco in particular appears to illustrate a
ceremony involving acrobatic maneuvers over the back of a
bull. 
The site is also an interesting study of issues related
to preservation. Evans and others have been widely criticized for taking
"too many" liberties in reconstructing Knossos. Very little of what
one sees while visiting the
site is genuine, and it can be argued
that the site
is as much about the imagination of those who have reconstructed it as it is
about what once really exited there. Of course, the
frescos and other decorative objects at the site now are reproductions, the
genuine frescos (what little is actually left of them) and other articles having
been placed long ago in the collection of the nearby Herakleion Museum. Though
the building and exhibits are not impressive, a visit to the Museum is a must,
to see the famous bull's head rhyton and the small
statue of the Snake Goddess, if nothing else.
In any case, we know for certain that this Minoan palace was in use for over six centuries, even surviving the earthquake caused by the eruption of the nearby volcano of Santorini. But, around 1300 B.C. the Palace was destroyed by fire and eventually the once great Minoan culture disappeared altogether.
For more information, please visit the following websites.
