Unbeknownst to a Greek rancher in southeast Crete, a 3,400-year-old burial place containing two caskets and various Late Minoan curios had been situated underneath his olive field.
Both were buried in large vases, which were elaborately embossed clay coffins that were common in the Minoan culture during the Bronze Age. They were also surrounded by colorful funeral vases that indicated their owners’ high status. The graveyard was eventually covered in stone and forgotten, with the deceased not being identified for nearly 3,400 years.
Earlier this summer, George Dvorsky told Gizmodo that a local farmer accidentally ended the pair’s millennia-long rest. The rancher attempted to leave his vehicle on his property under a concealed olive woods when the ground gave way, constraining him to find another parking space.
The unidentified local noticed a four-foot-wide hole in the area he had just left behind as he started to drive away. The man, perched on the edge of the empty space, realized that “a wonderful thing” had accidentally been found.
A statement says that archaeologists from the Lassithi Ephorate of Antiquities, the local heritage ministry, have started digging under the farmer’s olive grove in Rousses, a small village in southeastern Crete that is just northeast of Kentri, Ierapetra.
The skeletons were discovered inside two larnakes (singular: “larnakes”). larnax”), a Minoan and Greek Bronze Age type of small, closed coffin.
In a pit that was roughly four feet across and eight feet deep, they found the Minoan tomb, which was nearly perfect preserved for its age. A vertical trench led into three carved niches in the interior of the space.
Archaeologists discover a coffin and a variety of vessels scattered across the ground in the northernmost niche. A second coffin, 14 amphorae (Greek jars used for rituals) and a bowl were found in the southernmost niche.
According to the Lassithi Ephorate of Antiquities, two Minoan men were buried in the Crete tomb approximately 3,400 years ago. According to Kristina Kilgrove of Forbes, the high quality of the pottery that was left in the tomb indicates that the people who were buried there were relatively wealthy. However, she points out that more elaborate beehive-style tombs can be found at other burial sites from the same Late Minoan period.
According to Kilgrove, “these [men] could be wealthy, but not the wealthiest.”
According to Argyris Pantazis, deputy mayor of Local Communities, Agrarian, and Tourism of Ierapetra, a local news outlet called Cretapost, “the Kentri grave was never discovered by thieves.”
As a matter of fact, the site probably would have stayed fixed in unendingness notwithstanding the opportunity mediation of a wrecked water system pipe, which watered down the dirt encompassing the rancher’s olive forest and prompted his startling stopping calamity.
Pantazis said in an interview with Cretapost, “We are particularly pleased with this great archaeological discovery because it is expected to further enhance our culture and history.” In point of fact, this is also a response to those who question the existence of Minoans in Ierapetra.
Archaeology News Network says that the majority of Minoan settlements on Crete are in the plains and lowlands, not Ierapetra’s mountainous areas.
Nevertheless, a Minoan mansion from roughly the same period as the Kentri tomb was discovered during an excavation that took place in Anatoli, Ierapetra, in 2012.
According to Mark Cartwright’s notes for the Ancient History Encyclopedia, the Minoans are most famous for their labyrinthine palace complexes, which likely inspired the classic Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. This latest discovery provides additional evidence of the ancient civilization’s presence. After falling for a bull sent to Earth by the Greek god Zeus, Queen Pasiphae of Crete is said to have given birth to the Minotaur, a fierce hybrid that is half man and half bull.
The demigod Theseus, who relied on an enchanted ball of thread provided by the king’s daughter, Ariadne, defeated the Minotaur, who was doomed to spend an eternity wandering the halls of an underground labyrinth and killing everyone it came across.
Although much about the Minoans’ history is still unknown, Forbes’ Kilgrove says that natural disasters like the Thera volcano eruption, earthquake, and tsunami helped the Minoans fall, making it easier for enemies like the Mycenaeans to invade. The Minoan-Mycenaean rivalry and the demise of the Cretan civilization may be clarified by examining the excavated Kentri tomb.
