Volume 11 , Issue 19

SE Corner of Crete

Al says, "So we're here in the midst of 6,000 years of history, looking forward to understanding several epochs. I'm attaching a few photos of the sea on the south of the island, as seen from the road behind our condo.

"Well, Candace and I are here at Villea Village on the Southeast corner of Crete. We have a Michelin green guide to Greece, and it has a translation of Greek to Latin alphabet so I can now mispronounce the place names more precisely. The island has a rich history. The Minoans were here in 2800 BCE, and supposedly Zeus was born here - if you believe Homer and Hesiod.

The Minoans colonized Santorini (Thera) and Cyprus, and all disappeared about 1530 BCE. In contrast to my first home in Oklahoma, they had indoor plumbing and flush toilets. But I'm not jealous.They had human sacrifice and I just had to go to the Baptist church. Some scholars believe they are the Pharisees of the New Testament.

The Minoans had two cuneiform alphabets, linear A and B. B was translated in 1952, and A is as obscure as the concept of a quark. So we're looking forward to seeing Minoan palaces, Roman ruins, Byzantine relics, the trail of Titus, life under the Venitians (who may have ruled blindly), and, post Constantinople Greece. The people of Crete fought the Turks until 1878, when they won a measure of independence. War continued intermittently until 1941, when the Germans sacrificed 3,000 of their best to take the island."
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