If the findings in CALENDAR HOUSE (Ancientlights.org) about links between Minoan astronomy, objects, structures and icons are correct—and, if the leading archaeologists cited there are correct about Minoan social forms and politics—then this is what we’d expect to find on a landscape still giving up its ancient secrets. To explain:
Last summer (June 2024), Greece was breaking ground for a new airport-assisting radar station atop Papoura Hill, northwest of the town of Kastelli in eastern Crete (about 50 miles from Knossos). Their digging-in immediately uncovered a Middle Minoan-period ritual structure (shown above) dating from 2000-1700 BCE, the same period when Minoan clans were also building the first Knossos “Labyrinth” (meaning “House of the Double Axe”). The structure is over 300 feet wide, is Minoan-unique for its round shape, and presents 8 concentric stone-built circles plus a ninth point at the center with the figure “X” in lithic blocks. Note that while the photo above (taken soon after first-discovery) appears to show only ruined walls and a mal-formed “X” figure, more digging has exposed that both original features are very sharply defined indeed.
The correlations between Papoura Hill and the range of central Minoan forms, objects and structures is virtually obvious. (For detailed documentations of how old, long-lived, extensive and richly meaningful this “X in a circle” form was, see Calendar House Chapter 9: http://ancientlights.org/CalendarHouse/ch9.html). Again, Papoura is what we should expect to find, if far-flung yet interconnected Early and Middle-period Minoan ancestors A) already had a well-formed conception of calendric lunar/solar astronomy, and B) really did practice the heterarchic social and political values underwritten by those observations of nature (all things have their limits, their rises-and-falls-and-rebirths, and nobody gets too much power or for too long).
Papoura’s archaeologists already state that the site’s wealth of animal-bones and food-related ceramics evidence this circle’s use in “periodic community-wide ritual feasts with food, wine and other offerings” (the “periodic” meaning, festivals timed by a calendar). Like the turn-taking towns inscribed on the Antikythera Mechanism, Papoura’s communities took their turn(s) playing host in a place at a healthy distance from Knossos—and, with such a structure, showed off their independent and unique originality in how they chose to represent and ritualize their people’s common astronomy. From here, we almost have to infer other yet-undiscovered places where regional Minoans created their own also-unique forms expressing the same lunar/solar cycle. The civilization that bequeathed us the Olympics knew the benefits of healthy competition.
What would it mean to “ritualize astronomy” in such a place and structure? There are acres of evidence that in ancient Egypt people lived (and died, and lived again) through mimicry of and participation in the cycles of sun and moon. This is to say that people learned their orientations in nature and society through quasi-programmatic education, initiation, and social reproduction (ensuring continuity down the generations). One of the chief agreed functions of Knossos Labyrinth was exactly parallel: initiation into knowledge and “mysteries,” by way of forms and experiences constructed by their elders.
The photo of Papoura Hill above (taken from a drone) makes those 8 stone circles or walls look low to the ground. In fact, when you stand at the site (and I have), you see that the concentric walls are about 1.7 meters or 5-and-1/2 feet high: you cannot see into the center from outside. The very center was also possibly roofed-over. More, archaeologists have already exposed deep lateral passages between the circles. So what we have appears to be a labyrinth (or house of the double-axe), through which people likely of all ages had to find their ways in, to behold and learn about the central cyclic form—and find their ways out again, to what probably felt like a return to the land of the living. The wild surrounding hills and the wide green plateau far below would be greeting you, not to mention clear blue sky or millions of night-time stars.
Here’s a cup of wine (or two), a roasted joint of mutton, wild music fetching people to their feet, and not a king in sight: I hope Papoura opens as a monument to a way of life still worth living.
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