After a frenetic early morning rush to dress and pack out of the Olympic Hotel this morning, our heroes took an hour-long bus ride through the mountainous, pastoral countryside of Crete to the Minoan population center of Malia. Malia was a fairly large community based on the remains we have of both houses and food storage facilities found in a so-called “palace” structure at the center of the town. Only a few hundred yards from the water, Malia appears to have had a port facility, but little remains on which to base this. The site is well maintained and extremely well preserved – surprisingly large amounts of both mud brick and lime plaster survive because the buildings were destroyed by fire. The site is a little far from major towns, but would definitely warrant a visit if you are ever in the area.

Visiting Malia provided me with a completely different perspective than that I had developed from reading books and looking at slides back at Dartmouth. Primarily, I had never managed to put the size of the buildings into context. They seemed tremendous structures on a scale hard to comprehend (perhaps due to my relative lack of familiarity with the metric system, in which all calculations are provided). To my surprise, the footprint of the Malia palace would have fit into the footprint of a Super Wal-Mart or other big box store. Taking the period in which it was built into account, the building’s size is very impressive because it represents the creation of a two or three storied stone structure without modern technology and with only draft animals and people to haul the stones and large wooden support beams into place. However, next to a lot of the malls, grocery stores, and big box stores that I grew up with as an American, the building’s size was kind of a shock. I had some of this shock yesterday at Knossos as well. Due to the proportions, I didn’t really have this feeling at the Parthenon. I did, however, realize that it had looked a lot bigger in the pictures. I have a feeling that I might feel similarly about some of the great European castles of the Medieval Period that I’ve always wanted to visit.

After being surprised by the discrepancy between the actual size of the palace and that conjured by my overactive imagination, I began to think more about the size of the building. Clearly, the Minoans had a reason to build these structures. The reason I had interpreted from classes and readings had been primarily as a way of impressing others, a dwelling for royalty or nobility, and a center of cult worship. However, what was mentioned but I neglected to absorb is the fact that much of the extant remains of these Minoan palaces are storage facilities for agricultural produce, especially at Malia. The size of the building was determined greatly by the function, and an important part of the building’s function was to provide room for grain, wine, olive oil, and any other agricultural surpluses that may have existed.

Professor Rutter’s lectures yesterday and today strongly reinforced my dawning belief that the buildings were not just aristocratic and cult centers. He interpreted the palaces more as community centers with space for functions important to the community and not so much as monarchical centers of power to which tribute was sent in the form of agricultural goods. This was especially evident in the east wing of the older palace. Simple rubble walls housed long aisles filled with tremendous storage jars called pithoi. The floor was plastered, channeled, and carefully graded such that any spilled liquid would flow into a pot set into the floor from which it could be ladled out and returned to a jar. A group of people who valued their agricultural goods so highly and used such simple masonry clearly were very concerned with farming and perhaps not so concerned with generating grandiose impressions. While the palaces clearly were beautiful buildings to behold, a large part of their function was as a storage facility for the food supplies of the settlement. In order to have any other development at the site, as we are constantly reminded in history and even in current events, a steady food supply must be established. If people do not have enough to eat, it is highly unlikely that they will construct a work of monumental architecture for religious reasons or to house aristocrats. Almost certainly they will not build something grand for vanity’s sake if they are on the verge of starvation. It seems that this might explain fairly well why we have many palaces in areas where modern-day agriculture is rich, but very few in areas with poorer climates for agriculture.

After examining the palace in detail and comparing it to the one at Knossos, we visited a number of other buildings from the same settlement, including a glance through the fence at the tomb of a Minoan of high status. Several of the sites included elaborately designed roofing structures that looked like airplane hangars without enclosed sides that provided protection for the sites but allowed people to easily access the sites and see them with lots of natural light. We took a break for lunch on the beach, and I doubt we could have found a better location. The green mountains rising majestically behind us and the open expanse of the blue water in front of us created panoramic views that made everyone reach for his or her camera. The water was a little cold, but a few of us decided to brave it. We were rewarded with a refreshing coolness that reminded me of plunging into Lake George as a boy. We then walked back to the van and drove to the archaeological museum of Ayios Nikolaos, which offered a number of interesting Minoan artifacts which were fairly nicely displayed and provided with proper lighting. After that, we went through the process of finding our own hotel, which you’ll hear more about in the comments below.