- A mysterious double wall at the Minoan palace of Archanes has finally been explained.
- It was not sloppy construction, as archaeologists feared — it was engineering genius.
- The angled, rough inner wall served as anti-landslide protection.
- The Minoans then built a second, pretty wall on top so visitors would not judge them for ugliness.
- New finds include Mycenaean pottery, a “fetish shrine” object, elite two-storey rooms, fresco traces, and evidence of centuries of continuous occupation.
For years, archaeologists stared at a certain weird diagonal wall in the courtyard of the Archanes palace and collectively wondered:
“Why, in the name of all frescoed bulls, would the Minoans build something this ugly?”
The stones were unworked.
The alignment was strange.
And the wall blocked a big part of the courtyard for no apparent reason.
It offended every aesthetic nerve of every archaeologist who saw it.
But now, after careful research led by Dr. Efi Sapouna-Sakellarakis, the truth finally emerged:
The Minoans weren’t lazy — they were brilliant.
The wall was anti-landslide infrastructure, built to stop the rock above the palace from sliding down and crushing the elite residents.
Practical, lifesaving, totally clever.
But — because the Minoans had strong opinions about interior design — they could not allow an ugly wall to be seen by anyone approaching the courtyard.
So they built a second wall, beautifully carved, carefully aligned, and matching the rest of the palace.
A functional wall on the inside.
A beautiful wall on the outside.
Basically, ancient Crete invented the architectural equivalent of shapewear.
New Finds: From Mycenaean Cups to… a Fetish Shrine?
Above the elegant wall, the excavation revealed layers from Mycenaean and later periods, including:
- Mycenaean kylikes (because everyone in 1400 BC enjoyed a good drink)
- A Hellenistic wine jug with decorative heads
- A small clay head that had fallen from an upper floor
And then — the star of the show —
a stone with humanoid features believed to come from a “fetish shrine.”
Yes, the official Ministry text used the words fetish shrine.
No further comment needed.
A Palace That Kept Getting Taller
The new excavation seasons (2023–2025) uncovered more of the northern area, including:
- two-storey and three-storey elite rooms
- gypsum columns
- fragments of frescoes
- schist floors
- decorative plaster strips still lying exactly where the Minoans left them
Archanes was not a village palace.
It was a miniature Knossos, right in the middle of what is now a modern town.
A Palace That Refused to Die
The palace suffered a major earthquake around 1700 BC, got rebuilt, thrived until 1450 BC,
got destroyed, and still people never stopped living on the site: Mycenaean, Hellenistic, Roman — everyone stayed.
Even Sir Arthur Evans (yes, the Evans) wandered into Archanes and went, “Hmm, interesting,”
without realising just how massive the palace beneath his feet actually was.
Later, Sakellarakis mapped every underground hint and proved that the entire modern town sits right on top of a Minoan palace. Every basement in Archanes is basically flirting with archaeology.
UNESCO Steps In — Because Crete Just Won Again
The Sakellarakis discovery at Zominthos is now officially on the UNESCO World Heritage List, along with five more Minoan palaces.
New infrastructure, signage, and visitor facilities are underway.
Archanes and Anogeia even created small museums dedicated entirely to objects from these excavations — a rare gift for archaeology lovers.
The Minoans:
- mastered engineering
- decorated everything
- protected their buildings from landslides
- curated their own aesthetic
- built multi-storey palaces
- created shrines with questionable figurines
- and left archaeologists chasing their brilliance centuries later
Meanwhile, modern Crete still occasionally loses a road to rain.
Progress isn’t always linear.