Ancient palace of Phaistos at Crete island in Greece
Phaistos (Greek: Φαιστός), also transliterated as Phaestos, Festos and Latin Phaestus, currently refers to a Bronze Age archaeological site at Faistos, a municipality in south central Crete. Ancient Phaistos was located about km ( mi) east of the Mediterranean Sea. The name, Phaistos, survives from ancient Greek references to a city in Crete of that name, shown to be, in fact, at or near the current ruins. The name is substantiated by the coins of the classical city. They display motifs such as Europa sitting on a bull, Talos with wings, Heracles without beard and being crowned, or Zeus in a form of a naked youth sitting on a tree. On either the obverse or the reverse the name of the city, or its abbreviation, is inscribed, such as ΦΑΙΣ or ΦΑΙΣΤΙ, for Phaistos or Phaistios (adjective, "of Phaistos") written either right-to-left or left-to-right. These few dozen coins were acquired by collectors from uncontrolled contexts. They give no information on the location of Phaistos. Phaistos was located by Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt, commander of the Spitfire, a paddle steamer, in the Mediterranean Survey of 1853, which surveyed the topography, settlements and monuments of Crete. Spratt followed the directions of Strabo, who said: "Of the three cities that were united under one metropolis by Minos, the third, which was Phaestus, was razed to the ground by the Gortynians; it is sixty stadia distant from Gortyn, twenty from the sea, and forty from the seaport Matalum; and the country is held by those who razed it." The simple geometric problem posed by these distances from known points was solved with no difficulty by the survey. The location pinpointed was the eastern end of a hill, or ridge, rising from the middle of the Yeropotamos river valley extending from the sea to the Mesara Plain in an east-west direction. The hill was called kastri ("fort"). A military man, Spratt understood the significance of the location immediately: "I thus found
Size: 4706px × 3104px
Location: Ancient Phaistos palace, Crete island, Greece
Photo credit: © PANAGIOTIS KARAPANAGIOTIS / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: aegean, ancient, antiquity, archaeology, archeological, archeology, architecture, balkans, building, city, civilization, creta, crete, culture, destination, europe, european, faestos, faistos, greece, greek, hellas, historic, historical, island, kreta, krete, kriti, landmark, landscape, location, mediterranean, minoan, palace, phaestos, phaistos, place, ruins, settlement, site, structure, summer, temple, tourism, touristic, travel, vacation
