The video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU8U34tUaBU
Subtitles from the video:
Hi! Today we are taking you to the mysterious place, which without a doubt, is the Mount Sanctuary on Mount Juktas. Mount Juktas is the place you can see when you look along the line of temples in Knossos and then through the horns of consecration. Hmm, it’s a big tree. But imagine that you are in Bronze Age. In that time there wasn’t this tree but instead of it there was the top of Mount Juktas with a sanctuary on it. Local tradition, ancient literature, byzantine tradition and testimonies of former travellers locate the tomb of Zeus on this mountain. But look – Cretan Zeus it isn’t the same as Greek, ancient Zeus, because Greek Zeus didn’t die. What is more – he didn’t die a martyr's death and came back to life every year, like Cretan Zeus did.
What was the relationship of Cretan Zeus with the Cretan Great Goddess? Some researchers and also some traditional stories say about the son.
In the sanctuary itself, we don’t find information who was worshiped there. Anyway, I invite you to explore this place with me because peak sanctuaries are typical for Minoan Culture of Bronze Age.
Mount Juktas has two peaks. There is a modern orthodox church on the lower level, but this time I will not visit it. My way leads to higher peak – Psili Korphi with a prehistoric sanctuary. Researchers recognized it as an open air sanctuary, but it had its own architecture. I enter the sanctuary and go up the ramp. The ramp leads to the altar, next to which there is an important, or perhaps the most important part of the sanctuary - a deep chasm.
Altar.
The ruins of the altar are under me.
Beneath the altar are two terraces (one higher second lower).
I’m going to the higher terrace.
Higher terrace under my feet. Altar. Lower terrace. And below the terraces are five rooms, anyway visible in satellite photos. The first excavations in this place were conducted by Arthur Evans. Complementary research was conducted by Alexandra Karetsou in the seventies of the twentieth century.
And here is mentioned chasm. Chasm.
I’m sitting at the edge of the mentioned fissure. It was excavated to the depth of ten meters and the bottom hasn’t been dug. It seems to be the main sacred place of this sanctuary. Above it is an altar. Votive offerings taken from this fissure date back even to the beginning of the Minoan period - about 2.5 thousands, some even say 3,000 years BC, on the border of the Neolithic. The chasm had an even deeper filling, and it is very likely that the offerings are deeper as well, which would indicate that it is a very archaic sacral place. This place is special. Why? Because Minoan people worshipped the Great Goddess on tops of maountains and also in caves, and here is the peak of the mountain and also the chasm into the depths of the earth which is something like a cave. That is, both things in one place. The mountain is a traditional sacred place in all cultures. It has its roots in the depths of the earth and its peak reaches to heaven. Metaphysically, it connects three cosmological zones: the underworld, our earthly world and the heavens above us. Caves, and that would also be applied to a very deep fissures, are what you might call Mother Earth's womb. Even symbolically. They are dark, humid places, and people are born in such dark and humid places. Sacredness immediately comes to mind. Oral tradition dating back to the distant past also leads to such interpretation of caves. As sacred places, connected with the womb of the goddess - Mother Earth. Symbolically Mother Earth, because it is rather about the same goddess - the mistress of the world and the universe. You could say that here is one of the places where the sacred manifests itself. Contemporary speaking, it is an energetic place.
Now let's see the rooms that are situated in a north-south direction. There is a small one. Here another one. And here - this chamber is quite clearly visible in the satellite photos. This is the fourth room coming from the north. Interesting – there is a chasm in this room too. So in this place is greater number of fissures! I go near the fifth room. There is also a fissure in it. It seems that these were sacral rooms, not shelters for priests and worshippers. This is the fissure in the fourth room. Of course, now filled with earth and rubble. I am now going to the fifth room to show the location of the next fissure. It's smaller, but it's still a fissure. Also filled with earth and stones. Look, what a nice view of the ramp. Here is the entrance, from which the ramp leads to the altar. And here was probably the lower terrace. It came to my mind – such first impression in situ about these five rooms. The first three rooms from the north have no fissures. The last two have fissures. Sacrificial fissures - telling you straight away what's going on. So maybe these three rooms without fissures formed a three-partite shrine, characteristic for the Minoans. Such shrine is depicted on the riton of Zakros and shows the peak sanctuary. With clouds, goats, a bird and crowned with horns of consecration. The same shape of the three-partite shrine is known, for example, from Knossos. From a fresco from Knossos. And a similar one was found at Knossos. Perhaps this temple shape is also found in Phaistos. Well, maybe it is like this: the middle room and two side rooms. The middle one is bigger. They form a shrine. And next to them, there are two rooms with fissures. Over there. So maybe there was this shrine and two rooms over there, I don't know how to call them, because we don't know their religion. Sacrificial rooms. Votive offerings were found in such fissures - so maybe it is better to say simply - places where votive offerings were left. However those small fissures seem to be rather additional. The main chasm is this one. After all, it is crowned with an altar. As I mentioned, the researchers looked into it to a depth of 10 meters. What is below and how deep, only people from the past millennia know. Gifts and offerings were found not only in the chasms. Time has scattered them over the altar and on the terraces. They were also in the rooms I was just talking about. Near the main chasm and near the altar at the same time a deposit from almost 4,000 years ago was found, which confirms the special status of this chasm.
This is what the deposit looked like at the time of its discovery. Findings were discovered in a thick layer of ash and the deposit contained 36 votive labryses, pottery (mainly made up from libation vessels), animal bones mainly from small ovicaprids, a large number of clay “pebbles”, triangular clay discs, animal figurines, embrio-shaped figurines and also V shaped clay models reminiscent of schematic bucrania and some objects of uncertain definition. And also charcoal.
The artifacts you are looking at come from the entire sanctuary, not only from this deposit.
And this is a very interesting artifact that was found in this room. It is a seal in the shape of a bull's head, with a star between the horns.
I keep looking around here, slowly walking towards the exit. There is a telephone mast from the year 1952 in the area of the sanctuary and this building connected with it. Excavations under them have never been done. Who knows – maybe there is something even more interesting than where I am.
These thinking was interrupted by my husband's voice, who found something interesting outside the strict area of the sanctuary. Ancient or contemporary? The remains of the old votive offerings and sacrificial vessels can probably be found here from time to time. And, of course, you should leave them where they belong. But considering what we have seen in other places, they can also be modern offerings. For what god? Is it for the Great Goddess? Or for her young companion? Maybe one day we will find out.
That’s all for today. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe because it’s motivating for me. And see you in the next film. Bye. Bye.
Some pictures of The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas
