In 1961, the Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Platon stood at the edge of a bay on the far eastern coast of Crete and began to dig. The site was Kato Zakros, a sheltered harbour facing the Libyan Sea, and Platon had reason to believe something significant lay beneath the olive groves and scrubland. Local reports of carved stone fragments, seal-stones turning up in farmers' fields, and the site's strategic position on ancient trade routes to Egypt and the Levant all pointed to a settlement of importance. What Platon uncovered over the following years exceeded even his expectations: the fourth great palace of Minoan Crete, remarkably unlooted, preserved in a state of sudden abandonment that would yield some of the most extraordinary artefacts in Aegean archaeology. Among them was a small stone cup, unremarkable at first glance. Inside it, compressed and darkened by thirty-four centuries of burial, was the preserved flesh of olives. A Time Capsule Sealed by Catastrophe The Palace of Zakros was destroyed around 1450 BC, most likely by the seismic and volcanic upheaval associated with the eruption of Thera -- the same cataclysm that devastated the island of Santorini and sent shockwaves across the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike Knossos and Phaistos, which were rebuilt and reoccupied after earlier destructions, Zakros was abandoned completely. Its inhabitants fled, leaving behind not only the palace's architecture but its contents: bronze tools, stone vessels, ceremonial rhyta, ingots o...
Unfiltered Cold-Pressed Olive Oil from Crete
Natural Koroneiki olive oil from our family grove in Crete
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