The Palace of Knossos (Heraklion)

The Journey

Wake Up, Wake up, Wake the Heck Up !!!!

That’s just my normal clock! You see approximately 48 hours ago, I had planned to go to Palace of Knossos but A man have to serve his country as well right? so the night before the planned trip, I am sorry, on the morning of the planned trip I was knocking out tasks at my job making sure this Muslim gives a 110% to the defense of this Great Nation.  I finished my work, prayer Fajr and then knocked on my bed and slept like yogi the bear after his unsuccessful attempt to steal a food baskets from his Jelly Stone park.

2 hours later, the First Rays of the New Rising Sun shines on my face, the unmerciful sun has risen and now we have what the ancient people would regard as morning. Its 0800 Eastern European Time Zone and I buzz that vulgar alarm, well then it turn 0805 and the second alarm rings. This time it’s less derogatory , the seven nation army by The White Stripes. The best lyrics of the song “Don’t want to hear about it, every body has got a story to tell” ofcourse I had many to tell but I rather see the Splendors of Allah then tell my stories.

Anyways, instead of telling a story I wake up, take a shower.  Make my breakfast and as I am about to eat my breakfast I see my friends outside looking like they are waiting. Shit! I look at my Casio Navigator its 0850, meaning T-10 for us to get the f out of our hotels and on our route. I hesitantly open the window and nervously ask them, “Hey fellas when are leaving?” hoping one of us is late, but nope these are professionals I work with 0900 is 0900 to them and they had been staking out since 0830 or probably earlier.

Shit shit shit. I pass my breakfast to scrappy to devour it screaming “Enjoy these delicious pancakes scrappy! They were meant for you!”  Run upstairs, grab whatever I could find from my wardrobe. Grab my DJI drone (#ArsalanCoolestBrother), Go pro (#VancouverFriends), Personal cell, Duty Cell, ID’s, keys, Euros, Portable charger and mix them all in my Blue North face bag and rush down. Its 0855, I’ve made it, otherwise these young professional were going to leave me or at least hold me upside down until I promised to make them some delicious Pakistani food for getting them late.

We get in the car; I give my car keys to my friend to drive. I am not ready to drive this 2-3 hour long drive in this sleep deprived psychical and psychological state, and I am not going to risk others lives on that, so I let one of my friend drive and call dibs on the back seat to take a Nap.

The drive is beautiful; Greece is actually a country of gods. Not a single point less than the mythical stories that surrounds it. This is a 2 hour 30 minutes drive, 3 hour with the ‘SAFE” driver I choose! so much for being safe driver, this guy almost crashed us, funny thing is I have on the video. Regardless in our route we saw soo many beautiful towns. All the towns were similar in terms of design but different in their in the layout of structures. You could say that every town had a aspect that was attributed to their favored Greek gods.

The roads are pure romantic, curvy like “Laam” letter of Arabic calligraphy, soothing like the Sound of Latin language and beautiful like the Lake Shore drive on a Sunny Summer. These are the same roads you see in Froza Horizon or other PS4/Xbox Games not like the road in the states filled with pot holes (uhm uhm uhm Chicago, Jk not Jk love you Windie). Logically speaking these roads are made to make love with sports car like Porsche, Audi and Lambo’s and when you are driving in at insane speeds you can’t get into a pot hole. You know you will flip over and ahhhh possibly die! So no wonder these roads are smooth like silk. Roads were great, but the route it self reminded me of the maps of Need for speed Games I palyed when I was 12. Beautiful, curvy, wide, elevated and scenic and dangerous just like the ones my dad used to drive at in Muree, or the ones I drove at with Arsalan in Arkansas. (Don’t worry nothing is going to happen to me as long as I have my mother’s blessings. #TriedAndProven22Years)

Regardless, 2 hours of pure magnificent creation of Allah passes through my young immature eyes. And I finally fall asleep; basically pass out from sleep deprivation and processing the landscape splendors.  Its 1145 now, my friend wakes me up so I can record some footage of the city of Heraklion.

The city is built on mountains, densely populated, with narrow roads and gigantic tour buses. Our small Rented Toyota (Fed Budget didn’t approve me a Jaguar’s Request)  seems like a peanut in front of them. There are shops everywhere, some of them for souvenir, some for rental of Cars, Scooters, Quad bike, Diving gears, Tour guides and then there were restaurants ranging from Mediterranean cuisines, to continental and of course my favorite DESI.

Heraklion! My foodie friend in the Island of Crete knows it as the only city that has, you guessed it,
Mc-Yes-Donalds, my History Guru’s knows it for the Palace of Knossos – The Oldest Modern European City, and my PC/XBOX/PS4 Gamer friends call it the Prison of Minotaur. You know the half Bull, half human hurbrid creature. Not biggies just a home to the undoubtedly most legendary mythical creature! A monster that featured in almost every mythical game, especially in all the God of War series.

So the checklist was clear extensive tour of the Palace of Knossos followed by “All you can eat at McDonalds”. We reach the palace at 1200, park our car in their lot. Its winter and here is the pro-tip, winter is the best time to explore Greece as there is little to no hustling crowd and the weather is not that bad, especially if you have the Chicago thick skin to withstand -5 Celsius on a half sleeves.  Sadly and proudly apart from spending 15 years in the deserts of UAE, and Pakistan this guy has been a Chicago, Seattle and Vancouver Native for five year so hot isn’t hot for me and cold isn’t cold for me and, extreme Weather and past poverty to afford heat or AC had made me into wolverine only 300 times more uglier than Hugh Jackman so where my friends were insulting them selves with those thermal jackets. I just put on my Express shirt and a thin H&M blazer to keep me warm.

I walk out, grab my Bag from the trunk, and walk to the booth to buy the ticket. We buy our tickets, as of 3Jan17 full tickets are €15, however I flashed my UoC ID and got mine for a reduced price of €8, Next we hired a native as the tour guide. Yes we read a lot about the palace before coming, but a guide act as a primary source and knows facts that are not written in mainstream books (#HistoryByMurrey). The guide was pricey, abut about 80 Euro for 6 People, but I am not just American, I am a Pakistani-American A hybrid and I ended up making a better deal on the prices with this guy. Deal is done we hire him. Old Greek citizen, a certified tour guide so no BS being sold to us. The guys leads the way, the gates of the palace are electronic we scan our tickets , they open like Ali baba’s cave and then we walk in.

Enter in Knossos

According to UCL archeologist Todd White Law “Knossos is the biggest archeologist site in the island of Crete, he further claims it as the oldest modern city of Europe. Now Imagine this, I am guy born in the country that according to Gregory L. Possehl holds world’s earliest major cities, I am talking about The Great Mohenjo Daro, or “Mound of the Dead”, a county that’s close by to the world first civilization Mesopotamia civilization (Iraq) and now I get to see the Oldest Modern European City. Do you know what that means? I am finally close enough to beat my dad in ancient world’s exploration. #UnderdogTraveller
Stone AGE and Neolithic civilization

Going back to the history of the Palace, The first civilization to inherit these lands was the Neolithic civilization, The New Stone Age civilization. Since Crete is surrounded by the Mediterranean seas, it is suggested that these settlers reached this island from mainland Greece via early boats. The palace and is surrounding village prospered with time, The Early Neolithic Period (6000–5000 BC) hosted 200–600 citizens, the Middle Neolithic, (5000–4000 BC) housed 500–1000 citizen. The site continued to be occupied in the Pre-palatial period and (3000-2000 BC), and at the height the max population of first palace was 18,000.

Bronze Age and End of Neolithic Civilization and Enter the Minoan Empire

Although the Aegean bronze Age started in 3300 BC, when civilizations developed a far reaching network of trade, mining of bronze techniques and evolution of navigational knowledge, the Aegean bronze age came to the island of Crete on 2700 BC and newly earned profit and influence genrated from trade resulted in the change of socio-economic structures in Crete and previous elite classes were replaced by the new ones. The stone age had started to show its effect on the island of Crete, there was a new civilization that ruled Crete and the area of Knossos- the Minoan Civilization. This was a strong and advanced civilization ruling the island of Crete and its major cities including Knossos. it constructed commerce centers and handiwork shops in several locations around the island giving it more influence around the island .

To marks its progress in 2000 AD, the Minoan civilization built the first Palace of Knossos at Knossos. At its completion it was one of the most sophisticated palace of its time with amenities that were found in palaces other modern civilization such as Egypt. However a tragedy struck In 1700BC, the first palace of Knossos was destroyed by an earthquake, the area was then immediately cleared and a construction of second, larger palace was started on the ruins of the old ones. This time it was built with material and structures that at that time were considered earth quake resistant, such as use of beams to reinforce the masonry. This was the first times in early history when civilization used technique to make their monuments earthquake resistant.

This palace was a multi-storey building covering an area of 20,000 square meters and made with elegant materials such as painted plaster, marble revetment and wall-paintings and infrastructures such as light –wells, polythyra and drainage and water supply system. It had a a large central, court yard, official rooms, religious rooms and royal rooms, grain storages, sacrificial places, bathrooms and most notably a paved road leading to the harbor of Knossos. At the height influence of the city it’s population was around 100,000 residents,

However nothing, apart from human will, is invincible and no matter how strong the palace was designed to be in 1450 BC another tragedy struck that damaged the palace. It is speculated that the in 1450 BC the second palace was partially damaged possibly due to internal warfare. It should be noted that the palace was partially destroyed so it was still being used

End of Minoan Empire and Enter the Greeks Civilization Mycenaean

The internal fighting between the Minoan had left them weak and new emerging foreign Greek power saw it as a opportunity to take control, so in 1450 BC the Mycenaean captured the palace and its surrounding, bringing the end of the long and prosperous 600 year plus rule of the Neolithic civilization. The Mycenaean occupied the damaged palace and established their administrative rule their. The partially damaged palace was finally destroyed about 1370 BC by a major conflagration. In 1100BC the new empire Dorian invaded Greece and brought an end to both the Mycenaean empire and the Bronze Age and the begging of Greek Dark ages.

Eventually in 800BC Knossos became a independent city state and although there were frequent changes in it’s leadership, it survived all the way until 67BC when the Roman empire took over the island of Crete and city state of Knossos. That was the last of its Ancient history. It’s a classical example of how a city states rose to power and then got demolished and against all the odds it rose to power again, only to be burned down again at much later time. The demolished ruins of the palace of Knossos were discovered 1878AD by Archeologist Minos.

THE MYTHS

According to the myths surrounding the early city, King Minos of the Minoan Empire hired the Athenian inventor, mathematician and architect named-Daedelus to model and design his palace with emphasis to be put on its pathways. Thus, as per King’s request Daedelus constructed it so ingeniously that any one who entered the palace could not find the way back without a guide.

In other versions of this same story it was not the palace itself which was designed in this way but the labyrinth within the palace which was built to house the half-man/half-bull- The Minotaur. In order to keep Daedelus from telling the secrets of the palace, Minos locked him and his son Icarus in a high tower at Knossos and kept them prisoner. Daedelus fashioned wings made of wax and bird’s feathers for himself and his son, however, and escaped their prison but Icarus, flying too close to the sun, melted his wings and fell to his death.

The Minotaur, the monster-child of Minos’ wife, thrived on human sacrifice and Minos demanded the tribute of the noblest youth of Athens to keep the beast fed. Theseus of Athens, with the help of Minos’ daughter Ariadne, killed the Minotaur, freed the young people, and returned triumphant to his home city. Both stories cast King Minos in a very unflattering light while emphasing Athenian heroes which is unsurprising as they are considered Athenian in origin.

The Notable rooms of Palace of Knossos

Freely speaking, the palace is very big compared to the standards of palaces of those days. However, it should be noticed that the Greeks were pioneers of their time, building palaces on mountains was a unheard thing in the civilizations of those times and the Greeks had not only done it but mastered it to such a point that I was given examples of their architectural accomplishments even today- ahm ahm Curse you Oxford history of the world!

The ruins of palaces of Knossos have very little left of the first palace. The scattered ruins are the left over of the second grander palace. The first thing I noticed about the palace was that it was not on a flat land, rather an irregular elevated land and henceforth harder construction.

Second thing that stood out was the concrete solid paths to increase traction for trade purposes. Although the solid path was made up of big irregular rocks dug into the earth, it did provide footwork for the movement of large population and movement of huge amount of goods easily in and out of the palace to the harbor, trade route the surrounding villages.

One of the greatest things about the palace is that it has the second thrown of the judge of the international criminal court.  The Europeans had built two of those seats/ thrones ( according to our guide) one was given to the judge of the ICC in Genève and the other was given to this palace as the thrown design was heavily copied from this palace. I was 8 feet away from that thrown, what a beauty.

Elegantly designed representation of old strict law and incorporating it to the modern legal system.  This is accomplishment to my career. Seeing something that is so unique so close is a accomplishment and seeing something that matters a lot to you is more than accomplishment, its ahhhh its I guess the most articulate descriptive words would be DAMN WOW.

Next we move to the Queens suite. It was a magnificently designed large room. It was larger than the other comparable rooms let alone the king’s room.  The queen’s suite was commonly being called as the dolphin’s room and I didn’t understand what my guide was talking about until I saw the room my self. I mean these are ruins where the hell do you see dolphins. But then I saw then, sure enough they were dolphins but they were a bit old around 1000 years old painted on the wall by the artists of those times. If my counting was right they were 8 dolphins on the wall. With a yellow background symbolizing the nearby shores where the dolphins use to come and be a attraction for the nobles.

The dolphins were painted on the entire right of the wall and it was stunning to see how ancient people regarded beauty with elegant animals. The Greek regarded many myths with dolphins some of them are as below:

1. Dolphins were the messengers of Poseidon, the god of the seas.
2. Once, some pirates captured the god Bacchus or Dionysus who confused him with a Prince, with the intention to ask for ransom. Dionysus raged and turned the ship’s oars into snakes, which frightened the pirates and made them jump into the sea. However, the god had mercy on them and decided to turn them into dolphins so that from then on they would help men.
3. Probably this myth caused that many Greeks considered that killing a dolphin was a totally outrageous and reprehensible act.
4. The gods Aphrodite and Apollo considered dolphins sacred.
5. In the Hymn to Apollo, Homer, the poet, relates that the temple of this god was at the base of Mount Parnassus. In need of priests, he became a dolphin and hijacked a merchant ship, making the winds blow in a way that the ship headed for the Greek coast. The crew then stayed in the new temple and served as priests.
6. Who is the child, that appears on Greek coins, which rides on the back of a dolphin?” Apparently, it is Taras, the son of Poseidon. According to the myth, his father sent a dolphin to save him from a shipwreck.

Then we moved to the prayer rooms, yes the Greeks were into prayers. As per the guide the Greeks had evolved their gods from one god to four gods to multiple other gods and each of these gods were a symbol of earthly power such as lighting, fire and etc.

Furthermore each god was prayed in his specific temple for different wishes and their wee cities build just to honor these gods and sons of gods. Knossos was no such exception, the early Knossos palace was attributed to king Minos who was the son of Greek God Zues and Europa.

After we were done touring this beautiful palace, I shot some more pictures and videos. At this point where some of my friends were shivering in cold, I was tired of taking fine notes from the surrounding scholars and significant items included but not limited to the Tour Guide, observations and from information charts there, analysis from restored and walls, art work , rooms, ruins and secured artifacts.

Its one thing to just see the palace and take picture to pretend that we really care of the history of the palace, its another thing to actually do a historical analysis, dive into the history of the archeological site, comprehend complex history and mythological in such a way that you can explain, elaborate and write a simplified yet detailed description of all the thousands of years of history from the very first known past till the present.

 

Yes its pretty mentally stressed out task especially when you have a primary job working 24 hours 7 days a week defending our great nation overseas and trying to portrays the exemplary qualities of American Muslims both towards fellow American and the Non-American (#ProudMericanMuslim)

Then we entered McDonalds. This McDonalds is the only McDonald in the whole island of Crete and Crete is the biggest island of Greece so this island is a boot camp for the fast food lovers of this chain. Alright here comes the small history lesson. This McDonalds was built in 1970’s and is the only McDonalds in that entire island. Lets talk about the food about now. Being the only McDonalds gives it the advantage to make some of its own fast food categories. This wasn’t the back home back alley McDonalds this sit was the high end casino royal McDonalds.

The prices were decent, but seriously would I even care about the prices after the 3 hour drive? Answer is NO, Not for food, I am foodie and a cook so that a hard No. regardless they had a list of menu that I wish I had snapped picture of but I was blind in my sheer excitement. Since, it was not halal, the only thing I ordered to eat was Fish-o-fillet and I will assure you right now, of all the cities I’ve had fish-fillet, Vancouver, Seattle, Dubai, Chicago, Manama, London , Athens , Chania and etc the fish-o-filet Is sane everywhere. Not a single a difference, and so I guess for Muslims like me that’s a curse and a blessing. I couldn’t taste the chicken stuff but oh that fish-o-fillet was great. 

Still I did buy the wicked entrees, bought it for my friends and asked them how it tasted. They ate it like savages, who wouldn’t. I bought the chicken roll, double chicken burger and yes of course Happy Meal. You are never too old for happy meal, especially if you drive 3 hours for it. Surprisingly the happy meal at this McDonalds only comes either with nuggets or chicken patties no Fish burger. Then I bought the orea and Eminem ice cream they served. Yes its not just Oreo , its Oreo and Eminem ice cream. Do I need another reason to buy this. Nope. Bought and devourers. And that was money well spent.

Yes I know we all want to know what toy I got with the happy meal, well it was a 2d Game boy, my friends said it was .. But I still think it’s a Game boy. We ate, we enjoyed, and then we got in our cars. My friend insisted that I look well rested so I should drive. Mediterranean road with lavish scenic views and non existence cop. Lets just end this on this note that the

Upcoming drive took 3 hours and off going took 1.5 hours. Fast speed, edgy turns, close calls, subsequent over takes, drifts and coupled with two slow down due to cops, close by’s, Oh yeah , I don’t think 2 of the three people want to ride with me again. They call their childish driving as Ali’s driving, while I am here perfecting my professional driving. I’ll show you my driving and you can be the judge of that. Also, if you are going to sit with me and you are not my immediate relative, Get ready for a ride of lifetime #SpeedRacers.