Zakros

Kato Zakros (Greek Κάτω Ζάκρος ) is the fourth of the great Minoan palaces of Crete and is located in the extreme east of the island directly by the sea. The original name of the site could have gelautet dictums.

The discovery of the fourth Minoan palace after Knossos, Phaistos and Malia was pure coincidence. A farmer from the mountain village of Zakros, four kilometers away, in the small fertile plain at the beach had his fields, came plowing over again on numerous large and precisely hewn ashlar and fragments of vases. When the excavations began in 1961, it was believed initially a Minoan trading city like Roussolakkos to have found in Palekastro. However, when the excavations were intensified, they came upon a fourth Minoan palace, unlike the previous, largely intact and not looted was.

In the surrounding houses that did not belong directly to the palace, they found numerous clay pots and vases of crystal. The finds are exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion and the Museum of Sitia.

To the east of Kato Zakros gorge runs through the mountains towards Zakros ( corresponding to the last section of European long-distance hiking trail E4 in Crete ). The caves in the rocky walls of the gorge were used in Minoan times for burials. Due to the many human remains the canyon was named " Gorge of the Dead" (Greek Φαράγγι Νεκρών ).