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Mount Juktas
 
 
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A mountain in north-central Crete
Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
, Mount Juktas (also spelled Iuktas, Iouktas, and a variety of others due to irregular transliteration from Greek) was an important religious site for the Minoan Civilization. Located a few kilometers from the palaces of Knossos
Knossos

Knossos , also known as the Knossos Palace is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture....
 and Fourni and the "megaron" at Vathypetro, Mount Juktas was the site of an important peak sanctuary in the Minoan world. At the base of Juktas, at Anemospilia
Anemospilia

Anemospilia is the archaeology of an ancient Minoan civilization temple on Crete....
 was also found a site that suggested to some that the Minoans practiced human sacrifice, but the evidence is currently somewhat in question.
t Juktas is the site of one of the most important peak sanctuaries
Peak sanctuaries

Minoan civilization Peak sanctuaries are widespread throughout the island of Crete . Most scholars agree that peak sanctuaries were used for religious rites....
 in the Minoan world.






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A mountain in north-central Crete
Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
, Mount Juktas (also spelled Iuktas, Iouktas, and a variety of others due to irregular transliteration from Greek) was an important religious site for the Minoan Civilization. Located a few kilometers from the palaces of Knossos
Knossos

Knossos , also known as the Knossos Palace is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture....
 and Fourni and the "megaron" at Vathypetro, Mount Juktas was the site of an important peak sanctuary in the Minoan world. At the base of Juktas, at Anemospilia
Anemospilia

Anemospilia is the archaeology of an ancient Minoan civilization temple on Crete....
 was also found a site that suggested to some that the Minoans practiced human sacrifice, but the evidence is currently somewhat in question.

Peak Sanctuary

Mount Juktas is the site of one of the most important peak sanctuaries
Peak sanctuaries

Minoan civilization Peak sanctuaries are widespread throughout the island of Crete . Most scholars agree that peak sanctuaries were used for religious rites....
 in the Minoan world. It is also probably the first of the peak sanctuaries
Peak sanctuaries

Minoan civilization Peak sanctuaries are widespread throughout the island of Crete . Most scholars agree that peak sanctuaries were used for religious rites....
. Archaeologists have studied the site over an extensive period, examining fragments of pottery, remains of walls, and some unique kinds of stone that must have been hauled up the mountain because they do not occur atop the mountain.

The mountain remains important in the religious life of the people of the area up to this day - a Greek Orthodox chapel is located about a kilometer south of the sanctuary along the ridge of the mountain. Every year, people from towns down in the plains below Mount Juktas bring flowers in procession to the chapel.

Archaeology

Juktas was first excavated in 1909 by Sir Arthur Evans
Arthur Evans

Sir Arthur John Evans was a British archaeologist most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greece island of Crete at Kephala Hill and for creating the concept of Minoan civilization from the structures and artifacts there and elsewhere in Crete and the eastern Mediterranean....
.

Jutkas can be regarded as an adjunct archaeological site to the important Knossos
Knossos

Knossos , also known as the Knossos Palace is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture....
 site a few kilometres distant. Among the finds at the Juktas Minoan peak sanctuary were clay human and animal figurines, stone horns, stone altars, bronze double axes
Labrys

Labrys is the term for a symmetrical doubleheaded axe, known to the Classical Greeks as pelekus or sagaris, and to the Romans as a bipennis....
, and both bowls and tables with Linear A
Linear A

Linear A is one of two linear scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek language Linear B. In Minoan Civilization times, before the Greek Mycenaean dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and the cult and Cretan Hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
 inscriptions. See references for a more comprehensive inventory. Pottery sherds from the site date back as far as Middle Minoan IA
Minoan pottery

Minoan pottery is more than a useful tool for dating the mute Minoan civilization. Its restless sequence of rapidly-maturing artistic styles reveal something of Minoan patrons' pleasure in novelty while they assist archaeologists assign relative dates to the Archaeology of their sites....
.

Line notes


External links

  • Younger, John