“We haven’t paid a visit to the prince yet,” Griffin suggested.
Xenia nodded.
Cassie followed them silently since they seemed to know exactly where they were going. Crossing the central court, they walked down a corridor until Griffin stopped before a picture of a youth with a feathered headdress set against a backdrop of lilies.
“Lilies at last!” Cassie exclaimed.
“This image has been called either a ‘Priest-King’ or the ‘Prince of Lilies,’” Xenia said.
“And he’s very famous,” Griffin added significantly.
“Why’s that?” Cassie didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy about the image. It looked typical of the other frescoes she had already seen.
“I would draw your attention to the skin tone,” the scrivener hinted.
She noted the white skin of the figure and remembered what she had been told about Minoan painting styles. Men were reddish brown, and women were white. “It’s a woman?” she asked in disbelief.
“In all probability that is the case,” Griffin agreed.
Xenia pointed toward the top of the fresco. “In addition, the feathered headdress is a style that would have been worn by a woman and not a man.”
“But what about the chest?” Cassie objected. “It’s flat, and the figure is wearing something that looks like a jockstrap.”
“It’s called a codpiece actually,” Griffin corrected. “It would have been worn by male or female athletes when engaged in a rough contact sport. Bull-leapers of both sexes wore them. As for the shape of the figure, that may have been imaginative reconstruction on Sir Arthur’s part.”
“Sir Arthur himself admitted that his restoration might not have been accurate,” Xenia explained. “The only parts of the original fresco that remained intact were the headdress, part of the torso, and one leg.”
“With so little to go on, this is what he came up with?” Cassie registered surprise.
“The fresco has stirred up heated debate for quite some time,” Griffin admitted. “In all likelihood, it was an image of a female bull-leaper, but no one can be certain.”
“What is more troublesome to me is his conclusion that the boy would be a priest-king,” said the trove keeper. “Minoans were a matristic society. While it is possible they might have had a king, the central religious figure would certainly have been a high priestess. Sir Arthur came from the Victorian Age, and he made many assumptions about a male-dominated social structure here.”
Cassie sighed. “Since all of this was reconstructed, I’m guessing that the lilies in the picture aren’t a clue left for us.”
“Quite so,” Griffin agreed. “Also, the lilies are painted on plaster, not incised into stone.”
“Then why are we here?” the pythia asked flatly.
“To search the corridor around the fresco,” the scrivener said. “Best be about it then.”
The trio looked up and down the hall but still couldn’t find the elusive lilies for which they were searching.
“Where else?” Cassie urged. Her fatigue was returning, and she needed a distraction to stay awake.
“The Queen’s Chamber perhaps?” Griffin looked at Xenia questioningly.
“Yes, we forgot to check that one,” Xenia concurred.
They crossed the central court once more to an elegant suite of rooms.
“This is called the Queen’s Chamber,” Xenia explained. “It is so named because it is smaller than the other living space which is called the King’s Chamber. Sir Arthur again concluded that the grandest living accommodations would belong to a king when in fact they probably belonged to the high priestess.”
As they inspected the Queen’s Chamber, Cassie noticed that one of the walls held a fresco of fanciful blue dolphins swimming through a white sea. “Look!” she pointed to the decorative motif below the dolphins. “Isn’t that like the spiral hieroglyph on the granite key?”
Griffin paused to consult his page of symbols. “It is indeed like one of the key symbols, but the context is wrong. You see the symbol is repeated, and we’re looking for a sequence of alternating symbols that will translate into a Linear B phrase. Besides, there’s no lily that would denote this image pertains to the Bones of the Mother.”
“Oh,” Cassie said in a small disappointed voice.
“Chin up. Have a look at this,” Griffin said. “It will take your mind off the problem.”
Cassie followed to where the scrivener was standing. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Indeed,” Griffin said proudly. “A flush toilet. Though one would need to pour a bucket of water into the toilet to make it flush, but there is a drain line below to carry the waste away. And there’s also a bathtub in the adjoining room.”
He gestured toward a large stone tub. “It would have to be filled manually but could also be drained through the floor. Conventional history would have us believe that civilization has been a straight march of progress when the opposite is true. Many ancient inventions were lost for millennia because of overlord invasions. The Minoans were more technically advanced than any of their neighbors. They transported water from nearby springs via aqueduct. Then gravity forced the water to run through terracotta pipes into fountains and spigots inside the palace. There were drains for waste which flowed down to a sewer away from the hill where the palace is located.
“They even found a way to heat their homes in winter by channeling steam from volcanoes through pipes in their walls. That isn’t in evidence here at Knossos, but it exists on the island of Santorini. It has been said that if Minoan civilization hadn’t collapsed, the inhabitants might have managed to invent rockets to the moon by the time of Christ.”
As the trio continued to search the queen’s rooms for stone symbols, Cassie felt a growing sense of foreboding. “What happened to them in the end?”
“A terrible tragedy,” Xenia said. “They were at the height of their influence as a mercantile power in the Mediterranean. Around 1450 BCE, a volcano erupted on the island of Santorini to the north of here. The blast was at least four times stronger than the one that occurred at Krakatoa at the end of the 19th century. It was so terrible that a large portion of Santorini sank to the ocean floor. All that remains is a crater in the middle of the harbor that may once have been one hundred square miles of land. The eruption sent a tidal wave to Crete. A three-hundred-foot wall of water came crashing into the shore without warning. It probably destroyed the merchant fleet as well as the harbors and towns on the north side of the island. In addition, the volcanic ash would have poisoned crops, and atmospheric dust would have destroyed harvests for years afterward. It is thought that Plato’s story of the lost city of Atlantis refers to the earthquake on Santorini and the decline of Minoan civilization.”
“Whether Santorini is Atlantis or not, such a natural disaster must have had a devastating effect on the psyche of the people who lived here,” Griffin observed. “They believed in a benevolent goddess. They saw her presence in every aspect of their lives—in every bee and bird and tree and flower. How could they make sense of an event which must have seemed as if divine favor had forsaken them?”
“One cannot calculate the damage, both physical and psychological that such a catastrophe would have had,” Xenia added. “As an American, Cassie, try to imagine how you would feel if an earthquake sank your west coast into the Pacific Ocean without warning. The soul of Minoan civilization was devastated. They struggled to recover but were never able to rise to the level of greatness they had previously enjoyed. At about this time, Myceneans on the Greek mainland were expanding their territories southward. Because they perceived the Minoans as vulnerable, they captured Crete and set up their own government here. The Mycenean empire, in turn, was destroyed by Dorian invaders. By 1200 BCE, the Mediterranean area was plunged into what has come to be known as the Greek Dark Ages, and Minoan culture vanished into myth.”
“Too bad it had to end that way
.” Cassie shook her head. “I think the world would have been a better place for all of us if they’d survived.”
“Some of their ideas remained long after they were gone,” Griffin said. “During the time that the Myceneans occupied Crete, they copied many of the advancements of the Minoans. Their artwork shows a strong Minoan influence, and they even created a syllabary based on the Minoan writing style.”
“Those are the Linear B characters we’re looking for?”
“Right. The Minoans developed Linear A, and the Myceneans copied their methods and adapted it to their own language. The result was the Linear B syllabary. In fact, the Minoans invented a movable typeface—an early printing press, if you will, to stamp clay tablets with their language.”
Cassie looked around the Queen’s Chamber one last time. “No lilies or symbols from the key in this room. Where do we go from here?”
“We press onward to the Hall of the Double Axes.” Griffin led the way out of the queen’s apartments.
***
A young Greek man stood in the shadows of an antechamber door. He understood English quite well. Well enough to catch the words Linear B, Bones of the Mother, and granite key coming from a trio of tourists wandering around within earshot. They walked on, unaware that they had been overheard. He decided to follow them.
Chapter 33 – Wining and Mining
The Arkana team had managed to consume the morning and half the afternoon searching Knossos for elusive key symbols. While they had discovered numerous double axes cut into stones throughout the site, no lilies were to be found. They stood together dejectedly at the entrance to the site.
“It looks like we’ve run out of options.” Cassie voiced the concern they were all feeling.
“This may not be anything important,” Xenia began tentatively. “But we have recovered a few relics recently that have unusual markings on them. Now that I have seen your photographs of the key, I think the symbols might be similar. Perhaps we should go to the trove, and I will show them to you.”
“The trove!” Cassie exclaimed excitedly. “I’m finally going to see one?”
The Greek woman regarded her with surprise. Turning to Griffin, she asked, “Cassie has not seen a trove yet?”
“Afraid there hasn’t been time,” he admitted.
“But she is the pythia. Should that not have been the first place she was shown?”
Griffin shrugged. “Faye had other priorities.”
“I see.” Xenia still sounded puzzled.
Cassie looked at her watch. She began to feel fatigue settling over her like a heavy fog. She needed to stay in motion just to keep her eyes open. “If we’re going to the trove, shouldn’t we start now?” she asked. “It’s getting late.”
Her question seemed to snap Xenia to attention. The Greek woman consulted her own watch. “Yes, the time is slipping away from us. We must leave now, or the day will be gone.” She immediately bustled them back into the Citroen.
Before going straight to their destination, Cassie asked for a quick detour. The weather had proven to be hotter than she expected, and she wanted to change into some lighter clothing. They drove back into Heraklion and stopped at the hotel. Cassie left the other two in the lobby and ran up to her room to don a T-shirt and Capri pants. When she came back downstairs, she noticed that Griffin had taken the opportunity to get another cup of coffee.
He held out a paper cup to her. “One for the road?” he suggested.
She gulped it down gratefully even though it scalded her throat. Trying to shake off her tiredness as best she could, she climbed back into the tiny car, and they headed out of town in the opposite direction from which they had come.
After driving for about half an hour through hilly countryside, Xenia made a sharp right turn onto a narrow road that cut through a field of grape vines. She kept driving through an open iron gate. A wooden sign lettered in Greek and English identified this as the Katsouras Winery. Xenia steered the Citroen toward a collection of buildings nestled up against a steep hillside. Some of the structures were modern metal storage sheds, others much older and constructed of whitewashed stone. The trove keeper found a parking space among several other cars ringing the dusty courtyard.
The trio got out and walked toward a cottage that seemed to grow out of the rock face behind it. The structure must have been very old judging by the size of the bougainvillea vine covering its walls. The small open windows and wooden door were painted an azure shade of blue.
“You own a winery?” Cassie asked.
Xenia smiled briefly. “This property has belonged to my family for centuries. It is a small operation. Nothing like your California vineyards. We don’t advertise, but wine connoisseurs always know how to find us.”
She led them through the blue door into what appeared to be a tasting room. It wasn’t large—a few tiny tables with wicker-bottom chairs. There was a bar off to one side. She nodded to the man standing behind it but made no effort to introduce her guests to him.
“This way,” she instructed. There was another wooden door at the back of the tasting room. Xenia ushered them through and shut the door behind them. She flipped a light switch on the wall. They were standing on a platform in front of a wide wooden stairway leading down into darkness.
“You want us to go down there?” Cassie studied the underground space dubiously. It seemed a bit too much like a tomb.
“Come, there is nothing to fear,” Xenia urged. She flipped a second light switch.
To the pythia’s surprise, the passageway was wired for electricity, and bulbs were strung at even intervals all the way down the stairs. The trove keeper led the way with Cassie in the middle and Griffin bringing up the rear.
Cassie took stock of her surroundings. The walls on either side were solid rock. “This reminds me of pictures of the Roman catacombs.”
“It is very much like them,” Xenia commented. “This space was hollowed out of the hillside centuries ago.”
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Cassie realized they were standing in a high vaulted chamber—about twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high. It was cool and dark and, from Cassie’s perspective, more than a little creepy.
“What is this place?” she asked uncertainly.
“I would hazard a guess and say that we’re in a wine cave,” Griffin offered. “You see the casks against the walls.”
Straining to focus her eyes in the dim light, Cassie noticed the enormous casks stacked on either side of them. “But why would anybody put wine in a cave, and why is the cave inside a cottage?”
Xenia laughed. “It is very common to use caves to store wine. This has been done since the time of the Minoans.”
“It isn’t a phenomenon peculiar to Greece either,” the scrivener added. “Caves all over Europe are used this way. The high humidity and cool temperatures are considered ideal for wine storage.”
“My family discovered this cave when they first came here. They built the vineyard around it, and my ancestors widened the cave as more space was needed to house our wine.”
Xenia walked to the opposite end of the chamber which terminated abruptly at a solid wall of rock. She turned to regard Cassie with a slight smile. “But you did not come here to see a winery. You came to see the Minoan trove.” She tapped a spot on the rock face, and the entire back wall slid noiselessly to one side to reveal a room beyond.
Cassie stood gaping open-mouthed in amazement.
Griffin seemed equally surprised. “Oh, I say. That was brilliant!”
They walked under the archway into the trove. Xenia slid the wall panel shut behind them. The dank gloom of the wine cave disappeared. In contrast, the trove was bright and warm. The walls were no longer bare rock but framed, insulated, and covered with beige wallpaper. There were modern fluorescent light panels in the ceiling which counteracted much of the oppressive feeling of being underground.
“This area is strictly climate-cont
rolled,” Xenia explained. “While high humidity and cool temperatures are very good for wine, they are very bad for artifacts.”
Cassie noticed several people working at long tables in the center of the room. They appeared to be polishing objects of various sizes and shapes. A few of them looked up and nodded to the newcomers.
“This is where we restore our finds.”
“Are all the troves like this one?”
“They’re all different,” Griffin offered. “It depends on what space is available. Some troves are very new and modern. Some are a bit more rustic. The Minoan trove has been around for centuries. Before the excavation of Knossos, in fact.”
“Many of the troves are located underground for security reasons,” Xenia added.
Cassie inspected the room more closely. Against the back wall were rows of tall metal shelves holding a variety of artifacts in no particular order: broken shards of pottery, jewelry, and small votive statues.
Xenia noticed the direction of Cassie’s gaze. “Those are items that still need some restoration work. Anything that has been finished is catalogued and placed in storage.”
“That’s where my lot comes in,” Griffin explained. “Every object that is added to the collection needs to be logged into the Central Catalog.”
“Where do you store all the artifacts?” Cassie didn’t see much space in the room where they were standing.
“That depends on the size and type of object. Some of the little things like jewelry and seals are right here.” Xenia gestured to a locked metal cabinet with dozens of rows of shallow drawers. “We have separate rooms for the larger objects in the collection.”
For the first time, Cassie noticed other doors flanking the metal shelves which led into more storage space. “It doesn’t look the way I expected.” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “No torches flaming from the walls. No cobwebs. No snakes.”
“I fear you’ve seen one too many Indiana Jones movies.” Griffin chuckled.
“Maybe that’s it. But it doesn’t look like a museum either. No display cases.”
The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set Page 20
