Crete
Crete (Classical and Modern Greek: Κρήτη [Kriti]; Latin: Creta) is the largest island of Greece and the fifth in size of the Mediterranean Sea. The Cretan archipelago forms one of the thirteen peripheries and one of the seven decentralized administrations of Greece. It has an area of 8,300 km², a coastline 1,040 km long and a population of about 620,000. Its capital is Heraklion.
Crete was once the center of the Minoan civilization (2700-1420 BC), considered one of the oldest recorded civilizations in Europe. Until the early 1900s XX was also known by the name Candía.
Geography
The island of Crete is located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, at the southern end of the Aegean Sea and not far from the Egyptian coast. It has heights above sea level close to 2,500 meters on Mount Ida (2,460 meters) and in Léfka Óri or White Mountains (2,452 meters on Mount Pachnes) and an average altitude of more than 200 meters in much of its surface.
Its relief is shaped, to a large extent, by seismic activity, the cause of its 1,040 kilometers of jagged coastlines and its fragmented plains. Its most important river is the Mesara. Among its gulfs, the one of Mira Bello (Mirampéllou), the Chanión (Khanión) and the bays of Mesara and Almyroú stand out. Its most important capes are the Spátha (Ákra Spánta), the Líthinon (Ákra Lithino), the Stavros and the Sideros (Ákra Sideros).
Formerly it was known by the name of Candía, a place name derived from the Greek Chandax, and this from the Arabic Rabḍ al-Ḫandaq (referring to to the city of Herakleion at the time of the Emirate of Crete).[citation needed]
Climate
The climate is Mediterranean with divergences between the north, more humid than the south due to the lower incidence of solar rays (shady slope to the north and sunny to the south). The western zone (windward slope) is also more humid than the eastern one. The elongated shape of the island (265 kilometers long) causes a water deficit in the eastern zone, which is leeward of the west winds.
Vegetation
The vegetation is typical of the Mediterranean climate, although badly degraded by human action. Among the arboreal vegetation are cypress and chestnut trees; in the shrub, the typical aromatic plants of the climate: sage, thyme and oregano. There are also junipers, brooms, oleanders and Calabrian pines (Pinus brutia), as well as Cretan maples (Acer sempervirens), strawberry trees (Arbutus unedo), and bananas (Platanus orientalis). Among the unique botanical species of Crete, the Cretan date palm Phoenix theophrasti can also be highlighted, whose most important population is located in the coastal palm grove of Vai, in the eastern part of the island, which is considered the largest natural palm grove in Europe. In ancient times, it was called "the island of olive trees", due to the great extension of these trees and their cultivation.
Population
According to the 2001 census, its population is 601,132, almost the same as the total for the rest of the Greek islands. It has a density of 72 inhabitants per square kilometer, lower than that of the country (83 inhabitants/km²). Since the middle of the XX century, the rural exodus has reduced its population. Foreign emigration has been directed towards Athens and other European countries, while internal emigration has had the island cities of the Ebean façade as recipients.
Government and administration
Crete is one of the regions into which Greece is divided. The capital is the city of Heraklion and it is administratively divided into four peripheral units: Chania, Rethymno, Heraklion and Lasithi. There are US naval bases in Heraklion and in the Bay of Greece.
Other major cities include Chania, Rethymno, Ierapetra, Agios Nikolaos, Siteia, Moares, Neapoli, Tympaki and Kissamos.
Economy
The economy is basically agrarian, although tourism is on the rise. There is an industrial nucleus around the capital. Among the agricultural products, raisins stand out, as well as olives, cereals, vegetables and fruits. Livestock, in decline, is predominantly sheep and goats.
History
Prehistory
Despite its geographical situation and favorable climate, the first settlers of Crete did not appear until the Neolithic period, arriving in two large waves. The colonizing ethnic type is not related to any of the great currents, being classified as "Mediterranean", like the people who inhabited the nearby coasts of Asia Minor or the neighboring Cyclades islands, whose settlers progressed for a long time at a similar rate to the of the Cretans. However, in the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C. C., already in the Copper Age, a large number of advances took place on the island, which ended up leading to the brilliant Minoan civilization.
Protohistory and Ancient Ages
The most remarkable thing is the appearance of the Minoan civilization, one of the first to appear in Europe and one of the pre-Hellenic civilizations together with the later Mycenaean civilization. During the Minoan civilization, in which there were several phases and ups and downs, Crete reached its peak, with the greatest boom in the centuries XVI and XV a. C. During them, Crete established a thalassocracy that extended to peninsular Greece, the Aegean Sea, the coasts of Asia Minor and adjacent areas such as Sicily. During this time the contacts with Egypt, already existing previously, were very important.
However, towards the end of the XV century B.C. C., the island suffered the invasion of the Achaeans, who had developed a civilization in mainland Greece, mainly in the Peloponnese, not exempt from strong Cretan influences. With the expansion of the invaders, the Cretans abandoned the palaces.
The possibility is also being considered that a colonization of Cretan emigrants on the southern coasts of Canaan was the origin of the Philistines (peleset), who appear in the Bible and from whose name comes the Palestine place name. These Philistines founded several cities on the southern Canaanite coast: Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, and Gath.
The decline of Crete, which began with Achaean hegemony, deepened in the 11th century BC. C. with the invasion of the Dorians, carriers of iron. The island became just another part of the Greek world, unoriginal and divided into rival cities. Even in classical times (V century BC) it retained a certain archaism, as evidenced by the Laws of Gortyna, one of the cities dating from Minoan times. In that period, Crete did not take part in the great wars, neither in the Medical Wars, nor in the Peloponnesian War, where only some Cretan archers went as mercenaries.
Conquered by Alexander the Great, at his death Crete enjoyed some independence from other nearby Hellenistic kingdoms, but after the Hellenistic decline the island fell into the hands of pirates of Sicilian origin, which caused the Romans to conquer it in 67 BC. C., in an expedition commanded by Cecilio Metelo, and added it as a Roman province. After the division of the Roman Empire in 395, it remained in the hands of the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire, which gave the island a certain relevance, given its key position for control of the Aegean Sea.
Middle Ages
It remained in the hands of the Byzantine Empire, where it played a strategic role when the Muslim conquests began in the 7th century. Two centuries later, in 826, it fell into the hands of a group of Andalusian Muslims, who founded the fortified base of "Jandak" (Candía), from which they harassed the Byzantines.
It seems that the Andalusian Muslims (according to Al Nuwaryri, Nihayat al Arab II; p. 274) were the Cordovans who, as a result of the riot in the suburb, were exiled to Alexandria in 813/4 and there they managed to become owners of the city. Abdalah ibn Táhir appeared there, according to what was narrated in the history of the Abbasid dynasty, in the days of the caliph Al-Mamún ibn Al-Rashid, who expelled them from Alexandria and transferred them to Crete in 826. The Cordovans cultivated the island They proclaimed Abu Hafs Umar al-Iqritishi (Al-Balluti) Emir and armed up to forty ships with which they assaulted the nearby islands, close to Constantinople. They penetrated the islands, took captives, without the Emperor of Constantinople being able to prevent it.
Muslim rule lasted until 961, when Emperor Nicephorus Phocas reconquered the island, ushering in a period of peace and stability that favored its economic development. When Byzantium fell into the hands of the Crusaders in 1204, an event that began the so-called Latin Empire, the island was awarded to Boniface of Montferrat, who promptly sold it to Venice, which made it the key strategic point of his interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and held it until the mid-XVII century.
Modern Age
From the 15th century, Venice had to face Ottoman expansionism, which it contained until the Turks landed in 1645 on the island beginning its conquest by occupying Chania and Candia after a long siege in 1669, when the last Venetian strongholds succumbed during the Turkish-Venetian war (1714-1718). A new period of decline began for Crete.
Contemporary Age
The decline, which began with complete Ottoman rule, was punctuated by revolts that broke out in the late 18th century and early XIX. During the period from 1832 to 1840 the island was under the control of the Egyptian government and experienced a certain improvement that was not consolidated when it returned to Turkish guardianship.
After the statute of 1868, endorsed by the Berlin congress of 1878, and as a result of a new revolt by the Greek population, the "Halepa Pact" was signed, which meant a certain advance towards autonomy and a representative government, under the supervision of the European powers. However, the mismanagement of the Turkish authorities headed by Governor Turhan Pashë Përmeti caused a new uprising in 1897, this time a general one, which had the military support of Greece. Although the uprising was eventually crushed, the intervention of the great powers forced Turkish troops to abandon the island in 1898 and grant it the status of an autonomous principality, ruled by Prince George of Greece, under Ottoman sovereignty. In return, Greece had to renounce its aspirations with respect to Crete.
In 1905 there was a new revolt that aspired to union with Greece, led by Eleftherios Venizelos, which culminated in the expulsion of Prince George. In 1908, the Cretan deputies proclaimed the union with mainland Greece. This union was not formalized until the end of the Balkan Wars in 1913, from which time Crete has been part of the Greek state.
During World War II, the island was the scene of the Battle of Crete.
Crete and mythology
According to Greek mythology, Rhea hid Zeus on Mount Ida, located in the center of the island. The same god came to Crete after kidnapping Europe and from their union three children were born, one of whom was Minos, whose wife gave birth to the Minotaur, who was later locked up in the Labyrinth.
There is also a legend that takes place on this island about Icarus and Daedalus.
Monuments and places of interest
- Cnosos Palace
- Other mythical archaeological sites: Festos, Malia and Hagia Triada.
- Rizhenia.
- Archaeological Museum of the Canea, in an ancient Venetian church.
- Toplou Monastery
- University of Crete
- Technical University of Crete
- Cathedral of La Canea
- Spinalonga