Although Crete had contacts with Mari from 2000 BC, there is no evidence that the ecstatic prophetic art existed during the Minoan and Mycenean ages.

The sea's maximum depth is, east of Crete.

Agate is one of the most common materials used in the art of hardstone carving, and has been recovered at a number of ancient sites, indicating its widespread use in the ancient world ; for example, archaeological recovery at the Knossos site on Crete illustrates its role in Bronze Age Minoan culture.

Although his home has been traditionally identified as one of the Aeolian Islands ( there is little consensus as to which ), near Sicily, an alternative location has been suggested at Gramvousa off the northwest coast of Crete.

After this his name is not mentioned until after Paul's first imprisonment, when he was engaged in the organization of the church in Crete, where Paul had left him for this purpose.

Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization from the Early Bronze Age.

The most representative site explored up to now is Knossos ( see Crete ) which has yielded not only the most various but the most continuous evidence from the Neolithic age to the twilight of classical civilization.

13 ) Zeus is said to have used the skin of the goat deity Amalthea ( aigis " goat-skin ") which suckled him in Crete, as a shield when he went forth to do battle against the Titans.

In the Epistle to Titus, Apollos is mentioned with Zenas as bearer of the letter to Crete.

It is believed that a precursor of Artemis was worshiped in Minoan Crete as the goddess of mountains and hunting, Britomartis.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Miles Gloriosus has just returned from Crete, where there is of course no actual plague.

Crete ( ; ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece.

The Mycenaean Greek name for Crete is unknown ; it is not mentioned in extant Linear B texts.

Crete is the largest island in Greece and the second largest in the eastern Mediterranean Sea ( after Cyprus ).

Crete is extremely mountainous, and its character is defined by a high mountain range crossing from west to east, formed by three different groups of mountains:

As such, the climate in Crete is primarily temperate.

Crete is the most populous island in Greece with a population of more than 500, 000 people.

Heraklion is the largest city and capital of Crete.

The economy of Crete is predominantly based on agriculture and is one of the few Greek islands that can support itself independently without a tourism industry.

Overall, more than two million tourists visited Crete last year, and this increase in tourism is reflected on the number of hotel beds, rising by 53 % in the period between 1986 and 1991, when the rest of Greece saw increases of only 25 %.

One such area is located at the island of Elafonisi on the coast of southwestern Crete.

Georgy Canaan lists Crete as one of the protectorates established by the Canaanites ( Phoenicians ) who named it the village, Cret ( Arabicقرية ).

Crete with its nearby islands form the Crete Region (), one of the 13 regions of Greece which were established in the 1987 administrative reform.

Nearly every rural household on Crete has at least one unregistered gun.

It described how the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey ( MIT ) had formed two teams: one which carried out bombings at tourist sites on Crete and other parts of Greece and another which was responsible for starting the wildfires.

In 1669 the city of Heraklion, on Crete, which at one time boasted at least 120 painters, finally fell to the Turks, and from that time Greek icon painting went into a decline, with a revival attempted in the 20th century by art reformers such as Photios Kontoglou, who emphasized a return to earlier styles.

* Idê, one of the Cretan nymphs who nursed the infant Zeus: see Mount Ida, Crete

Linear A is one of two scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek Linear B ; Cretan hieroglyphic is the second script.

It is possible that the Trojan Linear A scripts that were discovered by Heinrich Schliemann and one inscription from central Crete, as well as a few similar potters ' marks from Lahun, Egypt ( 12th dynasty ), come from an earlier period, ca.

Australian author Sara Douglass incorporated some labyrinthine ideas in her series The Troy Game, in which the Labyrinth on Crete is one of several in the ancient world, created with the cities as a source of magical power.

Leto was also worshipped in Crete, whether one of " certain Cretan

2000 – 1650 BC Akrotiri developed into one of the Aegean's major Bronze Age ports, with recovered objects that had come, not just from Crete, but also from Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt as well as from the Dodecanese and the Greek mainland.

But his lack of political or family influence meant that Vespasian served as quaestor in one of the provincial posts in Crete, rather than as assistant to important men in Rome.

At Great Compline during the first four days of the Fast ( Monday through Thursday ) the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is divided into four parts and one part is chanted each night ( for further information about the Great Canon, see Fifth Week, below ).

Crete was a republic, although a protected one.

Mount Ide, ( Ίδη ) or Pselorites ( Ψηλορείτης ) is located in Crete, and according to one theory the Philistines may originate from Crete.

As a large part of the Spartan army led by king Areus I is in Crete at the time, Pyrrhus has great hopes of taking the city easily, but the citizens organise stout resistance, allowing one of Antigonus II's commanders, Aminias the Phocian, to reach the city with a force of mercenaries from Corinth.

According to one account, Rhadamanthus ruled Crete before Minos, and gave the island an excellent code of laws, which the Spartans were believed to have copied.

Built around 2600 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements, existing at the same time as the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete.

Apart from terrestrial mammals, the seas around Crete are rich in large marine mammals, a fact unknown to most Greeks, although reported since ancient times.

El Greco, who moved to Venice after establishing his reputation in Crete, is the most famous artist of the school, who continued to use many Byzantine conventions in his works.

They saw action in their proper role during 1940 – 1941, most notably in the capture of the Belgian army fortress at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael and the Battle for The Hague in May 1940, and during the Battle of Crete in May 1941.

In late Roman times, the provincial boundaries were reorganized to form the Diocese of Macedonia, consisting of most of modern mainland Greece right across the Aegean to include Crete, southern Albania, and parts of modern-day Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia.

His retribution was that, at the end of every Great Year ( seven solar years ), the seven most courageous youths and the seven most beautiful maidens were to board a boat and be sent as tribute to Crete, never to be seen again.

In building its maritime commercial empire, the Republic dominated the trade in salt, acquired control of most of the islands in the Aegean, including Cyprus and Crete, and became a major power-broker in the Near East.

In 1916, pro-Venizelist Greek army officers and civilians, with the support of the Allies, launched the Movement of National Defence, creating a pro-Allied temporary government by the name of the " State of Thessaloniki " that controlled " new lands " ( lands that were gained by Greece in the Balkan Wars, most of Northern Greece including Greek Macedonia, the North Aegean as well as the island of Crete ); the official government of the King in Athens, the " State of Athens ", controlled the " old lands " which were traditionally monarchist.

Sir Arthur John Evans FRS ( 8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941 ) was a British archaeologist most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete and for developing the concept of Minoan civilization from the structures and artifacts found there and elsewhere throughout the eastern Mediterranean.

Ariadne (; ; ; " most holy ", Cretan Greek αρι " most " and αδνος " holy "), in Greek mythology, was the daughter of Minos king of Crete, and his queen Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, the Sun-titan.

Mountain troops prior to their transfer to Crete The bridge was damaged in the fighting, which slowed the German advance and gave the Allies time to evacuate 18, 000 troops to Crete and an additional 23, 000 to Egypt, albeit with the loss of most of their heavy equipment.

During the 1950s, Bogarde came to prominence playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable in The Blue Lamp ( 1950 ) co-starring Jack Warner and Bernard Lee ; a handsome artist who comes to rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris in So Long at the Fair, a film noir thriller ; an accidental murderer who befriends a young boy played by Jon Whiteley in Hunted ( aka The Stranger in Between ) ( 1952 ); in Appointment in London ( 1953 ) as a young Wing-Commander in Bomber Command who, against orders, opts to fly his 90th mission with his men in a major air offensive against the Germans ; an unjustly imprisoned man who regains hope in clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive in Desperate Moment ( 1953 ); Doctor in the House ( 1954 ), as a medical student, in a film that made Bogarde one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s, and co-starring Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor ; The Sleeping Tiger ( 1954 ), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey ; Doctor at Sea ( 1955 ), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles ; as a returning Colonial who fights the Mau-Mau with Virginia McKenna and Donald Sinden in Simba ( 1955 ); Cast a Dark Shadow ( 1955 ), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them ; The Spanish Gardener ( 1956 ), co-starring Michael Hordern, Jon Whiteley, and Cyril Cusack ; Doctor at Large ( 1957 ), again with Donald Sinden, another entry in the " Doctor films series ", co-starring later Bond-girl Shirley Eaton ; the Powell and Pressburger production Ill Met by Moonlight ( 1957 ) co-starring Marius Goring as the German General Kreipe, kidnapped on Crete by Patrick " Paddy " Leigh Fermor ( Bogarde ) and a fellow band of adventurers based on W. Stanley Moss ' real-life account of the WW2 caper ; A Tale of Two Cities ( 1958 ), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens ' classic ; as a Flt.

Crete was the centre of Europe's most ancient civilization, the Minoan.

During the Cretan War ( 1645 – 1669 ), Venice was pushed out of Crete by the Ottoman Empire, with most of the island lost after the siege of Candia ( 1648 – 1669 ), possibly the longest siege in history.

On Crete they can be found in most mountainous areas, sometimes in groups of up to 20.

The most renowned Greek painter during the Renaissance was El Greco, born in Crete, whose major works, painted in Spain, have influenced many 20th-century artists.