Near Agios Nikolaos, on the island of Crete, there is the Minoan city of gournia, a palace complex that remained hidden for a long time until it was excavated in the early XNUMXth century by the American archaeologist Harriet Boyd Hawes. Gorunia is one of the few Minoan peoples that have been completely excavated, and its current name is not the original since it is unknown. gournia It is the name of the vessels that were found in great quantity in the entrances of all the rooms of the buildings.
The ruins are on a gentle hill and belong to a small palace built in imitation of the largest palaces in Crete. It would measure about 50 meters by 37 meters and had a patio of more or less 40 x 15 meters. There were rooms, several entrances, a courtyard, a sacrificial altar, and a small civic shrine separate from the palace complex, barely 3 meters by 4 meters. The truth is that the palace did not survive in its entirety for long and was destroyed not by wars but by an earthquake.
All the Gournia ruins They are open to the public and are easily accessible from the main road from Agios Nikolaos.
Too bad the photo is of Gortina ...