Tthough most of the day was spent working on our respective projects, Tyler and I did take a break to visit the Heraklion Archeological Museum. While I was in college I took a class called "Greek Myth, Art, and Literature" during which we studied the Minoan civilization extensively. This peaceful, colorful, goddess-worshiping, seemingly jubilant society that inhabited ancient Crete always fascinated me.

Today we were able to see some of the 4,000 year old Minoan artifacts that I had enjoyed studying.

Beautiful, well-preserved vessels, perhaps used for ritual purposes:

Powerful, snake-handling goddess sculptures:

Evidence of the Minoan bull-jumping past-time:

Cute little owls, made thousands of years ago. They could easily be sold on Etsy today!

Examples of early writing in the as-yet undeciphered Minoan Linear A script:

And finally, the famed Prince of Lilies Fresco. It is worth noting that there are so few pieces of the original fresco left, that it could well have been anything and not necessarily a male figure in a lilly headdress.

Unfortunately the museum was under reconstruction (we think?) so we were only able to see a small portion of its collection. Tomorrow we head to the Minoan palace of Knossos for some more history!