Athens, Greece — A large 4,000-year-old round stone building discovered on a hilltop in Crete is baffling archaeologists and threatening to disrupt a major airport project on the Greek resort island.
Greece’s Culture Ministry said Tuesday that the structure is a “unique and extremely interesting find” from Crete’s Minoan civilization, famous for its sumptuous palaces, extravagant art and enigmatic writing system. The ruins of the labyrinthine 1,800-square-meter (19,000-square-foot) building, which resembles an enormous automobile wheel when viewed from above, came to light during a recent excavation by archaeologists.
The site was intended for a radar station that would serve a new airport under construction near the town of Kastelli. Scheduled to open in 2027, it is expected to replace Greece’s second largest airport, Heraklion, and is designed to handle up to 18 million travelers a year.
Archaeologists still don’t know what the structure on top of the hill was for. It is still under excavation and no Minoan parallels are known. At the moment, experts speculate that it could have been used for a ritual or religious function.
Surrounded by eight stepped stone walls up to 1.7 meters (5.6 ft) high, the interior structure was divided into smaller interconnected spaces and may have had a shallow conical roof.
The ministry statement states that it did not appear to have been a home and that the finds inside included a large number of animal bones.
“It may have been used periodically for possibly ritual ceremonies involving the consumption of food, wine and perhaps offerings,” the statement said.
“Its size, architectural design and careful construction required considerable manpower, specialized knowledge and strong central administration,” he said, adding that it was undoubtedly some type of communal building that stood out throughout the area.
Culture Minister Lina Mendoni, an archaeologist, promised that the find would be preserved while a different location for the radar station was sought.
“We all understand the value and importance of cultural heritage… as well as the growth potential” of the new airport project, he said. “It is possible to move forward with the airport and at the same time give the antiquities the protection they deserve.”
The ministry said the building was mainly used between 2000 and 1700 BC. C. and was founded at the time when the first palaces in Crete were built, including those at Knossos and Phaistos.
He said some of its features were comparable to early Minoan beehive tombs that were topped by stepped conical roofs and burial mounds in other parts of Greece.
The rich cultural heritage of Greece often results in Conflicts of interest during construction projects.
At the end of the last century, during construction work on the Athens International Airport, an entire fortified hilltop settlement from the 3rd millennium BC was excavated and destroyed.
At least 35 other archaeological sites have so far been discovered during construction of the new Kastelli airport and its road connections, the ministry said.
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