Listed 18 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "NEAPOLI Municipality MIRAMBELOU" .
CHOUMERIAKOS (Village) NEAPOLI
Houmeriako is 12km northwest of Agios Nikolaos on a south exit on
the Neapolis - Agios Nikolaos road. Houmeriako is a very pleasant village with
interesting Byzantine, Venetian, and Turkish remains as it was once the capital
of the area before Neapolis and Agios Nikolaos.
This text is cited Feb 2003 from the Crete TOURnet URL below, which contains image.
DRIROS (Ancient city) NEAPOLI
Driros is the site of an ancient city, 2km up a dirt track on the
hill of Agios Antonios northeast of Neapolis. The area of Driros has remains of
the ancient Greek city of Driros and the temple of Apollo Delfinos dating from
the eight century B.C.
The city of Driros was important during the early Greek years, about the eighth
century B.C., but declined later after the second century B.C. The retaining walls
of the city, the public buildings and the agora remain, but they are not well-preserved.
An inscription in Doric dialect was found in which the young men from Driros swore
to the gods to be forever the enemies of Lyktians and Milatians, then in another
later inscription, the people of Driros declared friendship with the Lyktians
and Milatians.
In Driros archaeologists discovered a temple to Apollo Delfinos, one of the
oldest Greek period temples in Greece, dating from the seventh century B.C.
A column in the centre, a central hearth (Estia) and an offering table make
it resemble a Minoan building. The temple has a stone house protecting it. Three
copper statuettes, found there, among the earliest of their kind, are displayed
now in the Iraklion Museum. Some important inscriptions revealed interesting
aspects of the ancient society.
This extract is cited Feb 2003 from the Crete TOURnet URL below, which contains images.
FOURNI (Village) NEAPOLI
From the Aretiou Monastery the road goes through two pleasant mountain
villages, Kastelli and Fourni. Fourni has a Byzantine church dedicated to Agios
Ioannis Theologos dating from the fourteenth century and which contains frescoes.
There are three other churches in the area although the frescoes in them are in
a poor condition. The village of Fourni is about 17km from Agios Nikolaos through
Elounda. In the wider area there are several Byzantine churches.
This text is cited Feb 2003 from the Crete TOURnet URL below, which contains image.
MILATOS (Village) NEAPOLI
The historical village of Milatos is near the north coast of Crete,
about 11km north of Neapolis or 26km from Agios Nikolaos. Milatos is a quiet village
with a maze of streets which reveal its lengthy history. Some Minoan tombs and
the remains of an ancient Greek city have been found in the area. According to
myths, the Cretans from Milatos built the city Milatos in Asia Minor. According
to Homer in The Iliad, ancient Milatos was one of the seven cities of Crete that
sent forces to Troy. In mythology, Milatos was a boy brought up by a she-wolf.
Later he killed the tyrant of the city and fled to Asia Minor where he established
the city of Milatos.
This text is cited Feb 2003 from the Crete TOURnet URL below, which contains image.
MILATOS (Port) MIRAMBELOU
There is a small fishing harbour in Milatos as well as a sandy beach
in front of the village of Milatos.
NEAPOLI (Small town) LASSITHI
Neapolis is a beautiful city, 15km from Agios Nikolaos on the highway
from Agios Nikolaos to Iraklion. Neapolis is the former capital of the prefecture
of Lassithi (currently Agios Nikolaos), still has the provincial courts and is
the seat of local government. One of its most renowned citizens was Petros Filargos
or Pope Alexander V.
This extract is cited Feb 2003 from the Crete TOURnet URL below.
Neapolis was the capital of Lasithi before Agios Nikolaos.The most knowed resident of Neapolis is Pope Alexander V (Petros Filargos),raised by monks. He studied in Heraklion and then in San Francesco at the Venetian monastery. After a lot of studies all over Europe he was declared Pope in 1409.He died in Bologna. Neapolis was under the Turks and Adhosidis Kostis Pasha. Many monasteries and churches are located near Neapolis. The Byzantine church of Agia Ekaterini or the Panagia Kera Goniotisa or the monastery of Agios Georgios Vrahatsiotis are some of them.
SELINARI (Settlement) NEAPOLI
In the location Selinari, 42km from Iraklion on the highway from Iraklion
to Agios Nikolaos is an interesting gorge and a church.
MILATOS (Ancient city) NEAPOLI
A town of Crete, mentioned in the Homeric catalogue. (il. ii. 647.)
This town, which no longer existed in the time of Strabo, was looked upon by some
writers as the mother-city of the Ionian colony of the same name. (Ephorus, ap.
Strab. xii. p. 573, xiv. p. 634; Schol. Apoll. Rhod. i. 186; Apollod. iii. 1,
2, 3; Plin. iv. 12.) Mr. Pasbley (Trav. vol. i. p, 269) explored the site of this
Homeric city not far from Episkopiano, at which, considerable remains of walls
of polygonal masonry, both of the acropolis and city are still to be seen. (Hock,
Kreta, vol. i. pp. 15, 418.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
PRESSOS (Ancient city) NEAPOLI
Praesus or Prasus (Praisos; in the MSS. of Strabo Prasos, but in inscriptions
Praisos, Bockh, Inscr. vol. ii. p. 1102: Eth. Praisios, more rarely Praisieus,
Steph. B. s. v.), a town in Crete, belonging to the Eteocretes, and containing
the temple of the Dictaean Zeus, for Mt. Dicte was in the territory of Praesus.
(Strab. x. pp. 475, 478.) There is a difficulty in the passage of Strabo, describing
the position of this town. He first says (p. 478) that Praesus bordered upon the
territory of Leben, and was distant 70 stadia from the sea, and 180 from Gortyn;
and he next speaks of Praesus as lying between the promontories Samonium and Chersonesus,
at the distance of 60 stadia from the sea. It is evident that these are two different
places, as a town, whose territory was contiguous to that of Leben, must have
been situated in the southern part of the island; while the other town, between
the promontories of Samonium and Chersonesus, must have been at the eastern end.
The latter is the town of the Eteocretes, possessing the temple of the Dictaean
Zeus, and the Praesus usually known in history : the former is supposed by Mr.
Pashley (Crete, vol. i. p. 289, seq.) to be a false reading for Priansus, a town
mentioned in coins and inscriptions, which he accordingly places on the southern
coast between Bienna and Leben. In this he is followed by Kiepert. But Bockh thinks
(Inscr. vol. ii. p. 405) that Pransos, or Priansos was the primitive form of the
name, from which Praisos, or Priaisos (a form in Steph. B. s. v.), and subsequently
Prasos, were derived, just as in the Aeolic dialect pansa became paisa, and in
the Attic dialect pasa. Kramer (ad Strab. l. c.) adopts the opinion of Bockh.
Upon the whole we must leave uncertain what town was intended by Strabo in the
former of the above-mentioned passages.
The territory of Praesus extended across the island to either sea.
(Scylax, p. 18, Huds.) It is said to have been the only place in Crete, with the
exception of Polichna, that did not take part in the expedition against Camicus
in Sicily, in order to avenge the death of Minos (Herod. vii. 170). It was destroyed
by the inhabitants of Hierapytna. (Strab. x. p. 479.) Agathocles, the Babylonian,
related that the Praesii were accustomed to sacrifice swine before marriage. (Athen.
ix. p. 376.) The ruins of Praesus are still called Praesus. (Pashley, Crete, vol.
i. p. 290, seq.; Hock, Kreta, vol. i. p. 413, seq.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
DRIROS (Ancient city) NEAPOLI
A small hilltop city on one of the S spurs of Mt. Kadiston, NW of
Ag. Nikolaos and just NE of modern Neapolis, Mirabello District, N Crete. The
twin hill, known as Ag. Antonios, dominates the inland plain of Mirabello to the
S; to the E lie Olous and Lato.
Dreros is barely mentioned in literary sources. There is no trace
of Minoan occupation; the earliest remains found are Sub-Minoan. Plentiful remains
of the Geometric and archaic periods attest the city's prosperity in the 8th-6th
c., and a group of archaic inscriptions includes the earliest complete constitutional
law yet found in Greece. In the 3d c. B.C. Dreros was an ally of Knossos and on
hostile terms with Lyttos and Milatos: this is vividly expressed in the famous
oath of the Drerian epheboi (late 3d c.), which also indicates dissensions within
the city. In the 2d c. B.C. Dreros seems to have ceased to exist as an independent
city; it became a dependency of Knossos, or possibly Lyttos. The chief deities
of Dreros were Apollo Delphinios and Athena Poliouchos; the few surviving (Hellenistic)
coins of the city depict the latter and the caduceus of Hermes.
The center of the city lies on the N side of the saddle between the
two hilltops, overlooking the small valley of Fourni. It has the same features
of an archaic Cretan town as Lato: stepped agora, nearby temple and probably prytaneion,
going back to the 8th c. These remains, with those of private houses particularly
on the N slope of the twin hill, illustrate well a small provincial Greek city
of the Geometric period.
The agora is a large, almost rectangnlar area (ca. 40 m N-S x over
20 m E-W) on the N side of the saddle. At its N end, where the ground falls away,
it is bounded by a polygonal retaining wall, and at the S end by a set of stone
steps, probably used as seats; at the SW corner seven rows of seats still survived
when excavated. Like the agora at Lato, it bears a striking resemblance to the
theatral areas by Minoan palaces, and was probably used as a meeting place for
the popular assembly and for religious spectacles. The floor was of beaten earth.
The steps on the S side were rebuilt in the Hellenistic period, probably when
the cistern to the S was constructed; the reused blocks included one with primitive
incised designs.
Above the SW corner of the agora, and approached from it by a set
of steps, lie the remains of the Geometric Temple of Dreros, one of the earliest
known temples of the Greek Iron Age. It is probably the Delphinion, Temple of
Apollo Delphinios, or possibly that of Apollo Pythios. Its excavation followed
the discovery on the site of three curious statues of hammered bronze plating,
originally covering wood: a nude male and two smaller clothed female figures,
probably representing Apollo, Leto, and Artemis, and dating from ca. 650-640.
The building dates probably from the second quarter of the 8th c.
The cella (ca. 10.90 x 7.20 m externally) has walls, built of small dressed stones,
standing up to 2.50 m high at the SW corner. The entrance was on the N, where
the wall is thicker and the facade of better masonry; between the facade and the
steps leading up from the agora is a shallow pronaos of uncertain plan. There
may have been another entrance on the E. Within the cella was a central rectangular
hearth, sunken and lined with stones, and one or two axial columns to support
the roof; a round stone column-base was found in situ between hearth and entrance.
In the SW corner is a stone bench for offerings, on which were found an early
6th c. bronze Gorgoneion, vases, and terracotta figurines. Later a small stone
box was built beside it against the S wall--a keraton or altar of horns; the box,
formed of vertical slabs (probably covered by a low wooden table), contained goats'
horns, more of which were found in front along with a stone offering-table. The
three bronze figures, like the altar a later addition, probably originally stood
on this altar. Most of the pottery from the area is of mid 8th to early 7th c.
date, and several stones incised with goat-hunting scenes have been found.
On the W side of the temple is a terrace at a higher level, probably
roofed as a portico, and on the S a group of rooms which may be the prytaneion
of the city: three rooms, one containing a hearth, all entered from a common vestibule.
The first divinity invoked in the Drerian Oath is "Hestia in the Prytaneion."
Finds here include a stone cult vase in the Minoan tradition. The building remained
in use, with alterations, into the Hellenistic period.
Below the temple to the E, and S of the Agora, an enormous rectangular
cistern (13.50 x 5.50 m and nearly 8 m deep) was constructed in the late 3d century
B.C. An inscription recording the work and mentioning the protection of Apollo
Delphinios was found in the cistern; it is contemporary with the Drerian Oath.
Two walls were built and two rock-cut; all four were plastered. The cistern was
probably open to the sky, and assured the water supply of the acropolis. In the
upper levels of its fill on the W were found a number of blocks, probably fallen
from the E wall of the Geometric temple, with archaic inscriptions of the late
7th or 6th c., including a constitutional law, a Greek-Eteocretan bilingual text
(suggesting a surviving pre-Greek element in the population) and six fragmentary
religious and public texts. In the lower levels on the E side were found incised
blocks, clearly not from the temple, including one with graffiti similar to Minoan
script and one with hammered designs curiously similar to scenes on the Ag. Triada
sarcophagus.
The E hilltop seems to have been surrounded by a wall with a gate
on the W side. However, the earliest remains found here are Roman; later ones
are Byzantine and Venetian. Traces of a fortification wall of various periods
have also been found on the W side of the W hill, on top of which a building (24
x 10.7 m) has been excavated which, though it was originally interpreted as a
temple, may rather be an andreion or meeting place for hetaireiai; it has a deep
vestibule with a side room, and a main room with a hearth and 2 (4?) columns.
The stele bearing the Drerian Oath was found on this hill in 1854, identifying
the site.
At the foot of the N slope of the E hill part of the cemetery has
been excavated: 25 graves with low stone walls and an enclosure wall on the lower
side. One grave contained inhumations and Sub-Minoan pottery; the rest are of
Geometric date and contain mainly cremation burials, some of them in pithoi or
urns, with scanty grave goods.
D. J. Blackman, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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