Rethinking the Sacred Landscape: Minoan Palaces in a Georitual Framework of Natural Features on Crete

Abstract

The present work diverges from visual extension relationships between architecture and landscape features as described in Scully’s The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods (1962). In contrast, symbolic landscape frameworks on Minoan Crete are investigated as an a priori means of locating ceremonial “palaces,” a process here called intension. Using custom software called Geopatterns, several remarkably accurate geometric patterns among natural and built points in the landscape are identified and described. The computer application allows these actual patterns to be compared to those generated by large numbers of sets of equivalent random points. Statistical analyses demonstrate the high probability of design. The formalized landscape structure of highest mountains and most prominent caves that creates the geometric context for the four major palaces—Knossos, Mallia, Zakros, Phaistos—appears to have evolved from an earlier pattern created coincidentally by natural features alone. The orientations of the four palaces integrate with this original framework.

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