Tea at Trianon: A Mysterious Minoan Labyrinth on Crete

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, October 16, 2025

A Mysterious Minoan Labyrinth on Crete

From The Greek Reporter:

Archaeologists have presented the preliminary results of the ongoing excavation on Papoura Hill on Greece’s largest island of Crete, where a unique Minoan Labyrinth was discovered in 2024.

The site was discovered during work for the installation of radar systems for the new Heraklion airport.

According to Danae Kontopodi of the Heraklion Ephorate of Antiquities, the excavation has revealed a rare, monumental circular structure, impressive for its size, early date, and unique architectural design.
The President of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, Costas Paschalidis, described Papoura as “one of the most important archaeological finds of the 21st century for the prehistoric Aegean.”

With a diameter of 48-50 meters, this circular, labyrinthine building has no known parallel in prehistoric Crete or the wider Aegean region. Its design is reminiscent of the circular residential or funerary buildings found in the early Bronze Age in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Oman, as well as the circular enclosures of Neolithic and prehistoric Europe. (Read more.)