Phaistos (
Greek Fa?st??), also
transliterated as
Phaestos,
Festos and
Phaestus is an ancient city on the
island of
Crete. Phaistos was located in the south-central portion of the island, about 5.6 kilometres from the
Mediterranean Sea. It was inhabited from about 4000 BC.
[1] A palace, dating from the Middle
Bronze Age, was destroyed by an
earthquake during the
Late Bronze Age.
Knossos along with other
Minoan sites was destroyed at that time. The
palace was rebuilt toward the end of the Late Bronze Age.
The reference of Phaistos to the ancient Greek literature is quite frequent. Phaistos is first referenced by Homer as "well populated"[2] , and the Homeric epics indicate its participation in the Trojan war[3]. The historian Diodorus Siculus indicates[4] that Phaistos, together with Knossos and Kydonia, are the three towns that were founded by the king Minos on Crete. Instead, Pausanias and Stephanus of Byzantium supported in their texts that the founder of the city was Phaestos, son of Hercules or Ropalus[5]. Especially the city of Phaistos is associated with the mythical king of Crete Rhadamanthys.
Phaistos had its own currency and had created an alliance with other autonomous Cretan cities, and with the king of Pergamon Eumenes II. Around the end of the 3rd century BC, Phaestos destroyed by the Gortynians and since then ceased to exist in the history of Crete. Scotia Aphrodite and goddess Leto (was called and Phytia also) worshiped there. People of Phaistos distinguished for their funny adages. Phaistian in his descent was Epimenides who was the wise man who had been invited by the Athenians to clean the city from the Cylonian affair (Cyloneio agos) at the 6th cent. BC.
Phaistos was first excavated by Italian archaeologists Federico Halbherr and Luigi Pernier. Further excavations in 1950-1971 were conducted by Doro Levi who discovered a large fraction of the palace.
