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Archaeologists have discovered large quantities of treasure, which may be called ‘Atlantean treasures,’ in ancient Minoan-era buildings in Crete. Excavations conducted this year by Lasithi Antiquities Ephorate on the western part of the islet Chryssi, a municipality of Ierapetra, eastern Crete, have unearthed an ancient Minoan settlement, which according to the Greek Ministry of Culture , supported a “flourishing economy” so advanced it had built stone tanks in which marine species were cultivated.

Sometime between 1400 and 1200 B.C., two Minoan men were laid to rest in an underground enclosure carved out of the soft limestone native to southeast Crete. Both were entombed within larnakes—intricately embossed clay coffins popular in Bronze Age Minoan society—and surrounded by colorful funerary vases that hinted at their owners’ high status. Eventually, the burial site was sealed with stone masonry and forgotten, leaving the deceased undisturbed for roughly 3,400 years.

Statues of Ancient Goddesses Discovered By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 42 minutes ago ATHENS, Greece - The life-sized marble statues of two ancient Greek goddesses have emerged during excavations of a 5,000-year-old town on the island of Crete, archaeologists said Friday. The works, representing the goddesses Athena and Hera, date to between the second and fourth centuries — during the period of Roman rule in Greece — and originally decorated the Roman theater in the town of Gortyn, archaeologist Anna Micheli from the Italian School of Archaeology told The Associated Press. "They are in very good condition,"...

Excavated in the summer of 1979, this four-room building set within a low enclosure (temenos) wall serves as a reminder that our views about a past culture may be subject to sudden and drastic change as the result of a single new discovery. The building, oriented roughly to the cardinal points and entered from the north, lies on the northern slopes of Mt. Iuktas some seven kilometers south of Knossos . In plan, it consists of an east-west corridor at the front off of which open three non-connecting rectangular rooms oriented north-south. In the east room were found large numbers...