Images in this gallery are from the ancient city of Gortyn or Gortys, situated central southern Crete in the valley of Messara in the prefecture of Iraklio, 46 kilometres south west from Heraklion.
Scattered among fields and olive groves in the middle of the Messara plain lays the Greco-Roman ruins of Gortyn or Gortys which is a former ancient capital of Crete. Gortyn prospered during the period of the Dorian city states in the 6th century BC and achieved the status of the...
more »Images in this gallery are from the ancient city of Gortyn or Gortys, situated central southern Crete in the valley of Messara in the prefecture of Iraklio, 46 kilometres south west from Heraklion.
Scattered among fields and olive groves in the middle of the Messara plain lays the Greco-Roman ruins of Gortyn or Gortys which is a former ancient capital of Crete. Gortyn prospered during the period of the Dorian city states in the 6th century BC and achieved the status of the capital of Crete after the Roman invasion in 67 BC. It kept this title until the Arab conquest in 828 AD. Gortyn is said to have sheltered Hannibal after his defeat in 189 BC at Magnesia.
Gortyn is famous for the first code of law in Europe, dating from 500 BC they were written in a style known as boustrophedon, that is one line from left to right and the next line from right to left, just as an ox ploughs a field.
« less
