ARENCORES MAGAZINE Issue |No. 8 (Updated)

d Zeus, the king of the gods of Mount Olympus was raised in a cave deep inside the Cretan mountains having
as companion a divine goat named Amalthea who fed the baby Zeus with its milk.
AMALTHEIA’S
SKIN, OR THAT OF
HER GOAT, TAK-
EN BY ZEUS IN
HONOR OF HER
WHEN SHE DIED,
BECAME THE PRO-
TECTIVE AEGIS
IN SOME TRADI-
TIONS.
Its name is translated from the ancient Greek and means “gentle goddess.” Zeus’ father, inherited his father’s
Infancy of Zeus, by Jacob Jordaens, early 1630s (Louvre Museum)
SOURCE:WIKIPEDIA
curs¬e: for fear of losing his place and rule, swallowed up all his newly born children. His wife Rhea
IMAGE
suffered greatly from this, and when the next THE child BIRTH was OF born, A she GASTRONOMY
slipped a stone wrapped in diapers instead
was of very Kronos. fond of his goat-saver and
Zeus
TREASURE IN CRETE
Amalthea Kronos received swallowed from the him stone, a golden not suspecting dog High anything, up the so the Cretan kid had mountains, to hide. Rhea shepherds
hid him as a on cage the island to gather of sheep and goats for
of Ideon and Antron. goatherds The goat take Amalthea milk from saved the milking. life of the Made future of nothing but stone on
who Crete guarded in the her cave until of Mount her death. Ida in Moreover,
the area
supreme accidentally god. broken goat’s horn be-
came a cornucopia.
their flocks straight to the cauldron in the
mitata.
stone, the mitata continue to stand on
the mountain rock as examples of perfect
She produced two goatlings and fed Zeus with the abundant milk that appeared. Moreover, vernacular Amalthea architecture hung – modest, sturdy
The legend of the goat Amalthea became
the source of the phraseologism from
the myths of ancient Greece, where the
“cornucopia” term is used. The one who
held the cornucopia in his hands could get
everything he wanted
The goat served Zeus even after her death.
The god used her unusually strong skin
(according to the ancient Greek aegis) for
the shield during the war with the titans.
Covering his shield with Amalthea’s skin,
Zeus made him invincible, and under the
aegis of his shield he began to fight with
the titans. Thus, another popular expression
“under the auspices” appeared.
Mitata is the Cretan name for the basic
shepherds’ dwellings built high up on the
slopes in the mountains and, since one
of their primary uses is to store and age
cheese, they’re often considered to be the
earliest form of dairies in Greece.
These stone-built structures symbolize
the very initial stage of what later grew
into a great tradition of dairy farming in
Crete.
Being so remote, the mitata were also
used as hideouts during the Ottoman
occupation; during the Second World
War, they provided cover for resistance
fighters. These shelters, built of locally-sourced
stones and shaped like Minoan
tholos tombs, have entrances that face
due east and, they are unique to Crete.
and functional in the extreme. Larger,
squarer stones were placed at the bottom
in a circle, with the stones at the top being
carved into shape.
The structures became narrower as they
grew taller, much like an igloo, in order to
stand the weight of the winter snow. The
gaps between the stones were deliberately
not filled in with clay or any other material,
in order to allow air to pass through
the walls to dry out the cheese, maturing
it in the process.
A small window – like a skylight – was
left at the top of the dome, where spiders
would be able to weave a nice thick web,
catching flies and other insects and keeping
them away from the cheese: a brilliant
example of man and insect working together
in symbiosis.
Each one was surrounded by a drystone
wall about 1.5m high, which was used
ARENCORES CHANIA REAL
ESTATE MAGAZINE
26