The Dictaean Cave: the Cave of Zeus above Psychro

About the route

The cradle of Zeus: the Dictaean Cave (Dikteon Antron)

In ancient mythology the Dictaean Cave is bound up with the birth of Zeus. Rhea, mother of the gods, hid her newborn child here from Kronos, to whom it had been foretold that one of his own children would overthrow him. In place of the infant she handed him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which the unsuspecting father swallowed. Apollodorus and Diodorus Siculus are among the ancient writers who set the birth on “Dikte”, whereas Hesiod, in the Theogony, speaks of a mountain he calls Aegaeon.

The Kouretes stood guard over the child and drowned his crying with the clash of their weapons and the rhythmic beating of their shields. The myth accounts for the sanctity of the cave and for the pre-eminent place it holds in the religious tradition of Crete.

A later tradition has it that King Minos came here every nine years to receive counsel and laws from Zeus. To the same cycle of legends belong Amaltheia and Talos, the bronze guardian of the island; and the sage Epimenides, too, is said to have slept in this cave for fifty-seven years and to have woken endowed with divine wisdom.

Today the cave is open to visitors: stalactites, stalagmites, columns and lit chambers make up a natural sculpture of great expressive force. It is cool and damp inside, so the circuit calls for comfortable shoes with a good grip, and for a measure of care.

The Dictaean Cave: a sanctuary above the Lasithi Plateau

The Dictaean Cave – Dikteon Antron in Greek – lies above the village of Psychro on the northern slope of the Dikti Mountains, at an altitude of about 1,025 metres and some 48 kilometres south-east of Heraklion. Its other name, the Cave of Psychro, comes from that nearest village, and it is under this name that archaeologists generally refer to it. The cave covers roughly 2,200 square metres, and the path open to visitors is about 250 metres long. Two tracks lead up from the car park to the entrance; the climb takes ten to fifteen minutes and is rewarded with a broad view over the Lasithi Plateau, with its fields, its orchards and the remains of the windmills that once stood here beyond counting.

Explanatory note: the Dikteon Antron and the Idaean Cave

The Dikteon Antron must not be confused with the Idaean Cave on the Nida Plateau. Both caves are connected with the cult of Zeus, but they lie in different mountain ranges of Crete; it is the Cave of Psychro that is commonly identified with the Dictaean sanctuary, an equation first argued by Arthur Evans and David Hogarth, the cave’s early explorers.

The myth of the birth of Zeus

According to Cretan tradition, it was here that Rhea hid the newborn Zeus from Kronos. He had been told by prophecy that one of his children would strip him of his power, and so he swallowed each of them at birth. Rhea gave him a stone wrapped in swaddling bands instead of the child, and entrusted Zeus to the care of Amaltheia and the Kouretes.

The Kouretes, the myth relates, drowned the child’s crying with the din of arms and the rhythmic beating of their shields. In ancient religion the tale explained the sacred character of the cave and the presence of its countless offerings. Another tradition tells how Zeus later lay with Europa, and how from that union came Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon – the forefathers of Cretan kingship.

Explanatory note: Amaltheia and the Kouretes

Amaltheia was the name given to the goat, or the nymph, that nursed the young Zeus; the ancient authors tell the story in different ways. In the version ascribed to Musaeus she is a nymph who rears the child on the milk of a goat, and Callimachus, in the 3rd century BC, is the first known writer to make Amaltheia the goat herself. From one of her horns the cornucopia, the emblem of inexhaustible plenty, is said to have come: the “horn of Amaltheia” is mentioned by poets as early as the 6th century BC, and Ovid relates how the goat broke it off against a tree and how it was then filled with fruit. Aratus identified her with the star Capella in the constellation of the Charioteer. The Kouretes were armed guardians of the child, whose dance and clash of weapons were associated with the ritual protection of the sacred place.

The archaeological sanctuary

The finds show that as early as the Neolithic, around 4000 to 3500 BC, the cave served as a shelter and a burial place, and that from Early Minoan times it was used for worship. It was at its height in the Middle and Late Minoan periods, and pilgrims were still bringing their gifts as late as the Roman era, in the 1st century AD. In the clefts of the rock and wedged among the stalactites were found bronze statuettes of worshippers, double axes – the sacred symbol of Minoan religion – arrowheads and spearheads, swords, pottery, animal bones from sacrificial meals and an offering table bearing an inscription in Linear A. The bones are those of bulls, sheep, goats, deer and boar; among the smaller offerings were engraved gems, stone and clay lamps, conical cups, clay figurines and beads of carnelian, amethyst and jasper. Many of these pieces are now in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion; others went to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the British Museum and the Louvre.

The story of the discovery itself reads like an adventure. Around 1880 a hunter chanced upon bronze objects, whereupon the villagers began to dig. In 1886 the Cretan physician and antiquary Iosif Chatzidakis and the Italian Federico Halbherr carried out the first investigations; in 1894 and 1895 Arthur Evans bought up finds and explored the cave, returning in 1896 with John Myres. Finally, at the turn of the century, the Englishman David George Hogarth, working for the British School at Athens, directed the first large-scale excavation, for which he took almost the entire village into his employ and had the fallen boulders cleared with explosives. In the upper cave he uncovered a stuccoed altar surrounded by layers of ash, potsherds and other debris. His methods are regarded today as crude, yet he saved a treasure that would otherwise in all likelihood have fallen to looters; the material was not fully published until 1961, by John Boardman.

Inside there is an upper chamber, used in the Neolithic and Early Minoan periods for worship and for burials, a large lower chamber and, at the very bottom, a smaller one with an underground lake whose level rises in winter after heavy rain. A stair leads down to the water, out of which the stalagmites rise. The most famous formation above the lake is known as the “Mantle of Zeus”. Columns, stalactites, stalagmites and draperies of flowstone shape a natural relief which in antiquity was felt to be part of the sacred space.

Minos and the Cretan tradition

A later tradition linked the cave with Minos, the legendary king of Crete, who is said to have gone up to Zeus every nine years to receive instruction and laws. The story explains the place of the cave in the myths about the origin of the Cretan order; beside it in the legends stands Talos, the bronze giant who circled the island three times a day to protect it from its enemies. Over the centuries the cave also drew travellers: the Florentine monk Cristoforo Buondelmonti described it in 1415, and the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort visited it around 1700.

Visiting

The cave has been made accessible to visitors, but inside it is cool, damp and in places slippery; the descent by the steps demands stout footwear and attention, and a light jacket is welcome even at the height of summer. In season the tavernas and shops by the car park offer refreshment, and local people offer the ascent by donkey. Those who come early in the morning often have the cave almost to themselves.