The Cave of the Apostle Paul

Serial number: HCCI 5
Cultural value: The cave of the Apostle Paul.

Description:

It is one of Crete’s sacred places connected by local tradition with the arrival of the Apostle Paul in Crete. It is situated in the southern coast of Crete, at the bay of Kali Limenes (Fair Havens).

Wall Painted Churches

Serial number: HCCI 4
Cultural value: Wall painted churches of Crete.

Description:

Hundreds of wall-painted churches have survived in Crete today interspersed in rural areas in the interior of the island. The first attempt for their systematic study is owed to the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Gerola (1935), who listed 809 churches. In the early 20th century most of them stood in quite good condition, some had fallen down and in others most of the wall paintings had been damaged. More recent studies increased the original number; at present some 900 churches have been located, decorated with wall paintings dating form the 12th to the early 16th century.

Olive Cultivation

Serial number: HCCI 3
Cultural value: Olive cultivation

Description:

Economic activities and social life in Crete are closely intertwined with the cultivation of the olive tree and the production of olive oil. Even 3.500 years ago the inhabitants of the island cultivated olive trees systematically, as indicated by archaeological findings and, particularly, by a fresco found at Cnossos depicting an “olive grove ritual”. The trees are lined up, thus proving that Cretans had already developed olive cultivation techniques in the Minoan Period. Since those times they have never stopped cultivating the olive tree and producing olive oil which is used in the everyday diet, in worship as well as in cosmetics. The olive tree itself has a part in worship, mainly in rituals of the Orthodox Church.

Cretan KAFENEIA (Coffe Houses)

Serial number: HCCI 2

Cultural value: Cretan kafeneia (coffee houses)

Description

In the Cretan countryside kafeneia, in their overwhelming majority, are small or very small family-owned enterprises preserving the traditional form of organization. The owners’ motives are not strictly economic, since their income is very low, particularly in small and declining villages. Most of them are not businessmen and run their kafeneion as a pastime (to have company). They often carry out their farming occupations in the morning and open the kafeneion in the afternoon. Strangely enough even in very small villages there may operate more than one kafeneia, with very few clients.

Cretan Diet

Serial number: HCCI 1
Name: Cretan Diet

Description

Cretan Diet is universally known as an ideal nutritional system safeguarding health and longevity. However, its value as an intangible cultural asset that has retained its principal characteristics for many centuries is not equally known. Its older history has been documented by archaeological evidence and through literary sources, while the more recent has been described sufficiently in ethnographic researches, in travellers’ texts and in other sources.

Best Practise 1 for Cretan Diet
Best Practise 2 for Cretan Diet