This is Crete, a mountainous island of ~8,500 km2 in the middle of the Eastern Mediterranean.
It lies within the uplifted fore-arc section of the Hellenic subduction margin. In simple words, it is exactly where the African oceanic plate runs into and slides beneath the continental Eurasian one. As a result, it is the most seismically active region of Europe, the island is literally trembling, a fact that the Minoans took seriously during construction. Their anti-seismic constructions were ahead of their contemporaries.
When the anti-seismic skills were not enough, the Minoans asked their deities for protection, offering them the ultimate sacrifice, human lives!
Those were the Minoans…bright and dark, victims and killers. More than a hundred years after they entered the world of history, emerging from mythology, they still keep a lot of secrets and surprises from us. This only makes them even more fascinating….