Concordia CMLL Study Tour

By Hannah Biernat

We started the day by visiting a Late Minoan tholos tomb. After this, we went to the German World War II memorial at Malame, where Charles did his presentation, and we were able to walk through the cemetery. After this we went to Phalasarna where we met with Dr. Elpida Hadjidaki, who walked us through the main parts of the site. Unfortunately I will be unable to speak of the final site we visited as excavations are still ongoing and most findings are still unpublished.

Despite being hidden from the main road, the Minoan tomb was very interesting as it was unique in its construction. As a strange combination of both mainland and Cretan influence, the tomb featured a rectangular roof rather than the usual dome that we see from most tholos tombs. One thing I noticed particularly about this tomb is how I felt very disconnected with it. Its age and the person it once housed seemed very distant to me, and I found it hard to look at it as anything more than a corbelled pit. 

I had a very different reaction to the German memorial site at Malame. I felt very mixed emotions surrounding the site, firstly considering its context. In his presentation, Charles told us that it was the Germans that invaded and captured the airfield in 1941, however the memorial was to the invaders and not to the people that already lived on the island. The cemetery caused much discomfort for many people, as well as many heated discussions. For me, the most difficult experience was how conflicted I felt about the memorial. As a fully Polish woman, I was very uncomfortable with being in a German memorial, however seeing how young some of the men were when they died made me very sad. They were barely adults, however they were still Nazis, working under a very horrific agenda. 

Looking at the sites together, one thing that struck me was how different I felt at two grave sites. I felt rather indifferent towards the Minoan tomb, possibly because we have seen many at this point, or because I have little to no connection with them as they seem so far in the past. This was completely different for me when visiting the World War II site, as it is so much more recent, and I have relatives that lived through it. The disconnect with death that comes with time was very present here, and I feel that the lack of artefacts and grave goods pushes that disconnect even further. We are not seeing the tombs as they originally were, and I feel that this pushes the modern day viewer further from time long gone, when we should be attempting to bridge the gap with cultures long since past.