This is the oldest art in Greece. Perhaps some of the oldest in the world.
And yet, it remains almost completely unknown.
While the Lascaux caves in France get millions of visitors, it would be safe to say
that more people have won an NBA championship than have ever seen this art.
It is etched in the floor of a half-collapsed cave, forgotten behind a small metal fence halfway up a cliffside overlooking a goat farm.
It is virtually unknown to even those living fifteen minutes away.
Which makes this perhaps the first story that has ever been told about it.
And in turn you, one of the first people to even know it exists.
Today’s story begins with my wife and I driving across Crete.
We were headed from here in Xania to here in the region of Sfakia to film an episode at a castle,
and that meant driving up and over these mountains that divide the north and south of this island.
Mountains that blossom during the summer but in winter are pretty much completely empty.
A bit of snow, a couple goats, but very few people. No real obvious reason to stop beyond the scenery.
But just as we were cresting the top of that mountain, my wife suggested a detour.
She wanted to check out something that she’d read about online. Just to see if it was real.
There was virtually no information that she could find beyond a single scientific article,
but this tiny little mountain town apparently had a very important secret.
She said that in this little town, a town called Asphendou, there was a cave, barely big enough to fit a single person.
A cave that contains the oldest art in Greek history. Possibly some of the oldest ever found on earth.
And what’s crazier, is that virtually nobody had ever seen it before.
As far as I can tell, this is one of, if not the first video ever made about it.
Beyond the scientific studies it simply doesn’t exist yet in our collective minds.
So obviously I said yes. This is the exact sort of adventure that I live for.
That said, I never actually expected to see the art.
Because the one article that we could find claimed that it was locked behind a gate,
and that the only person with a key to that gate was the town’s singular year-round resident.
It didn’t give him name. No phone number, email, no address.
It just claimed that if you wanted to see that cave, you’d have find him. Find the guy, he has the key.
And so even as we were turning down that road, in my heart I’d already kind of decided it wasn’t going to work out.
In fact, I loudly stated that it wouldn’t work out about fifty times. Possibly more.
But as it turns out, it worked out. He was actually quite easy to find, really.
He was not only sitting in the only open building in town, but he was actually staring out the front door silently like he was waiting for us.
Like a video game character whose sole purpose is to give you this quest item and then disappear.
Which in this case happened to be a key to a cave.
He was even so nice as to walk us out to it.
Across his goat fields, through some unavoidable thorns, down a cliff and then there it was. This little gate protecting an even smaller cave.
But the moment he advanced our plot, he vanished. Not even a word of goodbye. He just returned to his tavern.
It really felt like if I asked he would have sold me something made from mithril.
Could have possibly found some megalixer hiding behind his stove.
But either way, within ten minutes of arriving in that town, we were already at this cave.
And I’m not really sure what I expected from it, honestly.
Like I said, I hadn’t even really believed we’d get to this point.
I read almost nothing about it, and all my wife could remembered was that it was locked behind this gate.
And now this gate wasn’t locked.
Ok so what was it?
I’d say that the cave barely fits a single person. And we’re talking a person my size, too.
A real man would have had a great deal of trouble fitting in here.
I’d say it’s about three feet tall and two feet wide, maybe six feet in depth when you actually get inside.
You can tell that a landslide that created this, because there’s no way it looked like this when they made this art.
And on top of that, it’s extremely wet. I couldn’t quite capture it on camera
but the entire cave had that same slickness as the hand of a thirteen-year old meeting his girlfriend’s father.
But once inside, size or not, it was incredible. An entire floor covered in paleolithic art created before humanity had even built its first towns.
Etchings that without exaggeration watching this video you’re now among the first modern humans to have ever witnessed.
That said, of course you’re not the first. This was discovered in 1972,
and it was photographed and lightly studied by these two different groups who had come to theorize what it might be.
Then for fifty years it remained little more than a local legend.
A secret stopping off point for those handful of in-the-know hikers who happened to climb this mountain.
But then in 2019, a new generation of scientist arrived, and the work they did,
with newer tools and renewed interest, were much more extensive than that which came before.
It’s their article that my wife read to inspire this trip.
They were the ones who are putting this little cave on the map.
Because in that recent survey, what they found was nothing short of incredible.
At least three if not four distinct layers of history carved here, each overlapping the last.
This isn’t one bit of cave art, but many, cascading over time.
Each with their different style, and purpose, and subject captured in the rock.
And with new technology, this new wave of scientists has been able to isolate images of
what appears to be a paleolithic ship with a sail.
They’ve found abstract designs, or as they call them, starburst.
They found what look like paddles, or perhaps leaves.
But most importantly, underneath everything, they found this cave’s original drawings.
47 distinct animals. An entire herd of deer.
Which might not sound that important in and of itself,
but there haven’t been deer on this island for nearly 12,000 years.
And according to our previous understanding, that’s a time when humans should not have been on Crete.
And yet obviously they were, because this proves it. How else could they have seen the deer?
All told, between this ship, the paddles, the deer, and the designs,
this is one of the most important finds in all Greek pre-history.
This lets us know that we likely sailed the Mediterranean an unbelievably long time before we have proof of that happening.
That humans came to Crete on ships that we have no memory of. No memory beyond these carvings.
And I gotta say, that was incredibly cool to see.
But after a few minutes marveling we headed back up that goat path towards Yanni’s tavern, shared a few beers, bought some of his homemade pies,
and then drove back off into the mountains. It was a pretty good detour if you ask me.
But driving away, as excited as I was for the experience gained,
I kept returning to the feeling that I probably shouldn’t have been able to do that.
Which isn’t to say I harmed the site. I didn’t. But what about the future mes?
What about the people inspired by this video?
As great as Yanni is, I just don't feel like art like this should be protected by whatever villager happens to stay the winter.
It probably shouldn’t even be in that cave at all.
With the acidic water dripping down from the ceiling, and the collapsing rocks,
not to mention human stupidity, it’s hard not to think that soon enough, it’s going to be destroyed. If only because we know about it now.
It's on our radar. It’s a quest item, waiting for its key.
This is the oldest art in Greece. Possibly some of the oldest on our planet.
And you are one of the first people to witness it.
But ignore that for a second, because by God does Yanni have a good price on mithril.
This is Rare Earth.