Korridorium

♫ Song of the Spec­tres ♫

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I enter the cor­ri­dor that opened up after an earth­quake in Psy­chro Cave. Armed with a pow­er­ful flash­light, I feel like Carter when he stepped into Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, or Wool­ley when he dis­cov­ered the bur­ial cham­ber of Queen Puabi. The oppor­tu­nity to enter a site untouched by human eyes for cen­turies or mil­len­nia is a rare priv­i­lege for an archae­ol­o­gist.

This cave in Crete is leg­endary and is con­sid­ered thor­oughly explored. How­ever, the earth­quake has revealed a new pas­sage. Where might it lead? To the birth­place of Zeus, as leg­end has it, or to another Minoan cult site, like the ones my col­leagues have already uncov­ered here?

An old man emerges from the depths of the cave, squint­ing into the beam of my flash­light. I am so stunned that I stand there open-mouthed, let­ting him pass by with­out doing a thing.

Once I regain my com­po­sure, I fol­low him out of the cave. In our tent, he gob­bles down a mas­sive break­fast, explain­ing to us incred­u­lous researchers with his mouth full—in Ancient Greek, no less—that he must have slept for quite a long time. His name, he claims, is … Epi­menides.

Mean­while, the man is being exam­ined at the hos­pi­tal in Her­ak­lion. Some of my col­leagues think he’s a fraud; oth­ers take him for a mad­man. I’m not so sure. Sure, Epi­menides, the leg­endary inven­tor of the plow, is said to have lived here some­time between the sev­enth and fifth cen­turies BC, and he’s even quoted in the Bible for his epi­gram that all Cre­tans are liars. But you can’t just sleep for a few mil­len­nia and then gorge on break­fast to your heart’s con­tent, can you? On the other hand, there’s that strange story from the Cave of the Seven Sleep­ers about an alleged eighth sleeper who only recently came to light.

In any case, I went back into the cave later that night to push fur­ther into the unknown areas alone. The cor­ri­dor winds through the moun­tain and ends in a stone alcove. Sud­denly, I am becom­ing very, very tired, and I decide to rest a lit­tle on the ancient ram’s fleece lying right there …

Epi­menides: