The arcaeological site of Malia is located 3 km East of the village of Malia.
The excavations at Malia were begun in 1915 by J. Chatzidakis and were continued by the French Archaeological School. The Palace, houses in the town and the cemetry at Chryssolakos have already been excavated.
The site was inhabited in the Neolithic and early Minoan period (6000- 2000 BC), but very little trace remains.
The Palace of Malia, which covered an area of 7,500 sq.m. , is the third- largest of the Minoan Palaces and is considered the most "provincial" from the architectural point of view.
According to tradition the third son of Zeus and Europa, Sarpedon, ruled here.
A floor-plan of the palace
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The first Palace was built in 1900 BC and desroyed in 1700 BC when a
new Palace was built. Following the fate of the other palaces in
Crete it was also destroyed in 1450 BC . and the present ruins are mainly those of the new palace.
The Palace had two floors and its entrance is from the western paved Court, trough a procession passage.
It is a building with a central court, loggia, thetre, sanctuaries, Royal quarters, workshops and magazines.
North of the western court is the hypostyle crypt,
discovered recently, and protected from the weather
conditions by a modern roof. The large underground room, whose ceiling was supported by columns,
is considered as a council chamber for the
political deliberations of the local lords, separete from the dwelling quarters and the official buildings.
Its a forebear of the classical Greek Pritaneion, which had a similar function.
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Finds
At the south west part of the central court is located a round table,
with little cavities around the edge and a bigger at the center, standing on a base.
This table is believed to be a kind of kernos of the
classic Greece. In the cavities the minoans put the seeds, offering to the god, so they wished to have a fruitful crop.
This explanation seems more probableas this custom still exists in Crete.
At the east side of the central court, with a pillared portico, was the palace's eastern entrance
near which there ware the rooms of the royal treasury. On the same side was arw of Magazines, narrow cells leeding off a communal corridor and occupied by pitoi (jars) standing on bases, with an arrangement for gathering liquids (channels and vases for oil and wine.)
About 500 m north of the palace was the necropolis, a royal burial enclosure, certainly belonging to the lords of Malia, suurounded on all four sides by levelled areas and perhaps by porticoes.
Here was found the famous Bee pendant which is now on display at the Iraklion Museum.
This pendant is in the shape of two bees, or wasps, storing away a drop of honey in a comb.The ancient cemetry is located at a place named Chryssolakkos a name that means the "pit of gold" beacause of the precious objects that the farmers used to find there.
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