Crime Scenes
Akrotiri
In Death in the Aegean, the archaeological ruins of Akrotiri on Santorini, Greece is where my fictional gold Akrotiri Snake Goddess was discovered.
by M.A. Monnin
Akrotiri was a Bronze Age Minoan city that was home to accomplished craftsmen and a thriving maritime economy, which all came to halt in roughly 1,628 BC (scholars still debate the date), when the volcano on the island erupted in a massive explosion that sunk parts of the island and buried the rest in tons of ash.
Professor Spyridon Marinatos began excavating Akrotiri in 1967, and excavation continues to this day. A bioclimatic shelter was erected in 2000 to help preserve the site. In addition to the streets and houses found, as seen in this photo, beautiful frescoes were discovered on the walls of many of the houses, showing what the city looked like, how the Minoans dressed, and birds and flowers they would have been familiar with, among other things.
Who knows what fascinating finds excavation will recover in the future?
If you’d like to experience Akrotiri as my heroine Stefanie Adams does, please check out the first Intrepid Traveler Mystery, Death in the Aegean by M. A. Monnin.
Venice
Along the side of the Doge’s palace, you can still see the ‘suggestion box’ for revealing secrets or denouncing a neighbor to the Council of Ten, the magistrates of Venice.
In “The Gallery of Beauties”, when the physician is dragged off by the soldiers of the Council of Ten, he believes a competitor has denounced him by placing a note in the Bocca di Leone, the Lion’s Mouth, revealing, “Fornari possesses a forbidden book”.
In real life, the Bocca di Leone wa also used to make complaints, such as demanding the practice of the running of the bulls across the Rialto Bridge during Carnevale be discontinued due to the high incidence of goring of the spectators. The Council of Ten complied.