Anemospilia

In the central chamber, an altar of the south side of the room was found, made from the hewn rock of the sacred hillside.

The idol, or Xoanon (Greek for statue), would have been life-sized and predominantly made of wood, and the ash on the ground suggests that it was burned when the temple was.

Close to the Xoanon there was a mound, a piece of hillside rock, a symbol of the earth, which, along with the sea and the sky, the Minoans considered to be the eternal elements of the world.

In the western chamber, two skeletons were found on the floor, one in the south west corner of the room This body was of a 28-year-old female.

The other skeleton was that of a male, he was aged in his late thirties, and 183 cm (6 ft.) tall, and powerfully built, he was lying on his back with his hands covering his face, as if to protect it.

The tall man had a ring made of iron and silver on the little finger of his left hand and on his wrist was an engraved seal of “exceptional artistic merit”, this would have obviously been very valuable.

Each side of the blade had an incised rendering of an animal head, the snout and tusks of a boar, ears like butterfly wings and slanted eyes like a fox.

104–5): "The evidence from Anemospilia seems clearly to indicate a human sacrifice, and modern unwillingness to suggest such practices must be left to one side."