The Windmills of Lasithi Plateau

The Lasithi Plateau inwards eastern Crete , Hellenic Republic , is situated 800 meters inwards a higher house ocean level. Despite the high height , the H2O tabular array hither is extremely shallow —so shallow that the dead can’t hold upward buried , instead they are placed inwards rock mausoleums inwards a higher house ground. The tardily access to H2O too the fertile soil has attracted inhabitants since Neolithic times. Dozens of villages directly prevarication scattered to a greater extent than or less the oval-shaped plateau , surrounded yesteryear mountains. This eleven km yesteryear six km apparently is covered amongst fields of grain too plots of vegetables such every bit potatoes , cabbage , cucumbers , beans too onions , which are irrigated yesteryear agency of thousands of windmills amongst white sails.

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Photo credit: Europa Nostra/Flickr

Lasithi Plateau has been continuously inhabited since at to the lowest degree the Bronze Age , some five ,600 years agone , upward until the 13th century. After the Fourth Crusade too the conquest of Constantinople inwards 1204 , the isle of Crete savage into the possession of the Republic of Venice. Over the adjacent 2 centuries , the Cretan world repeatedly rose upward inwards rebellion against the Venetian , who reacted yesteryear expelling the inhabitants of Lasithi too destroying their villages too crops.

Later , inwards the early on 15th century , Venetian rulers allowed refugees from the Greek mainland to settle inwards the apparently too cultivate the province again. Cultivating the province , yet , proved to hold upward difficult. There was illness only the major work was annual flooding. Every wintertime the rainfall ran off the surrounding mount slopes onto the apparently too caused the banks of the river to overflow too destroy crops. To fix this , Venetians dug a big network of drainage ditches that are silent inwards role today.

The windmills didn’t seem until the early on 20th century. These rock structures fitted amongst white sails turned amongst the current of air too drew H2O from the the world to irrigate the crops. During its heydays , Lasithi Plateau had over 10 ,000 windmills —some tell twenty ,000. Fewer than five ,000 stand upward today. Most of them accept been abandoned too replaced yesteryear modern diesel fuel too electrical pumps.

Before at that topographic point were windmills , the major agricultural products of Lasithi were dry out crops such every bit wheat too legumes. With the coming of windmills too motor ability to see H2O , cultivators began to grow a broad multifariousness of crops. Today , the murphy is the close of import too thirsty cash crop inwards Lasithi.

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