Asfendou Cave (Skordalakia)
Asfendou cave is located near the village Asfendou in province Sfakia, on a steep slope at position Skordalakia. The road connecting Asfendou with Kallikratis passes nearby and there is a plateau with an area of 2000 square meters in front. Skordoulakia cave is a very small rock shelter without woo much depth that barely fits two people and is located on a hillside at the beginning of the canyon Asfendou. This small rock shelter which has been secured by a protective wall would not have a particular interest cave, but hides inside a priceless treasure, very old carvings on the stone. A visit to the cave requires meeting the man at the village that holds the key for the door since the cave is locked.
The cave has actually one room that was previously larger. The intense precipitation and the fall of the roof give a rockshelter morphology to the cave. This small cave is very interesting since in 1960 engraved Paleolithic rock carvings were discovered on the floor near the entrance, on a stalagmite-plate, engraved with primitive tools. They were accidentally discovered by the priest Georgios Chiotakis, while hunting. There are two different theories about their age. The first date them around 2000 BC while the second supports that they are much older (up to 8000BC). They were probably drawn by hunters who used the place as a hideout or the cave was a sacred place for hunting.
Overall, the carvings were made at different times, thus they often overlap. There are figurative carvings, depicting scenes of deer or antelope, bow and arrow, javelin, and perhaps ship or branches. There are also abstract carvings, linear and tectonic, and others formed with about 800 small engraved dots, that still have not been explained.
These paintings show the presence of hunters in Sfakia mountains that were either older than the Neolithic era, or survived in Neolithic times, isolated, continuing a tradition of centuries.
