Episkopi Ierapetras is a village on the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
island of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
. Episkopi belongs to the municipality of
Ierapetra
Ierapetra ( el, Ιεράπετρα, lit=sacred stone; ancient name: ) is a Greece, Greek town and municipality located on the southeast coast of Crete.
History
The town of Ierapetra (in the local dialect: Γεράπετρο ''Gerapetro'') is loc ...
in the prefecture of
Lasithi
Lasithi ( el, Λασίθι) is the easternmost regional unit on the island of Crete, to the east of Heraklion. Its capital is Agios Nikolaos, the other major towns being Ierapetra and Sitia. The mountains include the Dikti in the west and the Thr ...
. It lies north of Ierapetra in the middle of the narrowest part of the island. The village has approximately one thousand inhabitants.
The village was established during the
Minoan
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...
period, probably between 2500 and 2000 BCE. It is located 6.5 km north of Ierapetra on the road from Agios Nikolaos to Ierapetra at 120 m a.s.l. The municipality covers an area of 36 km², while 15 km² are cultivated with olive trees, most of them irrigated from the Bramianos dam, and the springs of Malavra, Thripti, Kefalovrissi and Kato Horio. Like their Minoan predecessors the present residents are employed mostly in
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, in the harvest of olives and the production of olive oil.
The village's main attraction is a former
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
bathhouse church which was converted into a church in the 13th century.
It has recently been restored. The church is dedicated to
Agios Georgios (Saint George) and
Agios Charalambos. Close to this church the remains of an Early Byzantine church can be found.
At 1946 A.C. a sarcophagus was found in the village from the Minoan period.
File:A georgios episkopi.JPG, A.Georgios
File:A georgios episkopi B.JPG
Image:EPISKOPISARCOFAGUS.jpg, Episkopi's sarcophagus
References
Ierapetra
Populated places in Lasithi
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