Papadoplaka ( el, Παπαδόπλακα) is a natural reef islet off the southern coast of 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 ...

in the

Libyan Sea The Libyan Sea (Greek , Latin ''Libycum Mare'', Arabic البحر الليبي) is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of the African coast of ancient ''Libya'', i.e. Cyrenaica, and Marmarica (the coast of what is now eastern Libya and ...

. The islet is in a bay between cape Lithino and cape Kefalas, at Kommos, and close to

Gortyn Gortyn, Gortys or Gortyna ( el, Γόρτυν, , or , ) is a municipality, and an archaeological site, on the Mediterranean island of Crete away from the island's capital, Heraklion. The seat of the municipality is the village Agioi Deka. Gortyn ...

which was the ancient capital of Crete. The name can be loosely translated as the ''priest's rock''.
Reconstructing Murex Royal Purple and Biblical Blue in the Aegean by Deborah Ruscillo. It is administered within Heraklion (regional unit), Heraklion regional unit.

Group of islets

There are a group of four islets in the bay including Papadoplaka (to the west), Megalonisi (with the lighthouse),

Mikronisi Mikronisi ( el, Μικρονήσι, "small island", also known as ''Agios Pavlos'' el, Άγιος Παύλος, "St Paul") is an islet off the southern coast of the Greek island of Crete in the Libyan Sea. The islet is in a bay between the capes ...

(also known as Agios Pavlos), and

Trafos Trafos ( el, Τράφος) is an islet off the southern coast of the Greek island of Crete in the Libyan sea. The islet is in a bay between the capes of Lithino and Kefalas, at Kommos, and close to Gortyn which was the ancient capital of Crete. ...

Minoan era

Papadoplaka was more substantial in

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 ...

times, due to lower sea levels, and is likely to have offered safe harbour for ships in that part of the bay. J. W. Shaw believes that Papadoplaka is likely to have been linked with the coast via a partially submerged sandy shore. This would make a Minoan harbor at Kommos similar to the harbor at Amnisos. Amnisos – Harbour town of Minos? by Jorg Schafer, p. 4.

References

{{Cretan islands Landforms of Heraklion (regional unit) Mediterranean islands Uninhabited islands of Crete Islands of Greece