Dikteon Cave

You cannot drive to the birthplace of a god

The Dikteon Cave opens on the northern flank of Mount Dikti at 1,025 metres, and runs to roughly 2,200 square metres of chamber. It is among the most internationally known caves in Greece — of serious archaeological interest, and by local tradition the place where Zeus was born. Every year it takes visitors who arrive on foot up the same mountain path.

That path is the whole problem. Rock fragments come loose, inside the cave and on the approach, and fixing that means bringing in materials a mule track cannot carry. Ninety tonnes of material and tools were flown up in 115 helicopter sorties — and the entire airlift was compressed into under five hours, deliberately, so that the residents and shopkeepers of Psychro lost as little of their day to it as possible.

What follows is slower. Stainless-steel anchors, chosen because nothing corrodible should be left inside a cave. Concrete placed in timber formwork and floated by hand, by worklight, against formations that took a hundred thousand years to grow and would take a second to break.

Αποκατάσταση Ευστάθειας του Σπηλαίου Δικταίον Άντρον, Ψυχρό Λασιθίου