A Greek couple decided to perform their baby’s naming ceremony at the archaeological site of Aptera, the most powerful city of the Minoan period in western Crete . Aptera is located on a hill just above the bay of Souda and 15 kilometers outside the city of Chania. The place and day of the ceremony were not at all random.
According to ancient Greeks, the location is sacred, and allegedly it was named after the ancient goddess of Olympus, Artemis. Furthermore, the date of the ceremony coincided with this year’s summer solstice, the longest day of the year to which ancient Greeks attributed special mystical significance. The dramatic changes of light and darkness did not escape the attention of ancient Greeks. They interpreted the light changes as a form of coded language that was written in the architecture of temples and the carefully selected sites where they were built. You could say that every temple in Greece is a word, and given that most sites and temples are interconnected with each other, creating triangles or circles, all of these “words” form a sentence.
The parents followed the rules of the ancient naming ceremony, closely. The father lit a fire on the sacred altar just outside the temple, while both parents circled the altar three times, holding the baby and shouting the name they had chosen. The scent of burning oils and some of the child’s hair during the purification ritual filled the ancient temple, and the parents recited the sacred words of the ritual, taking all of the attendees to a journey through time.
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