Nowadays, “Psarades” is an area full of vineyards and olive groves in the district of Alagni but in the past, the landscape of Psarades may have been completely different. The name, which means “fishermen” in Greek, implies a correlation with fishing or at least the sea. We don’t know if a million years ago “Psarades” was seabed just like a big part of Crete used to be, but it is certain that Psarades is an area with long history. 

Archaeologist George Rethemiotakis believes that there is a connection between Psarades and the Minoan palace of Galatas. and cites that the stones used to build the palace were extracted and transferred from Psarades, which was a quarry for excellent quality rocks. The light grey color in Greek is called “psaro” and since the rock sourced from Psarades has the same greyish colour, the name could have been given to the area because of that. 

During our research, we came across another name too: “Plagiades”. On an unpublished map of the German military dated from 1936, the area of “Psarades” is listed as “Plagiades” (plural of slopes/hillsides in Greek), probably because of the landscape which consists of small hills and hillsides. On that map, “Plagiades” seems to be a hill with an altitude of 484 meters. Nowadays, the name “Plagiada” is still used for a nearby location.