Skotino cave A more comprehensive exploration was carried out by French and Greek archaeologists in the 1960s. They found a considerable number of bronze and ceramic votive offerings, the oldest of them dating from the earliest Minoan periods, suggesting the cave was an important sacred shrine dedicated to a female fertility deity, presumably Britomartis. The cave was still used in Classical Greek and Roman eras, when the fertility goddess Artemis or her Roman equivalent Diana replaced the Minoan deity. Skotino cave The Skotino cave () is one of the largest and more impressive caves among the many caves found in Crete. The
Artemis Fowl II name due to an interest in using a "classic Greek name" and trepidation that "people would think [the series] was about [the historical figure] Archimedes". Artemis is a notable choice for a name because while it is traditionally a female name, it "was [historically] sometimes… given to boys as a kind of honorific if their fathers were great hunters", though the male equivalent of the name is usually spelled as Artimus instead of Artemis . Fowl was derived from the Irish name Fowler as a play on words to convey the characterisation that Artemis was a nasty or foul individual