Crete macrocarpa" forest in Europe. Samaria Gorge is a World Biosphere Reserve and Richtis Gorge is protected for its landscape diversity. Crete has a rich mythology mostly connected with the ancient Greek Gods but also connected with the Minoan civilisation. According to Greek Mythology, The Diktaean Cave at Mount Dikti was the birthplace of the god Zeus. The Paximadia islands were the birthplace of the goddess Artemis and the god Apollo. Their mother, the goddess Leto, was worshipped at Phaistos. The goddess Athena bathed in Lake Voulismeni. The ancient Greek god Zeus launched a lightning bolt at a giant lizard that
Zeus the nominative is ("Zeús"). It is inflected as follows: vocative: (""); accusative: (); genitive: (); dative: (). Diogenes Laertius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name, . "Zeus" is the Greek continuation of *"," the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *' ("Sky Father"). The god is known under this name in the Rigveda (Vedic Sanskrit "Dyaus/Dyaus Pita"), Latin (compare "Jupiter", from "Iuppiter", deriving from the Proto-Indo-European vocative *'), deriving from the root *"dyeu"- ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose