The Great Code is written in the Dorian dialect and is one of a number of legal inscriptions found scattered across Crete, though curiously very few non-legal texts from ancient Crete survive. The Dorian language was the pervasive among Crete cities such as Knossos, Lyttos, Axos and various other areas of central Crete. The Code stands with a tradition of Cretan law which taken as a totality represents the only substantial corpus of Greek law from antiquity found outside Athens.

The temple of Anemospilia is located at the northern end of Mount Iuktas, overlooking arable land and modern day Heraklion, with extensive views both to the east and the west. The site was excavated by J. Sakellarias in 1979, and given its small size, turned out to be one of the most significant excavations to have taken place in Crete.

The temple is unusual for a Minoan site in that it is more symmetrical and less labyrinthine than most Minoan remains. The simple design consists of three rectangular rooms in a row, and a corridor or antechamber running the length of the three rooms to the north of the building. There is no other example of such a building from the Minoan-Mycenean periods.

The temple was destroyed early in the 17th century BCE, as examples of MM II and MM IIIA pottery styles were found in the temple. It was almost certainly destroyed by earthquake, following which the lamps placed inside the shrine burnt whatever was flammable. Further evidence for an earthquake comes from the skeleton of a man found in the antechamber. He had been holding a vase, possibly containing blood as it resembled one to be seen on the Agia Triada sarcophagus into which the blood of a sacrficed bull is dripping. The position of the body suggests that the person was running from the building when it collapsed and killed him or her.