The Minoans: A Civilization of Bronze Age Crete

Did you know that women were prominent in Minoan religion, far more than any other civilization? And we know this because of the snake goddess statues that have been found in Minoan contexts and the prominence of priestesses in Minoan art. Hello and welcome to Ancient History Encyclopedia. My name is Kelly and today we're going to take a look back before classical Greece to the world The Minoans occupied the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea beginning in circa 2000 BCE and flourished for 500 years. The Minoans were dominant in the Aegean before the Mycenaeans were prominent on the mainland before the Trojan War and were situated during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. They were called the Minoans after the legendary king of Crete Minos by Sir Arthur Evans who excavated Knossos in 1900 CE who had a preoccupation with Greek mythology. They constructed what we refer to as palace complexes all around the island and the largest and most prominent were Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Hania and had uses as residential areas for the rulers, administrative centers, areas for storage as well as economic and religious purposes. They cultivated wheat, olives and vines and kept sheep for export of cloth and wool as well as wine and oil. They were also masters of the sea and were involved in trade around the Aegean with Egypt and potentially as far as Mesopotamia. In 1700 BCE the Cretan palaces were destroyed by earthquake which prompted further destruction by fire and interestingly there's evidence for reinforcement of the architecture of later palaces as a precaution against other earthquakes. After the widespread destruction on Crete only Knossos was rebuilt with the same splendor as before with other Cretan palaces such as Phaistos and Malia lacking the decoration that Knossos had. After the earthquake and fire damage Knossos seems to have become the centralized power over the although we're still not entirely sure why. They had colonies spread throughout the Aegean and beyond with Minoan traces found at Avaris and Akrotiri. The Minoans also had multiple scripts with one of them being a hieroglyphic script found on the well-preserved Phaistos disc and the other one is called Linear A and both of which are undeciphered. The eruption of Thera archaeologically speaking was in 1628 BCE although there is still debate that it was later closer to mid 1500 BCE affected the whole Aegean with large waves and large amounts of tephra which are small rock fragments ejected from the volcano and turned modern-day Santorini from a circle-shaped island to a crescent shape with small islands and a caldera in the middle. There has been a long-standing therefore the dating of the whole Bronze Age period itself which has caused a rift between scholars and different sources will tell you different dates and at the moment there is no end to this argument. There is still widespread debate surrounding what the impact of this eruption might have had on the Minoans on Crete as it's believed that they might have actually felt the impact of the eruption which could have caused earthquakes. They also might have had a blackened sky caused by the ash which may have destabilized the Minoans and this is suggested by their change in religious practices on the island. In circa 1450 BCE the Minoan palaces fell and Knossos was re-inhabited by a group not believed to have been Minoan and this is due to the introduction of a new language which is known now as the earliest form of Greek. The Minoans produced well-crafted pottery with the most obvious being with marine style decoration with a prominence on octopodes, dolphins and sea anemones which has been coined marine wear which is very well fitting. Their palace complexes were decorated with frescoes some of which were fairly realistic such as the and others may have depicted coming of age or religious rituals such as the well-known bull leaping fresco. The bull leaping fresco shows a bull being held by the horns of a Minoan youth with another on its back upside down and a third standing behind the bull. Bulls had a prominent place in Minoan religion with the horns of consecration being found in every Minoan palatial complex. Other religious symbols which were deposited by the Minoans in peak and cave sanctuaries were the sacral knot, the snake goddess and the double axe. The prominence of the bull relates itself to what we know of Crete through mythology. Although there isn't any textual evidence available we are certain that women played a prominent role in Minoan religion with the snake goddess being a prominent figure in both ivory carvings and religious decoration. Religious scenes in Minoan art often centered around a floating deity in a flounce skirt and it is known that women were priestesses. Although it cannot be said for certain that the Minoans were a matriarchy women were definitely prominent in the religious scene and there is only evidence for one goddess figure. Minos was the king of Crete but only became king after he defeated his brothers Sarpedon and Radamanthus for the throne. Minos boasted that the gods would send him whatever he asked for. When he sacrificed to Poseidon he asked for a bull to appear out of the sea and then vowed to sacrifice it to the god once it appeared. It appeared and Minos's claims were secured yet Minos defied Poseidon and he sacrificed a regular bull rather than the heavenly Poseidon punished Minos by cursing his wife Pasiphae to become completely infatuated with the bull and after mating with it in a wooden cow constructed by Daedalus a famous architect in Greek mythology she gave birth to the Minotaur half bull half man which translates to the bull of Minos. To keep the Minotaur and Pasiphae's shameful doing a secret the architect Daedalus was commanded by Minos to build the labyrinth to keep the Minotaur in. When Minos had heard that an Athenian had killed his son he demanded tribute of seven boys and seven girls which he then put in the labyrinth for the Minotaur. Theseus the son of Aegeus the king of Athens volunteered himself as tribute in the third year and vowed to kill the Minotaur and upon his arrival home if he had died his sails would be black and if he lived his sails would be white. King Minos's daughters Phaedra and Ariadne both fell in love with Theseus and Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of string so that he could find his way out of the labyrinth after he had killed the Minotaur. Theseus unraveled this ball of string as he entered the labyrinth and moved deeper and deeper and after he had killed the Minotaur he used the string to retrace his path out of the labyrinth. He successfully killed the Minotaur and he left with both women. Theseus abandoned Ariadne on his way home and in his excitement with the prospect of marrying Phaedra he forgot to change his sails from black to white and when Aegeus saw the black sails he threw himself into the ocean and that is where the name Aegean Sea originated from. The Minoans were the first literate European civilization which in itself is a great reason for our growing interest in them. Although we have texts they are still an enigma to us since they haven't been deciphered and what we know comes from the archaeological record and their strong links to mythology. We don't yet know just how much of mythology is interwoven with real history of the Minoans but what cannot be denied is that they were a strong maritime entity in the Bronze Age Aegean. The end of their strength in the Aegean is often attributed to both the eruption of Thera and also the growing dominance of the Mycenaean civilization on mainland Greece. It's believed that the Mycenaeans may have taken control of the Minoans however the continual creation of Minoan style pottery suggests potentially more of a merging of the two cultures rather than a complete annihilation of the Minoans. Let us know what type of language you think Linear A might be. Where do you think it originated from and do you think you could decipher it? Let us know down in the comments below. 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