The Minoan civilization was a
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
culture which was centered on the island of
Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
. Known for its monumental architecture and
energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the
Minoan palaces at
Knossos
Knossos (; , ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major centre of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on th ...
and
Phaistos
Phaistos (, ; Ancient Greek: , , Linear B: ''Pa-i-to''; Linear A: ''Pa-i-to''), also Transliteration, transliterated as Phaestos, Festos and Latin Phaestus, is a Bronze Age archaeological site at modern Faistos, a municipality in south centr ...
are popular tourist attractions.
The Minoan civilization developed from the local
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
culture around 3100BC, with complex urban settlements beginning around 2000BC. After 1450BC, they came under the cultural and perhaps political domination of the mainland
Mycenaean Greeks, forming a hybrid culture which lasted until around 1100BC.
Minoan art included elaborately decorated
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...
,
seals,
figurine
A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with cla ...
s, and colorful
frescoes. Typical subjects include nature and ritual. Minoan art is often described as having a fantastical or ecstatic quality, with figures rendered in a manner suggesting motion.
Little is known about the structure of Minoan society. Minoan art contains no unambiguous depiction of a monarch, and textual evidence suggests they may have had some other form of governance. Likewise, it is unclear whether there was ever a unified Minoan state. Religious practices included worship at
peak sanctuaries and
sacred caves
Sacred caves and peak sanctuaries are characteristic holy places of ancient Minoan civilization, Minoan Crete. Most scholars agree that sacred caves were used by the Minoans for religious rites, and some for burial. While all peak sanctuaries have ...
, but nothing is certain regarding their
pantheon. The Minoans constructed enormous labyrinthine buildings which their initial excavators labeled
Minoan palaces. Subsequent research has shown that they served a variety of religious and economic purposes rather than being royal residences, though their exact role in Minoan society is a matter of continuing debate.
The Minoans traded extensively, exporting agricultural products and luxury crafts in exchange for raw metals which were difficult to obtain on Crete. Through traders and artisans, their cultural influence reached beyond Crete to the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Minoan craftsmen were employed by foreign elites, for instance to paint
frescoes at Avaris in Egypt.
The Minoans developed two
writing system
A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...
s known as
Cretan hieroglyphs and
Linear A. Because neither script has been fully
deciphered, the identity of the
Minoan language is unknown. Based on what is known, the language is regarded as unlikely to belong to a well-attested
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...
such as
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
or
Semitic. After 1450 BC, a modified version of Linear A known as
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...
was used to write
Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...
, which had become the language of administration on Crete. The
Eteocretan language attested in a few post-Bronze Age inscriptions may be a descendant of the Minoan language.
Largely forgotten after the
Late Bronze Age collapse, the Minoan civilization was rediscovered in the early twentieth century through
archaeological excavation
In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...
. The term "Minoan" was coined by
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age.
The first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos on the List of islands of Greece, Gree ...
, who excavated at Knossos and recognized it as culturally distinct from the mainland Mycenaean culture. Soon after,
Federico Halbherr and
Luigi Pernier excavated the
Palace of Phaistos and the nearby settlement of
Hagia Triada. A major breakthrough occurred in 1952, when
Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B, drawing on earlier work by
Alice Kober. This decipherment unlocked a crucial source of information on the economics and social organization in the final year of the palace. Minoan sites continue to be excavated, recent discoveries including the
necropolis at
Armeni and the harbour town of
Kommos.
Name

The modern term "Minoan" is derived from the name of the mythical
King Minos, who the
Classical Greeks believed to have ruled
Knossos
Knossos (; , ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major centre of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on th ...
in the distant past. It was popularized by
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age.
The first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos on the List of islands of Greece, Gree ...
, possibly drawing on an earlier suggestion by
Karl Hoeck. It is a modern coinage and not used by the Minoans, whose
name for themselves is unknown.
The
Egyptians
Egyptians (, ; , ; ) are an ethnic group native to the Nile, Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian identity is closely tied to Geography of Egypt, geography. The population is concentrated in the Nile Valley, a small strip of cultivable land stretchi ...
referred to the Minoans as the (vocalized as "" in modern
Egyptological pronunciation). It is not known whether this was an
exonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
or if it was an
endonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
originating in the
Minoan language.
[Dickinson, O (1994) p. 248][Strange, J. ''Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation'' (Leiden: Brill) 1980] Potentially related terms were used by a variety of
Near Eastern
The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...
cultures, and the
Biblical
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...
term Caphtor has sometimes been identified with Crete.
[Strange, J. ''Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation'' (Leiden: Brill) 1980][Dickinson, O (1994) p. 248]
Chronology and history
Two systems of
relative chronology are used for the Minoans. The first, based on
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...
styles, divides Minoan history into three major periods: Early Minoan (EM), Middle Minoan (MM) and Late Minoan (LM). These periods can be divided using Roman numerals (e.g. EM I, EM II, EM III), which can be further divided using capital letters (e.g. LM IIIA, LMIIIB, LM IIIC). An alternative system, proposed by Greek archaeologist
Nikolaos Platon, divides Minoan history into four periods termed Prepalatial, Protopalatial, Neopalatial, and Postpalatial.
Establishing an
absolute chronology has proved difficult. Archaeologists have attempted to determine calendar dates by synchronizing the periods of Minoan history with those of their better understood contemporaries. For example, Minoan artifacts from the LM IB period have been found in
18th Dynasty contexts in Egypt, for which
Egyptian chronology provides calendar dates. However, dates determined in this manner do not always match the results of
carbon dating and other methods based on
natural science
Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...
. Much of the controversy concerns the dating of the
eruption of Thera, which is known to have occurred towards the end of the LM IA period. While carbon dating places this event (and thus LM IA) around 1600 BC, synchronism with Egyptian records would place it roughly a century later.
Origins
Although stone-tool evidence suggests that
hominin
The Hominini (hominins) form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae (hominines). They comprise two extant genera: ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos), and in standard usage exclude the genus '' Gorilla'' ( gorillas) ...
s may have reached Crete as early as 130,000 years ago, evidence for the first anatomically modern human presence dates to 10,000–12,000
YBP. The oldest evidence of modern human habitation on Crete is pre-ceramic
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
farming-community remains which date to about 7000BC. A comparative study of
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
haplogroups of modern Cretan men showed that a male founder group, from
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
or the
Levant
The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...
, is shared with the Greeks. The Neolithic population lived in open villages. Fishermen's huts were found on the shores, and the fertile
Messara Plain was used for agriculture.
[Hermann Bengtson: ''Griechische Geschichte'', C.H. Beck, München, 2002. 9th Edition. . pp. 8–15]
Early Minoan

Early Minoan society developed largely continuously from local Neolithic predecessors, with some cultural influence and perhaps migration from eastern populations. This period saw a gradual shift from localized clan-based villages towards the more urbanized and stratified society of later periods.
EM I (c. 3100-2650 BC) is marked by the appearance of the first painted ceramics. Continuing a trend that began during the Neolithic, settlements grew in size and complexity, and spread from fertile plains towards highland sites and islands as the Minoans learned to exploit less hospitable terrain.
[
EM II (c. 2650-2200 BC) has been termed an international era. Trade intensified and Minoan ships began sailing beyond the Aegean to Egypt and Syria, possibly enabled by the invention of masted ships. Minoan material culture shows increased international influence, for instance in the adoption of Minoan seals based on the older Near Eastern seal. Minoan settlements grew, some doubling in size, and monumental buildings were constructed at sites that would later become palaces.][
EM III (c. 2200-2100 BC) saw the continuation of these trends.
]
Middle Minoan
MM I (c. 2100–1875 BC) saw the emergence of Protopalatial society. During MM IA (c. 2100-1925 BC), populations increased dramatically at sites such as Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia, accompanied by major construction projects. During MM IB (c. 1925-1875 BC), the first palaces were built at these sites, in areas which had been used for communal ceremonies since the Neolithic. Middle Minoan artisans developed new colorful paints and adopted the potter's wheel during MM IB, producing wares such as Kamares ware.
MM II (c. 1875–1700 BC) saw the development of the Minoan writing systems, Cretan hieroglyphic and Linear A. It ended with mass destructions generally attributed to earthquakes, though violent destruction has been considered as an alternative explanation.
MM III (c. 1750–1700 BC) marks the beginning of the Neopalatial period. Most of the palaces were rebuilt with architectural innovations, with the notable exception of Phaistos. Cretan hieroglyphs were abandoned in favor of Linear A, and Minoan cultural influence becomes significant in mainland Greece.[Karl-Wilhelm Welwei: ''Die Griechische Frühzeit'', C.H. Beck, München, 2002. . pp. 12–18]
Late Minoan
The Late Minoan period was an eventful time that saw profound change in Minoan society. Many of the most recognizable Minoan artifacts date from this time, for instance the snake goddess figurines, La Parisienne Fresco, and the marine style of pottery decoration.
Late Minoan I (c. 1700-1470 BC) was a continuation of the prosperous Neopalatial culture. A notable event from this era was the eruption of the Thera volcano, which occurred around 1600 BC towards the end of the LM IA subperiod. One of the largest volcanic explosions in recorded history, it ejected about of material and was measured at 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. While the eruption destroyed Cycladic settlements such as Akrotiri and led to the abandonment of some sites in northeast Crete, other Minoan sites such as Knossos continued to prosper. The post-eruption LM IB period (c.1625-1470) saw ambitious new building projects, booming international trade, and artistic developments such as the marine style.
Late Minoan IB (c. 1625-1470 BC) ended with severe destructions throughout the island, marking the end of Neopalatial society. These destructions are thought to have been deliberate, since they spared certain sites in a manner inconsistent with natural disasters. For instance, the town at Knossos burned while the palace itself did not. The causes of these destructions have been a perennial topic of debate. While some researchers attributed them to Mycenaean conquerors, others have argued that they were the result of internal upheavals. Similarly, while some researchers have attempted to link them to lingering environmental disruption from the Thera eruption, others have argued that the two events are too distant in time for any causal relation.
Late Minoan II (c. 1470-1420 BC) is sparsely represented in the archaeological record, but appears to have been a period of decline.
Late Minoan III (c. 1420-1075 BC) shows profound social and political changes. Among the palaces, only Knossos remained in use, though it too was destroyed by LM IIIB2. The language of administration shifted to Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...
and material culture shows increased mainland influence, reflecting the rise of a Greek-speaking elite. In Late Minoan IIIC (c. 1200-1075 BC), coinciding with the wider Late Bronze Age collapse, coastal settlements were abandoned in favor of defensible locations on higher ground. These small villages, some of which grew out of earlier mountain shrines, continued aspects of recognizably Minoan culture until the Early Iron Age.
Geography
The Minoan Civilization was centered on the island of Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
, with additional settlements around the Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...
. Crete is located in the south of the Aegean, situated along maritime trade routes that connect Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
, Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
, and the Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
. Because it straddles the Mediterranean and African climate zones, with land at a variety of elevations, it provides a diverse array of natural resources. However, it is notably poor in metals, a fact believed to have spurred the Minoans' interest in international trade. The island is seismically active, with signs of earthquake damage at many Minoan sites. The majority of Minoan sites are found in central and eastern Crete, with few in the western part of the island, especially to the south.
Major settlements
* Knossos
Knossos (; , ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major centre of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on th ...
– the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete. Knossos had an estimated population of 1,300 to 2,000 in 2500BC, 18,000 in 2000BC, 20,000 to 100,000 in 1600BC and 30,000 in 1360BC.
* Phaistos
Phaistos (, ; Ancient Greek: , , Linear B: ''Pa-i-to''; Linear A: ''Pa-i-to''), also Transliteration, transliterated as Phaestos, Festos and Latin Phaestus, is a Bronze Age archaeological site at modern Faistos, a municipality in south centr ...
– the second-largest palatial building on the island, excavated by the Italian school shortly after Knossos
* Hagia Triada – town and administrative center near Phaistos which has yielded the largest number of Linear A tablets.
* Kommos – harbour town serving Phaistos and Hagia Triada, with civic buildings mirroring palatial architecture
* Malia – the subject of French excavations, a palatial center which provides a look into the proto-palatial period
* Kato Zakros – sea-side palatial site excavated by Greek archaeologists in the far east of the island, also known as "Zakro" in archaeological literature
* Galatas – confirmed as a palatial site during the early 1990s
*Kydonia
Kydonia ( or ), also known as Cydonia (, ''Kydōnía'') was an ancient city located at the site of present-day Chania near the west end of the island of Crete in Greece. The city is known from archaeological remains dating back to the Minoan e ...
(modern Chania
Chania (, , ), also sometimes romanization of Greek, romanized as Hania, is a city in Greece and the capital of the Chania (regional unit), Chania regional unit. It lies along the north west coast of the island Crete, about west of Rethymno ...
), the only palatial site in West Crete
* Gournia – town site excavated in the first quarter of the 20th century
* Pyrgos – early Minoan site in southern Crete
* Vasiliki – early eastern Minoan site which gives its name to distinctive ceramic ware
* Fournou Korfi – southern site
* Pseira – island town with ritual sites
* Mount Juktas – the greatest Minoan peak sanctuary, associated with the palace of Knossos
* Arkalochori – site of the Arkalochori Axe
* Karfi – refuge site, one of the last Minoan sites
* Akrotiri – settlement on the island of Santorini (Thera), near the site of the Thera Eruption
* Zominthos – mountainous city in the northern foothills of Mount Ida
Beyond Crete
The Minoans were traders, and their cultural contacts reached Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, Cyprus
Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...
, Canaan
CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...
and the Levantine coast and Anatolia. Minoan-style frescoes have been found at elite residences in Avaris and Tel Kabri
Tel Kabri (), or Tell al-Qahweh (), is an archaeological Tell (archaeology), tell (mound created by accumulation of remains) containing one of the largest Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age (2,100–1,550 Common Era, BCE) Canaanite palaces in Israel ...
. Minoan techniques and ceramic styles had varying degrees of influence on Helladic Greece. Along with Santorini, Minoan settlements are found at Kastri, Kythera, an island near the Greek mainland influenced by the Minoans from the mid-third millenniumBC (EMII) to its Mycenaean occupation in the 13th century. Minoan strata replaced a mainland-derived early Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
culture, the earliest Minoan settlement outside Crete.
The Cyclades were in the Minoan cultural orbit and, closer to Crete, the islands of Karpathos, Saria and Kasos also contained middle-Bronze Age (MMI-II) Minoan colonies or settlements of Minoan traders. Most were abandoned in LMI, but Karpathos recovered and continued its Minoan culture until the end of the Bronze Age. Other supposed Minoan colonies, such as that hypothesized by Adolf Furtwängler on Aegina
Aegina (; ; ) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina (mythology), Aegina, the mother of the mythological hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and became its king.
...
, were later dismissed by scholars. However, there was a Minoan colony at Ialysos on Rhodes
Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...
.
Minoan cultural influence indicates an orbit extending through the Cyclades to Egypt and Cyprus. Fifteenth-centuryBC paintings in Thebes, Egypt depict Minoan-appearing individuals bearing gifts. Inscriptions describing them as coming from ''keftiu'' ("islands in the middle of the sea") may refer to gift-bringing merchants or officials from Crete.
Some locations on Crete indicate that the Minoans were an "outward-looking" society. The neo-palatial site of Kato Zakros is located within 100 meters of the modern shoreline in a bay. Its large number of workshops and wealth of site materials indicate a possible '' entrepôt'' for trade. Such activities are seen in artistic representations of the sea, including the ''Ship Procession'' or "Flotilla" fresco in room five of the West House at Akrotiri.
In 2024, archaeologists discovered a Minoan bronze dagger with silver rivets in an ancient shipwreck at Kumluca in Antalya Province
Antalya Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey. It is located on the Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean coast of south-west Turkey, between the Taur ...
. According to the researchers, the discovery highlights the cultural and commercial exchanges in the Mediterranean during the bronze age.
Art
Minoan art is marked by imaginative images and exceptional workmanship. Sinclair Hood described an "essential quality of the finest Minoan art, the ability to create an atmosphere of movement and life although following a set of highly formal conventions". It forms part of the wider grouping of Aegean art, and in later periods came for a time to have a dominant influence over Cycladic art. Wood and textiles have decomposed, so most surviving examples of Minoan art are pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...
, intricately carved Minoan seals, palace frescos which include landscapes (but are often mostly "reconstructed"), small sculptures in various materials, jewellery, and metalwork.
The relationship of Minoan art to that of other contemporary cultures and later Ancient Greek art
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic d ...
has been much discussed. It clearly dominated Mycenaean art and Cycladic art of the same periods, even after Crete was occupied by the Mycenaeans, but only some aspects of the tradition survived the Greek Dark Ages after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece.
Minoan art has a variety of subject-matter, much of it appearing across different media, although only some styles of pottery include figurative scenes. Bull-leaping appears in painting and several types of sculpture, and is thought to have had a religious significance; bull's heads are also a popular subject in terracotta and other sculptural materials. There are no figures that appear to be portraits of individuals, or are clearly royal, and the identities of religious figures is often tentative, with scholars uncertain whether they are deities, clergy or devotees. Equally, whether painted rooms were "shrines" or secular is far from clear; one room in Akrotiri has been argued to be a bedroom, with remains of a bed, or a shrine.
Animals, including an unusual variety of marine fauna, are often depicted; the Marine Style is a type of painted palace pottery from MM III and LM IA that paints sea creatures including octopus spreading all over the vessel, and probably originated from similar frescoed scenes; sometimes these appear in other media. Scenes of hunting and warfare, and horses and riders, are mostly found in later periods, in works perhaps made by Cretans for a Mycenaean market, or Mycenaean overlords of Crete.
While Minoan figures, whether human or animal, have a great sense of life and movement, they are often not very accurate, and the species is sometimes impossible to identify; by comparison with Ancient Egyptian art they are often more vivid, but less naturalistic. In comparison with the art of other ancient cultures there is a high proportion of female figures, though the idea that Minoans had only goddesses and no gods is now discounted. Most human figures are in profile or in a version of the Egyptian convention with the head and legs in profile, and the torso seen frontally; but the Minoan figures exaggerate features such as slim male waists and large female breasts.
What is called landscape painting
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...
is found in both frescos and on painted pots, and sometimes in other media, but most of the time this consists of plants shown fringing a scene, or dotted around within it. There is a particular visual convention where the surroundings of the main subject are laid out as though seen from above, though individual specimens are shown in profile. This accounts for the rocks being shown all round a scene, with flowers apparently growing down from the top. The seascapes surrounding some scenes of fish and of boats, and in the ''Ship Procession'' miniature fresco from Akrotiri, land with a settlement as well, give a wider landscape than is usual.
The largest and best collection of Minoan art is in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum ("AMH") near Knossos
Knossos (; , ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major centre of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on th ...
, on the northern coast of Crete.
Pottery
Many different styles of potted wares and techniques of production are observable throughout the history of Crete. Early Minoan ceramics were characterized by patterns of spirals, triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...
s, curved lines, cross
A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two Intersection (set theory), intersecting Line (geometry), lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of t ...
es, fish bones, and beak-spouts. However, while many of the artistic motifs are similar in the Early Minoan period, there are many differences that appear in the reproduction of these techniques throughout the island which represent a variety of shifts in taste as well as in power structures. There were also many small terracotta figurines.
During the Middle Minoan period, naturalistic designs (such as fish, squid, birds and lilies) were common. In the Late Minoan period, flowers and animals were still characteristic but more variety existed. However, in contrast to later Ancient Greek vase painting, paintings of human figures are extremely rare, and those of land mammals not common until late periods. Shapes and ornament were often borrowed from metal tableware that has largely not survived, while painted decoration probably mostly derives from frescos.
Jewelry
Minoan jewellery has mostly been recovered from graves, and until the later periods much of it consists of diadem
A diadem is a Crown (headgear), crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by monarchs and others as a badge of Monarch, royalty.
Overview
The word derives from the Ancient Greek, Greek διάδημα ''diádēma'', "band" or "fillet", fro ...
s and ornaments for women's hair, though there are also the universal types of rings, bracelets, armlets and necklaces, and many thin pieces that were sewn onto clothing. In the earlier periods gold was the main material, typically hammered very thin. but later it seemed to become scarce.
The Minoans created elaborate metalwork with imported gold and copper. Bead necklaces, bracelets and hair ornaments appear in the frescoes, and many labrys pins survive. The Minoans mastered granulation, as indicated by the Malia Pendant, a gold pendant featuring bees on a honeycomb. This was overlooked by the 19th-century looters of a royal burial site they called the "Gold Hole".
Weapons
Fine decorated bronze weapons have been found in Crete, especially from LM periods, but they are far less prominent than in the remains of warrior-ruled Mycenae, where the famous shaft-grave burials contain many very richly decorated swords and dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or ...
s. In contrast spears and "slashing-knives" tend to be "severely functional". Many of the decorated weapons were probably made either in Crete, or by Cretans working on the mainland. Daggers are often the most lavishly decorated, with gold hilts that may be set with jewels, and the middle of the blade decorated with a variety of techniques.
The most famous of these are a few inlaid with elaborate scenes in gold and silver set against a black (or now black) " niello" background, whose actual material and technique have been much discussed. These have long thin scenes running along the centre of the blade, which show the violence typical of the art of Mycenaean Greece, as well as a sophistication in both technique and figurative imagery that is startlingly original in a Greek context.
Metal vessels
Metal vessels were produced in Crete from at least as early as EM II (c. 2500BC) in the Prepalatial period through to LM IA (c. 1450BC) in the Postpalatial period and perhaps as late as LM IIIB/C (c. 1200BC), although it is likely that many of the vessels from these later periods were heirlooms from earlier periods. The earliest were probably made exclusively from precious metal
Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high Value (economics), economic value. Precious metals, particularly the noble metals, are more corrosion resistant and less reactivity (chemistry), chemically reac ...
s, but from the Protopalatial period (MM IB – MM IIA) they were also produced in arsenical bronze and, subsequently, tin bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...
. The archaeological record suggests that mostly cup-type forms were created in precious metals, but the corpus of bronze vessels was diverse, including cauldrons, pans, hydrias, bowls, pitchers, basins, cups, ladles and lamps. The Minoan metal vessel tradition influenced that of the Mycenaean culture on mainland Greece
Greece is a country in Southeastern Europe, on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. It is bordered to the north by Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria; to the east by Turkey, and is surrounded to the east by the Aegean Sea, to the south by the Cret ...
, and they are often regarded as the same tradition. Many precious metal vessels found on mainland Greece exhibit Minoan characteristics, and it is thought that these were either imported from Crete or made on the mainland by Minoan metalsmiths working for Mycenaean patrons or by Mycenaean smiths who had trained under Minoan masters.
Agriculture and cuisine
The Minoans raised cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...
, sheep, pigs and goat
The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...
s, and grew wheat
Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
, barley
Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...
, vetch and chickpea
The chickpea or chick pea (''Cicer arietinum'') is an annual plant, annual legume of the family (biology), family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, cultivated for its edible seeds. Its different types are variously known as gram," Bengal gram, ga ...
s. They also cultivated grapes, figs and olive
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...
s, grew poppies for seed
In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be Sowing, sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds ...
and perhaps opium. The Minoans also domesticated bees.[ Hood, Sinclair (1971) "The Minoans; the story of Bronze Age Crete"]
Vegetables, including lettuce
Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae mostly grown as a leaf vegetable. The leaves are most often used raw in Green salad, green salads, although lettuce is also seen in other kinds of food, such as sandwiche ...
, celery
Celery (''Apium graveolens'' Dulce Group or ''Apium graveolens'' var. ''dulce'') is a cultivated plant belonging to the species ''Apium graveolens'' in the family Apiaceae that has been used as a vegetable since ancient times.
The original wild ...
, asparagus
Asparagus (''Asparagus officinalis'') is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus (genus), Asparagus'' native to Eurasia. Widely cultivated as a vegetable crop, its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable.
Description ...
and carrots, grew wild on Crete. Pear
Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, po ...
, quince, and olive trees were also native. Date palm
''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...
trees and cats (for hunting) were imported from Egypt. The Minoans adopted pomegranates from the Near East, but not lemon
The lemon (''Citrus'' × ''limon'') is a species of small evergreen tree in the ''Citrus'' genus of the flowering plant family Rutaceae. A true lemon is a hybrid of the citron and the bitter orange. Its origins are uncertain, but some ...
s and oranges.
They may have practiced polyculture
In agriculture, polyculture is the practice of growing more than one crop species together in the same place at the same time, in contrast to monoculture, which had become the dominant approach in developed countries by 1950. Traditional example ...
, and their varied, healthy diet resulted in a population increase. Polyculture theoretically maintains soil fertility and protects against losses due to crop failure. Linear B tablets indicate the importance of orchards ( figs, olives and grapes) in processing crops for "secondary products". Olive oil
Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea'', a traditional Tree fruit, tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin) and extracting the oil.
It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a cond ...
in Cretan or Mediterranean cuisine is comparable to butter in northern European cuisine. The process of fermenting wine from grapes was probably a factor of the "Palace" economies; wine would have been a trade commodity and an item of domestic consumption. Farmers used wooden plow
A plough or (Differences between American and British spellings, US) plow (both pronounced ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but modern ploughs ...
s, bound with leather to wooden handles and pulled by pairs of donkey
The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...
s or oxen.
Seafood was also important in Cretan cuisine. The prevalence of edible molluscs in site material and artistic representations of marine fish and animals (including the distinctive Marine Style pottery, such as the LM IIIC "Octopus" stirrup jar), indicate appreciation and occasional use of fish by the economy. However, scholars believe that these resources were not as significant as grain, olives and animal produce. "Fishing was one of the major activities...but there is as yet no evidence for the way in which they organized their fishing." An intensification of agricultural activity is indicated by the construction of terraces and dams at Pseira in the Late Minoan period.
Cretan cuisine included wild game: Cretans ate wild deer, wild boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...
and meat from livestock. Wild game is now extinct on Crete. A matter of controversy is whether Minoans made use of the indigenous Cretan megafauna, which are typically thought to have been extinct considerably earlier at 10,000BC. This is in part due to the possible presence of dwarf elephants in contemporary Egyptian art.
Not all plants and flora were purely functional, and arts depict scenes of lily-gathering in green spaces. The fresco known as the ''Sacred Grove'' at Knossos depicts women facing left, flanked by trees. Some scholars have suggested that it is a harvest festival or ceremony to honor the fertility of the soil. Artistic depictions of farming scenes also appear on the '' Harvester Vase'' (an egg-shaped rhyton), which depicts 27 men led by another carrying bunches of sticks to beat ripe olives from the trees.
The discovery of storage areas in the palace compounds has prompted debate. At the second "palace" at Phaistos, rooms on the west side of the structure have been identified as a storage area. Jars, jugs and vessels have been recovered in the area, indicating the complex's possible role as a re-distribution center for agricultural produce. At larger sites such as Knossos, there is evidence of craft specialization (workshops). The palace at Kato Zakro indicates that workshops were integrated into palace structure. The Minoan palatial system may have developed through economic intensification, where an agricultural surplus could support a population of administrators, craftsmen and religious practitioners. The number of sleeping rooms in the palaces indicates that they could have supported a sizable population which was removed from manual labor.
Tools
Tools, originally made of wood or bone, were bound to handles with leather straps. During the Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
, they were made of bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...
with wooden handles. Due to its round hole, the tool head would spin on the handle. The Minoans developed oval-shaped holes in their tools to fit oval-shaped handles, which prevented spinning. Tools included double adzes, double- and single-bladed axes, axe-adzes, sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting or reaping grain crops, or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feedi ...
s and chisel
A chisel is a hand tool with a characteristic Wedge, wedge-shaped cutting edge on the end of its blade. A chisel is useful for carving or cutting a hard material such as woodworking, wood, lapidary, stone, or metalworking, metal.
Using a chi ...
s.
Society and culture
Apart from the abundant local agriculture, the Minoans were also a mercantile people who engaged significantly in overseas trade, and at their peak may well have had a dominant position in international trade over much of the Mediterranean. After 1700BC, their culture indicates a high degree of organization. Minoan-manufactured goods suggest a network of trade with mainland Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
(notably Mycenae
Mycenae ( ; ; or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines, Greece, Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos, Peloponnese, Argos; and sou ...
), Cyprus
Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...
, Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
, Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
and westward as far as the Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...
. Minoan religion apparently focused on female deities, with women officiants. While historians and archaeologists have long been skeptical of an outright matriarchy
Matriarchy is a social system in which positions of Power (social and political), power and Social privilege, privilege are held by women. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege, and control of property. Whil ...
, the predominance of female figures in authoritative roles over male ones seems to indicate that Minoan society was matriarchal, and among the most well-supported examples known.
The term palace economy
A palace economy or redistribution economy is a Economic system, system of economic organization in which a substantial share of the wealth flows into the control of a Centralisation, centralized administration, the palace, and out from there to ...
first gained popularity among Minoan researchers. It is now used as a general term for ancient pre-monetary cultures where much of the economy revolved around the collection of crops and other goods by centralized government or religious institutions (the two tending to go together) for redistribution to the population. This is still accepted as an important part of the Minoan economy; all the palaces have very large amounts of space that seems to have been used for storage of agricultural produce, some remains of which have been excavated after they were buried by disasters. What role, if any, the palaces played in Minoan international trade is unknown, or how this was organized in other ways. The decipherment of Linear A would possibly shed light on this.
Government
Very little is known about the forms of Minoan government, particularly since the Minoan language has not yet been deciphered. It used to be believed that the Minoans had a monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, reigns as head of state for the rest of their life, or until abdication. The extent of the authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutio ...
supported by a bureaucracy
Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...
. This might initially have been a number of monarchies, corresponding with the "palaces" around Crete, but later all taken over by Knossos, which was itself later occupied by Mycenaean overlords. But, in notable contrast to contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
n civilizations, "Minoan iconography
Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
contains no pictures of recognizable kings", and in recent decades it has come to be thought that before the presumed Mycenaean invasion around 1450BC, a group of elite families, presumably living in the "villas" and the palaces, controlled both government and religion. Rejecting both a monarchy and an aristocracy, David Graeber and David Wengrow recently concluded: "Pretty much all the available evidence from Minoan Crete suggests a system of female political rule – effectively a theocracy of some sort, governed by a college of priestesses."
Status of women
As Linear A Minoan writing has not been deciphered yet, most information available about Minoan women is from various art forms and Linear B
Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...
tablets, and scholarship about Minoan women remains limited.
Minoan society was a divided society separating men from women in art illustration, clothing, and societal duties. For example, documents written in Linear B have been found documenting Minoan families, wherein spouses and children are not all listed together. In one section, fathers were listed with their sons, while mothers were listed with their daughters in a completely different section apart from the men who lived in the same household, signifying the vast gender divide present in Minoan society.
Artistically, women were portrayed very differently from men. Men were often artistically represented with dark skin while women were represented with lighter skin. Minoan dress representation also clearly marks the difference between men and women. Minoan men were often depicted clad in little clothing while women's bodies, specifically later on, were more covered up. While there is evidence that the structure of women's clothing originated as a mirror to the clothing that men wore, fresco art illustrates how women's clothing evolved to be increasingly elaborate throughout the Minoan era. Throughout the evolution of women's clothing, a strong emphasis was placed on the women's sexual characteristics, particularly the breasts. Female clothing throughout the Minoan era emphasized the breasts by exposing cleavage or even the entire breast. Both Minoan women and men were portrayed with "wasp" waists, similar to the modern bodice women continue to wear today.
Fresco paintings portray three class levels of women: elite women, women of the masses, and servants. A fourth, smaller class of women who participated in religious and sacred tasks are also included among some paintings. Elite women were depicted in paintings as having a stature twice the size of women in lower classes, as this was a way of emphasizing the important difference between the elite wealthy women and the rest of the female population within society.
Childcare was a central job for women within Minoan society. Other roles outside the household that have been identified as women's duties are food gathering, food preparation, and household care-taking. Additionally, it has been found that women were represented in the artisan world as ceramic and textile craftswomen. As women got older it can be assumed that their job of taking care of children ended and they transitioned towards household management and job mentoring, teaching younger women the jobs that they themselves participated in.
While women were often portrayed in paintings as caretakers of children, pregnant women were rarely shown in frescoes. Pregnant women were instead represented in the form of sculpted pots with the rounded base of the pots representing the pregnant belly. Additionally, no Minoan art forms portray women giving birth, breast feeding, or procreating. Lack of such actions leads historians to believe that these actions would have been recognized by Minoan society to be either sacred or inappropriate, and kept private within society.
Childbirth was a dangerous process within Minoan society. Archeological sources have found numerous bones of pregnant women, identified by the fetus bones within their skeleton found in the abdomen area, providing strong evidence that death during pregnancy and childbirth were common features within society.
Clothing
Sheep wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...
was the main fibre used in textiles, and perhaps a significant export commodity. Linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong and absorbent, and it dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. Lin ...
from flax
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. In 2022, France produced 75% of t ...
was probably much less common, and possibly imported from Egypt, or grown locally. There is no evidence of silk
Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...
, but some use is possible.
As seen in Minoan art, Minoan men wore loincloths (if poor) or robes or kilts that were often long. Women wore long dresses with short sleeves and layered, flounced skirts. With both sexes, there was a great emphasis in art in a small wasp waist, often taken to improbable extremes. Both sexes are often shown with rather thick belts or girdles at the waist. Women could also wear a strapless, fitted bodice, and clothing patterns had symmetrical, geometric designs. Men are shown as clean-shaven, and male hair was short, in styles that would be common today, except for some long thin tresses at the back, perhaps for young elite males. Female hair is typically shown with long tresses falling at the back, as in the fresco fragment known as '' La Parisienne''. This got its name because when it was found in the early 20th century, a French art historian thought it resembled Parisian women of the day. Children are shown in art with shaved heads (often blue in art) except for a few very long locks; the rest of the hair is allowed to grow as they approach puberty; this can be seen in the Akrotiri Boxer Fresco.
Two famous Minoan snake goddess figurines from Knossos (one illustrated below) show bodices that circle their breasts, but do not cover them at all. These striking figures have dominated the popular image of Minoan clothing, and have been copied in some "reconstructions" of largely destroyed frescos, but few images unambiguously show this costume, and the status of the figures—goddesses, priestesses, or devotees—is not at all clear. What is clear, from pieces like the Agia Triada Sarcophagus, is that Minoan women normally covered their breasts; priestesses in religious contexts may have been an exception. This shows a funeral sacrifice, and some figures of both sexes are wearing aprons or skirts of animal hide, apparently left with the hair on. This was probably the costume worn by both sexes by those engaged in rituals.
Minoan jewellery included many gold ornaments for women's hair and also thin gold plaques to sew onto clothing.[Hood (1978), 188-190] Flowers were also often worn in the hair, as by the Poppy Goddess terracotta figurine and other figures. Frescos also show what are presumably woven or embroidered figures, human and animal, spaced out on clothing.
Language and writing
The Minoans used a number of different scripts. During the Palatial period, the primary scripts were Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs, the latter falling out of use in MM III. The origins of these scripts is unknown. Although Cretan hieroglyphic is often assumed to have been inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined Ideogram, ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct char ...
, Anatolian and Mesopotamian writing systems have also been considered as models. Neither script has been deciphered, despite numerous attempts. For instance, when the values of the symbols in Linear B are used in Linear A, they produce mostly unrecognizable words. The language encoded by these scripts is tentatively dubbed "Minoan", though it is not certain that it was a single language. Decipherment attempts have attempted to read the language as Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
, Semitic, and Tyrsenian languages, but none have resulted in an accepted decipherment. The post-Bronze Age Eteocretan language has been considered as a potential descendant of Minoan. However, this language is only known from five inscriptions in eastern Crete and is thus itself poorly understood.
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...
became the primary Cretan script after LM II. This script was adapted from the earlier Linear A in order to write Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...
, which had become the language of administration. Linear B was deciphered in 1952, unlocking a major source of textual evidence about the economics and social organization of the final year at the palace of Knossos.
A handful of Minoan inscriptions use other unknown writing systems. For instance, the Phaistos Disc features a pictorial script whose only close comparison is found on the Arkalochori Axe. Because so few instances of these scripts have been found, they remain undeciphered.
Religion
Arthur Evans thought the Minoans worshipped, more or less exclusively, a mother goddess, which heavily influenced views for decades. Recent scholarly opinion sees a much more diverse religious landscape although the absence of texts, or even readable relevant inscriptions, leaves the picture very cloudy. We have no names of deities until after the Mycenaean era. Much Minoan art is given a religious significance of some sort, but this tends to be vague, not least because Minoan government is now often seen as a theocracy, so politics and religion have a considerable overlap. The Minoan pantheon featured many deities, among which a young, spear-wielding male god is also prominent. Some scholars see in the Minoan Goddess a female divine solar figure.
It is very often difficult to distinguish between images of worshipers, priests and priestesses, rulers and deities; indeed the priestly and royal roles may have often been the same, as leading rituals is often seen as the essence of rulership. Possibly as aspects of the main, probably dominant, nature/mother goddess, archaeologists have identified a mountain goddess, worshipped at peak sanctuaries, a dove goddess, a snake goddess perhaps protectress of the household, the Potnia Theron goddess of animals, and a goddess of childbirth. Late Minoan terracotta votive figures like the poppy goddess (perhaps a worshipper) carry attributes, often birds, in their diadem
A diadem is a Crown (headgear), crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by monarchs and others as a badge of Monarch, royalty.
Overview
The word derives from the Ancient Greek, Greek διάδημα ''diádēma'', "band" or "fillet", fro ...
s. The mythical creature called the Minoan Genius is somewhat threatening but perhaps a protective figure, possibly of children; it seems to largely derive from Taweret the Egyptian hybrid crocodile and hippopotamus goddess.
Men with a special role as priests or priest-kings are identifiable by diagonal bands on their long robes, and carrying over their shoulder a ritual "axe-sceptre" with a rounded blade. The more conventionally shaped labrys or double-headed axe, is a very common votive offering
A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...
, probably for a male god, and large examples of the Horns of Consecration symbol, probably representing bull's horns, are shown on seals decorating buildings, with a few large actual survivals. Bull-leaping, very much centred on Knossos, is agreed to have a religious significance, perhaps to do with selecting the elite. The position of the bull in it is unclear; the funeral ceremonies on the (very late) Hagia Triada sarcophagus include a bull sacrifice. The saffron may have had a religious significance.
According to Nanno Marinatos, "The hierarchy and relationship of gods within the pantheon is difficult to decode from the images alone." Marinatos disagrees with earlier descriptions of Minoan religion as primitive, saying that it "was the religion of a sophisticated and urbanized palatial culture with a complex social hierarchy. It was not dominated by fertility any more than any religion of the past or present has been, and it addressed gender identity, rites of passage, and death. It is reasonable to assume that both the organization and the rituals, even the mythology, resembled the religions of Near Eastern palatial civilizations." It even seems that the later Greek pantheon would synthesize the Minoan female deity and Hittite goddess from the Near East.
Symbolism
Minoan horn-topped altars, which Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age.
The first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos on the List of islands of Greece, Gree ...
called Horns of Consecration, are represented in seal impressions and have been found as far afield as Cyprus. Minoan sacred symbols include the bull
A bull is an intact (i.e., not Castration, castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e. cows proper), bulls have long been an important symbol cattle in r ...
(and its horns of consecration), the labrys (double-headed axe), the pillar, the serpent, the sun-disc, the tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...
, and even the Ankh.
Haralampos V. Harissis and Anastasios V. Harissis posit a different interpretation of these symbols, saying that they were based on apiculture rather than religion. A major festival was exemplified in bull-leaping, represented in the frescoes of Knossos and inscribed in miniature seals.
Burial practices
Similar to other Bronze Age archaeological finds, burial remains constitute much of the material and archaeological evidence for the period. By the end of the Second Palace Period, Minoan burial was dominated by two forms: circular tombs (''tholoi'') in southern Crete and house tombs in the north and the east. However, much Minoan mortuary practice does not conform to this pattern. Burial
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
was more popular than cremation
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...
. Individual burial was the rule, except for the Chrysolakkos complex in Malia. Here, a number of buildings form a complex in the center of Mallia's burial area and may have been the focus for burial rituals or a crypt for a notable family. Evidence of possible human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/prie ...
by the Minoans has been found at three sites: at Anemospilia, in a MMII building near Mt. Juktas considered a temple; an EMII sanctuary complex at Fournou Korifi in south-central Crete, and in an LMIB building known as the North House in Knossos
Knossos (; , ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major centre of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on th ...
.
Architecture
Minoan cities were connected by narrow roads paved with blocks cut with bronze saws. Streets were drained, and water and sewage
Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewerage, sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged fro ...
facilities were available to the upper class through clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...
pipes.
Minoan buildings often had flat, tiled roofs; plaster, wood or flagstone floors; and stood two to three stories high. Lower walls were typically constructed of stone and rubble, and the upper walls of mudbrick. Ceiling timbers held up the roofs.
Construction materials for villas and palaces varied, and included sandstone, gypsum and limestone. Building techniques also varied, with some palaces using ashlar
Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones.
Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...
masonry and others roughly-hewn, megalithic blocks.
In north-central Crete blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...
-greenschist
Greenschists are metamorphic rocks that formed under the lowest temperatures and pressures usually produced by regional metamorphism, typically and 2–10 kilobars (). Greenschists commonly have an abundance of green minerals such as Chlorite ...
was used to pave floors of streets and courtyard
A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky.
Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary a ...
s between 1650 and 1600BC. These rocks were likely quarried in Agia Pelagia on the north coast of central Crete.
Palaces
The Minoans famously built large complexes referred to as palaces. However, despite their name, it is generally agreed that they did not primarily serve as royal residences. The best known of them are at Knossos
Knossos (; , ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major centre of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on th ...
, Phaistos
Phaistos (, ; Ancient Greek: , , Linear B: ''Pa-i-to''; Linear A: ''Pa-i-to''), also Transliteration, transliterated as Phaestos, Festos and Latin Phaestus, is a Bronze Age archaeological site at modern Faistos, a municipality in south centr ...
, Zakros, and Malia.
Minoan palaces consist of wings arranged around an open rectangular court. The wings are often multi-story, with interior and exterior staircases, lightwells, massive columns, and large storage chambers. The various palaces have a fairly uniform style, though each has unique features. They are typically aligned with their surrounding topography, in particular with nearby sacred mountains. For instance, the palace at Phaistos appears to align with Mount Ida and Knossos is aligned with Mount Juktas, both on a north–south axis.
The first palaces are generally dated to the MM IB period. However, they were not a spontaneous development but rather the culmination of a longer architectural tradition. The palace style has precedents in Early Minoan construction styles and earlier buildings were sometimes incorporated in the later palaces. The palace at Malia is sometimes regarded as having achieved palacehood at the end of the Early Minoan period. Palaces were continually renovated and altered, with their style changing over time. For instance, early palaces had a square-within-a-square layout, while later renovations introduced more internal divisions and corridors.
The function of the palaces is a matter of debate, though it is known that they included administrative offices, shrines, workshops and storage spaces.
Plumbing
During the Minoan Era extensive waterways were built in order to protect the growing population. This system had two primary functions, first providing and distributing water, and secondly relocating sewage and stormwater. One of the defining aspects of the Minoan Era was the architectural feats of their waste management. The Minoans used technologies such as wells, cisterns, and aqueducts to manage their water supplies. Structural aspects of their buildings even played a part. Flat roofs and plentiful open courtyards were used for collecting water to be stored in cisterns. Significantly, the Minoans had water treatment devices. One such device seems to have been a porous clay pipe through which water was allowed to flow until clean.
Columns
For sustaining of the roof, some higher houses, especially the palaces, used columns made usually of ''Cupressus sempervirens'', and sometimes of stone. One of the most notable Minoan contributions to architecture is their inverted column, wider at the top than the base (unlike most Greek columns, which are wider at the bottom to give an impression of height). The columns were made of wood (not stone) and were generally painted red. Mounted on a simple stone base, they were topped with a pillow-like, round capital.
Villas
A number of compounds known as "villas" have been excavated on Crete, mostly near palaces, especially Knossos. These structures share features of neopalatial palaces: a conspicuous western facade, storage facilities and a three-part Minoan Hall. These features may indicate a similar role or that the structures were artistic imitations, suggesting that their occupants were familiar with palatial culture. The villas were often richly decorated, as evidenced by the frescos of Hagia Triada Villa A.
A common characteristic of the Minoan villas was having flat roofs. Their rooms did not have windows to the streets, the light arriving from courtyards, a common feature of larger Mediterranean in much later periods. In the 2nd millennium BC
File:2nd millennium BC montage.jpg, 400x400px, From top left clockwise: Hammurabi, Babylonian king, best known for his Code of Hammurabi, code of laws; The gold Mask of Tutankhamun, funerary mask of Tutankhamun has become a symbol of ancient Egypt ...
, the villas had one or two floors, and the palaces even three.
Warfare and the "Minoan peace"
Early excavators such as Arthur Evans proposed that there was little internal armed conflict in Minoan Crete until the Mycenaean period. However, subsequent scholarship has questioned this interpretation.
No evidence has been found of a Minoan army or the Minoan domination of peoples beyond Crete. Evans believed that the Minoans had some kind of overlordship of at least parts of Mycenaean Greece in the Neopalatial Period, but it is now very widely agreed that the opposite was the case, with a Mycenaean elite clearly ruling Knossos from around 1450BC. Few signs of warfare appear in Minoan art: "Although a few archaeologists see war scenes in a few pieces of Minoan art, others interpret even these scenes as festivals, sacred dance, or sports events" (Studebaker, 2004, p. 27). Although armed warriors are depicted as stabbed in the throat with swords, the violence may be part of a ritual or blood sport.
Nanno Marinatos argued that the Neopalatial Minoans had a "powerful navy" that made them a desirable ally to have in Mediterranean power politics, at least by the 14th century as "vassals of the pharaoh", leading Cretan tribute-bearers to be depicted on Egyptian tombs such as those of the top officials Rekmire and Senmut.
On mainland Greece during the shaft-grave era at Mycenae, there is little evidence for major Mycenaean fortifications; the citadels follow the destruction of nearly all neopalatial Cretan sites. Warfare by other contemporaries of the ancient Minoans, such as the Egyptians and the Hittites
The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...
, is well-documented.
Warfare
Despite finding ruined watchtowers and fortification walls, Evans said that there was little evidence of ancient Minoan fortifications. According to Stylianos Alexiou (in ''Kretologia'' 8), a number of sites (especially early and middle Minoan sites such as Aghia Photia) are built on hilltops or otherwise fortified. Lucia Nixon wrote:
Chester Starr said in "Minoan Flower Lovers" that since Shang China and the Maya had unfortified centers and engaged in frontier struggles, a lack of fortifications alone does not prove that the Minoans were a peaceful civilization unparalleled in history. In 1998, when Minoan archaeologists met in a Belgian conference to discuss the possibility that the Pax Minoica was outdated, evidence of Minoan war was still scanty. According to Jan Driessen, the Minoans frequently depicted "weapons" in their art in a ritual context:
Stella Chryssoulaki's work on small outposts (or guardhouses) in eastern Crete indicates a possible defensive system; type A (high-quality) Minoan swords were found in the palaces of Mallia and Zarkos (see Sanders, AJA 65, 67, Hoeckmann, JRGZM 27, or Rehak and Younger, AJA 102). Keith Branigan estimated that 95 percent of Minoan "weapons" had hafting ( hilts or handles) which would have prevented their use as such. However, tests of replicas indicated that the weapons could cut flesh down to the bone (and score the bone's surface) without damaging the weapons themselves. According to Paul Rehak, Minoan figure-eight shields could not have been used for fighting or hunting, since they were too cumbersome. Although Cheryl Floyd concluded that Minoan "weapons" were tools used for mundane tasks such as meat processing, Middle Minoan "rapier
A rapier () is a type of sword originally used in Spain (known as ' -) and Italy (known as '' spada da lato a striscia''). The name designates a sword with a straight, slender and sharply pointed two-edged long blade wielded in one hand. It wa ...
s nearly three feet in length" have been found.
Charles Gates argues that the absence of warfare in Minoan art does not prove it did not occur because there is no correlation between a society's artistic depiction of warfare and how often said society is involved in conflict. Barry Molloy states that artwork is an unreliable guide to a society's behaviour, using the example that frescoes recovered prior to the Late Minoan period seldom depict people interacting with each other yet this should not be taken as evidence that Minoans rarely did so. Molloy further argues that the lack of fortifications could be attributed to Crete's rugged topography, which would have provided a significant natural defensive advantage; Molloy argues that the guardhouses could have been used to secure narrow roads through Crete.
About Minoan warfare, Branigan concluded:
Archaeologist Olga Krzyszkowska agreed: "The stark fact is that for the prehistoric Aegean we have no direct evidence for war and warfare ''per se''."
Genetic and anthropometric studies
A cephalometric analysis by Argyropoulos et al. (1989) published in '' The Angle Orthodontist'' showed remarkable similarity in craniofacial morphology between Minoans and modern Greeks, suggesting a close affinity, and that the Greek ethnic group remained stable in its cephalic and facial morphology for the last 4,000 years.
A craniofacial morphological study by Papagrigorakis et al. (2014) published in '' Anthropologischer Anzeiger'' also indicated craniological similarities between modern Greeks and Minoans, indicating continuity.
A 2013 archaeogenetics
Archaeogenetics is the study of ancient DNA using various molecular genetic methods and DNA resources. This form of genetic analysis can be applied to human, animal, and plant specimens. Ancient DNA can be extracted from various fossilized spec ...
study by Hughey at al. published in ''Nature Communications
''Nature Communications'' is a peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio since 2010. It is a multidisciplinary journal that covers the natural sciences, including physics, chemistry, earth sciences, medic ...
'' compared skeletal mtDNA from ancient Minoan skeletons that were sealed in a cave in the Lasithi Plateau between 3,700 and 4,400 years ago to 135 samples from Greece, Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
, western and northern Europe, North Africa and Egypt. The researchers found that the Minoan skeletons were genetically very similar to modern-day Europeans—and especially close to modern-day Cretans, particularly those from the Lasithi Plateau. They were also genetically similar to Neolithic Europeans, but distinct from Egyptian or Libyan populations. "We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European," said study co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos, a human geneticist at the University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
. "They were very similar to Neolithic Europeans and very similar to present day-Cretans."
In their archaeogenetic study published in ''Nature
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'', Lazaridis et al. (2017) found that Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks were genetically highly similar – but not identical – and that modern Greeks descend from these populations. The F between the sampled Bronze Age populations and present-day West Eurasians was estimated, finding that Mycenaean Greeks and Minoans were least differentiated from the populations of modern Greece, Cyprus, Albania, and Italy. In a subsequent study, Lazaridis et al. (2022) concluded that around ~58.4–65.8% of the DNA of the Mycenaeans and ~70.9–76.7% of the Minoans came from Early European Farmers (EEF), while the remainder came from ancient populations related to the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers (CHG) (Mycenaeans ~20.1–22.7%, Minoans ~17–19.4%) and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) culture (Mycenaeans ~7–14%, Minoans ~3.9–9.5%). Unlike the Minoans, the Mycenaeans had also inherited ~3.3–5.5% ancestry on average from a source related to the Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG), introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of the Pontic–Caspian steppe ( Western Steppe Herders) who are hypothesized to be the Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family.
Knowledge of them comes chiefly from t ...
, and ~0.9–2.3% from the Iron Gates Hunter-Gatherers in the Balkans.
In 2023, whole genome-wide data of 102 individuals from Crete, the Greek mainland and Aegean Islands were sequenced, spanning from the Neolithic to Iron Age. It was discovered that the early farmers from Crete shared the same ancestry as other Neolithic Aegeans. It also confirmed previous findings for additional Central/Eastern European ancestry in the Greek mainland by the Middle Bronze Age.
A report in 2024 also included a bioarcheological investigation conducted on remains that were found in Armenoi, Crete. The research revealed that the DNA of 23 newly sequenced individuals from Late Minoan tombs, had derived most of their ancestry from an Anatolian Neolithic source. Modern Greeks share this genetic profile, but are more shifted towards the Yamnaya on the PCA, and differentiated from the Greek populations that lived during the Early Bronze Age. The admixture analysis identified three main reference components: Anatolian Neolithic, Iranian Neolithic, and Western Hunter-Gatherer, with the Minoans also having some Yamnaya-related ancestry. The majority of individuals in the necropolis formed a homogenous population, with the exception of one individual, who was more similar to the populations of Western Europe. Overall, the studied genomes were found to be most similar to the other published genomes of Myceneans from mainland Greece; however, on the PCA analysis they plot exactly in-between both Minoans and Myceneans. The researchers noted that based on their genomic profile and placement, they may have been a mix of both groups.
See also
* Caphtor
* Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
* Hyksos
* Minoa
* Sacred caves of Crete
* Sea Peoples
Notes
Footnotes
References
*
*
* Benton, Janetta Rebold and DiYanni, Robert. ''Arts and Culture: An Introduction to the Humanities.'' Volume 1. Prentice Hall. New Jersey, 1998.
* Bourbon, F. ''Lost Civilizations''. Barnes and Noble, Inc. New York, 1998.
* Branigan, Keith, 1970. ''The Foundations of Palatial Crete''.
*
*
* Burkert, Walter, 1985. ''Greek Religion''. J. Raffan, trans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
.
* Cadogan, Gerald, 1992, " Ancient and Modern Crete", in Myers et al., 1992, ''Aerial Atlas of Ancient Crete''.
* Callender, Gae (1999) ''The Minoans and the Mycenaeans: Aegean Society in the Bronze Age'' Oxford university press, Victoria 3205, Australia
*
*
*
*Chapin, Anne P., "Power, Privilege and Landscape in Minoan Art", in ''Charis: Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr'', ''Hesperia'' (Princeton, N.J.) 33, 2004, ASCSA, , 9780876615331
google books
*
*
*
*
* Dickinson, Oliver (1994; 2005 re-print) ''The Aegean Bronze Age'', Cambridge World Archaeology, Cambridge University Press.
*
*
*
* Sir Arthur Evans, 1921–35. ''The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos'', 4 vols. in 6 (reissued 1964).
*
*
*
* Gates, Charles, 1999. "Why Are There No Scenes of Warfare in Minoan Art?" pp 277–284 In Laffineur, Robert, ed., ''Polemos: Le Contexte Guerrier en Egee a L'Age du Bronze. Actes de la 7e Rencontre egeenne internationale Universite de Liège, 1998.'' Université de Liège.
*Gates, Charles (2004), "Pictorial Imagery in Minoan Wall Painting", in ''Charis: Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr'', ''Hesperia'' (Princeton, N.J.) 33, 2004, ASCSA, , 9780876615331
google books
* Gere, Cathy. ''Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism'', University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...
2009.
*
*
* Hutchinson, ''Prehistoric Crete'', many editions hardcover and softcover
* Goodison, Lucy, and Morris, Christine, 1998, "Beyond the Great Mother: The Sacred World of the Minoans", in Goodison, Lucy, and Christine Morris, eds., ''Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence'', London: British Museum Press, pp. 113–132.
*
* Hägg, R. and N. Marinatos, eds. ''The Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth and Reality'' (Stockholm) 1994. A summary of revived points-of-view of a Minoan thalassocracy, especially in LMI.
* Haralampos V. Harissis, Anastasios V. Harissis. ''Apiculture in the Prehistoric Aegean. Minoan and Mycenaean Symbols Revisited'' British Archaeological Reports S1958, 2009 .
* Higgins, Reynold, 1981. ''Minoan and Mycenaean Art'', (revised edition).
* Hogan, C. Michael, 2007. ''Knossos fieldnotes''
Modern Antiquarian
* Hugh Honour and John Fleming, ''A World History of Art'', 1st edn. 1982 (many later editions), Macmillan, London, page refs to 1984 Macmillan 1st edn. paperback.
* Hood, Sinclair, 1971, ''The Minoans: Crete in the Bronze Age''. London.
* Hood, Sinclair (1978), ''The Arts in Prehistoric Greece'', 1978, Penguin (Penguin/Yale History of Art),
* Hughes, Dennis, 1991. ''Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece.'' Routledge: London.
* Hutchinson, Richard W., 1962. ''Prehistoric Crete'' (reprinted 1968)
* Kristiansen, Kristiansen & Larsson, Thomas B. (2005) ''The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions and Transformations'' Cambridge University Press
*
* Lapatin, Kenneth, 2002. ''Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the Forging of History''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...
.
*
*
*
* Manning, S.W., 1995. "An approximate Minoan Bronze Age chronology" in A.B. Knapp, ed., ''The absolute chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: Archaeology, radiocarbon and history'' (Appendix 8), in series ''Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology'', Vol. 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press) A standard current Minoan chronology.
* Marinatos, Nanno, 1993. ''Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol''. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
* Marinatos, Nanno (2010), ''Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess: A Near Eastern Koine'', University of Illinois Press
* Marinatos, Spyridon, 1960. ''Crete and Mycenae'' (originally published in Greek, 1959), photographs by Max Hirmer.
* Marinatos, Spyridon, 1972. "Life and Art in Prehistoric Thera", in ''Proceedings of the British Academy'', vol 57.
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* Mellersh, H.E.L., 1967. ''Minoan Crete.'' New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons.
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* Papadopoulos, John K., "Inventing the Minoans: Archaeology, Modernity and the Quest for European Identity", ''Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology'' 18:1:87–149 (June 2005)
*
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* Preziosi, Donald & Hitchcock, Louise A. (1999) ''Aegean Art and Architecture'', Oxford History of Art series, Oxford University Press.
*
* Quigley, Carroll, 1961. ''The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis,'' Indianapolis: Liberty Press.
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* Schoep, Ilse, 2004. "Assessing the role of architecture in conspicuous consumption in the Middle Minoan I–II Periods." ''Oxford Journal of Archaeology'' vol 23/3, pp. 243–269.
*
* Soles, Jeffrey S., 1992, ''The Prepalatial Cemeteries at Mochlos and Gournia and the House Tombs of Bronze Age Crete: And the House Tombs of Bronze Age Crete'', Published by ASCSA, 1992.
*
* Warren P., Hankey V., 1989. ''Aegean Bronze Age Chronology'' (Bristol).
* Watrous, L. Vance (1991), "The origin and iconography of the Late Minoan painted larnax", '' Hesperia'', 60(3): 285–307; .
* Willetts, R. F., 1976 (1995 edition). ''The Civilization of Ancient Crete''. New York: Barnes & Noble Books.
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* Yule, Paul. ''Early Cretan Seals: A Study of Chronology''. Marburger Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte 4, Mainz 1980
*Vasilakis, Andonis, ''Minoan Crete: From Myth to History'', 2000, Adam Editions, Athens,
{{authority control
27th-century BC establishments
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States and territories established in the 3rd millennium BC
States and territories disestablished in the 12th century BC
Pre-Indo-Europeans
Prehistoric Crete
History of Crete