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MINOANS
The Minoans were arguably Europe's first great civilization. They originated on the island of Crete around 3000 B.C. and flourished there from 2000 B.C. to 1,400 B.C. While most of Europe was still in the Stone Age the Minoans created cities with magnificent palaces and comfortable townhouses with terra cotta plumbing; traded throughout the Mediterranean and the Aegean with a huge fleet of ships; and developed a writing system. The Minoans are named by British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans after the legendary King Minos, son of Zeus and Europa, who is said to have lived on Crete. According to myth, a King Minos, living in a palace with more than a thousand rooms, once ruled the island of Crete. In 1900 such a palace was discovered, excavated and partially restored Evans. [Source: Joseph Judge, National Geographic, February 1978]
A lack of depictions of war and the fact that few fortifications have been found around Minoan cities and has led archaeologists to believe that warfare was uncommon in Minoa and the Minoans were a peaceful people that devoted their attentions to the arts not the military. They made some of the world's first frescoes, jewelry with precious stones, and thin-shelled pottery. The also left behind a written language that was undeciphered until the 1990s.
Minoa was a Bronze Age culture and a contemporary of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and Babylon. The ancestors of the Greeks and Minoans are believed to have been the Luvians, an 8000-year-old people from the hills of Anatolia. The Minoan golden age was between 1600 and 1450 B.C., when large palaces were built in Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia and Zakros and Minoa had colonies on the islands of Kythera and Rhodes and trading posts as far away as Syria. At that time Egypt was at its height under Ramses III and the Trojan War and the Israelite's Exodus to the Promised Land was still 300 years in the future.
Jessica Cecil wrote for the BBC: “The lost world of the Minoans has intrigued people for thousands of years. Their palace at Knossos was vast and elaborate, with Europe's first paved roads and running water. The ancient Greeks wove its magnificence into their myths; it was the home of King Minos and his man-eating bull, the Minotaur, which roamed the palace labyrinth. In the 1900s, British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans excavated and restored the ruins at Knossos. Beautiful and delicate frescoes of bulls and dolphins revealed a highly artistic civilisation and a people who apparently lived in harmony with nature.” [Source: Jessica Cecil, BBC, February 17, 2011]
According to the Canadian Museum of History: “It is virtually impossible to talk about early Greek history without at some point introducing the Minoans. The Minoans were not Greeks nor do they appear to be closely related. What seems clear however is that they helped to shape the early Greek civilization...The Minoans have left a stunning visual legacy (paintings, sophisticated palaces and varied artwork) as well as large quantities of written records.” [Source: Canadian Museum of History historymuseum.ca]
See Separate Articles: THERA ERUPTION AND MINOANS factsanddetails.com ; MINOAN ART, LIFE, SOCIETY, CULTURE AND RELIGION (3000 B.C. to 1400 B.C.) factsanddetails.com
Websites on Ancient Greece: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History historymuseum.ca; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org; British Museum ancientgreece.co.uk; Illustrated Greek History, Dr. Janice Siegel, Department of Classics, Hampden–Sydney College, Virginia hsc.edu/drjclassics ; The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization pbs.org/empires/thegreeks ; Oxford Classical Art Research Center: The Beazley Archive beazley.ox.ac.uk ; Ancient-Greek.org ancientgreece.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org/about-the-met/curatorial-departments/greek-and-roman-art; The Ancient City of Athens stoa.org/athens; The Internet Classics Archive kchanson.com ; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org/web; Ancient Greek Sites on the Web from Medea showgate.com/medea ; Greek History Course from Reed web.archive.org; Classics FAQ MIT rtfm.mit.edu; 11th Brittanica: History of Ancient Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ;Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu;Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu
Crete and the Concept of Minoan Civilization
Minoan ceramics Crete (12 hours from Piraeus, 6 hours from Santorini) is the largest and southernmost island in Greece, and the home of the Minoans (2600 B.C. to 1450 B.C.) the first great civilization of Europe. They preceded classical Greece by 2000 years and where to believed to have been snuffed out in 1450 B.C. by the a volcanic eruption four times more powerful than Krakatoa. Ruins of Minoan Culture are found Knossos, Phaestos, Malia and Kato Zakros. In the south there are lovely beaches, in the interior are massive rocky mountains that are sometimes covered in snow and in the west there is the famous Samarian Gorge. Crete was at one time covered with oaks, chestnuts, pine trees and cypresses. The hills of the island are now largely denuded.
The concept of Minoan civilisation was first developed by Sir Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist who unearthed the Bronze Age palace of Knossos on Crete. He named the people who built Knossos and other cities after the legendary King Minos who, according to tradition, ordered the construction of a labyrinth on Crete to hold the mythical half-man, half-bull creature known as the minotaur. Evans believed that the real-life Bronze Age culture on Crete must have originated from somewhere else, suggesting the Minoans were perhaps refugees from Egypt's Nile delta who fled the region after it was conquered by a southern king some 5,000 years ago. Evidence to back up the theory included some similarities between Egyptian and Minoan art and resemblances between circular tombs built by the early inhabitants of southern Crete and those built by ancient Libyans. [Source: BBC, 15 May 2013]
Colette Hemingway and Seán Hemingway of the Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote: “Sir Arthur Evans, the British archaeologist, characterized the Bronze Age culture of Crete as Minoan, after the legendary King Minos. From the material he excavated at Knossos, Evans devised a chronological scheme consisting of nine periods for Minoan civilization on Crete. His Early, Middle, and Late Minoan periods, each with three subdivisions, roughly followed the tripartite division of Egyptian history in the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. Our knowledge of Early Minoan Crete comes primarily from burials and a number of excavated settlement sites. Artistic works of this period indicate that advances were made in gem engraving, stoneworking (especially vases), metalworking, and pottery. Terracotta bowls on high pedestals appeared and burnishing tools were used for decoration. [Source: Colette Hemingway and Seán Hemingway, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2002 metmuseum.org \^/]
Origins of the Minoans and Periods of Minoan History
According to the Canadian Museum of History: “Based on the evidence currently available, it seems that the Minoans arrived on the large island of Crete more than 5000 years ago. The soil was fertile, the climate was favorable and the numbers of people increased. Eventually a point was reached when the resources of the land were insufficient to meet the needs of the expanding population. Many migrated to nearby islands, those that stayed turned increasingly to trade as a means of improving their economic situation. [Source: Canadian Museum of History historymuseum.ca ]
Minoan civilization began evolving around 3000 B.C. around the start of the Bronze Age. At that time the early Minoans used bronze and copper along with bone and stone weapons. The first examples of artistic decorations on pottery and walls appeared around 2850 B.C. By 2500 B.C. they were producing decorative jewelry and stone vases. Archaeologists now mark the period between 3000 B.C. and 2000 B.C. as the Early Period of Minoan civilization.
The Middle Period of Minoan civilization lasted from around 2000 B.C. to 1700 B.C. Early flush toilets were developed around 2000 B.C. and early Minoan writing first appeared between 2000 to 1850 B.C. The Late Period lasted from around 1700 B.C. to 1450 B.C. Fires destroyed many palaces in 1450 B.C. The last palaces in Knossos was abandoned by 1300 B.C. . The destructive Thera eruption occurred in 1645 B.C.
The period between 1450 and 100 B.C. has been labeled the Sub-Minoan, a long period of decline that culimated with the end of Minoan culture in 1050 B.C.
Minoan Crete
Knossos
Knossos (6 kilometers south of Iraklion) was the capital of the Minoan empire, Europe's first great civilization. It is also where you'll find a palace reportedly used by King Minos. There is no evidence however of the legendary Minotaur or the Labyrinth, despite the fact the ruins sometimes resemble a maze.
Knossos attracts more tourist than any other archeological site in Greece save the Acropolis and the Parthenon. It attracts about a million visitors a year. At first glance you'll be amazed be these "ruins." They aren't just pieces of marble piled on top of one another; they hold together like real buildings and what is more the columns are bright red an the cross beams are yellow.
Unlike most archeological sites Knossos was reconstructed and painted. Some of the ruins have polished columns and are supported by broad beam. Some scholars have frowned upon the practice. Many tourists think it is great. At the entrance there is a bust of Sir Arthur John Evans, the discovered of the site, who spent 25 years excavating and reconstructing it.
Evans and others involved in reconstructing Knossos took quite a few liberties. Buildings that are more than 1000 years older than the Parthenon look newer and in better shape. The colors definitely makes the ruins more dramatic but in the end also make them look artificial, the same way colonizing a classic film does. The garishly painted frescos which look more like the work of art-nouveau school, than the Minoans are down right insulting. Still, I guess, they are kind of fun and I guess people visit ruins for entertainment.
Knossos occupied a valley next to the coast and was home to perhaps 80,000 people. It survived for seventy years after the Thera eruption that is thought to have had a hand in the demise of Minoan culture. Knossos was probably located were it was because it near the coast and near the fertile plains of Messera which are on the other side of some mountains.
Knossos is a labyrinth of storerooms, workshops, and ceremonial halls. Minoan columns were tapered only at the top and looked the handles of gavels.The Minoans built there palaces from “poros” (a kind of soft sandstone, sandstone and gypsum). Geologists worry that if current erosion rates continue Knossos will weather away to nothing in a few hundred years.
Herodotus and Plutarch on Minos and Knossos
Jerome Arkenberg at Northern Illinois University wrote: Here are two texts on the Minoans. Of course, these have always been suspect. However, recent archaeological finds have begun to show the kernel of truth in both the tale of Theseos — and the child sacrifice that occurred in the Labyrinth — and Herodotus' accounts of the two depopulations of Crete do seem to have a basis in fact. Of course, Herodotus doesn't mention the Thera explosion, but famine and pestilence which would undoubtedly have accompanied that blast appears to have remained in Greek memory. [Source: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Hellenistic World, Fordham University] Herodotos wrote in The History, VII.170-171: “Minos, according to tradition, went to Sicania, or Sicily, as it is now called, in search of Daidolos, and there perished by a violent death....Men of various nations now flocked to Crete, which was stripped of its inhabitants; but none came in such numbers as the Hellenes. Three generations after the death of Minos the Trojan war took place; and the Cretans were not the least distinguished among the helpers of Menelaos. But on this account, when they came back from Troy, famine and pestilence fell upon them, and destroyed both the men and the cattle. Crete was a second time stripped of its inhabitants, a remnant only being left; who form, together with fresh settlers, the third Cretan people by whom the island has been inhabited. [Source: Herodotus, “The History,” George Rawlinson, trans., (New York: Dutton & Co., 1862]
Minoan Palace at Knossos
In “The Life of Theseus”, “Plutarch wrote: “Not long after arrived the third time from Crete the collectors of the tribute which the Athenians paid them upon the following occasion. Androgeos having been treacherously murdered in the confines of Attica, not only Minos, his father, put the Athenians to extreme distress by a perpetual war, but the gods also laid waste their country; both famine and pestilence lay heavy upon them, and even their rivers were dried up. Being told by the oracle that, if they appeased and reconciled Minos, the anger of the gods would cease and they should enjoy rest from the miseries they labored under, they sent heralds, and with much supplication were at last reconciled, entering into an agreement to send to Crete every nine years a tribute of seven young men and as many virgins, as most writers agree in stating; and the most poetical story adds, that the Minotaur destroyed them, or that, wandering in the labyrinth, and finding no possible means of getting out, they miserably ended their lives there. [Source: Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, John Dryden, trans., (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1910]
“Theseos, who, thinking it but right to partake of the sufferings of his fellow-citizens, offered himself for one without any lot....When he arrived at Crete, as most of the ancient historians as well as poets tell us, having a clue of thread given him by Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him, and being instructed by her how to use it so as to conduct him through the windings of the labyrinth, he escaped out of it and slew the Minotaur, and sailed back, taking along with him the Athenian captives....
“Years later, after Minos' decease, Deucalion, his son, desiring a quarrel with the Athenians, sent to them, demanding that they should deliver up Daidalos to him, threatening upon their refusal, to put to death all the young Athenians whom his father had received as hostages from the city. To this angry message Theseos returned a very gentle answer excusing himself that he could not deliver up Daidalos, who was his cousin, his mother being Merope, the daughter of Erechtheos. In the meanwhile Theseos secretly prepared a navy. As soon as ever his fleet was in readiness, he set sail, having with him Daidalos and other exiles from Crete for his guides; and none of the Cretans having any knowledge of his coming, but imagining when they saw his fleet that they were friends and vessels of their own, he soon made himself master of the port, and immediately making a descent, reached Knossos before any notice of his coming, and, in a battle before the gates, put Deucalion and all his guards to the sword.
DNA Evidence Indicates the Minoans Came from Europe
In May 2013, scientists said that analysis of DNA from ancient remains on Crete suggested the Minoans were indigenous Europeans and didn’t come from Egypt, Africa, Anatolia or the Middle East as some scholars had suggested. The research appeared in Nature Communications journal and was co-authored by George Stamatoyannopoulos of the University of Washington in Seattle, [Source: BBC, 15 May 2013 ++]
The BBC reported: “In this study, Prof Stamatoyannopoulos and colleagues analysed the DNA of 37 individuals buried in a cave on the Lassithi plateau in the island's east. The majority of the burials are thought to date to the middle of the Minoan period - around 3,700 years ago. The analysis focused on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) extracted from the teeth of the skeletons, This type of DNA is stored in the cell's "batteries" and is passed down, more or less unchanged, from mother to child. They then compared the frequencies of distinct mtDNA lineages, known as "haplogroups", in this ancient Minoan set with similar data for 135 other populations, including ancient samples from Europe and Anatolia as well as modern peoples. ++
Dolphin room at Knossos
“The comparison seemed to rule out an origin for the Minoans in North Africa: the ancient Cretans showed little genetic similarity to Libyans, Egyptians or the Sudanese. They were also genetically distant from populations in the Arabian Peninsula, including Saudis, and Yemenis. The ancient Minoan DNA was most similar to populations from western and northern Europe. The population showed particular genetic affinities with Bronze Age populations from Sardinia and Iberia and Neolithic samples from Scandinavia and France. They also resembled people who live on the Lassithi Plateau today, a population that has previously attracted attention from geneticists. ++
“The authors therefore conclude that the Minoan civilisation was a local development, originated by inhabitants who probably reached the island around 9,000 years ago, in Neolithic times. "There has been all this controversy over the years. We have shown how the analysis of DNA can help archaeologists and historians put things straight," Prof Stamatoyannopoulos told BBC News. "The Minoans are Europeans and are also related to present-day Cretans - on the maternal side. It's obvious that there was very important local development. But it is clear that, for example, in the art, there were influences from other peoples. So we need to see the Mediterranean as a pool, not as a group of isolated nations.There is evidence of cultural influence from Egypt to the Minoans and going the other way." ++
King Minos’s Palace
King Minos’s Palace is the largest structure at Knossos. A vast complex that encloses a courtyard and occupies a large part of Knossos, it covers over 21,000 square meters (about five acres) and embraces the remains of the throne room, the royal suites, Pillar Hall, the Central Court, Grand Staircase, Hall of Double Axes, a treasury, an arsenal and a theater.
The Palace of Minos is so vast and complex — it is several times bigger than Malia, 20 miles to the east, the next largest Minoan palace — it is no surprise that it has been linked with King Minos and the legend of the Minotaur and the labyrinth even though there is no proof or even hints that are related to one another.
Visitors entering King Minos’s Palace from the west walk along a hallway called the Corridor of the Procession Fresco which is paved with gypsum flagstone and decorated with a frescoe showing visitors bearing gifts. This passages lead to 164-by-82-foot courtyard., where public gatherings and ceremonies took place. Around the courtyard are residents of the Knossos aristocracy, reception rooms, treasuries, storehouses, administrative archives and potter's and smith's workshops.
Minoan Palace
In the throne room is a stone-lined tank called Ariadne's Bath. Archeologist believe that the tank was basin used in rituals. The stone chair on a platform, described as a throne, is thought to have been designed for a woman. Nearby are storerooms that held grain, olive oil and wine. Paintings along the wall of the palace at one time contained hundreds of figures — musician, butterflies, sphinxes, bull leapers and griffins.
The huge central court is where sacrifices, bull leaping contests, and religious ceremonies were held. Unexplained holes in the court may have been used to erect barricade to protect the audience from the bulls.
In the west wing there are three religious shrines, each made up of small room with columns topped by bull horns. Up a flight a stairs is sanctuary hall with religious paintings where communion feasts were possibly held. Beneath these halls are warehouses with 400 giant jars that could each hold 65 gallons olive oil or wine. In one of the 150 palace room is what is believed to be the oldest serving throne in the world, a gypsum chair with griffin's painted on it.
The western court features raised walkways, a small porch and gypsum wall still black from the fire that destroyed Knossos. Near the palace a stone causeway leads to a wide-stepped portico. Outside the palace are the foundations of homes of ordinary people and cemeteries. On the east side of the palace is an area believed to be a residential neighborhood inhabited by advisors to the rulers. There is restored staircase built around a well that leads to apartments decorated with frescoes of dolphins.
The Grand Staircase and the much of the Domestic Quarter are well preserved because they had been built into the side of a hill. Here Evans found "gypsums, paving slabs, door jambs, limestone bases, the steps of the stairs, and other remains." Other Minoan ruins near Iraklion include Arkanes and Anemomospilia.
Minoan Sites in Crete
Minoan golden bee
Arkhanes (a few miles south of Knossos) lies at the end of a path with a pleasant view of a gorge. An early Minoan group graveyard has been found here. In the 1960s over 200 human skulls were excavated here along with a temple of the dead built in 1800 B.C. In one tomb a woman was buried with a horse and a bull head. The woman was buried in a clay bath, wearing 140 pieces of gold jewelry.
Phaistos (two hours south of Iraklion) was the second most important Minoan city after Knossos. The layout of the city city is similar to that of Knossos. Purists like these ruins better because they have been left more or less untouched, with the various layers showing the different periods of development. Phaistos lies on the southern side of Crete with views of snow-capped Mt, ida and the sea. About half of the palace, said to be the second largest in Minoa, has collapse down the hillside. What is left is entered through a wide stairway. Only walls and foundations are left. Near Phaestos is another Minoan site, Hagia Triada.
Mallia (20 miles east of Knossos) it is said contains the next largest Minoan palace after Knossos. Only walls and foundations are left. The site has a roof over it. There are large silos grain and the palace has pillar crypt and views of the sea. Gournia is a Minoan sight with earthen courtyards, walls, streets and steps that include 70 homes, metalworkers shops, a factory for pressing olive oil and wine and a palace and cover an area over 18,000 square yards. Unearthed here were ancient awls, nails, razors, tweezers, knives and carpentry tools.
Phaistos
Phaistos (also spelled Phaestos, Phaestus, Faistos, Festus and Festos) was one of the most important centers of Minoan civilization, and the most wealthy and powerful Minoan city in southern Crete. Inhabited from the Neolithic period through the Mycenaean and Geometric periods, until the 8th century B.C., it reached its peak when the Minoan palaces were built in the 15th century B.C. The magnificent Minoan palace of Phaistos is regarded as the finest and most typically Minoan of all the Minoan palaces. The city covered a considerable area around the palatial center. The palace was destroyed not long after it was built. [Source: Interkriti]
Phaistos
“The exact location of the Palace of Phaistos was first determined in the middle of the 19th century by the British admiral Thomas Spratt, with archaeological work beginning in 1884 under the Italians F. Halbherr and A. Taramelli. Although many inscriptions have been found by archaeologists, they are all in Linear A code which is still undeciphered, and all we know about the site, even its name is based to the ancient writers and findings from Knossos.
According to mythology, Phaistos was the seat of King Radamanthis, brother of King Minos. The city also is said to have been the home of the great wise man and soothsayer Epimenidis, one of the seven wise men of the ancient world. When Phaistos was at its peak, a very important city-state, its territory extended from Cape Lithinon to Cape Psychion (modern-day Cape Melissa at Agios Pavlos, South Rethymnon) and included the Paximadia islands. The city participated to the Trojan war and later became one of the most important cities-states of the Dorian period. It endured through Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic times and was destroyed by the Gortynians during the 3rd century B.C. but continued to exist during the Roman period. Phaistos had two ports, Matala and Kommos.
“The most important monuments of the site are: 1) The Old and New Palaces, built of ashlar blocks and spread on different terraces. The central, peristyle court is surrounded by the royal quarters, storerooms, a lustral basin, and workshops. The monumental propylaea, (monumental gateway) and and large staircases provide access to the many terraces. Minoan remains have been found at the sites of Chalara and Aghia Photeini, southeast and northeast NE of the palace, respectively. A road leads to the archaeological sites of Aghia Triada and Matala.
Minoan Trade
Egyptian-style pottery from 2600 BC found at a Minoan site in Crete
The Minoans were the first great maritime culture. They used sailing ships with oars and are believed to have invented the keel. They stored foodstuffs in massive jars called “pithons”. No Minoan shipwreck has ever been found. Archaeologists would love to get their hands on one.
The Minoans traded all over the Mediterranean. To make bronze the Minoans traded with Cyprus for copper and with Assyrian traders for tin from Anatolia and the Hindu Kush mountains. The Minoans grew rich from trade with Egypt and the East Mediterranean. Based on the fact that Minoan ports had elaborate harbors and Minoan goods have been found in Egypt and elsewhere it was believed they were primarily traders.
Colette Hemingway and Seán Hemingway of the Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote: “Much of the first half of the second millennium B.C. was a time of widespread prosperity for Minoan Crete and a period of active trade with other civilizations around the Mediterranean basin. Cretan exports consisted of timber, foodstuffs, cloth, and, most likely, olive oil, as well as finely crafted luxury goods. In exchange, the Minoans imported tin, copper, gold, silver, emery, fine stones, ivory, and some manufactured objects. For their basic needs, however, the Minoans on Crete were self-sufficient. [Source: Colette and Seán Hemingway, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2002 metmuseum.org \^/]
Minoan-Egyptian Relations
The Minoan civilization (c. 3000 – 1400 B.C.) of Crete existed at the same time as the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Stefan Pfeiffer of Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg wrote: “Occupying the island of Crete, the Minoans were skilled sailors who had established hegemony in the Aegean; it was therefore natural that they made contact with neighboring civilizations. With Egypt they established mainly economic relations as far as can be judged by archaeological evidence. First contacts between Crete and Egypt are attested by a fragment of a 1st or 2nd Dynasty Egyptian obsidian vase found in Crete in an EM-II-A stratum, testifying to (indirect?) trading contacts since earliest historical times. [Source: Stefan Pfeiffer, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]
“There were three possible routes by which the Minoans (or their trade goods) could have traveled to Egypt. First, there was the direct passage over 350 miles of open sea, which does not seem very likely. The second option was to sail within sight of the shore along the Levantine coast (and probably trade with the settlements there) to (later) Pelusium. The third, and most likely, passage was to cross the Mediterranean to (later) Cyrene and then sail along the coast to Egypt. The Minoans valued gold, alabaster, ivory, semiprecious stones, and ostrich eggs, but Egyptian stone vessels and scarabs were also found in Crete. Some scholars maintain that Egyptian craftsmen were present on the island, based upon a statuette (14 centimeters high) of an Egyptian goldsmith called User that was found at Knossos; this single example, however, should not be considered as evidence for the migration of Egyptian craftsmen. In addition to these items of Egyptian origin, a certain adaptation of Egyptian styles in Minoan art is apparent. The Minoan artisans used some Egyptian elements eclectically, adjusting or adapting their meaning to new contexts.
“Conversely, Egypt imported Minoan pottery, metal vessels, and jewelry, and probably also wine, olive oil, cosmetics, and timber, as the archaeological record proves. We know that the first Minoan artifacts found in Egypt do not date prior to the time of Amenemhat II (1928 – 1893 B.C.), because from his times Middle-Minoan pottery (so-called Kamares ware) is attested. All in all, Minoan culture had at least some influence in Egypt, as can be judged from Egyptian copies of Kamares ware. Even Minoan textiles seem to have been appreciated by the Egyptian elite, as Aegean textile patterns were copied on the walls of tombs from the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.
Reconstructed Minoan fresco found in Avaris, Egypt
“The pinnacle of Minoan-Egyptian relations can be dated to the beginning of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. Having already established good relations with the Hyksos, the Minoans stayed in close contact with a number of Egyptian pharaohs as well, as is proven by Minoan frescoes found in two palaces at Tell el- Dabaa/Avaris in the Nile delta. It was at first assumed that these royal houses were decorated during the rule of the Hyksos kings, but this view has been revised. It is now clear from the stratigraphical evidence that the palaces date to the Thutmosid era. Contemporary with this evidence from Lower Egypt are scenes in seven Theban tombs of 18th- Dynasty high court officials that show Minoan legates from “Keftiu “(as Crete is called in Egyptian texts) bearing tribute. According to some scholars, these scenes bear witness to reciprocity of political contacts rather than formal tribute to a dominant partner. Thus the Minoan frescoes in the Lower Egypt and the pictorial evidence in tombs of almost the same period in Upper Egypt underscore rich cultural, economic, and eventually even political, contacts between Egypt and the Minoan civilization during the 18th Dynasty, just before the time of Akhenaten. This is corroborated by the fact that some Egyptian scribes seem to have known the Minoan language .”
Links Between Myceneans and Minoans
Nicholas Wade wrote in the New York Times: “The palaces found at Mycene, Pylos and elsewhere on the Greek mainland have a common inspiration: All borrowed heavily from the Minoan civilization that arose on the large island of Crete, southeast of Pylos. The Minoans were culturally dominant to the Mycenaeans but were later overrun by them...The Mycenaeans used the Minoan sacred symbol of bull’s horns on their buildings and frescoes, and their religious practices seem to have been a mix of Minoan concepts with those of mainland Greece.... The transfer was not entirely peaceful: At some point, the Mycenaeans invaded Crete, and in 1450 B.C., the palace of Knossos was burned, perhaps by Mycenaeans.[Source: Nicholas Wade, New York Times, October 26, 2015 ^^]
“If the earliest European civilization is that of Crete, the first on the European mainland is the Mycenaean culture...It is not entirely clear why civilization began on Crete, but the island’s population size and favorable position for sea trade between Egypt and Greece may have been factors. “Crete is ideally situated between mainland Greece and the east, and it had enough of a population to resist raids,” said Malcolm H. Wiener, an investment manager and expert on Aegean prehistory. ^^
“The Minoan culture on Crete exerted a strong influence on the people of southern Greece. Copying and adapting Minoan technologies, they developed the palace cultures such as those of Pylos and Mycene. But as the Mycenaeans grew in strength and confidence, they were eventually able to invade the land of their tutors. Notably, they then adapted Linear A, the script in which the Cretans wrote their own language, into Linear B, a script for writing Greek.” ^^
Minoan auroch
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Canadian Museum of History historymuseum.ca ; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT, Online Library of Liberty, oll.libertyfund.org ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" [∞] and "The Creators" [μ]" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum.Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated September 2018