packed with huge stone vats filled with corn, wine, and oil for 4,000 people. Their domestic accounts were immaculately kept on soft clay tablets, using a method of writing which progressed over the centuries through hieroglyphic, cursive, and linear forms. Their craftsmen were skilled in jewellery, metalwork, ceramics, faience. They were so confident of their power and prosperity that none of their palaces was fortified (see Appendix III, p. 1217).
Religion played a vital role in the life of the Minoans. The central object of their worship was probably the great Earth Goddess, later known as Rhea, mother of Zeus. She was revealed in many forms and aspects, and was attended by a host of lesser deities. Her sanctuaries were placed on mountain-tops, in caves, or in the temple-chambers of the palaces. Surviving sealstones portray naked women embracing the sacred boulders in ecstasy. Sacrifices were surrounded by the Cult of the Bull, by orgies, and by a mass of ritual paraphernalia such as altar tables, votive containers, blood-buckets, and wasp-waisted statuettes of fertility goddesses. The ubiquitous symbols of bulls’ horns and of the labrys or double-headed axe were carried on high poles in procession. In times of danger or disaster, the sacrifice of animals was supplemented by the sacrifice of human children, even by cannibalistic feasts. (After all, Rhea’s husband, Cronus, was remembered as a devourer of children, and but for a timely ruse would have eaten the infant Zeus.) Minoan ritual, therefore, was intense. But it was an important ingredient in the social cement which held a peaceable society together for centuries. Some observers have remarked on the absence of modern masculinity in representation of Minoan males. 21 These remarks necessarily prompt questions about the island’s role in the transition from ‘primitive matriarchy’, and the onset of ‘patriarchal warfare’. (See Plates 3, 4.)
Minoan civilization flourished on Crete for the best part of a thousand years. According to Sir Arthur Evans, the excavator of Cnossos, it passed through nine distinct phases, each identified with a particular ceramic style, from Early Minoan I to Late Minoan HI. The zenith was reached somewhere in the middle of Minoan II, in the second quarter of the second millennium BC. By that time, unbeknownto the courtiers on the terrace, the first of the ‘great catastrophes’ was upon them.
Map 5.
The Ancient Aegean: 2nd Millennium BC
The ethnic identity of the Minoans is the subject of considerable controversy. The old assumption that they were Hellenes is no longer widely accepted. The Linear A script, which might unlock the language of the earlier periods, has not been deciphered; whilst Linear B, which was definitively identified as Greek in 1952, clearly belongs only to the final phase. Arthur Evans was convinced not only of a strong Egyptian influence on Crete but also of the possibility of Egyptian colonization. ‘It may well be asked whether, in the times… that marked the triumphof the dynastic element in the Nile Valley, some part of the older population … may not have made an actual settlement on the soil of Crete.’ 22 However, in the course of the second millennium Crete seems to have been invaded by several waves of migrants. It can reasonably be supposed that the hellenization of the island began with one of the later waves some time after the ‘great catastrophes’.
Another possibility is that the Minoans of the middle period were Hittites from Asia Minor. The Hittites were Indo-Europeans, and spoke a language called Kanesian. Their great confederation was centred on what is now Hattusas in Anatolia, and mounted a major challenge both to Mesopotamia and to Egypt. In the fourteenth century BC their greatest ruler, Suppiluliumash or Shubbiluliuma (c.1380–1347 BC), extended his sway as far as Jerusalem. In 1269 BC they entered a treaty of alliance with Egypt. (The bilingual text of the tablet recording
Religion played a vital role in the life of the Minoans. The central object of their worship was probably the great Earth Goddess, later known as Rhea, mother of Zeus. She was revealed in many forms and aspects, and was attended by a host of lesser deities. Her sanctuaries were placed on mountain-tops, in caves, or in the temple-chambers of the palaces. Surviving sealstones portray naked women embracing the sacred boulders in ecstasy. Sacrifices were surrounded by the Cult of the Bull, by orgies, and by a mass of ritual paraphernalia such as altar tables, votive containers, blood-buckets, and wasp-waisted statuettes of fertility goddesses. The ubiquitous symbols of bulls’ horns and of the labrys or double-headed axe were carried on high poles in procession. In times of danger or disaster, the sacrifice of animals was supplemented by the sacrifice of human children, even by cannibalistic feasts. (After all, Rhea’s husband, Cronus, was remembered as a devourer of children, and but for a timely ruse would have eaten the infant Zeus.) Minoan ritual, therefore, was intense. But it was an important ingredient in the social cement which held a peaceable society together for centuries. Some observers have remarked on the absence of modern masculinity in representation of Minoan males. 21 These remarks necessarily prompt questions about the island’s role in the transition from ‘primitive matriarchy’, and the onset of ‘patriarchal warfare’. (See Plates 3, 4.)
Minoan civilization flourished on Crete for the best part of a thousand years. According to Sir Arthur Evans, the excavator of Cnossos, it passed through nine distinct phases, each identified with a particular ceramic style, from Early Minoan I to Late Minoan HI. The zenith was reached somewhere in the middle of Minoan II, in the second quarter of the second millennium BC. By that time, unbeknownto the courtiers on the terrace, the first of the ‘great catastrophes’ was upon them.
Map 5.
The Ancient Aegean: 2nd Millennium BC
The ethnic identity of the Minoans is the subject of considerable controversy. The old assumption that they were Hellenes is no longer widely accepted. The Linear A script, which might unlock the language of the earlier periods, has not been deciphered; whilst Linear B, which was definitively identified as Greek in 1952, clearly belongs only to the final phase. Arthur Evans was convinced not only of a strong Egyptian influence on Crete but also of the possibility of Egyptian colonization. ‘It may well be asked whether, in the times… that marked the triumphof the dynastic element in the Nile Valley, some part of the older population … may not have made an actual settlement on the soil of Crete.’ 22 However, in the course of the second millennium Crete seems to have been invaded by several waves of migrants. It can reasonably be supposed that the hellenization of the island began with one of the later waves some time after the ‘great catastrophes’.
Another possibility is that the Minoans of the middle period were Hittites from Asia Minor. The Hittites were Indo-Europeans, and spoke a language called Kanesian. Their great confederation was centred on what is now Hattusas in Anatolia, and mounted a major challenge both to Mesopotamia and to Egypt. In the fourteenth century BC their greatest ruler, Suppiluliumash or Shubbiluliuma (c.1380–1347 BC), extended his sway as far as Jerusalem. In 1269 BC they entered a treaty of alliance with Egypt. (The bilingual text of the tablet recording
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