Greece is undoubtedly the cradle of most of Western civilisation today, and its history spans back several millennia to the Mycenaean Greeks, who famously fought at Troy. However, before even these ancient Greeks flourished, another peoples of the Greek world - though not Greeks themselves - flourished from their homeland island of Crete. Their legendary king, Minos, would cause modern historians to give these people the name they are now known by: the Minoans.

[ABOVE: The Minoan colonisation of the southern Aegean Sea]

KNOSSOS

Situated nearby Crete’s modern-day administrative capital of Heraklion, Knossos was perhaps the most carefully arranged of the Minoan palace centres. Its decorated palace went on to birth the legend of the Minotaur (half man, half bull). Paintings uncovered between 1900 and 1932 by British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans showed vast amounts of images depicting bulls, double-faced axes and snakes, and it’s believed that this imagery played a vital role in Minoan religion and its customs. The imagery also revealed what looked like Bull-Leaping, and it’s unclear whether this represented a religious act or simply a sport. Knossos was badly damaged in around 1,700 BC by a vicious earthquake, but the palace was soon reconstructed to a much larger scale. At around 18 hectares and containing several shrines within it, the palace did blossom and prosper for roughly another 250 years. It seems apparent that the palace site lived through the destruction of other Minoan centres in around 1,450 BC, but it was later taken over for a further two hundred years, likely by the Mycenaeans from the north.

[ABOVE: The palace ruins of Knossos, Crete]

[ABOVE: A fresco of Bull Leaping, Knossos, either a religious ritual or a pass-time sport]

MINOAN KINGS

The rulers of these Minoan cities played both political and religious roles when in power, and it’s likely that several other political figures in office were also priests serving the kings. While we are unable to decipher them today as they were written in Linear A, the kings did keep official archives. Under the kings, society was split up into four separate classes; the courts were held up by an agriculturally labouring class, and craftsmen made black, red and white pottery and other goods, such as “Kamáres ware” pots.

TRADE AND COLONIES

The Minoans were highly dependent on their Mediterranean trade routes, becoming highly skilled for their day on the seas. As a result of this, they built up large fleets capable of ferrying themselves and their goods across the sea. The palace of Mallia, for example, was a key Minoan trade centre. Its excavations revealed that it was defended by a large town wall, unlike other Cretan cities of the time like Knossos and Phaistos.

Minoan trade routes were established at Miletus in Asia Minor, Trianta on the isle of Rhodes, Kastri on the isle of Kythera, Phylakopi on the isle of Mylos, and at Ayla Irini on the isle of Kea. These were sites of Minoan cultural influence, and possibly a Minoan colony. A Minoan palace was also established on the isle of Santorini.

LANGUAGE

[ABOVE: A Linear A Minoan clay tablet]

The Minoans wrote in a script known as Linear A, which remains undeciphered to this day, and it went on to develop the syllabic script we today know as Linear B, which the Mycenaeans wrote in. These early Greek inscriptions were functional, and during the Bronze Age, inscriptions contained signs, representing either a word (Logographic scripts) or an idea (Ideographic scripts), and as a result, thousands of individual signs were required for this language. Linear A was also written from right to left, and words were not physically split up when written down.

The Minoans were known to write on their pottery, much like the Greeks of centuries later. On their pots, they would detail who the specific pot was made by and for. While their language is still undeciphered, Michael Ventris, an architect from England, translated some tablets that had been found at Pylos (Messenia, Southern Peloponnese) and Knossos in 1952, detailing the destruction levels of both the mainland city and the Cretan city.

[ABOVE: Linear A inscriptions from a Minoan pot]

THE HELLADICS

The other earliest inhabitants of the Greek world were those who spoke in the assumed-to-exist language known simply as Proto-Greek. Amongst the Minoans, these peoples were the Helladics, situated in Boeotia, Euboea and the eastern Peloponnese, and the Cycladics, centred around the Cyclades Islands of South-East Greece. While, again, little is known about them as a whole, it’s generally agreed that their cultures came to an end as the Mycenaeans came to dominate much of the Aegean world.

The Helladic culture of mainland Greece in the eastern Peloponnese consisted of a widespread farming pattern of settlements founded on low-lying hill lands, particularly by the sea, where trade routes and communications with outsiders would have been established. The Helladics in the Peloponnese occupied an area we would later call Lakonia, the eventual homeland of the Spartans, and surface surveying of the area has revealed between thirty and forty settlements in the Early Helladic age, mostly along the south coast and the Eurotas River. Most of these finds were solely linked to the finding of pottery shards, but it’s still clear that a culture occupied the area at the time, and the amount found in the area suggests the time period was a mainly prosperous and peaceful one for its time. Aside from the fragments of pottery found, two animal figurines have been found fragmented, one near Vapheio within the Spartan Basin, and one at Laina nearby to Goritsa. A golden horde, also containing silver jewellery, was dated to roughly 2,000 BC, in the Early Helladic era.

[ABOVE: Major Helladic cities in the South-East Peloponnese]

COLLAPSE OF MINOAN CRETE

The reasons for the gradual collapse of the Minoan culture is still not entirely clear, as is often the case with ancient history. However, around 1,500 BC, a large volcano erupted from the island of Thera. While the eruption itself may not have directly ended Minoan culture on Crete, it would have heavily affected their trade routes, undermining one of their main sources of wealth and prosperity. Possibly around 50 years later, in c.1,450 BC, it’s believed that the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece invaded the isle of Crete, finishing off the already-weakened Minoan cities and brining an end to a lesser known culture that thrived for one and a half millennia.

NEXT BLOG: THE MYCENAEANS, c.1,600 - 1,070 BC: The First Greeks

SOURCES

• World History, Eyewitness Companions, by Philip Parker, pages 100-101
• Early Greece, Second Edition, by Oswyn Murray, pages 5-6
• Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300 - 362 BC, by Paul Cartledge, pages 26-31
• Texts, Readers and Writers Lectures, The University of Reading, by Professor Eleanor Dickey + Dr. Christa Gray

YOUTUBE LINKS

(I do NOT own these videos)

"Let's Visit the Minoan Palace Complex of Knossos - History Tour in AC: Odyssey Discovery Mode" by "Invicta"

"Europe's First Civilisation: The Minoans Documentary" by "Fire of Learning"

"History Summarised: Minoan Greece" by "Overly Sarcastic Productions"

"Who were the Minoans? (Extended Version)" by "Epimetheus"

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