The Minoans

Question 1

General Information

Answer 1

• Aegean Sea and Crete
• Large variation in climate
• Seismically active
• We do not know what they would have called themselves
• Rediscovered by Sir Arthur Evans

Question 2

Pottery Sequence

Answer 2

Divides Minoan culture into Early, Middle, and Late based off of pottery style

Question 3

Palaces

Answer 3

• Centers for administration, trade, food storage, religion and politics
  Represent localized control over settlements
• Palaces were interconnected
• First palace site was Knossos in the Middle Minoan

Question 4

Knossos

Answer 4

• Where Minos was said to have ruled
• Built in 1900 BC and continuously worked on
• Had a central courtyard with four entrances which Evans thought was the labyrinth
• What Evans interpreted to be a throne room with a white alabaster “throne.”
• Its true use in unknown
• Frescoes
• Knossos farmers lived in mud brick houses with storage bins and sleeping platforms

Question 5

Minoan Art

Answer 5

• New colourful techniques used
• Frescoes on walls, floors, and ceilings
• Frescoes often depicted landscapes. They did not have an obvious ruler and men and women were equally depicted. When people were present they were doing something productive rather than posing, such as dancing or religious ceremony
• Art also often depicted bulls and an acrobatic bull jumping sport. There is also a man with diagonal bands on his robes who is thought to have been a priest
• It can be hard to tell if the people depicted are regular people, political figures, or gods
• The pottery wheel was also developed, and pottery shifted from more geometric shapes to depicting naturalistic scenes with marine life

Question 6

Writing Systems

Answer 6

• First system was called the Cretian hieroglyphs
• This system was pictographic, and most examples are from seals, signs, and documents
• The second system is called Linear A
• This was logosyllabic with 300+ signs. records are mainly from clay tablets from Crete and the surrounding area
• These have not bee deciphered because there are no bilingual texts
• There was about 100 years of overlap between these two systems

Question 7

Religion

Answer 7

• Evans thought this society was matriarchal with a single mother goddess and a theocracy of priestesses
• Realistically it was a polytheistic society with greater diversity among its gods
• Most of what we know of their religion comes from art
• Ritual an political events can be difficult to tell apart because everyone is depicted similarly
• Bull leaping was depicted often. This may have been an elite sport or a rite of passage for higher classes do do priestly activities or leadership

Question 8

Trade

Answer 8

• Advanced maritime trade networks
• Complex ship building technologies. Narrower boats with larger sails to maximize speed and agility
• Minoans traded with Egypt, Canaan, Levant, and Anatolia
• Exports included food, cloth, oil, wine, and luxury goods such as marble statues and vessels
• Crete was poor in metals, so they imported tin, copper, gold, silver, gems, and ivory
• Knowledge and art styles were also traded
• They were often the middle men in international trade

Question 9

Theories of Collapse

Answer 9

• Development of the Mycenean people in mainland Greece may have placed strain on the Minoan culture. Minoans likely came in and filled the power vacuum left by the Minoan collapse
• There is evidence of fire in Knossos
• Evans theorized that there may have been a series of earthquakes, though there is not much evidence for this, as they would have just rebuilt
• When major threatening events happen people tend to abandon larger society to care for the ones they love the most. This may have contributed to the breakdown of Minoan society

Question 10

Thera Eruption

Answer 10

• Massive volcano that erupted round the collapse of the Minoan Empire
• Would have caused widespread damage including massive earthquakes, tsunamis, ash, and short term climate change
• Effects of the eruption were documented in Egypt and the Shang dynasty
• The Thera eruption may have happened several decades before the Minoan collapse but it would have weakened their political infrastructure and government leading to a more gradual end
• This instability and the people isolating themselves led to the collapse of the Minoans and the settlement of the Myceneans
• It is known that the Thera eruption happened decades before the collapse of Crete because there was only pottery from the Cretian LM IA period on Thera, whereas Crete was in the LM IB period when it collapsed. This means the Thera civilization ended far before Crete did.`

Question 11

Sir Arthur Evans

Answer 11

• Created the idea of palaces as housing for royalty
• Messed up his interpretations of the palace at Knossos
• Designed frescoes himself based off of only a few fragments and then presented them as historically accurate
• Misrepresented Minoan culture as entirely peaceful and idyllic
• Misinterpreted the religion
• Forced evidence to fit his worldview and projections
• “Reconstructed” much of Knossos entirely inaccurately based off of no evidence and in a modern style
• Created replicas of artifacts which created a market for fakes which would often fool him
• ## Suppressed evidence of military endeavors

Question 12

Myceneans

Answer 12

• Centered in Argos, mainland Greece
• Developed wealth and economic power from their warrior skills as well as wide trading contracts in the Aegean and beyond
• Graves were filled with material wealth
• Took over Minoan trading after they collapsed in order to fill the vacuum
• Mostly traded in metals
• Also middle men in trade
• Myceneans developed their own writing system because their trade became so complex. They created Linear B
• Mostly small towns with palaces with Mycenae as the main citadel
• Myceneans did not “Take over” Crete, rather they were integrated into what was left of the society that already lived there