I have fallen in love with......

[Dancefortwo]

......the Minoan Civilization.  3000 BCE to 1450 BCE.  The Egyptians get all the attention.  How many times has the Egyptian civilization ended up in Hollywood movies, partly it's because of the Bible but the Minoan's were amazing too. Beautiful decorative arts.  Had a sewer system and flush toilets.  Experts still haven't cracked their alphabet.   It seems they didn't see the need for an army since they were surrounded by the ocean however it was the ocean that finally put an end to their civilization.  A enormous tsunami washed over the Island of Crete and most likely killed almost everyone there.  Beautiful and creative art. 



 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Damn it, I lost out again.

[Minimalist]

We were in Knossos in 2007.  I took some photos and wrote up a travelogue at Archaeologica.  Sorry about the watermarks on the Photobucket images.  I stopped using them years ago.  It's an amazing place.

https://www.archaeologica.org/forum/view...f=6&t=1335

BTW, the tsunami from Thera (Santorini) wrecked the north coast and probably wiped out a hundred villages.   It would not have been high enough to reach the plateau in the center of Crete.  The destruction of the palace was left to human hands -- most probably Mycenaean Greeks from the mainland about 2 centuries later and who did not suffer as much as the Minoans from the explosion or the subsequent loss of their trading partners.  There was some indication of revival post-Thera but then the Greeks came along and finally the Sea People around 1200 BC to finish them off.

[Dancefortwo]

We were in Knossos in 2007.  I took some photos and wrote up a travelogue at Archaeologica.  Sorry about the watermarks on the Photobucket images.  I stopped using them years ago.  It's an amazing place.

https://www.archaeologica.org/forum/view...f=6&t=1335

BTW, the tsunami from Thera (Santorini) wrecked the north coast and probably wiped out a hundred villages.   It would not have been high enough to reach the plateau in the center of Crete.  The destruction of the palace was left to human hands -- most probably Mycenaean Greeks from the mainland about 2 centuries later and who did not suffer as much as the Minoans from the explosion or the subsequent loss of their trading partners.  There was some indication of revival post-Thera but then the Greeks came along and finally the Sea People around 1200 BC to finish them off.

I was watching a video on the subject and there is some possible evidence that cannibalism may have occured druing the last gasp days of the Minoans.  The translation of Linier A, a Minoan text, has never been translated. If and when they do we may know much more about these interesting people.   Love your photos.  Thanks for posting them!

[Minimalist]

I think I saw that video.  The cut marks on the bones are fairly conclusive evidence of cannibalism.  Which is far less rare than people would like to believe in survival situations. 

There is an excellent book on the Late Bronze Age Empires collapse called 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Professor Eric Cline.  It's worth the read.

[Minimalist]

Here, D42, you may find this interesting.

https://greekreporter.com/2021/01/28/min...-research/

Minoan Language Linear A Linked to Linear B in Groundbreaking New Research

By Patricia Claus
January 28, 2021

The Minoan language known as “Linear A” may finally be deciphered with the help of the internet, which can be used to uncover previously-hidden links to the much-better understood Linear B language, which developed later in the prehistoric period.

The puzzle of Linear A has tormented linguists for many decades, as they attempted to link it somehow to Linear B, which was translated successfully for the first time in the 1950s. Linear B was used on the Greek mainland and Crete 50-150 years later than Linear A.

[Cavebear]

Yeah, I get tired of "Egyptology" sometimes too. I mean, hurray, they did a lot of civilizing stuff, but they weren't the first or only. I admire Minoan advances and Phoanecian and Chinese ones too.

One thing that constantly amazes me is how some people in different parts of the world made similar advances at about the same time. In different ways, to be sure. Chinese symbols are not Phoencian letters, but the IDEA arose at about the same time. And further back, similar weapons were created. I suspect our ancient ancestors travelled more than we realize, exchanging ideas. A couple of decades ago, there were big arguments about whether people evolved similar brains in response to similar challenges as they moved out of Africa or whether they also sometimes remigrated back among each other trading ideas and genes that encouraged shared abilities and thoughts. The last is "Multi-Regionalism" and I think that is the answer. But evidence is hard to find.

[Minimalist]

As D42 indicated a large part of the problem with the Minoans is that they did not leave detailed historical records or monumental inscriptions.  As of now, Linear A is undecipherable and Linear B seems to be little more than accounting records, sort of like reading through modern bills of lading.  The Egyptians left far more extensive records of people, places and events which makes it easier to place stories there.  Michael Ventris' discovery that Linear B was an archaic form of Greek was the breakthrough and this scholar seems to be leaning towards the idea that Linear A is an even more archaic form of Greek.  This is logical.  But.  When you consider the changes in English over a couple of centuries from Frisian-Anglo Saxon by the addition of Latin, French, and Nordic, influences the potential disconnect between Linear A and B is easier to comprehend.

Stories such as the myth of the Minotaur come to us via Greek mythology, not Minoan.

[Dancefortwo]

As D42 indicated a large part of the problem with the Minoans is that they did not leave detailed historical records or monumental inscriptions.  As of now, Linear A is undecipherable and Linear B seems to be little more than accounting records, sort of like reading through modern bills of lading.  The Egyptians left far more extensive records of people, places and events which makes it easier to place stories there.  Michael Ventris' discovery that Linear B was an archaic form of Greek was the breakthrough and this scholar seems to be leaning towards the idea that Linear A is an even more archaic form of Greek.  This is logical.  But.  When you consider the changes in English over a couple of centuries from Frisian-Anglo Saxon by the addition of Latin, French, and Nordic,  influences the potential disconnect between Linear A and B is easier to comprehend.

Stories such as the myth of the Minotaur come to us via Greek mythology, not Minoan.

It seems that women may have had a greater role in society judging from the frescos.  I guess it's hard to say until we are able to read Linear A and even then it may not tell us much.   I like that women were often bare breasted.  I've always thought women's breasts were very beautiful.  I'm not a lesbian, I just think breasts are beautiful.   It's a shame that we hide them. Maybe it was just a practical thing.  It's so damned hot there that maybe the top opening of the fabric to the waist caught the breeze a cooled the ladies off a little. 

[Minimalist]

There's a spirited discussion about exactly how matriarchal things were on Crete.  Even in Egypt they seemed to have a higher social standing than in the Hittite kingdom ( for example.) 

But if you recall the Minotaur myth begins with King Minos asking for help from Poseidon and then double-crossing him.  But that assumes that the Minoans were worshiping the Greek pantheon at the time and the evidence suggests that the central figures were goddesses with only minor male deities around.  Again, we don't have written records or inscriptions to go by but the number of female statues suggests that it was more matriarchal than most others.... certainly than the Greeks.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I remember 8th grade art class in a little town in Indiana. The teacher starts the class off by saying "There will be no giggling..." and then shows slides of Minoan frescoes. He could have saved his breath.

[adey67]

We were in Knossos in 2007.  I took some photos and wrote up a travelogue at Archaeologica.  Sorry about the watermarks on the Photobucket images.  I stopped using them years ago.  It's an amazing place.

https://www.archaeologica.org/forum/view...f=6&t=1335

BTW, the tsunami from Thera (Santorini) wrecked the north coast and probably wiped out a hundred villages.   It would not have been high enough to reach the plateau in the center of Crete.  The destruction of the palace was left to human hands -- most probably Mycenaean Greeks from the mainland about 2 centuries later and who did not suffer as much as the Minoans from the explosion or the subsequent loss of their trading partners.  There was some indication of revival post-Thera but then the Greeks came along and finally the Sea People around 1200 BC to finish them off.

I went to Knossos on my honeymoon back in 93 its an incredible place, also went to the old leper colony on the island of Spinalonga which was both fascinating and eerie

[Minimalist]

Here you go, D42.  The guy's accent was a little too tough for me to take for long but he talks about deciphering Linear A.

[Dom]

Here you go, D42.  The guy's accent was a little too tough for me to take for long but he talks about deciphering Linear A.

Interesting, and I had no issue with the accent. He just confuses w and v - common for some European languages, and he confuses the o sound in word, so, and to. That's easy to do, English vowels suck. 

It was interesting to see how they arrived at their conclusions.

[trdsf]

Ooo, I hope we're close to a Rosetta Stone moment with Linear A... the idea of someone being given a voice again after 3500 years or more, even if it's just mundane matters of counting sheep and jars of olive oil, sends a delighted chill up my spine.

[GenesisNemesis]

Makes you wonder what they could've accomplished had they not been destroyed.

[Minimalist]

The whole Late Bronze Age world came crashing down c 1200 BC so it is hard to imagine that they could have survived that.  In his book  Eric Cline makes the case for a "systems collapse" brought on by a combination of drought, leading to widespread famine; earthquakes leading to widespread damage; and finally, as a result of the first two, mass migrations (collectively referred to as the Sea People) which brought down the various kingdoms one by one.  Cline's point being that any one of the three could have been survivable for those civilizations but not the repeated blows.

[Dancefortwo]

I understood his accent.  What I didn't understand is the technical lingo he used to decifer the language.   I got the general gist of what he was saying though.

[Minimalist]

It seems as if Israel Finkelstein's point about the origin of writing is borne out, again.  Writing begins as record-keeping when a local ruler's territory expands to the point where he can't ride out on a horse and look at it every day.  Some cultures last long enough and prosper enough for the scribal class to have excess time on their hands and start writing more than dry accounting records.  Later Hellenic scribes were among the most prolific in antiquity but the early Hellenic scribes never seem to have reached that point.  We have letters and diplomatic correspondence which far pre-date the Linear A and B scripts but those are written in Akkadian which derived from Mesopotamia and was the international lingua franca of the time.

https://dornsife.usc.edu/wsrp/el-amarna-tablets/

What language were they written in?

Unexpectedly, when the tablets were discovered, they were written not in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, but in a foreign language, Akkadian, the language of Babylonia and the diplomatic lingua franca of the day used between different kingdoms to communicate. Two tablets are in Hittite (an Indo-European language) and one in Hurrian, spoken in the Mitanni kingdom north of Assyria.

[Phaedrus]

I did research on the Minoan civilization some twenty odd years ago, research for characters of mine. Developed the characters Kitanetos and Kitane from that research, had them born before the end that civilization. Never finished their story, though, but their lives are still fresh in my mind.

[Phaedrus]

It seems that women may have had a greater role in society judging from the frescos. 

According to The Once and Future Goddess, the Minoan civilization was one of the last associated with Goddess worship before patriarchal polytheism and eventually monotheism arose.

[Minimalist]

There is scholarly support for that idea.

https://news.ku.edu/2017/06/09/art-relig...rcher-says

Art, religious artifacts support idea of Minoan matriarchy on ancient Crete, researcher says

LAWRENCE — Popular culture for several decades has focused on the ancient Minoan culture on Crete as a matriarchy, despite skepticism from the academic world.
A University of Kansas researcher, however, in a recent publication has analyzed several pieces of archaeological evidence and art from the island and how they might support the idea that Minoan women ruled the ancient civilization.
"Basically, this culture on Crete around 1600-1500 BCE is the closest candidate for a matriarchy that we have. That's huge," said John Younger, KU professor of classics.