2. Period
Middle bronze age ca. 2000 BCE – ca. 1500 BCE.
Location
Island of Crete is located in the center of eastern
Mediterranean at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and
Europe.
The name of Minoan is given by Sir Athur Evans (19th
century British archeologist) based on discovered the
palace (Knossos) of the legendary King Minos, who
appears in several Greek myths.
Origin
3. - Born 8 July 1851 in Nash Mills,
Hertfordshire.
- An English archaeologist
- Fields Archaeology, museum management, journalism,
statesmanship, philanthropy.
- Known for Excavations at Knossos; developing the
concept of Minoan civilization
- The first to define Cretan scripts Linear A and Linear B, as
well as an earlier pictographic writing.
Sir Athur Evans
4.
5. Chronology of Crete
Prof. N. Platon (Greek archaeologist) has developed
a chronology based on the palaces destruction and
reconstruction. He divided Minoan Crete into :
1) Prepalatial ( 2600 - 1900 BC )
2) Protopalatial ( 1900 - 1700 BC )
3) Neopalatial (1700 - 1400 BC )
4) Postpalatial ( 1400 – 1150 BC )
6. Around 2000 BC a new political system was
established with authority concentrated around a
central figure – a king.
The first large palaces were founded and acted as
centers for their respective communities, while at the
same time they developed a bureaucratic
administration which permeated Minoan society.
Politics
7.
8. CLOTHING
- Minoan men wore loincloths and kilts.
- Women wore robes that had short sleeves and layered
flounced skirts. Women also had the option of wearing a
strapless fitted bodice.
- The patterns emphasized symmetrical geometric design.
9. It seems to be the first "leisure" society in existence, in
which a large part of human activity focused on leisure
activities, such as sports. In fact, the Cretans seem to
have been as sports addicted as modern people; the most
popular sports were boxing and bull-jumping. Women
actively participated in both of these sports.
BULL JUMPINGBOXING
10. Exported
timber, food, cypress wood, wine, currants, olive oil, wool,
cloth, herbs, and purple dye
Imported
precious stone, copper, ivory, tin, silver, gold and other
raw materials
Countries
Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, the Aegean islands, the Greek
mainland
Economy
14. There are numerous representations of goddesses, which leads
to the conclusion that the Cretans were polytheistic.
Some scholars have assumed that the Minoans worshipped a
Great Goddess, the Mediterranian ‘Magna Mater’ named
‘Potnia’, ‘the lady’.
The double – axe was probably potnia’s symbol and possibly the
pillar and the snake was her symbol too.
Ritual celebrations usually took place in sacred caves, on
sanctuaries on mountain peaks, and in the palaces and villas
which all had their own sanctuaries.
Animal and bloodless sacrifices, along with processions were
part of ritual worship of the great female nature goddess, and
during these festivities worshipers used music, dance, and
prayer to achieve a state of religious ecstacy that put them in
touch with the supernatural.
Religion
15. Snake Goddess
MINOAN SACRIFICE with a slaughtered bull
in the middle, two terrified animals below him
and a woman offering on the right. Notice the
double axe and horns of consecration next to
the altar.
16. The first scripts resemble Egyptian
hieroglyphs.
Eteocretan language is a writing system
found on the island of Crete.
Later the emergence of a syllable called
Linear A (not been deciphered).
Linear B which was used by the
Mycenaeans was the written script used at
later Minoans times and was deciphered
recently, in 1953.
Most of the tablets found have been
translated to contain inventories of goods
in storage, and do shed some indirect light
Language &
Writing
PHAISTOS DISC (Linear
B)
Minoan Linear A
17. The Minoans developed a visual art culture that seems to
have been solely oriented around visual pleasure.
The Minoans seem to have been the first ancient culture
to produce art for its beauty rather than its function.
During the Protopalatial Period (1900-1700 BC), the
introduction of the potter’s wheel allowed efficient
production of vessels with thin walls and subtle,
symmetrical shapes.
The Minoans not only decorated their palaces, they
decorated them with art. To walk through a Minoan palace
was to walk through room after room of splendid, wall-
sized paintings.
Art
18. Cont…
Minoan art frequently involves unimportant, trivial
details of everyday life, such as a cat hunting a
bird, or an octopus, or representations of sports
events (rather than battles, or political events).
19.
20. Minoan architecture consist of several structures which
acted as centers for commercial, religious and
administrative life.
Archeologist have unearthed in Crete a Minoan landscape
filled with tombs, palaces, villas, towns and the roads that
connected them.
The Minoan cities were connected with stone-paved roads.
Streets were drained and water and sewer facilities were
available to the upper class, through claypipes.
Minoan buildings often had flat tiled roofs; plaster, wood,
or flagstone floors, and stood two to three stories high.
Typically the lower walls were constructed of stone
and rubble, and the upper walls of mudbrick. Ceiling
timbers held up the roofs.
The materials used in construction varied; could include
21. THOLOS TOMBS
For centuries the Minoans used Tholos Tombs and sacred
caves, along with pithoi(storage jars) and larnakes (ash-chest)
for burial of their dead.
MINOAN VILLAS
The Late Minoan I villa at Ayia Triada in Crete functioned as
part of a larger administrative system. It was the center of an
estate.
Produce and other items from this estate were collected and
dispersed as rations and wages to local workers and as tax
payments to the palace of Phaistos.
Neopalatial Crete was organized into an extensive system of
22. MINOANS PALACES
The Minoans palaces provide a forum for
gathering and celebrations, while at the
same time they offered storage for the
crops and workshop for the artists.
They were built over time to occupy low hills
at strategic places around the island in a
manner so complex that they resembled
labyrinths to outside visitors.
There were expanded drainage systems,
irrigation, aqueducts, and deep wells that
provided fresh water to the inhabitants.
The palaces were technologically advanced
with expanded drainage systems, irrigation,
aqueduct and deep wells that provided
fresh water to the inhabitants.
They were laced with impressive interior
and exterior staircases, light wells, massive
columns, storage magazines, and gathering
outdoor places -- the precursor to ancient
theaters.
THE PALACE AT KNOSSOS
U SHAPE PLAN WITH A CENTRAL
COURTYARD
RUINS
23. THE PALACE AT KNOSSOS
Construction on the palace at Knossos, according to
legend the palace of King Minos, was begun perhaps as
early as 2000 B.C., and by 1900 BC, it was fairly close to
its final form--a large single building with a central
courtyard.
24. During the Second Palace period, 1700-1450 BC, the Palace of Minos
covered nearly 22,000 square meters (about 5.4 acres) and contained
storage rooms, living quarters, religious areas, and banquet rooms.
What appears to be a jumble of rooms connected by narrow
passageways probably gave rise to the myth of the Labyrinth; the
structure itself was built of a complex of dressed masonry and clay-
packed rubble, and then half-timbered.
25. THE CITY OF KNOSSOS
Cyprus trees
Aerial view of the palace at
knossos
Columns wider at the top Timber
framing Rubble masonry
26. 1st Factor
Professor marinates was the first to suggest in 1939 that the
eruption of Thera, along with the associated effects, was the
cause for the catastrophe.
The theory argues that the earthquakes destroyed the palaces,
tsunamis obliterated the fleet and peers of the Minoans, and
the volcanic ash of Thera covered the whole island destroying,
crops and suffocating animals.
2nd factor
Invasion and occupation of Crete by the Mycenaeans.
Their documented invasion took place around 1400, and in
combination with the effects of the Thera eruption present a
likely scenario for the final destruction of the Minoans
civilization.
Downfall
