Religion played an important role in Minoan Crete and many activities, and artistic products revolved around religious cult. As evidence in the art of the period, the Minoans deified the natural world and found in it a logical order that allowed man to live in harmony with the natural environment.
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 ecstasy that put them in touch with the supernatural.
The Minoans were the first Europeans to have literate civilization
The Minoans have an important place in world history, as building the first civilization to appear on European soil.
The rise of a Bronze Age civilization
Neolithic (Stone Age) farming villages began to appear in Crete sometime from 7000 BC. With the arrival of the Bronze Age, trade routes spread out from the Middle East in search of copper, tin and other resources. Given that water transport was, until the coming of railways, much more efficient than land transport over distances of more than a few miles - one of those often-ignored factors which had such an impact on world history - it was natural that the Mediterranean would from ancient times be a major conduit of trade. Several regional cultures emerged in the 4th millenium BC in and around the Aegean Sea, which pioneered seaborne commerce. One of these evolved into the Minoan civiliZation.
Bronze Age centres of power
The long-distance trade networks of the Bronze Age were largely dominated by the rulers of well-placed chiefdoms and city-states which straddled the trade routes. They were able to tax the flow of trade, and their seats of power became centres of industrial activity, where goods were manufactured - especially elite items such as bronze weapons, armour and jewellery.
Bronze Age cultures outside the main river valley civilizations therefore tended to consist of largely Neolithic farming populations ruled over by a small but wealthy ruling class, who lived in comparatively luxurious - and often fortified - centres. Minoan civilization is a spectacular example of this.
Palaces, towns and villas
Palace complexes dotted ancient Crete. These began to be built around 2000 BC, with phases of palace construction and enlargement interspersed with periods of decline and retrenchment. The long-term trend was for a few of the palaces to get larger, while others declined in size, or disappeared altogether. In the final phase (1600 - 1400 BC) Knossos emerged as by far the largest and most sophisticated palace, a multi-storied complex of stone buildings impressive by any standards. It was clearly the seat of the most powerful ruler on the island.
Minoan palaces were usually situated in or near towns and cities. Here lived the bronze workers, wall painters, potters and other craftsmen who worked in the palace workshops, as well as the traders and crews who manned the Minoan ships. The city of Knossos, adjacent to the great royal palace, was one of the largest urban centres anywhere in the ancient world.
Between the main palaces were situated much smaller groups of buildings which scholars interpret as rural "villas" for members of the palace elite. They often exhibit the same artistic and architectural motifs as the palaces, though on a less magnificant scale.
High culture
The remains of Minoan palaces, especially Knossos, show an astonishing level of material culture for the time. The larger ones would have housed hundreds of inhabitants, and were serviced by elaborate water supply and sewage systems. Our knowledge of the lives of the people who lived in these palaces is limited by the fact that, although writing was practised (in the form of a script called Linear A, which was a pictographic script like Egyptian hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform), it has not yet been deciphered by modern scholars.
Lively and colourful wall frescoes, however, have survived, as well as some statuettes and painted pottery. These give us a vivid glimpse of some aspects of Minoan life. They apparently depict a religious life dominated by priestesses. Their ceremonial dress was almost Victorian in its shape and decoration, with its wide skirts and tight bodices; but there was one glaring difference - the Minoan priestly dresses were bare-breasted. It is likely that this is linked to a fertility cult, prevalent in ancient religions.
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