Minoans Were European According to DNA Analysis

This is an awesome discovery. For how many years were people thinking the Minoans were a Semitic or African population...

Mysterious Minoans Were European, DNA Finds

Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer

Date: 14 May 2013 Time: 11:00 AM ET

The Minoans, the builders of Europe's first advanced civilization, really were European, new research suggests.

The conclusion, published today (May 14) in the journal Nature Communications, was drawn by comparing DNA from 4,000-year-old Minoan skeletons with genetic material from people living throughout Europe and Africa in the past and today.

"We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European," said study co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos, a human geneticist at the University of Washington.

"They were very similar to Neolithic Europeans and very similar to present day-Cretans," residents of the Mediterranean island of Crete.

While that may sound intuitive, the findings challenge a long-held theory that the ancient Minoans came from Egypt.

First European Civilization

The Minoan culture emerged on Crete, which is now part of Greece, and flourished from about 2,700 B.C. to 1,420 B.C. Some believe that a massive eruption from the Volcano Thera on the island of Santorini doomed the Bronze Age civilization, while others argue that invading Mycenaeans toppled the once-great power.

Nowadays, the Minoans may be most famous for the myth of the minotaur, a half-man, half-bull that was fabled to lived within a labyrinth in Crete.

When British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the Minoan palace of Knossos more than 100 years ago, he was dumbstruck by its beauty. He also noticed an eerie similarity between Minoan and Egyptian art, and didn't believe that the culture was homegrown.

"That's why Evans postulated the civilization was imported from Egypt or Libya," Stamatoyannopoulos told LiveScience.

Genetic clues

To test that idea, the research team analyzed DNA from ancient Minoan skeletons that were sealed in a cave in Crete's Lassithi Plateau between 3,700 and 4,400 years ago. They then compared the skeletal mitochondrial DNA, which is stored in the energy powerhouses of cells and passed on through the maternal line, with that found in a sample of 135 modern and ancient populations from around Europe and Africa.

The researchers found that the Minoan skeletons were genetically very similar to modern-day Europeans — and especially close to modern-day Cretans, particularly those from the Lassithi Plateau. They were also genetically similar to Neolithic Europeans, but distinct from Egyptian or Libyan populations.

The findings argue against Evan's hypothesis and suggest that locals, not African expats, developed the Minoan culture.

"It was a period of excitement around the Mediterranean," so although the Minoans definitely had contact with their African neighbors across the Mediterranean, any similarities in art were probably the result of cultural exchange, Stamatoyannopoulos said.

Ancient language?

The findings suggest that the ancient Minoans were likely descended from a branch of agriculturalists in Anatolia (what is now modern-day Turkey and Iraq) that fanned out into Europe about 9,000 years ago. If so, the Minoans may have spoken a proto-Indo-European language derived from the one possibly spoken by those Anatolian farmers, the researchers speculate.

Knowing that the Minoan language has Indo-European roots could help archaeologists decipher a mysterious Minoan writing system, known as Linear A, Stamatoyannopoulos said. [Precisely!  The Phaistos Disk...]

The prevailing theories hold that Minoan was a separate language family.

The analysis of DNA from the Lassithi cave is a "valuable contribution," said Colin Renfrew, an archaeologist from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the study.

However, to make a clearer connection to the Anatolian migration, the researchers should have compared the Minoan DNA with more DNA samples from modern and ancient Anatolia, he said. [Well, Colin, don't get your shorts in an uproar.  No doubt someone - maybe even you - will get funding for such a study to be done sooner or later.]

Lots of War (and Bullshit) in this Article!

What I find most interesting about this article is that, except for the location and the (evidently) "ancient" time period of which he is, perhaps, speaking, this could be a commentary on the United States today.  War, war, war, permeates everything, even the air we/they breath and the food we/they eat and the poop we/they flush down our toilets.  In other words, the Minoans ate, shit and slept war war war and according to some people who have very powerful vested interests in making us all think so, so do Americans.  All for the better good, of course, darlings! 

I think he is very misguided in his thinking and is exhibiting serious push-back against what he perhaps perceives is an unfair bias toward the feminine/goddess in prior research. In doing so, he is evidently either ignoring or totally discounting ALL of that research. Wonder if he's a fan of H.J.R. Murray...  Just because someone has earned the title of "Doctor" doesn't mean they're immune to -- well, you know!

You can find further information on his paper at the end of the article, not published here.

15 January 2013

War was central to Europe’s first civilisation - contrary to popular belief

Research from the University of Sheffield has discovered that the ancient civilisation of Crete, known as Minoan, had strong martial traditions, contradicting the commonly held view of Minoans as a peace-loving people.

The research, carried out by Dr Barry Molloy of the University of Sheffield’s Department of Archaeology, investigated the Bronze Age people of Crete, known by many as the Minoans, who created the very first complex urban civilisation in Europe.

“Their world was uncovered just over a century ago, and was deemed to be a largely peaceful society,” explained Molloy. “In time, many took this to be a paradigm of a society that was devoid of war, where warriors and violence were shunned and played no significant role.

“That utopian view has not survived into modern scholarship, but it remains in the background unchallenged and still crops up in modern texts and popular culture with surprising frequency.

“Having worked on excavation and other projects in Crete for many years, it triggered my curiosity about how such a complex society, controlling resources and trading with mighty powers like Egypt, could evolve in an egalitarian or cooperative context. Can we really be that positive about human nature? As I looked for evidence for violence, warriors or war, it quickly became obvious that it could be found in a surprisingly wide range of places.”

Building on recent developments in the study of warfare in prehistoric societies, Molloy’s research reveals that war was in fact a defining characteristic of the Minoan society, and that warrior identity was one of the dominant expressions of male identity.

Molloy continued: “The study shows that the activities of warriors included such diverse things as public displays of bull-leaping, boxing contests, wrestling, hunting, sparring and duelling. Ideologies of war are shown to have permeated religion, art, industry, politics and trade, and the social practices surrounding martial traditions were demonstrably a structural part of how this society evolved and how they saw themselves.”

Even the famous Mycenaeans, heroes of the Greek Trojan War, took up the Minoan way of war – adopting its weaponry, practices and ideologies. “In fact,” said Molloy, “it is to Crete we must look for the origin of those weapons that were to dominate Europe until the Middle Ages, namely swords, metal battle-axes, shields, spears and probably armour also.”

Molloy found a “staggering” amount of violence in the symbolic grammar and material remains from prehistoric Crete. Weapons and warrior culture were materialised variously in sanctuaries, graves, domestic units and hoards. It could also be found in portable media intended for use during social interactions, for example, administration, feasting, or personal adornment. “There were few spheres of interaction in Crete that did not have a martial component, right down to the symbols used in their written scripts.” said Dr Molloy.

Molloy’s research looks at war as a social process – looking at the infrastructural and psychological support mechanisms that facilitated the undertaking of war and the means through which it was embedded in social logic. This approach, argues Molloy, leads to a deeper understanding of war in the Minoan civilisation: “When we consider war as a normative process that had cross-references and correlates in other social practices, we can begin to see warriors and warriorhood permeating the social fabric of Cretan societies at a systematic level.

“The social and institutional components of war impacted on settlement patterns, landscape exploitation, technological and trade networks, religious practices, art, administration and more, so that war was indirectly a constant factor in shaping the daily lives of people in prehistoric Crete…understanding the social aspects of war ‘beyond the battle’ is essential if we are to better understand how elites manipulated economics, religion and violence in controlling their worlds. By identifying the material results of warrior lifeways in all of their disparity and disorder, we gain insights into what war meant in ancient Crete.”

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So-called "strong martial traditions", heh?  What about the female bull-leapers depicted in the paintings on the walls of ruins excavated on Crete?  Was it really WAR that wiped out the Minoans, or a series of very destructive earthquakes?  Of course, not all of the people died, they just moved elsewhere and started over again and became --- who knows?  Do we know, really?  Holy Hathor!

What was I thinking?

Oh my.  The other day I went shopping on an impulse - never a good idea.  Fortunately, I didn't have much time.  I made two purchases - a blouse I love and a shrug sweater in a neutral open-weave silk blend knit.  Love it!

Except - I didn't have time to try it on before I bought it.  Bad mistake.  If I'd tried it on, I would never have bought it.  I tried it on when I got home.

Oh my.  Well, it's going back, much as I hate to do it, because I love how it feels, I love the cut and I love the design.  I just HATE how it looks on me. 

This shrug is somewhat similar shape-wise to the one I bought the other day:

However, I look nothing like that in the shrug.  Not even close, sigh.  EPIC FAIL!  The shrug is going back tomorrow.  Live and learn...

Come to think of it, this style of top, somewhat modified, was much loved back in the day by Minoan ladies (and no doubt the men, too):

Frescoe of Minoan ladies from Knossos.

Peaceful Minoans? Pffft!

Like - for real? - peaceful people are just supposed to sit back and wait for the barbarians to come in and wipe them out?  Rape their women, sacrifice their children to the Fire God after being sodomized?  Please!  For sure the Minoans had fortifications, duh!  Playing defense is not the same as being offensive.  Figure it out...

Crete fortifications debunk myth of peaceful Minoan society
By Owen Jarus
Wednesday, 5 May 2010

A team of archaeologists have discovered a fortification system at the Minoan town of Gournia, a discovery which rebukes the popular myth that the Minoans were a peaceful society with no need for defensive structures.

The team's efforts were led by Professor Vance Watrous and Matt Buell of the University at Buffalo. Located on the north coast, Gournia was in use during the neo-palatial period (ca. 1700-1450 BC), when Minoan civilization was at its height. The town sits atop a low ridge with four promontories on its coastline. Two of these promontories end in high vertical cliffs that give the town a defensive advantage, and it is here that the fortification system was discovered.

The team weren’t able to excavate the area, and so relied on photography, drawing and surveying to identify the fortifications. The eastern-most promontory had a heavy wall that was about 27 meters long. Beside it the team found a semi-circular platform of stone, almost nine meters in diameter, which they believe is the remains of a tower or bastion. The other fortified promontory had a two meter thick wall, running east-west, “as if to close off access from the sea,” said Buell.

The other two promontories slope gently down to the shore, and would have provided easy access to the town. “It was on these two promontories”, said Professor Watrous, “that the Minoans built structures.”

The town consists of around 60 tightly-packed houses, a ship shed, and a small palace in the centre, and archaeologists have discovered evidence of wine making, bronze-working and stone-working at the site. “Gournia gives you, the visitor, a real feeling of what an Aegean town was actually like. Walking up the streets, past the houses, you feel like you’ve been transported into the past,” said Buell.

In addition to the beach fortifications, it also appears that the Minoans built a second line of defence further inland. Heading back from the beach, there were two walls, together running about 180 meters east to west. Backed by a tower, or bastion, the walls would have posed a formidable challenge to any invader trying to march into the town.

Defenders manning this system of fortification would have rained projectiles down on attackers, by using bows and slings. The walls had stone foundations and were made of mud brick, making them sturdy enough to stand on.

It’s an open question as to whether the people guarding the fortifications were part of a militia or something more organized. There was “definitely a body of men who would have had that duty but we don’t know exactly what they were like,” said Professor Watrous.

Tombs uncovered by Hawes and other excavators have shown people buried with swords. Watrous said that there was one particular tomb that produced an entire collection of daggers, swords and other items.

However, Gournia’s fortifications did not prevent the town’s demise. The town fell around 1450 BC, along with other Minoan settlements. A new group called the Mycenaean appeared on Crete at this time, taking over the island.

Watrous said that Mycenaeans probably avoided attacking the town by sea. "Many other settlements were destroyed at the same time. My guess is that they just came along the land; they didn’t have to come up from the sea”.

He cannot say for sure if the town defences were ever actually put to their intended use. Any evidence of a battle near these fortifications, such as weapons or bodies, would be underground, and excavation would have to be carried out to see if they exist.

One thing that excavators can say is that the people of Gournia had something worth fighting for. Many of the goods they made – such as the wine and the bronze implements - were for export, suggesting that the people had some level of wealth.

First Minoan Shipwreck

Excerpts from a lengthy feature article with lots of photographs at Archaeology Magazine online.  Photo: Archaeologists Gelli Frangou and Elpida Hadjidaki and architect Dimitri Timologos examining amphoras just after recovery in 2005 (Vasilis Mentoyiannis)

First Minoan Shipwreck
by Eti Bonn-Muller
An unprecedented find off the coast of Crete

Crete has seduced archaeologists for more than a century, luring them to its rocky shores with fantastic tales of legendary kings, cunning deities, and mythical creatures. The largest of the Greek islands, Crete was the land of the Minoans (3100-1050 B.C.), a Bronze Age civilization named after its first ruler, King Minos, the "master of the seas" who is said to have rid the waters of pirates. According to Thucydides, he also established the first thalassocracy, or maritime empire. The Minoans were renowned for their seafaring prowess, which opened trade routes with the powerful kingdoms of Egypt, Anatolia, and the Levant.

Depictions of ships abound on Minoan seals and frescoes. They are detailed enough to show that the vessels were impressive: generally, they had 15 oars on each side and square sails, and were probably about 50 feet long. But little more was known about actual Minoan seafaring--until Greek archaeologist Elpida Hadjidaki became the first to discover a Minoan shipwreck.

. . .

. . . she asked team member Giorgos Klontzas to venture down. Hadjidaki anxiously prepared to wait on the boat for five hours, the average total time of a single dive plus stops to decompress. But Klontzas returned only half an hour later. "He came up with his hands full of ancient pots," she beams. "And he said to me, 'There's a whole world of them down there.' So I jumped into the sea and said, 'Let's go!' " Sure enough, cups, jugs, and amphoras lined the seafloor, and over the next couple of days the team brought several more samples to the surface.

In 2004, she expanded the team and mapped the site. The following year, large-scale excavation got underway. "Everything was buried in sand between rocks," Hadjidaki says. "As we excavated, we found more and more and more."

To date, Hadjidaki's team has raised some 209 ceramic vessels, about 80 of which are nearly whole and clearly identifiable as types of amphoras and large jars that would have transported liquids, possibly wine and olive oil, though no residues remain. A handful of artifacts, including cooking pots, jugs, a few cups, and fishing weights, likely belonged to the ship's crew.

Philip Betancourt, a Minoan pottery expert who codirected excavations at Pseira from 1986 to 1996, has examined the finds from the site. Even though no wood from the ship survives, he is convinced they belong to a wreck because they are an unusually large group of ceramic vessels that all date to the same period (Middle Minoan IIB, 1800-1700/1675 B.C.) and were all made on east Crete. "One doesn't get an assemblage like that," he says, "except from a very specialized context--in this case, a shipwreck." Furthermore, the pottery that was still in place was found upside down, which seems to indicate the ship completely capsized and wound up with the hull uppermost and the cargo down. "This may help explain why no wood was preserved," he says.

Hadjidaki has closely studied the arrangement of the finds, working with team architect Dimitri Timologos who drew underwater maps based on the artifacts' location. On the maps, she can trace a narrow trail of pottery about 100 feet long at the northern end of the wreck, where she believes the ship started to founder. The trail broadens into a roughly oval-shaped concentration that extends over an area 50 by 65 feet, from which she estimates--by the distribution of objects--the ship to have been between 32 and 50 feet long. Hadjidaki thinks it was similar to, but larger than, one depicted on a serpentinite seal stone excavated at Pseira in 1991. It shows a ship with a beak-shaped prow, high stern, and single mast connected to the vessel by ropes (but no oars, as in earlier representations of Minoan ships).

. . .

The type of clay from which the pottery was made suggests the ship took on cargo from at least two locations on east Crete. Based on the pottery, Hadjidaki and Betancourt believe this ship was not destined for a voyage abroad, but rather was making local stops. "This was probably a very common sight--these relatively small coastal vessels that dealt with local trade east and west along points of the island," says Betancourt. "The wreck gives us a lot of information on what was likely the normal trade practice of seafaring people." Jan Driessen, director of excavations at the Minoan settlement of Sissi on east Crete, agrees. "We know from frescoes and other iconographic material throughout Crete that the Minoans were good seamen, that they had large ships of different types," he says. "The Pseira wreck seems to represent a coast-hopping activity, short trajectories with specific 'clients.' It helps us visualize that process of distribution."

Hadjidaki completed the final season of excavations at the end of September 2009, recovering 60 more ceramic vessels. At press time, the finds were still soaking in fresh water to remove crusty layers of sea deposits. Next, they will be cleaned by conservators, studied by experts, including Betancourt, and join other artifacts from the site at the archaeological museum in Siteia on east Crete. But Hadjidaki already feels a sense of accomplishment. "It's the only Minoan shipwreck that has ever been found and excavated," she says with a broad smile. "Period."

Is This the Original Labyrinth?

Hmmmm... Story from the Independent.co.uk Has the original Labyrinth been found? Archaeologists shed new light on the inspiration for the Greek myth. Steve Connor reports Friday, 16 October 2009 A disused stone quarry on the Greek island of Crete which is riddled with an elaborate network of underground tunnels could be the original site of the ancient Labyrinth, the mythical maze that housed the half-bull, half-man Minotaur of Greek legend. An Anglo-Greek team of scholars who undertook an expedition to the quarry this summer believes that the site, near the town of Gortyn in the south of the island, has just as much claim to be the place of the Labyrinth as the Minoan palace at Knossos 20 miles away, which has been synonymous with the Minotaur myth since its excavation a century ago. The 600,000 people a year who visit the ruins at Knossos are told the site was almost certainly the home of the legendary King Minos, who was supposed to have constructed the Labyrinth to house the Minotaur, a fearsome creature born out of a union between the king's wife and a bull.

New Reconstructions of the “Mykenaia”

From The American Journal of Archaeology (online) Volume 113 No. 3 July 2009 Abstract of an article by Bernice R. Jones. (Figure: Fig. 21. Reconstruction B of the Mykenaia with outline of the Striding Lady from Thera (drawing by R. Ruppert (modified from Doumas 1992, pl. 6). This study presents evidence for reconstructing two frescoes, including the well-known "Mykenaia," found at the Southwest Building at Mycenae. It argues that the Mykenaia did not depict a seated goddess facing right but a life-sized, standing woman striding to the left and that the other fresco portrays a half-life-sized enthroned woman, likely a goddess, facing right and holding a miniature female figure. The reconstructions are based on detailed examinations, drawings, and photographs taken to scale of the fragments and on comparanda. The argument is based on the innovative use of both experimental costume replications and digital imaging that superimposes details from other well-documented frescoes onto the fragments to test possible poses and details. The reconstructions proposed here are based on costume details depicted by the frescoes and on textual data, including intriguing Linear B ideograms. These reconstructions are then set within the larger spectrum of cult scenes in Aegean art, and some details of the dress worn in these frescoes are connected to Aegean cult.

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There are lots of reconstructed images and other images to view. The outfit on the image pictured above (left) is very typical of what females of the Mycenaean culture wore: a tight-fitted short-sleeved blouse that buttoned under the breasts, on the ribcage and followed the natural line of the woman's waist downward, except in this instance the breasts appear to be covered by a very sheer fabric. Otherwise, the cinched-in waist and the bell-shaped, multi-layered skirt, are very much like that depicted on the so-called "Snake Goddess" (image right) which I believe dates to about 1650 BCE (not working from my notes tonight, so that may be wrong). Compare the images!

Notice the checkerboard patterns on the reconstructed image. The patterns remind me of similar patterns I've seen on lots of funereal objects and in tomb paintings from ancient Egypt.

Cretan Bird Goddess

From the March/April 2009 edition of Biblical Archaeology Review Worldwide (p. 72) Crete With lavish painted ornamentation and a dramatic pose, this female figurine commands attention. The bird perched atop her head announces her divine status, as birds such as doves and pigeons were symbols of a goddess throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. Found at the center of a small communal shrine at Knossos, on the island of Crete, this 8.5-inch, clay figurine from the 14th century B.C. represents a Minoan goddess. According to scholar Giorgos Rethemiotakis, the goddess’s oversized arms and accentuated eyes “vividly bring to life the message and content of the prayer, the immediate visual and mental contact of the goddess with the praying faithful.” Minoan religion centered around goddess worship; there also is evidence of a powerful female priesthood. Since the language of the Minoans has never been deciphered, mot of what we know of the civilization comes from Greek and other neighboring cultures.

The Eternal Female: Worship of the Mother Goddess

Hola darlings! This is my final post for the time being, and perhaps for the night. I'm hungry and I have fixings downstairs for my infamous stick-to-your spoon, ribs, kidneys, liver and intestines cheeseburger casserole calling out to me. Tomorrow I am going shopping for a new bathroom light fixture for the upstairs bath and some area rugs for the upstairs bedrooms and hallway. If I am successful in finding a reasonably-priced light fixture, I will hunt for a reasonably-priced electrician (har!) to install it! Then it's on to painting. dondelion won't recognize the place when he arrives in May... (Image: Minoan snake goddess, circa 1600-1500 BCE) Talk about synchronicity. I recently posted about the importance of the vulture goddess and the snake goddess in ancient Egypt, and about the serpent goddes symbolism incorporated into one of the most ancient twenty squares game boards ever to be uncovered in the form of intertwined serpents forming the playing surface: the wooden game board from the Burnt City in the borders area of Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan, dating to about 2400 BCE. Tonight I came across this post - it was a headline at The Independent, but I received an error message when searching for the article there. From sci.tech-archive.net. (Seems a rather strange place to have an article about the Mother Goddess, but as I've said before, what do I know?) The eternal female: Worship of the mother goddess From: Jack Linthicum Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:28:34 -0800 (PST) Stonehenge, Crete, Thera, pretty much a tourist's tour of the Bronze Age, and earlier, cultures that honored or featured women. But the author has missed the revelations about the Phaistos Disk. The eternal female: Worship of the mother goddess Thursday, 12 February 2009 Some experts believe megalithic societies were matrilineal, with womenplaced at the apex of the civilisation – not as rulers, but as birth-givers. Perhaps a line can be traced from the Natufian women of Lebanon, or even as far back as the 24,000-year-old Venus ofWillendorf . After all, women were the original seed-gatherers while men went out to hunt. It was they who probably developed the most intimate expertise in agriculture, using instinct and common sense to select the best seeds for the next year's crops, unwittingly instituting what we now call artificial selection. The mother goddess took a variety of different forms. Sometimes she was a snake, or a vulture, or the Moon. Each symbol represented a cycle of death, birth and regeneration: the snake hibernates, then wakes up and sheds her skin; the vulture recycles dead flesh by eating it; and the Moon dies and is reborn every 28 days, mirroring the feminine menstrual cycle. Moon worship was very highly advanced in megalithic times. It has recently been recognised that temples such as Stonehenge were originally built to glorify the Moon as well as the Sun. Every month, shafts of moonlight line up perfectly with gaps in the massive stones, the architects having positioned them precisely to accommodate the subtly shifting patterns of the Moon's rising and setting cycles, that repeat themselves exactly every 18.6 years. The full moon has had historic and religious significance going back thousands of years,since it was by the light of the full moon that many hunter-gathering tribes hunted, providing the best opportunities for a good catch. Matriarch island: The enigmatic civilisation of Minoan Crete Europe's mother goddess culture grew to its climax on the Mediterranean island of Crete in the second millennium BC. Here it also survived longest. Crete thrived on trade routes that linked the Mediterranean with the rest of megalithic Europe and North Africa. The flowering of the island's Minoan civilisation coincided with the growth of the Indus Valley civilisation, from c3300 to 1700 BCE. Homer, a Greek poet who wrote in the eighth century BCE, claimed there were as many as 90 cities on Crete, and archaeologists have found a number of "palaces", including the largest of all at the island's capital, Knossos. The discovery of this ancient island civilisation was chiefly the work of Sir Arthur Evans, an eccentric but meticulous Victorian archaeologist. As soon as he set foot on Crete in 1894, Evans rigorously pursued the mystery of the mythical King Minos, who, legend has it, ruled from a fabulous palace at Knossos which housed an appalling monster, the minotaur. Half-man, half-bull, this beast lived in an impenetrable maze and feasted off the flesh of still-living virgins. Minoan Crete was like a heart pumping at the centre of the Bronze Age trading system. Its trade links stretched as far as Mesopotamia in the east, to Spain in the west. Tin and copper were imported and exported for smelting into bronze, while luxury crops such as bright yellow saffron were grown in the island's fields and exported as flavouring for food. Evans discovered that the people of ancient Crete followed the megalithic tradition. Women and men had equal rights. Wall paintings from the palaces of Knossos and Phaistos show that women were able to express themselves freely. They are depicted as bare-breasted, wearing short-sleeved shirts open to the navel and long, flowing, layere dskirts. Statues, vases and wall paintings show images of sporting contests where women competed equally alongside men. The island's favourite sport was the impossible-sounding bull-vaulting. An acrobat (sometimes female) would grab the horns of a bull and somersault on to its back. Then, in a second somersault, she would leap off its back and land upright, with her feet back on the ground. No wonder Minoan women were the first people known to have worn fitted garments and bodices – essential prerequisites, you would think, for a sport like this. Women did not dominate society, but they did oversee it. Frescoes at the palace of Thera, on the island of Santorini,100km north of Crete, show women standing on balconies overseeing processions of young men who are carrying an animal for sacrifice. Most priests on Minoan Crete were female. In Minoan law, women retained full control of their property. They even had the right to divorce at pleasure. It was a tradition, too, that a mother's brother was responsible for bringing up her children. Customs such as these, which seem strange to us today [what is so strange about a woman having control of her own property and the right to divorce at will? In western civilization, these rights are taken for granted, they are the norm], lingered long in the Mediterranean mind. Minoan palaces were not mighty and dominant like those in Egypt or Sumeria. Rather, they functioned as the region's communal administrative and religious centres, providing a place of work for craftsmen, storage spaces for food and temples for goddess-worship. One look at a model reconstruction of the palace at Knossos and you can understand why Greek invaders might later imagine that the corridors and irrigation channels resembled an impenetrable maze. Like the traders of the Indus Valley and other European megalithic people, the Minoans had their own form of symbolism which shows that their civilisation was culturally and technologically advanced. In 1903, archaeologists excavating the palace of Phaistos, on the southern side of the island, made a discovery which has had historians baffled ever since. The Phaistos Disc, currently on display at the archaeological museumin Herakleion, Crete, is thought to date from some time between 1850 and 1600 BCE. It contains 45 unique symbols arranged in a spiral shape, resembling the swirls found on vases at Knossos, or even in European megalithic tombs such as that at Newgrange in Ireland. No one really knows who made the disc, or what the symbols mean, but it does show that the people of Minoan Crete were artistic, prosperous and highly ingenious. Following excavations at a site called Akrotiri in 1967, the Minoans are now known to have spread to the island of Santorini. There, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a vast, ancient island city which had been buried for thousands of years under thick layers of volcanic ash. Although only the southern tip of the town has so far been examined, houses three storeys high have been unearthed with fine wall paintings, stone staircases, columns and large ceramic storage jars, mills and pottery. Minoan Akrotiri even boasted a highly developed drainage system, featuring the world's first known claypipes with separate channels for hot and cold water supplies. A distinct pattern is discernible from the evidence that has been left by these early civilisations. Stretching from the ancient Indus Valley, right across the mountains of Anatolia, to the islands of the Mediterranean and as far as the topmost island of Orkney in Scotland,what emerges is a series of like-minded civilisations whose temples and graves bear witness to a lifestyle of peace and a veneration for mother nature. Their common belief in the continuous cycle of birth, death and regeneration is personified by their worship of a mother goddess in all her forms: snake, vulture, pregnant woman or moon. Excellence in craftwork, technical skill and exquisite art are some of their legacies, along with a spirit of natural equality. This was not to continue. During the second millennium BC, the last of these early civilisations fell. New power in the form of military might was sweeping across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. [made possible, in no small part, by the invention of the eight-spoked wheel that enabled the invention of a light-weight and swift war chariot, I posted about a day or two ago.] Warriors had worked out how to prey off the profits of others, ushering in an age when human elitism, ruthlessness and terror had their true beginnings.

Who is Right About the Thera Eruption?

Compelling evidence from two different fields of study yield contradictory dates for the famous eruption of Thera, which destroyed the ancient Minoan civilization. One says 1613 BCE; one says sometime after 1530 BCE. Who is right? Could both be right - I mean, were there two eruptions that, over time, were combined in popular memory at the time into one eruption (the second, larger one resulting in the collapse of the Minoan civilization?) Or were previous "experts" (many were adventurers who could hardly be classified as archaeologists in the sense we use the term today) who dug up so much of Egypt in the 19th and early 20th centuries wrong about their timeline? The stakes about who is right - and who is wrong - are enormous. If the 1613 BCE date is right, much of Egyptian history needs to be adjusted by about 100 years - and that causes LOTS of problems in terms of dating some of the most famous (and not so famous) finds in Egypt and, indeed, because of spill-over in dating, in other ancient civilizations throughout the Mediterranean and beyond which are gauged by developments in Egypt! Thera volcano in 1613 BC December 3, 2008 Two olive branches buried by a Minoan-era eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera (modern-day Santorini) have enabled precise radiocarbon dating of the catastrophe to 1613 BC, with an error margin of plus or minus 10 years, according to two researchers who presented conclusions of their previously published research during an event on Tuesday at the Danish Archaeological Institute of Athens. Speaking at an event entitled "The Enigma of Dating the Minoan Eruption - Data from Santorini and Egypt", the study's authors, Dr. Walter Friedrich of the Danish University of Aarhus and Dr. Walter Kutschera of the Austrian University of Vienna, said data left by the branch of an olive tree with 72 annular growth rings was used for dating via the radiocarbon method, while a second olive branch -- found just nine metres away from the first -- was unearthed in July 2007 and has not yet been analysed. The researchers said both olive tree branches were found near a Bronze Age man-made wall, giving the impression that they were part of an olive grove situated near a settlement very close to the edge of Santorini's current world-famous Caldera. The two trees were found standing when unearthed, and apparently had been covered by the Theran pumice immediately after the volcano's eruption. According to the two scientists, other radiocarbon testing from archaeological locations on Santorini and the surrounding islands, as well as at Tel el-Dab'a in the Nile delta in Egypt, corroborate the dating based on the olive tree. On the other hand, as the two researchers pointed out, archaeological evidence linked with the Historical Dating of Ancient Egypt indicate that the Thera eruption must have occurred after the start of the New Kingdom in Egypt in 1530 BC. The two researchers said their find (olive tree) represents a serious contradiction between the results of the scientific method (radiocarbon dating) and scholarly work in the humanities (history-archaeology), with both sides holding strong arguments to support their conclusions. The radiocarbon dating places the cataclysmic eruption, blamed for heralding the end to the Minoan civilisation, a century earlier than previous scientific finds.

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Some Christian fundamentalist groups link the date of c. 1513 BCE - that is, the putative date of the great eruption of Thera that blew up 2/3rds of the island in its violence - with the Exodus from Egypt, with at least some of the "ten plagues" being explained by natural phenomenon associated with the cataclysmic eruption of Thera's volcano.

What Does This Mean?

Undeciphered languages - they fascinate me. There are, for instance, the mysterious symbols of the Indus Valley civilization which the ancient Sumerians called "Melluah"; there are the symbols on both sides of the Phaistos Disc; and then there is Linear A, the script of the ancient Minoans. (Image: Linear A Tablet, End of Late Minoan IB (ca. 1450 B.C.), clay, mended, Palace at Kato Zakros, Archive, Siteia Archaeological Museum)

What does it mean? What were they saying?

Last Days to See From the Land of the Labyrinth: Minoan Crete at Onassis Cultural Center

NEW YORK.- The exhibition "From the Land of the Labyrinth: Minoan Crete, 3000–1100 B.C." presents more than 280 artifacts and works of art from the ancient land of Crete, most of which have never been shown outside Greece. These fascinating objects seen together bring to life the story of Crete’s luminous Minoan culture, the first palatial civilization to establish itself on European soil.

The exhibition brings to light aspects of Minoan daily life during the second and third millennia B.C., including social structure, communications, bureaucratic organization, religion, and technology.

In eleven thematic sections, the exhibition maps chronologically the establishment and great achievements of Minoan culture. Here the viewer can explore the historical and cultural context of this celebrated society and gain insight into its mysteries, such as the legends surrounding the reign of King Minos of Knossos, who commissioned the fabled Labyrinth of Greek mythology.

Information gathered from the study of the Early, Middle, and Late Minoan periods—also known as the Prepalatial, Protopalatial, Neopalatial, and Postpalatial periods—is largely based on objects excavated from the island’s burial grounds and settlements. The exhibition pieces together the culture’s past by focusing on such objects as gold jewelry deposited in the rich tombs of the elite, inscribed clay tablets that reveal the basic elements of the Minoan economy, ceremonial vessels found in both palaces and tombs, and votive figures of clay, symbolic offerings to protective deities. All of these intriguing objects are on loan from the archaeological museums in Crete, in collaboration with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

The island of Crete is equidistant from the three continents of Africa, Asia, and the European mainland. As a result of this advantageous location, the Minoans experienced a period of active trade with the other civilizations around the Mediterranean basin and maintained control over the sea routes. They exported timber, foodstuffs, cloth, and olive oil and in turn imported tin, copper, silver, emery, precious stones, and some manufactured objects. For their basic needs, however, the Minoans were entirely self-sufficient.

Archaeological evidence from the Prepalatial period reveals the great changes that took place in the social structure of Early Minoan society. The rise of local elite populations, for instance, led them to commission and display different types of objects in order to convey and celebrate their social identity and rank. This kind of social differentiation gradually led to the formation of a palatial society during the Middle Minoan or Protopalatial period about 1900 B.C. Urbanization and increasing economic wealth brought about bureaucratic change, including the rise of powerful social classes and ruling groups. Major palaces were built at Knossos and Malia in northern Crete, at Phaistos in the south, and at Zakros in the east. These palaces were large building complexes that served as centers of religious, economic, and social life for their inhabitants. The architecture and the layout of the palaces communicated a dynastic message, enhanced by prestigious objects and symbolic expressions of the rulers’ power.

With the palaces came the development of writing, probably as a result of record-keeping demands of the palace economy. The Minoans used a hieroglyphic script most likely derived from Egypt and a linear script, Linear A, which may have evolved from the language of the eastern Mediterranean and has yet to be deciphered. In the section of the exhibition entitled Scripts and Weights, examples of this mysterious script will be displayed, exemplified by the Linear A Tablet shown here. This sun-dried clay slab dates from the end of the Late Minoan I period and exemplifies the administrative records that listed products, goods, and people. Inscriptions have also been found on various important objects, such as double-sided axes, pottery, seals, and stone vessels. The exhibition includes as well tablets in Linear B script, which was deciphered in the 1950s by M. Ventris and J. Chadwick. The symbols of this script reflect an early form of the Greek language that was spoken by the Myceneans, who had arrived in Crete by the second half of the fifteenth century B.C.

DNA in Archaeology

From Katherimini, English Edition April 3, 2008 DNA sheds light on Minoans Crete’s fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans’ forefathers had come from Africa. The new study – a collaboration by experts in Greece, the USA, Canada, Russia and Turkey – drew its conclusions from the DNA analysis of 193 men from Crete and another 171 from former neolithic colonies in central and northern Greece. The results show that the country’s neolithic population came to Greece by sea from Anatolia – modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria – and not from Africa as maintained by US scholar Martin Bernal. The DNA analysis indicates that the arrival of neolithic man in Greece from Anatolia coincided with the social and cultural upsurge that led to the birth of the Minoan civilization, Constantinos Triantafyllidis of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University told Kathimerini. “Until now we only had the archaeological evidence – now we have genetic data too and we can date the DNA,” he said. ******************************************************************************** I thought that "Anatolia" was primarily what we call Turkey today (see, for instance, Wikipedia). I do not believe I've ever read prior to tonight that Iran and Iraq were part of ancient Anatolia! If the author meant to say that parts of modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria (rather small parts) were included within ancient Anatolia, then that would make sense, based on the maps at Wikipedia. But if - as the article presently reads - the author meant all of Syria, Iran and Iraq and not Turkey, then take it with a large grain of salt.

Major Minoan Art Exhibit

From ArtDaily.org
Posted February 16, 2008
Ancient Minoan Culture Comes To Life At The Onassis Cultural Center
(The article was evidently copied from another website without all of the embedded graphics - you'll see as you read where they are referenced. The bull's head rhyton image: Late Minoan IB, Palace at Zakros, West Wing. Herakleion Archaeological Museum).

NEW YORK.-On March 13, 2008, more than 280 artifacts from the ancient land of Crete, most of which have never been shown outside of Greece, will be on view at the Onassis Cultural Center. From the Land of the Labyrinth: Minoan Crete, 3000 – 1100 BC features a wide range of rare objects revealing the history of Crete’s luminous Minoan civilization, the first fully-developed culture to establish itself on European soil. On view through September 13, 2008, the exhibition uses ancient artifacts and works of art to reveal aspects of daily life in the Minoan civilization—including social structure, communications, bureaucratic organization, religion and technology—during the second and third millennia B.C.

The exhibition will chronologically map in 11 thematic sections covering the establishment and great achievements of the Minoan culture. As the first advanced civilization to arise in the European region, the exhibition explores the historical and cultural context of this celebrated society, and sheds light on its mystery. Information gathered from studies of the Early, Middle, and Late Minoan periods—also referred to as the Prepalatial, Protopalatial, Neopalatial and Postpalatial periods—is derived mostly from objects excavated from the island’s burial grounds and settlements. It is known that Minoan civilization was named after the legendary King Minos of Knossos , who commissioned the Labyrinth, a mazelike structure made famous in Greek mythology. Through each themed-section, the exhibition will piece together the culture’s past with objects—such as the gold jewelry deposited in the rich tombs of the elite, the inscribed clay tablets that disclose the fundamentals of the Minoan economy, ceremonial vessels found in the palaces and tombs, and votive figures of clay as symbolic offerings to protective deities—on loan exclusively from the archaeological museums in Crete, in collaboration with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

The island of Crete is equidistant from its three surrounding continents of Africa, Asia, and the rest of Europe . As a result of this advantageous location, the Minoans experienced a period of active trade with the other civilizations around the Mediterranean basin and maintained control over the sea routes. Exports consisted of timber, foodstuffs, cloth, and olive oil, while Cretans imported tin, copper, silver, emery, fine stones, and some manufactured objects. For their basic needs, however, the Minoans were self-sufficient.

The archaeological evidence from the Prepalatial period reveals great changes taking place in the social structure of the Early Minoan society, including the rise of local elite populations that tended to invest in self-promotion and to display their social identity and rank. Social differentiation gradually led to the formation of a palatial society during the Middle Minoan or Protopalatial period around 1900 BC. Urbanization and increasing economic wealth brought about bureaucratic change, including the powerful rise of social classes and ruling groups. Major palaces were built at Knossos and Malia in the northern part of Crete , at Phaistos in the south, and at Zakros in the east. These palaces were large building complexes that were the centers of religious, economic, and social life for their inhabitants. The architecture and layout of the palaces communicate a dynastic message through objects and symbols of the ruler’s power and prestige.

With the palaces came the development of writing, probably as a result of the new record-keeping demands of the palace economy. The Minoans used two types of scripts, a hieroglyphic script most likely influenced by Egypt, and a linear script, Linear A, perhaps influenced by the language of the eastern Mediterranean, which has yet to be deciphered. In Scripts and Weights, examples of this mysterious script will be displayed, including this example, Linear A Tablet. This sun-dried clay slab is from the end of the Late Minoan I period and exemplifies the administrative records—that recorded products, goods and people—scripted on similar objects. Inscriptions are also on various important objects, such as double-sided axes, pottery, seals, and stone vessels. The exhibition also includes tablets in Linear B script, deciphered in the 1950s by M. Ventris and J. Chadwick. Although borrowed by the Linear A, the symbols of this script render an early form of the Greek language, spoken by the Myceneans that had already reached Crete.

The Religion and Ritual section of the exhibition reveals one of the most important and fascinating aspects of the Minoan culture. The figure of a female goddess, the protector of nature and fertility, occupies the predominant place in the hierarchy of deities. Common sacred symbols of Minoan religion include the bull, such as the chlorite Bull’s Head Rhyton found at Zakros, and double axes made of bronze, silver or gold placed in areas of worship, such as this Votive Axe found in the Arkalochori cave. Numerous figurines depict worshipers, whereas animal figurines were symbolic offerings to deities.

The Colorful World of Murals section presents another form of communication developed in the Aegean by the Minoans—the art of large-scale wall paintings known as frescoes. Minoan painters covered the walls of palaces and urban mansions with images of the Cretan life around them or of special ceremonies. Using the fresco technique—applying earthy colors to wet surfaces that even today retain their vivid quality—iconic murals like the Partridge Fresco illustrate the animals, plant life, and people that surrounded them.

Workshops specialized in the production of palatial or personal items and luxurious objects, such as jewelry, seals, miniature artwork, and inlays for implements and furniture. Great strides were made in jewelry making, seal engraving and pottery production. As shown in the Pots and Potters, Seal Engraving: Great Art in Miniature and Jewels for Life and Death sections, artistic works of this period indicate advances made in specialized workshops. Exquisite filigree technique, granulated jewelry, and carved seal stones reveal their sensitivity to materials, which included clay, gold, stone, ivory, and bronze. A related section, Masterpieces in Stone, demonstrates the Minoan’s command over stoneworking, which resulted in an expanse of quality stone artifacts. Labor-intensive objects—sophisticated saucers, bowls, and bottles—were constructed with the use of progressive devices such as drills and polishing tools. Even everyday objects such as the Beekeping Vessel displayed in the section Alimentation and Aromatics, brings another dimension to this exhibit, bringing the viewer into the everyday activities of the ancient Minoan.

In the Final Palatial or Late Minoan III A-B period, the arrival of the Mycenaeans produced a shift in central power and the founding of a new dynasty. This represents the period of a change in the Minoan civilization with the establishment of the Mycenaean bureaucracy. The exhibition demonstrates that the serious changes brought about by this power shift are evident in new pottery shapes, well-constructed vaulted tombs, and the appearance of Linear B script. Lavishly decorated swords and a rare Boar’s Tusk Helmet such as those displayed in the Warriors and Weaponry section, along with other precious metals and jewelry, are evidence that a proud and ostentatious military class developed in Crete after the appearance of the Mycenaeans, from about 1450 to 1300 B.C.

Did a Tsunami Wipe Out Minoan Civilization?

Discover Magazine 01.04.2008 Did a Tsunami Wipe Out a Cradle of Western Civilization? Like the Indian Ocean disaster, this wave was a mass killer. by Evan Hadingham The effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 are only too well known: It knocked the hell out of Aceh Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, leveling buildings, scattering palm trees, and wiping out entire villages. It killed more than 160,000 people in Aceh alone and displaced millions more. Similar scenes of destruction were repeated along the coasts of Southeast Asia, India, and as far west as Africa. The magnitude of the disaster shocked the world. What the world did not know was that the 2004 tsunami—seemingly so unprecedented in scale—would yield specific clues to one of the great mysteries of archaeology: What or who brought down the Minoans, the remarkable Bronze Age civilization that played a central role in the development of Western culture? Europe’s first great culture sprang up on the island of Crete, in the Aegean Sea, and rose to prominence some 4,000 years ago, flourishing for at least five centuries. It was a civilization of sophisticated art and architecture, with vast trading routes that spread Minoan goods—and culture—to the neighboring Greek islands. But then, around 1500 B.C., the Minoan world went into a tailspin, and no one knows why. 1939, leading Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos pinned the blame on a colossal volcanic eruption on the island of Thera, about 70 miles north of Crete, that occurred about 1600 B.C. The event hurled a plume of ash and rock 20 miles into the stratosphere, turning daylight into pitch darkness over much of the Mediterranean. The explosion was recently estimated to be 10 times as powerful as the 1883 eruption of Krakatau in Indonesia, which obliterated 300 towns and villages and killed at least 36,000 people. So extreme was the Thera eruption that many writers linked it to Plato’s legend of Atlantis, the magnificent island city swallowed up by the sea. Marinatos’s theory was bolstered in 1967 when he dug up the ruins of Akrotiri, a prosperous Minoan town on Thera that had been buried in volcanic ash. Akrotiri became famous as a Bronze Age Pompeii because the ash preserved two-story dwellings, exquisite frescoes, and winding streets almost intact. On further examination, though, the ruins did not confirm the theory. It turned out that the pottery on Akrotiri was not from the final phase of Minoan culture; in fact, many Minoan settlements on Crete continued to exist for at least a generation or two after the Thera cataclysm. Archaeologists concluded that the Minoans had not only survived but thrived after the eruption, expanding their culture until they were hit by some other, unknown disaster—perhaps some combination of fire, earthquake, or foreign invader. Thera’s impact, it seemed, had been overestimated. But startling new evidence is forcing archaeologists to rethink the full fury of the Thera explosion, the natural disaster it may have triggered, and the nature of the final blow to the once-great Minoan civilization. Each summer, thousands of tourists encounter the Minoans at the spectacularly restored ruins of Knossos, an 11-acre complex four miles south of Crete’s capital, Heraklion. Late-19th-century excavations by Sir Arthur Evans revealed Knossos to be a vast, intricately engineered, multistory building, complete with flushing toilets, statuettes of bare-breasted priestesses, and frescoes of athletes vaulting over bulls. In 1900, Evans discovered an impressive stone throne, from which he believed the legendary King Minos and his descendants had presided over Bronze Age Crete. In the 1980s, however, a new generation of archaeologists, including Joseph Alexander “Sandy” MacGillivray, a Montreal-born scholar at the British School at Athens, began questioning many of Evans’s assumptions. Smaller-scale versions of Knossos have turned up at nearly every Minoan settlement across Crete, and scholars now suspect there was no single king but rather many independent polities. MacGillivray also became interested in how the civilization ended. At Palaikastro, in the island’s far northeastern corner, MacGillivray and his colleague Hugh Sackett have excavated seven blocks of a Minoan town of perhaps 5,000 inhabitants, their plastered and painted houses arranged in a network of tidy paved and drained streets. One striking find was the foundations of a fine mansion, paved with fancy purple schist and white limestone and designed around an airy central courtyard “of Knossian pretensions,” as MacGillivray puts it. “But after the house was destroyed by an earthquake, it was abandoned and never rebuilt, and that preserved some things we had a hard time explaining.” The house was dusted with a powdery gray ash, so irritating that the diggers had to wear face masks. Chemical analysis showed that the ash was volcanic fallout from the Thera eruption, but instead of resting in neat layers, the ash had washed into peculiar places: a broken, upside-down pot; the courtyard’s drain; and one long, continuous film in the main street outside. It was as if a flash flood had hosed most of the ash away, leaving these remnants behind. Some powerful force had also flipped over several of the house’s paving slabs and dumped fine gravel over the walls—but this part of the site lies a quarter of a mile from the sea and far from any stream or river. That wasn’t the only oddity. Another building “looked like it had been flattened, the whole frontage facing the sea had been torn off, and it made no sense. And we asked ourselves, could a wave have done this?” MacGillivray says. Rest of article.