In Search of the Minoans

Minoan bull games

As early as 8000 BC Cretans lived in caves and created pottery. A wave of immigrants from Asia Minor, in 3000 BC, brought copper and seafaring skills. They sailed the Mediterranean to Egypt, and found cultures and technologies that had spread from Mesopotamia to the shores of Syria. And they created the first great civilization of Europe.

Male - 6500-5800 BC; Female 5300-4500 BC

By 1800 BC the eastern Mediterranean was a veritable international cauldron of 30 states, that fought, traded, exchanged diplomats. Crete's distance from the turmoil of the Orient meant she could develop in relative peace. Crete also absorbed the artist of the nearby Cyclades. Her own aesthetic, in turn, was in high demand throughout the Mediterranean.

The Throne Room of Knossos, 1550 BC

Palace ruins, 2500-1100 BC, have been found along the northern, southern and eastern coasts of Crete. Knossos was the great power among many centers still being discovered beneath layers of world history. In 1700 BC, and again around 1400 BC, destruction came from massive eruptions of the volcano Thera, from the island of Santorini, which sent tsunamis crashing onto Crete. Subsequent invaders--Myceneans, Dorians, Romans, Venetians and Turks--have left layers above the palace ruins.

Found at Zakros, 1450BC

Still, the Museum of Heraklion (which was unfortunately mostly closed when we were there) is filled with archeological finds, many still encrusted with dirt, still needing conservators and restorers. What has been cleaned and restored includes pottery, painted in a loose and wild style with motifs from the natural world, cult objects such as the powerful snake goddesses, beautiful jewelry to match the tombs of Egypt, exquisite receptacles made from semi-precious stones, and skillfully made creatures of reality and imagination. The museums of Canea and Rethymnon have some of these objects, along with Crete's Hellenistic and Roman art.

Snake goddesses of Knossos, 1600 BC

We first visited the Palace at Knossos. a sweltering site which first appears as a rather senseless ruin. One works hard to imagine the large, complex palace. Its excavator Harold Evans has had fragments of it painted in what he has understood to be the original style. The peripheral area provided visitors to the palace with lustral baths, purification sites, and shrines for consecration and sacrifice. The inner sanctum contains the famous throne room, ostensibly for a goddess perhaps in the form of the queen, as well as the royal living quarters.

Prince of Knossos, 1550 BC

From there we found the museum at Heraklion under repair, the visit reduced to a few rooms of the most iconic Minoan works. These include the snake goddesses, bare-breasted and wide-eyed, the much restored King with his wavy locks and insouciant pleasure-loving gait. Most interesting were the many signet rings, for stamping individual seals of complex scenes. One sees the evolution from highly skilled early work--figures from before 5,000 BC, the high achievements of the 1700-1450 BC, and the eventual plunge into the geometric and archaic periods. A new resurgence rises under Hellenism, marbles of Isis/Aphrodite and Zeus/Pluto, with Cerberus from an Isis temple. And the sturdy half wild Philosopher of the Romans.

Two bees of gold, each dropping honey on a comb, from Malia, 1800 BC

Another day we visited the Palace at Malia, amidst an endless string of beach resorts, but an old man showed us the way. This is where the exquisite bee pendant was found. The Malian palace of red clay was rather austere, but a model of the site reveals it was sprawling, complex and asymetrical (perhaps the reason for the myth of the labyrinth). Vastness and grandeur are now the dimmest memories of red stone a few feet high. Present day Malia sits under a blue dome of sky surrounded with exuberant green and bright oleanders, hibiscus and cypresses, in a stiff sea breeze. It invites a few moments of reflection and then simple Greek food, nestled into the green cafe.

Central pillar of graves, object of worship

Driving south from Rethymnon, we visited Armenoi, a Minoan Necropolis in a quiet grove of small oaks. Rock cut graves, sometimes chambers to walk around in, with a single heavy pillar, are often guarded by spider webs. We entered each grave with its mysterious niches, whose occupants of 1400 BC were on average 28-35 years old, while women were often younger than 25, buried with their fine pottery and jewelry.

St. George, Agia Triada

On the southern coast we visited Agia Triada, a smaller and lovelier site above green hills, considered a summer residence for the Minoan king. Most moving was the tiny Byzantine church to St George, 14th c. frescoes still on the walls.

Then we drove to Phaestos, an extraordinary ruin, with reconstructions drawn on informative placards. Here one begins to see the grandeur, and one retreats to the pines to thank the local deities.

We began to get the hang of decoding the ruins: the shrine rooms and sacrificial slab, the porticos and central courtyards, the storerooms of giant jars called pithoi, and the more sheltered and luxurious megarons of the king and queen.

Gournia, unlike the palaces, is a Minoan village built up to a shrine on the hilltop. In the stupefying heat I sat under a tree and thought of the Minoans. What did they fear? The bulging eyed snake goddess' spilling breasts? Omens in their buzzing world of nature? Their rulers who somehow compelled someone to haul these rocks up here?

Theatral stairs at Phaestos

We drove along the northeastern coast where blue humps of land plunge into the sea, and ate wonderful salads of seeds and dried tomatoes (instead of the fish the chef wanted to cook before my eyes till I escaped his kitchen). The island in view, Pseiris, had had a Minoan settlement. It had produced goods and traded. 

Knossos

Paleokastro, on the eastern coast was where the giant tsunami had swept into Crete from Santorini's earthquake about 1600 BC--dates are bit disputed. Though blocked by a stubby rock mountain rising from the sea, the tsunami had smashed in sea-facing walls and destroyed life as it had been. We learned that the men had been 1.6 meters tall and the women 1.5 meters. Paleokastro has been largely covered over again, to protect it, but the complete rooms were apparent, in a rough stone that had presumably been encased in mortar and covered, in the royal rooms, in gypsum.

Kato Zakros, houses of nobles

Finally we visited Kato Zakros, 4th largest Minoan palace and center of artisans who forged the legendary Minoan objets d'art from precious raw materials from Africa and Asia. Excavation was ongoing. We chatted with a young conservator who showed us how dirty and unpromising a fresco could be before cleaning. She talked of how many unrestored findings languish in Herakleion's store rooms.

Palace at Knossos

Mentioned frequently by the Egyptians, their artistic creations found throughout the Mediterranean, the Minoans remain a mystery.  Though they had developed writing, it seems to have focused on commerce and accounting.   And so many of the great, unwashed findings remain in the storerooms of Herakleion.