The The MinoansMinoans

The Minoans and the The Minoans and the MycenaeansMycenaeans

• First Civilizations in Europe

• The Minoans (2000-1459 BCE)

• The Mycenaeans (1600-1100 BCE)

First Civilizations in First Civilizations in EuropeEurope

• Due to the harsher climate, civilizations in Europe did not emerge until after 3000 BCE

• Around 3000 BCE complex societies developed around Greece and the Aegean Sea

• One of the central cities named Knossos Ruins of the Palace of

Knossos

The MinoansThe Minoans• Bronze Age culture living

on the island of Crete• Named after King Minos,

the king of Knossos• Organized into complex

class system of nobles, merchants, artisans, bureaucrats, and labourers.

• Communities linked in a loose political federation.

• No fortified walls around cities, and absence of weapons

The Palace of Knossos

Minoan Minoan TradeTrade

• Early Greeks adapted a writing system from the Phoenicians.

• Indebted to Egypt for their wealth of knowledge (sculpture, metal and clay working, music, mathematics, elements of religion).

• Trade with Egypt (linen, papyrus, olive oil)and other Aegean Islands

• Wood, food and textiles exported from Crete while luxury items were imported (gold, solver, perfumes)

Minoan Arts & Minoan Arts & ArchitectureArchitecture

• Pottery, metal work and ivory carving

• Buildings of several stories with rooms and passageways

• Palaces had complex indoor plumbing and drainage systems

• Art comparable with Egypt• Developed a written language

system– Linear “A” undeciphered – Linear “B” used for commercial

transactions, early form of Greek

Mino’s PalaceMino’s Palace• Minos’ Palace at

Knossos (on the island of Crete)

• These ruins were discovered by Arthur Evans in 1900

Knossos Palace Reconstruction

Minoan Minoan ReligionReligion

• Matriarchal – central worship of a mother goddess

• Exact beliefs unknown, but the bull seems to have been a religious symbol – bull cult

• Crete = birthplace of Zeus (Minoans worshipped a Zeus who was born in a cave, grew to manhood, and died) – later Greeks were angered by the idea that “god died”

Bull-leaping – A fresco from the palace at Knossos

The Decline of Minoan The Decline of Minoan CivilizationCivilization

• In 1700 BCE all of the palaces on Crete were destroyed in an Earthquake

• Around 1500 BCE a volcano erupted, on the island of Santorini, causing great destruction

• Weakened by Mycenaean incursions in centuries before eruption – quick decline and takeover by Mycenaeans

• Sudden disappearance is a mystery with few remnants of their civilization

The World at the Time of the Thera Eruption

MINOTAUMINOTAUR!R!

• King Minos and the birth of the Minotaur

• Theseus and the Minotaur

                                                                

• Labyrinth of the Minotaur

• Can you find the

way through the

maze?