![]() These sites were major Minoan administrative trade and religious centers with the Palaces also serving as storehouses for important commodities like grain, olive oil, wine and ceramics. The Bull was an important icon in Minoan art and culture, and all indications are that the Minoans worshipped it.īy around 2400 BCE the Minoans started to live in larger settlements equal to towns or small cities, with the later Bronze Age sites indicating the existence of a complex highly developed society characterised by high Culture and impressive large palaces. The origin of the Minoan Civilization is unknown, but most Historians believe that the Minoans journeyed to Crete from Anatolia sometime around the year 7000 BCE and began a life as settled Farmers of crops, herders of sheep and domesticated cattle. The classification was based on distinctive pottery styles which have since served as a method for dating sites in the area. Iii) the Late Bronze Age or late Minoan period from 1600 to about 1100 BCE. Ii) the middle Bronze Age or middle Minoan period from 2100 to 1600 BCE and I) the early Bronze Age or early Minoan period from 3000 to2100 BCE The artifacts unearthed at the site suggested that some sort of ancient Bull Cult was practiced by the inhabitants of the civilization whom he called Minoans after the legendary King Minos.Įvans divided up Minoan Civilization history into three main phases: Evans’ three main phases of Minoan Civilization He traced the mysterious Clay Seals written in an unknown language to the island of Crete where Evans and his team began digging at a site called Gnosis where over the next 5 years they unearthed the ruins of a large Palace which confirmed Ancient Legends and Myths about an advanced Civilization that had once thrived on the Island Of Crete.Įvans’ discoveries also appeared to confirm scenes from Ancient Greek Mythology such as the labyrinth of King Minos. The Minoan Civilization thrived during the middle Bronze Age, roughly between the years 2000 to about 1500 BCE on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea.īritish Historian Arthur Evans is credited with discovering the Minoan Civilization in the 1890s after he came across some mysterious Ancient Clay Seals in a market in Athens. The eastern states had then no interest in disputing the position of Crete, and the Aegean world from which she had emerged was as yet no match for her.The Minoan Civilization is known as the earliest Greek Civilization which developed a high Culture and early Alphabet known as linear script on the Island of Crete. Their rise had been based on their isolation and their ships, and they had become a seapower by contemporary standards. It is vital to understanding of the Early Palace Period to realize that during it the Minoans made their own decisive entry into the circle of the civilized world. It is tempting to assign the seventeenth century in Crete to the preceding phase, but this gives a distorted picture. at Cnossus, and it was at this point that Evans placed the division between Middle Minoan and Late Minoan, thereby coinciding with a general historical break which occurred with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt, the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the New Kingdom in Egypt. Indeed a similar catastrophe occurred about 1575 b.c. the palaces were rebuilt, but this in itself is not an indication of the end of a period. Any traces of defensive building disappeared at an early date, which shows that the catastrophes were due not to enemy attacks but to natural causes. The palaces at Cnossus and at Phaestus were destroyed time and time again, but on each occasion they rose more splendid than before, bearing witness to the resilience and optimism of the inhabitants. THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE LATE PALACE PERIOD ( c.
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