Category Archives: Ancient Crete

Ancient Crete and the Minotaur

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While researching Bronze Age Crete and Greece for my mystery series: First book – In the Shadow of the Bull – I spent a lot of time reading the Greek myths.

Most of us have at least a passing knowledge of the Greek myths. These are from the Classical period, a millennia at least from the heyday of Bonze Age Crete. That does not mean, however, that Crete was not hugely influential in these myths.

Take the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, for example. Here’s the backstory. The Greeks revered Zeus. Poseidon wanted to be honored too so he sent a white bull to Minos, the King of Crete. Minos’s wife Parsiphae fell in love with the bull. She tasked Daedalus (yes, the inventor with the wax wings whose son was Icarus) to build a special wooden box in the shape of a cow. Once inside the box, she had intercourse with the bull. Nine months later she bore a half-man, half-bull. The Minotaur.

The myth reeks of patriarchy and a desire to, in modern parlance, throw shade on Cretan beliefs.

First, in Crete Zeus was not the primary God. He was an upstart, more akin to a harvest God, who died and was reborn.

We also don’t know if Crete had a King. Certainly it was a goddess centered, matrilineal culture. Many archeologists have assumed Crete had kings, but for decades these archeologists were men. Men, moreover, who lived with a strongly patriarchal structure. It is possible the Priestess’s consort acted as a wanax, or governor. Kingships came with the Mycenaeans, i.e. the mainland Greeks who finally occupied Crete.

Several ancient cultures revered the bull or, in Indo-Europe (the steppes) the horse. One of the rites was mock intercourse with this symbol of fertility by the Queen/Priestess. This act was supposed to guarantee good crops, lots of livestock and of course healthy children for the coming year.

But what about the Minotaur?

Well, many many ancient and not so ancient cultures employ masks in religious rites. Animals are a frequently the subject.  Is it so far a stretch to believe that the Minotaur is a masked man involved in a religious rite? I theorize that a rite performed in ancient Crete involved intercourse between the High Priestess’s consort who wore a bull mask.

Besides painting Theseus as a hero (which I dispute but more about that later), this myth spins Crete as decadent and deserving of conquest. By the Myceneans, naturally.

Knossos, major city of Bronze Age Crete

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Arthur Evans, who excavated Knossos, estimated the original Neolithic settlements on Crete stretch back to 8000 B.C.E. By 2000, the civilization had transitioned from wattle and daub huts to an affluent society marked by mis-named palaces. Misnamed because it is thought they were not simply the abode of the rulers but also governmental, religious and craftsmen centers. The remains of storage rooms were also discovered on this site.

Below are the large storage vessels known as pithy.

Knossos was destroyed several times. Crete is prone to earthquakes and there is a nearby volcano. Until about 1400 B.C.E. Knossos was always rebuilt.

Since the ruins were excavated Knossos has become a major tourist attraction. Some of it has been repainted in what is thought to be the original colors.

Here is one example: the so-called throne room. The lustral basin in the foreground and the griffins (a symbol of the Goddess) indicated that this chamber was probably used for religious purposes.

The above is one of the many frescoes in Knossos (with me goofing around in front of it.). It is called the cup Bearer and is, I think, an example of male Minoan fashions. Both men and women wore their hair with the three tresses over the shoulders and the remainder loose down the back. Headdresses and jewelry was also common to both sexes. and the wasp waist was high fashion.

I based my character Tinos on this piece of art.

Knossos was not the only city found. The ruins of others such as Gournia, to the east, were also excavated. Akrotiri, a Minoan colony, on another island, is currently being dug out from many feet of hardened volcanic ash.

Sacred Snakes

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The Bronze Age Crete civilization worshipped snakes.

Snakes are pictured on seals and in frescoes, and statuary of either priestess or goddesses, twine snakes around their waists and hold them aloft in what is theorized are religious ceremonies. (There were no venomous snakes in Crete.)

In my book, In the Shadow of the Bull, I suggest that one of the headdresses worn by a Priestess might have contained live snakes, thereby providing the germ to the Medusa myth. The reverence for these serpents is also interesting considering the Judeo-Christian version of the Snake in the Garden of Eden and humanity’s fall. But I digress.

Marija Gimbutas in The Living Goddesses discusses the frequency of snake goddesses in various cultures: the Baltic, for example and the Celtic, as a symbol of rebirth and/or fertility. Gimbutas writes that the Minoan divine snake symbolizes regeneration. (The shedding of the snakeskin).

In any event, the figurines certainly lend credence to the importance of snakes in the early Bronze Age rituals.

Willies

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What are willies?

In Ancient Greece, Willies, sometimes described as nymphs or magical maidens, were the spirits of girls who died before their time (before marriage and motherhood) and returned as spirit beings, or ghosts, to our world.

As described in some of the folklore, if they died disappointed or abused and were not put to rest with the proper rituals, they would return and haunt their families, usually for nine generations. (The number nine appears to be sacred to the Minoans.)

Arge, Martis’s sister, would be considered a willie. Martis relies on her to help solve the mystery of Arge’s death. Would we consider Arte a ghost? Not exactly. She is a spirit but there is a mystical component to her in accordance with Minoan beliefs.

Is this where the phrase Gave me the willies came from. I don’t know.willies

The Bull

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The date for the release of In the Shadow of the Bull is now July 4 for the UK. No word on the release date in the US yet.

In an attempt to reveal what we know of this ancient culture, I thought I would begin with the bull. Bulls were sacred. I’ve read varying explanations. Is it because the Bull represented the male principle, even in a society with a Supreme Goddess? Is it because of the connection with Poseidon. also a God in this culture. (I have mentioned previously how much the Classical Greeks borrowed from the Minoans).

Whatever the reason, the mosaics, the statuary, the rites practiced were all centered around the Bull.

One of the practices was bull dancing or bull leaping. This is a feature of the Theseus myth. Since it was written by the occupying Greeks, it has a negative spin. In the myth, Minos, the ruler of Knossos, requires tribute from the mainland: 7 young women and 7 young men, to face the fearsome Minotaur in the labyrinth. (The creation of the Minotaur is another myth, a rather creepy one.) Theseus volunteers to be one of the tributes. Minos’ daughter Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of string and he is able to kill the Minotaur and lead the other tributes to safety.

Frescoes from Knossos show young men and women (probably teenagers) leaping over a charging bull. The bull dancer grasped the horns and flipped over the bull’s back. Another member of the team caught and steadied him as he landed. There seems to be no doubt that these performances occurred.

Remnants of mazes pictured in mosaics have also been found. But labyrinth, a synonym for a maze, is actually from the word labyrs, a sacred two headed axe used in religious rituals.

A stylized version of the bull’s horns, called the Horns of Consecration, were used everywhere. Examples have survived in Knossos.

In the Shadow of the Bull Cover

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So excited to show the cover for the first book of the new series of mysteries .

It really conveys the ancient era I think. And the bull, which was sacred to this culture, is as important as the people.

Ancient Crete

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Now that In the Shadow of the Bull will be released this summer, I thought I should talk a little bit about the culture of ancient Crete.

Although it is called the Minoan Era, that is a misnomer. Minos was a mythical king mentioned in Greek stories from Classical Greece, many years later.

What we do know is that this sophisticated society flourished in the Bronze Age, only to be destroyed about 1459 B.C.E, The volcano on the island now called Santorini blew, sending ash as far away as Turkey., and causing massive damage to Crete. Some archaeologists discuss signs of rebuilding but the Achaeans, the Greeks from the Mainland, were able to take advantage and occupy the island.

The iconic statuettes from Bronze Age Crete  are of women (priestesses probably although some scholars claim they are the Goddess) with snakes twining up their arms and around their waists. Snakes were sacred in this Bronze Age religion.

Snake Goddess describes a number of figurines of a woman holding a serpent in each hand found during excavation of Minoan archaeological sites in Crete dating from approximately 1600 BCE. By implication, the term 'goddess' also describes the deity depicted; although little more is known about her identity apart from that gained from the figurines. The 'Snake Goddess' figure first discovered was found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1903. The figurine found by Arthur Evans uses the faience technique, for glazing earthenware and other ceramic vessels by using a quartz paste. After firing this produces bright colors and a lustrous sheen. The figurine is today exibited at the Herakleion Archeological Museum in Crete. The snake's close connection with the Minoan house is believed to indicate that the goddesses shown in these figures are Household Goddesses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Goddess
Snake Goddess describes a number of figurines of a woman holding a serpent in each hand found during excavation of Minoan archaeological sites in Crete dating from approximately 1600 BCE. By implication, the term ‘goddess’ also describes the deity depicted; although little more is known about her identity apart from that gained from the figurines. The ‘Snake Goddess’ figure first discovered was found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1903. The figurine found by Arthur Evans uses the faience technique, for glazing earthenware and other ceramic vessels by using a quartz paste. After firing this produces bright colors and a lustrous sheen. The figurine is today exibited at the Herakleion Archeological Museum in Crete. The snake’s close connection with the Minoan house is believed to indicate that the goddesses shown in these figures are Household Goddesses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Goddess

The shedding of their skins was a symbol of rebirth and regeneration. One of the resources I read said that the snakes were allowed to live in the houses. (I am not sure how she knows that.) If so, I’m sure that the presence of the snakes kept down the mice.

Currently Crete does not have native venomous snakes and it is thought that there no venomous snakes in Crete during the Bronze Age either. So, of course I had to wonder if the asp was ever imported from Egypt.

(I think everyone knows that Cleopatra is supposed to have committed suicide with an asp. According to my research, however, it was a mixture of poisons including opium and wolfsbane. But I digress.)

The prevalence of women in the artwork, not just statuary but also the mosaics, have lent support to the theory that women enjoyed a high status in this society. It is theorized that the religion featured a Goddess as well as less important Gods. Several were transported virtually unchanged to the pantheon of Hellenic Greece.

Snakes and serpents, oh my

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The iconic statuettes from Bronze Age Crete  are of women (priestesses probably although some scholars claim they are the Goddess) with snakes twining up their arms and around their waists. Snakes were sacred in this Bronze Age religion.

Snake Goddess describes a number of figurines of a woman holding a serpent in each hand found during excavation of Minoan archaeological sites in Crete dating from approximately 1600 BCE. By implication, the term 'goddess' also describes the deity depicted; although little more is known about her identity apart from that gained from the figurines. The 'Snake Goddess' figure first discovered was found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1903. The figurine found by Arthur Evans uses the faience technique, for glazing earthenware and other ceramic vessels by using a quartz paste. After firing this produces bright colors and a lustrous sheen. The figurine is today exibited at the Herakleion Archeological Museum in Crete. The snake's close connection with the Minoan house is believed to indicate that the goddesses shown in these figures are Household Goddesses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Goddess

Snake Goddess describes a number of figurines of a woman holding a serpent in each hand found during excavation of Minoan archaeological sites in Crete dating from approximately 1600 BCE. By implication, the term ‘goddess’ also describes the deity depicted; although little more is known about her identity apart from that gained from the figurines. The ‘Snake Goddess’ figure first discovered was found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1903. The figurine found by Arthur Evans uses the faience technique, for glazing earthenware and other ceramic vessels by using a quartz paste. After firing this produces bright colors and a lustrous sheen. The figurine is today exibited at the Herakleion Archeological Museum in Crete. The snake’s close connection with the Minoan house is believed to indicate that the goddesses shown in these figures are Household Goddesses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Goddess

 

The shedding of their skins was a symbol of rebirth and regeneration. One of the resources I read said that the snakes were allowed to live in the houses. (I am not sure how she knows that.) If so, I’m sure that the presence of the snakes kept down the mice.

Currently Crete does not have native venomous snakes and it is thought that there no venomous snakes in Crete during the Bronze either. So, of course I had to wonder if the asp was ever imported from Egypt.

(I think everyone knows that Cleopatra is supposed to have committed suicide with an asp. According to my research, however, it was a mixture of poisons including opium and wolfsbane. But I digress.)

The asp’s bite is very venomous. The victim dies in about four minutes.

The Magnificent Horse Part 2

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he new God-centered religion and the status of women intersected.

Patriarchy went with these mounted warriors and the status of women took a nosedive. This culture worshipped male Gods and was stratified with warriors at the top, priests next, and craftsmen below. Warriors were buried with their weapons and sometimes their horses.

Take the Mycenaeans, for example. The Acheans were one of the first waves to hit Greece. In my previous blogs about Helen of Troy, I talked about her status. She was a princess, semi-divine, wealthy and the heir to the throne. Not her brothers – her. So the transformation of a women’s status was gradual. However, she could not choose her husband and her life was marked by rape and violence. At least the Mycenaeans were influenced by the earlier Bronze Age culture. As successive, and more warlike, waves of invaders came down eventually even Crete was breached and its cities sacked and burned.

We all know that the Jews are credited with the first monotheistic faith. Not so fast. According to Elinor W. Gadon, the very early Jews also worshipped a Goddess – the Queen of Heaven. In Jeremiah the prophet speaks out against her, saying that the Hebrews were exiled from Judea because of their neglect of Yahweh. (When they were exiled they went to Babylon which was at that time transitioning from Goddess worship to God worship. (Maria Gimbutas – The Living Goddesses.) But I digress, Anyway, according to the Bible, the people retorted that Judea fell because the rituals to the Goddess had been neglected after they’d been forbidden by the Deuteronomic reforms. (Jeremiah 44: 15-19).

By the time of the Classical Greeks and Romans, the status of women was in the cellar. Women were no longer permitted to leave the courtyards of father or husband except on certain religious festival days. In Greece homosexuality and pederasty were institutionalized. It makes a sort of sense if women were so devalued, their only value that of producing heirs, how could they possibly deserve love? In Rome women had no names but that of, first their fathers, and then their husbands.

The situation certainly did not improve with the advent of Christianity. Augustinian uses urine and feces to describe childbirth and refers to women as all that is vile, lowly and corruptible. We know one result of such passionate misogyny: the witch trials of the 1600s. According to Gabon (The Once and Future Goddess) thousands and thousands of women were burned at the stake. Estimates range from 100,000 to 9,000,000 (including women who died in prison). In some villages there were no women left alive.

Because patriarchy has lasted so long we now think of it as ‘normal’. But gradually everything is changing. I started my research with Arthur Evans, the archaeologist who first excavated Knossos. As I read through his writings I found his prejudices on open display. One example: despite all the frescos featuring women, he insisted they must all be of Goddesses. (And a lot of them are.) But his rationale was that there had to be a king, women could not possibly hold the power and the importance demonstrated by the art. And that is why the Bronze Age Civilization has been called the Minoan civilization, after Minos the King referred to in the Theseus myth. (This is not even historically accurate. If there were such a king, he would have probably been a Mycaenaen.)

The agrarian societies were pretty peaceful. That certainly has not been true of all that has come after, up to and including today. War and conquest has continued pretty much unabated for millennia.

Well, I have gone pretty far afield from my study of horses. Would patriarchy have conquered all without the nomadic horde? Maybe. Maybe not. After all, many of the American Indian tribes still take counsel from their ‘Grandmothers’. But I think it is pretty clear that the domestication of horses changed everything.

The Magnificent Horse and its importance – Part I

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The horse has arguably been more important to human history than even the dog. Both have served as work animals, that is true, but the horse has altered the course of civilization.

Yes, the horse has drawn the plow. Certainly very important but oxen also were used to pull plows as well as other vehicles – carts, wagons and the like. But the major importance of horses, unlike any other animal, was their use in war.

I previously blogged about the Botai – the Eurasian nomads of the steppes. They have been credited with domestication of the horse and its gradual transformation from the wild genus to the domesticated one. The horse gave the steppe dwellers a tremendous advantage: mobility as well as an elevated position from which to rain down blows. They were fast and could travel great distances. And they did. Successive waves of these warriors swept into India and across Europe, right up to and including recorded time. Think Genghis Khan.

This culture had no arts to speak of. Their pottery, according to famed archaeologist Maria Gimbutas, was poor quality, especially when compared to the pottery of Crete. But they had weapons and with horses they were almost unbeatable.

What were the civilizations they swept across? Almost all were agrarian, peaceful and Goddess worshipping. They made sacrifices for good harvests and easy births. They didn’t have a chance. Crete ‘s culture survived because it was on an island. (And on the island it was peaceful- their cities were not walled.). A remnant survived in the British Isles. (the Picts – remember Hadrian’s Wall? Built by the Romans, it was designed to keep the Picts away.) And the Basques who still speak a non Indo-European language. And Scandinavia managed to hold on to their culture. They successfully resisted Christianity for hundreds of years, converting at the point of a sword, and then grafting their sacred pantheon on to the Christian God.

But I digress.

This is what these mounted nomads brought with them.

Language

Almost all of the languages spoken now, especially across Europe, is classed as Indo-European, although pockets of the earlier languages remain. Basque, for example, is still spoken today. According to Gimbutas, the Basques continue some of the traditions as well that stretch all the way back, probably to the Neolithic. In Crete and Anatolia place names from the early civilizations remain. Knossos, for example, is not Indo-European.

Written languages too were affected. The Cretans had three languages. A form of hieroglyphics (and yes, Crete and Egypt were neighbors and trading partners so probably there was some cross-fertilization), Linear A and Linear B. B is newer and was deciphered in the fifties. It is a form of early Greek, an Indo-European language. The other two remain mysterious.

With the Indo-European invasion, writing disappeared along with the fine pottery and many other examples of the civilization.