The volcano underneath Santorini is not extinct. It has continued to erupt and spew lava.
The small volcanic island off Santorini’s coast is made up of the cooled lava coming from beneath the ocean.
We hiked up to the top of this island, and it was really hot too. Since it is being added to, this little piece continues to grow.
When the volcano exploded in approximately 1450 B.C.E., it spread ash as Far East as Turkey. Archaeologists discovered a city on Santorini that had been buried in ash. Akrotiri is currently being excavated. Unlike Pompeii where entombed bodies have been discovered, no bodies have been found. So far, anyway. It is thought that they had enough warning to escape.
Is there a kernel of truth to the legend of the Minotaur? We already know there are many theories regarding the location of a labyrinth as described in the Greek myth. One theory mentioned previously is the complicated floor plan of the Knossos palace complex. Many of the Achaeans, the early mainland Greeks, would have come from halls with much fewer rooms so it is possible they saw the complicated and many roomed palace and were overwhelmed.
. A fragment of a floor with a labyrinth has been found during the excavation at Knossos. Was it decoration? Or something more? No one knows.
Or perhaps the maze as described in the myth hasn’t been found. Pieces of tablets from Knossos, talk about a place with a labyrinth. So far, no one knows where that might be. Or even if it was a different location.
What about the minotaur, a bull-headed man? Considering the number of ancient cultures who used masks to represent animals and/or Gods, it doesn’t take much imagination to guess a man wearing a mask played the part of the Minotaur in religious rites. Bulls were very important; sacred in fact in this Bronze Age culture.
Finally, we come to the core of the Theseus and Minotaur myth. The tribute of young men and women were chased through the labyrinth and consumed. The Minoans have the reputation for being a peaceful society. It is probably true that, because they were an island with an excellent Navy, they were well defended from outside invaders. But certain finds have suggested this society was not as peaceful as it appears to us now. Bones of children mixed in with the bones of bovines and sheep, and bearing the same cut marks, suggest they were eaten as the animals were. Were these ancient Cretans cannibals? Was eating human flesh part of their religious rites?
Another finding suggests human sacrifice. Three bodies, crushed by falling debris during an earthquake, seem to indicate the sacrifice of a young man by a priest. Many cultures sacrificed to appease the Gods. However, if they were sacrificing this young man to prevent an earthquake, they left it to late.
One of the topics that came up regularly in my research concerned the status of women. Was this a matriarchal society that worshipped a Goddess? Did the women enjoy high status?
Here is what we know. The murals and the seals portray many women and on the seals the female figure is several times larger than the male figure.
As one might expect, scholars differed on the question. Some of the early archaeologists assert that women could not have had such high status because, well, they were women. How then to explain the prevalence of women in the murals? How to explain the large female figure in the seals?
One explanation is that this culture worshipped a Goddess, along with other Gods such as Poseidon and Dionysus. But the worship of a feminine Goddess did not translate into high status for women in general.
The discussion continues today with the disagreement over the gender of the bull leapers. A famous mosaic depicts both white and red figures jumping over the bull. Some scholars posit that the white figures were female, following the Egyptian fashion of painting male and female figures different colors. This theory is supported by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in which seven girls and seven boys are sent to Knossos from Athens as tribute.
In my opinion, and based on the evidence offered by the mosaics, the seals and the myth ( the mainland Greeks tried to portray the Minoans in as negative light as possible), I believe women enjoyed a high status in this culture. Goddess worship is almost universally accepted.
Right or wrong, that is how I envision this culture in my mystery, In the Shadow of the Bull.
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.
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.
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
