I’m sure the overwhelming response is black. After all, dark hair and eyes are consistent with Mediterranean coloring. What then, does one make of Apollo, whose hair was a golden blond? When I asked my Greek guide several years ago why Apollo was supposed to have blond hair, she replied that his hair fit in with his role as the sun god.
Fast forward a few years and a lot more research. It turns out that, although blond hair was uncommon, it was not that unusual. Some of the ancient pottery depicts warriors with blond hair and Achilles in fact was supposed to be fair. Another famous blond – Helen of Troy. She literally was fair. They were not the only ones.
DNA evidence confirms that although the prevailing hair colors were black and dark brown, blond and red hair were not unknown. Partly that was due to contact with people from the steppes.
My takeaway: people have always traveled from place to place, intermarrying with local populations. We are all mutts.
I hope to see everyone at the Cohoes Public Library this Saturday, 11 – 4.
One of the reviewers for On the Horns of Death commented on the fact Martis and her mother, as well as other women in the mystery, drink tea. She questioned whether this might be an anachronism.
In fact, I was not thinking of the teas we get from India and China but instead of an herbal tea made from herbs well known in Crete.
Both sage and dittany were known then. Dittany is an herb that has been used for centuries, right down to early America, as a medicinal plant. A potent and fragrant herb related to oregano, the name comes from Mount Dikte in Crete. And, of course, one of the names for Britomartis, the maiden in the Cretan pantheon, is Diktynna. It is marketed now as a tea called Dictamnus.
Sage is another herb we believe was known and used in ancient times. We use it primarily as a culinary herb but, like oregano today, it also was used as ritually and as a medicine.
Finally, an herb that is marketed as an herbal tea today is malotira. This herb grows at high altitudes on Crete and is valued for its medicinal properties. It is commonly used to treat respiratory illness and digestive problems as well as skin irritation. It has anti-inflammation, anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties.
When I described Martis and company drinking tea, I was visualizing an herbal concoction. Maybe one of the herbs alone, maybe a combination
Artemis is described in the Iliad as Potnia Theron or the Lady of the Beasts. (Potnia is a term of respect, meaning Lady or Mistress.) It is also a title formerly used by a Minoan Goddess – the Lady of the Beasts.
A similar goddess was worshipped throughout the Aegean. In fact, the Mistress of the Beasts – or something similar – was worshipped as far back as the Neolithic, including Crete. I don’t think it is a big stretch of the imagination to believe that Artemis either took over the role of her precursor or was the Lady of the Beasts under a different name.
What do we know about Artemis? She was a beautiful winged Goddess, usually associated with the Moon. (Although, since her twin brother was Apollo, the sun, there are solar elements as well. Both were children of Leto and Zeus.) She was passionate about her virginity and could be quite cruel to her nymphs when they lost their theirs, even if usually by rape. Young girls were frequently dedicated to her at the age of somewhere between 9 and fifteen. (Scholars disagree about the age.) Suidas and Arktos e Brauroniols wrote that the Athenians decreed that no virgin could be married unless they played the bear for the Goddess. (Interesting and odd to me in light of the beliefs about young girls who die before marriage and children – who become spirits, or willies.) Martis would have been dedicated as well but, unlike most of her peers, she plans to remain a virgin and dedicated to the Virgin Goddess.
Artemis is also a patron of childbirth, again an interesting juxtaposition with a virgin goddess. Women prayed to her for an easy and safe childbirth and shrines to her were present well into Roman times.
She was also a huntress and is frequently pictured with her golden bow and arrows and a pack of hunting dogs. This is the piece that fits in with the Lady of the Beasts. As a beautiful but unattainable woman, she was frequently the object of men’s attentions. With the Greek predilection for violent drama, her reaction toward them tended to be fatal. In one myth, a mortal saw her bathing naked. Artemis turned him into a stag and his own hunting dogs tore him apart.
Although Artemis is a hunter and a protector of women in childbirth, the apparent disconnect does make sense. Fertility of both women and animals, domestic and wild, was necessary for prosperity.
In Classical Greece, Artemis is a daughter of Zeus. But her history is far older than that.
Let me begin by saying that, although there are plenty of theories about burial practices, there are very few facts we know for certain. However, I gleaned what I could and imagined the rest. Since I write murder mysteries, I have to include something about funeral and burial practices.
Excavations have found human remains put in jars and secreted in caves but treatment of human remains began to transition to tombs. When Martis’s sister is interred In the Shadow of the Bull
I describe what I imagined the scene to look like: the giant stone covering the entrance and the remains of many family members in one tomb.
I also include in both the Crete books, the above and also On the Horns of Death
some other descriptions that might or might not be true.
A fresco from Crete show a musician playing a flute in front of what looks like a funeral cortege so I added that to my description. Martis carries gifts to add to the caskets: a small ship for her sister and a small clay figure of a bull for her friend. We know grave goods were included and during the Classical period, small ships were added to carry the departed over the River Styx. I theorized that this was a practice that began in the Bronze Age.
The professional mourners were also a feature in Classical Greece so I thought it was possible they were important before that era. I described them, in groups of a few to many depending on the wealth of the family, in both books.
Finally, I include a meal, a funeral dinner, if you will, connected to the services. I thought this was a reasonable supposition since, even now, food is offered to the mourners after a service. Descriptions of such meals are also part of Homer’s works so a decision to include them seemed safe.
Since March is Women’s History month, I thought I would discuss the women of Bronze Age Crete. In my series, I chose to write about this advanced society from about 2600 to approximately 1100 B.C.E. where women played pivotal roles in religion, culture and possibly even the governing of the cities. (In my previous series, I had a male protagonist, a traveling weaver, because women had a much inferior role in the United States of the late 1700s. They couldn’t own property or vote and if their husbands died, their sons took on the responsibility for their care. I wrote about the Shakers extensively, however, since in that society, women were equal and shared equal power in governance of the community.)
Frescoes and artifacts unearthed portray women in positions of reverence and power, suggesting a society where gender roles were viewed differently from contemporaneous civilizations.
Religion was female-centric, with goddess worship at its core. The male figures were always pictured as smaller than a central and large female figure. Women – or priestesses – were often depicted with open arms in a gesture of divine power. I imagined them as influential figures, managing religious ceremonies and advising on state affairs.
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Although the myths about Minos and the Minotaur are what we know today, one has to remember they were told by the Classical Greeks, a very patriarchal society. On Crete, real women likely held sway in the Minoan court. Administrative records and luxurious goods designed for female use display their influence, hinting at the wealth and status women enjoyed. I previously blogged about textiles and the elaborate clothing women wore.
Archaeological findings suggest that queens may have ruled alongside kings or even independently. The opulent grave goods of priestess-queens, often buried with symbols of power, reveal the respect and reverence these women commanded. I imagined a male consort who managed administrative details, under the Queen who was also the High Priestess.
The archeology suggests women’s influence extended beyond the spiritual realm into economics and craftsmanship. The intricately designed pottery, seal stones, and frescoes feature women in prominent roles. We know the intricate textiles, woven by the women, were traded all over the Aegean.
Emerging evidence further suggests that women in Minoan society received an education. In my books, I talk about the agoge, an initiation into society. I based it on what we know of the ancient Spartans who also educated their women. They spent a year minimum in a dorm with other women before marriage and children. (Boys, we think, went into a dorm at the age of seven.)
These ancient Minoans were a progressive culture ahead of its time.
I am fascinated by words and language. I’m not sure if that is because I’m a big reader or I became a reader and eventually an author because of it.
In any event, when I began researching the Minoans for my latest series, (In the shadow of the Bull and On the Horns of Death),
I quickly ran into the question of these old, probably the oldest, written languages. Unlike the hieroglyphics, which were finally deciphered thanks to the Rosetta Stone, Linear A and B resisted decoding.
Linear A, which was used by the Minoans, still has not been deciphered. And Linear B was not deciphered until the 1950s. An Englishman from Hertfordshire, Michael Ventris, finally succeeded, using a multi-disciplinary approach.
Tablets with this writing have been found in Knossos and Pylos, as well as other places, and was very early on recognized as the earliest form of Greek. Deciphering changed the way we understand the Aegean Bronze Age, especially the complex societal structures and the far flung trade networks. Linear B has been determined to be a very early form of Greek
I suspect when Linear A is deciphered, it will include primarily trade information but we can hope it will open a window into this exotic and still mysterious culture.
As I’ve discussed in earlier posts, Artemis is one of the Gods who, it is believed, was a goddess in Bronze Age Crete and was adopted by the mainland Greeks. She remained virtually unchanged, unlike Hera who diminished from a goddess in her own right to the jealous wife of Zeus in Classical Greece.
Artemis was a virgin goddess and a goddess of the hunt, of vegetation, and of birth. Women in labor prayed to her.
In the myths of Classical Greece, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo. (Daughter of Leto by Zeus.) And since those myths all seemed to be dark and full of cruelty, Artemis too could be cruel. She turned a young hunter, Acteon, who accidentally saw her bathing, into a stag and his own hunting dogs took him down.
In my Ancient Crete mystery series, Martis, my protagonist, is a follower of Artemis.
Coming April 24, 2024
As a devotee of Artemis, Martis plans to remain a virgin her whole life.
As part of my research, I hope to visit Ephesus where the ruins of a temple to Artemis still stand. Enormous in scale, the temple boasted a double row of columns that became a model for other Greek temples. Besides honoring Artemis, the temple also served as a place of sanctuary. Recent excavations have shown the stalls, where refuge seekers slept.
Historical note: Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe was double-crossed and murdered on the temple steps before she could reach the safety of the temple.
We know the Ancient Greeks had medicine. Examples of the diseases that afflict us now, such as cancer and TB, and diseases we have managed to conquer such as smallpox, are found in their writings.
What do we know of medicine in Bronze Age Crete? Not very much. We know they used herbal remedies. An examination of Egyptian dynasties contemporary with Crete suggest other possible medical treatments. Papyri and scenes inscribed on walls depict medical instruments. The purpose of some of them, however, are still a mystery. Instruments from later dynasties have been found as well.
Papyri, and clay tablets from Mesopotamia, show that a huge feature in medicine was divine intervention. Prayer and animal sacrifice, which we know were also employed in Bronze Age Crete, were important features. Amulets, to keep demons and bad outcomes at bay, were commonly used. Astral medicine, i.e. using the stars to predict the best time for the best outcomes, was also very important. The zodiacal calendar was used to predict the most propitious times for medical treatments.
I want to add that seers were used to predict the best times for all important activities. The flights of birds was one method. The sacrifice of a sheep and the reading of the organs was another.
Our current medical system certainly has flaws. I am very glad, though, that a surgery appointment does not depend on how a flock of birds fly through the sky!
One of the challenges of writing historical fiction, especially historical fiction that takes place as long ago as Bronze Age Crete, is the difficulty of sorting through the various myths – and the various iterations of the myths. I’ve already discussed the conflation of Zeus and Dionysus in that they share an origin story. When the tribes of mainland Greece swept over Crete after the Santorini volcanic eruption, they adopted much of the Cretan culture. Then they adapted what they’d taken to suit themselves.
Since we are familiar with the Classical Greek myths, so familiar in some case we have internalized them, we think of them as the ‘correct’ stories. Dionysus’s origin story, which became Zeus’s, is one such.
The outlines of Zeus’s story are this. Since it was predicted that one of Cronus’ children would kill him and take his position, he swallowed all of his children as soon as they were born. To protect Zeus, his mother Rhea wrapped a stone in a swaddling cloth (which Cronus swallowed) and the baby was hidden in a cave in Mt. Ida.
In the Cretan myth, it is Dionysus that is hidden in the cave. Each was described as suckled by either a nanny goat or a sow. To hide the baby’s cries, Kouretes made noise.
Who are the Kouretes? If you google the name, they are described as crested, armored warriors who clash their shields together so Cronus can’t hear the baby crying.
But this is not the whole story. According to an earlier myth, the Curetes were the first inhabitants of the Greek island of Crete. They were mythical creatures, specifically legendary benign deities who lived prior to the Minoans. According to an early Greek myth, the Kouretes were not born. They sprang out of the earth of Crete when the infant Zeus wept and his tears fell on the ground.
In this version, they made a hanging cradle for Zeus so he was not of the Earth, the sky, or the sea. He was therefore well protected from Cronus.
Because these are myths, and all things are possible, the Kouretes are supposed to have invented hunting, the first bow, dance, and even the Olympic Games.
Women, as expected, took care of children. And they were famous as spinners, weavers and dyers, as the previous posts demonstrate.
But what did the men do?
Well, farming was certainly a profession. Even many of the people who lived in Knossos owned farms. Besides goats and sheep and cattle, the farms grew grains and vegetables as well as the very important olives and grapes.
There were other professions, such as gold smith, jewelry maker, mosaic maker, but the primary job for men involved the sea. Minoan Crete had the best navy in the ancient world at this time. It was so superior that an Egyptian Pharaoh (one of the Ramses) sent a request to Crete for help pushing back the Sea Peoples. These people were sailing from Anatolia and attacking the rich cities of Egypt.
Besides the Navy, the men roamed far and wide, exploring the Mediterranean Sea and trading. (This was certainly a factor in the importance of women. The wives provided the woven goods for trade. As well, the women left behind ran the businesses while their husbands and other male family members were gone.)
Minoan fishing boat
Finally, fishing was an important part of this culture. The people who lived on the island ate from the sea. The mosaics show octopi, dolphins, and a variety of sea creatures. Fish bones, sheep bones and beef bones have been found during archaeological excavations.
