The Culture

The island of Crete is located in the center of the eastern Mediterranean at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe. It measures about 200 Km from east to west, and between 12 to 58 Km from north to south at its narrowest and widest distances, making it one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean sea.

Neolithic life in ancient Crete consisted of major settlements at Myrtos and Mochlos. During this period the Minoans had contact with Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria with whom they traded for copper, tin, ivory, and gold.

The archaeological evidence reveals a decentralized culture with no powerful landlords and no centralized authority. The palaces of this period are focused around communities, and circular tholos tombs were the major architectural structures of the time. The manner by which the dead were buried in these tombs indicate a society without hierarchical structure. The tholos tombs were used for centuries by entire villages, or clans and older corpses and offerings were placed aside to make room for a new burial. Older bones were removed from the tomb and placed in bone chambers outside the tholos structure. Most of the tholos tombs were circular while in Palekastro and Mochlos they were of a rectangular in shape with a flat roof.

The main written language of the Minoans was Linear A, a language which has yet to be deciphered but may represent a form of early Greek. It was used for religious and accounting purposes from about 1800-1450 BC, when it abruptly disappeared to be replaced by Linear B, a tool of the Mycenaeans.

Between about 1600 and 1627 BC, the volcano on Santorini erupted, destroying the island and the Minoan occupation there. Giant tsunamis destroyed the coastal cities such as Palaikastro, which was completely inundated. Knossos itself was destroyed by another earthquake in 1375 BC. A clear cultural shift began on Crete, with architecture, writing styles and other cultic objects similar to the Mycenaean mainland replacing much of the Minoan styles. Because of this, it was believed that what ended the Minoan culture was a combination of earthquakes and conflict wars with the Mycenaeans from mainland Greece, and/or Egypt, over the extensive trade that had developed in the Mediterranean at the time.

However, more recently, archaeologists have come to believe that at least a substantial portion of the reason for the downfall of the Minoans was internal political conflict. Evidence for the takeover by Mycenaeans includes Mycenaean-type tombs called "tholos" or "warrior graves". Recent strontium analysis shows that the people buried in "warrior graves" are not from the mainland, but were born and lived their lives on Crete, suggesting that the shift to a Mycenaean-like society may have not included a Mycenaean invasion.