I read all the materials of V. Shpakovsky about weapons and armor of the ancient Aegean world and thought it would be nice to tell about other interesting moments related to the history and culture of this region of the planet. And, in particular, about the Minoan culture, the predecessor of the warlike time of the Achaeans and about … the death of the people of the Minoan civilization, because frescoes and writings are silent about this, although excavations and scientific research have been going on for a very long time. But ordinary people "burst" in droves to Crete, turning into true pilgrims, driven by the goal of necessarily passing the path of the seven most beautiful Athenian boys and girls, delivered, as the legend says, to the sacrificial altar of the half-bull-half-human Minotaur.
Small reconstruction of a huge palace
The road to the Labyrinth …
What pushes them to the abode of a monster located in Crete, where myths, culture and science are so closely intertwined? As a result of what people are so attracted by the sites of former sacrifices that took place many centuries ago? And why are they spending so much money here, as if bringing a great tribute to the king of Crete - the eminent ruler Minos? And why, finding themselves in the palace complex of Knossos, wherever tourists come from, the main question is asked about the labyrinth: was there an underground labyrinth of the Minotaur or not? And having heard a negative answer, they do not believe this and enjoy circling the excavations of the famous Palace of Knossos, imagining themselves either as the hero-savior Theseus, or the English archaeologist Evans, who discovered it in 1900 AD.
A stone rhyton with a relief image of agricultural workers holding pitchforks and brooms! (1500 - 1450 BC) Archaeological Museum in Heraklion, Crete.
Thus, if we rely on the opinion of scientists, here, at the turn of the III-II millennia BC, the first European culture appeared. Evans gave it the Minoan name after the illustrious Minos. It was noted by scientists as the highest culture of humanity in its development. After all, the Minoan culture served as the basis of the ancient Greek one. At least earlier cultures are not known to science here. Its remains were found only at the beginning of the twentieth century. The most famous monument of this culture is the Palace of Knossos in Heraklion. The frescoes on the walls of the palace reveal the nature of the life of the people, peace-loving and very joyful.
Fragment of the rhyton.
The Minoans are not Greeks. Greeks are not Minoans
Much earlier than the ancient Greeks, who strove for absolute harmony of body and spirit, the Minoans, obviously, had already acquired it. The first great culture, the forerunner of the ancient Greek civilization, according to scientists, was the culture of … absolutely happy people!
The core of the social order was not superiority, but community. The hunch that this was a peaceful era is confirmed by another important fact - the absolute absence of any fortifications. The economy flourished, the arts developed. The fact that Cretan-Minoan art is the art of the major is obvious even to non-professionals. And the fact that it is not a style, but a taste, and refined, is not denied by art critics.
Cretan culture knows nothing of the tragic. Pessimism is not a Minoan lifestyle. Paints of the Minoan era are colorful, painting is multi-colored and cheerful. The black silhouette on red baked clay among the Greeks will appear much later.
Playing with the bull. Famous Minoan fresco from the Palace of Knossos.
There are no battle scenes in Minoan art. There are no warriors or heroic conquerors here, and therefore a cult figure is a woman who gives life. The conclusion suggests itself that in the Minoan culture, in particular, in art, then life and love of life dominated.
262 symbols and a million riddles
Crete has never had any underground riches. The property of their country is the legends and myths of ancient Greece, and material evidence of the existence of the Minoan culture, which have provided a comfortable life for the inhabitants of the island for a huge number of years. The Archeology Museum in Athens alone surpasses the collection of exhibits in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in terms of the completeness and uniqueness of the collection, which covers a period of 6,000 years of history.
Gold images of a double ax (1700-1600 BC). Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, Crete.
Here are and are carefully preserved the originals of all the frescoes that were found during the excavations of the Knossos Palace. Here are also collected other, no less significant exhibits of the Minoan culture: ceramics of the Kamar style, with transparent, like good porcelain, walls; stone carving, seals, microsculptures, gold jewelry. One of the central exhibits is the Fest disc, the very first Minoan letter made in the form of a clay "pancake" 16 centimeters in diameter. Both sides of the disc are inscribed in a spiral with hieroglyph-like characters. This disc has been preserved due to the excellent property of clay: it acquires special strength during firing. The fire that broke out in the Palace of Knossos destroyed it to the ground, but the unique disk has survived to our times. There are 262 symbols on both sides of this artifact, of which 46 are not the same. The modern science still does not know the meaning of these signs, but it assumes that a cult hymn to the mother goddess was written there. In the archaeological world, there is such a suitable line: the inexplicable is explained by ritual meaning.
Columns of the Knossos Palace. Photo by A. Ponomarev.
… It is worth looking closely through the stone horns of a bull from the Knossos ruins to Mount Yukhtas, as in its outlines one recognizes the face of a man with a beard. This is Zeus, blessing tourists on a visit to the Palace of Knossos, an archaeological complex with an area of 22,000 square meters, which has 300 premises for various purposes: the royal chambers, treasuries, workshops, warehouses, bathrooms … and a copy of the throne can be seen in the building of the International Court of Justice in The Hague …
Throne room with a griffin in the Palace of Knossos in Crete. Photo by A. Ponomarev.
Alongside the colossal pithos - human-sized vessels for storing olive oil, honey, wine and other provisions - thoughts of human insatiability and thrifty come to mind. The time of making the vessels is about 1800 BC.
It was in such jugs that grain was stored then. The girl next to the jug is exactly 1 m 70 cm.
During the excavations, more than a hundred of such vessels with a capacity of up to one ton were discovered. … The inhabitants of the Knossos Palace strove to make life in it the most favorable. A fact that boggles the imagination, but true: an ideal plumbing and sewerage system was installed in the palace, designed in such a way that, wherever there was a water leak, the system could be easily and quickly repaired. Interestingly, at the beginning of the twentieth century. during excavations in Crete, there was no sewage system on the island, and then Arthur Evans, seeing a round hole and near it ashes, apparently it was a wooden toilet bowl belonging to the queen, he cried out: “Now I am the only person in Crete who has a real toilet ! . Evans believed he had discovered the oldest toilet in the world. And so far, no one has denied this.
Rich German Schliemann and rich Englishman Evans
Prior to Evans, another 63-year-old Heinrich Schliemann was approaching the place where the Palace of Knossos was later opened. He had a goal - to buy up these lands in order to dig there himself, but the deal could not be concluded. The reason is the following: it seems that Schliemann did not buy it because the number of olive trees on this site did not coincide with the declared one. That is, the Turks (that's why they are Turks!) Decided to deceive him, so he did not conclude a deal with them. Most likely, his pride played a role here. He, a world-renowned scientist, was offended by the fact that they simply wanted to cheat him. But the historian and journalist Evans was less scrupulous, and besides, he was much younger than Schliemann. And the 48-year-old Briton had fifteen years in reserve. In the spring of 1900, Evans bought land here, since he was not a poor man and had the opportunity, although not without risk, to dispose of impressive sums. He began to dig and from the very beginning of his research discovered the walls painted with frescoes, ceramics from the Domikene period and clay tablets with inscriptions. By the end of archaeological research, a quarter of the Palace of Knossos was excavated. A year later, Evans announced his wish: it will take him at least another year to find anything of scientific interest. But he miscalculated. And after a quarter of a century, excavations were still going on there …
Wall painting in the "House of Women" in Akrotiri, Santorini, Greece.
Arthur Evans' contemporaries, to put it mildly, scolded him: the excavation technology at that time was imperfect, and one of Evans's main "sins" is that in an effort to protect the ancient walls of the palace from the harmful effects of the sun and rain, Evans fixed them with concrete; while others, which seemed later, were demolished, others were built on, making the appearance of the palace the way he saw it - there was too great a desire to show the Palace of Knossos in the form of romantic ancient ruins … Greece: it remained in the funds of the museums of Crete and Athens. Evans spent colossal funds of his own to expand archaeological research. And … he died at the age of 90 absolutely happy - from historical oblivion, he brought to the "light of God" a seemingly gone forever culture and presented it to the whole world.
Minoan matriarchy
… Thin waist, bright makeup, huge eyes, airy lace on the shoulders - a seductive creation whose elegance and grace have not been spoiled by the centuries spent by this miracle in the earth … "This is a true Parisian!" Cried one of Evans's hired workers, seeing a fresco depicting a young Minoan "lady." She really reminded archaeologists of elegant French women from the very beginning of the twentieth century, and the name "Parisian" remained with her forever.
The ax from Arkalohori is a bronze cast double-edged ax, probably of sacral significance, found in the Arkalohori cave by the Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos in 1935. 1700 - 1450 BC. Archaeological Museum of Heraklion. Crete.
Because of this, in Cretan painting, some art critics find the first signs of impressionism, and compare its sophistication with decadence, noting that the impressionist vision of the Cretan painter was based, however, not from satiety with life, as in the West, but from youth … Looking at the "Parisian", people make assumptions about the Minoan fashion, reflecting the lifestyle of the Minoan society, where a significant socio-political role was determined for a woman.
Here she is - the famous "Parisian".
What were the women of that time? They, like the men, were slim and short. They wore a lot of expensive jewelry: earrings, tiaras, gold pendants. Minoan men also loved jewelry. “Minoiks” adored fluffy dresses with long layered skirts and … an open bodice, their faces were shaded with headdresses in order to keep the skin pale. It was considered indecent to bare the belly, but they willingly bared their breasts! They were not like the captives from the harem, whom the spouses or fathers released from captivity on the occasion of a significant event … Looking at their images, one would like to see them in some spectacular movie, although it will most likely never be possible to shoot this. In 1952, an attempt was made to show them in the film "Odyssey's Wanderings", where a young beauty Cretan who fell in love with Odyssey, just puts on a characteristic Cretan outfit before the wedding. But … for reasons of morality, she had to cover her breasts with an insert made of white fabric, which in fact was not. And now imagine a film in which all the heroines have bare breasts and some adventures still take place there. Funny, isn't it?
As many as three "Parisians" …
Cretan women had an unusually thin waist and were fragile. The Minoan men were also slender and well built. They all wore long hair styled in fancy hairstyles. You can compare for a long time, but the result is the same: in the creations of Minoan art, men have a very feminine appearance. On the frescoes from Knossos, they are distinguished solely by their coloring - men were depicted with reddish-brown skin, and women sported surprisingly white. The latter on all the frescoes are represented attending cult ceremonies, dancing and competing in full equality with men. For women, there was not just freedom: all scientists say that the Minoans had a real matriarchy. And the whole system of values, characteristic of the Minoan civilization, was oriented precisely towards women - it was women who determined both the way of life and the themes in art. But what did it all lead to?
Incense jugs from the Archaeological Museum in Larnaca, Cyprus.
The wrath of the gods or the intrigues of eccentric women?
From the Palace of Knossos, built around 1900 BC and turned into ruins after an earthquake in 1700 BC, rebuilt and finally collapsed after a fire (arson?) 1400 BC, only ruins remained. What did not fall apart during natural disasters and did not burn in a fire was plundered by people in the Roman era. Stones were used as building materials for dwellings. But we are not talking about the barbaric attitude towards the ancient civilization, but about the disappearance of the Minoan culture.
The restored part of the Knossos Palace. Photo by A. Ponomarev
Unfortunately, the hieroglyphic writing and Linear "A" have never been deciphered. Scientists know the main thing: the Minoans were not interested in war. They lived a serene, but short life - at that time fifty years were revered as ripe old age, and the mature age for men came at 35, and for women at 27 years. But over time, no one remembered about the women of Minoan Crete …
The jugs from the Palace of Knossos are displayed right there and everyone takes pictures of them. Photo by A. Ponomarev.
Why did the Minoans die? From earthquakes on a nearby island, where the height of the tsunami wave that began near Santorini could reach a height of two hundred meters? Or from a psychological shock, because a general natural cataclysm meant that higher powers sent a terrible punishment to the whole people? Or maybe from the aggression of foreigners? Or because of banal female intrigues? It is known that where women rule, no threads of Ariadne will lead to one truth: there will be a great multitude of them, and each will be correct in its own way …
Sarcophagus from Larnaca. Although it is not of the Minoan time, it is still very ancient and impressive.
There is a road from the ancient theater that connects the large palace of Knossos with the small one. Excavations are still going on here - the palace is already on the surface of the earth, but it is still closed for visitors. Of course, the work should continue, at the same time the bottom near the coast of Crete should be studied. At the present time, when the world has become the only and necessary form of coexistence of all mankind, the social structure of Crete can be of more than just academic interest.
Phaistos disc, side A. Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, Crete.
"… The Phaistos disc will never be deciphered - there is very little text in this letter," some believe. “New excavations will help to solve the riddles of the death of the first European culture and will show the way to universal harmony,” the latter believe with all their hearts. Well, those living now can only hope for the rightness of the latter. And that it is by no means a sacred hymn written on the Fest disc, but the formula of love left to us by our ancestors and a "recipe" for world harmony, for which mankind will not regret any of the world's treasures. And in the same place, among the symbols, there is an image of a running man dressed in short pants. Maybe it is he who is in a hurry to tell humanity a secret of happiness, which is already four thousand years old?
Phaistos disc, side V. Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete.
