Chronicle 2. IT ALL STARTED HERE…

Chronicle 2. IT ALL STARTED HERE…

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 2. ΟΛΑ ΑΡΧΙΣΑΝ ΕΔΩ…

Ploughing in Egypt

● Neolithic Revolution ● Cities, Exchange, Writing ● Aegean and Orient: Differences ● Irrigation and Trade Networks ● “Asiatic Mode of Production” and Centralization ● Nature, Gods and Democracy

Michales Loukovikas

IT ALL STARTED HERE: in the Mediterranean – in the Fertile Crescent.

The Fertile Crescent

ALTHOUGH BORN SUPPOSEDLY in Africa, man was civilized around the Mediterranean, in the Near East, more specifically in the arc formed by Mesopotamia, the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) and the Nile valley in Egypt, also extending to Cyprus and Anatolia, as far as the Taurus Mountains: it was the so-called Fertile Crescent, where man made the first giant leap with the Neolithic agricultural revolution. It took millennia until something equal in scope happened again, with the industrial revolution that started in England in the 18th century.

Man made the first giant leap in the Fertile
Crescent with the Neolithic revolution

Neolithic baker

Despite the view that this second revolution signaled a return to barbarity, let us stick to generally accepted ideas for the time being. Even common sense says the key was the first step, when hunters and gatherers became pastoralists and farmers. This development was probably brought about by women: gathering fruit was their responsibility together with children, while men hunted.⁽¹⁾ Thus, we can reasonably assume that agriculture, especially farming, the main aspect of the emerging rural economy, has been an innovation brought forth by women.⁽²⁾

• ⁽¹⁾ That sexual division of labour explains numerous differences in mentality between the sexes that still characterize them, causing misunderstandings in their relationships.

• ⁽²⁾ I do not know if any researcher has ever made the above very logical guess. As I have pointed out, however, we should no further engage in such speculations for the time being, and better stick to generally accepted ideas – as long as they are not directly related to the issues under our consideration. Such are the assumptions related to the theories of man’s African origin, the origins of the inhabitants of Greece, the Indo-European languages and their speakers, or the Phoenician origin of the Greek alphabet, among various issues that are relevant, or sufficiently vague. As I have said, they are nothing but theories… (See our next Chronicle of the Humans).

As is well known, a farmer is more bound to the land than a hunter-gatherer or a pastoralist. Thus, the transition to farming led to the creation of permanent settlements that gradually grew: they became villages, some of them towns, or even cities. The latter – as the Hellenic and Latin words polis (πόλις) and civitas indicate – brought about both politics and civilization. Man began his gradual transformation into what Aristotle would much later call a “political animal” to identify a new distinctive feature of Homo sapiens vis-à-vis the other species.

The transition to farming led to the creation of settlements
that gradually grew: they became villages, towns, cities.
The latter brought forth both politics and civilization.

The ancient city of Mari on the Euphrates (reconstruction)

Cities require central authority and hierarchy, imposing monuments, division of labour, specialization. They necessitate the arts and crafts, architecture, pottery, commerce, metallurgy… The Mediterranean periplus began tentatively at that time, in parallel with the caravan routes along land roads that were inaccessible and dangerous. Consequently, so long as man familiarized himself with the sea, he’d rather sail than travel on land. It is an oxymoron that the liquid element is far more “solid” and safe, but that’s how it is. Besides, land roads were largely non-existent at that time.

No need to say, the exchange of commercial goods is accompanied with the exchange of ideas, aesthetic patterns, intellectual “goods”, innovations. That is how the new way of life spread rapidly inside and outside the Mediterranean basin, reaching eastwards as far as the Indian subcontinent and beyond: the Indo-Mediterranean contacts date back to at least the third millennium BCE, or even earlier.

The exchange of commercial goods is accompanied with
the exchange of ideas, aesthetic patterns, innovations.

Early Mesopotamian writing tablet recording
the allocation of beer (3100-3000 BCE)

The conditions were already ripe for the next titanic step: writing. Even though the reasons for this great innovation were initially… bureaucratic (administrative record keeping, transfer of orders and messages), the invention and subsequent simplification of writing with the alphabet was indispensable as a condition for the systematic transfer of knowledge between generations and, of course, for the cultivation of literature and the arts – fields where the Hellenes excelled.

Although the ancient Greeks constitute a universal point of reference, one needs to turn away from every temptation of nationalist simplifications. A “threat from the East” was present also then: it was the Persians. At the same time, knowledge from the East was present there, too: any Hellene philosopher aspiring to become a sage would go there for his “PhD”! The Orient was the source of innumerable ideas, and artifacts, along with their know-how. However, everything imported and adopted, had to be adapted according to the local needs and tastes; and some went by the wayside…

Alexander

Aegean vs. Orient: Differences

One of the several historical paradoxa of this period e.g. concerns the differences between the Aegean and the Orient in their political structures. The decentralized Grecian city-states that flourished in the Iron Age, i.e. in classical times, had few Oriental equivalents: the Sumerian and Phoenician cities. On the contrary, the prevailing state entities in the East were centralized empires of both the Bronze and Iron Ages. Be that as it may, the mighty Achaemenid Empire was repeatedly defeated and humiliated by the “Amphictyony” of Hellenes – except the Thebans and some other so-called medísantes (μηδίσαντες) “Quislings”: i.e. all those who surrendered to the Persians-Medes and fought on their side.

● “Except the Thebans”: it is a reference to the subsequent and far more well-known “except the Lacedaemonians”, from the famous victorious inscription on the Battle of the Granicus river in 334 BCE: “Alexander, son of Philip, and the Hellenes except the Lacedaemonians”! In the previous year, the Spartans, spoiled during the “Median” or Graeco-Persian Wars, as they had always been in command, refused to participate in Alexander’s campaign, because there would not be… a king of Sparta in command! Constantine Cavafy poetically commented:

In the Year 200 B.C.

“Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians…”

We can very well imagine
how completely indifferent the Spartans would have been
to this inscription. “Except the Lacedaemonians” –
naturally. The Spartans
weren’t to be led and ordered around
like precious servants. Besides,
a pan-Hellenic expedition without
a Spartan king in command
was not to be taken very seriously.
Of course, then, “except the Lacedaemonians.”

That’s certainly one point of view. Quite understandable.

So, “except the Lacedaemonians” at Granicus,
then at Issus, then in the decisive battle
where the terrible army
the Persians mustered at Arbela was wiped out:
it set out for victory from Arbela, and was wiped out.



Constantine Cavafy,
by Panaiotes Daphiotis

And from this marvelous pan-Hellenic expedition,
triumphant, brilliant in every way,
celebrated on all sides, glorified
as no other has ever been glorified,
incomparable, we emerged:
the great new Hellenic world.

We the Alexandrians, the Antiochians,
the Seleucians, and the countless
other Greeks of Egypt and Syria,
and those in Media, and Persia, and all the rest:
with our far-flung supremacy,
our flexible policy of judicious integration,
and our Common Greek Language
which we carried as far as Bactria, as far as the Indians.

Talk about Lacedaemonians after that!…

(Adapted into English by Edmund Keeley / Philip Sherrard)

Alexander’s empire

● So much for the phrase “except the…”, that’s always been very “trendy” in Hellas. As for the “medísantes” (derived from the Medes, Media, mentioned by Cavafy), they have flooded the land, indeed! Among others, they include even Themistocles, the man who triumphed supreme in the battle of Salamis! His successors have so much ballooned that a list of their names is almost impossible. They are well-known and visible, nevertheless: they mostly crowd the corridors and salons of the ruling elite…

But why In the Year 200 B.C.? Why Cavafy alludes in his title to such a later date? We ignore the poet’s intentions… At any rate, that year the 2nd Macedonian War broke out ending three years later with Rome’s victory over Macedon. It was the beginning of the end because since then Greece fell under full Roman control.

It was not so much that the Hellenes did not want, but rather did not
need an imperial government, as a result of objective conditions…

“THE NECK OF A GREEK the yoke will not abide”, one could say. OK, but this was a result of objective conditions. It was not so much that the Hellenes did not want, but rather that they did not need an imperial government. What for them was an extraordinary situation requiring collective and comprehensive effort, for the Easterners was an everyday struggle with an opponent much more powerful than the mightiest empire: Nature itself…

Babylonian map (canals and irrigation systems) West of the Euphrates (1684-1647 BCE)

Expanding his presence in an environment of rather great contrasts, a land that would be barren without the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, with abundant waters but also with floods and cataclysms lurking, the Easterner realized the need for coordination of the efforts of all communities. Next to deserts, symbolizing the constantly present, absolute evil, these rivers were a blessing from heaven but had unpredictable behaviour: thus, they should be tamed. Major public works, especially for irrigation and drainage, were a prerequisite for human survival; commerce, as well, for the supply of the communities with absolutely necessary raw materials, but also luxury goods.

Well, these basic networks of irrigation, and also of state-run trade, necessitated centralized power that should inspire fear. Obviously, all those in power needed law-enforcement agencies: the army and clergy; they needed imposing, majestic palaces, monuments, temples. It’s what Karl Marx has called the “Asiatic mode of production”, and is a key to understand Oriental despotism. A by-product is the relative – or ostensible, as others say – stagnation, or even immobility, that has characterized these societies for millennia until now.

Irrigation and trade necessitated centralized power inspiring fear.
Law-enforcement agencies, the army and clergy, were necessary.
It was impossible for democracy to grow on Babylonian soil.

Babylon

Let us not forget, however, that these societies cultivated astronomy, geometry, mathematics – for the same reasons they invented writing; societies that created wonders, like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – though hanging from a thread: the infrastructure that had made them great was also their Achilles’ heel. You realize that with just a look at the ruins of Babylon conquered and pillaged by time.⁽³⁾ It was absolutely impossible for democracy to grow on Babylonian soil.

• ⁽³⁾ When this text was written, Babylon had not been conquered by the USA. Yet the conquerors were conquered in turn, as well. But the price was heavy: disregarding the consequences, the US forces built a military base on Babylonian ruins. Dr. John Curtis of the British Museum described how the archaeological site was in some parts leveled to create a landing area for helicopters and parking lots for heavy vehicles. The occupation forces, he wrote,

One of the dragons from the Ishtar gate

“caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity… American military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists… Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall.”

● It is well known that American soldiers, and other personnel from the “Coalition of the willing” (invaders of Iraq, e.g. Poles, also stationed in Babylon), looted many antiquities that found their way to private collections.

The Oriental despots, satraps and tyrants were “necessary evils”. And, because there is always a match between worldly and heavenly powers (the concept of monarchies held “by the Grace of God” is in fact quite ancient), equally almighty and omnipotent, terrible and frightful, have been the Oriental gods; especially since they’ve been left alone with no competition at all, after their antagonists had been “dealt with” by the clergy of the new monotheistic religions.⁽⁴⁾

• ⁽⁴⁾ I am still wondering: How is it possible for the transition from polytheism to monotheism to be regarded as progress when, in fact, it has been regression? The Judaization of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds (in the Orient and Occident respectively) through Christianization was a sine qua non precondition of obscurantism during the Dark Ages.

The Oriental despots, satraps and tyrants were “necessary evils”. Equally almighty, terrible and frightful were the Oriental gods. No comparison
with the Olympians, who were full of shortcomings: they were human.

Leda and the Swan (i.e. Zeus), by Correggio (1531–32), with children musicians on the left.

No comparison whatsoever with the Olympians, who were full of shortcomings, as they were human, made in the image of the mortals that had created them, the Hellenes, their way of life, their society – or, rather: societies, for Greece, its topography, generated decentralization. The land was most beautiful, indeed, but not a paradise on earth. Living standards could improve through expansion, conquest, but also colonization. Either way, each option contributed to an even greater decentralization.

Life, therefore, was not a “test for some happy afterlife” – an idea the common people of the “Asiatic mode of production” should necessarily entertain. The Greeks were shaped and inspired by Hellenic Nature. They philosophized and discussed public issues under her beneficial influence. She “dictated” the forms of their state and political organizations – regardless if they both fomented discord. Their model was the city-state, polis; democracy was their ideal; and freedom their highest virtue – regardless if they lived in a slave and “male” society. It seems contradictory… Moreover, their democracy was pure, direct; today’s so-called “democracy” is the so-called “representative”, where power is not exercised by the people anymore, but by their so-called “representatives”, contrary to the very definition of democracy. (See the additional Chronicle 4 on Democracy). More and more oxymora and paradoxa…

Living in this ambience, the Greeks have not only summarized, but humanized, as well, the ancient world. They have shown what measure, proportion, harmony is. They have turned knowledge and culture into every free citizen’s right, and not that of a privileged closed caste. They have also left their invaluable heritage systematized and documented for future generations. However, just like their gods, they have been full of shortcomings, born out of the same environment that has fostered their virtues, with individualism underlying all. They are called les enfants terribles de l’antiquité. Rather, of human history, I would say…

• >> Chronicle 3. A CHRONICLE OF THE HUMANS
• << Chronicle 1. UNIVERSAL MEDITERRANEAN

Next Chronicle 3. A CHRONICLE OF THE HUMANS ● Academic Scholasticism ● Ares Poulianós: Archanthropus and Homo Erectus ● Homo’s Cradle: North Aegean and Macedonia ● DNA Analyses: Minoans, Mycenaeans, Cretans and Hellenes ● Paleolithic Odyssey ● Aegean Stonehenge ● Balkan Writing

The Temple of Poseidon

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Chronicle 17. MINOAN CRETAN THALASSOCRACY

Chronicle 17. MINOAN CRETAN THALASSOCRACY

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 17. ΚΡΗΤΟΜΙΝΩΙΚΗ ΘΑΛΑΣΣΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΙΑ

● Minoan Society and Art ● Linear A-B, Phaestos Disc
● Tin Bronze ● Bull-Leaping (Taurocathapsia)

Michales Loukovikas
Swallows and lilies, fresco on Thera-Santorini (ca 1650 BCE, detail)

The palace of Minos at Knossos

THE MINOAN CIVILIZATION, the crème de la crème of the Aegean cultures in the Bronze Age, arose on the island of Crete, flourished from the 30th to the 15th centuries BCE, and then vanished. It came to light again at the outset of the 20th century CE, thanks to the British archaeologist Arthur Evans. The term Minoan refers to the legendary Minos. We presume, on no evidence, that it was not a name but a royal title. In the Odyssey, composed centuries after the demise of the Minoans, Homer calls the natives of the island Eteocretans (“true Cretans”); most probably, they were true descendants of the Minoans. In addition, there were several settlements in the Aegean and the Ionian Seas, as well as in Sicily and Canaan, known by the name Minoa. The root min– appears in some Aegean languages, toponyms, and in the name of an autochthonous people inhabiting the Aegean, the Minyans.

The Ship Procession or the Flotilla frieze at Acroteri, Thera (detail)

We assume (again, on no evidence) that the Cretans were not Indo-Europeans, but a Mediterranean people, possibly related to the Pelasgians and the Minyans – the pre-Hellenic dwellers of the Aegean. Crete remained free from invasions for many centuries, and managed to develop an independent and very distinct civilization, one of the most advanced in the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, together with that of Egypt. Linear A, the Minoan script, has not yet been deciphered – though it is similar to Linear B, the Mycenaean Hellenic script. It possibly represents an Aegean language, unrelated to Indo-European tongues. (On the Aegean, Crete, Minoans, Mycenaeans, sea voyages, etc. see Chronicle 3; on the Pelasgians, Minyans, Greeks see Chronicle 15, footnote 7, and Chronicle 20, The historicity of the Iliad).

Grace in the Aegean: the art of the Minoans (Eugene Hirschfeld)

Bronze Apollo with Lyre, Pompeii

“Crete was well placed in relation to sea trading routes”, observes Eugene Hirschfeld, writing on Grace in the Aegean: the art of the Minoans. “Thucydides wrote that Minos was the first to build a navy:

“‘The first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies… and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use’.”⁽¹⁾

• ⁽¹⁾ Piracy is most ancient; in all likelihood, it appeared together with navigation. The Tyrrhenians, Illyrians and Thracians were known as pirates in ancient times. The Aegean island of Lemnos, a haven for Thracian pirates, long resisted Hellenic influence. By the 1st century BCE, there were pirate states along the Anatolian coast, threatening the commerce of the Roman Empire.

“With their merchant fleet,” says Hirschfeld, “the Minoans came to dominate the seas, sailing for hundreds of miles in search of trade from Spain in the west to Syria in the east…⁽²⁾ It is possibly a measure of both the Minoans’ geographical isolation and the strength of their fleet that their coastal towns seem to have had few fortifications. Thus their period of ascendancy was called by Arthur Evans the Pax Minoica or ‘Minoan peace’ – a time when cities needed no walls.⁽³⁾ Like Pax Romana, of course, such a peace, if it existed, would have been the product of military strength rather than pacifism.”

Replica of the Uluburun shipwreck

• ⁽²⁾ “We should never under-estimate how ‘joined up’ the ancient world was”, Hirschfeld footnotes. “See for example the late Bronze Age shipwreck [at Uluburun], which was carrying a remarkable assortment of international goods from northern Europe, Africa and Mesopotamia”.

● The ship carried one of the most spectacular late Bronze Age assemblages to have emerged from the Mediterranean Sea dated to the late 14th century BCE. It was similar to Graeco-Roman vessels of a later time and was found in 1982 by a sponge diver in south-western Asia Minor.

• ⁽³⁾ Although Evans’ vision of a Pax Minoica has been criticized recently, it seems there was little armed conflict in the island itself until the following Mycenaean period. Archaeologists say the Minoans often show weapons in their art, but only in ritual contexts. Claims that they produced no weapons are erroneous; Minoan swords were the finest in all of the Aegean. Furthermore, no evidence exists for a Minoan army, or domination of peoples, outside Crete.

The Pleiades, by the Symbolist Elihu Vedder (1885)

● The Minoan Cretans used celestial navigation. Besides, they surely had knowledge of astronomy: the palaces and mountaintop sanctuaries have architectural features that align with the rising sun on the equinoxes, as well as the rising and setting of particular stars. The Cretans voyaged to Thera, Egypt, Iberia… Such trips, even that one to Santorini, would have taken more than a day’s sail; thus the sailors would have been left travelling by night across open water. Then the sailors would use the locations of particular stars, especially those of the constellation Ursa Major, for their orientation. Written records of such navigation using the stars go back to Homer’s Odyssey, where Calypso tells Odysseus to keep the Bear (Ursa Major) on his left, and at the same time observe the position of the Pleiades, the late-setting Boötes and the Orion, as he sailed eastward from her Ogygia isle traversing the Ocean. Celestial navigation was as important as shipbuilding: the development of nautical know-how and technology was necessary for the expansion of the Mediterranean civilizations.

● This knowledge characterized all major navigating cultures. Before the Minoans and Mycenaeans, well before the Phoenicians, who were last in line, such a seafaring people covering long distances with their ships had been the Carians. According to Thucydides, it was largely the Carians who settled the Cyclades (and other Aegean islands) prior to the Cretans. The Minoan expansion during the Middle Bronze Age into this region seems to have come at their expense: they were pushed eastwards towards this area in Asia Minor called later Caria, and many turned to piracy as a way of life. Then Minos established his navy to control the Aegean and put down piracy. Ironically, the Carians did not find peace not even on the Asia Minor coast. Hellenic colonies in Doris and Ionia pushed them further into the hinterland, and those who started as seafarers ended up as land people (see the map).

One after the other, all the unique features of this marvelous civilization seem to arise from only one: the Minoans’ thalassocracy, their “geographical isolation and the strength of their fleet”, as Eugene Hirschfeld points out and explains in detail immediately afterwards:

“As a maritime trading civilization, it is unsurprising that the Minoans left us some beautiful fresco images of their ships, wooden sailing vessels superior to any others on the Mediterranean. Perhaps because of this fleet and the protecting seas, military images are unusual in Minoan art. Until the attacks by the Mycenaeans in 1450 BC, there is no real evidence that the Minoans fought wars with any other culture. This is in stark contrast to their contemporaries: the city states of Mesopotamia were constantly at war, celebrating their exploits on such works as the Stele of the Vultures, and Egypt covered tomb walls with images of military pomp. The Minoans preferred leisurely scenes or sports. They loved to decorate walls with murals of dolphins, flowers and fish. Their art has a grace, movement and exuberance distinct from the art of Egypt and Sumer, and… their craftsmanship is second to none.”

The Dolphins mural at Knossos

A cultural paradox: a great power without militarism; a palace that was
not a royal residence, neither the king was glorified; a religion with no
grandeur; while women were equal to men and free – or so it seems…

Knossos Palace (reconstruction)

This civilization is really an astonishing paradox: a great power without a military aristocracy; a palace that was not a royal residence, and neither the anax (king) was glorified; a religion with no grandeur; while women were equal to men and free – or so it seems. Besides, free expression was a basic feature of Minoan art.

“The Minoans were skilled and sensitive architects, and the palaces count amongst their greatest works of art. The most famous is the palace at Knossos, often called the ‘Palace of Minos’. A multi-storey complex of corridors, rooms and staircases built around a central courtyard, the palace boasted impressive plumbing as well as lovely frescos, columns and gardens. Visitors found its ‘agglutinative’ architecture of over 1000 rooms so confusing that it is thought to have inspired the myth of the Minotaur’s Labyrinth. Knossos was an entire community, a centre for religion, pottery production and storage of trade goods, and a venue for festivals. For this reason the term ‘palace’ is not adequate for describing these Minoan complexes.”⁽⁴⁾

Sacred symbols: bull and labrys

• ⁽⁴⁾ The Palace of Knossos is five times the size of Buckingham Palace, with 3-4 floors, a sewerage system, a type of hot water heater, flush toilets and lots of red coloured columns. Millennia later, the Versailles had no toilets at all except for the royal couple! That’s why not only the palace but its gardens, as well, stank awfully…

● On Minoan architecture, true fresco, or how they spread in the Near East with itinerant Cretan craftsmen and artists, see Chronicle 27. An Archaeologist’s Waterloo.

“Sitting at the apex of a trading empire, the Cretan kings were extremely wealthy. It is therefore interesting that they appear to have ordered no sculpture, memorials, king-lists or other works to boast of their power and status… We find nothing like the mighty monuments to the god-kings of Egypt. We have no record either of a king Minos or of any other named monarch, male or female… Historian R. F. Willetts has suggested that the apparent modesty of the Minoan aristocracy can be explained by a difference in religious emphasis: the Minoans did not seek to associate the king with the immortal gods, like the Egyptians or Mesopotamians, but worshiped a particular vision of nature. From this standpoint, images glorifying the king were unnecessary.”

Minoan Snake Goddess

“Women seem to have enjoyed higher status in Minoan culture than was usual in the Bronze Age and… served as administrators and priestesses… Women’s relative equality may be because of the absence of military threat, giving far less impetus to the development of a male warrior discourse and thus a greater role and respect for women. It is tempting when looking at images of young women somersaulting over bulls with the men to conclude that women enjoyed considerable freedom… As for religion, Minoan art provides us with faience figurines of a ‘snake goddess’, and frescos… on which women priests outnumber men. No images of male deities have been found from the peak of Minoan civilization. The apparent prominence of women in Minoan religion has led to conjecture that the principal deity or deities of Minoan Crete may have been female, e.g. an earth or mother goddess.”

What conclusions can we draw?

“The absence of battles, kings, boastful inscriptions and historical
events in Minoan art is surprising for the time.” (Eugene Hirschfeld)

A Minoan beauty on Thera

“Minoan art does show a greater emphasis on spontaneity and invention, and is more secular and informal… less constrained by rigid conventions and geometry”, Eugene Hirschfeld remarks. “The absence of battles, kings, boastful inscriptions and historical events in its art is surprising for the time. We need to recognize such distinctions [but] without falling into the crude formulations sometimes used in the past, such as posing cultured Minoans against barbarous Mycenaeans.

“Arnold Hauser’s first explanation for the particular character of the Minoans’ art is the relatively modest role of religion in their society. Minoan shrines seem to have been small, even in the palaces, kept in people’s homes or built in out of the way places like hills and caves. There is nothing like the great cult of the dead seen in Egypt, or the grandiose works that went with it. There was therefore less impetus towards sternly imposed conventions. He also admires the urbanity of the cultural life that arose around the palaces:

“‘The freedom of Cretan art can be partly explained by the extraordinarily important role which city life and commerce played in the island’s economy… Probably city life was nowhere so highly developed as in Crete’.

“The ‘palace’ was the centre of Minoan life: of trade and agriculture, but also of art. It was perhaps this union of trade and culture in a context of long internal stability that gave Minoan art its urbane liveliness. Crete’s geopolitical situation may also have exerted an influence. With the natural protection of the sea and backed by their fleet, the Minoans had little need to fear invasion. In the absence of a warrior class, not only were women’s rights better than in most Bronze Age cultures, but art was less constrained by the military and religion.”

“It was perhaps this union of trade and culture in a context of long internal stability that gave Minoan art its urbane liveliness.” (Eugene Hirschfeld)

The mysterious Phaestos Disc (side B)

“It is very likely that writing arose in Minoan culture for the same reason it did in Sumer: to keep accounts”, adds Hirschfeld. “An early pictographic script… was replaced in around 1700 BC by one which represented sounds, i.e. a true alphabet, known as Linear A… It has still not been deciphered… If there is imaginative literature among these writings, we cannot read it. We have no Minoan poetry, no songs, no history, no scripture. It is a great culture, but a silent one… One of archaeology’s more mysterious objects is the Phaistos Disc… A fired clay disc, covered on both sides with spirals of stamped symbols… They belong to none of the writing systems mentioned above.”⁽⁵⁾

• ⁽⁵⁾ The Phaestos disc is unique because all these symbols seem to have been impressed into the clay using 45 stamps, reproducing a body of text with reusable characters. The German linguist and typographer Herbert Brekle maintains that the disc is an early document of movable type printing, because it meets the essential criteria of typography, while the American geographer, historian and anthropologist Jared Diamond described it as “by far the earliest printed document in the world”. Discovered by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in the palace of Phaestos in 1908, the disc (15 cm wide) captured the imagination of amateurs and professionals, and many attempts have been made to decipher it – but in vain…

“We have no Minoan poetry, no songs, no history, no scripture. If
there is imaginative literature among these writings, we cannot
read it. It is a great culture, but a silent one.” (Eugene Hirschfeld)

Theran antelopes

Minoan Trade and Influence

MINOAN CULTURE’S INFLUENCE outside Crete manifests itself in the presence of Minoan handicrafts on the mainland of Greece. After around 1700 BCE, the material culture of the Hellenes achieved a new, higher, level due to Minoan influence. The connections between Crete and Egypt were prominent. Minoan wares were found there, while several Egyptian items were imported, especially papyrus, as well as artistic ideas. The Egyptian hieroglyphs served as a model for the Minoan pictographic writing, from which the Linear A writing system developed.

Later (late 15th – early 14th century BCE), the Minoan palaces were occupied by the Mycenaeans, who adapted the Minoan Linear A script to the needs of their own language, a form of Greek, which was written in Linear B. The Mycenaeans generally tended to adapt rather than destroy Cretan culture, religion, and art, and they continued to operate the Minoan economic system and bureaucracy. After about a century of partial recovery, most Cretan palaces and cities went into decline in the 13th century BCE. When the Bronze Age came crashing down some time later, Crete did not feel the agony of death…

A Theran fisherman

The Minoans were traders, and their cultural contacts reached far beyond Crete – to copper-bearing Cyprus and Asia Minor (or Anatolia), Egypt and Canaan (the Levant), the Balkans and the Black Sea area, mainly Colchis (Georgia–Abkhazia), Mesopotamia, even faraway Afghanistan. Paintings in Thebes, Egypt, from the 15th century BCE, depict a number of Minoans bearing gifts. Inscriptions record these people as coming from the “islands in the midst of the sea”, and may refer to gift-bringing merchants or officials from Crete. Minoan techniques and styles in ceramics also provided models for Helladic Greece. Along with Thera, Cretan ‘colonies’ can be found on Cythera, an island close to the mainland that came under Minoan influence in the 3rd millennium and remained Minoan in culture for a thousand years, until the Mycenaean occupation in the 13th century, as well as on Melos, Cea, Aegina, Rhodes, Miletus, and elsewhere. The Cyclades and the Dodecanese were in the Cretan cultural orbit.

Certain locations in Crete emphasize it as an “outward looking” society. The palace of Kato Zakros e.g. is located within a bay, 100 metres from the modern shore-line. Its large number of workshops and the richness of its site materials indicate a centre for import and export. Such activities are elaborated in artistic representations of the sea with ships and sailors, e.g. the Flotilla fresco on Thera. Homer recorded a tradition that Crete had 90 cities. Multi-room constructions were found also in “poor” areas, revealing a social equality and even distribution of wealth derived through trade. There was a high degree of organization, with no trace of the military aristocracies that characterized the following cultures. While the Mycenaeans relied mainly on conquest to expand, the Minoan Cretans were a mercantile people engaged primarily in overseas trade. No doubt they should have been involved in the Bronze Age’s most crucial trade of tin: tin, alloyed with copper, obviously from Cyprus, was used in the manufacture of bronze. The Minoan decline seems to be correlated with the decline in the use of bronze tools in favour of iron ones.

Multi-room constructions were discovered even in the ‘poor’ areas, revealing
a social equality and even distribution of wealth derived through trade. There was a high degree of organization, with no trace of military aristocracies…

The entire Ship Procession or Flotilla frieze at Acroteri, Thera

Bronze and Orichalcum or Chalcopyrite (Brass)

A Thracian bronze deer, 9th-6th century BCE

● In the beginning, bronze was made from naturally or artificially mixed ores of copper and arsenic. That is why it was called arsenic bronze. Tin was used only later, becoming the sole type of major non-copper ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium. Tin bronze was superior in that the alloying process could be easily controlled and the alloy was stronger and easier to cast. Moreover, unlike arsenic, tin is not toxic. The earliest tin-alloy bronzes date to the late 4th millennium in Iran, Mesopotamia and China. Copper and tin ores are rarely found together (exceptions include one ancient site in Iran); thus, serious bronze work has always involved trade. The major source for tin in Europe was England’s deposits of ore in Cornwall, traded as far as the eastern Mediterranean. Though bronze is generally harder than wrought iron, the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age because iron was easier to find and to process into a poor grade of metal. Bronze was still used in the Iron Age. Roman officers e.g. had bronze swords while foot soldiers had iron. Archaeologists suspect that a serious disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. Mass population migrations c. 1200-1100 BCE reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean (and from Britain), limiting supplies and raising prices. As cultures advanced from wrought to machine forged iron, they learned how to make steel, which is stronger than bronze and holds a sharper edge longer. There are many bronze alloys but modern bronze is typically 88% copper and 12% tin. Historical bronzes are highly variable in composition, as most metalworkers used whatever scrap was on hand.

Andean birdman, tumbaga

● Orichalcum is mentioned in several ancient writings, most notably in the story of Atlantis as recounted in Plato’s Critias dialogue. It is first mentioned by Hesiod in the 7th century BCE, and in a Homeric hymn dedicated to Aphrodite. Plato says that the metal was considered second only to gold in value. But by his time, it was known only by name. Pliny the Elder points out that it has lost currency due to the mines being exhausted. The name derives from the Hellenic word ὀρείχαλκος (from ὄρος, “mountain” and χαλκός, “copper”). Plato’s orichalcum has been held to be either a gold-copper alloy, or a metal no longer known, or mythic like Atlantis. The Romans transliterated “orichalcum” as “aurichalcum”, meaning “gold copper”. The Andean alloy tumbaga is something similar, being a gold-copper alloy. In Virgil’s Aeneid, a gold-silver alloy is mentioned. In later years, orichalcum was used to describe the sulfide mineral chalcopyrite or brass, that is, a copper-iron or copper-zinc alloy. The colour of brass is generally golden-yellow, while that of bronze is brown-red.⁽⁶⁾

• ⁽⁶⁾ Once I had the naïve impression – based on a mechanistic perception of the succession of historical ages (where what comes next is “deterministically superior” to what has preceded it) – that the Iron Age was superior in every aspect to the Bronze Age. Generally this is true. But there are some anomalies, some logical paradoxes, especially in the beginning of the new age, since you have to accept that the “iron” Dorians were more civilized than the “bronze” Achaeans.

Brass French horn

● A similar sham, by the way, is the idea of the “superiority” of monotheism versus polytheism, while in fact it is a colossal setback – and the Christian obscurantism of the Dark Ages proves it. When everyone claims the exclusivity or monopoly on truth, when polytheistic tolerance is lost, then the result is… Jerusalem as the capital not of Israel but of hatred among monotheists!

● Iron weapons, made out of necessity, were “poor weapons”, but also the “weapons of the poor”. Thus the aristocratic monopoly on the conduct of war ceased. One could perhaps argue that “war was democratized”. Even so, is the right to kill a “democratic” right?(!)

Where did the Minoans find tin, the necessary component to produce
bronze? No doubt, Minoan ships should have transported British tin…

Theseus with Ariadne and the Minotaur,
mosaic at Paphos: a Cretan theme in Cyprus.

The Cassiterides

CYPRUS WAS THE MEDITARRANEAN “copper island”; the word copper comes from the name of the island: from the Latin phrase Cyprium (aes), “Cyprian (metal)”. A possible etymological origin of the name Cyprus is the Sumerian words for copper or bronze (zubar / kubar), due to the massive deposits of copper ore found in the island. But where did the Minoans find tin – the necessary component – to produce bronze? Tin was very rare in the eastern Mediterranean. The only known source of cassiterite in the area was Kestel-Göltepe on the Taurus Mountains of south-central Anatolia. It supplied tin from the late 4th millennium to the mid-19th century BCE, when the ores became uneconomical or ran out. There were three other sources of tin available to the Minoan traders: the distant northeastern Afghanistan, central Europe (Bohemia), and the Occident, with vast amounts of tin in places such as Iberia, Brittany, in northwestern France, and especially Cornwall, in southwestern Britain. For the seafaring Cretans, the West was the destination they probably preferred best.⁽⁷⁾ When the Taurus mines shut down, western tin became more important and the Minoans would have completely monopolized the supply of tin into the Eastern Mediterranean with their navy and shipping. Objects made by Minoans suggest there was an extensive network with mainland Greece, Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and westwards as far as Iberia, and also even further, that is, Bohemia, Brittany and, of course, Cornwall. Trade in nearby lands was direct, while in distant lands it could also be indirect through middlemen. Undoubtedly, Minoan ships should have transported British tin. If they also dropped anchor at British harbours it’s another story.

• ⁽⁷⁾ Not that the Minoans disregarded tin coming from the Orient: a tablet from the Mari archives mentions a Cretan who purchased tin at Ugarit from agents of the Mari palace in Mesopotamia. This tin came in part from Afghanistan, where Minoan items have been found. Others, however, insist that the said tablet refers, on the contrary, to the purchase of Cretan tin by Mari (500 kg, in 1670 BCE). Mesopotamia, they say, imported mainly Cretan tin and Cypriot copper to make bronze. Central European tin was carried through the Amber Route leading from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea.

The blue monkeys fresco on Thera

The Cretans derived their surplus from trade, unlike Babylonia and Egypt that principally relied on agriculture. They were the unrivalled long-distance traders, masters of the sea routes, having developed the most advanced navy that had ever been seen. They traded not only their own manufactured goods, “Made in Crete”, such as ceramics and metalwork, but acted as intermediaries, as well, trading raw materials and finished products throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. Their most valuable re-exports were pottery, copper, tin, gold, or silver. They were on the move not only in the Orient but also in the Occident, founding emporia all around. Their most privileged trade contacts in the East were surely those with the Egyptians, while their most significant Western partners should have been the Iberians, as the peninsula was rich in metals, especially silver, but also tin. Trade in tin was very lucrative in the Bronze Age, because, as we have seen, it is an essential component of true bronze, and comparatively rare: only gold and silver are rarer. Apart from the cassiterite deposits in Iberia, the locals obviously knew the route to the Cassiterides…⁽⁸⁾

• ⁽⁸⁾ The Cassiterides, that is, the Tin Islands (from the Greek word for tin: cassíteros), were thought to be situated somewhere near the west coasts of Europe. Ancient writers (Strabo, Poseidonius, Diodorus Siculus, etc.) described them as islets off northwest Iberia. Dionysios Periegetes (i.e. the Voyager) mentioned them in connection with the mythical Hesperides. Stesichorus and Strabo wrote that the Hesperides were by legendary Tartessos (where we shall voyage in due time). But if information of those ancient writers is ignored, it is traditionally assumed that these isles refer to the British Isles as a whole, because of the significant tin deposits in Cornwall; these deposits have become very limited due to their over-exploitation for millennia. (About the Cassiterides see especially Chronicle 26, Early Political Groups).

The metals were just the opening move of a far broader economical and cultural exchange. A lot of Iberians e.g. are nowadays intrigued by the fact that so long ago the Minoans were practicing their own version of “bullfight”. In his bilingual (in Portuguese and English) book, Fado – Lyrical Origins and Poetic Motivation, Mascarenhas Barreto refers to the Neolithic hunting rituals as a possible origin of the bull-leaping “pegas” during Portuguese bullfights, or even other similar daring games with bulls, and wonders

Cretan gold ring: four women with long robes
and bare breasts in a “cult scene” (ca 1500 BCE)

“whether the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula learnt this from the Cretans of the 3rd millennium BC, or if they themselves may have been the teachers, since the bulls were taken from their natural habitat in the peninsula to the island of Crete” (see, as well, Chronicle 5. Iberia’s Odyssey, Creto-Iberian ties).

Nevertheless, when one speaks of such extensive exchanges taking place in the 3rd millennium BCE, with customs adopted and bulls transported so far away, is it really so important to know who imitated whom?

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Ταυροκαθάψια (bull-leaping) depicted on a Knossos fresco (15th century BCE)