Transcript Chapter Sixteen, Lecture Two

Chapter Sixteen, Lecture Two
Crete
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• Crete between Greek and trade routes to
the east, Egypt, and the west
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• First people from Anatolia (7000 B.C.)
– First script pictorial
– Second: Linear A
– Later, the Mycenaeans adapted Linear A for
use in their own language. This script called
Linear B
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• Minoan power ends in 1450
• Cnossos rebuilt but now occupied by
Mycenaeans
• Second destruction: 1400 B.C.
• Third and final: 1200 B.C.
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• What can we know about the Minoans?
• Ancient Greeks wanted to know too and
used their myths as guide to history
– Thucydides
• Arthur Evans (1899)
– Uncovered Minoan material culture at
Cnossos
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• Minoans were vigorous, pleasure-loving,
seafaring, with a taste for vibrant,
naturalistic art
• Palaces not fortified
– A thalassocracy?
• Relationship with Athens perhaps a
historical truth
– Theseus and the Minotaur
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• Minoan Religion
– Worshipped a Great Mother goddess
– The “Snake Goddess”
– Ariadnê (“the very holy one”)
– Ariadnê Aphrodite
– Bull as the symbol of male fertility and Zeus?
• Bull jumping as human sacrifice to the god?
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• Athenian youths given to the Minotaur
perhaps an image of child-sacrifice
• Double axe
– Used to sacrifice the bull?
– Labys < Labyrinth “house of the double axe”?
• Pasiphaë and the bull a reflection of
sacrifice of young women to the god?
– modified to a sexual surrender
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• Minoan myth preserved by the Greeks
who emphasized the lurid and licentious
about the Cretans
– Pasiphaë
– Phaedra
– Megara
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• The story of Theseus appears to be a
folktale that resembles a male’s initiation
into adulthood
– In Athens, young men (18–20 ) who were
ephebes alluded to the model of Theseus in
their oath
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
Theseus
Journey to a far land
Male Initiation
Driven from native land
Victory over death and a Mock death and demons
monster
Amorous adventure
Sexual experience
Becomes king
Return to society with
full privileges
Archaeology and Cretan Myth
• Daedalus, the trickster, also underlines the
folktale quality of Minoan myth
• Prototype of the passionate artist
– Daedalic style of art
End