Minoan fresco is so unique. They were truly a civilization unto themselves. I wonder how much they had in common with the rest of "Old Europe" (pre-Indo European farmers)
They are magnificent! I'd guess their civilization was influenced by the Ancient Near East as well as Old Europe. Hybrid creatures, women flanked by big cats, priestly figures holding serpents, all Minoan iconography with corrolaries in Egypy and the Levant. How I wish we had their myths, their histories.
There are some claims of deciphering some parts of the Linear A Minoan documents, which are not corroborated yet by other researchers, but which are nonetheless more plausible than earlier claims of deciphering Linear A, which were definitely wrong.
If this partial decipherment were right, the language of Linear A would be Hurrian, i.e. the language of a state that was important around 4 thousand years ago and which was located in the territory of present Syria.
The Hurrians from Syria also used writing, but there they had adapted a variant of the cuneiform writing. Some Hurrian texts have also been found written with the Semitic alphabet used in Ugarit.
There exists no certain relationship between Hurrian and any language that survives today. In the antiquity there was a related language spoken in Urartu, on the territory of present Armenia. There are however a few similarities between Hurrian and some of the languages of the Caucasus area.
So if the claims about a decipherment of Linear A were true, that would imply that the Minoans have colonized Crete, and probably also Cyprus, by coming from the nearby territory where today is Syria.
The museum of prehistoric Thera is also worth a visit if you make it there! It is fairly small but contains some incredibly well-preserved artifacts. The frescoes are stunning.
I found Fira (nearby "large" town on Santorini, very close to the sites) miserably crowded, but seeing Thera was very cool. This is all about 1500 years older than Pompeii, so a very different experience IMO.
A friend and I stayed on Santorini and our rental had this framed print of a guy holding some fish. We were surprised and delighted when we saw the original in the Thera museum, a life-sized fresco perfectly preserved. Akrotiri is an amazing thing to see.
> The weirdest thing about this island is that everything is built on a caldera rim, much higher than sea level. Extremely unusual for an island.
Most Greek islands have their Chora, the capital village, on a high point of the island. This was for defense reasons against pirates and other potential attackers.
The famous villages on the rim (like Oia) were the houses of Greek sea captains. The donkeys still there today would have been hired then to carry their wares and treasures up the staircases from the ports when they returned home from sea.
There is an older Chora with a street maze also, but more in the middle of the island, in a much more defensible position.
From what I've understood [0], Atlantis was never meant to be a myth, it's only a fictional alternative version of Athen that Plato conjured up as a political allegory. It's like Batman's Gotham City, it only serves to evoke New York / Chicago.
Though to be fair the concept of a powerful city lost to time is something that resonates a lot, and there's multiple similar myth like the isle of Ys, the lost continent of Lemuria, or in the arabic folklore 'Iram of the pillar', often called 'Atlantis of the sand'.
What Plato describes perfectly fits a volcanic island, including the central pillar of rock that some volcanoes have as a volcanic plug, and the ring of water inside the caldera.
And the way Atlantis supposedly ended also fits what happens on volcanic islands.
Indoor plumbing is very ancient. Many ancient civilizations had it, although generally only the rich, temples, or government had it. The Indus Valley and ancient Egypt had it around 4,500 years ago (c. 2500 BCE). Minoan Crete had it around 3,700 years ago (c. 1700 BCE).
What Plato described was an invention he created for a philosophical parable, it wasn't intended as history and treating it as such would be akin treating Batman comics as history. The imagined and fictional island was also beyond the Pillars of Heracles which means it was in the Atlantic, not in the Mediterranean.
There is a truly unbelievable beauty and rich history hidden underneath the touristy views of Santorini cluttering your social media feeds every summer.
What a coincidence that I visited the Akrotiri ruins only a few weeks ago. It was truly remarkable. Unlike Pompeii, the people of ancient Thera appear to have been familiar enough with volcanoes to know to evacuate well ahead of the eruption. No remains of valuables, pets, or humans have been discovered at the site. Still, much about the life and culture of these people is able to be learned from their architecture, visual culture, and more. The remains of Linear A tablets and frescos have strongly associated it with Minoan civilization (though the guide we had at the site was careful to not to simply call the people “Minoans”).
The had no walls, they had no currency. Still they managed to maintain trade networks that can be traced to Afghanistan. The Aegean sea in 1600 bc had thousands of trade ships each day a lot more than there are now. They also did not have compasses so ships would mostly hop from island to island and Minoan islands such as this provided safety to the main island of Crete probably thats why there were no walls. There is also this other issue which avoids to be mentioned which was a common issue of east mediterranean sea peoples at the time.
The eruption was coming and they knew they were not safe, the island was evacuated. Some years after smaller indications of settlement reappeared.
But the fleets were lost and with them their power, they were not destroyed immediately by tbe eruption bit within a couple of centuries most Minoan palaces were destroyed some by revolutions. In one of them the people shut most windows of the storage basements except two, and ignited the oil creating a furnace that melted the rock walls.
A power vacuum existed in the eastern mediterranean later to be exploited by Muceneans and then destroyed by the Sea Peoples.
Thats is what was lost, trade networks collapsed, for centuries areas forgot writing, they all forgot dome buildimg which requires at least an intuitive understanding of Mathematics. There is was thee Phestos disk created with what seems like printed symbols. Other parts of the trade networks forgot the wheel, now useless since there were no roads. Large percentage of east mediterranean populations died. In 800bc approx writing is reused, cities have moved mostly to higher ground and some of what happened was known as oral traditions and legends.
That centuries gap in technology and social structure probably is an exponential effect. In broad analogies AI could have been invented in 1400AD, and by now all be virtual.
In another note I assisted the team that did the computational recreation of Thera frescoes which are on display, and the dedication of the Greek Archeological team was also legendary onits own right
This is absolutely an amazing article. There was one thing in particular that stood out to me and was a bit shocking though. Look how much greener the island was in 2000 than it is today. Unreal and sad how much the changes caused by humans on the climate impact the health and vitality of our planet.
Been here two times. It's an amazing site, and the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Fira was incredible. The standout for me was the frescoes from the houses — they are breathtaking. The details on the fishermen are stunning.
And there is a gold ibex: "The figurine was discovered in 1999 CE in mint condition having been originally placed inside a wooden box within a clay chest. It is hollow and was made using the lost-wax technique. The legs, neck and tail were soldered on and finishing touches were added using a small hammer, indentations from which remain visible." It's something I think about weekly.
Worth going to Santorini just for the site and the museum.
p.s only roughly 5% of the site has been excavated, so lots more to learn
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 37.3 ms ] threadIf this partial decipherment were right, the language of Linear A would be Hurrian, i.e. the language of a state that was important around 4 thousand years ago and which was located in the territory of present Syria.
The Hurrians from Syria also used writing, but there they had adapted a variant of the cuneiform writing. Some Hurrian texts have also been found written with the Semitic alphabet used in Ugarit.
There exists no certain relationship between Hurrian and any language that survives today. In the antiquity there was a related language spoken in Urartu, on the territory of present Armenia. There are however a few similarities between Hurrian and some of the languages of the Caucasus area.
So if the claims about a decipherment of Linear A were true, that would imply that the Minoans have colonized Crete, and probably also Cyprus, by coming from the nearby territory where today is Syria.
I found Fira (nearby "large" town on Santorini, very close to the sites) miserably crowded, but seeing Thera was very cool. This is all about 1500 years older than Pompeii, so a very different experience IMO.
The real historic sites can be seen via
The weirdest thing about this island is that everything is built on a caldera rim, much higher than sea level. Extremely unusual for an island.https://ashishb.net/travel/greece/santorini/
Most Greek islands have their Chora, the capital village, on a high point of the island. This was for defense reasons against pirates and other potential attackers.
There is an older Chora with a street maze also, but more in the middle of the island, in a much more defensible position.
Though to be fair the concept of a powerful city lost to time is something that resonates a lot, and there's multiple similar myth like the isle of Ys, the lost continent of Lemuria, or in the arabic folklore 'Iram of the pillar', often called 'Atlantis of the sand'.
[0] There was an episode on it in the excellent podcast 'In Our Time' by the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001c6t3)
And the way Atlantis supposedly ended also fits what happens on volcanic islands.
As Wikipedia says:
> Akrotiri (Greek: Ακρωτήρι, pronounced Greek: [akroˈtiri]) means "cape, promontory". As a result, many different seaside places bear this name.
The eruption was coming and they knew they were not safe, the island was evacuated. Some years after smaller indications of settlement reappeared.
But the fleets were lost and with them their power, they were not destroyed immediately by tbe eruption bit within a couple of centuries most Minoan palaces were destroyed some by revolutions. In one of them the people shut most windows of the storage basements except two, and ignited the oil creating a furnace that melted the rock walls.
A power vacuum existed in the eastern mediterranean later to be exploited by Muceneans and then destroyed by the Sea Peoples.
Thats is what was lost, trade networks collapsed, for centuries areas forgot writing, they all forgot dome buildimg which requires at least an intuitive understanding of Mathematics. There is was thee Phestos disk created with what seems like printed symbols. Other parts of the trade networks forgot the wheel, now useless since there were no roads. Large percentage of east mediterranean populations died. In 800bc approx writing is reused, cities have moved mostly to higher ground and some of what happened was known as oral traditions and legends.
That centuries gap in technology and social structure probably is an exponential effect. In broad analogies AI could have been invented in 1400AD, and by now all be virtual.
In another note I assisted the team that did the computational recreation of Thera frescoes which are on display, and the dedication of the Greek Archeological team was also legendary onits own right
And there is a gold ibex: "The figurine was discovered in 1999 CE in mint condition having been originally placed inside a wooden box within a clay chest. It is hollow and was made using the lost-wax technique. The legs, neck and tail were soldered on and finishing touches were added using a small hammer, indentations from which remain visible." It's something I think about weekly.
Worth going to Santorini just for the site and the museum.
p.s only roughly 5% of the site has been excavated, so lots more to learn