Legend has it that King Minos of Crete was the son of Zeus, the king of gods,
and Europa, the beautiful daughter of the King of Tyre. On Crete, King Minos built
a magnificent palace, with a labyrinth beneath in which lived a ferocious monster,
the Minotaur, part bull and part man. Each year the King of Athens sent a tribute
to King Minos of seven young men and seven young women, who were devoured by the
Minotaur. That is, until Theseus arrived as another potential victim, fell in
love with Minos' daughter Ariadne, who thoughtfully provided him with a ball of
thread to spin out as he went into the labyrinth. There, he slew the Minotaur,
then made his way out following the thread and into the arms of Ariadne.
The legend, it turns out, has more than a kernel of truth. In 1900 Arthur Evans,
an English scholar and Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, found the palace
of King Minos at Knossos in a wild but beautiful valley on Crete. It was quite
a labyrinth, having at least 700, and maybe 1200, rooms at one time. And within
were colourful friezes showing young acrobats somersaulting up over the horns
of a bull, landing momentarily on its back before springing over the tail into
the arms of a colleague. This sacred 'bull dancing' was watched by a great crowd.
The women had gold filigree
twined through their piled-up hair, they wore bracelets and necklaces (as did
the men) and their bosoms were bare. In a famous remark, an early French visitor
to the excavation exclaimed, "Why, they are Parisiennes!"
Certainly, Minoan society was prosperous, lively and almost cosmopolitan, for
the people lived as sea traders around the eastern end of the Mediterranean world.
Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey (with Troy), mainland Greece
and perhaps Sicily, were all within range of their ships. Minoan Crete exported
fine wines and olive oil in beautiful storage jars, brought back Egyptian luxuries,
Lebanese cedarwood, copper from mines in Cyprus to make bronze, and gold, probably
from Egypt and Turkey, to make jewellery. Goldsmiths and other craftsmen from
the mainland may also have migrated there. The Minoan civilisation began as early
as 3000 BC and lasted until about 1150 BC, but was in its prime from about 2000
to 1450 BC, when the palace at Knossos was devastated, probably by an earthquake.
Besides Knossos, other great palaces were built at Mallia, Phaistos and Zakro,
further proof of what Marjorie Caygill of the British Museum calls a "spectacular
Bronze Age civilisation".
The gold jewellery made by the Minoans was, from the start, a reflection of rural
Crete. Jewellery from early Minoan tombs before 2400 BC depicts daisies, lilies,
roses and sprays of olives. The Madonna lily, one of the oldest cultivated flowers,
was adopted as the royal flower on the island. A later jewellery collection, now
in the British Museum and
known as the Aigina treasure dated from 1700-1500 BC, keeps up the theme. A gold
pendant, called the 'Master of Animals', shows a Cretan god standing in a field
of lotus flowers, each hand holding a goose by the neck. Two earrings from the
same collection are of double-headed snakes which enclose facing pairs of greyhounds,
with little owls hanging in chains from the edges. The British Museum also has
a gold signet ring engraved with a scene of two wild goats mating. Another fine
gold pendant, in the Archaeological
Museum in Heraklion on Crete, represents two hornets with wings raised.
This jewellery, created when the Minoan civilisation was at its peak, coincides
with the triumph of Egyptian gold work that gave us the treasures of King Tutankhamun.
The Minoans had close trading links with Egypt. Sir Arthur Evans (as he became)
believed that some foreign visitors shown in Egyptian tomb paintings of around
1450 BC (shortly before Tutankhamun) had the bearing and looks of Minoans, with
dark curled hair, thin waists (a feature of all Minoans) and typical short kilts.
The Minoans presented their Egyptian hosts with pottery: jars and vases of exceptional
delicacy, painted with rare skill. The sophistication of Minoan pottery complements
their craftsmanship in gold. It was a society that appreciated talent, in art
as much as bull dancing.
The advantage Crete enjoyed was that, strategically placed in the eastern Mediterranean,
it was in contact with many other peoples, and so drew on ideas and techniques
not just from Egypt, but from Anatolia (Turkey), Mesopotamia (Sumer
and the later civilisations of Assyria and Babylon) and Greece itself. The Minoans,
for instance, are thought to have developed gold 'cable' chain, something even
the ingenious Sumerian goldsmiths did not come up with. And, in turn, Minoan craftsmanship
was to have great influence at Mycenæ on mainland Greece, which really picked
up the evolution of gold after the island economy slowed.
The Minoan culture survived one serious earthquake around 1700 BC which destroyed
many palaces, but never really recovered from the destruction of Knossos in 1450
BC by another earthquake.
Yet the talent was not quickly extinguished. In 1965 the tomb of a Minoan princess,
who died around 1400 BC, was found in a cave above the vineyards near Mount Juktas.
It proved one of the richest burial sites ever found on Crete. The princess was
surrounded by 140 gold ornaments. Gold ribbons with rosette patterns lay at her
waist and feet, five necklaces of gold and two small gold boxes lay on her breast.
She wore five signet rings of gold. The largest necklace was of twenty papyrus
flowers strung together. As John Sakellarakis, then Assistant Curator of the Archaeology
Museum in Heraklion where the treasure now rests, observed, "The jewellery
is as fashionable today as it must have been in 1400 BC". That is a fitting
legacy for one of the liveliest of ancient Mediterranean civilisations.
See also: library/history
and library/jewellery.