What happened to Minoan civilization?

From approximately 2000 to 1500 BC, the Minoan civilization flourished on Crete and nearby islands, building palaces decorated with frescoes, engaging in athletic activities such as bull-jumping, and creating a script that even experts could not decipher. One of the most important cities they built was Knossos on the north coast of Crete, which included a palace the size of two soccer fields.

Around 1500 BC, their written script fell into disuse and the Minoan palaces showed evidence of decline and destruction. So how did this civilization end?

Scholars have proposed a variety of explanations, including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, climate change, disruption of trade routes, and conflict with the Mycenaeans, a group from mainland Greece. But this civilization may not have ended so dramatically, experts told Live Science.

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What was the Minoan civilization?

The Minoan civilization takes its name from Sir Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist who excavated the ruins of Knossos in the early 20th century. Evans named this civilization after King Minos, who, according to ancient legend, ruled the island of Crete and built a labyrinth where he kept the Minotaur. The Minoans flourished during the Bronze Age (3300-1200 BC) and are known for their palaces decorated with dolphins and other marine motifs.

To understand what happened to the Minoans, scholars need to define exactly what Minoan civilization was and determine how it differed from the Mycenaean civilization that flourished on Crete from 1500 BC. The Mycenaeans were based on mainland Greece and boasted an elite warrior society that inspired the Homeric epics and a religion with gods similar to the later Olympic gods. The Mycenaeans are sometimes considered to be early Greeks.

”[What] Do you mean Minoan or Mycenaean civilization, and what does “the end” mean? ” said Guy Middleton, a visiting researcher at Newcastle University who specializes in the archeology of Late Bronze Age Greece, the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean.

“Archaeologists have discovered that the Minoans [Mycenaean] “It’s a set of material cultures, archaeological cultures, not ethnicities or ethnic groups,” Middleton told Live Science via email. “Anyone could adopt a certain material culture and look like a Minoan or a Mycenaean.”

For example, the lavish burial of a high-ranking warrior at the archaeological site of Pylos on the Greek mainland dates from around 1500 BC, where remains of Minoan design have been found. However, the warrior was buried in mainland Greece, which is considered the birthplace of the Mycenaean people. “Was he a Mycenaean or a Minoan? These are modern distinctions. No one knows what he thought of himself,” Middleton said.

era of change

One thing that has changed since 1500 BC is language. The Minoans used two undeciphered scripts known as Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs, while the Mycenaeans used a Greek code called Linear B, said Philippe Betancourt, professor emeritus of prehistoric Aegean art history and archeology at Temple University in Philadelphia.

“If the gradual disappearance of the Minoan language is used as a cultural symbol, it means that the Minoan language was gradually lost after invasions by Greek-speaking peoples gradually changed the face of the culture,” Betancourt told Live Science via email. This language change “did not affect the entire island at the same time, but it occurred around the middle of the second millennium.” [B.C.]” Betancourt said.

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Middleton believes a Greek-speaking Mycenaean takeover is plausible, but he also suggested other possibilities. Cultural change “can also be seen as an internal change in Crete” [development] “This is because not all Cretans are the same. Just as the Mycenaeans adopted elements of Minoan culture into their culture for their own reasons, the Minoans may also have adopted elements of mainland culture,” he said.

But Nanno Marinatos, professor emeritus of classics and Mediterranean studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said there was no invasion. “The Minoans had all the technology to evade threats,” she told Live Science via email, noting that they had a navy that could deter any invaders.

Marinatos believes major climate changes may have contributed to the decline of the Minoans. Around 1500 BC, the eruption of Thera, a volcano on the Aegean island 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Crete, may have caused great damage to the Minoans by destroying ships and disrupting trade networks. This catastrophe may have played an important role in the decline of their civilization.

Has Minoan civilization ended?

Another possibility is that Minoan civilization never had a formal end.

“The simple answer is that, like most ancient complex societies, it only evolved into a society with a later modern definition,” Betancourt said. “Genetic research has shown that the Minoan genes are still present. Their descendants still live in places like Crete.”

Middleton agreed that “there is no sudden end to Minoan Crete, just a series of changes over time.” He pointed out that Minoan gods continued to be worshiped for centuries after 1500 BC.

“The way we divide history geographically and chronologically makes us, in a sense, think in terms of ‘ends’,” Middleton says. “But what we actually have is continuous and normal interaction and change.”