Minoan couple

Couple from the MINOAN CIVILIZATION (centred on the island of Crete during the BRONZE AGE, 3100-1100 BC), often regarded as Europe’s oldest civilization. My illustration represents a couple from the Late Minoan period, at some point between the volcanic eruption of Thera (Santorini) in 1600 BC, and the Mycenaean Greek conquest of Crete.

Minoan men wore a short kilt and went bare-chested (contrary to the later Greek tradition of wearing a tunic and bare legs), and the women wore dresses that left the breasts exposed, extravagant long skirts and elaborate hairstyles. Both sexes wore jewellery. Just like ancient Egyptian and Classical Greek art, Minoan art depicted men extremely tanned, and women extremely pale (white make-up may have been used)

The Minoans developed a writing system (Linear A) that is still undeciphered, and because of that, we don’t know what language they spoke. But all the evidence suggests that the Minoans were Pre-Greek, so, they probably spoke the same Pre-Indo-European language as their Neolithic ancestors, before Greek-speakers from mainland Greece (or what’s the same, the Mycenaean Civilization), presumably conquered Crete and stablished an ethnically Greek elite that assimilated the local culture. The term “Minoan Civilization” is modern, coined by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in the early 20th century in reference to Minos, the mythical king of Crete. We don’t know what the Minoans called themselves.

The area of cultural influence of Minoan Crete extended beyond the island itself. The Island of Thera / Santorini was originally inhabited by the Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age Cycladic culture, but by the time of the volcanic eruption that destroyed the island, there was strong cultural and artistic continuity between Cretan palaces like Knossos and the settlement of Akrotiri in Santorini. Similarly to what happened in Pompeii, the volcanic eruption preserved the frescoes of Santorini much better than the Cretan ones, of which only some original small fragments survived scattered on the ground and nowadays are almost entirely reconstructed (and Arthur Evans’ reconstructions are quite controversial).