What Is the Typical Role of Men in Minoan Art

The Minoans

The Protopalatial period of Minoan civilisation (1900 to 1700 BCE) and the Neopalatial Menses (1700 to 1450 BCE) saw the institution of authoritative centers on Crete and the apex of Minoan civilization, respectively.

Learning Objectives

Summarize the key elements of the Minoan Propalatial and Neopalatial periods

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The Minoan culture was named after the mythical King Minos, because the first excavator, Sir Arthur Evans , mistook the many rooms and corridors of the authoritative palace of Knossos to be the labyrinth in which Minos kept the Minotaur.
• The Protopalatial period (1900–1700 BCE) saw the establishment of administrative centers on the island of Crete. The identifying features of Minoan civilization—extensive ocean merchandise and the building of communal civic centers—are first seen on the island during this time.
• The Protopalatial period concluded in 1700 BCE when the palaces of the island were destroyed and life on the island was significantly disrupted. The unknown cataclysmic effect is believed to be either an earthquake or an invasion.
• During the Neopalatial period (1700–1450 BCE), the Minoans recovered from the cataclysm and reached the height of their civilization, somewhen decision-making the major merchandise routes in the Mediterranean.

Key Terms

• labyrinth: A maze, especially underground or covered.
• minotaur: A monster with the head of a balderdash and the trunk of a man.
• Linear A: A syllabary used to write the every bit-yet-undeciphered Minoan language, and an credible predecessor to other scripts.

Discovery and Digging

The ancient sites on the island of Crete were starting time excavated in the early 1900s by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. Evans excavated the site of Knossos, where he discovered a palace. From this fact and related points, he decided to proper noun the civilization subsequently the mythical King Minos.

The many rooms of the palace at Knossos were and then oddly shaped and disordered to Evans that they reminded him of the labyrinth of the Minotaur. Co-ordinate to myth, Minos' wife had an illicit union with a white bull, which atomic number 82 to the birth of a one-half bull and half man, known as the Minotaur. King Minos had his court artist and inventor, Daedalus, build an inescapable labyrinth for the Minotaur to live in.

Archaeological evidence dates the arrival of the primeval inhabitants of Crete in approximately 6000 BCE. Over the next 4 thousand years the inhabitants developed a civilization based on agronomics, trade, and production. The Minoan's culture on Crete existed during the Bronze Age , from 3000 to 1100 BCE , although the Mycenaeans from Greece invaded the island in the mid-1400s BCE and occupied information technology for the concluding centuries before the Greek Nighttime Age.

The Minoans were known every bit corking seafarers. They traded extensively throughout the Mediterranean region.

Map of Minoan Crete: A map of Minoan Crete.

Protopalatial Period

The Protopalatial Period is considered the civilization's second stage of development, lasting from 1900 to 1700 BCE. During this time the major sites on the island were adult, including the deluxe sites of Knossos, Phaistos, and Kato Zakros, which were the first palaces or administrative centers built on Crete.

These borough centers announced to denote the emergence of a commonage community governing system, instead of organisation in which a king ruled over each town. During this period the Minoan trade network expanded into Egypt and the Nigh East; the starting time signs of writing, the nonetheless undeciphered language Linear A , appear. The period concluded with a cataclysmic result, perchance an earthquake or an invasion, which destroyed the palace centers.

Neopalatial Menstruum

The Neopalatial period occurred from 1700 to 1450 BCE, during which time the Minoans saw the height of their civilization. Following the destruction of the first palaces in approximately 1700 BCE, the Minoans rebuilt these centers into the palaces that were first excavated by Sir Arthur Evans.

During this period, Minoan trade increased and the Minoans were considered to rule the Mediterranean trading routes between Greece, Egypt, Anatolia , the About E, and possibly even Spain. The Minoans began to settle in colonies abroad from Crete, including on the islands of the Cyclades, Rhodes, and in Egypt.

Minoan Architecture

Minoan palace centers were divided into numerous zones for civic, storage, and production purposes; they also had a key, ceremonial courtyard.

Learning Objectives

Discuss the architectural design of Minoan palaces

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The palaces excavated on Crete functioned more every bit administrative centers with rooms for borough functions, storage, workshops, and shrines located around a cardinal, formalism courtyard.
• The palaces have no fortification walls, suggesting a lack of enemies and disharmonize, although the natural environment provide a loftier level of protection, and the multitude of rooms creates a continuous, protective façade .
• Minoan columns were uniquely shaped, constructed from woods, and painted. They are tapered at the lesser, larger at the top, and fitted with a bulbous, pillow-like capital .
• The circuitous at Phaistos bears many similarities with its analogue at Knossos, although it is smaller.
• Minoan builders rebuilt new complexes atop older ones in the backwash of damaging earthquakes.

Fundamental Terms

• pithoi: (Singular: pithos) Large storage jars for liquids—oil, vino, and water—and grains.
• labyrinth: A maze, particularly surreptitious or covered.
• fresco: A water-based painting practical to wet or dry plaster.
• capital: The topmost part of a column.

The most well known and excavated architectural buildings of the Minoans were the administrative palace centers.

When Sir Arthur Evans first excavated at Knossos, not only did he mistakenly believe he was looking at the legendary labyrinth of King Minos, he also thought he was excavating a palace. However, the pocket-size rooms and excavation of large pithoi , storage vessels , and archives led researchers to believe that these palaces were actually administrative centers. However, the name became ingrained, and these large, communal buildings across Crete are known equally palaces.

Although each one is unique, they share like features and functions. The largest and oldest palace centers are at Knossos, Malia, Phaistos, and Kato Zakro.

The Complex at Knossos

The complex at Knossos  provides an instance of the monumental architecture congenital by the Minoans. The most prominent feature on the plan is the palace'south large, primal courtyard. This courtyard may have been the location of large ritual events, including bull leaping, and a similar courtyard is found in every Minoan palace center.

Program of the palace at Knossos: An overview map of the palace at Knossos, Crete, Greece, circa 1700–1400 BCE.

Several small tripartite shrines surround the courtyard. The numerous corridors and rooms of the palace center create multiple areas for storage, meeting rooms, shrines, and workshops.

The absenteeism of a central room and living chambers suggest the absence of a king and, instead, the presence and rule of a potent, centralized government.

The palaces as well take multiple entrances that oftentimes take long paths to reach the central courtyard or a ready of rooms. There are no fortification walls, although the multitude of rooms creates a protective, continuous façade. While this provides some level of fortification, it also provides structural stability for earthquakes. Fifty-fifty without a wall, the rocky and mountainous landscape of Crete and its location as an isle creates a high level of natural protection.

Restored northward portico: The rocky and mountainous mural of Crete creates a high level of natural protection.

The palaces are organized non only into zones along a horizontal obviously, but also have multiple stories. 1000 staircases, decorated with columns and frescos , connect to the upper levels of the palaces, only some parts of which survive today.

Wells for lite and air provide ventilation and low-cal. The Minoans as well created careful drainage systems and wells for collecting and storing h2o, likewise equally sanitation.

Their architectural columns are uniquely constructed and easily identified as Minoan. They are constructed from woods, as opposed to stone, and are tapered at the bottom. They stood on stone bases and had large, bulbous tops, at present known every bit cushion capitals. The Minoans painted their columns brilliant red and the capitals were often painted blackness.

Restored interior stairwell: Palace at Knossos, Crete, Greece. Circa 1700–1400 BCE.

Phaistos

Phaistos was inhabited from about 4000 BCE. A deluxe complex, dating from the Middle Bronze Age , was destroyed by an earthquake during the Late Statuary Historic period. Knossos, along with other Minoan sites, was destroyed at that time. The palace was rebuilt toward the finish of the Late Bronze Age.

The beginning palace was built about 2000 BCE. This department is on a lower level than the westward courtyard and has a nice facade with a plastic outer shape, a cobbled courtyard, and a tower ledge with a ramp that leads up to a college level.

The old palace was destroyed iii times in a time period of almost three centuries. After the first and second disaster, reconstruction and repairs were fabricated, so there are three, identifiable structure phases. Around 1400 BCE, the invading Achaeans destroyed Phaistos, as well as Knossos. The palace appears to have been unused thereafter.

The Old Palace was built in the Protopalatial period. When the palace was destroyed by earthquakes, new structures were built atop the old. In ane of the iii hills of the area, remains from the Neolithic era and the Early Minoan period take been found.

Two additional palaces were built during the Middle and Late Minoan periods. The older one looks like the palace at Knossos, although the Phaistos circuitous is smaller. On its ruins (probably destroyed by an earthquake around 1600 BCE), the Late-Minoan builders constructed a larger palace had several rooms separated by columns.

Similar the complex at Knossos, the complex at Phaistos is arranged around a central courtyard and held grand staircases that led to areas believed to be a theater, ceremonial spaces , and official apartments. Materials such as gypsum and alabaster added to the luxurious appearance of the interior.

View of the complex at Phaistos from the southward: A view of the ruins of the complex at Phaistos.

Minoan Painting

Minoan painting is distinguished by its vivid colors and curvilinear shapes that bring a liveliness and vitality to scenes.

Learning Objectives

Differentiate betwixt Kamares ware and Marine-way vase painting, and draw Minoan wall paintings

Key Takeaways

Central Points

• The fresco known equally Balderdash Leaping, found in the palace of Knossos, is one of the seminal Minoan paintings. It depicts the Minoan civilisation 's fascination with the bull and the unique consequence of bull leaping—all painted in the distinctive Minoan style .
• The Minoan city of Akrotiri on the island of Thera was destroyed by a volcanic eruption that preserved the wall paintings in the boondocks's homes. I fresco, known as Flotilla, depicts a highly developed lodge.
• Kamares ware is pottery made from a fine clay. These vessels are painted with marine scenes and abstract flowers, shapes, and geometric lines .
• Marine-style vase painting depicts marine life and scenes with organic shapes that fill the unabridged surface of the pot, using a technique known as horror vacui . Dissimilar Kamares ware, Marine-style scenes are painted in nighttime colors on a lite surface.

Cardinal Terms

• horror vacui: Latin, meaning fright of empty space; this is besides the name for a style of painting when the entire surface of a infinite is filled with patterns and figures.
• fresco:In painting, the technique of applying water-based pigment to plaster.
• buon fresco:A more durable landscape painting technique in which alkaline resistant pigments, basis in water, are practical to plaster when it is still wet, as opposed to fresco-secco when the plaster has been allowed to dry out and is remoistened.

Wall Painting

The Minoans decorated their palace complexes and homes with fresco wall paintings. Buon fresco is a form of painting where the pigment is painted onto a wet limestone plaster. When the plaster dries the painting also dries, becoming an integral part of the wall.

In the Minoan variation, the stone walls are first covered with a mixture of mud and straw, then thinly coated with lime plaster, and lastly with layers of fine plaster. The Minoans had a distinct painting mode with shapes formed past curvilinear lines that add a feeling of liveliness to the paintings. The Minoan color palette is based in world tones of white, brown, red, and yellow. Black and vivid blue are too used. These colour combinations create bright and rich ornamentation.

Because the Minoan alphabet, known as Linear A , has yet to exist deciphered, scholars must rely on the civilisation'southward visual art to provide insights into Minoan life. The frescoes discovered in locations such equally Knossos and Akrotiri inform the states of the plant and animal life of the islands of Crete and Thera (Santorini), the common styles of habiliment, and the activities the people proficient. For example, men wore kilts and loincloths. Women wore curt-sleeve dresses with flounced skirts whose bodices were open to the navel, allowing their breasts to exist exposed.

Fresco depicting three women: This fresco from the complex at Knossos depicts a pop fashion for Minoan women.

Knossos

Fragments of frescoes constitute at Knossos provide us with glimpses into Minoan culture and rituals . A fresco constitute on an upper story of the palace has come up to be known equally Balderdash Leaping. The image depicts a balderdash in flying gallop with 1 person at his horns, another at his feet, and a third, whose pare colour is brown instead of white, inverted in a handstand leaping over the bull.

While the different pare color of the figures may differentiate male (night) and female (light) figures, the similarity of their wearable and body shapes (lean with few curves) propose that the figures may all be male. The figures participate in an activity known as balderdash-leaping.

The human figures are stylized with narrow waists, broad shoulders, long, slender, muscular legs, and cylindrical artillery. Dissimilar the twisted perspective seen in Egyptian or Ancient Near Eastern works of art, these figures are shown in full profile, an element the adds to the air of liveliness.

Bull Leaping: A fresco found on an upper story of the palace at Knossos, Crete, Hellenic republic. Circa 1450–1400 BCE.

Although the specifics of bull leaping remain a thing of fence, information technology is commonly interpreted as a ritualistic activity performed in connection with bull worship. In most cases, the leaper would literally take hold of a balderdash by his horns, which caused the balderdash to jerk his neck upwardly. This jerking motion gave the leaper the momentum necessary to perform somersaults and other acrobatic tricks or stunts.

Balderdash Leaping appears to divide these steps between two participants, with a third extending his artillery, possibly to catch the leaper.

Thera

The Minoans settled on other islands besides Crete, including the volcanic, Cycladic isle of Thera (present-day Santorini). The volcano on Thera erupted in mid-second millennium BCE and destroyed the Minoan urban center of Akrotiri. Akrotiri was entombed by pumice and ash and since its rediscovery has been referred to as the Minoan Pompeii. The frescoes on Akrotiri were preserved by the blanketing volcanic ash.

The wall paintings found on Thera provide pregnant information about Minoan life and civilization, depicting a highly developed guild. A fresco commonly chosen Flotilla or Akrotiri Ship Procession represents a culture adept at a diversity of seafaring occupations.

Differences in clothing styles could refer to different ranks and roles in gild. Deer, dolphins, and big felines signal to a sense of biodiversity among the islands of the Minoan civilization .

Flotilla or Akrotiri Ship Procession: This panoramic fresco depicts the Minoans equally a highly developed civilization.

In ane room is a wall painting known as the Landscape with Swallows, or equally the Spring Fresco. It depicts a whimsical, hilly landscape with lilies sprouting from the ground . Sparrows, painted in blue, white, and red, swoop around the landscape. The lilies sway gracefully and the hills create an undulating rhythm around the room. The fresco does not depict a naturalistic landscape, only instead depicts an essence of the land and nature, whose liveliness is enhanced through the colors and curvilinear lines.

Landscape with Sparrows, or Spring Fresco: Akrotiri, Thera, Greece. c. 1650 BCE.

Vase Painting

Minoan ceramics and vase painting are uniquely stylized and are similar in artistic mode to Minoan wall painting. As with Minoan frescoes, themes from nature and marine life are often depicted on their pottery. Similar earth-tone colors are used, including black, white, dark-brown, ruddy, and blue.

Kamares ware, a distinctive type of pottery painted in white, reddish, and blueish over a black backdrop, is created from a fine dirt. The paintings depict marine scenes, likewise equally abstruse floral shapes, and they often include abstract lines and shapes, including spirals and waves.

These stylized, floral shapes include lilies, palms, papyrus , and leaves that fill the unabridged surface of the pot with bold designs. The pottery is named for the location where it was kickoff establish in the tardily nineteenth century—a cave sanctuary at Kamares, on Mountain Ida. This style of pottery is constitute throughout the island of Crete likewise in a variety of locations on the Mediterranean.

Kamares ware vessel: This is a Kamares ware vessel with an abstract floral design. Minoan, circa 2100–1700 BCE.

The Marine style emerged during the late Minoan menses. As the proper noun suggests, the decorations on these vessels take their cue from the sea. The vessels are almost entirely covered with sea creatures such as dolphins, fish, and octopi, along with seaweed, rock, and sponges.

Unlike their Kamares ware predecessors, the lite and dark colour scheme is inverted: the figures are dark on a light background. Like the mural frescoes at Thera, these paintings demonstrate a groovy understanding and intimate cognition of the marine environment.

In the Marine-mode Octopus Vase from the city of Palaikastro, the octopus wraps around the jug, mimicking and accentuating its round shape. The octopus is painted in bully detail, from each of its singled-out stylized suckers to its bulbous head and the extension of its long tentacles. The surface of this vessel is covered by the main image; bits of seaweed fill the negative space .

This filling of the empty space with additional images or designs is another characteristic of Minoan Marine-manner pottery. The mode is known as horror vacui, which is Latin for fear of empty infinite. The same aesthetic is seen later, in Greek Geometric pottery.

Octopus vase: Octopus vase from Palaikastro, Crete, Greece. Circa 1500 BCE.

Minoan Sculpture

Minoan sculpture consists of figurines that reverberate the civilisation's artistic style and important aspects of daily life.

Learning Objectives

Requite examples of Minoan sculpture

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Most known Minoan sculptures are small scale. They range from single figures, often frontal, to effigy groups that include both people and animals. The wide variety of materials used for these figurines represent the extent of the Minoan trade network throughout the Mediterranean.
• The Snake Goddess statue from Knossos represents an of import female effigy in Minoan culture . Due to her connection with snakes and felines, as well equally her bare breasts, she is perhaps an earth goddess or a Minoan priestess.
• The Bull Leaper demonstrates the Minoan use of bronze in fine art likewise as highlighting the importance of the balderdash in Minoan sculpture and artistic fashion .
• An ivory bull leaper from Knossos demonstrates another position the acrobat's body assumed during the act.
• The Palaikastro Kouros is a rare instance of a big-scale Minoan sculpture. Its size and rare materials lead experts to believe that it was used as a cult image.

Key Terms

• lost-wax casting:The nearly common method of using molten metal to make hollow, one-of-a-kind sculptures. When heat is applied to the clay mold, the wax layer within melts and forms channels, which the creative person then fills with molten metal.
• faience:A low-fired, opaque, quartz ceramic that creates a glass-similar material in bright shades of blue, green, white, and brown that originates from Ancient Arab republic of egypt.
• chthonic:Abode within or under the earth.
• curvilinear:Having bends; curved; formed past curved lines.

As with their painting, Minoan sculpture demonstrates stylistic conventions including curvilinear forms; agile, energized scenes; and long-limbed humans with wide shoulders and narrow waists. Women are often depicted in large, long, layered skirts that accentuate their hips. So far, the bulk of sculptures and figurines found during Minoan excavations have been small scale.

Minoan Woman, c. 1600-1500 BCE.: Bronze. Crete.

Materials

The pocket-sized sculptures of the Minoans were produced in many unlike materials including ivory, gilded, faience , and bronze. The variety of materials acknowledges the extensive merchandise network established by the Minoans. For instance, faience, an quartz ceramic , is an Egyptian fabric. Its presence in sculpture found on Crete demonstrates that the material was shipped raw from Egypt to Crete, where it was then formed to create Minoan sculpture.

Bronze was an of import material in Minoan civilization and many figurines were produced in this medium , generally created using the lost-wax casting technique.

Ophidian Goddess

Ane figurine, known as the Snake Goddess , depicts a woman with open artillery who  holds a ophidian in each paw, with a feline sitting on her caput. The purpose or function of the statue is unknown, although it is believed that she may have been an earth goddess or priestess.

The snakes are considered chthonic animals—related to the earth and the footing—and are often symbols of world deities . Furthermore, the Serpent Goddess is dressed in a layered skirt with a tight bodice, covered shoulders, and exposed breasts. The prominence of her breasts may advise that she is fertility figure. Although her function remains unknown, the figure's significance to the culture is unquestionable.

Ophidian Goddess, circa 1600 BCE.: Palace at Knossos, Knossos, Crete.

Other figures in like poses and outfits have too been found among Minoan ruins.

Bull Leaper

The Bull Leaper statuary, depicting a bull and an acrobat, was created equally a single group. The figures are similar in style and position, as seen in several bull-leaping frescoes , including i from the palatial complex at Knossos.

Balderdash Leaper, circa 1550–1450 BCE.: Bronze. Southwest Crete.

The bull stands frozen in a flight gallop, while a leaper appears to exist flipping over his back. The acrobat'south anxiety are planted firmly on the bull'due south rump, and the figure bends backwards with its artillery planted on the bull's caput, perhaps preparing to launch off of the bull. The two figures, bull and man, mirror each other, equally the balderdash'due south back sways in the gallop and the man'southward back is arched in a deep back curve.

In another sculpture of a balderdash leaper (c. 1500 BCE), the acrobat is frozen in a forward-facing mid-somersault position. This ivory sculpture from Knossos is the only complete surviving figure from a larger organization and is the primeval 3-dimensional representation of the bull spring. Experts believe that thin aureate wires were used to suspend the figure over a bull.

Bull Leaper, circa 1500 BCE.: Sculpted from ivory. Knossos, Hellenic republic.

The figures are made with curvilinear lines and the positioning of both figures adds a high caste of movement and activeness that was unremarkably found in Minoan art.

Palaikastro Kouros

While most known Minoan sculpture is small calibration, at least ane sculpture serves as an exception to this rule. The so-called Palaikastro Kouros (not to be confused with the stylized male sculptures of ancient Hellenic republic), which dates to the Belatedly Minoan period (late fifteenth century BCE), stands at almost 20 inches (50 cm) tall.

Information technology is an example of a Chryselephantine sculpture: information technology consists of  a wooden frame, with thin carved slabs of ivory attached to represent the flesh. Sheets of gilded foliage likely stand for details such every bit hair and clothing. Its caput consists of a semiprecious green rock called serpentine with rock crystal optics. Considering of its scale and the rareness of its media, experts believe the sculpture was a cult image.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/minoan-art/

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