The Minoans: everything you wanted to know

Summary

History Extra Podcast: "The Minoans: Everything You Wanted to Know"

Release Date: July 26, 2025
Host: David Musgrove
Guest: Dr. Ellen Adams, Reader at King’s College London and Author of The Minoans: Lost Civilizations

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Introduction to the Minoans [00:48 - 03:08]

David Musgrove opens the episode by addressing a common misconception about the Minoans, often perceived as "Bronze Age flower power hippies" due to their vibrant artwork. He introduces Dr. Ellen Adams, an expert who elucidates the complexity of Minoan civilization beyond these superficial portrayals.

Dr. Ellen Adams explains,

“We're talking about Bronze Age Crete, roughly 3000-1200 BC, a strategically located island that served as a bridge between Europe, the Near East, and Africa.”
[02:38]

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Origin of the Term "Minoan" [03:08 - 05:09]

Musgrove inquires about the etymology of "Minoan," to which Dr. Adams clarifies that it is a modern term derived from Greek mythology, specifically King Minos, the mythical ruler of Crete.

Dr. Adams states,

“The term is modern and imposed by ancient Greeks, stemming from their myths about King Minos, the son of Europa.”
[03:13]

She further emphasizes the cultural distinctiveness of the Minoans despite the term's limitations, noting,

“There's a culture distinctive to this island and this time. Reinventing the wheel with terminology isn't helpful, so I run with the Minoans myself.”
[04:36]

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Minoan Influence on Later Greek Culture [06:13 - 09:11]

A question from Franchise505 probes the extent of Minoan influence on later Greek culture. Dr. Adams acknowledges the complexities in tracing direct influences due to the absence of written records from the Minoans themselves and the subsequent Mycenaean dominance.

Dr. Adams observes,

“We don’t get historical continuity; writing stops. There's something there, though, like monumental architecture that doesn't vanish, which ancient Greeks built upon in their own narratives.”
[06:29]

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The Minotaur and Knossos [09:13 - 15:02]

Musgrove brings up the legendary Minotaur and its association with Knossos. Dr. Adams delves into the myth, explaining its roots in Greek storytelling and its potential echoes of historical complexities within the palace's labyrinthine architecture.

Dr. Adams explains,

“Knossos is an incredibly complex site, multi-story and labyrinth-like, possibly inspiring the Minotaur myth which symbolizes the intricate Minoan society.”
[09:28]

She also touches on the modern reinterpretation of the Minotaur as a neurodiverse figure, highlighting how ancient myths can evolve to reflect contemporary values.

[12:24]

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Minoan Civilization Overview [14:09 - 17:10]

Addressing the fundamental question, "What is the Minoan civilization?", Dr. Adams provides an overview of Minoan palaces like Knossos, Malia, Zakros, and Phaistos. She describes their architectural uniqueness, such as the rectangular central courts, and emphasizes their exquisite craftsmanship in various materials.

Dr. Adams notes,

“Minoan palaces were hubs of governance and social activity, characterized by open-air central courts surrounded by four wings, fostering community through grand parades and celebrations.”
[14:09]

She also highlights the prominent role of women in Minoan society, reflected in their art and societal structures.

---

Sources and Archaeological Evidence [17:10 - 22:16]

When questioned about the sources of our knowledge on the Minoans, Dr. Adams underscores the reliance on archaeological findings rather than written records, given the undeciphered Minoan scripts like Linear A.

Dr. Adams explains,

“Our key evidence is archaeological—material and visual culture excavated from sites, supplemented by specialized techniques like maritime archaeology and ceramics analysis.”
[17:21]

She acknowledges the limitations due to the inability to read their writing, thus constraining historical interpretations.

---

Political Structure and Hierarchy [24:18 - 31:07]

Musgrove inquires about the political organization of the Minoans. Dr. Adams contrasts the Mycenaean clarity in governance—highlighted by deciphered titles like Wanax—with the ambiguous Minoan system.

Dr. Adams suggests,

“Minoan society likely had hierarchical structures intertwined with religious and ideological powers, but without evidence of a single ruler, it's difficult to map their political system precisely.”
[24:18]

She also mentions the lack of evidence for widespread warfare, hinting at a society possibly maintained through religious control rather than conflict.

---

Role of Women in Minoan Society [27:54 - 31:40]

A viewer question delves into the status of women in Minoan culture. Dr. Adams cautions against assuming a matriarchal society solely based on artistic depictions of powerful women.

Dr. Adams clarifies,

“While women occupy prominent roles in Minoan art, the society was still male-led. The prominence in art doesn’t necessarily translate to political power.”
[27:54]

She underscores the importance of women in industries like textiles and their ritual significance, without supporting the notion of Minoan matriarchy.

---

Daily Life and Society [31:40 - 36:56]

Addressing daily life, Dr. Adams discusses the domestic aspects of Minoan society, highlighting sites like Gornia which reveal tightly-knit communities engaged in self-sufficient production.

Dr. Adams states,

“Everyday life involved small-scale manufacturing and craftsmanship, supported by an organized surplus that allowed people to specialize in various professions.”
[31:40]

She also touches upon the diet, characterized by grains, olives, wine, and limited meat consumption, with occasional communal feasts likely involving animal sacrifices.

---

Engineering and Infrastructure [36:56 - 40:18]

A popular query about Minoan flushing toilets is addressed, showcasing their advanced engineering and emphasis on hygiene.

Dr. Adams remarks,

“Knossos featured some of the earliest known flushing toilets, demonstrating impressive engineering skills and prioritizing cleanliness.”
[36:56]

This advancement reflects a sophisticated understanding of urban planning and public health.

---

Slavery and Social Structure [38:35 - 40:27]

Musgrove probes into the presence of slavery within Minoan society. Dr. Adams cautiously acknowledges the likelihood of some form of coercive labor, though definitive evidence remains elusive.

Dr. Adams notes,

“There were probably individuals with limited freedom, but the exact nature of their status is difficult to determine from existing evidence.”
[38:35]

She emphasizes the complexity of defining enslavement in the ancient context.

---

Religion and Worship [40:27 - 42:29]

When exploring Minoan religious practices, Dr. Adams highlights their ritualistic nature without tying it directly to the later Greek pantheon.

Dr. Adams explains,

“Minoan religion was highly ritualized with numerous ritual sites and symbols, but it remains distinct from the later Greek gods.”
[40:27]

The intertwining of political and ritual power suggests a society where religion played a central role in governance and daily life.

---

Economic Relations and Insularity [42:29 - 45:14]

A question about Minoan self-sufficiency and insularity is addressed by detailing their trade networks and self-sustaining resources.

Dr. Adams states,

“Crete was self-sufficient in many basic necessities but relied on imports for resources like copper and tin. They were actively engaged in Bronze Age globalization through trade with Egypt and the Near East.”
[42:49]

This balance between self-reliance and external trade underscores the Minoans' adaptability and economic sophistication.

---

Decline of the Minoan Civilization [45:14 - 48:50]

Discussing the collapse of the Minoan civilization, Dr. Adams references the Thera eruption and the subsequent Mycenaean takeover, culminating in the broader Bronze Age collapse.

Dr. Adams outlines,

“The Thera eruption around 1450 BC significantly impacted Minoan economics and ideology, leading to a gradual shift towards Mycenaean dominance. The eventual collapse around 1200 BC was part of a widespread Eastern Mediterranean social collapse.”
[45:14]

She notes the uncertainty surrounding the immediate effects on Crete, whether through depopulation or cultural transformation.

---

Conclusion [48:50 - 49:12]

Dr. Adams wraps up the discussion, emphasizing the enduring legacy of the Minoans and their influence on subsequent civilizations despite the mysteries that still shroud their complete understanding.

Dr. Ellen Adams, concluding,

“The Minoans left an indelible mark on history through their art, architecture, and societal structures, continuing to fascinate and inspire modern interpretations.”
[48:50]

---

Final Remarks

The episode, produced by Lewis Dobbs, offers a comprehensive exploration of Minoan civilization, blending archaeological evidence with thoughtful interpretations to shed light on this enigmatic Bronze Age society.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. Ellen Adams on Minoan Definition:
  “There is a culture that is distinctive to this island and this time. So I think reinventing the wheel with terminology is not helpful.”
  [04:36]

• On Minoan Architecture:
  “Minoan palaces were hubs of governance and social activity, characterized by open-air central courts surrounded by four wings.”
  [14:09]

• On Minoan Religion:
  “Minoan religion was highly ritualized with numerous ritual sites and symbols, but it remains distinct from the later Greek gods.”
  [40:27]

• On Societal Collapse:
  “The Thera eruption significantly impacted Minoan economics and ideology, leading to a gradual shift towards Mycenaean dominance.”
  [45:14]

---

This detailed summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the podcast episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the full episode.

Transcript

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[Dr. Ellen Adams]

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magaz Were the ancient Minoans a bunch of Bronze Age flower power hippies? You might take that view if you study some of their surviving artwork. However, according to Ellen Adams of King College London and the author of a new book called the Minoans, this civilization was much more complicated than that. In this everything you wanted to know episode, Ellen answers all of the big questions about these ancient people, including, of course, what we should know about the mythical legend of the Minotaur. David Musgrove put the questions to Ellen and began by asking where and when exactly the Minoan civilization was.

[Meditation Instructor]

Okay, so in a nutshell, we're talking about Bronze Age Crete. So we're talking about the southernmost Greek island, which is actually in the stepping stones between Europe and the near east and Africa. So it's European now, but it's a brilliant strategic Location, we're talking about the Bronze age, so roughly 3000-1200 BC, the second millennium, especially for the really prosperous part of the Minoan period.

[David Musgrove]

Okay, and when and where does the term Minoan come from?

[Meditation Instructor]

So this is a modern term. We don't know what they called themselves originally, but it also almost certainly wasn't the Minoans. So this actually comes from the ancient Greeks. And I probably should mention them at the start as well, because this is 1st millennium BC Ancient Greeks Kind of set the story up for us about the Minoans because this term comes from their king, Minos of Greek myth. He's the son of Europa who gives her name, presumably to Europe. She is. In Greek myth, she's a Phoenician princess that's seized from the shores by Zeus in the form of a bull, taken over to Crete, and there through force. It's not a pleasant story. She starts the Minoan line, and King Minos is a king of Crete after Evans, who we'll doubtless be talking about, if we're talking about Knossos, is normally thought to as sort of really the term Minoan, but it actually sort of dates to before him. He kind of popularized it. So we now think of the culture and the people in terms of being the Minoans, but it's modern and we don't really know what they call themselves. So it's, you know, with a caveat.

[David Musgrove]

But it's okay for us to talk about the Minoans with the generality of Bronze Age Crete, I think it is.

[Meditation Instructor]

Because, you know, it's got a strong convention. We understand that it's problematic that, you know, it gives this sense of the people being very homogeneous and, you know, they were presumably very diverse through time and space, and it is modern and it has been imposed on them. But there is a culture that is distinctive to this island and this time. So I think reinventing the wheel with terminology is not helpful. I run with the Minoans myself. It's. It does the trick.

[David Musgrove]

And we are talking a decent span of time here, aren't we? That's over a millennium.

[Meditation Instructor]

It is a long time. And it's very different throughout the centuries because, I mean, when the Minoans came over to Crete, this is, you know, going back into the Neolithic that I won't be talking about so much. That's a different question at all. They're presumably the same people, but I think for me, it's that best to focus on the culture of the Minoans. Especially since we've got this very funny overlap with the Mycenaeans, who are different again but very closely connected. And this is particularly so the Mycenaeans were mainland Greeks, flourishing a bit later, but they kind of. Their cultural influence really takes over on Crete as well. And there's no simple dividing line between when the Minoans end and when the Mycenaeans begin, as it were. So I think use the term, but expect it to be rather fluid and vague at the edges.

[David Musgrove]

Yeah, okay, I'm happy with vague at the edges. So you've talked a bit about Greek culture. You've talked about the Mycenaeans just then. So we've got a question from franchise 505. Great question. How much of Minoan culture was directly influenced later Greek culture? And where is that visible?

[Meditation Instructor]

Okay, that is a really important question because the way in which we come to know the Minoans, first of all, initially it was through Greek myth. This idea that there were great monuments, you know, important people, flourishing civilization in the Bronze Age comes from them. But we have excavated the remains in a way that the ancient Greeks didn't themselves. So in a sense, we kind of know more about the material culture than the ancient Greeks themselves would have done. There's this sort of very fluid echoes throughout time, probably through oral history, epics and things like that, where they had some idea, some influence from the previous years. But then we've got this muddle with the Mycenaeans and this break of the early Iron Age. And when I say muddle, I mean a lot of what we might think about the Minoans, because the Mycenaeans were so heavily influenced themselves. And something to get in there first up is the Mycenaeans spoke Greek, so they were an early Greek people, whereas the Minoans weren't. So the Mycenaeans. And the link with the ancient Greeks is quite clear. They had names of Greek gods, and, you know, you can really see a lot of change, but also some continuity. But then you've got this massive recession of the early Iron Age, of. Of several hundred years of total social breakdown. So somehow any echoes, memories have to filter through these centuries as well. So directly influenced is difficult to trace. You don't get any sort of. There's no historical continuity, cause writing stops. There's no record keeping of that sense. But there's something. There's a nugget there.

[David Musgrove]

There's a memory, by the sound of that.

[Meditation Instructor]

There's something, I think, and the Minoans and the Mycenaeans later built huge monuments that didn't sort of vanish. So the ancient Greeks were walking through landscapes where they knew that something had happened before and they, you know, were very proactive in building stories to explain them. So that's a form of influence. But whether you'd call it direct, which I think the question said, you know, it's more teasing than that, it's more interesting. And human memory, as we know, is very selective. You deliberately erase certain things that you don't want to know. So it's a brilliant question, but it's actually quite difficult to give a list of areas where it did directly influence in that sense.

[David Musgrove]

Well, those are the best sorts of questions, aren't they?

[Meditation Instructor]

Yeah.

[David Musgrove]

So you've talked a bit about sort of the mythology surrounding this culture. The most famous myth, I guess, that most people will latch onto is the Minotaur one. So what can you tell us about Knossos and the Minotaur?

[Meditation Instructor]

Well, I can say much more about what the ancient Greeks said about the Minotaur and Knossos, because this is an ancient Greek myth. So it's a first millennium BC myth and Minotaur. Well, let's return to King Minos again. So he is the offspring of Europa who slept with Zeus in the form of a bull. And at some point King Minos was obliged to sacrifice a very special bull to Poseidon, God of the sea, and he didn't do so and therefore deserved to be punished. And the punishment was a slightly unusual, quirky one, in that his wife Pasiphai, fell in love with the bull and disguised herself as a heifer in order to have sex with the bull. And they produced the Minotaur. So this was a sort of monstrous hybrid that she gave birth to and was hidden away in the labyrinth of Knossos. And this is another sort of nice way in which we might get echoes of history in myth, because Knossos is an incredibly complex site, even with all of the additional reconstructions making it even more complicated. It's massive and it's multi story. It's really, really hard to understand what's happening where. So it is like a labyrinth itself. And maybe there were memories of something very complex that has sort of fed down through the myth. And the other thing about the Minotaur is that it's had an awful lot of influence on us as well as a motif, I think, and you can see that from Picasso, he was obsessed with the figure of the Minotaur in his art. And these days there are lots of novels and even operas and so on, depicting the figure Minotaur. And what's happening at the moment is that the Minotaur is being presented as a sort of misunderstood neurodiverse figure, probably autistic, who is actually created monstrously or as a monster because of being misunderstood and everything. I think this is very interesting way in which the past can help us articulate our changing values as well in the Minotaur. It's a very, very powerful figure to think with, if you like. So what the Minoans made of the Minotaur, there are some depictions of the sort of half bull, half man figure, but they date to the Mycenaean period, so slightly later. We're not sure that the Minoans themselves had this construct, but they were obsessed with the bull figure, and particularly at Knossos. So the bull is a big deal in the Minoan world.

[David Musgrove]

So how monstrous was the Minotaur figure in ancient Greek mythology, if we've kind of reinvented it recently to be a slightly softer sort of creature?

[Meditation Instructor]

Well, I mean, the Minotaur was a monster needed to be slaughtered by the Athenian. These. There's one glorious Greek vase that's just come to mind, which is really quite touching of Pasiphae, the Minotaur's mother, sort of cradling a baby Minotaur on her lap. And that's very endearing and very sweet. So it's not all black and white, as these things are, but, I mean, the message of the myth is that this was a monster that liked to eat nice young Athenian ewes and therefore kind of deserved its fate. And that's one that in the early 20th century, when Knossos was discovered and excavated and so on, this was the reinvention of the myth then as well, but it's changed over the decades.

[David Musgrove]

And the labyrinth was that. That was just the place that the Minotaur inhabited?

[Meditation Instructor]

Well, I mean, there were some nice coins from Knossos dating to the first millennium bc. Minoans didn't have coins, but when the later Greeks developed coinage, and some of them based at Knossos have a sort of labyrinth sign, so there's some connection, but it's all woolly at the edges again, so it's difficult to pin down. It's just hovering there in the air.

[David Musgrove]

Right, that's the Minotaur covered. Maybe we'll come back to it in a bit. We'll see. Very popular question on Google is basically just what is the Minoan civilization?

[Meditation Instructor]

So the best of Minoan Civilization. So Knossos and other palaces, these are the huge complexes where we can imagine served as essential places where the governance occurred. Huge storage areas and also administrative centres. So these are sort of hub of the Minoan world. And they're all very distinctive because something that's unique to the Minoan world is this concept of having a rectangular central court. So this is an open air space in the middle of your palace, which is rectangular, broadly oriented north to south and surrounded by four wings. And this is distinctive to the Minoan culture. And we have lots of iconography that suggests that big sort of parades or celebrations or activities were happening in these open spaces that kind of brought people together and sort of acted as some sort of glue, social glue, for the people that are known for their palaces and for incredibly exquisite artworks that the expertise of craftsmanship is really impressive. And it's beautiful things from all sorts of materials, so gold, faience, lots of stones and things like that. And it's just extremely exquisite craftsmanship. With what's unique in the Bronze Age civilization, a very predominant role for women. Women are depicted in almost powerful roles. In one case, there's an impression from a gold ring where a female figure has sort of stood on a mountain. She's doing this gesture of holding a staff out, and then at her feet, as it were, there's a male who is doing deference of sort of worship to the woman. And this is something you can imagine Egyptian art. You're never gonna get anything like that there. So the Minoans are known for giving unusual, unique precedents or prominence for women, and not necessarily with that, but there's less evidence for warfare than you might expect given the other civilizations occurring at this time. So there's also a lot of natural world. It's depicted in the iconography, lots of flowers and nature scenes and animals, and that's not common for the time either. So it's very, very distinctive. It's not one of the big civilizations of the time. It can't. In terms of clout, it can't match the Egyptians or someone like that, but they really did their own thing. This is a relatively small island and it just took up the ideas of social complexity and civilization and did its own thing. So it does have genuinely unique aspects to it, I think.

[David Musgrove]

Okay, we'll come back to women in a second. We've got a good question on that. We'll go into a bit more detail, but can you just tell us a bit about the sources for this culture, for this civilization? How do we know what we know.

[Meditation Instructor]

Oh, that's a good question, because I've talked a lot about ancient Greek and of course they were living many hundreds of years later, so they're much less reliable as a direct source. Our key evidence is archaeological, so it's material and visual culture that's been excavated from the ground. There's also other archaeological techniques, such as doing surveys across the landscape and getting a sense of, you know, what was once there. Maritime archaeology, lots of specialisms, so focusing on ceramics or zooarchaeology and evidence for animals and things like that. So there's a huge range of sources. And something I should mention that's unusual about Bronze Age Crete is that it's incredibly intensely studied. It's had a very unusual amount of attention and time and archaeological work done on it. And finally, we are talking, I think, about a prehistoric culture and we don't know what language the Minoans spoke, for example, but they did have scripts. So it's a society that's complex enough to have writing, but we can't read what the writing says directly. But we can know, for example, that the writing depicts lots of records of, for example, goods moving in and out of the palaces. And there was also some evidence for the ritual use of writing as well. So we can sort of see what they did, but we can't use them as historic sources, so to speak.

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[David Musgrove]

See mintmobile.com so the script that they use, what was that like hieroglyphs? Was it cuneiform? How would you describe it?

[Meditation Instructor]

So there's more than one. And this again gets complicated because we know more about the Minoan scripts because the later Mycenaeans adopted enough elements of it to kind of figure out or project back. So the Mycenaeans I mentioned before, they spoke Greek and we have deciphered their script. This is known as Linear b. And in 1952, architect called Michael Ventris succeeded or gave this broadcast where he announced that this is a very early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans had borrowed elements of that from the earlier linear A script which the Minoans used for a language that we're not quite sure was. And this isn't an Alphabet. Neither of them were alphabetical scripts such as we have. They're syllabic, so they depict a syllable at a time, either the vowels or a consonant followed by a vowel. So it's a slightly clunkier way of depicting language, but it works well enough. And there was Cretan hieroglyphics as well. So it's a complicated picture. Unfortunately, we've got all of this evidence, but we don't have enough of any script to really tackle deciphering them. So I don't think we're going to see that happening anytime soon.

[David Musgrove]

We've talked a bit about Knossos. So there's a question here, which is what are the key archaeological sites? I presume that Knossos would be the main one. And just to link to that, is it right to speak of Knossos as a palace and the other sites that are similar to it?

[Meditation Instructor]

Okay, so Knossos is undoubtedly the biggest and the best in sense of just sheer size complexity. And it is debated about, you know, how much Knossos controlled in terms of the landscape and the entire island at different periods, because there were other palaces as well, much smaller, but still functioning as palaces. So Malia, Zakros, Phaistos is an absolutely gorgeous one. They're all used at different times as well. So we have this idea that, you know, there were palaces in this period, but in fact, they've all got very different cultural biographies. They all flourished in different times and then fell out of use and had to be rebuilt, things like that. So we call them palaces. Not everyone likes the term because it comes with certain assumptions, perhaps of a single king living at a palace and that kind of hierarchy. For me, I think the term serves perfectly well, so long as you don't make lots of assumptions with it. So, for example, it has been suggested that we call them central court compounds, because the distinguishing feature is that. That central court. But that's a bit of a mouthful.

[David Musgrove]

That's not very snappy.

[Meditation Instructor]

No, it's not very snappy. And so I think we say that palaces, you know, there's a stamp to them, there's a sort of a form to them that we can recognize, and they may or may not have been the seat of a single male ruler. But, you know, it does the job. I think, the term palace, I personally do use it, and, you know, I would rather spend my time understanding how they were functioning and what they meant to the people, because it's going to be a modern term, whatever we call them.

[David Musgrove]

Just on that, you sort of invited us to reflect on the political structure thereby by thinking about what pallas means. So a very popular search term is, do we know how this civilization was structured politically? What can we say about that?

[Meditation Instructor]

We can say much more about the sort of Mycenaean period, because we can read the script and we know that there was a king figure called the Wanax, and that fits with Greek myth and the Trojan War and all of the Mycenaean kings. That kind of matches that quite neatly. But we're very unwilling to project that back to the Minoans, necessarily. It's not necessarily the case that there was a single king in the same way. And people have questioned whether the society was as hierarchical as we might assume. And I think there was a hierarchy. I think the palaces or the people associated with the palaces were on top of some sort of tree that kind of breaks out through the landscape, if that makes any sense. So I do think there are hierarchies happening, but the Minoan world, it's quite dispersed. I mean, some of the really nice elite cultural trappings do occur in villas in the landscape, for example. It's not so heavily concentrated in the centre. I do think it's hierarchical, but I also think it's fairly well distributed. One thing about the Minoans that I have always struggled with is making a distinction between political power and the ritual sphere or religion. And I think probably in the Minoan world, the two are very, very closely linked in a way that isn't in modern day Britain, for example. We have quite separate spheres. It's very clearly demarcated. But I think in the Minoan world, when you're talking about political power, you're talking about ideological power and ritual power at the same time and just sort of go on with that. One thing I think I mentioned before, that we have very weirdly little evidence for warfare at certain parts of the history in comparison with other civilizations of the time. And I wonder whether this is because there's ideological control. It's not that this is a sort of hippie society where people just got on well together. I think there was an awful lot of control, but it was done through the mechanisms of religion. So political power, I think, is a question that needs to be kind of interlinked with other areas as well. And economic power and so on as well.

[David Musgrove]

I'm sad that they weren't hippies.

[Meditation Instructor]

That would have been good for them, all of these. There is something that has had to be sort of pushed back against because so much of the artwork is gorgeous. It's very natural. Scenes of cats and birds and animals frolicking in a landscape. It's very hippy ish, if you like. And the. There has been some need to remind people that this doesn't mean that this is a sort of flower power society. And in fact, we do have some evidence for other grisly events like human sacrifice and things like that. It's not necessarily a nice society because their artwork is gloriously pleasant and female oriented as well.

[David Musgrove]

Let's talk about women a bit more, actually, because you've talked about this a bit. We've got A question from Corrine175, who wants to just know more about the lives of women in Minoan society. I wondered, you were talking earlier about the influence of women in art at least, were you going towards talking about a matriarchy there, or is that a completely wild assertion?

[Meditation Instructor]

So does art mirror life? Is that big question? I don't think it does in this case, personally. And this is an opinion, it can't really be demonstrated. One reason is that the later Mycenaeans were very influenced by Minoan art and they continued this fashion trend of having powerful women. And we know that that absolutely wasn't a matriarchy. This was a male led society. So it could have been the same in the Minoan world as well. That doesn't stop this being unique and exceptional for the time. It. It really was weird to give women this space in art. So something different is happening. But whether it translates into power in the sense that we mean it. I'm sure there are lots of industries where women had a form of power. There's an argument that they were crucial for the textile industry, for example, which was massive on cli. It was a very serious. But that might not be the same as political power in the normal sense that we mean it. They were. Or certainly the elite women were given particular roles perhaps, and certainly given particular costumes which are very distinctive and memorable because they tended to leave the breasts bare. So they'd have a sort of tight corset that framed the breast and then have this very long skirt. And. And this again was unusual and very distinctive. And it almost feels like more of a costume than clothing. But the other question, going back to what I mentioned before, this lack of distinction between politics and religion, were these depictions of deities, so goddesses, or were they of priestesses, or were they of queens or were they of women? And really important economic roles, you know, who were they? We don't know. We just can see that they were given a rather prestigious place in the art world. And whether this translates into matriarchy, I don't see it myself. I can't imagine that Bronze Age, Eastern Mediterranean, this actually happening. And it's a nice narrative that has some followers, not among academics on the whole, but, you know, some people would like to see the Bronze Age as some rather idyllic women led hippie flower power society. And then the Mycenaeans come along and they're very masculine and warlike and they basically ruin the party and they take over and they bring weapons and fortifications and so on. I think that's a little bit simplistic and not very lightly. I think that we need to not be seduced by the really pleasant nature of the artworks into thinking that this was necessarily a very communal, pleasant society. I think they probably did have this hold over people, but it was manifested differently.

[David Musgrove]

I assume there's no evidence of women.

[Meditation Instructor]

As warriors, not from Minoan iconography. So this is the purely pre Mycenaean period. No. And also the kind of warrior graves that we expect from the Mycenaean period. They're a bit later. They. They occur mainly later in the Minoan architecture. But no, if you're thinking of Amazons, the later Greek myths of the warrior woman. I don't see the equivalent in the Minoan world.

[David Musgrove]

Paul Berger wants to know, what do we know about their homes and their daily lives? Can we learn much about that from the archaeology?

[Meditation Instructor]

I suppose there is a bias in archaeology, isn't there, towards the elites? And I guess the question is asking more about everyday people. We know more about the elites partly because they tended to build their buildings using stone rather than wood or clay or something like that. That doesn't survive so well for more normal people, everyday people. We've got some absolutely glorious sites. There's a site called Gornia, which is the most completely Minoan town that's been excavated also, unusually, by a woman, Harriet Bodthold. And she did a very good, thorough and prompt publication of this site. And it's a very closely kind of knit community, lots of buildings, small buildings with streets running through them. And we get a sense of something known as domestic mode of production, where you kind of focus on your own needs, self sufficiency. So you're doing small scale manufacturing, you're doing, you know, just looking after. It's not like the, the big industries of the palaces and so on. The storage areas are minimal in comparison with the palaces, but you can imagine that people are kind of making ends meet. We don't know anything practically about sort of gender divisions, for example, not in a meaningful way. I think it does seem to have been a flourishing society for a wider proportion of society. It wasn't so much just the elite taking the benefit of the prosperity. It does seem to have been sort of slightly distributed through the margins, what they ate own. Obviously this is before things like tomatoes and so on, but we can imagine traditional Mediterranean diet, lots of grains, lots of olives, wine, and probably much less meat than certainly than we have today. There would have been irregular feasts or regular ritual feasts where people would come together and sort of have some meat. But beyond that it would be more basic. One thing about everyday life, one thing that should be remarked upon, is that there does seem to have been the capacity to support expertise, so craftsmanship, things like that. So not everyone was working the field, for example, some people were being given food so that they could be a scribe, a stone maker, stone vase maker, a potter, someone working in weaving or something like that. So this is a society where there were professions, if you like, where there was expertise. And this must have been kind of disputed throughout the society as well. So something that would have touched the lives of many or most people.

[David Musgrove]

So there Must have been a surplus for these people to have some kind.

[Meditation Instructor]

Of an organisation of it as well.

[David Musgrove]

I'm interested about the meat side of things, given what we were talking about earlier about their fascination with bulls and presumably cows as well. There's not much evidence of them feasting on those sorts of animals.

[Meditation Instructor]

There's lots of evidence for big communal get togethers and I think just from what societies do when this happens, it's quite fair to assume that there would have been sacrifices and so on. There are some artworks, iconography of a bull being sort of trusselled on an altar, presumably going to be sacrificed and then presumably going to be eaten in the manner of the later Greeks as well. You sacrifice to the gods, but you actually get to eat most of the animal yourself. This dates to the Mycenaean period, though, so, I mean, I think we can project that kind of activity back. It's quite a common human activity.

[David Musgrove]

It sounds like from all your answers, we're really seeing this culture through the lens of the Mycenaeans. It seems like it's really skewing things.

[Meditation Instructor]

I didn't want to give that impression because I do like to be sort of more purist. Sometimes you get more obvious evidence from the later Mycenaean period and you get more ambiguity earlier on, so it's easier to reach out to that initial thing. But I think the purer pre Mycenaean, I should say periods of Minoan Crete have an awful lot of evidence, a huge amount of evidence, but there's always a bit more of a question mark. It's much more pre history than the later Mycenaeans. And some things do come in with the Mycenaeans as well. Maybe it's like the questions are skewed more to answers that rely on sources that prehistory struggles a bit more with. Possibly not to blame the questions, which are lovely.

[David Musgrove]

No, great, great questions, Listis. Thank you. Sticking on everyday life. One fact of everyday life is people need to go to the toilet. Is it true that the Minoans have had the first flushing toilets?

[Meditation Instructor]

Oh, this is a really important question, actually, because it's linked to hygiene, it's linked to complex engineering, it's linked to organised labour because it takes a lot of clout. But it does seem that the palace at Knossos, in between Harbouring a Minor Tour and its labyrinth and all the rest of it, does seem to have had extremely early example of a few flushing toilets. So not just waste, but the means to use water to flush that waste into Drains and so on. And I've certainly seen it referred to as the earliest known flushing toilet in history. I haven't done the fact check, checking on that. It will be the first one in Europe. Whether there's another one elsewhere in the world, I'm not entirely sure about. But it is an indication of the extremely impressive engineering skills of this people, you know, really is. And the drains. When I first went around Crete, I was taken there by my mother and stepfather, and he was obsessed with drains. And I think that because this does reflect a society that understands the importance of hygiene, which I suspect we take for granted a little bit because. Well, no, Covid reminded us, didn't it? But it is essentially vital that you keep things clean. So it is a mark of how extraordinary this culture is or was.

[David Musgrove]

All right, this is a big question. Very popular search question. Do we know if the Minoans had slaves? What was their attitude to enslaved people?

[Meditation Instructor]

So another really important question, and my go to is the Mycenaean linear B, because we do have the later Greek word for slave, doulos is represented there. Whether it means exactly the same thing is not known. Can't really do the same thing for Minoan Crete. Personally, I think that we'd have to stop and think about what we mean by enslavement. I think that there was almost certainly people who. Who didn't have much choice about what they did for a living and how they spent their time. And I think that, you know, I mentioned labor being organized. I suspect there's some form of coercion at times that we would perceive as being enslavement. Whether it was organized, whether it's actually sort of organized in this way. That we would mean it today is an impossible question to answer. But I suspect there was lack of choice for some sections of the population that would kind of suggest some sort of enslavement. But this is an opinion, and I don't think we can really prove that we do know. I mean, looking at civilizations and other parts of the world at a time, enslavement was just part of daily life. It was very, very. I won't say popular. That's obviously not the right word to use, but it's very common. So I would suggest that I can't see how all of these achievements were done without organizing people in a way that they might not have liked all the time.

[David Musgrove]

That seems reasonable. We've talked a bit about this already. But another popular search term is what do we know about their religion or. Or ways of worship. Is there anything you can add to what you've mentioned earlier?

[Meditation Instructor]

So religion, who were the gods? Lot of confusion between what's depicted as a deity and what is, you know, an important human. You need to do a separate thing on the Mycenaeans. But we know that they had Greek gods. We don't know that the Minoans, and we don't even know whether it's monotheistic, whether it had one God or whether it had several. The religion is not well understood as we would study a religion. But they were very, very ritualized. I mean, I'm convinced of that. They were obsessed with ritual activities. We have lots of ritual sites in the landscape. We have lots of ritual equipment, we have lots of ritual symbols. So we have lots and lots of evidence for ritual practices. But how that actually maps onto belief is much more difficult to unpick. But they're incredibly ritualized as a society. I mean, some of the sites are linked to palaces. So Knossos has got a key site called Juktas on a peak quite nearby. But there's some kind of visual link between palace and ritual sites. So it's like it's is sort of overseeing the landscape in a way. That's just one example of it being very important.

[David Musgrove]

But nothing to suggest that they were in any way sort of following the later Greek pantheon of gods. You know, the Mount Olympus type thing.

[Meditation Instructor]

The later Greek gods have Greek names. And Minoan, whatever it is, it's a different language. It's things like Knossos is not a Greek word, it's a pre Greek word having that SOS end. Amnesos is another example. So we can't project. There's a lot we can use the Mycenaeans for kind of imagining what life was like. But we really can't project back those gods too earlier. No, I don't think so.

[David Musgrove]

We've got a really good question here from Max Quigley, one of our irregular correspondents for this strand. He always asks questions, great questions, and this touches a bit on what you were talking about earlier. I think about the Minoan civilization being quite unique in the broader sphere of things. Max wants to know to what extent were the Minoans self sufficient and insular?

[Meditation Instructor]

That is a good question. Thank you, Max. Because of course, Crete is an island, but was it insular? That's a great question. In a sense, you are sort of well defined if you're an island. But the sea can be a great facilitator of contact and communication as well. And in fact, some sites on the island itself would be better served by travel by the sea than overland. It's insular to different extents over the long stretch of time that we're thinking about. But when the place is flourishing, there's evidence for good contact with outside world. So this is. There's sort of different scales of this, I suppose, within the Aegean there are several different shipping routes that we can see. Sort of regular. The Aegean is a wonderful place to go island hopping and they seem to have done that with regular routes up and down, but they went much further as well. So there's evidence for imports from Egypt and Near east, and there's some evidence that Cretan craftspeople, so they did frescoes in a couple of Egyptian sites as well. So there's definitely a lot of contact. I think the way of seeing this is that Crete as an island is very well resourced and it presumably was self sufficient in terms of food and basic necessities. It didn't have like a really good copper resource. It wasn't like Cyprus, that's got a lot of copper. So it would have had to import copper, tin things to make bronze, would have had to import ivory, gold, all sorts of things. But it still did its own thing. It still took these imports and created something very specifically Minoan in what it did with it. And presumably it had something to give back as well, to trade with this. So I mentioned the possible probable importance of the textile industry, which does seem to have been very big. So maybe they were exporting textiles. So the Bronze Age form of globalization, such as it was, they were tapped into it, but they were also doing their own thing as well.

[David Musgrove]

So a big question again from Franchise 505 and others, is what happened? Why was the Minoan civilization destroyed? Was it destroyed?

[Meditation Instructor]

Yes, well, I mean, I've made it quite clear that there's a lot of muddle about, you know, how the Minoans turn into the Mycenaean period. So I suppose the first question is, what end are we talking about? Because to my mind, and this is also debated, but there is a sort of end of the Minoan culture and then it does become something different with the Mycenaean one. So what provoked that? We haven't mentioned the Theran eruption. So this is the island of Santorini, where there was a kind of Bronze Age Pompeii, a massive volcanic explosion that kind of blew the island out from within, destroyed sites on the island.

[David Musgrove]

When was that?

[Meditation Instructor]

Oh, that's another hotly contested Question, but let's go for something like 1450 BC. And this is an eruption that must have been impacted or must have had a huge impact economically, because it would have upset trading routes and also sort of ideologically as well. It must have been a really weird thing to have witnessed at the time. You know, what were the gods doing and things like that. So it had a big impact, but it didn't kind of destroy the Minoan culture as it was. It wasn't like the day after the palaces were abandoned and so on. There does seem to been a shift to the Mycenaean culture, which is related, but also different. So whether the Mycenaean mainlanders came over and took over Knossos and other sites, destroyed others, is a hypothesis that deserves to be entertained. But then you have this flourishing Mycenaean period where Crete is doing very well, but in a different kind of way, and that ends broadly 1200 BC, and that is, along with the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean, a bit big and massive social collapse, which eventually sort of stumbles into the deep recession of the early Iron Age, which runs for hundreds of years. It's a huge social collapse. And the reasons for that, I don't think there's a single one. I think that the world was somewhat globalized at that point and something went wrong. So it kind of triggered things, and there wasn't enough infrastructure to kind of recover, so the whole thing sort of collapsed throughout. And I think probably the reasons for that are going to be more than one. As always, it's not just going to be the implication of tariffs. There's going to be other things contributing as well. But it was universal and it really did impact a much wider area than just Crete.

[David Musgrove]

And does Crete become depopulated for a period of time when that's happening?

[Meditation Instructor]

Or it seems to be. I mean, one assumes so, but evidence for inhabitation collapses. So whether they just sort of stopped building from stone and just lived in mudfric hovels that didn't survive, or whether there was an actual depopulation isn't quite known. But, I mean, it's a radical difference. It's just not the same world at all. So whether there's literal depopulation or just sort of cultural depopulation, it's a big deal.

[Dr. Ellen Adams]

That was Dr. Ellen Adams, reader at King's College London, speaking to David Musgrove. Ellen's book the Minoans Lost Civilizations is out now. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Lewis Dobbs.

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