Photos of the Best Beautiful Ancient Minoan Art & Sites

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Photos of the Very Best Ancient Minoan Art & Sites

Photos of the very best Minoan archaeological sites, Minoan historic Museum art & antiquities.

The Minoan civilisation was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization which flourished on the island of Crete primarily from c. 3000 BC around 1100 BC. The Minoan’s were so named by Sir Arthur Evans whose excavations at Knossos, led him to believe that he had discovered the Palace of King Minos. As he was famous for the fable of the Minotaur, Evans named the people of Knossos the Minoans.

It is not known what the people who inhabited Crete at the time really called themselves so the word “Minoan” has become an accepted term.

A sophisticated civilisation did though inhabit Crete and nearby Aegean Islands at this time. They shared a common culture as can be seen from the Minoan antiquities that have been excavated on Crete and Akrotiri on Santorini Island.

Massive Minoan building complexes such as Knossos and Phaistos have been interpreted as Minoan Palaces. This is largely due to their monumental size with buildings that seem to have been used for administrative purposes.

Every Minoan palace excavated to date has its own unique features, but they also share aspects which set them apart from other buildings on Crete.

Minoan palaces are often multi-story, with interior and exterior staircases, lightwells, massive columns, storage areas and courtyards. The earliest Minoan palace was Malia which dates to around 3000 BC but the most famous though is Knossos.

The Palace of Knossos was the largest Minoan palace. The palace is about 150 meters across and it spreads over an area of some 20,000 square meters, with its original upper levels possibly having a thousand chambers.

Below Knossos a labyrinth of cellars was excavated which led to it being connected to the The Minotaur myth. Evan suggested that the bull lived in the cellars below Knossos.

One of the most endearing legacies left by the Minoans is their art and artefacts. The largest collection of Minoan art is in the museum at Heraklion, on the northern coast of Crete.

Many of the Minoan Palaces produced distinctive pottery. Very fine egg shell thin pottery known at Karmares Ware came form Phaistos.

Incredibly beautiful pottery larnax were made as burial coffins. A whole range of pottery was decorated with octopus designs. This style was adopted by the later Mycenaeans.

Many figurines of Minoan Goddesses have been excavated. A popular goddess was snake goddess covered in snakes.

The Palace walls were decorated with bright stylised frescoes of precessions and strange blue monkeys. All in all the Minoans were great artists and liked decorative art and artefacts.

Minoan art and other remnants of material culture, especially the sequence of ceramic styles. Minoan artworks from Akrotiri, a buried Minoan town discovered on Santorini Island, can be seen in Athens Archaeological Museum. Browse pictures and images of Minoan Knossos, Minoan paintings, Minoan pottery and Minoan antiquities