Minoans
The people of the Minoan civilization lived on Crete from about 2500 BC to about 1400 BC, when the Mycenaean people from the Greek mainland conquered them. In 1900, a British archeologist, Arthur Evans, began excavating, or carefully digging up, Knossos and found the remains of a great palace. Studies of the palace showed that the Minoans painted their pottery and walls. Minoan frescoes show plants and flowers, animals, and goddesses.
The Minoans constructed several palaces. Large towns spread around these palaces. The towns had cobbled streets with raised paths for people to walk. Towns and palaces had systems to drain water. The palace of Knossos had clay water pipes. Cretan houses were often two stories high. They were built with fieldstones (stones gathered from fields), timber, and mud bricks.
Frescoes and clay figurines, or small statues of people, show that Cretan men wore a short cloth around their waist. They did not wear beards. Cretan women had complex hairdos and wore short-sleeved jackets and ankle-length skirts. Cretans dyed their clothes and wove them with bird and animal patterns. Both men and women wore jewelry.
Arthur Evans found many clay tablets, or slabs, at Knossos. The tablets carried an ancient writing now called Linear A. Linear A was used from about 1850 BC to 1400 BC. It has never been translated.
The Cretans worshiped a mother goddess. Statues of the goddess show her holding snakes or a double-bladed ax. The people of the Aegean civilization offered scented oils and cloth to their gods and goddesses. The Mycenaeans also sacrificed sheep, cattle, and pigs to please their gods.
The Minoans prospered by sailing the seas and by trading, especially with the Middle East and with Egypt. A powerful navy protected Knossos. Archeologists have found pottery from Cyprus and Egypt in the Aegean area and in Crete. They have also found Cretan pottery in Egypt.
The early Minoan civilization had two types of town organization. Some towns were communal, which means that all the residents shared in town government. Big houses were common in other towns. The presence of these big houses indicates that chiefs controlled these towns.
Mycenaeans
The Mycenaean civilization developed in the 16th century BC, when the earliest Greek-speaking people settled down on the Greek mainland and came under the influence of the highly developed Minoans. Minoan culture influenced the dress, arts, and crafts of the Mycenaeans.
On some of the clay tablets from Knossos, archeologists found writing that resembled Linear A. It was named Linear B. Linear B was the Mycenaean writing. Around 1600 BC, the Mycenaeans probably borrowed Linear A from the Minoans and changed it for their own use. Michael Ventris, an English architect, deciphered Linear B in 1952. Ventris found that Linear B was an ancient Greek language.
Clay tablets with Linear B writing tell historians about the Mycenaean government. A king headed the society. There were landowners, farmers, slaves, and priests.
Powerful kings built fortresses with strong walls. This was because the Mycenaeans fought many wars. They also decorated their palaces with frescoes, or wall paintings. The usual Mycenaean palace had a great hall with the roof supported on four pillars and a vast, rounded central hearth. Mycenaean houses tended to be long and narrow.
Mycenaeans were skilled in making jewelry. The Mycenaeans also made gold masks to place on the faces of their dead.
Mycenaean trade extended to Sicily, Egypt, Palestine, Troy, Cyprus, and Macedonia. The clay tablets with Linear B writing indicate that the Mycenaeans imported food, cloth, and copper. Exports from the Aegean may have included woolen goods, olive oil, timber, and silver.
Toward the end of the 13th century BC, the palace system on the Mycenaean mainland fell apart. Many people moved away to other lands. Scholars think that there may have been many reasons for this decline. These include drought, bad harvests, a lack of food, disease, and the anger of people about the high taxes they had to pay.
In about 1100 BC, Greece was taken over by tribes from the north. The Dorians and, later, the Ionians lived in the areas where the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures had been. These peoples were the ancestors of the Greeks. It is with them that the history of ancient Greece began.