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Minoan knowledge of the sea was continued by the Mycenaeans in their frequent use of marine forms as artistic motifs. The so-called Marine Style , inspired by frescoes, has the entire surface of a pot covered with sea creatures, octopus, fish and dolphins, against a background of rocks, seaweed and sponges. [ 99 ]
Minoan art is often described as having a fantastical or ecstatic quality, with figures rendered in a manner suggesting motion. Little is known about the structure of Minoan society. Minoan art contains no unambiguous depiction of a monarch, and textual evidence suggests they may have had some other form of governance.
It appears in pottery decoration and is a motif of the Shrine of the Double Axes at the palace, as well as of many shrines throughout Crete and the Aegean. And finally, it appears in Linear B on Knossos Tablet Gg702 as da-pu 2 -ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja, which probably represents the Mycenaean Greek, Daburinthoio potniai , "to the mistress of the ...
The motif is so widespread and visually effective that many depictions probably were conceived as decoration with only a vague meaning attached to them. [3] The Master of Animals is the "favorite motif of Achaemenian official seals ", but the figures in these cases should be understood as the king.
Minoan civilization was known for its beautiful ceramics, but also for its frescos, landscapes, and stone carvings. In the early Minoan period, ceramics were characterized by spirals, triangles, curved lines, crosses, and fishbone motifs. In the middle Minoan period, naturalistic designs such as fish, squid, birds, and lilies were common.
Continuous scroll decoration has a very long history, and such patterns were an essential element of classical and medieval decoration. The use of scrolls in ornament goes back to at least the Bronze Age; geometric scroll ornament has been found in the Palace of Knossos at Minoan Crete dating to approximately 1800 BC, [8] perhaps drawing from even earlier Egyptian styles; there were also early ...
Ritual leaping over bulls is a motif in Middle Bronze Age figurative art, especially in Minoan art, and what are probably Minoan objects found in Mycenaean Greece, but it is also sometimes found in Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria and the Indus Valley. [2] It is often interpreted as a depiction of a rite performed in connection with bull ...
The finest achievements came in the Middle Minoan period, with the palace pottery called Kamares ware, and the Late Minoan all-over patterned "Marine Style" and "Floral Style". These were widely exported around the Aegean civilizations and sometimes beyond, and are the high points of the Minoan pottery tradition.