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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.
One supernatural type of figure in ancient Crete and later of the Mycenaeans is called as the Minoan Genius, alternatively as a "demon", although they seem to be mostly benign. This was a fantastic creature with similarities both to the lion and the hippopotamus, which implies a connection with ancient Egypt .
The Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200–800 BC) were earlier regarded as two continuous periods of Greek history: the Postpalatial Bronze Age (c. 1200–1050 BC) [1] and the Prehistoric Iron Age or Early Iron Age (c. 1050–800 BC), the last included all the ceramic phases from the Protogeometric to the Middle Geometric [1] and lasted until the beginning of the Protohistoric Iron Age around 800 BC.
The Bull-Leaping Fresco from Knossos showing bull-leaping, c. 1450 BC; probably, the dark skinned figure is a man and the two light skinned figures are women. The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia.
Little specific information is known about the Minoans, including their written system, which was recorded with the undeciphered Linear A script [21] and Cretan hieroglyphs. Even the name Minoans is a modern appellation, derived from Minos, the legendary king of Crete. They were primarily a mercantile people engaged in extensive overseas trade ...
The Minoan Hall has been referred to as "the very essence of Minoan architecture". [14] Typically found on the palaces' north sides, they consisted of a main room, a forehall, and a lightwell. The latter was separated from the main room by a series of wooden doors mounted on piers, called a pier-and-door partition. By opening or closing the ...
One of the laws of "the storks" in the satirical Cloud Cuckoo Land (Ancient Greek: Νεφελοκοκκυγία, romanized: Nephelokokkugía), playing upon the Athenian belief that they were originally Pelasgians, is that grown-up storks must support their parents by migrating elsewhere and conducting warfare.
The "Mistress of the Animals" (Potnia Theron), later called Artemis, may be identified as the Minoan goddess Britomartis/Dictynna. [50] Poseidon is the lord of the sea, and therefore of storms and earthquakes, (the "Earth shaker" in Linear B tablets). He may have functioned as a pre-Hellenic chthonic Zeus, the lord or spouse of the Earth ...