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Minoan art

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Minoan art

The surviving Minoan art in the modern-day gives us an insight into the Crete culture that

thrived during the pre-historic times. The Minoan art shows a joyous society and appreciated its

surroundings, i.e., the environment, and admired the natural world's logical order. The surviving

artifacts showed a self-respectful community and were able to adapt to their physical

environment when needed. Most arts from the Pre-palatial period were destroyed, and only a few

survived. In this pre-palatial period, significant development took place in Minoan society. This

paper aims to describe how the Minoan created a peaceful and joyous culture that celebrated the

art's natural world.

The potter’s wheels were introduced when the Minoan society was evolving their

complex organization, allowing for adequate production of thin-walled, systematical vessels. The

most iconic ware of this period was Kamares. The Kamares pottery style had features of a thin

wall, swollen curves, and other decorations, which made it beautiful and attractive, which led to

the pottery having a high demand in Crete and exported to Egypt and Syria. The elegance of the

Minoan pottery is enriched by the naturalistic dynamic lines that make the pottery beautiful.

The palaces built-in the middle Minoan period (1900-1700 B.C) were demolished, and

new ones were constructed in 1700 B.C on top of their ruin. As such, little is known about the

form, size, and function were limited. However, the palaces' general-purpose were: used for

artistic activities, political purposes, and agricultural commodity redistribution. Some of the most

famous castles in Crete were built in Knossos and Mallia. There were no walls built around the

palaces, but there are traces of remains of watchtowers in the roads leading to the castles. The

floors and walls of the courts were always painted and beautiful frescoes detailed by scenes of
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nature. There were adequate lighting and ventilation, as well as the provision of sanitary

facilities.

Palaces brought with them the development of writing this mostly due to the palace

owners having to keep records of the economic activities going on in the castle. The Minoans on

Crete used two specific scripts: the hieroglyphic and linear writing. Egypt's people inspired the

hieroglyphic, and the cuneiform from the Mediterranean inspired the linear writing. Much of the

archeologist evidence review that the ritual activities palaces would sometimes use for ritual

purposes. The Minoans' religious ritual mostly took place in caves and peak sanctuaries and not

castles. At the beginning of the second millennial B.C was great prosperity for Minoan Crete,

where they engaged in trade activities with other neighboring Mediterranean civilizations.

Foodstuffs, timber, clothes, olive oil, and crafted goods were some of the goods the Minoans

exported. The Minoans then imported copper, silver, gold, tin, fine stone, and manufactured

object. However, the Crete was self-sufficient in the basic needs.

To conclude, The Minoans trading with other civilizations helped them share ideas with

other nations, and hence it helped them improve their craft and shape them to one of the best

pottery and palaces of that time. From the beginning of the eleven century B.C, Crete's Minoan

culture declined; this was due to the Mycenaean civilization's influence on the Greeks, and there

is ample archeological evidence of mass destruction on the island around 1450 B.C. If indeed the

Mycenaean's weren't liable with this devastation, they did take advantage of events -bureaucratic

documents of this time are recorded in Linear B, the writing of Mycenaean Greek people. Early

modern pottery displays a mixture of stylistic features of Minoan and Mycenaean

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Reference

Boris, W. (2020). Minoan art – Smart history. Smarthistory.org. Retrieved 20 September 2020,

from https://smarthistory.org/ancient-mediterranean/ancient-aegean/minoan-art

Hemingway, C. (2020). Metmuseum.org. Retrieved 20 September 2020, from https://www.metm

useum.org/toah/hd/mino/hd_mino.htm

Sakoulas, T. (2020). Minoan Art. Ancient-greece.org. Retrieved 20 September 2020, from https:/

/ancient-greece.org/art/minoan-art.html