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Minoan religion

"Snake Goddess" or a priestess performing a ritual

Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete. In the absence of readable texts from most of the period, modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological evidence such as Minoan paintings, statuettes, vessels for rituals and seals and rings. Minoan religion is considered to have been closely related to Near Eastern ancient religions, and its central deity is generally agreed to have been a goddess, although a number of deities are now generally thought to have been worshipped. Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the bull and the horns of consecration, the labrys double-headed axe, and possibly the serpent.

The old view was that, in stark contrast to contemporary cultures in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Syria, Minoan religious practice was not centred around massive formal public temples.[1][2][3][4] However, it Is now thought the Minoan "palaces" and perhaps also the smaller "villas", were themselves the temples, and the performance of religious rituals were one of their main purposes.[5] There were also rural peak sanctuaries and many sacred caves. There is a question as to how much the palace religion that seems to be shown in Minoan painting and seals was followed or even understood by most of the population.

Very late terracotta votive offering figures, believed to represent deities. The poppy goddess is in the back row

It is generally agreed that the dominant figure in Minoan religion was a goddess, with whom a younger male figure, perhaps a consort or son, is often associated, usually in contexts suggesting that the male figure is a worshipper. The Goddess was also often associated with animals and escorted by fantastic creatures. She seems to have been served by priestesses, and one complicating issue is that some scholars have proposed that these imitated or performed as the deity in the course of rituals, confusing what images in Minoan art represent, for example in the case of the snake goddess figurines, at least one of which may represent "priestesses", which was Sir Arthur Evans' original thought.

Many fundamental questions about Minoan religious practice remain extremely uncertain. These include: the extent to which it, and its "priests", were tied into the political system; the amount of centralization or regional divergence; the changes over time, especially after the presumed Mycenaean conquest around 1450 BC; the depth of borrowings from Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, and the degree to which it influenced later Ancient Greek religion. Until after the Mycenaean conquest we have no names for deities, nor any real idea of how Minoans thought of them and their relationship with their devotees.

  1. ^ Bury, J. B.; Meiggs, Russell (1956). A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great (3 ed.). London: Macmillan. p. 18.
  2. ^ Burn, A. R. (1988). The Pelican history of Greece. Penguin. p. 38.
  3. ^ Hammond, N. G. L. (1967). A history of Greece to 322 B. C. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 30.
  4. ^ Hood, Sinclair (1967). The home of the heroes: The Aegean before the Greeks. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 90.
  5. ^ Marinatos, Chapter 3; Castleden, 5-7

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