LOCATION...LOCATION...MINOAN!

Bronze Age fresco from Akrotiri, Thera/Santorini, c. 17th c. BC
The island formerly known as Thera (not the same as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince”) is now called Santorini.  But it had another name once: Kalliste, Most Beautiful (Place).  They say that its name only changed to Thera – “Place of Fear” – when the volcano exploded.  It’s a wonderful story, but who knows for certain whether it’s true?
(On second thought, I do.  Take a look at the gorgeous, green-blue caldera in my earlier blog.  Thera’s still one of the most beautiful places in the world).
To judge by their art, the Minoans – the Bronze Age people who populated Thera, as well as Crete and the other Aegean islands – were a highly developed, extraordinarily photo-op-friendly culture.  Their frescoes explode with color and life.  In them, the people are tall, athletic, and good-looking, with long, rippling, black locks and large, expressive eyes.  To judge by their Toreador Fresco, they didn’t get those muscles from going to the gym.  They weren’t just for show.  These people actually worked out, if you know what I mean.
Modern cartoonists have nothing on the animal forms inhabiting their pottery.  (The Octopus Vase is a particularly good example).  The animals look like something out of Disney’s The Little Mermaid: naturalistic, animated, even humorous.  At any moment, you expect them to break into song.
Anyway, the Minoans started to disappear around 1628 BC, give or take twenty years, if the scientists are correct.  They were replaced by – or absorbed into – the Mycenaean culture.  These are the warlike people who brought you the Iliad.  If you’re more of a recent-film-buff than an ancient-epic-poetry-reader, that’s Troy, with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom.
But, loathe as I am to leave Achilles and Paris, back to the Minoans.  They disappeared.  Or were assimilated into Mycenaean or some other society.  Or a little of both.  Which brings us to…Amazonia.
(Don’t get too excited, here.  We’re not going to Disneyland.  But, it’s still a pretty fun place).  Check it out…tomorrow!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

POSEIDON AND DEMETER: HAPPY COUPLE, OR VIOLATOR AND VICTIM?

Image
By Alvesgaspar - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43569142 Although the above sculpture depicts the rape of Demeter’s beloved daughter, Persephone, or Proserpina, by Hades, God of the Underworld, in the myths of the ancient world there was another, earlier rape: that of the earth goddess, Demeter, herself. In Demeter’s case, the rapist was the god of earthquakes, water, and horses, as well as the Underworld: Poseidon. I chose to use Bernini’s  The Rape of Proserpine  as the illustration of this post because I felt it vividly depicted the shock and horror of this ancient outrage. The two stories might have been a “twinning”, i.e.: Persephone’s later rape by Hades may just possibly have been a retelling of the original violation of Demeter by Poseidon. Here’s the initial story:   When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter [Persephone], she was followed, it is said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So, she turned, the story runs, into a m
Read more

ACHILLES AND PENTHESILIA: NECROPHILIA, OR SACRED MARRIAGE?

Image
  By ArchaiOptix - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=88625666 Rage. The great bard, Homer, employed wrath as the driving force behind the events of his  Iliad , including the deaths of his leading man, Achilles – the warrior-hero of the Greeks – and the Amazon Wonder Woman, Penthesilea. For, had the warrior woman not first killed one of her own, she would not have been compelled to find redemption in battle against the Greeks. Perhaps, she would instead have died somewhere on her native steppes, unremembered. Such a death – our loss, as well as that of Penthesilea and her people – would have been sad, indeed. Her name would have then been forever lost to time and anonymity. That ancient name conveyed some connotation of sadness:  penthos  meant “sorrow” in Ancient Greek. The second syllable of the warrior queen’s name is not so easy to decipher. Maybe, it came from the Latin verb for “silence”:  sileo . Or perhaps it was some Scythian derivative of
Read more