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The Minoans on Crete

2,001 BCE – 1,451 BCE

Palaces without walls, painted in bright colours

In depth

Minoan art is strikingly free of the battle scenes that dominate contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamian imagery; its subjects are nature, festival and ritual. Their script, Linear A, remains undeciphered. The culture was gravely weakened by the eruption on Thera and then taken over by Mycenaeans from the mainland, who borrowed the script and adapted it to Greek.

For children

On Crete the Minoans built great palaces with bathtubs, drains and wall paintings of dolphins and acrobats vaulting over bulls. The palaces had no defensive walls — the sea and their fleet were the wall.

Connects to

Thera explodes1,601 BCE
Mycenae1,601 BCE – 1,101 BCE
Writing is invented3,201 BCE

Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org