Crete

Crete

The ancient and splendid island of Crete, steeped in mystery and with so many of its treasures still to be explored, offers a link between the classical civilisation of the Mediterranean and the more ancient ones of Egypt and Asia Minor.

The rugged island of Minos serves therefore as a bridge (artistic, religious and li... Read on

Crete

The ancient and splendid island of Crete, steeped in mystery and with so many of its treasures still to be explored, offers a link between the classical civilisation of the Mediterranean and the more ancient ones of Egypt and Asia Minor.

The rugged island of Minos serves therefore as a bridge (artistic, religious and linguistic) between three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. The elongated island is characterised by mountain ranges; by the White Mountains, by Mt Ida and Mt Diktys, the unusual Lasithi mountain plateau.

Unlike other Mediterranean islands of this size, there are few fertile stretches which makes the lush plain of Mésara, in the centre of the southern coast, all the more remarkable. Occasionally the barren and battered landscape is broken by magnificent ravines fed by the rush of the winter torrents forcefully moulding the Cretan landscape. The scorching heat of summer reduces these torrents to pitiful trickles. This continuous succession of rocky bays and steep valleys, of tiny plains and small plateaux, is dominated by the massive form of Mt Ida, visible from almost every part of the island. Mt Ida is the birthplace of the father of all the Olympian gods, Zeus, whose symbol of power, a bull with impressive horns, is reflected in the mountain’s two sharp peaks between which lies the Dictaen cave, the cradle of the god. These peaks undoubtedly gave rise to the symbolic image of the double horns, linked to the cult of the father of the gods, apparent in all the Minoan palaces and sanctuaries to acknowledge the divine presence and in recognition of the royal household’s debt to his power.

The beauty of Crete is most potent around the coast: a heavily indented series of bays, ports, beaches and coves which are easily accessible and often backed by steep and forbidding cliffs, reflected in the azure sea. For thousands of years these bays offered safe access to Mediterranean vessels in search of new lands to discover and conquer and to those in search of new commercial, political and cultural alliances: the Egyptians, Cypriots, Rhodians, Phoenicians, Minoans, Mycenæans, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, the Maritime Republics of Medieval Italy, Turks, right up to the fleets of modern naval vessels and tourist cruises.

The troubled history of the island, a long series of invasions and more or less short-term occupations, reflects the continuous fascination and attraction of Crete. There were groups of hunters settled on Crete as early as the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period. Between the seventh and fourth millennium B.C. the island was further populated with Neolithic groups from Anatolia (modern Turkey) who probably reached the island in crude sea-craft. These people from Asia Minor brought seeds and domestic animals with them and settled either in caves or simple rectangular constructions and soon started to produce terracotta pots modelled by hand. The abundance of female idols of the kind known as steatopìgi (“of the large muscles”) of the same period discovered throughout the Mediterranean region documents the existence of a persistent and deep-rooted cult of the Mother goddess, the symbol of fertility and plenty, which endured in successive periods and was the principle object of devotion of the Aegean world. During the third millennium B.C. other settlers from Anatolia arrived. These people were probably of the same origins as the powerful Hittites who later lived on the inland mountain plateaux of modern Turkey. The arrival of the settlers led to that blend of local cultural traditions with external influences from which the Bronze age civilisation developed, the most important episode in Cretan history, taking its name, the Minoan period, from the mythical king of the island, Minos.

The power enjoyed by the cities of Crete between 2700 and 1100 B.C. (with the height of greatness between about 2000 and 1450 B.C.) is reflected in the fantastic enterprises of the gods, many of them set in Crete, and in the myths which became known throughout the classical world and have survived in modern western culture. The tribute demanded by Minos annually from Athens of twelve youths and twelve maidens from the city’s aristocratic families as food for his monstrous son, half man and half bull, the Minotaur, is an obvious allusion to historical events. The story reflects in particular on the period when Minoan domination of the sea reached as far as Athens which was compelled to send occasional tributes to Crete, including slaves, until halted by a revolt of the Athenians (in the myth represented by the liberator, Theseus, son of Egeus, king of Athens).
There are also political and diplomatic parallels in the love story involving the young Athenian hero’s involvement with the daughter of Minos, Ariadne. The Minoan period was certainly one of great splendour for the island, with the construction of sumptuous palaces by royal families who had complete control of every aspect of production in their territories. After collecting the fruits of this activity the families then supervised their just redistribution among the population. The success of this system is evident in the almost identical reconstruction which followed the destruction of the first palaces in about 1700 B.C. Their collapse was caused by a catastrophic earthquake, accompanied by tidal waves and fires, and was immediately followed by invasions from the Greek mainland. This social organisation continued for several more centuries until about 1450 B.C., when the second stage of Minoan culture was destroyed in the aftermath of the tremendous eruption of the volcano on the island of Santorini (Thera). This great event is referred to in the Bible. It probably gave rise to the mythical account of an entire civilisation with its cities of gold, Atlantis, which sank beneath the waves.
Archaeological traces of the eruption of Santorini includes several metres of ashes and lapilli erupted from Thera discovered in the Gulf of Taranto, thousands of kilometres away. The size and splendour of the palaces reflects the success and power of the Minoan monarchies which had much in common with the kingdoms in the Near East. They possessed, in addition to their luxurious palaces, villas and private houses from which they exercised a real thalassocracy (“dominion of the seas”) over the Aegean. Their representatives recorded their customs, their accounts and their contracts writing on clay tablets in a language akin to future classical Greek and with a script derived from hieroglyphs but which has not yet been deciphered. They established close contact, not only with the surrounding islands, but with Phoenician Syria, with Asia Minor, and with Egypt where documents make mention of the Keftìou, allies generally identified with Minoan Cretans.

A complex and varied spiritual life is reflected in Minoan burial rites, attesting to the belief in an after-life, and also in the religious symbols, the most important being the Double Horns and the Double Axe, with which the priest-king exercised his dual political and religious role: his power over life and death, with one blade for the citizens and the other for the sacrificial victims. Minoan culture spread to and was diffused throughout the Peloponnese, where the flourishing cities of Argos, Pylus, Nauplia, Mycenae and Tiryns reflected the achievements of the island civilisation. With the destruction of the Minoan world, after the eruption of Santorini, the people of the Peloponnese, of Achaean origin, turned to the coastal areas of Crete where they easily conquered the weakened cities. This gave rise to one of the most extraordinary reversals in history: Mycenæan civilisation, in many ways an offshoot of the Minoan one, in which it was deeply rooted, now supplanted it in Crete itself. The Mycenæan period was one of great power and artistic splendour for Crete; it is to this period that we date the events recorded in myths and legends such as the involvement of brave heroes from Crete in the Trojan wars, as recounted by Homer. The Achaean kings settled on the sites previously occupied by the Minoans, rebuilding and adapting them. Their documents are written in a language which gave rise to classical Greek, and in script in some ways linked to their predecessor, Linear B. About 1050 B.C. the invasion of people of Doric origin signalled the end of Mycenæan civilization (in Greece as well as in Crete) and the beginnings of Classical Greek civilization. Crete became a great power, with numerous city-states spreading the enormous economic and cultural wealth of the Mycenæan kingdoms throughout the island and beyond. Linguistically and culturally the population remained tied to its Doric origin. Rich, powerful and strategically placed, Crete had close contacts with the East and it contributed, through the exchange of goods and craftsmen, to the creation of a classical Greek style, which drew lively inspiration from that of the Greek colonies of coastal Anatolia. These historical traditions disappeared when Crete fell to the Romans, the new lords of the Mediterranean, in the first century B.C. when the consul Metellus, surnamed Cretanus, brutally conquered the island for the Roman Empire. Crete was unified with Cyrenaica (now Libya) to form a new province with its capital and the residence of the governor in Gortyn on the plain of Mésara; it was one of the richest provinces in the Empire.

From the late Roman era the history of the island became increasingly dramatic and turbulent as it was the object of conquest by the surrounding Mediterranean people, with periods of bloody oppression and revolt. From 324 it formed part of the Byzantine Empire, as did the rest of Greece and then for over 100 years, 823-961 the Saracen Arabs held the island. Reconquered by the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas, it was contested after the fourth crusade by the powerful maritime republics of Genoa and Venice, with the final victory to the Venetians. Venetian rule brought prosperity and lasted from 1204 to 1669; during this period many attempts at revolt, still commemorated throughout the island, were crushed. Attacked and invaded by the Turks in 1645, it was completely conquered when the capital Candia fell in 1669 after a strenuous siege of some 24 years, causing the Venetians finally to withdraw. The period of Turkish domination from 1669 to 1898 is the lowest point in the island’s history, with constant resistance from the Cretans and open revolts mercilessly repressed with the loss of thousands of lives. With the support of the British the island led a successful revolt in 1898 and declared its independence, which it retained until its annexation to Greece in 1913. In 1923 the Muslims left the island in exchange for Greeks fleeing from Turkey. During the Second World War Crete was occupied by the Germans who faced the fierce hostility of a proud people whose troubled history had taught them the value of freedom. Today Crete is the most splendid of the islands belonging to Greece.

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