The art of the Minoan civilization. Minoan (Creto-Mycenaean) civilization Features of the Minoan civilization

Minoan civilization - refers to the Aegean civilization of the Bronze Age of the island of Crete (2700-1400 BC). The main centers of culture and civilization were the so-called palaces - complex economic and political complexes, the largest of which existed in Knossos, Phaistos, Zakros and Tylissa.

Fragments of the Knossos Palace

The culture is named after the mythical king of Crete Minos, the owner of the labyrinth built, according to legend, by Daedalus.

The Minoans conducted active maritime trade (the island was located at the intersection of the main sea trade routes), engaged in piracy, and maintained friendly relations with Ancient Egypt. None of the palaces had fortifications: obviously, the inhabitants of the island felt completely safe.

Minoan civilization. Ancient Crete and its inhabitants

During the Middle Minoan period, the influence of the culture spread to mainland Greece, and during the same period the Cycladic culture was assimilated by the Minoans. The invasion of Crete by the Achaean Greeks did not lead to the decline of culture, but to a new stage in its development - the emergence of a mixed Mycenaean culture, the influence of which extended to mainland Greece, Crete, the islands of the Aegean Sea and a number of territories in the eastern Mediterranean. The native Cretans continued to play at least an important cultural role in Mycenaean Greece. After the Dorian invasion, the Minoan culture completely disappeared, and the indigenous population of Crete was assimilated by the Greeks no later than the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e.

Heritage of ancient civilizations. Minoan culture

Early period of study

At the beginning of the 19th century, historical information about Minoan Crete was collected and analyzed by Robert Pashley. Since Crete belonged to Turkey in those years, he did not have the opportunity to conduct excavations, but he managed to establish the exact location of the city of Kydonia.

The first excavations of the Knossos Palace began in 1878 by the Cretan collector of antiquities Minos Kalokerinos, but the excavations were interrupted by the Turkish government. G. Schliemann, having heard about the antiquities of the island, also wanted to conduct excavations there, but after a scandal with the illegal export of gold treasures from Turkey, the Ottoman authorities, who were in charge of Crete at that time, refused him.

The official date of the discovery of the culture is considered to be March 16, 1900, when the English archaeologist Arthur Evans began excavating the Knossos Palace.

In 1900-1920 Intensive excavations of Crete were carried out, on the materials of which historians’ ideas about the Minoan civilization were based for a long time. The excavations were led by Federico Halberr, Luigi Pernier, John Pendlebury and a number of other archaeologists.

After deciphering the Cretan script

A tablet with an inscription in Cypriot-Minoan script.

A significant breakthrough in the study of Minoan civilization occurred after the 1950s. M. Ventris, with the participation of J. Chadwick, deciphered the later version of the Cretan script - Linear B. As a result, information was obtained about the later period of the Minoan civilization - the Mycenaean civilization, in which the Achaean Greeks played a dominant role, but the cultural role of the Minoans was still strong.

To this day, the question of when the Achaeans and Pelasgians took a dominant position in the Minoan civilization remains controversial; both legendary tradition and archaeological evidence indicate that this happened in Crete, before the center of power moved to Mycenae. W. Ridgway disputed the correctness of the term “Minoan civilization” created by Evans, pointing out that the legendary king Minos was not a “Minoan”, but an alien from mainland Greece; Ridgway's point of view also has modern supporters.

Chronology

The chronology of the Minoan civilization was proposed by A. Evans at the beginning of the 20th century, who divided Minoan history into the early, middle and late Minoan periods (the latter basically coincides with the existence of the Mycenaean civilization). An alternative division of Minoan history into palace periods was proposed by the Greek archaeologist N. Plato.

Preminoan period of Crete

There are no traces of people in Crete until the Neolithic. Already in the early Neolithic period, rock-cut dwellings appeared on Crete, later used as tombs. Especially many of these rock dwellings have been preserved near the city of Matala.

Caves on Matala Beach

Anatolian origins of Minoan culture

Early Minoan culture is not a direct descendant of the Neolithic culture of Crete, but was introduced from the east through Anatolia. Analogues in Mesopotamia have early Minoan clothing, architecture, carved seals, cult images, and many other features of Minoan culture.

The cult images of the bull and the “oranta” goddess (with raised hands) characteristic of the Minoan culture are found in the east of Anatolia already in the ceramic Neolithic era. In the 4th millennium BC. e. In Arslantepe, cylinder seals appeared, later widespread among the Minoans, and in the 3rd millennium BC. e. A palace is being built in Beyjesultan, the architectural features of which are reminiscent of later Minoan palaces.

Cylinder seal from Arslantepe

According to one hypothesis, the bearers of the Minoan culture are descendants of the Halaf culture, which continued the traditions of the Neolithic proto-cities of Anatolia, which, under the pressure of the ancestors of the Sumerians (Ubaid culture), migrated to the West and later moved to Crete. Such characteristic elements of Minoan culture as the cult labrys hatchet or soapstone seals were inherited from the Halaf culture.

Labrys as a symbol of Minoan culture

Beyond the scope of this hypothesis, the question remains about the emergence of seafaring traditions among the Minoans, which were absent in the Halaf culture. The influence of the neighboring Halaf culture of Fikirtepe (the cult of the “Oranta” goddess, ornament, design of residential buildings) can also be traced.

Influence of mainland Greece (Pelasgians)

On the other hand, Minoan culture was influenced by the culture of mainland Greece (“Pelasgians”). Homer mentions the Pelasgians as a people who inhabited Crete along with the Cretans themselves. The ornaments of Minoan vase painting are much more similar to the ornaments of the ceramics of mainland Greece (in particular, the Vinca culture) than with the rather poor ornamentation of the Ubaid culture.

"Pythos with medallions" in the Knossos Palace. Named for their convex disks, they belong to the Middle Minoan III or Late Minoan IA period.

In addition, in the names of settlements of ancient Crete there are suffixes characteristic of mainland Greece -ss-, -nth-, etc.

Cultural connections

Fresco of the Palace of Knossos Prince with lilies, dated around 1550 BC. e.

In the ancient period (late 3rd millennium BC), the Minoans apparently maintained contact with the Ocieri culture in Sardinia. The ancient tradition considered the inhabitants of Sardinia to be from Crete, which, however, gives historians little information, since Sardinia was replaced by several cultures of different origins.

According to Homer, in addition to the Minoans themselves (autochthonous Cretans, Eteocritans), Pelasgians also lived on Crete (according to Herodotus and others, who arrived from Asia Minor or Greece), as well as the Kidones (a small people, possibly related to the Minoans - from them the name comes city ​​of Cydonia). Back in the first half of the 20th century. many famous researchers of Crete, despite such a clear indication, confused the Pelasgians with the Cretans themselves. Later, the Achaeans (Greeks) entered the island.

The identity of the Minoan (Eteocritan) language has not been established. Partial decipherment of the Cretan script made it possible to identify some morphological indicators (the language, apparently, is neither Indo-European nor related to Etruscan). The Phaistos Disc, as well as everything written in Linear A, cannot be deciphered.

Phaistos disc.

Ancient Egypt was an ally of Crete for many years. On the contrary, contacts of Crete with Egypt's rivals (the civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Hittite kingdom) are not attested.

Some of the Minoans moved to Cyprus and Ugarit, where their colonies were founded. Later, the Minoans in Cyprus were subjugated by the Teucrians (one of the “peoples of the sea”), and in Ugarit they were assimilated by the Semites.

Crete is not mentioned in the Hittite-Luwian inscriptions of Asia Minor; Apparently, Crete was not in contact with the Hittites, but with small states located along the western coast of Anatolia. Inscriptions believed to be of Cretan origin have been discovered in Troy. The Cretans colonized a number of Aegean islands (particularly the Cyclades), but their expansion appears to have encountered Pelasgian rivalry.

Contacts with mainland Greece, apparently, were few and developed after the capture of Crete by the Achaeans.

Sunset

The Minoan civilization suffered greatly as a result of a natural disaster - a volcanic explosion (between 1628 and 1500 BC) on the island of Thera (Santorini), which generated a powerful earthquake and a catastrophic tsunami. This volcanic eruption may have served as the basis for the myth of the destruction of Atlantis.

Boxing boys (fresco from the island of Santorini)

The Death of Ancient Civilizations. Minoan Mystery

Previously it was assumed that the volcanic eruption destroyed the Minoan civilization, but archaeological excavations in Crete showed that the Minoan civilization existed for at least about 100 years after the eruption (a layer of volcanic ash was discovered under the structures of the Minoan culture).

"Fisherman". Minoan fresco from Thira

To this day, the exact cause of the fires that finally destroyed the Minoan palaces in 1450 BC is unknown. e.

Bronze Age fresco (Santorini)

RUINS OF THE MINOAN CIVILIZATION

After the eruption, the Achaeans seized power on the island. This is how the Mycenaean culture (Crete and mainland Greece) arose, combining Minoan and Greek elements. In the 12th century BC. e. The Mycenaean culture was destroyed by the Dorians, who eventually settled Crete. The invasion of the Dorians led to a sharp cultural decline, and the Cretan script fell out of use. The Minoans hid from sea raids in highland settlements such as Karfi. Nevertheless, the Eteocretan language (the language of the autochthonous Cretans), like the Minoan cults, continued to exist for a long time. The last monuments of the Eteocritan language, written in the Greek alphabet (one inscription also in Linear A), date back to the 3rd century. BC e. (a thousand years after the disappearance of the Minoan civilization).

Heritage of ancient civilizations. Santorini and Thira

State

The Minoan civilization was a state. The presence of a single ruler (king or queen) has not been proven, which sharply distinguishes it from other Mediterranean states of the Bronze Age.
The Minoans traded with Ancient Egypt and exported copper from Cyprus. The architecture is characterized by reinterpreted Egyptian borrowings (for example, the use of columns).
The Minoan army was armed with slings and bows. A characteristic weapon of the Minoans was also the double-sided labrys axe.
Like other peoples of Old Europe, the Minoans had a widespread cult of the bull.
The Minoans smelted bronze, produced ceramics, and built multi-story, up to 5-story palace complexes from the mid-20th century BC. e. (Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia).
Like other pre-Indo-European religions in Europe, the Minoan religion was not alien to the remnants of matriarchy.

"Pillar Shrine" within the Minoan palace of Cnossus, Crete. 16th century BC e.

In particular, the Goddess with snakes (possibly an analogue of Astarte) was revered.

Fresco from Knossos Palace

Culture and technology

The Minoans built water pipes and sewers in their palaces. Used the baths and pools.

Painting. One of the most popular motifs in late Minoan art was the octopus.

Religion. There was no temple in the religious tradition of the Minoans. Religious rituals were performed outdoors or in the palace. The sacrifice of bulls is widespread.

Games with a bull (fresco from Knossos)

All attempts to reconstruct the Minoan religion and pantheon of deities are quite speculative. According to one of the hypotheses (M. Gimbutas), the bull was the personification of male power, the queen was a female deity like a great goddess.

"Snake Goddess"

Secrets of Vanished Civilizations. Minoan Culture

Prerequisites for the formation of a state in Crete. The oldest center of civilization in Europe was the island of Crete. In terms of its geographical position, this elongated mountainous island, which closes the entrance to the Aegean Sea from the south, represents a natural outpost of the European continent, extended far to the south towards the African and Asian coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Already in ancient times, sea routes crossed here, connecting the Balkan Peninsula and the Aegean islands with Asia Minor, Syria and North Africa. Emerging at one of the busiest crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean, the culture of Crete was influenced by such diverse and separated cultures as the ancient “river” civilizations of the Middle East (Egypt and Mesopotamia), on the one hand, and the early agricultural cultures of Anatolia, the Danube lowland and the Balkan Greece - on the other. But a particularly important role in the formation of the Cretan civilization was played by the culture of the Cycladic archipelago neighboring Crete, which is rightfully considered one of the leading cultures of the Aegean world in the 3rd millennium BC. e. The Cycladic culture is already characterized by large fortified settlements of the proto-urban type, for example Phylakopi on the island. Melos, Chalandriani on Syros and others, as well as highly developed original art - an idea of ​​it is given by the famous Cycladic idols (carefully polished marble figurines of people) and richly ornamented vessels of various shapes made of stone, clay and metal. The inhabitants of the Cyclades islands were experienced sailors. Probably, thanks to their mediation, contacts between Crete, mainland Greece and the coast of Asia Minor were carried out for a long time.

The time of the emergence of the Minoan civilization is the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC. e., or the end of the Early Bronze Age. Until this moment, the Cretan culture did not stand out any noticeably against the general background of the most ancient cultures of the Aegean world. The Neolithic era, as well as the Early Bronze Age that replaced it (VI-III millennium BC), was in the history of Crete a time of gradual, relatively calm accumulation of forces before the decisive leap to a new stage of social development. What prepared this leap? First of all, of course, the development and improvement of the productive forces of Cretan society. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. In Crete, the production of copper and then bronze was mastered. Bronze tools and weapons gradually replaced similar products made of stone. Important changes occur during this period in the agriculture of Crete. Its basis is now becoming a new multicultural type of agriculture, focused on the cultivation of three main crops, to one degree or another characteristic of the entire Mediterranean region, namely: cereals (mainly barley), grapes and olives. (The so-called Mediterranean triad.) The result of all these economic changes was an increase in agricultural productivity and an increase in the mass of surplus product. On this basis, reserve funds of agricultural products began to be created in individual communities, which not only covered food shortages in lean years, but also provided food for people not directly involved in agricultural production, for example, artisans. Thus, for the first time it became possible to separate crafts from agriculture and professional specialization in various branches of handicraft production began to develop. About the high level of professional skill achieved by Minoan artisans already in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. e., evidenced by finds of jewelry, vessels carved from stone, and carved seals dating back to this time. At the end of the same period, the potter's wheel became known in Crete, allowing great progress in the production of ceramics.

At the same time, a certain part of the community reserve funds could be used for intercommunity and intertribal exchange. The development of trade in Crete, as well as in the Aegean basin in general, was closely connected with the development of navigation. It is no coincidence that almost all the Cretan settlements now known to us were located either directly on the sea coast or somewhere not far from it. Having mastered the art of navigation, the inhabitants of Crete already in the 3rd millennium BC. e. come into close contact with the population of the islands of the Cyclades archipelago, penetrate the coastal regions of mainland Greece and Asia Minor, and reach Syria and Egypt. Like other maritime peoples of antiquity, the Cretans willingly combined trade and fishing with piracy. Economic prosperity of Crete in the III-II millennia in the III millennium BC. e. come into close contact with the population of the islands of the Cyclades archipelago, penetrate the coastal regions of mainland Greece and Asia Minor, and reach Syria and Egypt. Like other maritime peoples of antiquity, the Cretans willingly combined trade and fishing with piracy. Economic prosperity of Crete in the III-II millennia BC. e. depended to a large extent on these three sources of enrichment.

The progress of the Cretan economy during the Early Bronze Age contributed to rapid population growth in the most fertile areas of the island. This is evidenced by the emergence of many new settlements, which especially accelerated at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Most of them were located in the eastern part of Crete and on the vast central plain (the area of ​​\u200b\u200bKnossos and Phaistos). At the same time, there is an intensive process of social stratification of Cretan society. Within individual communities there is an influential layer of nobility. It consists mainly of tribal leaders and priests. All these people were exempt from direct participation in productive activities and occupied a privileged position in comparison with the mass of ordinary community members. At the other pole of the same social system, slaves appear, mainly from among the few captured foreigners. During the same period, new forms of political relations began to take shape in Crete. Stronger and more populous communities subjugate their less powerful neighbors, force them to pay tribute and impose all sorts of other duties. Already existing tribes and tribal unions are internally consolidated, acquiring a clearer political organization. The logical result of all these processes was the formation at the turn of the III-II millennia of the first “palace” states, which occurred almost simultaneously in different regions of Crete.

The first state formations. The era of palace civilization in Crete covers a total of about 600 years and falls into two main periods: 1) old palaces (2000-1700 BC) and 2) new palaces (1700-1400 BC) .). Already at the beginning of the 2nd millennium, several independent states emerged on the island. Each of them included several dozen small communal settlements, grouped around one of the four large palaces now known to archaeologists. As already mentioned, this number includes the palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia in central Crete and the palace of Kato Zakro (Zakroe) on the east coast of the island. Unfortunately, only a few of the “old palaces” that existed in these places have survived. Later construction erased their traces almost everywhere. Only in Festos has the large western courtyard of the old palace and part of the adjacent interior spaces been preserved. It can be assumed that already at this early time the Cretan architects, who built palaces in different parts of the island, tried to follow a certain plan in their work, the main elements of which continued to be used subsequently. The main of these elements was the placement of the entire complex of palace buildings around a rectangular central courtyard, elongated along the center line always in the same direction from north to south.

Among the palace utensils of this period, the most interesting are the painted clay vases of the Kamares style (their first examples were found in the Kamares cave near Festus, where the name comes from). The stylized floral ornament decorating the walls of these vessels creates the impression of non-stop movement of geometric figures combined with each other: spirals, disks, rosettes, etc. Here for the first time the exceptional dynamism that would later become the most important distinguishing feature of all Minoan art makes itself felt. The color richness of these paintings is also striking. On a dark asphalt-colored background, the design was applied first with white and then with red or brown paint of different shades. These three colors

made up a very beautiful, although restrained, colorful range.

Already during the period of the “old palaces,” the socio-economic and political development of Cretan society had advanced so far that it gave rise to an urgent need for writing, without which none of the early civilizations known to us could survive. Pictographic writing, which arose at the beginning of this period (it is known mainly from short inscriptions of two or three characters on seals), gradually gave way to a more advanced system of syllabic writing - the so-called Linear A. Inscriptions made in Linear A have reached us of a dedicatory nature, as well as, although in small quantities, business reporting documents.

Creation of a united pan-Cretan state. Around 1700 BC e. The palaces of Knossos, Festus, Mallia and Kato Zakro were destroyed, apparently as a result of a strong earthquake, accompanied by a large fire.

This disaster, however, only briefly stopped the development of Cretan culture. Soon, on the site of the destroyed palaces, new buildings of the same type were built, basically, apparently, preserving the layout of their predecessors, although surpassing them in their monumentality and splendor of architectural decoration. Thus, a new stage began in the history of Minoan Crete, known in science as the “period of new palaces.”

The most remarkable architectural structure of this period is the Palace of Minos in Knossos, opened by A. Evans. The extensive material collected by archaeologists during excavations in this palace allows us to form the most complete and comprehensive picture of what the Minoan civilization was like at its peak. The Greeks called the palace of Minos a “labyrinth” (this word itself, apparently, was borrowed by them from the language of the pre-Greek population of Crete). In Greek myths, a labyrinth is a huge building with many rooms and corridors. A person who got into it could no longer get out without outside help and inevitably died: in the depths of the palace lived a bloodthirsty Minotaur - a monster with a human body and the head of a bull. The tribes and peoples subject to Minos were obliged to annually entertain the terrible beast with human sacrifices until it was killed by the famous Athenian hero Theseus. Evans' excavations showed that the Greek stories about the labyrinth had some basis. In Knossos, a huge building or even a whole complex of buildings with a total area of ​​16,000 square meters was actually discovered, which included about three hundred rooms for a wide variety of purposes.

7. Eat Homer. Sources on the history of archaic and classical Greece. The total number and variety of sources for studying the history of Greece VIII--TV centuries. BC e. increases sharply. Written sources of various genres are presented with particular completeness.

The earliest written sources were the epic poems attributed to the blind storyteller Homer - the Iliad and the Odyssey. These works, considered the best examples of the epic genre of world literature, were compiled on the basis of numerous tales, legends, songs, and oral folk traditions dating back to Achaean times. However, the processing and combination of these disparate parts into a single work of art occurred in the 9th-8th centuries. BC e. It is possible that this work could have belonged to some brilliant storyteller, known to us under the name of Homer. Poems were transmitted orally for a long time, but in the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. were written down, and the final editing and recording of the poems was carried out in Athens under the tyrant Pisistratus in the middle of the 6th century. BC e.

Each poem consists of 24 books. The plot of the Iliad is one of the episodes of the tenth year of the Trojan War, namely a quarrel in the Greek camp between the commander of the Greek army, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, and Achilles, the leader of one of the Thessalian tribes. Against this background, Homer gives a detailed description of the military actions of the Greeks and Trojans, the structure of the military camp and weapons, the control system, the appearance of cities, the religious views of the Greeks and Trojans, and everyday life.

The poem "Odyssey" tells about the adventures of the king of Ithaca, Odysseus, who was returning to his native Ithaca after the destruction of Troy. The gods subject Odysseus to numerous trials: he falls to the ferocious Cyclops, guides the ship past the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, escapes from the cannibals of the Laestrygonians, rejects the spell of the sorceress Kirka, who turns people into pigs, etc. Homer shows his hero in different situations of peaceful life, which allows him to characterize its most diverse aspects: economic activities, the life of the royal palace and estate, the relationship between those in power and the poor, customs, particulars of everyday life. However, in order to use the data from Homer’s poems to reconstruct the historical reality reflected in them, the most careful and painstaking analysis is required. After all, each of the poems is, first of all, a work of art in which poetic fiction and historical truth are mixed in the most bizarre way. In addition, the poems were created and edited over several centuries, and therefore they reflected different chronological layers: the life and customs of the Achaean kingdoms, social relations of the so-called Homeric time (XI-IX centuries BC) and, finally, time compilation of poems (IX-VIII centuries BC).

8. Features of the development of Homeric society. The period of Greek history following the Cretan-Mycenaean era is usually called “Homeric” after the great poet Homer, whose poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” remain the most important source of information about this time.

The evidence of the Homeric epic is significantly complemented and expanded by archeology. The bulk of archaeological material for this period comes from excavations of necropolises. The largest of them were discovered in Athens (the areas of Ceramics and the later Agora), on the island of Salamis, on Euboea (near Lefkandi), in the vicinity of Argos. The number of currently known settlements of the 11th-9th centuries. BC e. extremely small (this fact itself indicates a sharp reduction in the total population). Almost all of them are located in hard-to-reach places, fortified by nature itself. An example is the mountain villages discovered in various places on the territory of eastern Crete, including Karfi, Kavousi, Vrokastro, etc. Apparently, they sheltered the remnants of the local Minoan-Achaean population, driven out of the flat part of the island by the Dorian conquerors. Coastal settlements of Homeric times are usually located on small peninsulas connected to land only by a narrow isthmus, and are often surrounded by a wall, which indicates widespread piracy. Of the settlements of this type, the most famous is Smyrna, founded on the coast of Asia Minor by Aeolian colonists from European Greece.

Archeology shows that the so-called Dorian conquest pushed Greece back several centuries. Of the achievements of the Mycenaean era, only a few industrial skills and technical devices have been preserved, which were of vital importance both for the new inhabitants of the country and for the remnants of its former population. These include a potter's wheel, relatively high metal processing technology, a ship with a sail, and the culture of growing olives and grapes. The Mycenaean civilization itself, with all its characteristic forms of socio-economic relations, government institutions, religious and ideological ideas, etc., undoubtedly ceased to exist*. Throughout Greece, the primitive communal system was again established for a long time.

Mycenaean palaces and citadels were abandoned and lay in ruins. No one else settled behind their walls. Even in Athens, which obviously did not suffer from the Dorian invasion, the acropolis was abandoned by its inhabitants already in the 12th century. BC e. and thereafter remained uninhabited for a long time. It seems that during the Homeric period the Greeks forgot how to build houses and fortresses from stone blocks, as their predecessors did in the Mycenaean era. Almost all buildings of this time were wooden or made of unbaked brick. Therefore, none of them survived. Burials of the Homeric period, as a rule, are extremely poor, even wretched, when compared with Mycenaean graves. Their entire inventory usually consists of several clay pots, a bronze or iron sword, spear and arrowheads in men’s graves, and cheap jewelry in women’s graves. There are almost no beautiful valuable things in them. There are no objects of foreign, eastern origin, so common in Mycenaean burials. All this speaks of a sharp decline in crafts and trade, a mass flight of skilled craftsmen from a country devastated by war and invasions to foreign lands, and a severance of trade sea routes connecting Mycenaean Greece with the countries of the Middle East and with the rest of the Mediterranean. The products of Greek artisans of the Homeric period are noticeably inferior both in their artistic qualities and in purely technical terms to the works of Mycenaean, and even more so Cretan, Minoan craftsmen. The so-called geometric style reigns supreme in the painting of ceramics of this time. The walls of the vessels are covered with a simple pattern made up of concentric circles, triangles, rhombuses, and squares. The first, still very primitive images of people and animals appear after a long break only at the very end of the 9th century.

All this, of course, does not mean that the Homeric period did not introduce anything new into the cultural development of Greece. The history of mankind does not know absolute regression, and in the material culture of the Homeric period, elements of regression are intricately intertwined with a number of important innovations. The most important of them was the Greeks' mastery of iron smelting and processing techniques. In the Mycenaean era, iron was known in Greece only as a precious metal and was used mainly for the manufacture of various types of jewelry such as rings, bracelets, etc. The oldest examples of iron weapons (swords, daggers, arrowheads and spears), discovered on the territory of Balkan Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea, date back to the 12th-11th centuries. BC e. Somewhat later, in the X-IX centuries. BC e., the first tools made of the same metal appear. Examples include an ax and a chisel found in one of the burials of the Athenian Agora, a chisel and an adze from one grave in the necropolis, ceramics, an iron sickle from Tiryns and other objects. Homer is also well aware of the widespread use of iron for the manufacture of agricultural and other tools. In one of the episodes of the Iliad, Achilles invites participants in the competition at the funeral feast, organized in honor of his deceased friend Patroclus, to test their strength in throwing a block of native iron. It will also be the reward that the winner will receive.

Pottery, iron sickle from Tiryns and other items. Homer is also well aware of the widespread use of iron for the manufacture of agricultural and other tools. In one of the episodes of the Iliad, Achilles invites participants in the competition at the funeral feast, organized in honor of his deceased friend Patroclus, to test their strength in throwing a block of native iron. It will also be the reward that the winner will receive.

The widespread introduction of the new metal into production meant a real technical revolution under the conditions of that time. For the first time, metal became cheap and widely available (iron deposits are found in nature much more often than deposits of copper and tin, the main components of bronze). There was no longer a need for dangerous and expensive expeditions to ore mining sites. In this regard, the production capabilities of an individual family have sharply increased. This was an undeniable technological advance. However, its beneficial effect on the social and cultural development of Ancient Greece was not immediately felt, and in general the culture of the Homeric period is much lower than the chronologically preceding culture of the Cretan-Mycenaean era. This is unanimously evidenced not only by the objects found by archaeologists during excavations, but also by the descriptions of life and everyday life with which Homer’s poems introduce us.

Socio-economic relations. Slavery. It has long been noted that the Iliad and the Odyssey as a whole depict a society much closer to barbarism, a culture much more backward and primitive than that which we can imagine by reading Linear B tablets or examining the works of the Cretan-Mycenaean art. In the economy of Homeric times, subsistence agriculture reigns supreme, the main industries of which remain, as in the Mycenaean era, agriculture and cattle breeding. Homer himself undoubtedly had a good understanding of the various types of peasant labor. He judges with great knowledge the difficult work of the farmer and shepherd and often introduces scenes from contemporary rural life into his narrative about the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus. Such episodes are especially often used in comparisons, with which the poet richly enriches his story. Thus, in the Iliad, the heroes of Ajax going into battle are compared to two bulls plowing the earth. The approaching enemy armies are likened to reapers walking across the field towards each other. The dead Yura reminds the poet of an olive tree, grown by a caring owner, which was uprooted by a violent wind. There are also detailed descriptions of field work in the epic. Such, for example, are the scenes of plowing and harvesting, depicted with great art by Hephaestus, the god of the blacksmith, on the shield of Achilles.

Cattle breeding played an extremely important role in the economy of Homer's time. Livestock was considered the main measure of wealth. The number of heads of livestock largely determined the position a person occupied in society; The honor and respect given to him depended on him. Thus, Odysseus is considered “first among the heroes of Ithaca and the nearby mainland” because he owned 12 herds of cattle and a corresponding number of goats, sheep and pigs. Cattle were also used as a unit of exchange, since Homeric society did not yet know real money. In one scene of the Iliad, a bronze tripod is valued at twelve oxen; about a female slave skilled in many works, it is said that her value is equal to four bulls.

The results of the study of the Homeric epic fully confirm the conclusion made by archaeologists about the economic isolation of Greece and the entire Aegean basin in the 11th-9th centuries. BC e. The Mycenaean states with their highly developed economy could not exist without constant well-established trade contacts with the outside world, primarily with the countries of the Middle East. In contrast to this, the typical Homeric community (demos) leads a completely isolated existence, almost without coming into contact even with other similar communities closest to it. The community's economy is predominantly subsistence in nature. Trade and craft play only the most insignificant role in it. Each family itself produces almost everything necessary for its life: agricultural and livestock products, clothing, simple utensils, tools, perhaps even weapons. Specialist craftsmen who live by their labor are extremely rare in poems. Homer calls them demiurges, that is, “working for the people.” Many of them, apparently, did not even have their own workshop or permanent place of residence and were forced to wander around the villages, moving from house to house in search of income and food. Their services were turned to only in cases where it was necessary to make some rare type of weapon, for example, a bronze armor or a shield made of bull skins or precious jewelry. It was difficult to do such work without the help of a qualified blacksmith, tanner or jeweler. The Greeks of the Homeric era engaged in almost no trade. They preferred to obtain the foreign things they needed by force and for this purpose they equipped predatory expeditions to foreign lands. The seas surrounding Greece were infested with pirates. Sea robbery, like robbery on land, was not considered a reprehensible activity in those days. On the contrary, in enterprises of this kind they saw a manifestation of special daring and valor, worthy of a real hero and aristocrat. Achilles openly boasts that he, fighting on sea and land, destroyed 21 cities in the Trojan lands. Telemachus is proud of the riches that his father Odysseus “plundered” for him. But even the dashing mining pirates did not dare to go far beyond the borders of their native Aegean Sea in those days. The trip to Egypt already seemed to the Greeks of that time a fantastic undertaking that required exceptional courage. The whole world that lay outside their little world, even such relatively close countries as the Black Sea region or Italy and Sicily, seemed distant and scary to them. In their imagination, they populated these lands with terrible monsters like sirens or giant Cyclops, which Odysseus tells his astonished listeners about. The only real merchants Homer mentions are the “cunning guests of the seas” the Phoenicians. As in other countries, the Phoenicians were mainly engaged in intermediary trade in Greece, selling at exorbitant prices outlandish overseas items made of gold, amber, ivory, bottles of incense, and glass beads. The poet treats them with obvious antipathy, seeing them as insidious deceivers, always ready to deceive the simple-minded Greek.

Despite the appearance in Homeric society of fairly clearly expressed signs of property inequality, the life of even its highest strata is striking in its simplicity and patriarchy. Homer's heroes, and they are all kings and aristocrats, live in roughly built wooden houses with a courtyard surrounded by a palisade. Typical in this sense is the home of Odysseus, the main character of the second Homeric poem. At the entrance to the “palace” of this king there is a large dung heap, on which Odysseus, who returned home in the guise of an old beggar, finds his faithful dog Argus. Beggars and tramps easily enter the house from the street and sit at the door, waiting for a handout in the same room where the owner feasts with his guests. The floor in the house is compacted earth. The inside of the house is very dirty. The walls and ceiling are covered with soot, as the houses were heated without pipes or a chimney, “chicken-style.” Homer clearly has no idea what the palaces and citadels of the “heroic age” looked like. In his poems, he never mentions the grandiose walls of the Mycenaean strongholds, the frescoes that decorated their palaces, or the bathrooms and toilet rooms.

And the entire lifestyle of the heroes of the poems is very far from the luxurious and comfortable life of the Mycenaean palace elite. It is much simpler and rougher. The wealth of the Homeric Basilei cannot be compared with the fortunes of their predecessors - the Achaean rulers. These latter needed a whole staff of scribes to keep records and control their property. A typical Homeric basileus himself knows perfectly well what and how much is stored in his pantry, how much land, livestock, slaves, etc. he has. His main wealth consists of metal reserves: bronze cauldrons and tripods, iron ingots, which he carefully stores in a secluded corner of your home. Not least in his character are such traits as hoarding, prudence, and the ability to benefit from everything. In this respect, the psychology of the Homeric aristocrat is not much different from the psychology of the wealthy peasant of that era. Homer nowhere mentions the numerous court servants surrounding the vanaktas of Mycenae or Pylos. The centralized palace economy with its work detachments, with overseers, scribes and auditors is completely alien to him. True, the number of labor forces in the farms of some basileans (Odysseus, king of the Phaeacians Alcinous) is determined by a rather significant figure of 50 slaves, but even if this is not a poetic hyperbole, such a farm is still very far from the farm of the Pylos or Knossos palace, in which, judging by the data tablets, hundreds or even thousands of slaves were occupied. It is difficult for us to imagine a Mycenaean vanakt sharing a meal with his slaves, and his wife sitting at a loom surrounded by her slaves. For Homer, both are a typical picture of the life of his heroes. Homeric kings do not shy away from physical work itself. Odysseus, for example, is no less proud of his ability to mow and plow than his military skill. We meet the royal daughter Nausicaa for the first time at the moment when she and her maids go to the seaside to wash the clothes of her father Alcinous. Facts of this kind indicate that slavery in Homeric Greece had not yet become widespread, and even in the households of the richest and most noble people there were not so many slaves. With trade underdeveloped, the main sources of slavery remained war and piracy. The very methods of acquiring slaves were thus fraught with great risk. Therefore, their prices were quite high. A beautiful and skillful slave was equated to a herd of twenty head of bulls. Middle-income peasants not only worked side by side with their slaves, but also lived with them under the same roof. This is how the old man Laertes, the father of Odysseus, lives in his rural estate. In cold weather, he sleeps with his slaves right on the floor in the ashes by the fireplace. Both in his clothes and in his entire appearance it is difficult to distinguish him from a simple slave.

It should also be taken into account that the bulk of forced laborers were female slaves. In those days, men, as a rule, were not taken captive in war, since their “taming” required a lot of time and perseverance, but women were taken willingly, since they could be used both as labor and as concubines. The wife of the Trojan hero Hector Andromache, mourning her dead husband, thinks about the difficult slave fate awaiting her and her little son.

On the farm of Odysseus, for example, twelve slaves are busy grinding grain with hand-held grain grinders from morning until late evening (this work was considered especially difficult, and it was usually assigned to obstinate slaves as punishment). Male slaves, in the few cases where they are mentioned in the pages of poems, usually herd livestock. The classic type of Homeric slave was embodied by the “divine swineherd” Eumaeus, who was the first to meet and shelter the wanderer Odysseus when he returned to his homeland after many years of absence, and then helped him deal with his enemies, Penelope’s suitors. As a little boy, Eumaeus was bought from Phoenician slave traders by Odysseus' father Laertes. For exemplary behavior and obedience, Odysseus made him the chief shepherd of the pig herd. Eumaeus expects that there will be a generous reward for his diligence. The owner will give him a piece of land, a house and a wife - “in a word, everything that a good-natured gentleman should give to faithful servants when the just gods rewarded his diligence with success.” Eumaeus can be considered an example of a “good slave” in the Homeric sense of the word. But the poet knows that there are also “bad slaves” who do not want to obey their masters. In the Odyssey, this is the goatherd Melanthius, who sympathizes with the suitors and helps them fight Odysseus, as well as the twelve slaves of Penelope, who entered into a criminal relationship with the enemies of their master. Having finished with the suitors, Odysseus and Telemachus deal with them too: the slaves are hanged on the ship's rope, and Melanthia, having cut off his ears, nose, legs and arms, is thrown to the dogs while still alive. This episode eloquently demonstrates that the sense of owner-slave owner is already quite strongly developed among Homer’s heroes, although slavery itself is just beginning to emerge. Despite the features of patriarchy in the depiction of the relationship between slaves and their masters, the poet is well aware of the impassable line that separates both of these classes. This is indicated by the characteristic maxim uttered by the swineherd Eumaeus, already known to us.

Tribal institutions and the Homeric polis. Among other important achievements of the Mycenaean civilization, linear syllabary was forgotten during the troubled time of tribal invasions and migrations. The entire Homeric period was a period in the full sense of the word without writing. Until now, archaeologists have not been able to find a single inscription on the territory of Greece that could be attributed to the period from the 11th to the 9th centuries. BC e. After a long break, the first Greek inscriptions known to science appear only in the second half of the 8th century. But these inscriptions no longer use the signs of Linear B, which were dotted with the Mycenaean tablets, but the letters of a completely new alphabetic script, which, obviously, was just emerging at that time. In accordance with this, we do not find any mention of writing in Homer's poems. The heroes of the poems are all illiterate, they can neither read nor write. The Aedi singers also do not know the letter: the “divine” Demodocus and Phemius, whom we meet on the pages of the Odyssey. The very fact of the disappearance of writing in the post-Mycenaean era is, of course, not accidental. The spread of linear syllabic writing in Crete and Mycenae was dictated primarily by the need of a centralized monarchical state for strict accounting and control over all material and human resources at its disposal. Scribes working in the Mycenaean palace archives regularly recorded the receipt of taxes from the subject population into the palace treasury, the performance of labor duties by slaves and freemen, as well as various kinds of extraditions and deductions from the treasury. The destruction of palaces and citadels at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 12th centuries. was accompanied by the collapse of the large Achaean states grouped around them. Individual communities were freed from their previous fiscal dependence on the palace and moved on to the path of completely independent economic and political development. Along with the collapse of the entire system of bureaucratic management, the need for writing to serve the needs of this system also disappeared. And it was forgotten for a long time.

What type of society arose from the ruins of the Mycenaean bureaucratic monarchy? Relying on the testimony of the same Homer, we can say that it was a rather primitive rural community - demos, which, as a rule, occupied a very small territory and was almost completely isolated from other communities neighboring it. The political and economic center of the community was the so-called polis. In the Greek language of the classical era, this word simultaneously expresses two closely interconnected concepts in the minds of every Greek: “city” and “state”. It is interesting, however, that in the Homeric vocabulary, in which the word “polis” (city) appears quite often, there is no word that could be translated as “village”. This means that there was no real opposition between city and country at that time in Greece. The Homeric polis itself was at the same time both a city and a village. It is brought closer to the city, firstly, by the compact development located in a small space, and secondly, by the presence of fortifications. Homeric cities such as Troy in the Iliad or the city of the Phaeacians in the Odyssey already have walls, although it is difficult to determine from the description whether these were real city walls made of stone or brick, or just an earthen rampart with a palisade. And yet, the polis of the Homeric era is difficult to recognize as a real city due to the fact that the bulk of its population were peasant farmers and cattle breeders, not traders and artisans, of whom there were still very few in those days. The polis is surrounded by deserted fields and mountains, among which the poet’s eye can discern only single shepherd’s huts and cattle pens. As a rule, the possessions of an individual community did not extend very far. Most often they were limited to either a small mountain valley or a small island in the waters of the Aegean or Ionian Sea. The “state” border separating one community from another was usually the nearest mountain range, dominating the polis and its environs. All of Greece, thus, appears to us in Homer's poems as a country fragmented into many small self-governing districts. Subsequently, for many centuries, this fragmentation remained the most important distinguishing feature of the entire political history of the Greek states. There were very tense relations between individual communities. In those days, the inhabitants of the nearest neighboring city were looked upon as enemies. They could be robbed, killed, and enslaved with impunity. Fierce feuds and border conflicts between neighboring communities were common, often escalating into bloody, protracted wars. The reason for such a war could be, for example, the theft of a neighbor's cattle. In the Iliad, Nestor, the king of Pylos and the oldest of the Achaean heroes, recalls the exploits he accomplished in his youth. When he was not yet 20 years old, he attacked with a small detachment the region of Elis, neighboring Pylos, and stole from there a huge herd of small and large cattle, and when a few days later the inhabitants of Elis moved towards Pylos, Nestor killed their leader and dispersed the entire army .

In the social life of the Homeric polis, the still strong traditions of the tribal system play a significant role. Associations of clans - the so-called phyla and phratries - form the basis of the entire political and military organization of the community. A community militia is formed according to phyles and phratries during a campaign or battle. According to phyla and phratries, people come together to meet when they need to discuss some important issue. A person who did not belong to any phratry stands, in Homer’s understanding, outside of society. He has no hearth, i.e., home and family. The law does not protect him. Therefore, he can easily become a victim of violence and arbitrariness. There was no strong connection between individual clan unions. The only thing that forced them to stick to each other and settle together outside the walls of the policy was the need for joint protection from an external enemy. Otherwise, the phyla and phratries led an independent existence. The community hardly interfered in their internal affairs. Individual clans were constantly at odds with each other. The barbaric custom of blood feud was widely practiced. A person who had stained himself with murder had to flee to a foreign land, fleeing the persecution of the relatives of the murdered person. Among the heroes of poems there are often such exiles who left their fatherland because of blood feud and found shelter in the house of some foreign king. If the murderer was rich enough, he could pay off the relatives of the murdered man by paying them a fine in cattle or metal ingots. Song XVIII of the Iliad depicts a court scene over a penalty for murder.

The community power, represented by the “city elders,” i.e., tribal elders, acts here as an arbitrator, a conciliator of the litigants, whose decision they might not have taken into account. In such conditions, in the absence of a centralized power capable of subordinating the warring clans to its authority, interclan feuds often grew into bloody civil strife that brought the community to the brink of collapse. We see such a critical situation in the final scene of the Odyssey. The suitors' relatives, embittered by the death of their children and brothers who fell at the hands of Odysseus, rush to the country estate of his father Laertes with the firm intention of avenging the dead and eradicating the entire royal family. Both “parties” advance towards each other with arms in hand. A battle ensues. Only the intervention of Athena, who protects Odysseus, stops the bloodshed and forces the enemies to reconcile.

Property and social stratification. The patriarchal monogamous family, living in a closed household (oikos), was the main economic unit of Homeric society. Tribal ownership of land and other types of property, apparently, was eliminated back in the Mycenaean era. The main type of wealth, which was land in the eyes of the Greeks of Homeric times, was considered the property of the entire community. From time to time, the community organized redistributions of land belonging to it. Theoretically, every free community member had the right to receive an allotment (these allotments were called in Greek kleri, i.e., “lots,” since their distribution was made by drawing lots). However, in practice, this land use system did not prevent the enrichment of some community members and the ruin of others. Homer already knows that next to the rich “multiple-landed” people (policleroi) in the community there are also those who had no land at all (akleroi). Obviously, these were poor peasants who did not have enough money to run a farm on their small plot. Driven to despair, they ceded their land to rich neighbors and thus turned into homeless farm laborers.

The fetas, whose position differed only slightly from the position of slaves, stand at the very bottom of the social ladder, at the top of which we see the ruling class of the clan nobility, i.e. those people whom Homer constantly calls “the best” (aristo - hence our “aristocracy ") or “good”, “noble” (agata), contrasting them with “bad” and “low” (kakoy), i.e. ordinary community members. In the poet's understanding, a natural aristocrat stands head and shoulders above any commoner, both mentally and physically.

The aristocrats tried to substantiate their claims to a special, privileged position in society with references to supposedly divine origin. Therefore, Homer often calls them “divine” or “godlike.” Of course, the real basis for the power of the clan nobility was not kinship with the gods, but wealth, which sharply distinguished representatives of this class from ordinary members of the community. Nobility and wealth for Homer are almost indissoluble concepts. A noble person cannot help but be rich, and, conversely, a rich man must be noble. Aristocrats boast before the common people and before each other of their vast fields, countless herds of cattle, rich reserves of iron, bronze and precious metals.

The economic power of the nobility provided it with commanding positions in all affairs of the community, both during war and in peacetime. The decisive role on the battlefields belonged to the aristocracy due to the fact that only a rich person could in those days acquire a complete set of heavy weapons (a bronze helmet with a crest, armor, leggings, a heavy leather shield covered with copper), since the weapons were very expensive. Only the wealthiest people in the community had the opportunity to maintain a war horse. In the natural conditions of Greece, in the absence of rich pastures, this was far from easy. It should be added that only a person who had received good athletic training and systematically practiced running, javelin and discus throwing, and horse riding could master the weapons of that time perfectly. And such people could again only be found among the nobles. A simple peasant, busy with hard physical labor on his plot from morning until sunset, simply had no time left for sports. Therefore, athletics in Greece for a long time remained the privilege of aristocrats. During the battle, aristocrats in heavy weapons, on foot or on horseback, stood in the front ranks of the militia, and behind them a random crowd of “common people” in cheap felt armor with light shields, bows and darts in their hands. When the opposing troops drew closer, the misses (literally “those fighting in front” - this is what Homer calls warriors from the nobility, contrasting them with ordinary warriors) ran out of the ranks and started single combats. Things rarely came to a collision between the main poorly armed masses of warriors. The outcome of a battle was usually decided by a miss.

In ancient times, the place a person occupied in the battle ranks usually determined his position in society. Being a decisive force on the battlefield, the Homeric nobility also laid claim to a dominant position in the political life of the community. The aristocrats treated ordinary community members as people who “mean nothing in matters of war and council.” In the presence of the nobility, “men of the people” (demos) had to maintain respectful silence, listening to what the “best people” had to say, since it was believed that, based on their mental abilities, they could not sensibly judge important “state” affairs. At public meetings, descriptions of which are repeatedly found in poems, speeches, as a rule, are given by kings and heroes of “noble birth.” The people present at these verbal debates could express their attitude towards them by shouting or rattling weapons (if the meeting took place in a military situation), but usually did not interfere in the discussion itself. Only in one case, as an exception, does the poet bring a representative of the masses onto the stage and give him the opportunity to speak. At a meeting of the Achaean army besieging Troy, a question is discussed that vitally affects everyone present: is it worth continuing the war, which has been dragging on for ten years and does not promise victory, or is it better to board the ships and return the whole army to their homeland, Greece.

So, the political organization of Homeric society was still very far from true democracy. Real power was concentrated in the hands of the most powerful and influential representatives of the family nobility, whom Homer calls “basilei.” In the works of later Greek authors, the word "basileus" usually means a king, for example, Persian or Macedonian. Outwardly, Homeric basils really resemble kings. In the crowd, any of them could be recognized by the signs of royal dignity: a scepter and purple clothes. “Scepter-holders” is a common epithet used by the poet to characterize the basilei. They are also called “Zeus-born” or “Zeus-nurtured,” which should indicate the special favor shown to them by the Supreme Olympian. The Basilei have the exclusive right to preserve and interpret the laws instilled in them, as the poet thinks, again by Zeus himself. In war, the basili became the head of the militia and were supposed to be the first to rush into battle, setting an example of bravery and bravery to ordinary warriors. During large national festivals, the basile made sacrifices to the gods and prayed to them for good and prosperity for the entire community. For all this, the people were obliged to honor the “kings” with “gifts”: an honorary share of wine and meat at a feast, the best and most extensive allotment during the redistribution of communal land, etc.

Formally, “gifts” were considered a voluntary award or honor that the basileus received from the people as a reward for his military valor or for the justice he showed in court. However, in practice, this ancient custom often gave the “kings” a convenient pretext for extortion and extortion, so to speak, “on a legal basis.” Agamemnon is presented as such a “king - devourer of the people” in the first songs of the Iliad. Thersites, already known to us, sarcastically denounces the exorbitant greed of the “shepherd of nations”, which manifests itself in the division of military spoils. With all the power and wealth of the Basilei, their power cannot be considered royal power in the proper sense of the word. Therefore, the usual replacement of the Greek “basile” with the Russian “tsar” in Russian translations of Homer can be accepted only conditionally.

Within his phylum or phratry, the basile performed mainly priestly functions, in charge of clan cults (each clan union in those days had its own special patron god). Nevertheless, together the basiles constituted some semblance of a ruling board or council of a given community and jointly resolved all pressing issues of governance before submitting them for final approval to the people's assembly (by the way, this last formality was not always observed). From time to time, the basil together with the clan elders (the poet usually does not draw a clear line between the two) gathered in the city square (agora) and there, in the presence of all the people, they sorted out litigation. During the war, one (sometimes two) of the basilei was elected at a popular assembly to the position of military commander and led the community's militia. During the campaign and in the battle, the basil military leader enjoyed broad power, including the right of life and death in relation to cowards and disobedient people, but at the end of the campaign he usually resigned his powers. Obviously, there were cases when a military leader, famous for his exploits and, moreover, standing out among other basilei for his wealth and nobility of the family, sought to extend his powers. If his military functions were also supplemented by the functions of the high priest and chief judge, such a person became a “king,” that is, in fact, the head of the community. This position is occupied, for example, by Alcinous among the Phaeacian Basileans, Odysseus among the other Basileans of Ithaca, and Agamemnon among the leaders of the Achaean army at Troy. The position of the supreme basile, however, was very precarious. Only a few of them managed to secure power for themselves for a long time, much less pass it on to their children. Usually this was prevented by the rivalry and hostile machinations of other basilei, who jealously watched every step of the ruler and sought at all costs to prevent his excessive strengthening. As an established and firmly rooted institution, the monarchy did not yet exist at that time*.

The Homeric period occupies a special place in Greek history. The socially differentiated society and state that already existed in Greece during the heyday of the Mycenaean civilization are now emerging here again, but on a different scale and form. The centralized bureaucratic state of the Mycenaean era was replaced by a small self-governing community of free farmers. Over time (in some regions of Greece this happened, apparently, already at the end of the 9th or beginning of the 8th century BC), the first city-states, or policies, grew from such communities. Unlike the previous (Mycenaean) and subsequent (archaic) eras, the Homeric period was not marked by any outstanding successes in the field of culture and art. From this time, not a single major architectural monument, not a single work of literature or fine art has reached us (the Homeric epic itself, which is our main source for the history of this period, is chronologically already located outside its boundaries). In many ways it was a time of decline and cultural stagnation. But at the same time, it was also a time of accumulation of strength before a new rapid rise. In the depths of Greek society, during this period there is a persistent struggle between the new and the old, there is an intensive breakdown of traditional norms and customs of the tribal system, and an equally intensive process of formation of classes and the state. Of great importance for the subsequent development of Greek society was the radical renewal of its technical base that occurred during the Homeric period, which was expressed primarily in the widespread distribution of iron and its introduction into production. All these important changes prepared the transition of the Greek city-states to a completely new path of historical development, upon which they were able to achieve heights of cultural and social progress unprecedented in the history of mankind over the next three or four centuries.

Civilization arose in the 41st century. back.

Civilization stopped in the 36th century. back.

Emerging at one of the busiest crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean, the Minoan culture of Crete was influenced by the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, on the one hand, and the Neolithic cultures of Anatolia, the Danube lowland and Balkan Greece, on the other.

The time of the emergence of the Minoan civilization was the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC, the end of the so-called Early Bronze Age.

At this time, bizarre buildings appeared on Crete, which modern archaeologists usually call “palaces.”

In the middle of the 15th century, disaster struck Crete. Almost all palaces and settlements were destroyed, many were abandoned forever by their inhabitants and forgotten for millennia. The Minoan culture could no longer recover from this blow. From the middle of the 15th century. its decline begins.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EToynbee lists that civilization in his catalogue.

TORit for a long time remained the largest island of the Aegean archipelago and lay at the intersection of the most important sea routes of the Hellenic world. Every ship going from Piraeus to Sicily passed between Crete and Laconia, and ships going from Piraeus to Egypt inevitably passed between Crete and Rhodes.

No if Laconia and Rhodes really played a leading role in Hellenic history, then Crete was considered an abandoned province.

Dthe most jealous center of civilization in Europe was the island of Crete. Since ancient times, sea routes crossed here, connecting the Balkan Peninsula and the Aegean islands with Asia Minor, Syria and North Africa.

INOriginating at one of the busiest crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean, the Minoan culture of Crete was influenced by the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, on the one hand, and the Neolithic cultures of Anatolia, the Danube lowland and Balkan Greece, on the other.

Mforeigners are the people who inhabited Crete in ancient times.

NThe name “Minoan” was introduced into science by the discoverer of the ancient Cretan culture A. Evans, who formed it on behalf of the mythical king of Crete Minos.)

INThe time of the emergence of the Minoan civilization was the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC, the end of the so-called Early Bronze Age.

INAt this time, bizarre buildings appeared on Crete, which modern archaeologists usually call “palaces.”

WITHThe very first of all Cretan palaces was opened by A. Evans in Knossos. According to legend, here was the main residence of the legendary ruler of Crete - King Minos.

Gthe rivers called the palace of Minos “the labyrinth.” In Greek myths, the labyrinth was described as a huge building with many rooms and corridors. A person who fell into it could not get out of there without outside help and inevitably died: in the depths of the palace lived a bloodthirsty Minotaur - a monster with a human body and the head of a bull.

PThe tribes and peoples ruled by Minos were obliged to annually entertain the terrible beast with human sacrifices until he was killed by the famous Athenian hero Theseus.

PThe nature of the island was not always favorable to its inhabitants. Thus, earthquakes often occurred in Crete, often reaching destructive force. If we add to this the frequent sea storms in these places with thunderstorms and torrential rains, dry years of famine, and epidemics, then the life of the Minoans will seem to us not so calm and cloudless.

DIn order to protect themselves from natural disasters, the inhabitants of Crete turned to their many gods for help. The central figure of the Minoan pantheon was the great goddess - the “mistress”. In works of Cretan art (figurines and seals), the goddess appears to us in her various incarnations.

Rreligion played a huge role in the life of Minoan society, leaving its mark on absolutely all areas of its spiritual and practical activity. During the excavations of the Knossos palace, a huge amount of all kinds of religious utensils were found, including figurines of the great goddess, sacred symbols like bull horns or a double ax - labrys, altars and tables for sacrifices, various vessels for libations, etc.

Nand in Crete, therefore, there existed a special form of royal power, known in science under the name of “theocracy” (this is the name of one of the varieties of monarchy, in which secular and spiritual power belongs to the same person). The person of the king was considered “sacred and inviolable.”

CThe Ari of Kpossa did not just live and rule - they performed sacred functions. The “Holy of Holies” of the Kpos palace, the place where the king-priest condescended to communicate with his subjects, made sacrifices to the gods and at the same time decided on state affairs, is his throne room, located not far from the large central courtyard.

UWe have every reason to believe that in Cretan society the relations of domination and subordination characteristic of early class society have already developed. Thus, it can be assumed that the agricultural population was subject to duties, both in kind and labor, in favor of the palace. It was obliged to deliver livestock, grain, oil, wine and other products to the palace.

INAll these receipts were recorded by the palace scribes on clay tablets, from which, by the time of the death of the palace (the end of the 15th century BC), a whole archive was compiled, numbering about 5,000 documents, and then handed over to the palace storerooms, where, in this way, huge stocks of food and other material assets.

GThe food supplies accumulated in the palace over time could serve as a reserve fund in case of famine. These same reserves provided food for the artisans working in the community. The surplus, which had no use in the community itself, went for sale to overseas countries: Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, where they could be exchanged for goods that were not available in Crete itself: gold and copper, ivory and purple fabrics.

Tcommercial sea expeditions in those days were associated with great risk and expense. The state, which had the necessary material and human resources, was able to organize and finance such an enterprise.

RThe heyday of the Minoan civilization occurred in the 16th - first half of the 15th centuries. BC. It was at this time that the Cretan palaces were rebuilt with unprecedented splendor and splendor. At this time, all of Crete was apparently united under the rule of the kings of Knossos and became a single centralized state.

ABOUTThis is evidenced by the network of convenient wide roads laid throughout the island and connecting Knossos, the capital of the state, with its most remote ends. This is also indicated by the already noted fact of the absence of fortifications in Knossos and other palaces of Crete.

GRiver historians considered Minos the first thalassocrat - the ruler of the sea. They said about him that he created a large navy, eradicated piracy and established his dominance over the entire Aegean Sea, its islands and coasts.

PThis edition, apparently, is not devoid of historical grain. Indeed, as archeology shows, in the 16th century. BC. the wide maritime expansion of Crete in the Aegean basin begins. Minoan colonies and trading posts appeared on the islands of the Cyclades archipelago, on the island of Rhodes and even on the coast of Asia Minor, in the Miletus region.

INAt the same time, the Cretans established lively trade and diplomatic relations with Egypt and the states of the Syro-Phoenician coast. This is indicated by the fairly frequent finds of Minoan pottery in these areas. On Crete itself, things of Egyptian and Syrian origin were found.

INIn the middle of the 15th century the situation changed dramatically. A catastrophe hit Crete, the like of which the island has never experienced in its entire centuries-old history. Almost all palaces and settlements were destroyed, many were abandoned forever by their inhabitants and forgotten for millennia.

ABOUTFrom this blow, the Minoan culture could no longer recover. From the middle of the 15th century. its decline begins. Crete is losing its position as the leading cultural center of the Aegean Basin. The causes of the disaster have not yet been precisely established.

Griver archaeologist S. Marinatos believes that the destruction of palaces and settlements was a consequence of a grandiose volcanic eruption on the island of Thera (Santorini) in the southern Aegean Sea

DOther scientists are inclined to believe that the culprits of the disaster were the Achaean Greeks who invaded Crete from mainland Greece. They plundered and devastated the island, which had long attracted them with its fabulous riches, and subjugated its population to their power.

DIndeed, in the culture of Kposs, the only one of the Cretan palaces that survived the catastrophe of the mid-15th century, important changes took place after this event, indicating the emergence of a new people here.

PThe full-blooded realistic Minoan art is now giving way to dry and lifeless stylization. Motifs traditional for Minoan vase painting - plants, flowers, octopuses on palace-style vases - are transformed into abstract graphic schemes.

INAt the same time, in the vicinity of Knossos, graves appeared containing a wide variety of weapons: bronze swords, daggers, helmets, arrowheads and copies, which was not at all typical for earlier Minoan burials.

WITHApparently, representatives of the Achaean military nobility, who settled in the Knossos palace, were buried in these graves.

NFinally, another fact that indisputably indicates the penetration of new ethnic elements into Crete: in the Knossos archive, many documents were discovered (the so-called Linear B group), compiled in the Greek (Achaean) language, and only two dozen pre-Achene (Linear A) .

EThese documents date mainly from the end of the 15th century. BC. Obviously, at the end of the 15th or beginning of the 14th century. The palace of Knossos was destroyed and was never fully restored. Many wonderful works of Minoan art were destroyed in the fire.

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The Cretan-Mycenaean period - the prehistory of Antiquity.

Creto-Mycenaean (late III-II millennium BC). Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. The emergence of the first state formations. Development of navigation. Establishing trade and diplomatic contacts with the civilizations of the Ancient East. The emergence of original writing. For Crete and mainland Greece at this stage, different periods of development are distinguished, since on the island of Crete, where a non-Greek population lived at that time, statehood developed earlier than in Balkan Greece, which underwent at the end of the 3rd century. BC e. conquest of the Achaean Greeks. In fact, the Cretan-Mycenaean period is the prehistory of Antiquity.

Minoan civilization (Crete)
Early Minoan period (XXX-XXIII centuries BC). The dominance of tribal relations, the beginning of the development of metals, the beginnings of crafts, the development of navigation, a relatively high level of agrarian relations.
Middle Minoan period (XXII-XVIII centuries BC). Also known as the period of "old" or "early" palaces. The emergence of early state formations in different parts of the island. Construction of monumental palace complexes in several regions of Crete. Early forms of writing.
Late Minoan period (XVII-XII centuries BC). The heyday of the Minoan civilization, the unification of Crete, the creation of the maritime power of King Minos, the wide scope of Crete’s trading activities in the Aegean Sea basin, the heyday of monumental construction (“new” palaces in Knossos, Mallia, Phaistos). Active contacts with ancient Eastern states. Natural disaster of the mid-15th century. BC e. becomes the cause of the decline of the Minoan civilization, which created the preconditions for the conquest of Crete by the Achaeans.

History of discovery and name It was discovered on March 16, 1900 by the English archaeologist Arthur Evans and named after the mythical king of Crete Minos - the owner of the labyrinth, built, according to legend, by Daedalus. According to the same legend, the ancient Greeks paid tribute to Minos with people whom he fed to the monster Minotaur - the offspring of his wife Pasiphae.

Characteristics:
The Minoan civilization was a state ruled by a king.
The Minoans traded with Ancient Egypt and exported copper from Cyprus. The architecture is characterized by reinterpreted Egyptian borrowings (for example, the use of columns).
The Minoan army was armed with slings and bows. A characteristic weapon of the Minoans was also the double-sided labrys axe.
Like other peoples of Old Europe, the Minoans had a widespread cult of the bull (see taurocatapsy).
The Minoans smelted bronze, produced ceramics and built palace complexes from the mid-20th century BC. e. (Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia).
Like other pre-Indo-European religions in Europe, the Minoan religion is not alien to the remnants of matriarchy. In particular, the Goddess with snakes (possibly an analogue of Astarte) was revered.

1. Prerequisites for the formation of a state in Crete. The oldest center of civilization in Europe was the island of Crete. In terms of its geographical position, this elongated mountainous island, which closes the entrance to the Aegean Sea from the south, represents a natural outpost of the European continent, extended far to the south towards the African and Asian coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Already in ancient times, sea routes crossed here, connecting the Balkan Peninsula and the Aegean islands with Asia Minor, Syria and North Africa. Emerging at one of the busiest crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean, the culture of Crete was influenced by such diverse and separated cultures as the ancient “river” civilizations of the Middle East (Egypt and Mesopotamia), on the one hand, and the early agricultural cultures of Anatolia, the Danube lowland and the Balkan Greece - on the other. But a particularly important role in the formation of the Cretan civilization was played by the culture of the Cycladic archipelago neighboring Crete, which is rightfully considered one of the leading cultures of the Aegean world in the 3rd millennium BC. e. The Cycladic culture is already characterized by large fortified settlements of the proto-urban type, for example Phylakopi on the island. Melos, Chalandriani on Syros and others, as well as highly developed original art - an idea of ​​it is given by the famous Cycladic idols (carefully polished marble figurines of people) and richly ornamented vessels of various shapes made of stone, clay and metal. The inhabitants of the Cyclades islands were experienced sailors. Probably, thanks to their mediation, contacts between Crete, mainland Greece and the coast of Asia Minor were carried out for a long time.

The time of the emergence of the Minoan civilization is the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC. e., or the end of the Early Bronze Age. Until this moment, the Cretan culture did not stand out any noticeably against the general background of the most ancient cultures of the Aegean world. The Neolithic era, as well as the Early Bronze Age that replaced it (VI-III millennium BC), was in the history of Crete a time of gradual, relatively calm accumulation of forces before the decisive leap to a new stage of social development. What prepared this leap? First of all, of course, development and improvement

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productive forces of Cretan society. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. In Crete, the production of copper and then bronze was mastered. Bronze tools and weapons gradually replaced similar products made of stone. Important changes occur during this period in the agriculture of Crete. Its basis is now becoming a new multicultural type of agriculture, focused on the cultivation of three main crops, to one degree or another characteristic of the entire Mediterranean region, namely: cereals (mainly barley), grapes and olives. (The so-called Mediterranean triad.)

The result of all these economic changes was an increase in the productivity of agricultural labor and an increase in the mass of surplus product. On this basis, reserve funds of agricultural products began to be created in individual communities, which not only covered food shortages in lean years, but also provided food for people not directly involved in agricultural production, for example, artisans. Thus, for the first time it became possible to separate crafts from agriculture and professional specialization in various branches of handicraft production began to develop. About the high level of professional skill achieved by Minoan artisans already in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. e., evidenced by finds of jewelry, vessels carved from stone, and carved seals dating back to this time. At the end of the same period, the potter's wheel became known in Crete, allowing great progress in the production of ceramics.

At the same time, a certain part of the community reserve funds could be used for intercommunity and intertribal exchange. The development of trade in Crete, as well as in the Aegean basin in general, was closely connected with the development of navigation. It is no coincidence that almost all the Cretan settlements now known to us were located either directly on the sea coast or somewhere not far from it. Having mastered the art of navigation, the inhabitants of Crete already

in the 3rd millennium BC. e. come into close contact with the population of the islands of the Cyclades archipelago, penetrate the coastal regions of mainland Greece and Asia Minor, and reach Syria and Egypt. Like other maritime peoples of antiquity, the Cretans willingly combined trade and fishing with piracy. Economic prosperity of Crete in the III-II millennia

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BC e. depended to a large extent on these three sources of enrichment.

The progress of the Cretan economy during the Early Bronze Age contributed to rapid population growth in the most fertile areas of the island. This is evidenced by the emergence of many new settlements, which especially accelerated at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Most of them were located in the eastern part of Crete and on the vast central plain (the area of ​​\u200b\u200bKnossos and Phaistos). At the same time, there is an intensive process of social stratification of Cretan society. Within individual communities there is an influential layer of nobility. It consists mainly of tribal leaders and priests. All these people were exempt from direct participation in productive activities and occupied a privileged position in comparison with the mass of ordinary community members. At the other pole of the same social system, slaves appear, mainly from among the few captured foreigners. During the same period, new forms of political relations began to take shape in Crete. Stronger and more populous communities subjugate their less powerful neighbors, force them to pay tribute and impose all sorts of other duties. Already existing tribes and tribal unions are internally consolidated, acquiring a clearer political organization. The logical result of all these processes was the formation at the turn of the III-II millennia of the first “palace” states, which occurred almost simultaneously in different regions of Crete.

2. The first state formations. The era of palace civilization in Crete covers a total of about 600 years and falls into two main periods: 1) old palaces (2000-1700 BC) and 2) new palaces (1700-1400 BC) .). Already at the beginning of the 2nd millennium, several independent states emerged on the island. Each of them included several dozen small communal settlements, grouped around one of the four large palaces now known to archaeologists. As already mentioned, this number includes the palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia in central Crete and the palace of Kato Zakro (Zakroe) on the east coast of the island. Unfortunately, only a few of the “old palaces” that existed in these places have survived. Later construction erased their traces almost everywhere. Only in Festos has the large western courtyard of the old palace and part of the adjacent interior spaces been preserved. It can be assumed that already at this early time the Cretan architects, who built palaces in different parts of the island, tried to follow a certain plan in their work, the main elements of which continued to be used subsequently. The main of these elements was the placement of the entire complex of palace buildings around a rectangular central courtyard, elongated along the center line always in the same direction from north to south.

Among the palace utensils of this period, the most interesting are the painted clay vases of the Kamares style (their first examples were found in the Kamares cave near Festus, where the name comes from). The stylized floral ornament decorating the walls of these vessels creates the impression of non-stop movement of geometric figures combined with each other: spirals, disks, rosettes, etc. Here for the first time the exceptional dynamism that would later become the most important distinguishing feature of all Minoan art makes itself felt. The color richness of these paintings is also striking. On a dark asphalt-colored background, the design was applied first with white and then with red or brown paint of different shades. These three colors

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made up a very beautiful, although restrained, colorful range.

Already during the period of the “old palaces,” the socio-economic and political development of Cretan society had advanced so far that it gave rise to an urgent need for writing, without which none of the early civilizations known to us could survive. Pictographic writing, which arose at the beginning of this period (it is known mainly from short inscriptions of two or three characters on seals), gradually gave way to a more advanced system of syllabic writing - the so-called Linear A. Inscriptions made in Linear A have reached us of a dedicatory nature, as well as, although in small quantities, business reporting documents.

3. Creation of a united pan-Critan state. Around 1700 BC e. The palaces of Knossos, Festus, Mallia and Kato Zakro were destroyed, apparently as a result of a strong earthquake, accompanied by a large fire.

This disaster, however, only briefly stopped the development of Cretan culture. Soon, on the site of the destroyed palaces, new buildings of the same type were built, basically, apparently, preserving the layout of their predecessors, although surpassing them in their monumentality and splendor of architectural decoration. Thus, a new stage began in the history of Minoan Crete, known in science as the “period of new palaces.”

The most remarkable architectural structure of this period is the Palace of Minos in Knossos, opened by A. Evans. The extensive material collected by archaeologists during excavations in this palace allows us to form the most complete and comprehensive picture of what the Minoan civilization was like at its peak. The Greeks called the palace of Minos "labyrinth" (the word itself, apparently,

was borrowed by them from the language of the pre-Greek population of Crete). In Greek myths, a labyrinth is a huge building with many rooms and corridors. A person who got into it could no longer get out without outside help and inevitably died: in the depths of the palace lived a bloodthirsty Minotaur - a monster with a human body and the head of a bull. The tribes and peoples subject to Minos were obliged to annually entertain the terrible beast with human sacrifices until it was killed by the famous Athenian hero Theseus. Evans' excavations showed that the Greek stories about the labyrinth had some basis. In Knossos, a huge building or even a whole complex of buildings with a total area of ​​16,000 square meters was actually discovered, which included about three hundred rooms for a wide variety of purposes.

The architecture of Cretan palaces is highly unusual, original and unlike anything else. It has nothing in common with the ponderous monumentality of Egyptian and Assyrian-Babylonian buildings. At the same time, it is very far from the harmonious balance of the classical Greek temple with its strictly symmetrical

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precise, mathematically verified proportions. In its appearance, the Palace of Knossos most closely resembled an intricate open-air theater set. This impression was facilitated by fancy porticoes with unusually shaped columns that thickened upward, wide stone steps of open terraces, numerous balconies and loggias that cut through the walls of the palace, and bright spots of frescoes flashing everywhere. The interior layout of the palace is extremely complex, even confusing. Living rooms, utility rooms, corridors connecting them, courtyards and light wells are located, at first glance, without any visible system or clear plan, forming some kind of anthill or coral colony. (It is easy to understand the feelings of some Greek traveler at the sight of this huge

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buildings: he really might have thought that he was in a terrible labyrinth from which he would never get out alive.) Despite all the chaos of the palace building, it is still perceived as a single architectural ensemble. This is largely facilitated by the large rectangular courtyard occupying the central part of the palace, with which all the main premises that were part of this huge complex were in one way or another connected. The courtyard was paved with large gypsum slabs and, apparently, was used not for household needs, but for some religious purposes. Perhaps it was here that the so-called “games with bulls” were held, images of which we see on the frescoes decorating the walls of the palace.

Over its centuries-old history, the Palace of Knossos has been rebuilt several times. Its individual parts and the entire building probably had to be restored after each strong earthquake, which occurs in Crete approximately once every fifty years. At the same time, new premises were added to the old, already existing ones. The rooms and storage rooms seemed to be strung one on top of the other, forming long enfilade rows. Separate buildings and groups of buildings gradually merged into a single residential area, grouped around a central courtyard. Despite the well-known unsystematic nature of the internal development, the palace was abundantly equipped with everything necessary to ensure that the life of its inhabitants was calm and comfortable. The builders of the palace took care of such important elements of comfort as water supply and sewerage. During excavations, stone gutters were found that carried sewage outside the palace. An original water supply system was also discovered, thanks to which the inhabitants of the palace never suffered from a lack of drinking water. The Knossos Palace also had a well-designed ventilation and lighting system. The entire thickness of the building was cut through from top to bottom with special light wells, through which sunlight and air entered the lower floors. In addition, large windows and open verandas served the same purpose. Let us recall for comparison that the ancient Greeks even in the 5th century. BC BC - at the time of the highest flowering of their culture - they lived in dim, stuffy dwellings and did not know such basic amenities as a bath and a toilet with a drain. In the Palace of Knossos it was possible to find both: a large terracotta bathtub, painted with images of dolphins, and not far from it a device closely resembling a modern water closet were discovered in the eastern wing of the palace, in the so-called queen's chambers.

A significant part of the lower, ground floor of the palace was occupied by storerooms for storing food supplies. In the western part of the palace, a long corridor has been preserved, cutting through this entire wing in a straight line from north to south. On both sides of it there were narrow elongated chambers located close to each other, in which there were huge clay pithos vessels with convex reliefs on the walls. Apparently, they stored wine, olive oil

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oil and other products. In the floor of the storerooms there were pits lined with stone and covered with stone slabs into which grain was poured. Rough calculations show that the food reserves stored here would have been enough for the inhabitants of the palace for many years.

During the excavations of the Palace of Knossos, archaeologists recovered from the ground and accumulations of rubbish that littered the surviving premises, a wide variety of works of art and artistic crafts. Among them are magnificent painted vases decorated with images of octopuses and other sea animals, sacred stone vessels (the so-called rhytons) in the form of a bull’s head, wonderful earthenware figurines depicting people and animals with extraordinary verisimilitude and expressiveness for that time, and exquisitely crafted jewelry , including gold rings and carved precious stone seals. Many of these things were created in the palace itself, in special workshops in which jewelers, potters, vase painters and artisans of other professions worked, serving the king and the nobility around him (workshop premises were discovered in many places on the territory of the palace). Almost all the products found in the Knossos Palace testify to the high artistic taste of the Minoan craftsmen who made them, to the exceptional originality and unique charm of the art of ancient Crete. Of particular interest is the wall painting that decorated the interior chambers, corridors and porticos of the palace. Some of these frescoes depict plants, birds, and sea animals. Others showed the inhabitants of the palace itself: slender, tanned men with long black hair, thin “aspen” waists and broad shoulders, and ladies in huge bell-shaped skirts with many frills and tightly drawn bodices that left their breasts completely open. Men's clothing is much simpler. Most often it consists of one loincloth. But some of them have a magnificent headdress of bird feathers on their heads, and on their necks and arms you can see gold jewelry: bracelets and necklaces. The people depicted on the frescoes participate in some complex and not always understandable ceremonies. Some walk decorously in a solemn procession, carrying sacred vessels with libations for the gods on outstretched arms (frescoes of the so-called processional corridor), others smoothly dance around the sacred tree, others carefully watch some ritual or performance, sitting on the steps of the “theater room.” sites." Two main features distinguish the frescoes of the Knossos Palace from other works of the same genre found in other places, for example in Egypt: firstly, the high coloristic skill of the artists who created them, their keen sense of color and, secondly, a completely exceptional art in conveying the movement of people and animals. An example of the dynamic expression that distinguishes the works of Minoan painters can be found in the magnificent frescoes that depict the so-called bull games, or Minoan tauromachy. We see on them a rapidly rushing bull and an acrobat performing a series of intricate jumps right on its horns and on its back. In front of and behind the bull, the artist depicted the figures of two girls in loincloths, obviously “assistants” of the acrobat. The meaning of this entire impressive scene is not entirely clear. We do not know who took part in this strange and undoubtedly fatal competition between a man and an angry

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animals and what was his ultimate goal. However, it is safe to say that “games with a bull” were not simple fun for an idle crowd in Crete, like modern Spanish bullfighting. Apparently, this was an important religious ritual associated with one of the main Minoan cults - the cult of the bull god.

The scenes of the tauromachy are perhaps the only disturbing note in Minoan art, which in general is distinguished by its amazing serenity and cheerfulness. The cruel, bloody scenes of war and hunting, so popular in contemporary art of the Middle East and mainland Greece, are completely alien to him. Judging by what we see in the frescoes and other works of Cretan artists, the life of the Minoan palace elite was free from unrest and anxiety. It took place in a joyful atmosphere of almost continuous celebrations and colorful performances. War and the dangers associated with it did not occupy any significant place in it. Yes, this is not surprising. Crete was reliably protected from the hostile outside world by the waves of the Mediterranean Sea washing it. In those days there was not a single significant maritime power in the immediate vicinity of the island, and its inhabitants could feel completely safe. This is the only way to explain the paradoxical fact that amazed archaeologists: all Cretan palaces, including Knossos, remained unfortified throughout almost their entire history. In the hothouse atmosphere of the island with its fertile Mediterranean climate, eternally clear skies and eternally blue sea, a unique Minoan culture emerged, reminiscent of a fragile, outlandish plant, and the “national” character of the Minoans was formed with such features that are clearly revealed in Cretan art, such as peacefulness and subtle artistic taste , cheerfulness.

4. Religious views. Royal power. Of course, in works of palace art the life of Minoan society is presented in a somewhat embellished form. In reality, she also had her shadow sides. The nature of the island was not always favorable to its inhabitants. As already noted, earthquakes constantly occurred in Crete, often reaching destructive force. To this should be added the frequent sea storms in these places, accompanied by thunderstorms and torrential rains, dry years that periodically hit Crete, as well as the rest of Greece, with severe famine and epidemics. In order to protect themselves from all these terrible natural disasters, the inhabitants of Crete turned to their many gods and goddesses for help. The central figure of the Minoan pantheon was the great goddess - “the mistress” (as she is called by inscriptions found at Knossos and in some other places). In works of Cretan art (mainly in small plastic (figurines) and on seals), the goddess appears before us in her various incarnations. Sometimes we see her as a formidable mistress of wild animals, the mistress of mountains and forests (cf. the Greek Artemis), sometimes a benign patroness of vegetation, especially cereals and fruit trees (cf. the Greek Demeter), sometimes an ominous queen of the underworld, holding in her hands wriggling snake (this is how her famous faience figurine depicts her - the so-called goddess with snakes from the Knossos Palace, compare with her the Greek Persephone). Behind all these images one can discern the common features of the ancient deity of fertility - the great mother of all people, animals and plants, whose veneration was widespread in the Mediterranean countries since the Neolithic era.

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Next to the great goddess - the personification of femininity and motherhood, the symbol of the eternal renewal of nature - we see in the Minoan pantheon a deity of a completely different plane, embodying the wild destructive forces of nature - the formidable element of an earthquake, the power of a raging sea. These terrifying phenomena were embodied in the minds of the Minoans in the image of a powerful and ferocious bull god. On some Minoan seals, the divine bull is depicted as a fantastic creature - a man with a bull's head, which immediately reminds us of the later Greek myth of the Minotaur. According to the myth, the Minotaur was born from an unnatural relationship between Queen Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, and a monstrous bull, which was given to Minos by Poseidon, the ruler of the sea (according to one version of the myth, Poseidon himself reincarnated as a bull in order to get along with Pasiphae). In ancient times, it was Poseidon who was considered the culprit of earthquakes: with blows of his trident, he set the sea and land in motion (hence his usual epithet “earthshaker”)

Probably, the same kind of ideas were associated among the ancient inhabitants of Crete with their bull god. In order to pacify the formidable deity and calm the angry elements, abundant sacrifices were made to him, including human ones (an echo of this barbaric ritual was again preserved in the myth of the Minotaur). Probably, the already mentioned games with a bull also served the same purpose - to prevent or stop an earthquake. The symbol of the divine bull - a conventional image of bull horns - is found in almost every Minoan sanctuary. It could also be seen on the roofs of palaces, where it apparently performed the function of apotropaia, that is, a fetish that averts evil from the inhabitants of the palace.

Religion played a huge role in the life of Minoan society, leaving its mark on absolutely all areas of its spiritual and practical activity. This reveals an important difference between Cretan culture and the later Greek civilization, for which such a close interweaving of “divine and human” was no longer characteristic. During the excavations of the Knossos Palace, a huge amount of all kinds of religious utensils were found, including figurines of the “great goddess”,

sacred symbols like bull horns or a double ax - labrys, altars and tables for sacrifices, various vessels for libations, and finally, mysterious objects, the exact name of which cannot be determined

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succeeded, like the so-called playing boards. Many of the premises of the palace were clearly not intended for either household needs or housing, but were used as sanctuaries for religious rites and ceremonies. Among them are crypts - hiding places in which sacrifices were made to the underground gods, pools for ritual ablutions, “sanctuaries”, etc. The very architecture of the palace, the paintings decorating its walls, and other works of art were thoroughly imbued with complex religious symbolism. Essentially, the palace was nothing more than a palace-temple, in which all the inhabitants, including the king himself, his family, the court “ladies” and “gentlemen” surrounding him, performed various priestly duties, participating in rituals, the images of which we we see it on palace frescoes (one should not think that these are just everyday scenes). Thus, it can be assumed that the king - the ruler of Knossos - was at the same time the high priest of the god-king, while the queen - his wife - occupied the corresponding position among the priestesses of the “great goddess - mistress”.

According to many scientists, in Crete there was a special form of royal power, known in science under the name “theocracy” (one of the varieties of monarchy in which secular and spiritual power belong to the same person). The person of the king was considered “sacred and inviolable.” Even viewing it was forbidden to “mere mortals.” This can explain the rather strange, at first glance, circumstance that among the works of Minoan art there is not a single one that could be confidently recognized as an image of a royal person. The entire life of the king and his household was strictly regulated and raised to the level of religious ritual. The kings of Knossos did not just live and rule. They performed sacred acts. The “Holy of Holies” of the Knossos Palace, the place where the priest-king “condescended” to communicate with his subjects, made sacrifices to the gods and at the same time decided state affairs, is his throne room. Before entering it, visitors passed through the vestibule, where there was a large porphyry bowl for ritual ablutions; in order to appear before the “royal eyes”, it was necessary to first wash off

everything is bad. The throne room itself was a small rectangular room. Directly opposite the entrance stood a plaster chair with a high wavy back - the royal throne, and along the walls - tiled benches on which sat the royal advisers, high priests and dignitaries of Knossos. The walls of the throne room are painted with colorful frescoes depicting griffins - fantastic monsters with a bird's head on a lion's body. The griffins recline in solemn, frozen poses on both sides of the throne, as if protecting the Lord of Crete from all troubles and adversity.

5. Socio-economic relations. The magnificent palaces of the Cretan kings, the untold wealth stored in their basements and storerooms, the atmosphere of comfort and abundance in which the kings and their

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environment - all this was created by the labor of many thousands of nameless peasants and artisans, about whose lives we know little. The court craftsmen who created the wonderful masterpieces of Minoan art, apparently, had little interest in the life of the common people and therefore did not reflect it in their work. As an exception, we can refer to a small soapstone vessel found during excavations of the royal villa in Ayia Triada near Festus. The skillfully executed relief decorating the upper part of the vessel depicts a procession of villagers armed with long fork-shaped sticks (with the help of such tools Cretan peasants probably knocked ripe olives from the trees). Some of the procession participants sing. The procession is led by a priest dressed in a wide scaly cloak. Apparently, the artist who created this small masterpiece of Minoan sculpture wanted to capture a harvest festival or some other similar ceremony.

Some insight into the life of the lower strata of Cretan society is provided by materials from mass graves and rural sanctuaries. Such sanctuaries were usually located somewhere in remote mountain corners: in caves and on mountain tops. During excavations, simple dedicatory gifts are found in them in the form of roughly sculpted clay figurines of people and animals. These things, as well as the primitive grave goods of ordinary burials, testify to the rather low standard of living of the Minoan village, to the backwardness of its culture in comparison with the rained culture of the palaces.

The bulk of the working population of Crete lived in small towns and villages scattered across the fields and hills in the vicinity of the palaces. These villages, with their miserable adobe houses, closely pressed together, with their crooked narrow streets, form a striking contrast with the monumental architecture of the palaces and the luxury of their interior decoration. A typical example of an ordinary settlement of the Minoan era is Gournia, located in the northeastern part of Crete. The ancient settlement was located on a low hill near the sea. Its area is small - only 1.5 hectares (this is even less than the entire area occupied by the Knossos Palace). The entire settlement

consisted of several dozen houses, built very compactly and grouped into separate blocks or quarters, within which the houses stood close to each other (this so-called conglomerate development is generally characteristic of settlements of the Aegean world). There were three main streets in Gournia. They walked in a circle along the slopes of the hill. Between them here and there were narrow alleys or, rather, stepped descents paved with stones. The houses themselves are small - no more than 50 sq.m each. Their design is extremely primitive. The lower part of the walls is made of stones held together with clay, the upper part is made of unfired bricks. The frames of the windows and doors were made of wood. In some houses utility rooms were discovered: storerooms with pithoi for storing supplies.

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owls, presses for squeezing grapes and olive oil. During the excavations, quite a lot of different tools made of copper and bronze were found. In Gurnia there were several small craft workshops, the products of which were most likely intended for local consumption, among them three forges and a pottery workshop. The proximity of the sea suggests that the inhabitants of Gurnia combined agriculture with trade and fishing. The central part of the settlement was occupied by a building, vaguely reminiscent in its layout of Cretan palaces, but much inferior to them in size and in the richness of the interior decoration. It was probably the dwelling of a local ruler who, like the entire population of Gurnia, was dependent on the king of Knossos or some other ruler of one of the large palaces. An open area was built next to the ruler's house, which could be used as a place for meetings and all kinds of religious ceremonies or performances. Like all other large and small settlements of the Minoan era, Gournia had no fortifications and was open to attack from both sea and land. This was the appearance of the Minoan village, as far as it can now be imagined from archaeological excavations. What connected the palaces with their rural surroundings? We have every reason to believe that in Cretan society the relations of domination and subordination characteristic of any early class society have already developed. It can be assumed that the agricultural population of the kingdom of Knossos, like any of the states of Crete, was subject to duties, both in kind and labor, in favor of the palace. It was obliged to deliver livestock, grain, oil, wine and other products to the palace. All these receipts were recorded by palace scribes on clay tablets, and then handed over to the palace storerooms, where, thus, huge reserves of food and other material assets accumulated. The palace itself was built and rebuilt by the same peasants, roads and irrigation canals were laid, and bridges were erected.

It is unlikely that they did all this only under duress. The palace was the main sanctuary of the entire state, and elementary piety demanded from the villager that he honor the gods who lived in it with the gifts, giving away the surplus of his economic reserves for the organization of festivals and sacrifices. True, between the people and their gods stood a whole army of intermediaries - a staff of professional priests serving the sanctuary, headed by the “sacred king”. In essence, it was an already established, clearly defined layer of hereditary priestly nobility, opposed to the rest of society as a closed aristocratic class. Uncontrollably disposing of the reserves stored in the palace warehouses, the priests could use the lion's share of these riches

for your own needs. Nevertheless, the people had unlimited trust in these people, since “God’s grace” lay on them.

Of course, along with religious motives, the concentration of the surplus product of agricultural labor in the hands of

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of the palace elite was also dictated by purely economic expediency. For years, food supplies accumulated in the palace could serve as a reserve fund in case of famine. These same reserves provided food for the artisans who worked for the state. The surplus, which had no use locally, went for sale to distant overseas countries: Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, where they could be exchanged for rare types of raw materials that were not available in Crete: gold and copper, ivory and purple, rare woods and stone. Trade sea expeditions in those days were associated with great risk and required enormous preparation costs. Only the state, which had the necessary material and human resources, was able to organize and finance such an enterprise. It goes without saying that the scarce goods obtained in this way ended up in the same palace storerooms and from there were distributed among the master craftsmen who worked both in the palace itself and in its environs. Thus, the palace performed truly universal functions in Minoan society, being at the same time the administrative and religious center of the state, its main granary, workshop and trading post. In the social and economic life of Crete, palaces played approximately the same role that cities play in more developed societies.

6. Cretan maritime power and its decline. The highest flowering of the Minoan civilization occurred in the 16th - first half of the 15th centuries. BC e. It was at this time that the Cretan palaces, especially the palace of Knossos, were rebuilt with unprecedented splendor and splendor. During these one and a half centuries, the most wonderful masterpieces of Minoan art and artistic craft were created. Then all of Crete was united under the rule of the kings of Knossos and became a single centralized state. This is evidenced by the network of convenient wide roads laid throughout the island and connecting Knossos - the capital of the state - with its most remote corners. This is also indicated by the already noted fact of the absence of fortifications in Knossos and other palaces of Crete. If each of these palaces were the capital of an independent state, its owners would probably take care of their protection from hostile neighbors. During this period, a unified system of measures existed in Crete, apparently forcibly introduced by the rulers of the island. Cretan stone weights decorated with the image of an octopus have been preserved. The weight of one such weight was 29 kg. Large bronze ingots, which looked like stretched bull skins, weighed the same amount - the so-called Cretan talents. Most likely, they were used as exchange units in all kinds of trade transactions, replacing money that was still missing. It is very possible that the unification of Crete around the Palace of Knossos was carried out by the famous Minos, about whom later Greek myths tell so much*. Greek historians considered Minos the first thalassocrat - the ruler of the sea. They said about him that he created a large navy, eradicated piracy and established his dominance over the entire Aegean Sea, its islands and coasts.

This legend, apparently, is not without a historical basis. Indeed, according to archaeological data, in the 16th century. BC e. there is a wide maritime expansion of Crete in the Aegean basin. Minoan colonies and trading posts appeared on the islands of the Cyclades archipelago, on Rhodes and even on the coast of Asia Minor, in the Miletus region. On their fast ships, sailed and oared, the Minoans penetrated into the most remote corners of the ancient Mediterranean.

* However, it is possible that this name was borne by many kings who ruled Crete for a number of generations and constituted one dynasty.

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Traces of their settlements, or perhaps just ship moorings, were found on the shores of Sicily, in southern Italy and even on the Iberian Peninsula. According to one myth, Minos died during a campaign in Sicily and was buried there in a magnificent tomb. At the same time, the Cretans established lively trade and diplomatic relations with Egypt and the states of the Syro-Phoenician coast. This is indicated by the fairly frequent finds of Minoan pottery made in these two areas. At the same time, things of Egyptian and Syrian origin were found on Crete itself. Egyptian frescoes from the time of the famous Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III (the first half of the 15th century BC) depict ambassadors of the country of Keftiu (as the Egyptians called Crete) in typical Minoan clothing - aprons and high ankle boots with gifts to the pharaoh in their hands. There is no doubt that at the time to which these frescoes date, Crete was the strongest naval power in the entire eastern Mediterranean and Egypt was

In the middle of the 15th century, the situation changed dramatically. A catastrophe hit Crete, the like of which the island has never experienced in its entire centuries-old history. Almost all palaces and settlements, with the exception of Knossos, were destroyed.

Many of them, for example the palace in Kato Zakro opened in the 60s, were forever abandoned by their inhabitants and forgotten for entire millennia. The Minoan culture could no longer recover from this terrible blow. From the middle of the 15th century. its decline begins. Crete is losing its position as the leading cultural center of the Aegean Basin. The causes of the disaster, which played a fatal role in the fate of the Minoan civilization, have not yet been precisely established. According to the most plausible guess put forward by the Greek archaeologist S. Marinatos, the destruction of palaces and other Cretan settlements was a consequence of a grandiose volcanic eruption on the island. Fera (modern Santorini) in the southern Aegean Sea.

Other scientists are more inclined to believe that the culprits of the disaster were the Achaean Greeks who invaded Crete from mainland Greece (most likely from the Peloponnese). They

They plundered and devastated the island, which had long attracted them with its fabulous riches, and subjugated its population to their power. It is possible to reconcile these two points of view on the problem of the decline of the Minoan civilization, if we assume that the Achaeans invaded Crete after the island was devastated by a volcanic catastrophe, and, without encountering resistance from the demoralized and greatly reduced local population, took possession of its most important life centers. Indeed, in the culture of Knossos - the only one of the Cretan palaces that survived the catastrophe of the mid-15th century - important changes occurred after this, indicating the emergence of a new people in these places. Full-blooded realistic Minoan art is now giving way to dry and lifeless stylization, an example of which can be the Knossos vases, painted in the so-called palace style (second half of the 15th century). Traditional for Minoan vase painting

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motifs (plants, flowers, sea animals) on palace-style vases turn into abstract graphic schemes, which indicates a sharp change in the artistic taste of the palace inhabitants. At the same time, in the vicinity of Knossos, graves appeared containing a wide variety of weapons: swords, daggers, helmets, arrowheads and spears, which was not at all typical for previous Minoan burials. Probably, representatives of the Achaean military nobility who settled in the Knossos Palace were buried in these graves. Finally, one more fact that indisputably indicates the penetration of new ethnic elements into Crete: almost all the tablets from the Knossos archive that have reached us were written not in Minoan, but in Greek (Achaean) language. These documents date mainly from the end of the 15th century. BC e. Obviously, at the end of the 15th or beginning of the 14th century. The Palace of Knossos was destroyed and was never fully restored. Wonderful works of Minoan art were destroyed in the fire. Archaeologists managed to restore only a small part of them. From this moment on, the decline of the Minoan civilization becomes an irreversible process. It is increasingly degenerating, losing those features and characteristics that made up its unique identity, sharply distinguishing it from all other cultures of the Bronze Age. From the leading cultural center that it remained for over five centuries, Crete is turning into a remote, backward province. The main center of cultural progress and civilization in the Aegean region is now moving north, to the territory of mainland Greece, where at that time the so-called Mycenaean culture flourished.