Talk:Minoan civilization/Archive 2

message: I hope we can avoid this pretentious term, which carries very little actual information—aside from "we-know-Latin-unlike-you"— and that little misleading, in its inference, by analogy with Pax Romana and Pax Britannica, of an enforced peace— an assertion for which we have no warrant. I also thought we might point out that the "main exports" so boldly listed are quite simply those that survive best in archaeological sites. Those ceramics for one thing were unlikely to have been exported empty.--Wetman 06:34, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To me the term "Pax Minoica" transmits a world of exceedingly valuable information.  I have never asssociated it with Pax Romana or Pax Britannia, but with the notion that of all the European/East Asian civilizations we know of, in existence from ca 3000 - 1450 BC, the Minoan was the only one that seemed to avoid warfare for over 1000 years straight.  As a matter of fact, the Minoans may be the only complex civilization we know of to have managed this.  I'd say that's pretty remarkable stuff.  It most defintely deserves its own label -- if not "Pax Minoica," then something else. Athana 20:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: but "pax minoica" is a direct reference to the pax romana. You can't seperate it from that. that meaning, that nuance, is present. And you know? about the peace thing? That's debated. I'd want a lot more actual evidence before claiming that they managed to avoid conflict, that they were unique in human history. Novium 09:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Pax Minoica"

message: There's a very useful website on the archaeology of the Bronze Age Aegean at Dartmouth College, created by Jeremy Rutter. The site is comprehensive, with a wealth of bibliography. It deals with Minoans, Mycenaeans, and more, and could be very helpful in the improvement of Wikipedia. Akhilleus 21:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bronze Age archaeology website at Dartmouth College

message: I tried to organize the sprawling tidbits of information into a coherent ToC, cutting some repetitions. The "Pax Minoica" section is still an unwikified wasteland and should be compressed into something readable. The article is still not great overall, each section will need a lot of work. There appears to be some "Gimbutasian" fixation with goddesses and matriarchy equalling peace. These aspects should be discussed honestly in one dedicated section and not pervade an article that deals, after all, with archaeology. What we need are less speculation about the Minoan mindset and more exact description of archaeological finds and configurations. dab (ᛏ) 18:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: article cleanup

message: This article has some serious problems with non-neutral language, in addition to what amounts to edit wars. Its also contradictory, and instead of just listing the information, it goes into basically fights between overarching interpretations.
Novium 18:13, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: I do not believe that it should be used, especially with the caption "a minoan fisherman" as the issue of whether thera is minoan is highly debated. Actually, more than that. I don't think many people think it is merely a minoan outpost. Wasn't this discussed just up the page from here? And given that there are many actual(ignoring the reconstruction issue) minoan paintings, from knossos etc, why don't we use one of those? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knossos Novium 19:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Αμήν, Αμήν, Αμήν.--Jpbrenna 03:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thera Fresco 

message: I don't think the section on the "Minoan column" belongs in this article. It would be appropriate in a Minoan architecture article (which really should be created at some point), but I don't think this column form had much influence on subsequent architecture. If I'm wrong about this, I'd appreciate a correction. However, if the column is actually this notable, there ought to be a better citation for this than a textbook. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it should. Just look at any given Doric column! --Khepidjemwa'atnefru 20:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Simple typo, I think. I added another source for the column to make Akhilleus happy. I agree that there probably should be an architecture article, but until it's made, I think the column thing should stay. Verloren Hoop 11:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems like a good idea to keep the column section until we have a separate Minoan architecture article. Thanks for finding an additional source. Ideally, we should cite a specialist work on Minoan architecture, or perhaps a history of Greek architecture. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:35, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  *nods* I'm looking for one, but I have yet to find one. Verloren Hoop 12:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "Minoan column" 

message: What evidence do we have that these paintings are actually "Minoan" - as opposed to Minoan-influenced  Cycladic?  Are they really the best representations of purely "Minoan" art?  The lead picture in the article is entitled "Portrait of a Minoan fisherman from Akrotiri" - would our fisherman really have considered himself a Keftios or whatever the Minoans called themselves?  I don't neccesarily object to using these images, but the captions should be changed and we should use something from Crete for the main photo.--Jpbrenna 16:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I heartily agree. There are plenty of good images available in the wikipedia system, and if all those won't cover it, heck, I probably still have a few from when I visited knossos. Novium 01:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Spanish version has this picture, which is actually from Crete: --Jpbrenna 03:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I think everyone agrees that the images should be changed, so go crazy! I'd actually like to have one or more images from Akrotiri, but I'd like it/them to be paired with a section about Minoan influence outside of Crete. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Akrotiri, Thera images 

message: I've added/changed some of the pictures, just to give it a try, if these aren't popular, we can either change them back or try to find new ones. Novium 21:11, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, except I really liked the blue fish!  Can we keep them?
the dolphins? I have no objection to them. I just thought as a first photo that the new one was more visually striking. It's a long article, find somewhere connected and stick it in :-p Novium 07:47, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  photos 

message: Have deleted crete and greek history category as you can access these through minoan civilization category. Enlil Ninlil 01:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: if I understood you, I disagree. While Minoan Crete could  be considered part of Bronze Age Greek history, the reverse is not true. Novium 03:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not debating history here, just reducing multiple categorization, if you can make it beter than go ahead. But The category:Crete links to category:minoan civilization which links to here. And the Category:Greek history links to Category:Ancient greece which links to Category:Minoan civilization to here. So confusing ha.
 Enlil Ninlil 03:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted categories

message: I would like to modify this section: "Some would argue that these are all aspects of a single goddess. According to Marinatos, "That a powerful goddess of nature was the chief deity of the Minoans was recognized already by Evans and has never been seriously questioned."" I would cut out the quote, because practically everything evans said *has* been seriously questioned, and it doesn't really add much. It's not stating a fact, or an interpretation, so to speak. That is, the first statement is trying to send the message that it was a monotheistic thing, and the quote is to back that up, althogh the quote doesn't show anything other than Marinatos praising evans. It gives no actual support to the one goddess thing or the mother goddess thing. 
As to the first statement, I'd like to suggest something like, "It is occasionally suggested that..." but then go into how all of this is mainly supposition, because the evidence for the goddesses is mostly based off the fact they have different headgear, etc, which doesn't tell you much, so it's really impossible to say either way. What do you think?
Novium 20:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd cut the Marinatos quote as you suggest. However, it is quite true that some scholars think that the Minoans were monotheistic Goddess-worshippers, and if we can find a better quote (from Marinatos or someone else) that says so, I think we should include it. I think Jan Driessen also believes that the Minoans were monotheists, if I remember right. I wouldn't get deeply into condemning the Goddess supposition as conjecture--simply saying that there's a lot we don't know should be sufficient. It really is impossible to say what the Minoans believed without some texts, which we're probably never going to get, so we should really concentrate on what we can know: the nature of the iconography, whatever material remains we've got, what type of structures/spaces were involved in ritual, etc. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed. But that's sort of my point..one of the articles I quoted, the one that mentioned the piece of a skull found in the "kitchen" of a sactuary-complex is basically arguing (among other things) for a monotheistic mother goddess...although subtly, because the evidence for anything concrete is nonexistant. How exactly do you interpret vague pictures that lack captions? As to my personal views...well...I see it this way: We search for meaning in the otherwise vague and unintelligible leftover pieces of Bronze Age Crete, driven on by the knowledge (or hope) that there must have once been a pattern. Yet too many of the pieces are missing, so we create images using patterns we understand as a template. And so we find the patterns that we expect . The Minoans cannot speak to us the same way more literary cultures can, so we put ourselves into the mix and from this we get Minoan Crete; the modern superimposed over the ancient, like those exhibits that claim to show the viewer what they would look like as a caveman or an ancient Egyptian. I don't think it is any coincidence that during Arthur Evan's day, Crete was seen a semi-throwback to Bachofen-esque matriarchal prehistory with nationalist and imperialist overtones. I don't think it's a coincidence that during the second world war there was an emphasis on it's peaceful, utopian nature, and then, later, it began to have feminist-nationalist overtones, bachofen with a twist. But I am getting off topic. Anyway, I don't think we should get into the "montheistic mother goddess" theory unless we're willing to go into detail about the various theories and their evidence.
Novium 07:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  religion 

message: Sorry. I let my history-student distrust of prehistory spill out. Truly there is a place for these discussions in wikipedia... I just get frustrated with the lack of any real starting place for interpretation. For example, your mention of external politics reminded me of Thera (minoan colony? cycladic city influenced by crete? whatever? )...I am not the best person for this. I keep returning to this article like a fool to his folly not out of love, but out of sheer frustration. 
Novium 05:43, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thera as "Minoan colony" 

message: I don't think there is much merit in the atlantis section. At least, not enough to be worthy of its own section. Maybe a sentence or two... but i really think that if it *has* to be mentioned, it would be perhaps better off under the thera eruption article. what do you think?
Novium 23:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A sentence in the Thera Eruption section should be sufficient. If Atlantis is entirely removed from this article, someone will stick it back in eventually, so we might as well mention it briefly. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite right. The tenuous Atlantis connection— only made by people who can't define literary trope— is with the Thera explosion, not with Minoan civilization.--Wetman 00:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I concur too. We all seem to get queasy about this Atlantis nonsense, but it's still popularized on TV so we may as well accept that unsettling fact (preferably with a bottle of rum, glug, glug) and roll with it to debunk the misinfo. Think of it maybe as "damage control". --Glengordon01 05:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Atlantis

message: I don't think you need to hold the article up for that baloney. No sources for those statements are going to appear. They look like a legacy from some early form of the article before anyone who knew anything about it started in. I'd say, just comment those out of the article and remove the "needs sources" template.Dave 01:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Other" Section

message: I would hate to see this good information hacked out for length. It's too valuable to the interested public. One of the problems is that there is a need for more Minoan Crete articles, so there is no place to which to transfer the information. I would see this as an ongoing process of writing articles and getting the info from here to there. For example, and article should be done on "Minoan religion", which would clear out the information on religion and sacrifice. You wouldn't want to dispense with that info, as the subject is a large one and of great interest. That would be a great paper for someone to do. One article I plan to do soon if no one else does is "Minoan frescoes". There are enough frescoes in Commons now to support it. Minoan art is pretty well known and popular, being elaborate and beautiful as well as having historical significance. For example, there's the "Harvester vase". So I imagine it might be a while before this article can be brought down to size safely without destroying its utility to the interested public.Dave 01:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Length

message: I'm not a scholar, so I have no idea what's going on in the "chronology and history" section when we abruptly introduce what seems to be a third chronological system with the terms "LHI," "LHIIB," and "LHIIIB."  I am taking a wild guess (from context) that they might refer to pottery styles from the mainland, but I really have no idea.  Perhaps someone with some knowledge in this area can clean up this situation (either remove or define the terms are the two major choices that occur to me).--Inonit 17:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope the link to "Minoan Chronology", which explains the origins of those terms, takes care of the request. You wouldn't want to remove any terminology as then the whole structure would collapse and you'd be groping at events in the dark. But, I surmise that the underlying cause of your dissatisfaction is the lack of precision in the topic itself. There is no help for that on Wikipedia I fear. The topic is more of an art than a science. Let us call the leading lights impressarios. The Minoan impressarios themselves are groping for clarity at the edge of human knowability.Dave 15:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

text: PS. That side table is one of the major assets of the article. It combines Evans and Platon and gives the best of the modern dates at a glance. It's a transparent table once you know the system, and you can find out the system by clicking over to "Minoan Chronology." Whether you can use this article as a crash course in Aegean archaeology, that is another matter.Dave 15:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Inonit's problem is a bit more basic: this article uses Helladic chronology (LHI, LHII, LHIII, etc.) without explaining what that system is, or how it matches up with Evans' or Platon's systems. We should either add a short explanation of Helladic, or get rid of the LHI, etc. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's the difficulty to which I was referring.  I know a bit more now about what those terms mean, but certainly not enough to remedy the situation myself.--Inonit 18:12, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Time reminds me of something. Should the BC be changed to BCE? BCE is the standard term. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hobowu (talk • contribs) 09:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I notice that this issue still hasn't been resolved. Wikipedia seems to have no article on Helladic chronology, and the LH terms are only barely mentioned in Minoan chronology. It shouldn't be as cumbersome as having to search the discussion page as only a brief references would bring more meaning to this currently unexplained reference. __meco 07:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline 

message: Crete was originally supposed to be polity without a military in the midst of the sea. Not only that but its lily hands were above human sacrifice and painted vase motifs that reached for the sublime. Maybe a superior people lived there.
Unfortunately certain nagging questions persisted. When the whole Aegean around it was wrapped in frequent warfare and armies trampled back and forth while fleets went around suppressing the trade of competitors, how is it that this fine and noble civilization escaped invasion and destruction? Why only one invasion, one destruction? An undefended state ought to be burned down just about every day. Not only that but of all the states that did business with Crete there were none at all that were not heavily into human sacrifice. How did Crete become so noble? Was there an unsung Cretan Abraham and Isaac?
Eventually the sacrificers were discovered caught in the act by an earthquake and after that other grisly evidence began to turn up. Too bad. Some of those sublime pots must have caught human blood pouring off the altars. Maybe the priest-king in the fresco was leading, not a cow, but ... well you fill it in. Now we read of a great fleet depicted in a fresco of Thera quite a bit before the Greeks took Knossos. Not only that but we see soldiers, spears, dead bodies and boar's tusks helmets. I always thought they were Mycenaean myself. Maybe not. Maybe Crete was a warlike state but so successful that it did not need palace fortifications. Walls are for isolated and insecure states. Maybe, as has been suggested, Minoan fleets ruled the seas. 
What I am saying is, I think it is time to bring up the idea of a Cretan state defended by armed fleets with marines. There is no reason to exclude the idea. One fresco is not a great proof but it does open up the possibility, where before it was closed. People don't want to accept the idea. Another suggestion is that the Mycenaeans were out there in fleets at that time. Well if they were, why did they not take over Knossos earlier? Something ought to be said about these possibilities but we seem to be out of space. Maybe it will have wait until something else gets moved, but if sacrifice is in there so should be armed soldiers with boars' tusks helmets.Dave 23:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Crete and the Military

message: I've made this change to the introductory paragraph.  It seems someone disagreed with it before, but that change made that whole part of the paragraph sound illogical. Robotman1974 12:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Cradle" is definitely subjective wording and often with political motives behind it as Novium says. Even if these exact words were published, it doesn't make it a statement of fact. Logically, any number of civilizations or precursors of civilizations might be called "the cradle", each with their own justifications, but in reality things usually develop via multiple influences. We need to resist the urge to wikify history. --Glengordon01 05:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For an example of the kind of pseudohistory "cradle" engenders, see Cradle of Humanity. Would one want to see Minoan civilization presented on this level? --Wetman 10:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "cradle of European civilization"

message: Allright. I've seen it stated here just as I've seen it stated everywhere else (popular books. scholarly books. scholarly articles.) The men are painted in red, the women painted in white, like the egyptians. But no one ever cites any evidence for this, or explains why this assumption is made. I have discovered an article that talks about it, but it's in a book that I can't get a hold of. An article by the same author, which I can get through JSTOR, argues that sexual characteristics are only shown in certain contexts, and with figures in certain dress. This would explain the androgynous character of many of the figures- which in my opinion, only clouds the issue. The closest I've got to anything shedding light on this issue is something I came across when I was working on an essay on evans. I read Macgillvray's book on him- I disagree with many of his interpretations on evans, but I absolutely adored how much he actually dug up on evans, and, even better, presented in big fat direct quotations throughout his book. Ok, so anyway, in the book he had excerpts from Evan's journal. So, according to him, and the journal, Evans found the cupbearer fresco in April of 1900. Evans immediately dubbed it to be a portrait of Ariande, and remarked on the reddish-skin tone. So at that point, the whole red/male thing hadn't been codified. And, in fact, the early sketches and photographs of it look far more feminine or at least more androgynous than the reconstruction does. Sometime between those early days and the reconstruction of the fresco, the red/white thing became orthodox.  But why? 
Does ANYONE know why we interpret the paintings this way?  I actually am desperately curious to know; not even the resident expert on Crete at my university could tell me. 
Novium 17:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, so i've made no progress on finding why it's the orthodoxy on interpreting the frescoes, but I have made progress in the realm of people questioning it. Hidden under a lot of postprocessualist etc jargon, I might add. Especially with this one article, Faience Goddesses and Ivory Bull-Leapers: The Aesthetics of Sexual Difference at Late Bronze Age Knossos (World Archaeology, Vol. 33. No 2. Archaeology and Aesthetics (Oct 2001) pg 189-205), by Benjamin Alberti. Relevant passages, starting with page 191: "The aspect of the ‘art production system’ which interacts most clearly with sexual difference in the figurative art of the Late Bronze Age Knossos is the manifestation of a singular form to the human body which cuts across all other distinctions. Moreover, In this system sexed differences are not marked in a clearly binary fashion.[...]The figurative imagery found at Bronze Age Aegean sites includes frescoes, seal-stones, sealings, large-scale relief sculpture and ceramic, bronze, ivory, and faience figurines.[...](Pg 192) There is an analytically hazardous familiarity about this artwork, above all the impressive frescoes from sites such as Knossos and Akrotiri. The formal similarities between the art and contemporary Western visual aesthetic standards have led to the development of easy analogies between two temporally distant cultural contexts. As a result, the study of the art has moved from an original concern with the purely visual aesthetic impact of such work (eg Evans […]) to the more recent trend of the painstaking yet relatively uncomplicated classification of the various elements that make up the imagery, especially the iconographic and symbolic aspects. Gender has generally been considered an uncontroversial and key element of such classification, and almost exclusively interpreted as polarized in terms of iconography and hence actual activity, role and status within Bronze Age Aegean society.[…] The varying interpretations of the artwork has been strongly influenced by the cultural milieu of their times[…][…] while enormously useful for purposes of data collection, description and stylistic comparison, it is based on the sorting of images by imposing, in a largely uncritical fashion, categories and classes which can obscure other ways in which the images are organized. A particular outgrowth of this classifactory urge has been the development of a loosely defined structuralist analysis of the imagery. Types are then accommodated into oppositional categories, in the case of the figurative imagery these categories are inevitably male versus female, and these images are then treated as evidence for a radical gender polarity throughout the Bronze Age Aegean...". He references another article of his- one which I have been unable to get my hands on- that dealt more directly with the frescoes. Many of the observations he makes in relation to the figurines are equally applicable to the frescoes, and he does mention this. His argument basically seems to be that the minoans had a uniform body type for depicting human beings in their art, and you only get sexual differentiation- even when it'd be really easy- in very specific contexts, and the rest of the time, gender isn't discernibly differentiated, despite the opportunity to do so. In any case, the reason I'm posting this monster of a section is to ask that maybe can we mention this in the section about art/minoan society? So much of the social interpretation is based off this seemingly arbitrary system... I think it might be worthwhile to let people know that it is far from set in stone. Maybe just a small thing like "male and female figures are possibly distinguished by color" as opposed to "are distinguished by color". Novium 00:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  men and women