Heeey wait...you've got to be kidding me here! So Dhaskalio is actually a semi-natural ziggurat?! Haha!😃
See, I've been writing a book about the Minoans, and one of my conjectures there is that there must be a ziggurat on Thira/Santorini buried sonewhere under the volcanic layers. A Cycladic proto-version would fit my conjecture very well indeed!!!
Reason why: an ancient astronomy researcher called Howard Crowhust (you can find him on YT) did some great work analyzing the Tas Tepeler civilization - the one that spawned all others - in SE Turkey. He found something really intriguing: both Harran and Ur in Mesopotamia are located at specially chosen latitudes. Remember Eratosthenes and his Hellenistic-era use of the height of shadow of a pillar at noon on solstice in two different locations in Egypt to obtain a very good approximation of the Earth's circumference? Well, turns out he merely followed in the footsteps of the Tas Tepeler and early Mesopotamian astronomers from 7-10 millennia earlier. Harran and Ur are both at the latitudes they are for a very good reason: in both places, the height of a pillar and the length of its shadow at solstice noon are whole numbers! It seems inconceivable that a people as ingenious as the Minoans would not have maintained this knowledge. But there is a glaring problem of geography: Crete is simply at the wrong latitude for such calculations. The only place in Greece at the right latitude for that are the Cyclades, conspicouously including both Dhaskalio and Thera/Santorini...
Re: methodically cut figures. You may find it of interest that the Ancient Egyptians used to magically "inactivate" their own statuary once it was no longer in use, in the exact same manner.
(Have been fascinated with Cycladic art ever since first glimpsing an example in a school textbook long ago. Biggest surprise: sets of 3 pairs of eyes on pieces where the paint survived...)
Far as the early figurines, am struck yet again as to just how closely they resemble artifacts from Megalithic Malta; even the Maltese temple layout closely resembles the early female figurines you discuss here.
A "curse" that the early Cycladians labored under: arsenical bronze. Mechanically useful yet beyond toxic. Is seldom mentioned, unclear to me as to why.
not likely that the peaceful Minoans conquered and subjugated anyone and they (I am sure) never had a king. more likely your alternative explanation centered on colonisation and merging of cultures. great piece!
Minoans were never, ever truly peaceful. Even their later settlements had some serious walls, it's just that those were only found later. Minoan frescoes from Santorini clearly show soldiers in formation with oxhide shields, rendering the entire beautiful fable about "peaceful Minoans" moot. They also at least sometimes practiced human sacrifice (and so, for that matter, did the Celts - matriarchy or matrilocality were never even remotely a shield from violence, as witnessed by the fact that an absolutely insane percentage of some 20% of skulls found at Catalhöyük show signs of healed fracture, which is downright scary.) Oh, also Minos was never a king but a god, and the Minotaur was originally a she, and it is possible to demonstrate both using only the already publicly available evidence. It is only that the Mycenaeans were so patriarchal that they could not fathom something like this and thus turned the Minotaur into a male. (That btw is the basic thesis of the book I'm writing...)
they were extremely peaceful compared to anything around them. yes, it is not unlikely human sacrifices were performed and that is common to all societies with strong bonds to mother earth cults. peaceful is the attitude in relation to other groups. if they had indeed soldiers they were most likely for defence, in a culture that was inclined to dominate through trade rather than invasion or raid.
the Minotaur could simply have been how Mycenaeans viewed Crete’s high priestess since it seems she celebrated rites wearing an ox head mask? just a speculation.
I respectfully disagree: they were just as violent as Bronze Age itself. And there is zero room for "likely" about Minoan human sacrifice: yes they did it, period. The evidence there is utterly unambiguous. Child bones mixed with animal bones with signs of cooking (which sent the horrified Greek archeologist who had unearthed it into psychotherapy) plus an entire building collapsed in earthquake with the remains of a priest, a priestess and a bound and freshly sacrificed male youth inside. There is probably more. Unambiguous.
Peaceful Mother Earth cults before those pesky patriarchists came in and ruined everything, is alas just an artifact of Marija Gimbutas' biggest conceptual error. Mother Earth was not peaceful. In fact, the relevant deities were usually frightening demons.
I can give you a very concrete Celtic example of "toxic matriarchy" (for lack of a better term.) Many (usually male) bog bodies have the nipples on their breasts removed. This is so because the way for Celts to show submission to their chieftains was by sucking on the chieftain's nipple(s). Both rituals are both horrifying and mightily weird. Not something men would usually think of: when they wanted to be nasty to ither men, they would usually rather think of decapitation and/or castration instead (as say on the Narmer Palette.) Submission by sucking on male nipples seems to me to be a leftover from matriarchy. And, unpleasantly enough, so does the ritual removal of nipples prior to bog sacrifice: it looks exactly like the worst thing a truly evil-minded woman or women may have invented as the nastiest thing imaginable to do to - another woman, mutilating her body by cutting off her very fertility. Just sayin'. And in many (though not all) contemporary hunter gatherer tribes, activities such as killing of captives were often delegated to the tribal women. Finally, if one has been through one of more contemporary wars (I have), some of the most violent rhetoric and ideas do tend to be by women.
The masked priest or priestess idea about Minoans seems very popular for some reason, but is 100% just a theatrical pipe dream. You are forgetting that Greek mythology only ever gives us the Iron Age memory of the Mycenaeans' view on the Minoans, replete with conceptual errors throughout. The sheer weight of standard mythology has blinded the academia to the true story pretty much completely there, starting with Evans himself.
Hmm...darn it. 🤔 Now it sounds like I am only criticizing. But I actually really like your enthusiasm for the source material, I recognize it as akin to mine, and your speculations are near-identical to my own prior to having the epiphany that showed me what "King" Minos (who was no priest either, but a god) and the "Minotaur" really were. And then it got even better, once I realized that using my new interpretation not only meshed wonderfully with everything that is known, but it enabled me to find explanations in places like the Iliad (yep!) that seem jarringly odd within the traditional story, but become thoroughly logical once I simply applied the perspective I had discovered. (Specifically regarding the Iliad, why a super obscure Greek birthing deity would be the one to put fear of doom into the very bones of a (wounded) ultimate tough bastard such as Wanax Agamemnon...)
Would actually very much like to share the stuff I've got thus far, have been planning to maybe begin releasing it by parts with a paywall, but have been stuck in writer's block for some months now instead. (Also illogically afraid basically no one would even read it, frankly.) And I always like to hear the perspective of a woman, since I strongly believe in human complementarity there.
Now, would you like to be my reader for the stuff I have? Four chapters; they outline the basic idea and the (copious) evidence. I could really use feedback from someone whose perspective is different from mine. (Had asked our Studying History here to do so, but he has a lot of other projects going too...) If you would be willing to take a look, please indicate an email address so I can send it to you. If you decide to do it, am looking forward to your feedback! If not, well I truly enjoy the conversation. Best wishes in any case!
Thanks! Have sent it to you. And having studied this a lot or not, my mind is open. Or at least I try to keep it that way. Illustrative example of how rhetoric can blind the academia: the curious case of Delphi and some arrogant French archeologist. Who went there, concluded that there was nothing there that would suggest that the Pythia's trances were real, and was so arrogant and (alas) convincingly eloquent about it that he basically stopped all research into the matter for several decades. Ergo, there was some TRULY toxic masculinity at work right there, if anyone needs a glaring example thereof! Till someone else came. Someone with an open mind who reevaluated the evidence, then published the true story in Scientific American, think it was back in the late 90s. Turned out there are geological cracks at Delphi that have ethylene gas wafting out, and that ethylene gas intoxication not only exists, but also comes in two distinct forms, both of which map surprisingly well onto the depictions of Pythia making positive versus negative prophecies. Think you can easily guess who is my hero in that overall story. And the arrogant dude thus ended up being only what he had really been the entire time: a superficial yet major braying jackass.
Thanks! Have sent it to you. And having studied this a lot or not, my mind is open. Or at least I try to keep it that way. Illustrative example of how rhetoric can blind the academia: the curious case of Delphi and some arrogant French archeologist. Who went there, concluded that there was nothing there that would suggest that the Pythia's trances were real, and was so arrogant and (alas) convincingly eloquent about it that he basically stopped all research into the matter for several decades. Ergo, there was some TRULY toxic masculinity at work right there, if anyone needs a glaring example thereof! Till someone else came. Someone with an open mind who reevaluated the evidence, then published the true story in Scientific American, think it was back in the late 90s. Turned out there are geological cracks at Delphi that have ethylene gas wafting out, and that ethylene gas intoxication not only exists, but also comes in two distinct forms, both of which map surprisingly well onto the depictions of Pythia making positive versus negative prophecies. Think you can easily guess who is my hero in that overall story. And the arrogant dude thus ended up being only what he had really been the entire time: a superficial yet major braying jackass.
One more thing: the measures of the Dhaskalio Pyramid are very interesting (provided the AI I consulted did not hallucinate...) Six steps overall, about 6 steps wide. Well, the oldest Egyptian Pyramid of them all, the Djoser Step Pyramid in Saqqara, happens to also have 6 steps overall; the width of the steps was approx. 3-5 m, but the entire pyramid was originally clad in long since gone polished limestone, just like the ones at Giza! That means it could have been 6 meters overall in both places... (Unfortunately, the 3D reconstruction of the Dhaskalio semi-pyramid is not publicly available so I could not compare directly!) Sure sounds too similar to the measures and marble cladding of the Dhaskalio pyramid. If so, this could well mean that the Cyclades and Egypt were interacting significantly even before the construction of the Pyramids at Giza (Step Pyramid of Saqqara is 1st half of 27th century BCE.) Just sayin'!!!
Heeey wait...you've got to be kidding me here! So Dhaskalio is actually a semi-natural ziggurat?! Haha!😃
See, I've been writing a book about the Minoans, and one of my conjectures there is that there must be a ziggurat on Thira/Santorini buried sonewhere under the volcanic layers. A Cycladic proto-version would fit my conjecture very well indeed!!!
Reason why: an ancient astronomy researcher called Howard Crowhust (you can find him on YT) did some great work analyzing the Tas Tepeler civilization - the one that spawned all others - in SE Turkey. He found something really intriguing: both Harran and Ur in Mesopotamia are located at specially chosen latitudes. Remember Eratosthenes and his Hellenistic-era use of the height of shadow of a pillar at noon on solstice in two different locations in Egypt to obtain a very good approximation of the Earth's circumference? Well, turns out he merely followed in the footsteps of the Tas Tepeler and early Mesopotamian astronomers from 7-10 millennia earlier. Harran and Ur are both at the latitudes they are for a very good reason: in both places, the height of a pillar and the length of its shadow at solstice noon are whole numbers! It seems inconceivable that a people as ingenious as the Minoans would not have maintained this knowledge. But there is a glaring problem of geography: Crete is simply at the wrong latitude for such calculations. The only place in Greece at the right latitude for that are the Cyclades, conspicouously including both Dhaskalio and Thera/Santorini...
hi! I would love to read that book.
Re: methodically cut figures. You may find it of interest that the Ancient Egyptians used to magically "inactivate" their own statuary once it was no longer in use, in the exact same manner.
(Have been fascinated with Cycladic art ever since first glimpsing an example in a school textbook long ago. Biggest surprise: sets of 3 pairs of eyes on pieces where the paint survived...)
Far as the early figurines, am struck yet again as to just how closely they resemble artifacts from Megalithic Malta; even the Maltese temple layout closely resembles the early female figurines you discuss here.
A "curse" that the early Cycladians labored under: arsenical bronze. Mechanically useful yet beyond toxic. Is seldom mentioned, unclear to me as to why.
not likely that the peaceful Minoans conquered and subjugated anyone and they (I am sure) never had a king. more likely your alternative explanation centered on colonisation and merging of cultures. great piece!
Minoans were never, ever truly peaceful. Even their later settlements had some serious walls, it's just that those were only found later. Minoan frescoes from Santorini clearly show soldiers in formation with oxhide shields, rendering the entire beautiful fable about "peaceful Minoans" moot. They also at least sometimes practiced human sacrifice (and so, for that matter, did the Celts - matriarchy or matrilocality were never even remotely a shield from violence, as witnessed by the fact that an absolutely insane percentage of some 20% of skulls found at Catalhöyük show signs of healed fracture, which is downright scary.) Oh, also Minos was never a king but a god, and the Minotaur was originally a she, and it is possible to demonstrate both using only the already publicly available evidence. It is only that the Mycenaeans were so patriarchal that they could not fathom something like this and thus turned the Minotaur into a male. (That btw is the basic thesis of the book I'm writing...)
they were extremely peaceful compared to anything around them. yes, it is not unlikely human sacrifices were performed and that is common to all societies with strong bonds to mother earth cults. peaceful is the attitude in relation to other groups. if they had indeed soldiers they were most likely for defence, in a culture that was inclined to dominate through trade rather than invasion or raid.
the Minotaur could simply have been how Mycenaeans viewed Crete’s high priestess since it seems she celebrated rites wearing an ox head mask? just a speculation.
I respectfully disagree: they were just as violent as Bronze Age itself. And there is zero room for "likely" about Minoan human sacrifice: yes they did it, period. The evidence there is utterly unambiguous. Child bones mixed with animal bones with signs of cooking (which sent the horrified Greek archeologist who had unearthed it into psychotherapy) plus an entire building collapsed in earthquake with the remains of a priest, a priestess and a bound and freshly sacrificed male youth inside. There is probably more. Unambiguous.
Peaceful Mother Earth cults before those pesky patriarchists came in and ruined everything, is alas just an artifact of Marija Gimbutas' biggest conceptual error. Mother Earth was not peaceful. In fact, the relevant deities were usually frightening demons.
I can give you a very concrete Celtic example of "toxic matriarchy" (for lack of a better term.) Many (usually male) bog bodies have the nipples on their breasts removed. This is so because the way for Celts to show submission to their chieftains was by sucking on the chieftain's nipple(s). Both rituals are both horrifying and mightily weird. Not something men would usually think of: when they wanted to be nasty to ither men, they would usually rather think of decapitation and/or castration instead (as say on the Narmer Palette.) Submission by sucking on male nipples seems to me to be a leftover from matriarchy. And, unpleasantly enough, so does the ritual removal of nipples prior to bog sacrifice: it looks exactly like the worst thing a truly evil-minded woman or women may have invented as the nastiest thing imaginable to do to - another woman, mutilating her body by cutting off her very fertility. Just sayin'. And in many (though not all) contemporary hunter gatherer tribes, activities such as killing of captives were often delegated to the tribal women. Finally, if one has been through one of more contemporary wars (I have), some of the most violent rhetoric and ideas do tend to be by women.
The masked priest or priestess idea about Minoans seems very popular for some reason, but is 100% just a theatrical pipe dream. You are forgetting that Greek mythology only ever gives us the Iron Age memory of the Mycenaeans' view on the Minoans, replete with conceptual errors throughout. The sheer weight of standard mythology has blinded the academia to the true story pretty much completely there, starting with Evans himself.
Hmm...darn it. 🤔 Now it sounds like I am only criticizing. But I actually really like your enthusiasm for the source material, I recognize it as akin to mine, and your speculations are near-identical to my own prior to having the epiphany that showed me what "King" Minos (who was no priest either, but a god) and the "Minotaur" really were. And then it got even better, once I realized that using my new interpretation not only meshed wonderfully with everything that is known, but it enabled me to find explanations in places like the Iliad (yep!) that seem jarringly odd within the traditional story, but become thoroughly logical once I simply applied the perspective I had discovered. (Specifically regarding the Iliad, why a super obscure Greek birthing deity would be the one to put fear of doom into the very bones of a (wounded) ultimate tough bastard such as Wanax Agamemnon...)
Would actually very much like to share the stuff I've got thus far, have been planning to maybe begin releasing it by parts with a paywall, but have been stuck in writer's block for some months now instead. (Also illogically afraid basically no one would even read it, frankly.) And I always like to hear the perspective of a woman, since I strongly believe in human complementarity there.
Now, would you like to be my reader for the stuff I have? Four chapters; they outline the basic idea and the (copious) evidence. I could really use feedback from someone whose perspective is different from mine. (Had asked our Studying History here to do so, but he has a lot of other projects going too...) If you would be willing to take a look, please indicate an email address so I can send it to you. If you decide to do it, am looking forward to your feedback! If not, well I truly enjoy the conversation. Best wishes in any case!
sure, you seem to have studied this A LOT. just sent you a direct message
Thanks! Have sent it to you. And having studied this a lot or not, my mind is open. Or at least I try to keep it that way. Illustrative example of how rhetoric can blind the academia: the curious case of Delphi and some arrogant French archeologist. Who went there, concluded that there was nothing there that would suggest that the Pythia's trances were real, and was so arrogant and (alas) convincingly eloquent about it that he basically stopped all research into the matter for several decades. Ergo, there was some TRULY toxic masculinity at work right there, if anyone needs a glaring example thereof! Till someone else came. Someone with an open mind who reevaluated the evidence, then published the true story in Scientific American, think it was back in the late 90s. Turned out there are geological cracks at Delphi that have ethylene gas wafting out, and that ethylene gas intoxication not only exists, but also comes in two distinct forms, both of which map surprisingly well onto the depictions of Pythia making positive versus negative prophecies. Think you can easily guess who is my hero in that overall story. And the arrogant dude thus ended up being only what he had really been the entire time: a superficial yet major braying jackass.
Thanks! Have sent it to you. And having studied this a lot or not, my mind is open. Or at least I try to keep it that way. Illustrative example of how rhetoric can blind the academia: the curious case of Delphi and some arrogant French archeologist. Who went there, concluded that there was nothing there that would suggest that the Pythia's trances were real, and was so arrogant and (alas) convincingly eloquent about it that he basically stopped all research into the matter for several decades. Ergo, there was some TRULY toxic masculinity at work right there, if anyone needs a glaring example thereof! Till someone else came. Someone with an open mind who reevaluated the evidence, then published the true story in Scientific American, think it was back in the late 90s. Turned out there are geological cracks at Delphi that have ethylene gas wafting out, and that ethylene gas intoxication not only exists, but also comes in two distinct forms, both of which map surprisingly well onto the depictions of Pythia making positive versus negative prophecies. Think you can easily guess who is my hero in that overall story. And the arrogant dude thus ended up being only what he had really been the entire time: a superficial yet major braying jackass.
One more thing: the measures of the Dhaskalio Pyramid are very interesting (provided the AI I consulted did not hallucinate...) Six steps overall, about 6 steps wide. Well, the oldest Egyptian Pyramid of them all, the Djoser Step Pyramid in Saqqara, happens to also have 6 steps overall; the width of the steps was approx. 3-5 m, but the entire pyramid was originally clad in long since gone polished limestone, just like the ones at Giza! That means it could have been 6 meters overall in both places... (Unfortunately, the 3D reconstruction of the Dhaskalio semi-pyramid is not publicly available so I could not compare directly!) Sure sounds too similar to the measures and marble cladding of the Dhaskalio pyramid. If so, this could well mean that the Cyclades and Egypt were interacting significantly even before the construction of the Pyramids at Giza (Step Pyramid of Saqqara is 1st half of 27th century BCE.) Just sayin'!!!