Chapter 3 Minos and the Heroes of Homer: The Art of the Prehistoric Aegean
NotesThis period is the time described by the ancient Greek poet Homer in his epic poem the
Iliad. Composed around 750 BC, it was unquestionably the first great work of Greek
literature. In fact, until 1870 it was considered pure fiction.
In the late 1800’s a wealthy German businessman turned archeologist changed this
thinking. Between 1870 and his death 20 years later, Heinrich Schliemann uncovered
some of the very cities Homer named. He discovered Troy and Mycenae. Successors
uncovered Knossos, the legendary palace of King Minos, and the labyrinth of the famed
Minotaur. Because of these discoveries and others, art historians now have an array of
buildings, paintings, and to a lesser extent, sculptures that attest to the wealth and
sophistication of the people who lived in the once obscure heroic age celebrated in later
Greek mythology.
The highest period of the ancient Aegean was not until the second millennium BC, well
after the emergence of the river valley civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and South
Asia.
The sea dominated geography of the Aegean contrasts sharply with that of the Near East.
Crete and the Aegean Islands at the commercial crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean
had a major effect on their prosperity. The sea also provided a natural defense against the
frequent and disruptive invasions that checker the histories of land bound civilizations
such as those of Mesopotamia.
Historians, art historians, and archaeologists alike divide the prehistoric Aegean into
three geographical areas, each with a distinctive artistic identity.
Cycladic Islands (so called because the circle around Delos)
Cycladic art
Early
Middle
Late
Crete
Minoan art
Early
Middle
Late
The Greek Mainland
Helladic art
Early
Middle
Late (Mycenaean)
Cycladic Art
Most Cycladic sculptures like many of their predecessors represent nude women with
their arms folded across their abdomens. They vary in height from a few inches to almost
life size. This example is about 18” high, and comes from a grave on the island of Syros.
This statute is typical. It is almost flat, and the human body is rendered in a highly
schematized manner. Large simple triangles dominate the form - the head, the body itself
(which tapers from exceptionally broad shoulders to tiny feet), and the incised triangular
pubis. The feet are too fragile and too small to support the figure. If these sculptures
were used as funerary offerings, as archaeologists believe they were, they must have been
placed on their backs lying down, like the deceased themselves. Whether these are
statuettes or fertility figures, or goddess’ is still debated. What ever their purpose, the
sculptor took great care to emphasize the breasts and the pubic area. In the Syros statute,
a slight swelling of the belly may suggest pregnancy. Some of the figures were painted
with eyes and mouths to go with the sculpted noses. Painted necklaces and bracelets as
well as, dots on the face characterize a number of figures.
Male figures also occur, often in the form of musicians, such as the lyre player from
Keros. He may be playing for the afterlife but it remains unclear. Characteristic form is
similar to the other statutes. Some Cycladic figures have been found in settlements and
not just tombs, suggesting that the same form took on different meaning in different
contexts.
It is only when the context of an artwork is known can one go beyond an
appreciation of its formal qualities and begin to analyze its place in art history and
in the society that produces it.
Minoan Art
Architecture
During the third millennium most settlements in the Aegean were small with only simple
buildings. In contrast, the opening centuries of the second millennium (the Middle
Minoan period on Crete) are marked by the construction of large palaces. This first, or
Old Palace, period came to an abrupt end around 1700 BC, when the structures were
destroyed, probably by an earthquake, after 1700 BC. The New Palace period (Late
Minoan), the golden age of Crete, began an era when the fist great Western
civilization emerged.
The Palace at Knossos
The largest of the palaces at Knossos, was the legendary home of King Minos. Here the
hero Theseus was said to have battled with the bill-man Minotaur. According to the
myth, after defeating the monster, Theseus found his way out of the maze like complex
only with the aid of the king’s daughter, Ariadne. She had given Theseus a spindle of
thread to mark his path through the labyrinth and then safely out again. In fact the
English word labyrinth derives from the intricate plan and scores of rooms of the
Knossos palace. Labrys means “double axe” and it is a reoccurring motif in the Minoan
palace, referring to sacrificial slaughter. The labyrinth was the “House of Double
Axes”.
The Cretan palaces were well constructed, with thick walls composed of unshaped field
stones embedded in clay. There is a remarkable rainwater drainage system of terra cotta
pipes that run underneath the building. Painted Minoan columns, originally fashioned of
wood but were restored as stone in the early 20th century, are characterized by their
bulbous, cushion like capitals and distinctive shafts. The capitals resemble those of
later Greek Doric order, but the shafts taper from a wide top to a narrower base the opposite of both Egyptian and later Greek columns.
Painting
Mural paintings are everywhere throughout the palace at Knossos. The brightly painted
walls and the red shafts and black capitals of wooden columns provided an
extraordinarily rich effect. The paintings depict many aspects of Minoan life (bull
leaping, processions, and ceremonies) and nature (birds, animals, flowers, and marine
life).
Unlike the Egyptians, who painted in fresco secco (dry fresco), the Minoans coated the
rough fabric of their rubble walls with a fine white lime plaster and used the true (wet)
fresco method. The Minoan frescos required rapid execution and great skill in achieving
quick, almost impressionistic effects.
Bull Leaping at Knossos
Liveliness and spontaneity characterizes the “Bull Leaping” fresco at Knossos. This
fresco depicts the Minoan ceremony of bull leaping. The fresco has been restored from
fragments of the original. The dark patches are original and the other restored. The
Minoan artist painted the young women (with fair skin) and the male youth (with dark
skin) according to the accepted ancient convention for distinguishing male and female.
The young man is shown in the air, having, it seems, grasped the bull’s horns and vaulted
over its back in an extremely difficult acrobatic maneuver. The painter brilliantly
suggested the powerful charge of the bull by elongating the animal’s shape and using
sweeping lines to form a funnel of energy, beginning at the very narrow hind quarters of
the bull and culminating in its large, sharp horns and galloping forelegs. The human
figures also have stylized shapes, with typically Minoan pinched waists, and are highly
animated. Although the profile pose with the full-view eye was a familiar convention in
Egypt and Mesopotamia, the elegance of the Cretan figures, with their long curly hair and
proud self confident bearing, distinguishes them from all other figure styles. The
angularity of the figures seen in Egyptian wall paintings is modified by the curving
Minoan line that suggests the elasticity of the living and moving being.
The Murals on Ancient Thera
Paintings from Akrotiri on the volcanic island of Santorini (ancient Thera), there have
been discovered frescos that are in excellent condition compared to the Knossos ones.
This was due to the city being buried in volcanic pumice and ash from a major volcanic
eruption, like Pompeii was in later times. The Akrotiri frescoes decorated the walls of
houses, not the walls of great palaces, as at Knossos.
One Theban fresco has been called Miniature Ships Fresco. It is a frieze about 17
inches high at the top of at least three walls in the so called West House of Akrotiri. Our
detail shows a great fleet sailing from one Aegean port headed for another unseen port or
perhaps taking part in a sea festival or perhaps engaged in a navel campaign. Such a
detailed representation of the movement of ships and people from port to port does not
appear again until the Column of Trajan the Roman emperor almost 2000 years later.
The details of ship design and sailing reflect careful observation rather than formula.
People are posed according to their role rather than following a canon. The whole
composition has an openness and lightness that suggest the freedom of movement of
people born to the sea.
Spring Fresco
Another fresco form Akrotiri captures a fresh and vital vision of the Aegean world.
Nature is the sole subject with the artist’s purpose to capture the essence and joy of the
surroundings rather than precise realism. Spring Fresco is the polar opposite of the
Paleolithic cave painting where animals appeared as isolated figures without any
indication of setting.
Kamares Ware
During the Middle Minoan period, Cretan potters fashioned sophisticated shapes using
the newly introduced potter’s wheels. The vessels are named for the cave on the slope of
Mount Ida where they were first discovered, and have been found in quantity at other
sites. Kamares ware has a distinctive and polychromatic style. Creamy white and
reddish brown decoration is set against a rich black background. In our example, the
central motif is a great leaping fish and perhaps a fish net surrounded by a host of
curvilinear abstract patterns including wave and spirals, evoking the life of the sea and
compliment the form of the vessel.
The Octopus Jar
This Late Minoan Marine style jar is a masterful realization of the relationship between a
vessel’s decoration and its shape. This Vessel differs from Kamares Ware in color,
reversing the creaming white background and making the black into silhouette
decoration. This remained the norm in Greece, until about
530 BC when, albeit in a very different form, light figures on a dark background emerged
once again as the preferred manner.
Sculpture
The Harvester Vase is probably the finest surviving example of Minoan relief sculpture.
While depicting a harvest scene, the Minoan artist shunned static repetition in favor of a
composition that bursts with the energy of its individually characterized figures. The
relief shows a riotous crowd singing and shouting as they go to the fields. The artist
vividly captured the forward movement and lusty exuberance of the youths. This is one
of the first instances in the history of art of a sculptor showing a keen interest in the
underlying muscular and skeletal structure of the human body. The degree of animation
of the human face is without precedent in ancient art.
Snake Goddess
In contrast to Mesopotamia and Egypt, no temples or monumental statues of gods, kings,
or monsters have been found in Minoan Crete. Large wooden images may have existed
at one time, but what remains of Minoan sculpture is small in scale. One such example is
a small in scale faience (glazed earthenware) statuette known as the Snake Goddess,
from the palace at Knossos. It is one of several similar figures that some scholars believe
may represent mortal attendants rather than deity. However the exposed breasts suggest a
fertility image, which is often seen as divine. Holding the snakes and a leopard sitting on
her head implied power over the animal world also seems appropriate for a deity. If this
is a goddess, it is yet another example of how humans fashion god in their own image.
Mycenaean Art
Mycenaean power developed on the mainland in the days of the new palaces on Crete,
and by 1500 BC a distinctive Mycenaean culture was flourishing in Greece. The
destruction of the Cretan palaces left the mainland culture supreme. Although this Late
Helladic civilization has come to be called Mycenaean, Mycenae was but one of several
large citadels. The best preserved of these citadels are the fortified palaces at Mycenae
and at Tiryns. Both were built around 1400 BC and were burned, along with all the
others, between 1250 and 1200 BC, when the Mycenaeans seem to have been overrun by
Northern invaders or internal warfare.
In the second century a man named Pausanius authored a guidebook to Greece. He
visited the site of Tiryns and marveled at the towering fortifications and considered the
walls of Tiryns as spectacular as the pyramids of Egypt. In fact the Greeks of the
historical age believed mere humans could not have erected such edifices and instead
attributed the construction of the great Mycenaean citadels to the mythical Cyclops, a
race of one-eyed giants. Historians still refer to the huge roughly cut stone blocks
forming the massive fortification walls a Cyclopean Masonry.
Tiryns
The heavy walls contrast greatly with the open Cretan palaces and clearly display a
defensive character. The walls of Tiryns average 20 feet in thickness. The cantilevered
stones in the passageway are held in place only by their own weight (often several tons
each), smaller stones used as wedges, and clay to fill in spaces. This primitive yet
effective scheme possesses an earthy monumentality. It is easy to see how a later age
came to believe that the uncouth Cyclops were responsible for these massive but
unsophisticated fortifications
Mycenae’s Lion Gate
The Lion Gate is the outer gateway of the stronghold at Mycenae. It is protected on the
left by a wall built on a natural rock outcropping and on the right by a projecting bastion
of large rocks. Any approaching enemies would have had to enter this 20 foot wide
channel and face Mycenaean defenders above them on both sides. The gate itself is
formed of two great monoliths, acting as posts, which is capped with a huge lintel.
Above the lintel, is formed a corbeled arch, leaving an opening that lightens the weight
the lintel carries. This relieving triangle is filled with a great limestone slab where two
lions are carved in high relief and stand on the sides of a Minoan type column. The
whole design admirably fills its triangular space, harmonizing in dignity, strength, and
scale with the massive stones that form the wall and gate. The gate and walls were
constructed a few generations before the presumed date of the Trojan War.
Treasury of Atreus
The wealthy Mycenaeans were buried outside the citadel walls in beehive shaped tombs
covered by enormous earthen mounds. The best preserved of these tholos tombs is the
so called Treasury of Atreus, which already in antiquity was mistakenly believed to be
the repository of the treasure of Atreus, father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. The tholos
is composed of a series of stone corbelled courses laid on a circular base and ending in a
lofty dome. About 43’ high, this is the largest known vaulted space without interior
supports that had ever been built. This achievement was not surpassed until the Romans
constructed the Pantheon almost 1500 years later, using a new technology - concrete
construction - unknown to the Mycenaeans.
Funerary Mask
The Mycenaeans laid their dead on the floors of shaft graves with masks covering their
faces. This gold mask is one of the first known attempts in Greece to render the human
face at life size. Features were handled with care, but it is not known if the artists tried to
do specific portraits. The mask was made of beaten gold using the repousse’ technique.
The Warrior Vase
Pottery continued even after the fall of the Mycenaean palaces. The Warrior Vase is a
krater style (bowl for mixing wine and water) and an example of Late Bronze Age
painting and is named for the frieze of warriors marching off to war. The painting has no
setting or context for the figures. This simplification of narrative is paralleled in other
painted vases by the increasingly schematic and abstract treatment of marine life. The
octopus, for example eventually became a stylized motif composed of concentric circles
and spirals that were almost unrecognizable as a sea creature. Three centuries after the
fall of Mycenae, the art of figure painting had been forgotten.
With the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces around 1200 BC, Greece was plunged
into a “Dark Age,” when the arts of painting, carving, and building, and even writing
almost disappeared. The historical Greeks looked back on the achievements of their
Minoan and Mycenaean predecessors with awe, but in time they would surface them and
put their stamp on Western civilization and Western art forever.