Minoans

The Minoans were a Bronze Age civilization centered on the island of Crete, flourishing from about 2600 to 1100 BCE. They built influential urban centers, notably Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Zakros, featuring large palace complexes, sophisticated drainage, and vibrant frescoes that celebrate marine life, ritual scenes, and athletic imagery.

The Minoan economy depended on seaborne trade across the eastern Mediterranean. They produced and exported olive oil, wine, pottery, and metalwork, and drew cultural influences from Egypt and the Near East. Palaces likely served administrative and storage functions, implying a centralized but flexible political system. Society is thought to have been organized around elites, possibly with priestly leadership, rather than a single monarch.

The Minoans used scripts including a hieroglyphic system and Linear A; neither has been deciphered. In the later period, Linear B appears in Crete and is associated with Mycenaean administration and early Greek language rather than with Minoan speech.

Religious life is inferred from shrines, figurines, and bull motifs, with bull-leaping depicted in frescoes and a probable emphasis on goddess cults and reverence for nature and animals.

The middle of the second millennium BCE brought disruption, including the volcanic Thera eruption. Palaces were destroyed or damaged, and by roughly 1450–1400 BCE Mycenaean Greeks established control over Crete; the Minoan political system faded, though cultural influence persisted into the late Bronze Age.

The legacy of Minoan art, architecture, and seafaring survived in later Aegean civilizations, shaping patterns of urban planning, craft production, and maritime trade.