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CW: animal sacrifice, human sacrifice
When I shared last week's post about what's missing in Minoan art on social media, I got an interesting response from a fellow Pagan writer, who guessed (before reading the post) that what was missing was war and violence.
There's something to that, but it's not a simple subject.
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What's missing from Minoan art?
Before you answer "The women's shirts," let me clarify that I mean here: What kind of animal is missing from Minoan art?
There are all kinds of animals in Minoan art, inhabiting the realms of land, sky, sea, and imagination. But there's one that doesn't show up until very late in the game, for very specific reasons.
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Here's a little something I wrote in honor of the Ancestors:
Step into the light
Wearing your ancestors
Like a cloak
Like a crown
Bearing their power
Into the future
Generations of love
Stand behind you
Upholding you
Hear their voices
Urging you on
Feel their wisdom
Guiding your thoughts
Their hands
Holding yours
Never fear
You are not alone
One aspect of ancient Egyptian archaeology that I've always enjoyed is that the dry climate of the Nile valley and the surrounding desert preserved biodegradable items like clothing and baskets (and mummies, obviously!). Unfortunately, the Aegean isn't dry - it's a portion of the Mediterranean Sea dotted with islands. So sadly, on Crete and Thera (modern Santorini) most of the biodegradable artifacts have long since rotted away.
But that doesn't mean the situation is hopeless. There are other ways to discover what kinds of biodegradable objects the Minoans had.
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One of the projects I'm working on these days is a book of modern Minoan myths, tales to bridge the gap between the Bronze Age and our times as we learn to live in relationship with the Minoan deities. The working title is Tales from the Labyrinth. The book will be illustrated, but before I can start on the art, I have to complete the stories.
Today I'm sharing one of them with you - a very important story, the the first one in the book. It's just a little taste of the whole collection of tales. I hope you enjoy it.
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Imagine climbing halfway up a mountain to a plaza in front of a small building just so you could make an offering - to ask a deity for aid or healing, or perhaps to give thanks for what the deity has already done for you. This is something the Minoans did on a regular basis, making pilgrimages up the mountainsides to the four dozen or so peak sanctuaries that were in operation before the Thera eruption (a number that dropped dramatically by 2/3 to 3/4 after the eruption, for complicated reasons).
The photo (CC BY 4.0) at the top of this post comes from the peak sanctuary at Petsofas on the far eastern end of Crete. This fascinating artifact appears to be a model building in the shape of doubled sacred horns, with more small sacred horns over the central doorway. This piece was probably not a pilgrim's offering, but may have been part of the sacred paraphernalia that had a permanent home in the building at the peak sanctuary. Maybe it was used during rituals of some sort.
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When someone says "papyrus," most people think of Egypt - specifically, ancient Egypt with papyrus plants growing along the banks of the Nile and being made into sheets of material to write on.
People don't often think of the Minoans in connection with papyrus. But papyrus appears in Minoan art more than you might think. And we're still not quite sure what it means.
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