PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com Walk the sacred labyrinth with Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Great Mothers, Dionysus, and the rest of the Minoan pantheon. Modern Minoan Paganism is an independent polytheist spiritual tradition that brings the gods and goddesses of the ancient Minoans alive in the modern world. We're a revivalist tradition, not a reconstructionist one; we rely heavily on shared gnosis and the practical realities of Paganism in the modern world. Ariadne's thread reaches across the millennia to connect us with the divine. Will you follow where it leads?
Find out all about Modern Minoan Paganism on our website: https://ariadnestribe.wordpress.com/. We're a welcoming tradition, open to all who share our love for the Minoan deities and respect for our fellow human beings.
Tritons are a type of mollusk, a large (10-40 cm long) sea snail in the genus Charonia. That's a photo of one of their shells above. They live in tropical and temperate waters around the world, including in the Mediterranean. As you might guess, the Minoans knew about them.
In fact, the Minoans were kind of obsessed with them. I have some thoughts about that obsession.
...
When two societies engage in extensive cultural exchange, there's usually still a distinction between the two.
The whole eastern Mediterranean was a single giant cultural exchange milieu during the Bronze Age. The Minoans borrowed from the Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The Egyptians borrowed from the Minoans, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamians... You get the idea.
...
You've probably heard about the AIs that people are using to make art these days. These are software programs that take a phrase the user inputs and turns it into a digital painting. But the software doesn't make these digital paintings from scratch. It creates them using a collection of art that's already in existence, that they gather and turn into a database. Where does this collection of art come from?
The AIs scrape it off the Internet.
...
The Etruscans are every bit as enigmatic a civilization as the Minoans. People like to speculate about the Etruscans and wonder who they really were and where they originally came from. Part of this process often includes the possibility that there's a connection between them and the Minoans. But is that really the case? Or can we even tell?
First, let me be clear that the two cultures don't overlap in time or space. The last major Minoan city, Knossos, was destroyed around 1350 BCE. Anything resembling Minoan culture on Crete that may have remained after the cities fell then disappeared altogether during the LBA collapse, around 1100 BCE.
...
All those topless women in Minoan art played a major role in the popularity of Minoan archaeology during the early 20th century, when the cities of Bronze Age Crete were being uncovered for the first time in over 3,000 years. They were quite racy for the Edwardian era, being considered almost pornographic back then.
But to the Minoans, they were sacred.
...
The Minoans are a constant source of fascination to modern people. That means that Minoan artifacts are also fascinating, and images of them circulate online every bit as fast as the latest meme.
Unfortunately, a lot of the photos that regularly make the rounds online labeled as Minoan artifacts aren't Minoan at all.
...
Minoan art is marvelously colorful, even 3500 years later. Was ancient Crete that colorful in real life? Probably.
Part of that color would have been due to the plant and animal substances used to dye the fabric that made the Minoans' clothing, household textiles, and temple decorations.
...
