About 5000 years ago, on the islands and the coast of the Aegean Sea, an original culture began to take shape, which, by the name of the sea, is called Aegean or by the name of the main centers, Cretan-Mycenaean. It existed for almost 2000 years, from 3000 to 1200 BC. simultaneously with the art of Egypt and Mesopotamia, until it was supplanted in the 12th century BC by the Greeks who came from the north.

The island of Crete was the center of the Aegean culture. It also captured the Cyclades, the Peloponnese, where the cities of Mycenae, Pylos and Tiryns were located, and the western coast of Asia Minor, in the northern part of which Troy was located. The Aegean culture is also called Cretan-Mycenaean.

The history of the discovery of the Aegean culture

The memory of the Aegean world was preserved in the legends and myths of ancient Greece, and the legends of ancient Troy - in the epic of Homer. No one doubted the legendary nature of the information about the pre-Greek inhabitants of the Greek land, until in the second half of the 19th century. the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann did not unearth the real remains of Homeric Troy on the Gissarlik hill, although he did not manage to figure out which of the cultural layers he unearthed belonged to the times described in the Iliad.

After that, in the 70s and 80s. 19th century As a result of the excavations of G. Schliemann and W. Dörpfeld, the Mycenaean culture was discovered on the Peloponnesian Peninsula. At the beginning of the 20th century English archaeologist A. Evans made his amazing discoveries in Crete. A bizarre and strange world, long forgotten by mankind, suddenly appeared before the eyes of the people of the 20th century.

Studying the artistic treasures of the Palace of Knossos that he uncovered, as well as the ancient Cretan cities of Gournia and Phaistos excavated by other archaeologists, Evans was the first to consider the culture of Crete in comparison and in connection with the cultures of Egypt and other countries of the Ancient East. He also proposed a periodization of the Aegean culture, rather conditional, since it was based on a successive change in the forms of Cretan ceramics, but is still generally accepted.

Evans divided the history of the Aegean world into three great periods, and each of them in turn into three sub-periods; he called them Minoans after the legendary king of Crete - Minos. Aegean writing has not yet been fully deciphered, which greatly complicates the study of Aegean culture. But here a comparison of archaeological finds and corresponding references in ancient Greek literary works, as well as information found in Egyptian and Near East Asian texts, is of great help.

The beginning of culture in Crete dates back to the Neolithic. The prehistory of the Aegean culture also includes the most ancient “pre-Homeric” cities excavated by Schliemann in 1871 of the twelve cities that successively existed on the Hissarlik hill, the so-called first and second Troy, dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. In its development, the Aegean culture reached the formation of an early slave-owning society. This development proceeded most rapidly in Crete.

The location of Crete in the center of the eastern Mediterranean created exceptionally favorable conditions for the development of trade and navigation. In those days, Crete was a fertile, richly forested and densely populated island, its harbors were well protected from storms. Already in the early Minoan period (3rd millennium BC), Cretan ships penetrated Melos, Thera, Delos and other islands of the Aegean Sea.

Around 2000 BC the first palaces of military leaders were erected in Crete. Some of them, like the first palace of Knossos and the palace in Mallia, were well fortified with walls and towers, others, like the palace at Phaistos, which stood on a steep hill, had no fortifications.

Around the middle of the 18th century. BC. some kind of catastrophe occurred on Crete, the nature of which is still not clear. Some researchers explain it by a strong earthquake, others - by a military invasion, similar to the invasion of the Hyksos in Egypt, others consider some major social upheaval to be the cause of the disaster. But the Aegean culture was not destroyed; on the contrary, from the beginning of the 17th century. BC. its new heyday began, accompanied by the flourishing of art. The period of power of Crete, a strong maritime power that gained dominance in the eastern Mediterranean, began.

During this heyday (according to Evans - at the end of the Middle Minoan period and the beginning of the Late Minoan) the art of Crete created numerous works of high artistic merit: an unusually original architecture, very dynamic, full of picturesque and lighting effects; decorative painting, bright and colorful, striking with the boldness of the drawing and the variety of subjects, and sometimes with realistic observation; ceramics decorated with exceptional richness of imagination; subtly elegant small plastic and carved stones. The art of Crete, whose heyday coincides with the establishment and high rise of the New Kingdom in Egypt, is on the whole close to the art of the countries of the Ancient East; however, there is no monumentality in it, no strict, calm rhythm and symmetry.

Excavations in Crete have yielded, above all, many remains of architecture. The most significant architectural monument of Ancient Crete is the Palace of Knossos. This is a huge architectural complex that was created over several centuries, experienced several earthquakes and other disasters, collapsed and rose again from the ruins.

The size of the palace, its intricate plan and magnificent interior decoration made a huge impression on the surrounding peoples, and references to it later took on legendary forms. Greek myths about the mysterious Labyrinth and its owner, the bull-man Minotaur, were associated with the Palace of Knossos. Even at the very end of the 19th century. this palace was considered a figment of popular imagination; no one then thought that he would actually be found.

During their heyday, the Cretans felt completely safe from attacks from the sea and therefore no longer built fortress walls around the city and the palace. The central place in the Knossos palace was occupied by a large (52.5 m long) rectangular courtyard; on all sides it was adjoined by palace premises built at different times, mostly rectangular; some of them were located at the level of the central courtyard, some - below it, some - one or two floors higher, in an extremely intricate alternation. The palace had several entrances; wide staircases led to four of them.

The location of the premises at different levels necessitated many stairs and ramps. Air and light entered through numerous light wells. The illumination of the rooms was thus not uniform. The variety of lighting, as well as the placement of rooms on different levels, contributed to the picturesque overall impression. A very important role was played here by wall paintings, which are distinguished by their exceptional decorative effect; the contrast of color comparisons of these paintings indicates that the artists took into account their illumination with diffused or weak light.

A thorough study of the ruins of the palace made it possible to establish with a significant degree of certainty the purpose of the surviving premises, of which only a few were large - small, cozy rooms prevailed. The southeastern part of the palace was occupied by living quarters; here were the rooms of the "queen" (the existence of which Evans suggests), a bath, pools for ablutions; in the eastern and northeastern parts of the palace there were palace workshops, in which artisans worked, as well as storerooms and treasuries.

In the center of the western part of the palace, Evans identifies a number of rooms of the “king”, including the “throne room”, where, probably, cult actions were performed with the participation of the king-priest; it was frescoed with griffins lying among lilies (15th century BC; ill. 102b). Further to the west were numerous narrow and long warehouses and storerooms, and between the king's quarters and the central courtyard were cult rooms and temple treasuries.

In the northwestern part of the palace there was a special place for cult theatrical performances: a platform bounded on both sides by steps for spectators. The walls of the palace were made of raw bricks using a wooden frame, rubble masonry and facing the lower part of the walls with large stone slabs; in addition to limestone, gypsum blocks were widely used. One of the most peculiar features of Aegean architecture was wooden columns widening upwards with a base of stone or plaster and a wide stone capital (along with such columns, there were also straight or tapering upwards). The walls of the rooms were covered with plaster and painted.

The outer walls of the palace of Knossos were closely lined with small houses of the townspeople, two or three stories high, with flat roofs, as can be seen on the faience tablets found at Knossos depicting houses.

Festive, elevated decorativeness is the most characteristic feature of the fine arts of Crete. The walls of palaces, public buildings and wealthy houses were covered with colorful and multi-colored decorative painting on wet plaster, that is, frescoes. Frescoes were located on the walls in the form of friezes or panels. The figurative and semantic content of the Cretan wall paintings is clearly connected with religious and mythological ideas.

But the interpretation of individual scenes and images is very difficult because we do not know either the religion or the mythology of the Cretans and can only make more or less probable guesses about them on the basis of deciphered texts and surviving works of art, as well as comparisons with the religion and mythology of various peoples of the Ancient East.

The earliest fresco in the Palace of Knossos is the so-called "Saffron Collector" (perhaps 18 or 17 century BC) - a leaning human figure (or perhaps not a man, but a monkey) in the middle of large flowers of crocus or saffron.

The disproportionate figure given by a flat silhouette is painted with bluish-green paint; white blooming flowers growing on “hills” outlined by a sinuous curvilinear contour stand out brightly against a red background.

One should not, however, think that all the painting of Crete had such a conditional character, although some features of early painting were constantly repeated in the future. In contrast to the “Saffron Collector”, the frescoes of the late Middle Minoan period (that is, the late 17th - early 16th century BC) from Agia Triada with images of plants and animals have a very great realistic observation and, at the same time, a special colorful subtlety.

In the surviving fragment of a fresco with a cat hunting a pheasant in the thickets, the artist well found both the flexible, cautious tread of the cat and the calmness of the pheasant not noticing the danger; with remarkable decorative grace and at the same time fidelity to nature, the branches and leaves of various plants are conveyed in other fragments of these frescoes. The immediate freshness of the perception of nature also distinguishes the fresco "Blue dolphins and colored fish" against the blue background of the sea, on the wall of one of the "Queen's quarters" in Knossos.

Picturesqueness and decorativeness, as well as the freedom and courage of Cretan painting at the end of the Middle Minoan period, found their expression in frescoes, more or less concretely depicting the life of the inhabitants of Crete. Fragments of a fresco were found in the so-called Old Tower of the Palace of Knossos, where a motley crowd of people gathered in front of a temple is depicted very briefly, but clearly enough, near which elegantly dressed women, perhaps priestesses, are sitting, apparently talking animatedly. These women are dressed in dresses with wide skirts cinched at the waist, with open breasts and puffy sleeves, with tiaras and necklaces on carefully combed hair. Of great interest are the architectural forms of the temple.

It consists of a central part crowned with an elegant roof on a high stone base with two columns widening upwards, two side extensions located below, with one column at each extension, and, finally, two staircases on the sides of the building, also with columns. The point of view of the whole scene is taken from above, but the temple (including the stairs) is shown strictly frontally.

Even more curious is the Knossos fresco with the "ladies in blue", as archaeologists have called them. On the surviving upper part of the three female figures, the faces are drawn in profile, the eyes and breasts are in front; women are dressed in patterned blue dresses with narrow waists, with open breasts and sleeves to the elbows, on their heads there are diadems and pearl threads with which strands of heavy black hair are intertwined, part of which falls on the back and chest, curls on the forehead. The mannered gestures of full, bangled hands with thin fingers are freely conveyed. The women's faces are exactly the same and inexpressive, but there is still some animation in them: perhaps a circus performance or some other spectacle was unfolding in front of them.

Both of these frescoes give an idea of ​​the appearance of the noble women of Crete, the complexity and sophistication of the culture of the inhabitants of the Palace of Knossos, allowing us to speculate about the importance of women in Cretan society. In the northwestern part of the Palace of Knossos, fragments of a multi-figure “fresco with stools” were found, which depict smartly dressed young men sitting on stools, and among them a girl in profile with a huge laughing black eye, a bright mouth, full of liveliness and enthusiasm. She wears a patterned blue and red dress with a large bow at the back of her neck; on the forehead - a curl.

Despite the ease, unexpected for the art of that era, and even the free naturalness of moving gestures or spectacular costumes and hairstyles, the general character of all this painting, however, does not go beyond the boundaries of ancient Eastern solemnity and spectacle, invariably retaining the features of pattern and flatness.

Among the frescoes of the Palace of Knossos, as in all the art of Crete, a very significant place is occupied by the image of a bull, which apparently played an extremely important role in economic life and in the religious and mythological ideas of the Cretans. In the religions of the ancient peoples throughout the Mediterranean, the bull occupied an important place. The understanding of this image changed from ancient and primitive totemic ideas to the personification in it of the life-giving force of nature. However, nowhere was the bull given such great importance as in Crete.

In Knossos, wonderful frescoes were found with acrobats - boys and girls jumping over a rapidly running bull. They are all dressed in the same way - with a bandage around their hips, their waists are pulled together with metal belts. Their movements are free and agile. The width of the chest, the thinness of the waist, the flexibility and muscularity of the arms and legs are emphasized.

Apparently, these features were considered signs of beauty. It is possible that such dangerous exercises with an angry bull had not only a spectacular, but also a sacred meaning. Among the Cretan frescoes, only these dynamic acrobatic scenes have the same vital veracity as the frescoes depicting nature, although the features of conventionality stand out quite clearly in them (the “flying gallop” of a bull, etc.).

As early as the late Minoan period (after 1580 BC) there are large decorative paintings in the so-called "corridor of processions" of the Palace of Knossos, where the frescoes were probably located in two rows; the bottom row has been preserved with a procession of young men carrying silver vessels, and girls with musical instruments. Human figures are given here to a very large extent conditionally, decoratively and planarly.

Of the same kind is the famous painted relief from Knossos, the so-called (according to the suggestion of Rvans) "Priest-King". This incompletely preserved and restored relief, large in size (about 2.22 m high) and slightly protruding from the background (no more than 5 cm in the most prominent parts), depicts a walking young man in a traditional ancient costume (bandage and belt), with a thin waist and wide shoulders.

The tread of the young man is full of solemnity. On his head is a crown of lilies and three feathers descending back, on his chest is a necklace, also of lily flowers. With his right hand, clenched into a fist, he touches his chest, in his left hand laid back he holds a rod. It passes among growing white lilies with red stamens and fluttering butterflies. The background of the relief is red.

The extraordinarily refined and mannered style of this relief finds echoes in the simultaneous palace art of Mycenae and Tiryns. Even more conventional and similar to the flat pattern of the painting of the sarcophagus from Agia Triada, where cult scenes are presented - a sacrifice in front of two double axes (apparently, the former symbol of the sacred bull) and bringing gifts to the deceased. Increasingly increasing schematization leads Cretan painting already in the 15th century. BC. to total collapse.

Cretan ceramics has passed a complex and varied path of development. The earliest handmade earthenware vessels (circa 3000 BC) are covered with simple geometric designs common in Neolithic art.

By the middle of the Middle Minoan period (approximately 17th century BC), the art of ceramics reached its peak.

By this time belong the vases, which received their name from their first find in the Kamares cave, with graceful rounded shapes, covered with black lacquer, on which large plant patterns are applied with white and red paint. Over time, vase paintings have become much more realistic. At the end of the Middle Minoan period (end of the 17th and beginning of the 16th century BC), vessels appeared with excellent images of plants: tulips, lilies, ivy, made in dark paint on a light background. The colors of the vases became more and more refined (for example, vases with lilac watering and white lilies on it).

The murals of the early Late Minoan period (16th century BC) are dominated by fish, nautilus shells, starfish, etc. One of the masterpieces of Cretan ceramics is a vase with an octopus from Gurnia. This vase has a somewhat vague, as if fluid form, entirely subordinate to the painting depicting a large octopus; its elastic tentacles, muscular body and burning eyes are conveyed with amazing authenticity; around it are algae and corals. On the rhyton (Rhyton is a vessel for wine in the form of a horn.), from Psira, dolphins are depicted caught in the net.

Later, in the 15th century. BC, in ceramics, as well as in wall painting, an increase in schematization began. The so-called "palace style" was formed - the forms became drier, more refined, the pattern gradually turned into an ornament.

By the time of the heyday of the art of Crete, probably by the 16th century. BC, include stone, relief-covered vessels made of steatite (wen): a vessel with a group of reapers returning from the field with a song, or a rhyton with scenes of fisticuffs, wrestling and acrobatic scenes with a bull, where, despite the general the conventionality of the relief, the complex movements of the wrestlers or the swift run of an angry bull are conveyed with great vivacity.

"The Cup of Vafio" - "Playing with the Bull"

The famous golden goblets with relief images of bulls, found in the Peloponnese, near the village of Vathio, belong to the same period of the brilliant flowering of Cretan art. The simple form of low, slightly widening goblets corresponds well to the relief that covers them. Both goblets were clearly made in the same workshop. One of them shows bulls grazing peacefully on the grass among olive trees, and a broad-shouldered, muscular youth tying one of them.

The appearance of the bulls, their movements, as well as the details of the landscape, testify to the artist's powers of observation and his high skill. The scenes on the second goblet are full of fast-paced action. In the center is a bull, caught in a spread net and making desperate efforts to escape: he twists his whole body and convulsively stretches his neck; on the right, a rapidly fleeing bull whose feet do not touch the ground; on the left - the struggle of a wild bull with hunters, one of which clung to the horns, the other, thrown back by the animal, flies headlong down. The movement of the angry bull is conveyed with vivid expressiveness, but the turn of his head is conditional, it is as if flattened.

The connection of these images with the religious and mythological ideas of the Cretans is undeniable. The people on the goblets from Vafio are given in the same way as on the frescoes and seals: the same thin, muscular figures in short aprons, just as tightly tied with a belt, in high shoes with pointed toes. Trees, grass, stones, a network of thick twisted rope are carefully rendered.

The heyday of Cretan art was accompanied by the development of fine plastic arts. Found in Crete, figurines of goddesses holding snakes made of faience or ivory, faience tablets with multi-colored figures of flying fish, shells, a goat with a goat, etc. combine decorativeness and sophistication common to Aegean art with a great deal of realistic observation. The figurines of goddesses with snakes, with their traditional Cretan costume and flower-decorated headdress, with their solemn, motionless pose, were probably images of the goddess revered throughout the Mediterranean - the patroness of all living things, the goddess of vegetation; the snake, an attribute of the goddess, was considered a sacred creature. Such an image of the goddess, reflecting the image of a noble Cretan woman, could only take shape in a society that had already reached significant social stratification.

The statuette of the goddess with snakes of the Boston Museum, made of ivory and gold (17 cm high), can be called a masterpiece of Cretan fine plasticity. Her slender figure is also dressed in a long ruched dress, and she also holds snakes in outstretched arms. But the face is interpreted more realistically than that of the faience figurines, and more finely modeled. The muscles of the hands are carefully transferred. The boldness of its decision is distinguished by an ivory figurine, in which the rapid movement of an acrobat jumping over a bull is conveyed. Sharp observation, fidelity and accuracy of movement are also found in other examples of Cretan fine plastic art, especially in the numerous images of a bull characteristic of the Aegean art.

There are reasons to think that there was also a large sculpture in Crete, most likely wooden, which has not reached us.

The decline of Cretan culture in the 15th century BC. under the influence, apparently, of some internal crisis unknown to us, which was accompanied in art by a rapidly growing schematization and geometrization of forms, it was most clearly reflected in sculpture. The figurines of young men of this time are distinguished by unnaturally elongated proportions, a primitive image of the body and face.

Around 1400 BC the cities of Crete were apparently destroyed by some foreign (most likely Achaean) military invasion. The destruction of the Palace of Knossos, which was the center of the Cretan maritime power, may have been reflected in the Greek legends about Theseus, the hero who defeated the monstrous Minotaur, half-man, half-bull, who lived in the Labyrinth.

The question of the ethnicity of the population of Crete and Mycenae is one of the most difficult in historical science. It is believed that the inhabitants of Crete and Mycenae belonged to different ethnic groups. The inhabitants of Mycenae were probably Achaeans. Pressed by other tribes, they settled in the south of the Balkan Peninsula around 2000 BC. The local population, maybe Carians or Pelasgians, partly left their native places and moved to others, partly mixed with newcomers. The heyday of the Mycenaean culture dates back to 1500-1200. BC.

The social system of Mycenae and other Aegean cities of the Peloponnese and the coast of Asia Minor was characterized by the decomposition of the tribal system, the separation of the aristocracy, the presence of patriarchal slavery and the addition of a number of small states headed by a basileus - a military leader, high priest and judge. The People's Assembly had some significance in state affairs. Legends about the intra-clan struggle for the primacy of the clan, for the royal throne, were later reflected in Greek mythology and tragedy.

The foundations of ancient architecture were laid by the ancient civilization of the peoples who inhabited the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the islands of the Aegean Sea.

The economic structure here was based on agriculture (vine growing, olive orchards), cattle breeding, handicraft and stained trade. All this contributed to the wide communication of the inhabitants of coastal areas, accelerated social development and the creation of a culture that combined the traditions of neighboring peoples.

The islands between Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula were quickly populated, and an intensive cultural exchange took place along this "bridge". In the IV - III millennium BC. e. here there is a process of decomposition of the tribal system and the creation of states.

The history of this part of the Mediterranean before the era of ancient states is usually divided into three periods:

• IV - III millennium BC e. – Trojan period;
• XVIII - XIV centuries. BC e. - the heyday of the slave state on the island of Crete;
• XIV - XI centuries. BC. - The Mycenaean period, when dominance in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea passes to the state in the south of the Balkan Peninsula with the center in the city of Mycenae.

This periodization corresponds to the rise and fall of Aegean architecture.

Trojan period architecture

The legendary Troy of Homer's Iliad was found at the end of the 19th century. The excavations showed that settlements were built in the same place for a long time, so that a hill was formed, in the thickness of which the researchers counted 8 cultural layers. Troy (3rd millennium BC) was a citadel with fortified walls and gates; in its center, several residential and religious buildings were found.

The main type of buildings in Troy is represented by megarons - elongated rectangular dwellings with an entrance loggia, without windows, but with a hole in the ceiling formed by crossed beams resting on racks if the room was wide.

The characteristic features of the early settlements of the Asia Minor coast and islands: the small size of cities, their repeated renewal on the same site, the presence of a fortified citadel with powerful stone walls and adobe buildings, the megaron, as the leading architectural type, are preserved in subsequent periods of the development of Mediterranean architecture.

Crete architecture

With the advent of bronze, the production base develops faster. On about. Crete, immigrants from Asia Minor, created a strong slave state, subjugating the entire eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea with numerous islands. Cities are growing, which the sea power of Crete allowed to do without fortress walls. Situated in narrow valleys, on hills and mountain slopes, these cities have an irregular layout, spontaneous buildings, terraced houses.

Minoan palace at Knossos

In the largest cities of Crete, Knossos, Phaistos and others, the center is formed by the palace of the ruler. Knossos Palace bears traces of numerous rebuildings and reconstructions. Its original separate buildings merged into a single block around a large rectangular courtyard. The western building of the palace contained numerous storage rooms in the recessed ground floor, religious and front rooms on the upper floors. The eastern building housed living quarters cut into the hillside. A stepped portico - a staircase - led to them from the river bank.

The architecture of the Cretan palaces was shaped by peristyle courtyards, open columned halls, loggias, creating picturesque combinations of spaces, the play of light and shadow.

1, 2, 4 – prototype of the Ionic capital (Asia Minor); 3 – capital of a column lamp from Knossos; 5 – capital of the column of the portico “Tomb of Atreus”.

Earthquake-resistant structures played an important role in the formation of Cretan architecture forms. The bottom of the walls was laid out from large stone blocks - orthostats, then a wooden frame was installed, filled with raw masonry or rubble stone on a clay binder. The frame system made it possible to make many openings in the walls and erect 2-3-storey stepped buildings on sloped areas. Flat roofs served as terraces.

In the process of improving structures, where the main attention was paid to the rigidity of the upper connections of the structure with the free setting of supports, an order system characteristic of Cretan architecture is formed: squat columns, thickened upwards, are usually placed on a pedestal (parapets); a wide capital provided greater stability of the building during earthquakes; in heavy ceilings, the design of a rolling roof made of round beams was frankly revealed.

In the 15th century BC, the Achaeans, who had previously been subordinate to the Cretans, came from the Peloponnese peninsula. From that time on, power in the Aegean Sea passed into the hands of the Achaeans, until they were conquered by other Greek tribes - the Dorians.

In the XV century. BC e. after a devastating earthquake, Crete is captured by the Balkan tribes of the Achaeans - the ancestors of the Greeks.

Crete already in the middle Minoan period (2000-1600 BC) was a rich maritime power. Cities with three-story residential buildings and wonderful palaces are being built here.

After the earthquake of 1650 BC. e. and terrible destruction comes a new flowering of cities and villas in the countryside. The central hall of the large house was the so-called megaron- a rectangular room, the ceiling of which was supported by pillars (there are usually four of them). Later, it was from the megaron that the development of the Greek temple began.

The palaces were extensive in terms of complex structures with several floors. Living quarters and, apparently, sanctuaries were located around the central courtyard. (We do not encounter independent religious buildings in Aegean architecture.) The entrance parts of the buildings and the staircases surrounded by colonnades were especially rich in decoration.

It belongs to the oldest and most famous palaces. On the site of the ancient capital of Crete - the city of Knossos - scientists have unearthed the ruins of a majestic palace, which the Hellenic myths called the Labyrinth. Built around 1600 BC e. on top of a low hill, he occupied the square 120 x 120 m.

The layout of the palace of the Cretan rulers does not know the grandiose monumentality and strict symmetry inherent in the architectural monuments of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia. Its characteristic feature is the free arrangement of numerous rooms, suites and ceremonial halls, a thoughtful connection with the surrounding landscape. Central to the vast three-story complex of the Palace of Knossos was a vast open courtyard where religious ceremonies and ritual games took place.

From top to bottom, stairwells were cut through the building, serving as light wells, and a complex sewerage system was arranged with great skill. Toreutics, the art of vase painting and fresco painting reached a high flowering in Crete.

The murals in the halls of the Knossos Palace depict colorful processions of people, theatrical performances, feasts and dances in the bosom of nature. The absence of canons, the combination of conventions with a truthful and poetic depiction of nature, festive elegance and virtuoso technical perfection - all this distinguishes the works of Cretan masters from the contemporary art of the civilizations of the Ancient East.

These asymmetric complexes with a complex internal layout and numerous staircases were very comfortable: plumbing, bathrooms, sewerage. The huge royal palace at Knossos was rebuilt several times. But already in its original form, its compositional center was a large courtyard, to which "living rooms" adjoined on the western side. The eastern part, where the ruler's living quarters, the hall of columns and staircases were located, is currently being restored.

The Kios Palace is only partially preserved. The palace has more than 1,500 rooms located on five floors. Currently, only 800 remain, grouped around the courtyard. Entrance is allowed only to the Grand Palace, the surrounding Minoan dwellings and the House of the High Priest.

Hundreds of palace rooms were grouped around large front courtyards. Among them were throne rooms, halls of columns, viewing terraces, bedrooms, services, bathrooms. The aqueducts and baths of the palace have survived to this day. The walls of the bathrooms are decorated with murals so suitable for such a place, depicting dolphins and flying fish.

The palace had an extremely intricate plan. The passages and corridors suddenly turn, turn into ascents and stair descents. It is not surprising that subsequently a myth arose about the Cretan labyrinth, where the monstrous bull-man lived and from where it was impossible to find a way out.

The labyrinth was associated with a bull, considered in Crete, as in many ancient religions of the world, as a sacred animal. Most of the rooms did not have external walls - only internal walls - it was impossible to cut through the windows in them. The rooms were illuminated through holes in the ceiling, in some places these were “light wells” that passed through several floors.

Peculiar columns expanded upwards and were painted in solemn red, black and yellow colors. Wall paintings delighted the eye with cheerful colorful harmonies. The surviving parts of the paintings represent important events, young men and women during the sacred games with the bull, goddesses, priestesses, plants and animals.

The plastered walls of the buildings of the Palace of Knossos were also decorated with painted carved and stamped reliefs.

The images of people are reminiscent of ancient Egyptian ones: faces and legs are from the side, and shoulders and eyes are from the front, but their movements are freer and more natural than in Egyptian reliefs.

Crete had a large fleet and dominated the sea, which explained the lack of defensive structures in its cities.

Word " labyrinth”, which the Greeks called the ruins of this structure, not being able to unravel its purpose, is probably associated with the word labrys, which was called a double-sided ax, symbolizing the two horns of a sacred bull. Judging by the remains of art, bull worship was an important part of the Minoan (Cretan) religion. The myths about the builder Daedalus, the Minotaur, Theseus and the threads of Ariadne that have come down to us are connected with the sacred bull.

According to mythology, the Cretan labyrinth was considered the home of the Minotaur - a mythical man with a bull's head. According to the myth, Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, king of Crete, gave birth to this creature; he was called the Minotaur, which means "the bull of Minos." According to legend, Daedalus, a talented architect, at the request of King Minos, built a huge palace and a complex labyrinth in Knossos. The Minotaur was killed by the hero Theseus. Evans' excavations revealed the existence of a cult of a sacred bull in the Palace of Knossos.

According to the myth, Athens was defeated in the war with Crete and every 9 years the Athenians had to send 7 girls and 7 boys to Crete to be sacrificed there to the Minotaur. These young people were sent to the labyrinth to the Minotaur.

But one day a young man named Theseus dared to enter the labyrinth and killed the Minotaur with his sword. The golden thread given to the young man by Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, helped him find a way out of the labyrinth.

As established by volcanologists, the development of the Cretan culture was interrupted by a sudden catastrophe - a giant volcanic eruption on the island of Thera (Santorini), not far from Crete. Monstrous waves in the 15th century. BC e. devastated the coast of the island, earthquakes destroyed its cities.

Taking advantage of this, in the XV century. BC e. Crete was captured by the Balkan tribes - the Achaean Greeks. The Achaeans, who had previously been subordinate to the Cretans, destroyed the palace of Knossos. They ruled in the Aegean region until they were conquered by other Greek tribes - the Dorians.

In the future, the glory of Crete faded and the leading position in the Aegean world passed to the early slave states of southern Greece, the most influential of which were Mycenae.

Mycenaean culture (1500-1200 BC)

After the capture of Crete by the Achaean Greeks in the XIV century. BC e., the leading position in the Aegean world passed to the states of Southern Greece in the 17th-13th centuries. BC e., the most influential of which were Mycenae. The art of these states is in many ways close to Crete, but at the same time it also possessed features of originality.

The Achaean Greeks, unlike the Cretans, whose cities were protected by the sea, built their settlements on high hills, surrounding them with a ring of powerful fortress walls.

The inhabitants of Crete massively moved to the mainland, where they built well-fortified fortresses - Mycenae and Tiryns. The construction of defensive structures became an urgent need. During the construction of fortresses, masonry of large unprocessed stones, called "cyclopean", was usually used. The Greek traveler Pausanias (2nd century AD) named this masonry in his "Description of Hellas" cyclopean, because it seemed that only the mythical Cyclopes could move such stones (more than 3 m in length and 1 m in height). This term - "cyclopean masonry" - is still used today.

Mycenaean culture reaches its peak during the destruction of the palace at Knossos, that is, after 1450 BC. e. By this time, Mycenae dominate the entire Aegean region, trade with remote territories around the Mediterranean Sea and lay their colonies there.

Found in Mycenae, Tiryns, Orchomenos, Athens and other places in Greece, as well as in Troy (on the coast of Asia Minor), architectural monuments of this time are located on elevated places. Unlike the palaces of Crete, which had no fortifications, the palaces of Tiryns and Mycenae were well fortified.

The walls of the palace buildings were built of mud brick with wooden lining, covered with plaster and sometimes painted. Mycenaean architecture is also characterized by the primitive technique of laying fortress walls from huge unhewn stones, dry. They are built of stone blocks, so tightly fitted one to the other that the impression of a monolith was created. The thickness of these walls in Tiryns reaches 8 m. The walls were reinforced with towers.

Subsequently, such settlements received from the Greeks the name "Acropolis" - "upper city". Behind their walls, the entire surrounding population was saved during enemy raids. Inside the fortress walls there were palace buildings in which the basileus lived, his family and numerous relatives, retinue and servants; there were also storage facilities.

The composition of these palace complexes had some common features with the composition of the Cretan palaces - an asymmetrical arrangement of buildings, light wells, etc.

But it also had its own local features: in terms of the palace, the central place was occupied by megaron, a large rectangular hall with a hearth in the middle, four columns widening upwards on the sides of the hearth, supporting the ceiling, and a vestibule (prodomos), which had an outer portico with two columns. The central place of the megaron in the architectural ensemble, the plan of the megaron and the portico “in antes” (that is, with two columns between the protrusions of the side walls of the megaron) were those features of the Aegean architecture that passed into the architecture of Ancient Greece.

The Mycenaean fortified palaces were the forerunners of the later acropolises in Greece. Mycenaean burial structures were distinguished by great originality. These are “shaft graves” (opened in large numbers in recent years), carved into the rock, lined with stone slabs and covered with slabs from above, and domed tombs (tholos), which are round structures covered with a dome, which is formed by concentric rows of masonry with an overlap. A narrow corridor (dromos) leads to the round chamber.

The best-preserved domed tomb of the 14th century. BC. was discovered by Schliemann in Mycenae and named by him "the treasury of Atreus", after the father of King Agamemnon, the leader of the Achaeans, the hero of the Trojan War. Its height is 13 m, its diameter is 14.5 m, its dome consists of 34 concentric masonry circles, the length of the dromos is 36 m.

The entrance to the tomb is made of regular stone squares; the doorway, slightly tapering at the top, is covered with a huge monolithic slab (about 120 tons in weight), over which the masonry continues, forming a triangular opening to lighten the wall above the transverse slab.

When creating flat ceilings, walls and pylons were used as load-bearing elements, as well as columns, which had a three-part division into a base, trunk and capital. The base of a simple shape was flat, the trunk tapered downwards in the form of a cone, and the flattened capital consisted of a round echinus and a square abacus above it. The lintel above the entrance was originally solved when a triangular hole was left in the wall above the large stone block that blocked the entrance opening, which reduced the load on the lintel. This hole was usually covered with a slab decorated with a relief.

We see the same construction in the so-called "Lion's Gate" leading to the acropolis of Mycenae. The triangle above the span of the gate is occupied here by a large triangular slab with a sculptural relief in the form of two lionesses, leaning with their front paws on the altar along the sides of the column standing on it, expanding upwards. The relief of the majestic "Lion's Gate" is the only example of monumental sculpture in Aegean art.

The heraldic character of the relief fully corresponded to the conventional art of Mycenae. The composition of the Mycenaean architectural complexes was original, but the decoration and ornamentation were formed under the strong influence of Crete, differing only in great schematism. The size of the buildings, their monumentality testify to the involvement of a huge number of people for their construction - both captive slaves and the local population.

Mycenaean wall painting has been preserved in Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes and other places in Greece. The subjects of the paintings are the same as in Crete, or local; it is possible that the performers of these frescoes were Cretan masters. A fresco from Tiryns depicting acrobatic games with a bull is similar to the Cretan one; in a large fresco with a figure of a magnificently dressed woman carrying an ivory casket in front of her, the features of a much more conventional local art stand out more clearly, although the costume and hairstyle are Cretan.

Among the best frescoes of Tiryns is a fresco with a boar hunt. The rapid movement of a wild boar wounded by arrows and running away through the thickets and the dexterous movements of dogs are full of life. But the conditional coloring of the dogs enhances the abstract-decorative nature of the painting.

The decorativeness of Mycenaean painting is closer to the decorativeness of the ornament: it is not a spot that prevails in it, but a line. Over time, the features of flatness and conditional schematization grew more and more, as can be seen, for example, from a small fresco (about 50 cm high) with a scene of the departure of two girls in a chariot, the so-called "hunters". Girls stand on a chariot drawn by a pair of horses; their clothes are not Cretan, similar to the Greek tunic; behind them are completely conventionally interpreted trees. The composition is cut off at half of the horse's figure; the fresco is possibly a copy of a part of some multi-figured composition.

Homer calls Mycenae rich in gold. Indeed, the excavations of Schliemann and the excavations of the 50s. 20th century they gave absolutely exceptional wealth and partly artistic craftsmanship: the so-called "mask of Agamemnon", goblets, bowls, vessels - of coarse local work, but massive, of pure gold; a wonderful goblet made of rock crystal with a handle in the shape of a duck's head; heavy bronze swords with ivory handles inlaid with gold; many plaques, probably decorating the burial canopy and clothes; daggers of Cretan work with amazingly subtle inlay on the blades, depicting running lions among lilies, hunting lions, etc.

In applied arts, as in architecture, one can see a combination of a highly developed Cretan culture with a more primitive local one.

A very interesting type of Aegean art is carved seal rings made of stone or metal. These seals are very diverse in subject matter; some of them shed light on the religious ideas that developed in the Aegean world (when they are carved, for example, a double ax - an object of worship, or scenes with priestesses and their cult actions). People, just like in wall paintings, are depicted with a thin waist, muscular, with a small head. Although the human figures on the seals are highly schematized, the animals are depicted with the usual subtle observation of Aegean art (see figure).

During the period of prosperity of the Cretan state, the Aegean culture also spread to the coast of Asia Minor, and rich Troy was included in its sphere of influence. Archaeological research has established that Homeric Troy corresponds to the seventh city of the twelve that were on the Gissarlik hill; in this city there were fortress walls and (not preserved) palaces and a temple.

Based on the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" by Homer and on archaeological data, it can be assumed that in the 13th - 12th centuries. BC. the union of the Achaean tribes with the Mycenae at the head began the struggle for the possession of the Hellespont and the coast of Asia Minor. The long siege of Troy (for 10 years) ended in victory for the Achaeans, but weakened both sides.

Around 1200 BC Mycenaean culture was swept away by a new wave of Greek tribes - the Dorians moving from the north, pressed by the Thracians and Illyrians.

Military campaigns of the Dorian tribes from the northern regions of the Balkan Peninsula in the period around 1100 BC. e. put an end to the Mycenaean culture. But unlike the Minoan, the Mycenaean culture does not die completely. She moves to Athens, then called Cekropia and resisted the onslaught of the Dorian tribes. It was there that the fugitives from Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos gathered, and their knowledge grew into the foundation of the future flowering of Attica.

With the fall of the Achaean states and the arrival of the tribes of the Greek Dorians, the history of the Aegean civilization ends and the true history of ancient culture begins.

Archaeological discoveries of recent decades confirm the closeness of the late Mycenaean and early Greek culture and thus the importance of the Aegean art for the composition of the early stages of Greek art proper.

Cretan-Mycenaean (Aegean) artistic culture

A kind of link between the East and Ancient Greece was the culture that existed in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e. on the islands and coasts of the Aegean. The main centers of this culture were the island of Crete, the cities of Troy (on the east coast of the Dardanelles) and Mycenae (in the south of the Balkan Peninsula).

Aegean culture reached its peak in Crete in the 18th-15th centuries BC. e. Mycenae at that time were under the influence of Crete, hence the name - Crete-Mycenaean, or Aegean culture.

One of the oldest centers of the Aegean culture was the legendary Troy. Excavations carried out at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century revealed the remains of a developed culture: fortress walls, bastions, buildings that once formed a single architectural complex. The so-called treasure of Priam immured in the wall was discovered - numerous gold and silver items of arts and crafts and jewelry. The events that took place in Troy, the famous Trojan War served as the basis for the great epic of Homer - the poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey".

In the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e. Crete, the rich power of the legendary king Minos, became a significant cultural center. The Palace of Knossos was erected, the walls of which were decorated with frescoes (fresco - painting on wet plaster). Their stories reflected the life of the inhabitants of the palace, recreated the world of religious and fantastic images. Reminiscent in its layout of the palaces of the rulers of the countries of the East, the Palace of Knossos was not separated from the city by a fortress wall. Even the appearance of its front hall was devoid of arrogant representativeness.

Sculpture is also distinguished by sophistication, lightness, richness of imagination - small plastic that has come down to us. These are figurines of animals - goats, bulls (the bull was revered in Crete, its images are very expressive), as well as figurines of graceful women made of colored faience and ivory with snakes in their hands (probably they personified the goddess of vegetation, the patroness of all living things).

Of particular beauty and subtlety are ceramic vases of various shapes and colors, covered with black lacquer, on which various geometric and floral ornaments are applied with white, yellow and red paint. How graceful are the lines of these vases, whimsical forms, how free is the hand of the artist! Wavy, oscillating lines emphasize the fluidity of the form, the ornament is in line with the smooth rounded contours of the vase.

There was nothing like this in the art of other countries - the ancient oriental despotisms. The images of those works were distinguished by static, immobility, petrification. Architecture, sculpture, painting of Ancient Crete reflected the freedom of thinking and creative imagination of the authors.

Outstanding monuments of the Aegean culture (the heyday of the XVII-XIV centuries BC) were found in Mycenae and Tiryns - fortresses on the territory of mainland Greece, the oldest in Europe.

The artistic culture of this region had much in common with the Cretan, but also differed from it in severity and power, which was most clearly manifested in monumental architecture. Palaces and settlements were erected on steep rocky hills, later called "acropolis" (which means "upper city"). Here everything was subordinated to the tasks of defense against enemies. From huge, roughly hewn stones, defensive walls were formed, the thickness of which reached 10 m, the height - up to 18-20 m. It seemed to the ancient Greeks that these structures could be erected by the legendary one-eyed giants-cyclops. Scientists have called these walls "cyclopean".

An idea of ​​such a palace is given by the Acropolis in Tiryns. In contrast to the Knossos labyrinth palace, in the Tiryns palace everything is subject to a clear order, symmetry. The acropolis is closed by mighty walls, the entrance is blocked by three gates. The center of the Acropolis is a palace with a large courtyard. In the composition of the palace, the main role is played by a rectangular room with a hearth in the middle - a megaron, where solemn meetings of the male population of the palace took place. A vestibule and a portico with two columns lead to the megaron, connecting it with the courtyard. Megaron subsequently became the basis for the formation of the traditional type of Greek temple.

The Acropolis at Mycenae has come down to us in ruins. Particular attention in Mycenaean architecture was given to the strengthening of the gate. The central gates of the vast multi-tiered fortress of Mycenae - the "Lion Gate" - have been preserved.

The walls of the Tiryns and Mycenaean palaces were painted with frescoes, decorated with alabaster friezes (a frieze is a decorative strip located along the top of the wall). The plots are battle scenes and hunting scenes, but the freedom and ease of movement characteristic of the painting of the Labyrinth in Crete have disappeared in them (Fresco from Tiryns - "Departure of hunters", XIV century BC).

Homer called Mycenae "rich in gold". In the Mycenaean tombs, a large number of different objects made of gold and silver of amazing fineness were found: goblets, vases, bowls, golden masks, bronze swords with ivory handles, etc. The tombs themselves were built on the model of a round dwelling in Crete. But in Mycenae they are more grandiose, since they were not family or ancestral tombs, but royal ones. The Mycenaean tomb is a stone structure dug into the ground on a hillside; a trench-corridor leads to it, and the building itself is covered with earth. The walls, built of stone, close at the top, forming a false dome. Such tombs in ancient times became widespread north of Greece, in Thrace, and then in the Greco-Bosporan kingdom that existed in the Crimea, in the region of present-day Kerch.

During the Trojan War (beginning of the 13th century BC), the early slave-owning states of the Aegean world fell into decay, which facilitated the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula by the Greek tribes of the Dorians, who laid the foundation for a new culture. The Aegean culture was discovered at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century by archaeologists G. Schliemann and A. Evans.

The heritage of the Aegean world played a significant role in shaping the artistic culture of Ancient Greece and Rome.

periodization of history.

I. 3 thousand BC - 12th c. BC. Crete-Mycenaean or Aegean civilization.

1. Cretan culture 3 thousand BC - 15th c. BC.

2.Mycenaean culture of the 18th century. BC e. - 12th c. BC e.

II. 12th c. BC. - 8th c. BC Homeric period. Homer's poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are the main source of information about this period.

1. 12 - 9 c. BC "Dark Ages", during this period there is a decline in culture, which was caused by the invasion of the Dorian tribes from the north. As a result, writing was forgotten, stone construction stopped;

2. 9 - 8 c. BC. - the emergence of new states-policies (Miletus, Ephesus, Corinth, Megara, Athens, Sparta),

III. 8 - 6 c. BC - archaic period

The foundations of Greek culture are being formed, the Greeks populate the entire Mediterranean (Great Colonization).

IV. 6 - 5 c. BC. classical period

The period of the highest flowering of ancient Greek culture.

V. 4 - 1 c. BC. Hellenistic period.

The spread of Greek culture to the East (to India), the interweaving of Greek culture with the culture of the East.

Crete - Mycenaean (Aegean) culture.

At the turn of III - II millennium BC. the ancestors of the later Greeks, moving across the Danube, invaded the Balkan Peninsula and drove out the indigenous population.

At the beginning of the 20th century, A. Evans and G. Schliemann managed to find and prove the existence of the Aegean culture created by the pre-Greek population.

Cretan culture.

According to Greek myth, the first ruler of the island of Crete was Minos, the son of Zeus and the Phoenician princess of Europe, so the culture has a second name - the Minoan culture.

The culture of Crete is divided into three periods:

1 . Early Minoan - 3000 - 2300 / 2100 BC

2. Middle Minoan period - 2300/2100 - 1600 BC

3 . Late Minoan - 1600 - 1200 BC

The first period of prosperity of Crete and its hegemony in the Aegean world began at the turn of III - II millennium BC. The southern and eastern parts of the island, where settlers from Asia Minor landed, received the greatest development. The largest settlement of Fest.

In the Middle Minoan period (the period of the "first palaces"), the northern part of the island developed - Knossos, Festus, Mallia. The period ended in disaster. K due to the earthquake in Ser. 18th century BC. only ruins remained of the palaces. After 50 years, Crete entered a time of new prosperity and the rise of Cretan culture was until the middle of the 15th century. BC, when civilization died as a result of a grandiose volcanic eruption on the neighboring island of Thira (Thera). In 1400 BC. the island was conquered by the Achaeans, who came from mainland Greece.

Crete became the first maritime power in the Mediterranean. Unconditional domination of the sea allowed Crete not to build defensive fortifications on the island itself. A powerful fleet allowed the Cretans to develop a lively trade. Their export of wine, olive oil, handicrafts (dishes, fabrics, jewelry, weapons) covered all the Mediterranean islands, Egypt, Syria, the Iberian Peninsula, Asia Minor. From Egypt, the Cretans brought colored glass and faience, from Cyprus - copper, from Libya - ivory and precious metals, from Syria - horses.

Crete was an oriental despotism. All land belonged to the state. In addition to the king and the aristocracy, there was a layer of artisans - potters, sculptors, masons, jewelers. Probably, there was also slavery in the form of the so-called. "domestic slavery", characteristic of the East (in the economy of the king and the nobility). But first of all, slaves, as state property, were used in the construction of large structures, characteristic of the ancient East. Farming was done by free peasants. The life of the privileged strata was concentrated at court. The ruler was also the high priest. It is believed that two dynasties ruled in Crete in the Middle Minoan period: one in the northern part of the island with its capital at Knossos; the other is in the southern part of the island with its capital in Phaistos. At the beginning of the late Minoan period, all power passed into the hands of the rulers of Knossos.

The Cretans had a written language (the archive of the Knossos palace on clay tablets (about 3,000 clay tablets) has been preserved). There are three stages of development: hieroglyphic (border of III - II millennium BC), linear writing A (17 - 14 centuries BC). e) and Linear B (1500-1100 BC it was used by the Achaeans who came to Crete).Linear A, which was used by the pre-Greek population, has not been read, because the language of the Cretans is unknown.

The ruins of the Knossos Palace testify to the highest level of development of construction and architecture. Unlike the monumental architecture of Ancient Egypt with its strict symmetry, the palace at Knossos did not have a strictly thought-out plan. Together with the city buildings near the harbor, it could accommodate up to 100 thousand inhabitants. Although the Palace of Knossos bears signs of oriental splendor, it is distinguished from eastern buildings: picturesque lines, openness of spacious rooms, repetition of the same architectural elements, a large number of halls connected by corridors around the central courtyard form labyrinths. It is not monumentality that is decisive, but profit and comfort, and although the palace is built chaotically and is a conglomeration of separate structures included in a single complex, its architecture is solid and perfectly adapted to the requirements of the local climate. It had a water supply and sewerage system with terracotta baths, thoughtful ventilation and lighting. Light penetrated into the halls of the palace from the vast central courtyard, but if the light did not reach any point, the architect placed light holes in the ceilings or made special skylight windows. In general, light courtyards are one of the most characteristic ideas of Cretan construction. Unusual and interesting are the monumental stairs, which were used not only for their intended purpose, but also as a kind of stands for spectators, from where they could watch games or other spectacles.

The interior of the apparently three-storied palace was luxurious: the floors were lined with stone, the lower part of the walls was lined with plaster, the upper part with fresco paintings. The walls of the palaces are painted with frescoes depicting scenes of court life and images of animals and plants. The ornament is dominated by plants (lilies, crocuses, palms), and the inhabitants of the sea (dolphins, fish, mollusks). The favorite plot of the frescoes was tauromachia - games with a bull, which were of a ritual nature.

The frescoes and ceramics of ancient Crete are an important source of information about the life and culture of the islanders. The palace was the largest, but not the only building in the city. Houses of ordinary citizens were also found. In the vicinity of the city, the remains of well-equipped mansions have been preserved. A viaduct (a bridge over a ravine), a caravanserai (an inn and a trading yard) have also been preserved. The oldest form of dwelling in Crete was a round building made of stone or raw brick with a conical roof. Following the model of a dwelling in Crete, tombs were built, which were family or ancestral tombs

Numerous stone labryses (ancient Greek double-sided axes, an attribute of Zeus) were found in Crete, which, apparently, played a cult role and were a kind of symbol of the island. The name of the Palace of Knossos is often derived from labrys - the Labyrinth.

Women played an important role in the life of Crete, they enjoyed such freedom, which was not there either in the ancient or in the medieval world. The cult of a woman manifested itself in everyday life, in sports and in religious ritual.

In the Cretan pantheon, female deities (prototypes of the Greek goddesses Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite) were in the first place.

The Cretans had a cult of animals, primarily a bull, as evidenced by numerous images of bulls, scenes of bullfights, images of a monster with a human body and legs, but with hooves, a head and a tail of a person. The cult of snakes is evidenced by their numerous images, including female figurines with snakes in their hands.

Religious rites were performed by priests (and most likely priestesses) in sacred caves, of which there were many in the mountains of Crete, and during the ceremony opium was taken and an ecstatic state was achieved.

The Cretan culture is often referred to as a feminine culture.

Mycenaean culture

Europeans began to study the Mycenaean culture before the Cretan. In 1876 G. Schliemann, conducting excavations in search of traces of the Trojan War, discovered inside the acropolis of Mycenae the tombs of the Achaean kings, these so-called. "Mine burials" (deep rectangular graves in the rock) rich in gold items are the earliest monuments of Mycenaean culture. They belong to the end of the 17th - 16th century. BC. Mycenaean culture is divided into periods:

1. Early Mycenaean period 1700-1550 BC

2. Middle Mycenaean period 1550-1400. BC.

3. late Mycenaean period 1400-1200. BC

Around 1700 BC in Argolis (the eastern coast of the Peloponnese) - the center of power of the Mycenaean rulers, the influence of Crete (fashion, Cretan-type sanctuaries in which sacrifices were made to the goddess from Crete) began to manifest itself especially strongly. But, despite the impact of a more developed civilization, the Achaeans retained many features of the culture they brought from the north. For example, they wore beards and mustaches. And if the Cretan culture is “feminine”, then the Mycenaean is “masculine”.

The Achaeans built powerful defensive structures against possible attacks from the north and uprisings of the population they conquered. Their buildings are monumental, and the themes of the wall paintings are scenes of war and hunting.

One of the most outstanding buildings of this period is the Lion's Gate, decorated with a relief depicting two lionesses surrounded by huge stone blocks piled on top of each other. Behind these gates were shaft tombs carved into the rock.

In the 14th century BC. shaft tombs were replaced by domed tombs (tholos). The most famous is the “tomb of Agamemnon” (door height - 5 m, covered with stone blocks, weighing 120 tons). The most valuable finds in these tombs were the golden death masks of the rulers.

As well as in Crete, the main centers of culture were palaces - in Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Athens, Iolka. The palaces were similar to the Cretan ones, also decorated with paintings, but surrounded by powerful walls of huge stone blocks without binding material. The place of the central open courtyard is occupied by a large quadrangular hall with four columns and a hearth in the center (megaron). The climate, colder than in Crete, did not allow to have many windows, and in the megaron there were none at all, the light penetrated through the doors and the hole above the hearth. The workshops have already been moved outside the palace, and open water pipes have been built. In order for the enemy to get into the palace, it was necessary to overcome a huge number of defensive structures.

A huge role in the study of Mycenaean culture was played by the decoding of Linear B, made in 1953 by the Englishmen M. Ventris and J. Chadwick. Linear B contained 88 characters - more than sound and less than hieroglyphic. It was a syllabary borrowed from the pre-Greek population. It was not adapted to Greek phonetics.

Numerous clay tablets contain mainly economic records, testify to the strong differentiation of society, the head of the state was the ruler - "va-na-ka", who was the largest landowner who levied taxes. The king performed the supreme functions of the priest.

There was a significant layer of the aristocracy and officials.

The Mycenaeans worshiped Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena and Artemis. There was no Apollo and Ares, but Peavon and Enuvalios corresponded to them). There were female correspondences to Poseidon - the goddess Posideya, to Zeus - the goddess Divia, which classical Greece did not know. The Goddess of the Winds is mentioned (name unknown), Dionysus is mentioned not as a god, but as an ordinary person, known to many compatriots. Central in Mycenaean mythology was the goddess - Mother.

The Achaean documents mention many names that are included in Homer's poems, but have nothing in common with his heroes - Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Hector, Machaon, Theseus.

The Achaeans begin an active colonization policy and populate the Mediterranean coast. The Hittite and Egyptian texts speak of the Achaeans. Memories of the conquest of the Achaeans in Asia Minor are preserved in the legend of the Trojan War (according to the Greek chronology, the destruction of Troy took place in 1184 BC).

The predominance of the Achaeans in the Aegean world came at the turn of the 12th -11th centuries. BC, when a huge mass of the North Balkan barbarian peoples rushed to the south. The leading role in this migration of peoples was played by the Greek tribes of the Dorians. They had a great advantage over the Achaeans - they had iron weapons, more effective than the bronze weapons of the Achaeans.

With the advent of the Dorians in the 14-13th century. BC. in Greece, the Iron Age begins and the Cretan-Mecenaean civilization ceases to exist.

Homeric Greece.

In the 12th - 8th centuries BC the transition from the tribal system to the state organization of the polis type took place, i.e. policy was formed. These processes are reflected in Homer's poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey". The Greek tribes that came from the Balkans were settled in small tribal groups headed by elected leaders - basileus. To solve some common problems, clans sometimes united, forming phratries, phratries united into a tribe - phyla - headed by filabasileus. Elements of private property began to spread, although the land was the common property of the clan, the booty belonged to the one who appropriated it, the cattle was also individual property. The lands of the aristocracy were inherited.

The main form of political organization of the Greeks was the city-states (policies), controlled by the aristocracy. The city was the center of the state; it was formed as a result of the merger of several villages to strengthen the defense capability. This measure is called synoykism. For example, Sparta consisted of 5 villages, while Athens consisted of 12 villages.

In the 9th century BC an event occurred that became decisive for the entire Greek culture: the Greeks borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians and improved it by adding several signs to indicate vowels. However, the oldest Greek inscription that has come down to us dates back to the 8th century. BC. Two great masterpieces of Greek culture in the 8th century BC. - Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" originally existed only in oral form. Although the poems are dedicated to the previous period - the Mycenaean culture, they are sources of information for the period 12 - 11c BC.

The epic poems of Homer are a code of aristocratic morality. The highest value for a noble warrior is posthumous glory and eternal memory of the name of a valiant fighter and his exploits.

Over time, Homer's poems became for Greek culture like sacred books, a canon of behavior and at the same time a source of knowledge about the past. Homer inspired the Greeks with his idea of ​​the gods, and they have never been able to get rid of this idea. Although in fact the world of the Olympic gods and goddesses developed much earlier, when the Greek tribes settled near Mount Olympus in Northern Greece. And the relationship of the gods is very reminiscent of the court life of the ancient rulers of Thessaly, located at the foot of Olympus.

Similar information.

At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. the ancient Eastern civilizations, experiencing a decline, gave way to a new cultural center that arose in the Mediterranean region.

But even in the III-II millennium BC. in the Eastern Mediterranean and some areas of mainland Greece there was a highly developed Aegean culture. The famous Russian historian of antiquity, R.Yu. to admit that two cultural processes took place on the soil of Greece, that there was a special ancient history here, longer than the Greek history proper, which we have known up to now mainly from literary data and which is new in relation to the first ... It is very likely that it ended in disaster: no traces or traditions remained after it: at the end of the 5th century, for example, Thucydides did not suspect its existence and considered the culture of his time to be the first and only on the soil of Greece. Meanwhile, the Aegean culture was much more ancient. It included the following cultural communities: Cretan, or Minoan, centered on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea; Cycladic, island culture, named after the Cyclades, located in a circle in the Aegean around the island of Delos (in Greek, kyuklos - circle); and the culture of Hellas - Balkan Greece. In the II millennium BC. in mainland Greece, a close Cretan Mycenaean (with a center in Mycenae - a city in the Peloponnese, in southern Greece), or Achaean culture arose.
The time of the emergence of the Cretan culture (or the Minoan - by the name of the king of Crete Minos) - the turn of the III-II millennium BC. It existed until about 1200 BC. It was an original, developed culture, its presence is felt in "the most archaic ancient Egypt" (R. Vipper). This is the so-called palace culture: all life in Crete was centered around the palace complexes of the Cretan rulers. At the beginning of the XX century. as a result of archaeological excavations led by the English scientist A. Evans in Knossos, the first of the Cretan palaces was discovered in the central part of the island. Following Greek tradition, Evans called it the palace of Minos. Apparently, this was the famous Labyrinth (from the word "labrys" - a double-sided ax, a favorite symbol of the ancient Cretans, with which they decorated the walls of this palace), described in the Greek myth of the Minotaur - a monster with a human body and a bull's head. The palaces of Crete really looked like labyrinths, they consisted of many different rooms in terms of decoration and purpose, their internal layout was disorderly. But they were still unified architectural ensembles. In the cities of Knossos, Mallia, Phaistos, Zakro, and others, they are decorated with colonnades and frescoes (in modern Crete, Cycladic and Helladic cultures, architecture was much more primitive). The central part of the palace was a large rectangular light courtyard, with which all other rooms were connected. The palace of Knossos had all the hallmarks of Oriental splendor, and from the sea it looked especially picturesque: the rows of colonnades climb up, giving the impression of a vast architectural space.
Of particular note are the wonderful wall paintings that adorned the interior, corridors and porticos. Minoan artists were masters of painting technique. The mastery of this technique, the subtlety and liveliness of the colors are amazing. Plants predominate in the ornaments - lilies, crocuses, palm trees, inhabitants of the underwater world - dolphins, fish, octopuses, mollusks, etc. Scenes from the life of the courtiers were depicted on the plot frescoes, in particular, "playing with bulls" (tauromachia) - a religious ritual associated with one of the main Minoan cults - the cult of the bull-god, in whose image the destructive forces of nature were embodied. Here we see elegant men and sparkling jewels, low-cut ladies. Women generally had an undeniable advantage in this culture. The symbol of the entire Minoan culture is the goddess with snakes: her image, dating from the 17th century, is well known. BC. and now stored in Heraklion, in the Cretan Historical Museum. It is a small faience figurine dressed in a lion-shaped turban, a short waistcoat exposing the chest, a long skirt emphasizing the "wasp waist" and a short decorated apron (typical clothing for the Minoan culture). A fragment of the mural depicting a dancer is remarkable: the elegance and charm of her figure, frank make-up, reminiscent of the make-up of a modern city girl, led archaeologists to call her a "Parisian" (2nd millennium BC). Often there are images of priestesses in corsets and long flared skirts. The woman - the Great Goddess (Mistress) - is the main figure of the Minoan pantheon.
In Crete, a special form of royal power has developed - theocracy, in which secular and spiritual power belongs to one person. Therefore, the Royal Palace performed universal functions, being at the same time a religious, administrative and economic center. By the way, the Cretan palaces did not have fortifications, which is explained by the unconditional predominance of Crete on the sea.
The greatest achievement of the Minoan culture was the creation of writing (XVIII-XVII centuries BC) - the so-called Linear A. It has not yet been deciphered, so we do not know the language of the ancient Cretans.
The heyday of the Minoan culture falls on the XVI - the first half of the XV centuries. BC. However, in the middle of the XV century. BC. almost all the settlements and palaces of the island were destroyed during the strongest volcanic eruption on the island of Thera (Santorini), as well as the invasion of the warlike Achaean tribes from mainland Greece. In the future, Cretan culture was no longer able to achieve its former splendor. The center of civilization moved to the mainland, where the Mycenaean (Achaean) culture flourished at that time, which was formed ca. 1700 BC
Initially, the Mycenaean culture was strongly influenced by the Minoan civilization. The names of some deities, styles of clothing, fresco painting, principles of plumbing and sewerage, etc. were borrowed. But, closely connected with the ancient cultures of mainland Greece, the Mycenaean civilization was quite original. The Achaeans, for example, built powerful defensive structures: unlike the Cretan, the Mycenaean civilization was more severe and courageous. The symbols of the power of local kings were fortifications on elevated places, surrounded by strong walls. The Greeks themselves believed that these walls were erected by the Cyclopes - one-eyed giants - the stone blocks heaped one on top of the other were so huge. The attraction of Mycenae was the famous "lion's gate", decorated with a relief depicting two lionesses. Mycenaean kings built for themselves majestic domed tombs - "tholos", which replaced the mine burials, which are earlier monuments of Mycenaean culture. The most magnificent tombs include the "Tomb of Agamemnon", striking in its monumentality: its dome is lined with 33 stone rings. Unlike the Cretan palaces, built around an open courtyard of light, the center of the Mycenaean palaces was a megaron - a hall with a hearth surrounded by columns. The scenes of the palace chambers are covered with numerous frescoes depicting battle scenes.
The Mycenaean script (the so-called "Linear B") was deciphered in 1953 by the English scientist M. Ventris. The creators of the Achaean culture spoke Greek, though more archaic than the language of the later classical period.
The predominance of the Achaeans in Greece and the highly developed Mycenaean culture were put to an end by the movement at the turn of the 12th-11th centuries. BC. a new wave of Greek tribes - the Dorians, who called themselves the descendants of Hercules. They had a great advantage over the Achaeans - more effective than bronze, iron weapons. With the advent of the Dorian tribes in Greece, the Iron Age begins. Pressing the Achaeans from the north and moving to the south of the Balkan Peninsula, the Dorians gave rise to powerful states in the Peloponnese, in particular, they founded Sparta. Especially important for the subsequent development of Greek culture was the fact that the Doric wave, which put an end to the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, passed Attica, which had long been inhabited by Ionian tribes. Their culture was destined to glorify and glorify all Hellas in the future.
As for the place of the Cretan-Mycenaean culture in the history of mankind, and its type, it is quite typical for mythological culture, but at the same time it is peculiar. The Cretan-Mycenaean culture can be called mythological "modern": naturalism of beliefs, a riot of colors in art, an abundance of details and decorations in clothes (someone wittily called the Mycenaean fashion the fashion of the first crinolines), eccentricity - all this gave it a "modernist" originality and charm . Perhaps, it was this culture that, by its very existence, emphasized the great general significance of the mythological cultures of mankind, whether it be the countries of the Ancient East, the culture of the Indian subcontinent, or in many respects still mysterious ancient American civilizations. In them, for the first time, the possibilities of art are revealed with great force. Here, the creative activity of a person creates an artistic culture as a complex set of art forms. In particular, architecture arises - the basis of large synthetic stylistic systems of spatial arts, within which monumental sculpture and painting flourish. In the same cultures, poetic epic cycles stand out from the folklore element of verbal folk art. They are replaced by the complex world of thoughts and feelings of lyrical poetry, then the first rudimentary forms of artistic prose appear. From cult festivities, magical witchcraft, a great world of spectacular arts is created, drama, tragedy and comedy are born and reach their first flowering. Artistic crafts are losing the almost monopoly place that they occupied at the end of the primitive period in the field of plastic arts.
However, all of the above does not contradict the mythological inseparability of various areas of spirituality. Artistic practice in general, as well as the life of individual works of art, was perceived (and was such) as a certain part of the cult, more broadly - social reality. With this phenomenon, the special ability of the art of antiquity to embody the universal properties of a person’s relationship to the world is connected - to introduce measure, order, order into the consciousness and life of a person. These qualities, which are actively manifested in the canonical cultures of the Ancient East, will become dominant in the plastic art of Greek antiquity.

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Cretan-Mycenaean culture

In the artistic culture of antiquity, the Cretan-Mycenaean art belongs to one of the most honorable places. Two of its most prominent centers - the city of Mycenae on the Peloponnese peninsula and the island of Crete - gave the name to this art, but it was distributed over a much larger territory - from the Balkan Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea to the coast of Asia Minor.
Creators of the Cretan civilization were peoples of unknown origin. Their culture originated around the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Its main centers were the island of Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea. Historians call this civilization Minoan - by the name of the mythical Cretan king Minos.
From northern Europe, the Mycenaeans came to Greece, who became the direct ancestors of the future Hellenes (Greeks). Around the middle of the II millennium BC. e. their power extended to the entire Aegean world, they penetrated many islands, they also captured Knossos, the capital of the Minoan kingdom.
The Mycenaeans lived side by side with the Minoans until the 12th century. BC e. Mycenaean rulers made extensive use of the services of gifted Minoan craftsmen, so that in the end, Mycenaean and Minoan art formed a kind of complex fusion. For several centuries, Crete-Mycenaean art played the role of an exemplary art workshop for a vast region. During this period, beautiful architectural monuments were created: grandiose palaces with sacred gardens, decorated with wall paintings and reliefs; graceful painted vases; skillfully executed attributes of a religious cult. The originality of the Cretan-Mycenaean art is in a special understanding of the life of nature and the place of man in it, as well as in close attention to his inner world.
Achievements of the Aegean masters in the 1st millennium BC. e. became the legacy of the Hellenes. It can be said with confidence that without the Cretan-Mycenaean art, classical monuments of ancient Greek art, which gained worldwide fame, would not have been created.

Art of Crete
At the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. many palaces were built on Crete. The palace was a large group of buildings erected around the courtyard and intended for both religious and secular needs. The palace could serve as the residence of the ruler and the center of government of the entire region. It was both a city and a fortress, and existed at the expense of the rural district and the labor of the artisans who lived in it. There were palaces in several Cretan cities: Knossos, Phaistos, Gournia, Mali and Kato Zaro. Despite the difference in scale, location and quality of wall decoration, all Cretan palaces are characterized by a number of common features. The courtyard was a rectangle with sides of 52 by 28 meters. Almost all palaces are oriented to the cardinal points - their courtyard is stretched from north to south. The palaces were associated with mountain shrines built in caves. Each palace is oriented towards the "sacred mountain", clearly visible from it. For example, the palace in Phaistos is associated with the famous Mount Ida, on which, according to legend, Zeus was born and grew up.
In Cretan palaces, for example, in Phaistos, sacred gardens were laid out, usually in the southeast corner of the palace complex. Not only annual or seasonal flowers grew there, but also flowers were planted in special pots. In front of the western facade of the Palace of Knossos, there was a theater platform for ritual stage performances, and crowded holidays were also held there.
In all likelihood, the palaces were considered an earthly reflection of the dwelling places of the celestials, the latter included the goddesses who were worshiped in the sanctuaries. In the sanctuaries, sacrifices were made, ritual meals were made, gifts were presented to the gods in the form of dishes and terracotta figurines. Although kings lived in the palaces, it is possible that these structures were considered the property of the goddesses. The ruler, whose origin was thought to be divine, acted as the son or spouse (and often the son-husband) of the goddess. The ruler's wife was a priestess and represented the goddess in the most important rituals. This is evidenced by the monuments of Cretan art. Among them are images of divine infants and teenagers - sons. The figure of a woman is always endowed with the features of a mother: she has an accentuated heavy bust, which is exposed during the rituals, she is taller and stronger than her husband standing next to her. A woman (priestess or goddess) is the main person of any action, a young man always plays a passive role. In the Palace of Knossos, the main entrance, the Corridor of Processions, was decorated with a painting in which gifts and a new robe were brought to the goddess. Holidays, which were arranged in connection with the beginning of the new year, were very popular in antiquity. At Knossos, in the procession of the daurators, for the most part, young men took part. They carried precious vessels and a special gift - a Cretan skirt-pants for the "newborn" goddess. The priestess-goddess accepted the gifts while standing, holding in both hands the Cretan symbols of power - double axes (Labrys), from which, apparently, the name of the palace - Labyrinth (Palace of Labryses) came from. The holiday itself assumed the sacred marriage of the gods, without which the Cretans could not imagine the continuation of life. The Cretan goddess was personified by a mountain or a tree - as a universal, universal symbol. Gold seal rings have survived, on which characters pull the sacred tree out of the ground or pick its fruits, both of which meant the death of the goddess, which occurred at certain points in the calendar year. It was a very important holiday, timed to coincide with the middle of summer: from that moment on, the strength of the sun begins to wane. On this day, the ruler-priest pulled out of the tub a special sacred tree that grew in the temple. With the death of the tree, the life of the goddess herself also ended: her ritual death was portrayed by the wife of the priest. However, having completed her cycle of being, the goddess was reborn again. On ancient rings, for example, she is depicted as a vision hovering in the sky. The goddess appears in the sky when four female priestesses perform a ritual dance on a flowering meadow. Actually the epiphany (as well as the descent of the deity into the world of people) occurred precisely as a result of this ritual dance. Lily flowers in Cretan paintings are the image of the goddess (Knossos Palace. Throne Room).
In general, the role of trees, flowers and herbs in the ancient world was so great that no human act could be imagined without them. Their images are found everywhere in Crete, surrounded by a halo of mystery and divinity. The flora is depicted on the frescoes both in the form of wildlife and artificial plantations (in palaces). So, on one of the oldest frescoes of Knossos "Crocus Collector" flowers are shown growing on natural hills and hills. We see the same thing on the fresco "The Blue Bird". The murals of the so-called villa from Agia Triada, on the contrary, depict huge slender lilies growing on a lawn, probably laid out on the territory of the palace. For the Cretans, nature was sacred because of its divinity. Because of this, in Crete, instead of the gods, they often depicted flowering meadows and wild rocks overgrown with vegetation. They are inhabited by monkeys and birds - in fact, also gods, but with a different guise. It was believed that a person can enter this world only at the moment of performing the ritual.
The Cretan god, unlike the goddess, was represented by a zoomorphic creature embodied in the form of a bull. His signs and symbols are found in abundance in the palace of Knossos. Probably, this symbol was associated with the mythical Labyrinth and the Minotaur, the bull-man, who lived in it. According to legend, Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos, was inflamed with a passion for a bull, from which she gave birth to the Minotaur. Long before the rise of the Minoan culture, the goddess had already acquired an anthropomorphic (human) image, while her husband still remained in the form of an animal that embodied a god who was periodically born, reached maturity and died. The Cretan bull-god was annually sacrificed at a solemn feast. The bull-god was depicted in the entrance vestibule of the Knossos Corridor of Processions, racing in a typically Cretan "flying gallop" pose. He is also represented in games with bullfighters, then dying.
On the fresco depicting "Taurocatapsia" - a ritual fight with a bull - not only men, but also women fight with a bull. Moreover, the female goddess was the main opponent of the bull-god, her son-husband. She annually sacrificed him at a similar holiday - so that he, the obsolete annual cycle, could be born again. Thus, thanks to divine rituals, the life of people and gods, passing through the same cycle, always returned to normal.
The taurocatapsia fresco shows how dynamic and alive Minoan art was. He is alien to frozen poses, fixed looks and introspection - that is, everything that was so dear to the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the ancient Mesopotamia. For Cretan art, the moment is important, the movement is correctly grasped, the thrill of the present. Here the young man does somersault over the back of the bull, now the bull has already pierced one of his opponents with his horn. Despite the fact that the bull is huge, he has no chance. It flies in space, almost without touching the ground. But the wrestlers are more agile, faster than him, they will have time to defeat him before he inflicts mortal wounds on them.
A distinctive feature of Cretan art is the "double perspective". On the fresco, the bull is depicted in a certain middle zone: the bull does not touch the ground with its feet, and the background seems to fall on it from above. There is no horizon line on the fresco - as if the boundary between earth and sky has been erased. The same artistic technique is used on the fresco "The Saffron Collector".
Cretan art avoids immobility, heavy supports, emphatically stable structures. Despite the enormous size of the palaces and the apparent simplicity of construction, these structures are quite complex. A variety of interior spaces are interconnected in the most bizarre way, and long corridors unexpectedly lead to dead ends (Knossos Palace. Reconstruction). The floors are connected by many stairs. The visitor's journey through the palace - with its contrasts of light and darkness, isolation and openness, dusk and sonorous, rich colors, incessant ascents and descents - resembles life itself with its unpredictability and non-stop movement.
The images of the Cretans are quite consistent with their ideas about the world. The figures in the images are always fragile, with wasp waists, as if ready to break. The participants in the sacred procession in the Corridor of Processions walk with their heads proudly thrown back and their torsos tilted back. The male figures are painted in shades of brown, while the female figures are painted in white. Even the pose of the worshiper (a figurine from the island of Tilos), with all his thoughts turned to the deity, is devoid of stiffness. The torso strongly tilted back, the hand pressed to the forehead, the momentary stop of movement - how unlike the statues of oriental men. Looking with huge eyes at the superhuman world.
The image of the "Parisian" - an elegant girl depicted in one of the rooms on the second floor of the Knossos Palace, breathes with special charm. The fresco represented a ritual feast, the participants of which sat opposite each other with bowls in their hands. From the image, only a small fragment of the girl's head and the ritual knot on the clothes on her back have been preserved. Fragility, grace, subtle sophistication are combined with asymmetry, "spontaneity" of the brush. The artist's handwriting is fluent, lively, instantaneous. An ugly face with a long, irregular nose and full red lips radiates with life. A shock of black curly hair gives the "Parisian" elegance, and a thin, almost watercolor painting gives her airiness and grace.
In the Palace of Knossos, several frescoes have been preserved, the content of which is very unusual for ancient Greek art. The fresco "Dance Among the Trees" depicts a crowded festival, probably taking place in front of the western facade of the palace. There, among the sacred trees, the priestesses perform a cult dance in honor of the gods. The image gives the impression of a live crowded gathering, and this is unusual. Such an artistic technique is unique not only for antiquity, but also for classical Greece, where images of individuals have always prevailed.
Cretan vase painters have reached rare heights of skill. They made vessels of various shapes and sizes, from small cups with thin, almost transparent walls to huge clay egg-shaped pithoi, reaching two meters in height. Pithos were used to store grain, water and wine. Minoan vases do not have wide heavy pallets, they gravitate towards voluminous, spherical shapes. For greater stability, they were sometimes buried in the ground, in whole or in part. Vases were painted in bright colors, using red, white, blue and black paint. The compositions included both geometrized forms and images of wildlife. Often, mollusks, coral reefs and octopuses were depicted on vases, braiding the entire vessel with tentacles. Cretan artists were especially fond of flowers - lilies, tulips, crocuses. Flowers were depicted both in flowerpots and growing in flower beds. Remarkable are the compositions representing flowers bowing their heads under the gusts of a strong wind. The most beautiful vases of the Minoan era were found in the Kamares cave near Festa, from which their name came from - vases "kamares".
"Mystery", "mystery" - the concepts adopted by the Hellenes from their predecessors, the Cretans. All genres of Cretan art - architecture, sculpture, painting, even religious theatre, music and dance - were fused together to achieve the necessary impact on the viewer. Amazing "miracles" remained the main theme of Cretan art after the conquest of the island by the Mycenaeans.

Fera Art
In 1968-76. On the island of Thera, the city of Akrotiri was discovered, almost completely destroyed by an earthquake. In the surviving quarter, the houses were located along the road that ran from north to south. Probably, Akrotiri was a city of a different type than Knossos or Festus: the buildings were large mansions, but there were no palaces in Akrotiri. Almost every mansion had rooms for worship. This is evidenced by the ritual objects (ritual vessels) found by archaeologists, as well as the special arrangement of the premises (the kitchen with a window overlooking the room where the ritual feast was held). Here the walls were decorated with frescoes depicting ritual ceremonies. In the so-called Sanctuary of the Ladies, in two rooms on the second floor, apparently, the rite of offering a new garment to the goddess was performed. On the wall of one of the rooms, an elderly lady, heavily rouged and smartly dressed, is depicted bowing before the goddess. The lady hands the goddess a new pleated skirt. On the other hand, another lady is heading towards the goddess, with a necklace for the "newborn". The ceremony takes place under a heavenly canopy, depicted in a decorative style: blue rhombuses of stars are suspended on cords studded with red beads. In this fresco, there is a noticeable strong resemblance to the Minoan "Parisian": the same underlined elegance, grace of gestures and poses. As in the Corridor of Processions of the Palace of Knossos, the fresco reflects the ritual rite that actually took place here. Unlike the swift "Parisian", the movements of the Ferey ladies are slow and smooth. The wall with the image is divided into zones bounded above and below by wide colored stripes - red-yellow, blue-blue, white. The structure of the painting is logical and clearly thought out. The fresco does not look like a picturesque reflection of nature, but a carefully staged stage performance. The composition is dominated by a silhouette - expressive, with a detailed pattern, then painted. Three horizontal levels of painting correspond to the idea of ​​three worlds - underground, earthly and heavenly.
In the so-called West House, two adjoining rooms on the second floor, richly decorated with maritime frescoes, served as a sanctuary, which is why the building was originally called the Captain's House. In the Western House, a solemn rite of rebirth of the goddess was performed. In the smaller room there was a special cleft, similar to a crack in the rock, in fact, from there the goddess came out, which was represented by the priestess. The goddess appeared from the underwater world, where she experienced temporary death, as evidenced by the cut lilies depicted in the piers. The goddess herself is depicted as if in a "transitional" state - in the wall at the door connecting the rooms. Almost shaved, the priestess marched solemnly to a corner of the room, where an altar was placed on one of the eight windows, decorated in the Cretan style with dolphins diving among the coral reefs. Here, to the altar, the young priests carried bundles of fish.
Fera's paintings closely intertwine the real and the conventional, life and art. Striking are the miniature friezes that ran over the walls in the large room. On a fragment of one of them, placed strictly above the altar, a number of completely epic scenes are presented: at noon, shepherds drive their flock to a watering place, under the shade of shady fig trees; girls carry water from a spring in vessels on their heads; foreigners drown in the sea during a shipwreck; warriors of the Mycenaean type with shields and helmets go to the city. All the plots of this small masterpiece of painting are interconnected. Their source was probably the summer solstice, during which the sun god experienced first death and then rebirth. The same leitmotif of death-rebirth can be traced in all the plots of the fresco: some of the characters die, some are reborn. It is noteworthy that the sacred ritual is hidden under a highly developed narrative form.
The same idea, but in a slightly different form, was represented by a long narrow frieze, stretching along the entire wall of the room. Two cities were depicted at the ends of the frieze - the city of life and the city of death. A large city, luxurious and rich, inhabited by women in beautiful elegant robes, spread out on a mountain. A small town inhabited by men stands in a swamp, in a quagmire - as if in the underworld itself. Seven ships with men are sailing from a small city to a large one, where they are preparing for a solemn meeting: the young men lead a sacrificial bull to the sea - to be slaughtered. The scene described most likely represents the myth of the sacred marriage of the two cities. The whole scene - lively, direct, full of wonderful observations and, moreover, crowded and "noisy" - is close in spirit to the Minoan images. It has the same sense of the environment and the breath of the sea, the same double perspective with its overturned hills and rivers flowing upwards.
At the very end of the main street is the so-called Sanctuary of the Crocuses, where the most important rites were performed. The sacred procession, reproducing the course of the sun, ended its journey here. The Sanctuary of the Crocuses had many painted rooms spread over two floors; almost all the paintings were devoted to the theme of plucking crocuses.
Flowers played a huge role in the life of ancient people. On Thera, they were also endowed with special holiness, they were seen as the incarnations of the gods. In the Sanctuary of the Ladies, where the ceremony of presenting a new dress to the goddess was depicted, the adjacent room was painted with papyrus flowers - huge, with snow-white corollas and elongated leaves, symbolizing the inviolability of the gods.
According to legend, as soon as Persephone plucked a narcissus flower, the earth opened up, the god of the underworld, Hades, appeared and abducted her. Probably, the Ferey ritual was also associated with this legend. In the Sanctuary of Crocuses, girls are depicted picking flowers and offering them in baskets to the goddess, solemnly seated on a triple platform in the upper zone. In the lower zone, death is represented: an altar strewn with flowers and covered in blood and a girl who injured her leg while picking crocuses are depicted here. It means that the girl is sacrificed, dead. Under this scene, there was a recess in the floor - the "underworld", where the girls who underwent the initiation ceremony were supposed to descend. Similar actions - picking a flower, kidnapping Persephone, her marriage to Hades and reign in the underworld - were played out at the famous Eleusinian mysteries of classical Greece, and there not only girls, but the whole people made a lifetime initiation into the secrets of the otherworldly existence and resurrection.
The style of execution of these wonderful frescoes is close to the Minoan, for it also conveys an exciting event full of hidden meaning. Transmits vividly and colorfully. Girls roam the rocks among the crocuses growing everywhere, like the Minoan lily gatherers on the frescoes of Agia Triada. However, here everything is more logical, harmonious, orderly - a rich natural environment is reduced to a neutral, slightly colored white space. However, if in the Sanctuary of the Ladies the main role is played by the line, contour, silhouette, then here the color spot becomes much more important than the contours. The artist succeeded in conveying the beauty of the light, finely patterned robe and the transparency of the fabric, translucent with golden circles. Profiles of girls, their hairstyles become monotonous.
The art of Thera, apparently, is contemporary with Cretan (the era of new palaces, XVI-XV centuries BC) and is comparable with it as one of the leading trends in painting. While displaying a number of features related to Minoan art, it also has a different structure and reflects a system of thought that is closer to the Mycenaean one. This art is subject to myths and rituals, it does not reflect actual events. However, this art is extremely rich, complex and multi-subject. It is likely that Thera played a significant role in the Crete-Mycenaean world, but scientists have not been able to establish this for certain.

Aegean art III millennium BC. e.
In the III millennium BC. e. the art of the Aegean (the islands of the Aegean Sea and the coast of Asia Minor) reached a high flowering. Particularly famous are the works of the masters of the Cyclades archipelago, located in the southern part of the Aegean Sea (Thera or Santorini, Milos, Paros, Naxos, Delos, Sifnos, Syros, etc.). The so-called Cycladic idols ("Harper") gained general fame. These are marble figurines found in the burials of the Cyclades, as well as in Crete and Balkan Greece. Idols - sometimes miniature, and sometimes reaching a height of one and a half meters - are figures of naked people standing in shackled poses, with their hands pressed to their chest (“Great Goddess”). These gods were supposed to help the dead find new life, performing the so-called act of "reverse birth". The figurines with joined legs, weakly outlined arms and chest are completed with a very conditional image of the head, on which only the nose stands out, and sometimes strongly stylized ears on the sides. The researchers suggest that the rest of the facial features were applied with paints, but their traces were not preserved.
In the middle of the III millennium BC. e. the legendary Troy (Ilion), founded as early as the 4th millennium BC, also flourished. e. The ancient city was excavated by the German self-taught archaeologist G. Schliemann in the last third of the 19th century. in Hissarlik, northwestern Turkey. Schliemann believed that on the site of the city that died in the grandiose Trojan War, a powerful layer with traces of a fire should have remained. Such a layer was found and dates back to 2600-2450. BC e. In 1873, the richest treasure was found in the city (183 items in total), which was called the "Priam's treasure". Further excavations uncovered several more treasures that were not hidden from enemies, but most likely were sacrificed to the gods. Silver was valued more than gold, and before the burial of treasures, some of the silver items were subjected to ritual burning.
The masterpieces of Trojan jewelry art are two golden tiaras - large and small. The tiaras are made of many thousands of details - rings assembled into chains, rhombic plaques, symbolic figures of the Great Goddess, leaves covering the outside of the chains. Small diadem - openwork and light, having an odd number of pendants, probably intended for men. Large, heavy and massive, with an even number of pendants - served as a subject of ladies' use. The tiara is covered with tiny gold leaves, forming a dense cover. In addition, she does not have a proper ribbon tied around her head. It is replaced by a chain. Perhaps these two diadems were worn over their caps-crowns by the Trojan king and queen.
Four axes-hammers were found in Troy, which were mounted on wooden rods and, apparently, were used during ritual sacrifices. One ax is made of Afghan lapis lazuli: it is dark blue, with elegant golden veins. Others are carved from local stones - lapis lazuli and jadeite, they are green, interspersed. All four axes are impressive in size, reaching a quarter of a meter in length. The severity of the forms and the perfection of the proportions of these products, as well as the perfect polishing of their surfaces, are striking - the axes sparkle like a mirror. These magnificent Trojan finds have no analogues in the art of antiquity.

Mycenaean art
Mycenaean cities, more like fortresses, were built in secluded places, in the mountains. Surrounded by powerful walls, they are real strongholds. Such are Mycenae and Tiryns on the Peloponnese peninsula, built from huge blocks of natural stone. Here, in the so-called citadel, the rulers of the city, priests and the supreme nobility settled. Ordinary people lived in the "lower" city, located at the foot of the hill.
The Mycenaean palaces are significantly different in structure from the Cretan ones - their forms are simple and strict. The palace building is a megaron - an elongated structure, oriented to the cardinal points, without a courtyard. The building consists of three main rooms strung on the main axis. Behind the vestibule, which had a portico with columns, there was a central hall with a hearth and a throne. All the most important events took place here - holidays, military councils, councils of leaders. The third room probably contained the treasury or items used in worship. Some citadels had two palaces - a large one and a small one. It is assumed that the king lived in the big one, and the queen lived in the small one. Despite their outward simplicity, the buildings were luxuriously decorated. The floors were painted with a chess ornament with figures of underwater gods included in cages - tuna, octopuses. The walls of the palace were completely covered with frescoes depicting various scenes with griffins, lions and sphinxes. The artistic language of the paintings is completely different than in Crete - more rough and less skillful, partly even "barbarian".
In one of the rooms of the palace of Pylos, a sacred procession leading to the slaughter of a huge bull was depicted on the wall. With its size, the animal suppresses small figures of people. Techniques of this kind, used in the early stages of the development of painting, were no longer found in Crete. In the famous fresco "Orpheus" from the palace in Tiryns, the discrepancy between the small figure of a musician and a huge heavy bird is striking. This disproportion is explained by the semantic inequality of the characters. The dove, obviously the incarnation of the goddess Aphrodite, is a much more important figure for the artist than a mere mortal musician. It is noteworthy that in the painting there is absolutely no natural background, which was widely used in Cretan paintings. The image is built on a neutral one-color background. Compared to Cretan painting, new characters appear in Mycenaean paintings - warriors and hunters, but their figures are depicted in frozen, awkward poses.
The image of the sacred procession is also found in the Mycenaean murals (as well as in the Minoan ones), but here only girls participate in the processions of the gift-bearers. The image of a woman, outwardly following the Minoan tradition, also underwent important changes. One of the figures in the Tirinth Palace - the so-called " Tirynfyanka" - outwardly resembles the Knossos "Parisian". However, in the Mycenaean painting, the thrill of life, liveliness, immediacy and charm, characteristic of the "Parisian", is completely absent. The figure of the "Tirynfyanka" is frozen, emphatically decorative, stylized. To an even greater extent, the features of decorativeness and stylization manifested themselves in the image of the Mycenian Woman, a fresco found in one of the houses of the "lower city" in Mycenae. A compact head, steep, strongly deployed shoulders, a strict profile with a short nose and a heavy chin, create the image of a Mycenaean aristocrat, bright and harsh. Unlike Cretan painting, the heroes of Mycenaean paintings are heavy and massive, standing firmly on the ground. Their images are imbued with inner strength and unshakable self-confidence. Each of them takes its place in the world, the legitimacy of which is justified by divine will and logic. If Cretan art expresses the spontaneity of vague sensations, then Mycenaean art expresses, in a sense, the power of the mind and the organization of the intellect.
A different vision of the world is noticeable in all Mycenaean things, often performed by Cretan masters, from ivory boxes to vase paintings, which lost their Cretan festivity and turned into stereotypical, fluent, often sketchy scenes. Among the greatest achievements of Mycenaean art are monuments of funerary art. In the XIV century. BC e. the entrance to the city was decorated with the so-called "Lion's Gate", decorated with a scene of worship of lions to a deity embodied in a Cretan column. Next to the Mycenaean palace was the royal necropolis (tomb). The necropolis was below the level of the road and had the shape of a circle surrounded by a stone ring. This is the so-called “grave circle A”, discovered in 1876. Later, in 1952, “grave circle B” was discovered, already outside the citadel. In these necropolises dating back to the 16th century. BC e., all the richest treasures of the Mycenaean kings were kept.
In each "circle" there are several deep shaft tombs where members of the royal family were buried. The tombs are rectangular in shape, made very roughly, they do not even have an internal lining of the walls with stone. Golden masks were found in the burials, highly stylized, but clearly conveying the features of the Mycenaean rulers. Pronounced Indo-European features are sometimes truly noble (the mask of Agamemnon). Unlike the Cretans, the rulers of Mycenae wore mustaches and beards. For women, masks were replaced by diadems with a very wide ribbon and huge high rays. The stylized ornament of diadems speaks of their connection with the gods-luminaries, the embodiment of which the Mycenaean queens were considered. Probably, women wore diadems on high hats - tiaras, decayed over time, like magnificent outfits, from which only gold plaques with a stamped image of the Cretan-Mycenaean gods - butterflies, octopuses, bees, stars, etc. remained.
Rich bronze daggers with rock-crystal handles and inlaid drawings were also found here - hunting scenes, running lions, waterfowl, and the starry sky. The scenes are exceptionally picturesque and are reminiscent of the Cretan freedom of performance. A number of gold seal rings, also of Minoan work, have been found in shaft tombs. Among the richest gifts were vessels made of gold, silver and electra (an alloy of gold and silver). Such vessels, placed in the grave, were considered a pledge of the rebirth of the deceased. Some of them have the shape of one or another animal or are decorated in the form of a bull's horn. These vessels were used for ritual libations. In their performance, Cretan handwriting (live, naturalistic, figurative) and Mycenaean (schematic, stylized, using large forms and whole fragments) are distinguished.
In the XIV century. BC e. in Mycenae, tombs of a different type were built - round, domed in section (Tomb of Agamemnon). From the inside, the dome was decorated with gilded rosettes imitating the vault of heaven. The entrance to the burial chamber was made in the form of a portal, the semi-columns of which were decorated with long zigzags. A long narrow corridor led to the portal - dromos, reaching over thirty meters. Domed tombs of small size are known in Crete, but this type of rich burial structure with a long dromos has not been seen before in the Aegean and in the Balkans.
In the XIII century. BC e. in the Cretan-Mycenaean world, a crisis was outlined, which manifested itself, among other things, in the “fatigue” of art, which was reduced to several endlessly repeating basic types. Around 1250 or 1190 B.C. e. there was some kind of disaster. The weakened, degraded Cretan-Mycenaean world, apparently, had exhausted its strength by that time and ceased to exist.

From 1874 to 1885, G. Schliemann worked on the territory of the Balkan Peninsula - in Mycenae, Orchomenos, Tiryns. The so-called Mycenaean culture of ancient Greece was discovered here. At the beginning of the XX century. The English archaeologist A. Evans began his excavations on the island of Crete, which he continued in the future. They discovered the Cretan culture, also related to the culture of ancient Greece. Work on the Balkan Peninsula was continued by a Greek-American expedition led by K. Kuroniotis and Blegen, who later found the great Pylos Palace in the western part of the Peloponnese, near ancient Pylos. Both Evans and the Greek-American expedition found clay tablets with unknown inscriptions in the Pylos Palace. They were first explored by Evans, who called them "linear" writing and divided them into the older "A" script and the later "B" script (Linear "A" was never deciphered). Evans dealt with the letter "B", but he could only establish a digital system of Cretan inscriptions. He could not give a transcript of this letter. I read the Cretan-Mycenaean inscriptions of the letter "B" in 1952-1953. Young English architect M. Ventris.

Culture of Crete

At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, ancient Eastern civilizations (in particular, Egyptian) entered a period of decline and gave way to a new cultural center that arose in the Mediterranean region. But back in the III-II millennium BC, i.e. Simultaneously with the ancient Eastern civilizations, a highly developed Aegean culture existed in the Eastern Mediterranean and some areas of mainland Greece. It included the following cultural communities: the most ancient Cretan or Minoan, centered on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea; kykland, insular culture; Helladic - in Balkan Greece. In the II millennium BC. in mainland Greece arose close to the Cretan Mycenaean or Achaean culture. The Cretan kingdom was a strong power with a powerful fleet. The geographical position of the island - between Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor assigned it a significant role in the international trade relations of that time, which made it possible for the Cretan culture to develop in favorable contact with the ancient cultural worlds. Crete was at the crossroads of the busiest trade routes in the Mediterranean. The largest cities of Knossos and Festus grew up on the coast. They were the capitals of independent kingdoms that maintained friendly relations with each other, so walls were not erected around the settlements.

The centers of the Aegean culture were the monumental palace complexes of the Cretan rulers. Palaces in the cities of Knossos, Mallia, Festus, Zakro and others were decorated with colonnades and frescoes. Their majestic architecture and frescoes are the main features that distinguish Crete from its contemporary Cycladic and Helladic civilizations, which had a much more primitive character. Large residential complexes are being created here - the first palaces, residences of kings. In palaces, all buildings are located on the sides of a large courtyard and face the entrances inside.

The complex of buildings also includes utility rooms, a significant part of the palace is reserved for women. Not a palace-fortress, but simply a palace with all its splendor. In the second half of the XVIII century BC. The city of Knossos becomes the center of the Cretan state. The most famous monument of that time is the Palace of Knossos with an area of ​​twenty thousand square meters, located on a high hill. The central place in the huge architectural complex is occupied by a rectangular courtyard lined with slabs. Buildings built at different times adjoin it on all sides: some of them are located at the level of the courtyard, others are lower, and still others are two or three floors higher. The main entrances to the palace are on the north and south sides. The palace had so many rooms, corridors, intricate passages that it looked like a labyrinth. In the lower floors, extensive storerooms were arranged, where there were huge clay vessels for storing grain, oil, wine, and vegetables. The royal treasures and weapons were also stored there. Comfortable flights of stairs led from one floor to another. The stairwells, which cut through the entire building from top to bottom, served as light wells, a kind of small courtyards through which air and light penetrated. This saved the inhabitants of the palace from the scorching rays of the sun, and a pleasant coolness was constantly felt in the rooms. Special ventilation devices, revolving double doors, white walls, dark glittering columns tapering downwards are a feature of Cretan architecture. Nothing bulky, oppressive. The main decoration of the palace was painting. The artists covered the walls with bright and colorful decorative paintings.

Masters of Crete have perfectly mastered the technique of fresco - painting on wet plaster. They used black, white, red, yellow, blue, green paint. Halls with frescoes had a panel, as a rule, a painting was located above it. Patterns covered ceilings and sometimes floors. The walls of the front rooms of the palace are decorated with monumental paintings. Frescoes introduce the life and entertainment of the inhabitants of the palace. The best works of Cretan painting are frescoes depicting games with a bull - a favorite pastime for boys and girls.

The heyday of Cretan painting dates back to the 16th century BC. Cretan artists were remarkable masters of chasing and stone carving. They carved vases that adorned palaces, made miniature images on rings and seals. Items made of bronze, gold, and silver enjoyed great fame. Vases made in Crete were highly valued. Cretan craftsmen invented a special dark purple or black paint with a metallic sheen to cover the vessels, which made the walls of the vases waterproof. The vases were decorated with spiral patterns, stylized images of shells, fish, intertwining leaves, and flowers.

The Cretan state perished at the end of the 15th century. BC. Earthquakes occurred on the island, and the Palace of Knossos was rebuilt twice. As many scholars believe, around 1520 BC. there was a giant volcanic eruption on the island of Thera, a huge wave devastated the coast of Crete, and the settlements of the islanders turned into a pile of ruins. The Cretan civilization did not revive after the disaster. Crete was the true cradle of ancient Greek civilization. The Cretans were the first among the peoples to admire the visible world, first of all they deified beauty, in which they saw the highest meaning of life.