The Austrian specialist in ancient history, Fritz Schachermayr, noted the special love of Minoan architects, sculptors, and artists for bright, sometimes even somewhat variegated tones in wall and vase painting. About their purely feminine perception of the environment, so clearly expressed in scenes from the life of nature, especially in images of females of various animals with cubs, about a special mood of festivity that literally permeates all the most famous works of classical Cretan art and reigns even in the scenes of the funeral cult on a sarcophagus from Ayia Triada. Of course, each of these characteristic touches separately can find its own special explanation in some other deep properties of the Minoan spirit and Minoan culture. Nevertheless, taken together, they almost inevitably lead us to the idea that the value system inherent in this culture was focused to a large extent on the female psyche, female perception of the world.
Feminine or rather androgynous appearance of Cretan men Wonderful in harmony with their amazing peacefulness, perceived as a kind of anomaly against the general background of the harsh realities of the Bronze Age. If we take seriously the evidence of the monuments of fine art that have come down to us, we will inevitably have to admit that demonstration of religious piety, that is, participation in all kinds of rituals and ceremonies, occupied in the lives of men incomparably more important place than war and hunting are truly masculine pursuits. In Crete itself, subjects of this kind, apart from some rather problematic reconstructions by Arthur Evans, remain virtually unknown until very late.
So, there is reason to believe that the natural male aggressiveness, pugnacity and love of adventure in Minoan society were artificially restrained. Anyway, their demonstrative displays were not encouraged. There were only two opportunities to demonstrate prowess and youth, apparently not condemned, but, on the contrary, encouraged by public opinion.
These may be considered fisticuffs and the so-called tauromachy - "playing with the bulls". Both of these subjects are very popular in Crete and throughout the territory covered by the influence of the Minoan civilization, images athletic competitions, apparently, contained some not quite accessible to our understanding "sacred-magical subtext ritual actions in the most important religious festivals of the annual cycle.
Scenes of tauromachy, are quite well represented in almost all the main genres of Minoan art: in fresco painting, and in sculpture, and in glyptics. As far as these images allow to judge, bull games in the Minoan civilization were associated with a mortal risk for their participants in and hardly managed without serious human casualties. It is likely that they the ultimate goal was to propitiate the deity, who during the competition was given the opportunity choosing his bloody sacrifice.
tragic outcome tauromachy , usually, remains hidden from U.S. The theme of death, if present in the scenes of tauromachy, is most often only hidden, implicit. And in this, we think, found its expression so characteristic of the feminine psyche. Minoans desire to get away from too gloomy and difficult sides of reality pretending they don't exist at all.
This trend is all the more significant as women clearly did not want to give in palm to the representatives of the "stronger sex" even in these peculiar bullfights, which undoubtedly demanded from their participants a huge physical endurance, strength, agility and courage.
On the famous "Fresco of a Bullfighter" from the palace of Knossos, in addition to a male acrobat making a risky jump over a bull, we also see two girls dressed in men's fashion in short aprons with belts tightly tied at the waist and light boots. One of them grasped with her hands the bull horns pointing straight at her with the clear intention of following her partner, repeating the same "death number". Another girl, it seems, has already landed behind the bull after a well-executed somersault and is now watching the actions of her teammates in joyful excitement. The Knossos fresco, like some other paintings from the same series, clearly shows that in the Minoan women were by no means content with playing the secondary roles of matador assistants, as in the Spanish bullfight, but bravely entered into a deadly fight with an angry animal on a par with men.
This in and of itself indicates an unusually high according to the concepts of almost all ancient peoples, the level social activity of Cretan women, their emergencyself-confidence and heightenedself-esteem. However, it would be a mistake to believe that the only stimulus that forced them to enter the arena was the usual ambition or thirst for self-affirmation.
Games with bulls were arranged, as a rule, in the central courtyard of the Knossos palace, that is, in the very "heart" of this huge ritual complex, which in itself may indicate their absolutely exceptional religious significance.
Occupying one of the key places in the traditional ritual practice of the Minoans, t auromachy was a kind of sacred ceremony and women, as the chief priestesses of the Great Mother, did not yield to men this important means communication with the underworld. If we recognize as justified the above assumption about the feminization of the male half of the Minoan society, then, perhaps, the conjecture about the opposite would be no less legitimate. the process of masculinization of Minoan women. Those who recognize the historical reality of the "Minoan matriarchy" are most often inclined to evaluate it as a phenomenon of a rather surviving nature - a legacy that has not been completely outlived. era of "mother-rights". However, modern ethnography has long concluded that there has never been such an era in the history of mankind, of course, if you put into the concept of "mother's right" something more than just a matrilineal kinship account or a matrilocal marriage.
Consequently, an explanation of this mysterious phenomenon can only be given by an analysis of the specific historical situation that developed in Crete during the formation and flourishing of the Minoan civilization, i.e. in the second half of the 3rd - the first half of the 2nd millennium BC.
The appearance of the first palaces and all the economic structure associated with them, political structures, ideology, etc. often perceived as a kind of mirage that suddenly arose on the elongated mountainous and wooded island of Crete. This impression is partly due to the extreme incomplete archaeological picture period of the genesis of the Minoan statehood, yet cannot be considered absolutely groundless.
For a relatively short period of time in terms of the history of the ancient world, for one or two centuries, the Minoan palace civilization appeared on Crete. The most important elements of palace civilization are monumental architecture, a developed bronze industry, ceramics made with the help of a rapidly rotating potter's wheel and painted in strikingly rich colors. crockery in the style of Kamares, first appearedhieroglyphic, and thensyllabic Minoan writing.
The suddenness of this leap into a new quality seems all the more obvious because until the very end of the Early Bronze Age, that is,before the start of the period"old palaces" Crete remained one of the most backward cultural provinces of the Aegean world. Especially if we compare Crete with areas such as the Peloponnese or Troad, where already in the second half of the III millennium BC. the simplest peculiar cultural models and systems arose, and early palace states began to form.
This slowness in the development of the Minoan society, obviously, was further aggravated by its prolonged isolation from the outside world, clearly resulted in exaggerated forms of tribal organization that arose in Crete already in chronological terms early bronze age and in some places continued to exist even during the period of the "old palaces".
Mound of Atreus in Mycenae. Cretan-Mycenaean civilization
About tribal organization in Crete reminiscent of widely practiced on the islandmass burial mounds, like those of the Scythians , burials in large tombs -
« tholosah"in southern and central Crete, and "ossuaries" - in the East of Crete.
Taking into account all these features of the historical path traversed by the Minoan civilization of Crete in the Bronze Age becomes more or less understandable and the nature of the paradoxical phenomenon, which we conditionally call the "Minoan matriarchy". Apparently it was some kind defensive reaction of a deeply archaic system to a transition too fast for her and, apparently, insufficiently prepared by her previous existence from the primitive communal system to classes and the state.
This the need to protect the archaic system of social organization could further exacerbate and intensify natural disasters like the great earthquake at the turn of the 18th-17th centuries. BC, which turned into ruins almost all the palaces and settlements of Crete. Natural disasters turned back to their origins, the already traumatized ethnic consciousness of the Minoans, forced him to abandon the dubious and dangerous future in the name of a reliable, more than once proven past.
Great Mother Goddess - 1800 - 1700 BC. Crete.
In this setting women like more conservative and the traditionally thinking part of the society, obviously, were able to move to the forefront of public life. Tied to their homes and children, and purely physiologically limited in their independent activities, women enjoyed great prestige, aschief guardians of cults chthonic (Chthonia -Goddess of the Earth) deities related to earth and underworld, which, according to the concepts of the ancients, were primarily responsible for earthquakes and other natural disasters. This gave the ability for women to control the behavior of their husbands and brothers, to restrain their excessive excitement, a thirst for new things and a penchant for adventure, and thereby slow down the too rapid movement of society along the path of historical progress.
In other words, if you understand morality and non-aggressiveness of the Minoan society, as the historical inferiority of the Minoan civilization, which developed as a consequence of the infantilism of men deliberately cultivated in society, the creatively active part of society. However, it is hardly worth blaming the Minoan women for this, because it is their wise guardianship of the opposite sex that we owe the fact that the culture they created has become perhaps the most beautiful of the shoots on the tree of the history of the ancient Mediterranean.
History of the Palace of Knossos
The palace of Knossos in ancient times was striking in its size - one and a half thousand rooms, more than 22 thousand square meters. m, numerous passages, corridors, terraces and cellars. It is logical that people could not immediately find their way in this huge architectural complex, let's add the legends about the Minotaur here and get the meaning of the modern word "Labyrinth", i.e. building from which it is difficult to find a way out.
Each fragment of this archaeological complex had a strictly defined purpose. The northern part of the Knossos Palace, for example, served as a trading function, there began a road connecting Knossos with the port. To the east were the private quarters of the king and queen, as well as an area with workshops. The western part of the palace is administrative, it is known primarily for the throne room, numerous storerooms and sanctuaries. But first things first.
Video of the Palace of Knossos
Western courtyard of the Palace of Knossos
The western courtyard is a place of religious worship. Near the wall of the Knossos Palace are the quadrangular bases of two altars, on which goats and sheep were sacrificed to the gods. And during the most important holidays - and bulls.
After passing the turnstiles, you just get to the Western Courtyard.
Here in the western courtyard is located, he devoted his life to the excavations of Knossos. Evans proved to scientists that the Palace of Knossos is not a myth invented by the ancient Greeks. It was Evans who called the ancient civilization the Minoan.
Arthur Evans proved that the Minoans did not belong to the Greeks, but to the so-called Mediterranean race. The Minoans had dark skin, almond-shaped eyes, dark curly hair, and in general, resembled the ancient Egyptians in their appearance. Religion also differed from the Greek, the Minoans worshiped a whole pantheon of their deities, the main of which was the goddess Mother. The symbol of this goddess was a double ax, which was denoted by the word "labrys". The term "labyrinth" appears as a derivative of the word "labrys". Those. The labyrinth is nothing more than a double ax temple or a double ax sanctuary.
Wooden copy of the royal throne
Central courtyard
The central courtyard is the heart of the Knossos Palace, the place of ritual games with the bull, the myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinth was born here. The central courtyard had an incredibly important technical and religious significance. From a technical point of view, it was necessary to provide sufficient lighting and ventilation of adjacent premises. Also under it was a huge cistern with a volume of 12 thousand liters, where rainwater was collected.
ancient theater
This is not a simple staircase, as it may seem at first. This is the oldest theater in Europe. Various religious events dedicated to the Minoan gods took place here. Spectators were located on the steps, and standing, not sitting. Elevations were intended for the most senior officials of the Knossos palace. The unevenness of the scene shows the effects of the earthquake.
These are not steps at all, but the ancient theater of the Minoans
Frescoes in the Palace of Knossos
The frescoes found during excavations in the Palace of Knossos are of paramount importance, because. it was from them that scientists were able to determine the appearance of the Minoan race, their religion, way of life. Yes, tablets with letters were also found here, but they have not yet been deciphered.
The first fresco you will see in the palace is called "Processional Corridor". It depicts men and women carrying offerings to the mother goddess. The people depicted in the fresco have features of the Mediterranean race, which we wrote about above.
Fresco "Corridor of Processions"
A small number of frescoes from the palace of Knossos can be found in a room called spear room.
Minoan frescoes indicate the presence of matriarchy (the primacy of women in society and the family).
The next fresco depicts women - priestesses, and all the red mass around is men. This is a clear manifestation of the matriarchal worldview.
Fresco depicting female priestesses
The next fresco also depicts priestesses. Here much attention is paid to details, drawings of clothes, jewelry, faces of women.
On this fresco, a more detailed drawing of the priestesses
In the Minoan culture there was no image of violence, murder, bloodshed, erotica.
The main fresco in the room - bull game. The fresco depicts a bull and three human figures. This is a symbol of the three exercises that were part of the game with the bull. First you had to grab onto his horns. Then roll over the back of the animal and land on the opposite side. What's the point? And the meaning is that this game with a bull is a symbolic image of the union between the Mother Goddess and the divine bull. This is a ritual of the reunion of the deities of the Minoans, the beginning of a new natural cycle, the revival of nature. It was the main holiday for the Minoans.
Fresco "Playing with the Bull"
And what about the minotaur?
The myth of the minotaur was invented by the Greeks. When the ritual-sacred game of the Minoans with the bull took place, foreigners - the Greeks, were not allowed into the palace. They could only hear the howling of the bulls, the heart-rending cries of the wounded athletes, the cheers of the crowd. Thanks to the Greeks, a legend is born that here in the heart of the labyrinth, a certain monster with the head of a bull accepts human sacrifices, eating unfortunate people alive.
Another important and most mysterious fresco of the Knossos Palace is Prince with lilies. The fresco is three-dimensional and stands out for its large size. Unfortunately, it is still unknown what is actually depicted on it.
"The Lily Prince"
Maps of the Palace of Knossos
Our review of Knossos
Having succumbed to the advertising and promotion of this archaeological complex, we came to see what kind of palace this is. The palace of Knossos is a partially restored ruin with partially preserved walls, arches and frescoes. The area is much smaller than the archaeological park at Paphos in Cyprus, but there are more ruins preserved and restored.
Just walking around the ruins of the Knossos Palace for 15 euros per person is quite a waste (you will pay money, but you won’t understand what and where), so it’s best to use at least an audio guide (you can download it to your phone before the trip) or book a tour. Guided tours are also offered on site. The cost can range from 10 to 20 euros (in addition to the ticket price). Keep in mind - this is not an individual tour, you will have to wait until the group gathers (and large groups gather).
At the same time, you will have to stand in a lot of queues to see the key attractions of the palace. The largest queues gather at the throne room and the queen's rest. You will have to stand in line in the sun, and if you take a group tour, then you will have to stand 100%, because. paid.
You can pre-book an individual tour in Russian with a guide - historian, it will naturally cost more, but you won’t have to wait in the heat for the group to gather, and you can walk a more interesting individual route around the palace.
Examples of interesting individual tours of the Palace of Knossos:
Tip 1: be sure to bring water, hats and an audio guide to your phone. Well, or a printout of an article about Knossos from our website.
Tip 2: if there is an opportunity and desire, it is better to take it in advance, because. a lot of things are not clear, but the most important thing here is history!
Tip 3: come out of season or when, cloudy and early. There are always long queues at the ticket office of the palace, but they move quickly. You will have to stand for 10-15 minutes.
And now important information on prices, opening hours of the Palace of Knossos and routes, how to get to this attraction of Crete.
Cost of entrance tickets to the Palace of Knossos and opening hours
The usual entrance ticket costs - 15 euros.
The cost of a reduced ticket is 8 euros.
The official website contains a fairly long list of persons who are eligible for a discount. In 95% of cases this applies to citizens of Greece and the EU. If you are not an EU citizen, the reduced ticket is only valid for higher education students upon presentation of a student card.
Guides have the right to pass free of charge upon presentation of an official ID.
How to get to the Palace of Knossos?
We will not talk now about how to get to it by sightseeing bus - this is the concern of the travel agency.
By car
By car, everything is also simple - you mark a point on the map in the navigator (without which it is better not to go to a foreign country), and it will lead you where you need to go. We use MAPS.ME. But you can try with Google-navigator. The road to the palace is good. The only point is that it is better to come either early in the morning to the opening, or already somewhere in the afternoon. Parking is free there is one near the palace, but it is small and full of buses.
By city bus
From Heraklion from the bus station there is a blue city bus number 2. He has Knossos written on his forehead, and the Palace of Knossos is the final stop on his route. Travel time is 20 minutes. The cost of a one-way ticket is 1.5 euros.
Summing up, we highlight the subjective pros and cons of visiting the Knossos Palace.
Pros: centuries-old history, interesting frescoes, exhibits, the smell of pine trees around.
Minuses: ticket price, crowds and queues. There are no maps, brochures with information about the territory of the Knossos Palace at the box office.
Is it worth going to the Palace of Knossos? - Rather yes than no. But, don't have any big illusions, to be honest, we didn't get a lot of enthusiasm, perhaps this was due to the inflated ticket prices and large crowds of tourists. We must be ready for this.
How do we save on hotels?
Everything is very simple - look not only on booking.com. We love the RoomGuru search engine. He searches for discounts simultaneously on Booking and 70 other booking sites.
In Crete, traces of the bull cult are found everywhere. But special attention is drawn to a panel from the Palace of Knossos (which is supposed to have been the labyrinth of the Minotaur), depicting ritual games with a bull.
The panel depicts a huge bull rushing in a swift gallop. Behind the bull, in front and on it, dexterous acrobats perform dangerous tricks. The first grabs the bull by the horns, the second jumps over the back, making a dizzying somersault, the third falls to the ground, stretching out his arms for balance, as modern acrobats do after the jump.
The sequence of movements resembles a cartoon: as if the same person is doing the whole trick. On the one hand, all people are similar - but at the top is a man painted in brown. Here we are dealing with the influence of the Egyptian pictorial tradition. According to the Egyptian canon, the body of women was depicted in white or yellow, and the body of men in brown. Then it turns out that a man is depicted at the top.
The image of a bull occupies almost the entire fresco, he is the central figure. The huge size emphasizes its divine origin. As in Egypt, the scale symbolized the significance of the depicted. But still, no matter how destructive the elemental power of the bull, there is hope that the man will win this fight. The movements of the acrobats are coordinated and perfected, and the side figures visually, as it were, hold back the pressure of the bull. Man sooner or later will prevail over the unbridled elements of nature.
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Everyone is used to depicting animals on a star map, and if you imagine that the panel from the Knossos Palace is a map of the earth. The stylized-mythological depiction of the Americas in the form of a bull once again makes you think that the mainland had other names. BRAZIL-ham, and the near part to the head is all cut up by Canadian lakes. White youths are the ice caps of the earth, and the GIRL is Atlantis on the mid-Atlantic ridge that has not yet descended until the next flood: brown, because the land. Europe abducted by the Bull - myth or reality. I give to EVERYONE!
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In the formation of the art of the peoples who lived in the Mediterranean basin, a huge role was played by the so-called gay And art. Aegean culture took shape and developed in the I II-II millennia BC. e. and was created by the tribes that lived on about islands of Crete, Peloponnese, West coast of Asia Minor.
In 1871, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann unearthed more “pre-Homeric” cities on the Gissarlik hill, which can be dated back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. and which relate to the prehistory of the Aegean culture. Schliemann soon began excavations in the Peloponnese; they and V. Dörpfeld excavated Mycenae, and at the beginning of the 20th century. the English archaeologist A. Evans discovered to the world the architecture and painting of the Knossos Palace in Crete. He was the first to raise the question of the connection between Cretan art and the art of the Ancient East, primarily Egypt, he also owns periodization of the Aegean culture. The periods into which Evans proposed to divide the Aegean culture are called Minoan (early, middle and late) - after the legendary king of the island of Crete Minos. It was about Crete and its past that the Roman poet Ve wrote. rgilius in the 1st century. BC e.:
“Crete, the island of the great Zeus, lies in the middle of the sea, the Idean mountains are there, the cradle of this is our kind. One hundred cities inhabit the great rich kingdoms ... "
The cities of Crete began to be built up at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Ever since the 18th century. BC e. became the main among the cities of Crete Knossos. Palace of Knossos, as far as can be judged from the excavations, was created by ancient architects with great skill, taking into account the peculiarities of the landscape.
The palace is located on a low hill, the center of the architectural complex is a rectangular courtyard (60x28 m). Rooms are freely and naturally grouped around the courtyard; in its different parts, the palace was multi-storey. The royal apartments were replaced by more modest living rooms, the sanctuaries - by gyms, swimming pools (the Cretans knew the plumbing), open areas (as scientists suggest, for theatrical performances and religious ceremonies). A feature of the construction technique of the Knossos Palace, built of raw brick and stone, are wooden columns on a stone base, expanding upwards.
Knossos palace. Fresco.
Knossos palace. Fresco.
The walls of the front halls of the palace were painted with frescoes (water-based paints on wet plaster). Black, white, blue, red, yellow colors make up the festive range. Images are imprinted reality, flowers, papyri, palmetto leaves, lilies, birds, cats, monkeys. Fi appears especially often. bull gurus: games with this animal, apparently, had a special distribution and some kind of ritual meaning.
In the Throne Room of the Palace of Knossos, on a red background of the wall, fabulous creatures - griffins (lions with eagle heads) are depicted among the papyri. On the walls of the Palace of Knossos there are many human figures, either performing some kind of religious rite, or being tributaries with gifts, participants in theatrical performances, feasts. All this is depicted vividly, directly, freely, with the indispensable bright realities of everyday life. The conventionality of the images of human figures is reflected in the fact that the face is usually depicted in profile, and the eyes (eye) in front.
Women watching the performance (the so-called "Ladies in Blue"). Fresco of the Palace of Knossos* (restored). Middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. (16th century BC) Heracleion. Museum.
In the scenes with the bull, the figures of the bull (always very large) and people are disproportionate.
Acrobats with a bull. * approx. 1550 BC e. 78.2 cm × cm Frescoes of the Palace of Knossos Archaeological Museum of Heraklion
Ilyina T.V. Art history. Western European Art: Textbook - 3rd ed., Revised. and add.-M .: Higher. school., 2000.- 368 p.
The Austrian specialist in ancient history, Fritz Schachermayr, noted the special love of Minoan architects, sculptors, and artists for bright, sometimes even somewhat variegated tones in wall and vase painting. About their purely feminine perception of the environment, so clearly expressed in scenes from the life of nature, especially in images of females of various animals with cubs, about a special mood of festivity that literally permeates all the most famous works of classical Cretan art and reigns even in the scenes of the funeral cult on a sarcophagus from Ayia Triada. Of course, each of these characteristic touches separately can find its own special explanation in some other deep properties of the Minoan spirit and Minoan culture. Nevertheless, taken together, they almost inevitably lead us to the idea that the value system inherent in this culture was focused to a large extent on the female psyche, female perception of the world.
Feminine or rather androgynous appearance of Cretan men Wonderful in harmony with their amazing peacefulness, perceived as a kind of anomaly against the general background of the harsh realities of the Bronze Age. If we take seriously the evidence of fine art monuments that have come down to us, we 
will inevitably have to admit that demonstration of religious piety, that is, participation in all kinds of rituals and ceremonies, occupied in the lives of men incomparably more important place than war and hunting are truly masculine pursuits. In Crete itself, subjects of this kind, apart from some rather problematic reconstructions by Arthur Evans, remain virtually unknown until very late.
So, there is reason to believe that the natural male aggressiveness, pugnacity and love of adventure in Minoan society were artificially restrained. Anyway, their demonstrative displays were not encouraged. There were only two opportunities to demonstrate prowess and youth, apparently not condemned, but, on the contrary, encouraged by public opinion.
These may be considered fisticuffs and the so-called taurotapsia — bull games. Both of these subjects are very popular in Crete and throughout the territory covered by the influence of the Minoan civilization, images athletic competitions, apparently, contained some not quite accessible to our understanding "sacred-magical subtext ritual actions in the most important religious festivals of the annual cycle.
We learn about rituals - taurokatapsy - (Greek ταυροκαθάψια) - ritual jumping over a bull, from numerous images on the walls of palaces, preserved in the palaces of the island of Crete, on frescoes and household items.
Scenes of taurocatapsia quite well represented in almost all the main genres of Minoan art: in fresco painting, and in sculpture, and in glyptics. As far as these images allow to judge, bull games in the Minoan civilization were associated with a mortal risk for their participants in and hardly managed without serious human casualties. It is likely that they the ultimate goal was to propitiate the deity, who during the competition was given the opportunity choosing his bloody sacrifice.
tragic outcome taurocatapsia, usually, remains hidden from U.S. The theme of death, if present in the scenes of tauromachy, is most often only hidden, implicit. And in this, we think, found its expression so characteristic of the feminine psyche. Minoans desire to get away from too gloomy and difficult sides of reality pretending they don't exist at all.
This trend is all the more significant as women clearly did not want to give in palm to the representatives of the "stronger sex" even in these peculiar bullfights, which undoubtedly demanded from their participants a huge physical endurance, strength, agility and courage.
On the famous "Fresco of a Bullfighter" from the palace of Knossos, in addition to a male acrobat making a risky jump over a bull, we also see two girls dressed in men's fashion in short aprons with belts tightly tied at the waist and light boots. One of them grasped with her hands the bull horns pointing straight at her with the clear intention of following her partner, repeating the same "death number". The other girl seems to have already landed behind the bull after a well-executed somersault and is now watching her teammates in gleeful excitement.
The Knossos fresco, as well as some other paintings from the same series, clearly enough shows that in the Minoan taurocatapsia women were by no means content with playing the secondary roles of matador assistants, as in the Spanish bullfight, but bravely entered into a deadly fight with an angry animal on a par with men.
This in and of itself indicates an unusually high according to the concepts of almost all ancient peoples, the level social activity of Cretan women, their emergency self-confidence and heightened However, it would be a mistake to believe that the only stimulus that forced them to enter the arena was the usual ambition or thirst for self-affirmation.
Games with bulls were arranged, as a rule, in the central courtyard of the Knossos palace, that is, in the very "heart" of this huge ritual complex, which in itself may indicate their absolutely exceptional religious significance.
Occupying one of the key places in the traditional ritual practice of the Minoans, t auromachy was a kind of sacred ceremony and women, as the chief priestesses of the Great Mother, did not yield to men this important means communication with the underworld. If we recognize as justified the above assumption about the feminization of the male half of the Minoan society, then, perhaps, the conjecture about the opposite would be no less legitimate. the process of masculinization of Minoan women.
Those who recognize the historical reality of the "Minoan matriarchy" are most often inclined to evaluate it as a phenomenon of a rather surviving nature - a legacy that has not been completely outlived. era of "mother-rights". However, modern ethnography has long concluded that there has never been such an era in the history of mankind, of course, if you put into the concept of "mother's right" something more than just a matrilineal kinship account or a matrilocal marriage.
Consequently, an explanation of this mysterious phenomenon can only be given by an analysis of the specific historical situation that developed in Crete during the formation and flourishing of the Minoan civilization, i.e. in the second half of the 3rd - the first half of the 2nd millennium BC.
The appearance of the first palaces and all the economic structure associated with them, political structures, ideology, etc. often perceived as a kind of mirage that suddenly arose on the elongated mountainous and wooded island of Crete. This impression is partly due to the extreme incomplete archaeological picture period of the genesis of the Minoan statehood, yet cannot be considered absolutely groundless.
For a relatively short period of time in terms of the history of the ancient world, for one or two centuries, the Minoan palace civilization appeared on Crete. The most important elements of palace civilization are monumental architecture, a developed bronze industry, ceramics made with the help of a rapidly rotating potter's wheel and painted in strikingly rich colors. crockery in the style of Kamares, first appeared hieroglyphic, and then
The suddenness of this leap into a new quality seems all the more obvious because until the very end of the Early Bronze Age, that is, before the start of the period remained one of the most backward cultural provinces of the Aegean world. Especially if we compare Crete with areas such as the Peloponnese or Troad, where already in the second half of the III millennium BC. the simplest peculiar cultural models and systems arose, and early palace states began to form.
This slowness in the development of the Minoan society, obviously, was further aggravated by its prolonged isolation from the outside world, clearly resulted in exaggerated forms of tribal organization that arose in Crete already in chronological terms early bronze age and in some places continued to exist even during the period of the "old palaces".
Mound of Atreus in Mycenae. Cretan-Mycenaean civilization
About tribal organization in Crete reminiscent of widely practiced on the island Northern Black Sea region, burials in large tombs -« tholosah" in southern and central Crete, and "ossuaries" - in the East of Crete.
Taking into account all these features of the historical path traversed by the Minoan civilization of Crete in the Bronze Age becomes more or less understandable and the nature of the paradoxical phenomenon, which we conditionally call the "Minoan matriarchy". Apparently it was some kind defensive reaction of a deeply archaic system to a transition too fast for her and, apparently, insufficiently prepared by her previous existence from the primitive communal system to classes and the state.
This the need to protect the archaic system of social organization could further exacerbate and intensify natural disasters like the great earthquake at the turn of the 18th-17th centuries. BC, which turned into ruins almost all the palaces and settlements of Crete. Natural disasters turned back to their origins, the already traumatized ethnic consciousness of the Minoans, forced him to abandon the dubious and dangerous future in the name of a reliable, more than once proven past.
Great Mother Goddess - 1800 - 1700 BC. Crete.
In this setting women like more conservative and the traditionally thinking part of the society, obviously, were able to move to the forefront of public life. Tied to their homes and children, and purely physiologically limited in their independent activities, women enjoyed great authority as chthonic (Chthonia - related to earth and underworld, which, according to the concepts of the ancients, were primarily responsible for earthquakes and other natural disasters. This gave the ability for women to control the behavior of their husbands and brothers, to restrain their excessive excitement, a thirst for new things and a penchant for adventure, and thereby slow down the too rapid movement of society along the path of historical progress.
In other words, if you understand morality and non-aggressiveness of the Minoan society, as the historical inferiority of the Minoan civilization, which developed as a consequence of the infantilism of men deliberately cultivated in society, the creatively active part of society.
However, it is hardly worth blaming the Minoan women for this, because it is their wise guardianship of the opposite sex that we owe the fact that the culture they created has become perhaps the most beautiful of the shoots on the tree of the history of the ancient Mediterranean.
The rite of taurotapsia was preserved in Spain, but acquired somewhat different forms.
In 1816 Spanish artist and engraver Francisco Goya created a series of 33 etchings with bullfighting scenes called "Tauromachia"
Tauromachia (Greek, from tauros - bull, and mache - fight) (toreo, bullfight) - a public spectacle during which a fighter (torero or matador) teases the bull with a red cloth (muleta), making a series of skillful gestures, and at the end of the bullfight, as a rule, kills the bull with a sword
