Seafaring traders Extend Boundaries The Point: Trading societies extended the development of civilizations beyond the Fertile Crescent region.

The Minoans

The Minoans, a powerful seafaring people, dominated trade in the Eastern Mediterranean from 2000 to 1400 B.C.

The Minoans lived on the Island of Crete, a large island off the southern edge of the Aegean sea.

The Minoans produced some of the finest painted pottery of the time. They traded that pottery, along with swords, figurines, and vessels of precious metals, over a large area.

Along with their goods, the Minoans also exported their art and architecture. These include a unique architectural style, burial customs, and culture.

The excavation of Knossos and its colorful painted walls produced a great deal of information about Minoans. The wall paintings, as well as the official seals and painted vases, show the Minoans as graceful, athletic people who loved nature and beautiful objects.

Many works of Minoan art show people performing incredible acrobatic leaps over the horns of angry bulls. There was a deep link between Minoans and nature, symbolized by the bull.

The Minoans sacrificed bulls and other animals to their gods.

Minoan culture had an enormous influence on Greece. Trading turned Crete into a kind of “stepping stone” for cultural exchange throughout the Mediterranean world.

Archeologists in the 19 th century excavated Knossos, the Minoan city capital. There, they found the remains of an advanced and thriving culture.

Style Minoan men are usually depicted as having little more than loin cloths.

From illustrations, women wore long skirts and short-sleeved tops.

It must have been a peaceful one as well, since the Minoan cities did not seem to need fortifications to protect them.

The Archeologists named the civilization they found in Crete after King Minos.

According to a legend, King Minos was a king who kept a half human, half bull monster called a Minotaur. He kept the monster locked inside of a Labyrinth, a complicated maze from which no one could escape.

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Excavation of a mountain temple revealed the bones of a 17-year-old boy on an altar, along with the skeletons of three priests. The positions of the skeletons suggest that the priests were carrying out human sacrifice.

In about 1700 B.C., a great disaster, perhaps an earthquake, destroyed most of the Minoan towns and cities.

The disaster of 1470 B.C., was a disaster from which the Minoans were unable to recover. The 300 year old civilization was nearing its end.

As they were trying to recover a group of people most likely from Greece that have come to be known as the Sea People took advantage of the Minoans weakened conditions and destroyed them.