You're Dead to Me - Minoan Civilisation

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

In this episode, Greg Jenner is joined in Bronze Age Crete by Dr Stephen Kershaw and comedian Josie Long to learn all about the ancient Minoan civilisation. Many of us know the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur: King Minos of Crete feeds young men and women to the half-human beast in the labyrinth under his palace until the brave Theseus kills the monster. At the end of the nineteenth century, a Cretan archaeologist discovered a palace that many believed had belonged to Minos himself. Not only that, but experts soon found traces of an entire Bronze Age civilisation on the island. But what was this Minoan society really like? From the palaces of the mighty, through the daily lives of ordinary people and their religious beliefs, this episode explores the Minoans and the archaeological work that has uncovered the truth behind the myths. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Anna McCully Stewart Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. $10 per month on Rogers Internet. Visit Rogers.com for details. We got you, Rogers. It's summer in Britain, and the crimes are just getting started. I found another body. Stream the best of British crime drama only on BritBox. Don't miss new seasons of acclaimed series like Blue Lights,

which Time Out calls Belfast's answer to the wire. Back up, back up, over. And The Responder, starring Martin Freeman in his international Emmy award-winning role. I can feel it, I'm gonna crack. Hello and welcome to You're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history BBC Sounds music radio podcasts Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are sailing all the way back to Bronze Age Crete to learn about the ancient Minoan civilization and to help us mine truth from minot or myth. We have two very special guests. In History Corner, he's a lecturer at Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education.

His research includes classical mythology and history. He's the author of several books, including Mythologica, a fantastic illustrated children's encyclopedia of Greek myths, it's very lovely. And you'll remember him from our episode all about Atlantis, it's not real, it's Dr. Steve Kershaw, welcome back, Steve. Thank you very much, I'm delighted to be back.

Yes, delighting. It's all lip-busting. And in Comedy Corner, she's a comedian, broadcaster and author. You will know her from Radio 4's Shortcuts, AR10Cats, Have a Good News for You, Richard Osman's House of Games. She's very busy. Maybe you've read her books, including the recent short story collection, Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't. But you'll definitely remember her from our episode on medieval science it's Josie Long welcome back Josie thank you thanks for having me back and cannot

tell you how heartbroken I was but just the casual Atlantis didn't exist oh no we know you studied history at a level last time we heard and I know you was famously brainy you're a big book, but are you a gold star student when it comes to the Bronze Age? Absolutely not. However, I feel that I have some little crumbs to cling to, but then I feel like I learned last time that those crumbs were not serving me well.

Like even as you said, like minor to a miss, I was like, okay, we won't mention that. All of the stuff that was going on around that time, I find very exciting, but I wouldn't say that I... I'm glad you're here, Steve, I think that's the main part. Okay. I'm glad you're here, too. Thank you.

Yeah, no offense, we wouldn't have booked you if it was just you. We probably... And you'd be like, tell us about it. You'd be like, whoa, there's a lot of pots. I've seen these pots and they're all broken. I don't know why. So what do you know?

This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. I'm guessing you might know the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur set in the huge labyrinth under Minoan Creek, that's where the word labyrinth comes from. You'll perhaps know the story of Icarus and his dad escaping the island, flying too close to the sun, very sad. But apart from that, maybe you have visited the magnificent ruins of Knossos on a holiday to Crete, perhaps that would make you a minor tourist for looking for the minor tour, that's a pun for you there, enjoy it. But what's the truth behind the Minos myth? What was life really like back in the Bronze Age on Crete and why might their fashion choices

raise a few eyebrows now? Let's find out. Josie, do you know when in history the Minoans were hanging about on Crete? Do you wanna give me the nearest millennium? Okay, if I had to guess, I would say it was 6,000 years ago. That's not bad.

You're slightly, slightly too early. Oh, too early? Damn, I was gonna say 5,000 years ago and then my brain was like, push it. Go big're slightly, slightly too early. Oh too early? Damn I was gonna say 5 000 years ago and then my brain was like push it. Go big. 5 000 years ago. 5 000 I think is the start right Steve? We're getting there yeah we're getting there and they were around for a long time so they first sort of emerge around 3000 BC and they last to about 1450 BC. So they emerge at roughly the same time as dynastic Egypt. Yes, OK.

That's when writing is invented. So they're a Bronze Age civilization parallel to these other kind of famous great civilizations. What a time to be alive. It's a great time, yeah. As a kid, did you ever learn about the Minotaur? Oh, absolutely. Do you want to summarize it for us?

Yeah, of course. Oh, god, no. OK. The worst part is I'm like, of course I know that story, and now what do I know of it? Underneath this palace of King Minos, Knossos, there's like a labyrinth. Now, is it, so either it's a punishment or it's a competition, and there's something to do with the red thread, and you have to follow the red thread, and then at the bottom of it, the minotaur, and the minotaur is half man, half bull, and you have to follow the red thread and then at the bottom of it the minotaur and the minotaur is half man

Half bull and you'd be pleased to know the top half is the bull not the bottom half Well, that's by sent to us interesting how they chose that. Yeah. Yeah, they were like, of course No one wants to see the top half of a horse But people desperately the top half of a bull and it's this horrendous beast and the person is able to survive it Yeah, by keeping this red thread and following back out the puzzle. So it's like very much a kind of Hansel and Gretel meets a cow story. So I assume it was a punishment that somebody was sent down there?

That's a pretty good summary I think. Thesis, thesis in the Miner's Horses, thesis is it? That's right, that's thesis, yeahie. Thesis in the Minos, is it? That's right, that's thesis, yeah. And do you know what's interesting, Icarus, I think all of this in my head gets subsumed into Greek myths. So the fact that I'm like, oh Cretan myths, half of the stuff I think is Greek, and I mean technically now it's Greece but like five thousand years ago absolutely not. Good job Josie Long, Steve, what did Josie miss out? Totally excellent, I mean, it's all there.

Yeah. So there's this guy, King Minos, and he's this sort of mythical king of Crete. He's the son of Zeus and Europa. He wanted to be king, but there was a dispute going on and he prayed to the god Poseidon to support him and said, will you send a bull from the sea? And he did, and that was just wonderful, but Minos couldn't bring himself to sacrifice the bull

after he'd done this, which he really should have done that. So as revenge, Poseidon actually made Minos's wife, who was called Pasiphae, fall in lust with the bull. Not love, lust. It was definitely lust. These myths are so horny, and it's so weird. And it just gets worse, alright, because she then ordered Didylus, who's the great craftsman of Greek myth, to make her kind of like a hollow cow on wheels covered in cowhide so she could climb inside it and enjoy a lovely sexy time

with the bull. Greg said to me, now listen, this is a clean podcast, please don't do anything dirty. And I'm sorry the Minowans have started this by being incredibly dirty. Yeah, and because the inevitable happened and then what you get now is she gave birth to a sort of cute little baby Minotaur that then grew up into this most obscene beast. She catfished that bull. Yeah, I see. And it was at this point that Minos decided that we need to shut this beast away. So he had Daedalus build this labyrinth, which was this underground structure that was so complicated, you could get in, but you could never get out.

Minos kind of, he was Minos had a big sea empire and one of his sons, he had a son who was killed by the Athenians and so as revenge he wanted compensation. So he demanded that the Athenians should send him seven young men and seven young women, either every year or every nine years, it varies. The Minotaur was eating Athenian young people on a regular basis until the Athenian prince Theseus volunteered to go and he defeated the Minotaur. He was helped by Minos's daughter who was called Ariadne. The web!

And she's the one who gave him the thread and so that he could get down into the into the labyrinth he could kill the Minotaur and he could find his way out. And then final thing is that Daedalus the inventor and his son Icarus they get punished by Minos who thinks that he he's helped them he thinks that the inventor has helped in this escape plan they get put in a sort of castle tower prison sort of thing yeah and then they build the wings to try and escape the island but Icarus is a young man, full of pride, flies too close to the sun and his wings melt and he drowns. So that's what people knew about

ancient Crete until about the year 1900 or so, isn't it? And news are doing a lot of heavy lifting there. That's some serious storytelling. And Josie, later writings in ancient Greek history talk about the Cretans. What do you think their reputation was then? I mean, would their reputation be like how people talk about Norfolk? You know? Like, oh, it's all the way over there and they get up to some weird stuff with bulls, you know? Like, would it be that?

Not quite that. They were known to be... Was it wine and honey? No, it wasn't. They were known to be aggressive and warlike and liars. Don't trust the Cretans. So at the end of the 19th century Steve, people's mental image of Bronze Age Crete is basically child-eating monster, huge labyrinth, melty wings, some light bestiality involving a cow suit. Luckily archaeologists then get involved.

They do and the picture changes a little bit. Right at the end of the 19th century, there's in the the 1878, 1879, there's a Cretan archaeologist whose name is Minos, his first name is Minos. Minos Kalakirinos he's called. And he excavated, he was doing some excavations at the the palace as they called it, at Knossos, which is on the north side of Crete. And what he found was some what they called pithoi, huge ceramic storage jars that he then sent out to various museums. This excited everybody's interest and all of a sudden archaeologists really, really wanted to know, they wanted to know

more about this palace. Was it a great palace? Was it King Minos's palace? And everybody wants to have a bit of the action. The most important one really is Arthur Evans. He's the the keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He was shown the site by this guy, Kalakirinos, in 1894 and he put his money where his mouth is. He bought the site by this guy, Kalakarinos, in 1894. And he put his money where his mouth is. He bought the site in 1900. There'd been a huge war between the Turks and the Cretans as the Cretans won their independence from the Ottomans. But he bought the site and he started to dig. Sadly for Kalakarinos, he kind of gets edited out of the story in a way and Evans takes over

as the main character. So Evans is the guy who really takes over and becomes the man who the story is built around. But the fact that King Minos was discovered by someone called Minos, that's like me discovering the concept of sausage rolls. I've invented sausage rolls. But are there any Joesies from history that you could, could you uncover a Josie from history? I did recently, but I think it's, it's controversial. I've been researching people who did kind of eco-terrorism throughout the years, and I found that there's a woman called Josephine Sunshine Overaker, who participated in a lot of quite extreme acts of sabotage. They were arsonists

in the late 90s. Now controversial techniques that we don't necessarily endorse, but the reasoning behind it was to protect natural environments and stuff. She's evaded the law for 20 years and she's my age. And I keep being like, imagine if I was her. And they mocked up a photo of her aged, so the last you saw of her, she was 20 and now she's 42. And may I say the mocked up aged photo was so insulting. It was like they were trying to goad her out of hiding. They were like, look at this, it's bad, isn't it? She'd come back and be like, I look great, you know. But I found out about her and I thought she was very cool and it was a new unearthing from history.

So Arthur Evans, why has he put his money where his mouth is? Initially, his main interest to start with was in ancient writing scripts, actually. He wasn't necessarily seeking what he found. But what he did find was this kind of, as he saw it, this European high civilization that was something that could rival those great civilizations of Egypt and the Near East.

And it's him really who gives the name to these people as well. He based it on the name of King Minos. He called them Minoans. Or Minoans if you're right. You can pronounce it both ways. We don't know what they called themselves. We have references to sort of Crete and Cretans in Egyptian sources. They use Keftu in Hebrew, they're Kaftor in Babylonian, they are Kapta-ruh, but we don't know what they actually called themselves. So it raises this fantastic question, I think, that's often asked is whether Arthur Evans discovered the Minoans or whether he invented them.

Oh, okay. So were they a distinct culture? Are they one society? This is what he liked to think, I think. He wanted to find, I think, a genuinely distinct culture that he could compare with those contemporaries in Egypt and Mesopotamia and he wanted something that was different from the Mycenaeans and the classical Greeks. Are they only on Crete? So they're probably more diffuse than that, actually. They have outliers in different Greek islands. It seems to be you find the spread of this culture,

but as far as he was concerned it was very much a Cretan-based civilization. We'll call them Minoans for today, but Josie, if in 4,000 years time archaeologists dig up your house and it's the definitive house that represents the 21st century. What are they going to call our society? Well, the main thing for me is that I'm going to really get myself, my body in some silt. If I'm not lying in some silt, I will have deteriorated, you know. I'm not taking that risk. It's the top floor flat as well. Oh, right. I'll have to get myself a little silt bathtub.

I feel like I'm going to go just getting that silt and then I'll do some things to like mess with them. to get myself a little silk bathtub. I feel like I'm going to go just getting that silk and then I'll do some things to like mess with them. So I'll like steal a helmet from the British Museum and I'll hold an iPad. So they were like, who were these people? The Josephines. Were they warriors? And I'll be preserved. So they'll be like, oh, this woman. But I do know from, you know, seeing people reconstruct a Neanderthal head of a 40-year-old woman, I know that they'll be mean about me. Like, I know they'll be like, oh, grandma was at the end of her

life, you know, and I know I'll have to just sort of deal with that. I think if they were to, if it was my flat particularly, they would think that we were a lot messier than we are collectively. They'd be like, people didn't store things. They didn't store clothes, they kept them all over the floor. They had bookshelves, but they just piled everything up next to them. They didn't clean. That society was not a clean society. You've got a toddler, you've got an excuse, it's fine. Oh yeah, but she's not going to be in the silt, they won't know about that. They're just like this lonely woman. So today we're going to try and pin some reality onto the myths. Seraphir Evans was trying to do

that, but he had some quite controversial techniques. Do you know what he did at Knossos that is very, well controversial is the word actually in terms of his archaeological techniques? No, I don't at all. Have you ever visited? I have, I think. I've been to Crete, so I do think I have been there. I've definitely, yes I have.

It was just a long time ago. My main memory was that I was far too warm the whole time. Yeah, I also, when I was a kid, I used to go on summer camps that were like for gifted children. There's no way to make it sound cool. One day course that I did with a brilliant teacher was about having a look at the ruins of that palace and trying to see if there had been a basement level under it. The big conclusion at the end I think we all came to was there are steps down. It's an underground labyrinth. That's what I do know but no I don't know what he would have done controversially. I can guess

like from the era that maybe he stole everything, maybe He touched it all, you know, he picked it up, he smashed it, I don't know. So, I mean, they needed to preserve it after they dug it. They really, they wanted to preserve it. So, they ultimately reconstituted it, as that was his word. They reconstructed it using reinforced concrete, which was the high-tech thing of the day. Yeah, I guess so. So they did that and they also reconstructed a lot of the frescoes and figurines that had been found on site as well.

So fundamentally he was in a way creating his vision of what Knossos was and that's what people see now. So he put the Crete in concrete. It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. To restore or not to restore, ethically, where do you stand on it? I feel like in 1901, the culture of study, the culture of understanding,

perhaps wasn't there in the way it is now. I feel like now, if somebody found an ancient site somewhere in Jordan, for example, I don't think it would be at all wise for them to be like, I've got a handle on this, I'll just build it. You know, like, I feel like now people there's no excuse. But I feel like back then, why not have a bit of fun with it? You know? No, I think about a lot of that, like Egyptologists and things from that time, and you think, oh, the damage that was done by people even trying to do the right thing. Let's deconstruct the reconstruction. What did Minos, Kallakrinos and Arthur Evans find originally?

A lot of the archaeological sites, a number of them anyway, on Crete are what they called palaces and Evans saw it kind of as the seat of a dynasty of priest-kings. And the other thing is that this palace exists for a very long time. So he had to choose one particular phase of its development. And how do we date the Minoan civilization? You said 3000s of 1400 BC. There are 12 phases of ancient Egyptian history. How many phases in Korean history? There's a gazillion of them and different systems of working as well. There's two main ones where they

they just call it early, middle and late. I like that, that's good. Which is quite nice but then they divide those into three and then they give them letters and sometimes numbers. So you get sort of you know middle, minor and 2a and that kind of thing which would be, I... that's what they'll do with us actually. They'll do it with your bathtub. Yeah, but it'll be your hand-held mobile device. You know, they'll know that you were buried in the early iPhone Pro Max period. But that's why you've got to be buried with a VHS just to bring it here. Yeah, because the older iPhone 6 plus era would be, you know, this is how they... We found a Betamax, we don't understand. This is so sad to me that it's such a long, like, 1500 years, you know, you've got that

1500 years in this country. It's too much history to try and make sense of. Enormous, yeah. So, and those early, middle and late periods are largely determined by pottery, pottery styles. They also use a designation based on the development of the palaces and the palace architecture and sort of destructions and reconstructions that they call sort of pre-palatial, proto-palatial, neo-palatial. Lovely. pre-palatial, proto-palatial, neo-palatial. There's some guesses at the population of Knossos Palace and town at maybe 17,000 inhabitants. Hard to guess. But there were other largish towns, smaller towns, villages, country houses, ports as

well of course, because these people were seafarers, great seafarers. In 1900, how was history known and understood by Cretean people on Crete at that time? Like, was it the case that people talked about it and knew about it but didn't know where the ruins were? Or like, how did people think about their history then? That's a great question. I think the former, I think you have these kind of, if you like, oral tradition, that the myths are all recorded in texts so they can go and read their Homer and their Greek mythology things. They can do that and they absorb it very deeply.

And I think the people of Crete, even now, almost like semi-live in that mythological world. It's something that's very dear to them, very close to their heart. Even now almost like semi live in that mythological world It's something that's very dear to them a very very close to their heart So there's this kind of awareness of it, but not necessarily It certainly before the excavations happened about where this stuff was and where it might have been early travelers went looking for the labyrinth You know, there's a guy called, I think, William Lithgow, who went out in the 17th century and trying to find it.

And people, they claim that they've been seen, they've shown the entrance to it. And, you know, it was everywhere. There's graffiti at Pompeii, a fantastic piece of graffiti at Pompeii, which has a little drawing of a labyrinth, on a little maze. And it just, in Latin, it says,

here lives the Minotaur. So it's there in people's consciousness, but until they find the material evidence, it's just stories. For listeners who haven't visited Crete, who can't visualize it in the hedge, can you describe sort of the key palace features? In my head, I'm thinking of Doric columns, because that's all my brain does when I think of Greek palaces.

There's plenty of columns, they look very different and the palaces are built around a kind of central courtyard, quite a large central courtyard and they are really really good at water. They're using terracotta pipes to bring water in from the springs in the mountains, beyond, in aqueducts, and so they're bringing oodles of clean water in and dirty water out. That's how to get your civilization, isn't it? It's a real mark of high civilization. Within all of those as well, there's these things, enigmatic things that they call lustral basins that may be

for bathing but possibly, I think unlikely, but may be for some kind of ritual basins but you can't get the water out once you've put it all in but they're kind of sunken rooms and chambers and you reach them through a sort of L-shaped staircase and they seem to be the centre of some kind of ritual. Like a sort of meditation chambers It does sound very goop it's very nice. Yeah, I have a lustre on base Absolutely, how else do we know about them? I mean you said Arthur Evans was interested in ancient texts and writing systems Yes, so was he attracted by writing systems first? Yeah, and and and we have my knowns writing

You know, the trouble is that we can't decipher it, we don't know what language it was. Is that still now? Still now, yeah. That's a puzzle to solve, somebody was solving. Awesome, but people are trying to solve it all the time. There's two main scripts that they use,

there's a thing called Cretan hieroglyphics and a script called Linear A. I've heard of Linear B. Yes, Linear B was written on Crete but it comes in later. That we can translate and we know all about and it was Greek. It was an early form of Greek but what the Linear A was we don't know. It's all Greek. So yeah absolutely it was all Greek to them, all Greek to the Minoans. How mysterious they are still. Yeah, we can tell one or two things out of the linear A. We know that it was, they use numbers, decimal numbers, a number system. So one through ten.

They write pictograms showing what they're counting. We're not talking Egyptian hieroglyphs, These are these are no yeah, that's right and Syllables they they write in syllables Greg it would be Carey Corio would be the way they they wrote you probably or something similar. I'll take it. Yeah, absolutely So, you know syllables, you know, ca-ca-ca-ca-ca That's very catchy. But we just don't know.

You've got a beat under there, that could be a TikTok. Ca-ca-ki-co-co. I think I got confused then because I was like, they invented numbers and now I'm like, that's stupid. Everyone invented counting, like, but decimals I do and does that. So please don't kill me. Okay, so they've got writing systems.

We can't read linear A or the hieroglyphic system, but we can read linearly. That's fun. What else are we going on? So Josie mentioned pots. They do pots exceptionally well and in quantity, you know, they and so it gives us so much information I think there's there's different kinds of wonderful that they call it Vasilyki wear. They got a Kamari's wear marine style They call it Vasiliki ware, they call it Camaris ware, marine style. They're wonderful octopuses that they have on some of their jars and what have you. So they're wonderful ceramicists. They make figurines as well out of terracotta and a bit of bronze and clay that are very often sort of votive offerings that you find in sanctuaries and things like that.

So, votive to the gods, presumably. Yeah, absolutely. And they also do frescoes. And boy do they do a good fresco. They really do. Really distinctive colour palette that they use in red and yellow and black and white. And, you know, it's a difficult technique. You've got paint it onto onto wet plaster and work very quickly with it. It's a lot survived. Yeah it survives very well actually because it's applied to the walls and it it sticks and it doesn't degrade. So when they uncovered it they uncovered like whole walls and whole paintings?

Yes or actually in bits and fragments and bits and pieces. But the whole thing is heavily frescoed. The houses, the palaces and so on with wonderful scenes. You know, processions and seafaring and dolphins and sort of athletic activities and landscape. It's stunning. A very beautiful world that they portray. Josie, we're gonna show you one of these frescoes.

Yes, please. Let's give you the image, Josie. Do you wanna describe the outfit for us? Oh it's lovely. A mini skirt, nothing on top, why do you need it? I think a necklace and then a big headdress, a bit like a peacock. It's like if the Archbishop of Canterbury had a bit of flair. I think it's a man with long hair, really really beautiful flowing long hair, wrist bangles, bangles, sure, holding, I don't know, a banana? Steve, what are the feathers on his head? Yeah they are peacock, they are, so yeah peacock and and it's a crown of lilies and peacock.

Feathers there. The piece is in fragments, it's in bits actually, it's been restored there. So as you say, he's got this sort of kilt and cod piece on. The flesh looks white, but it's hard to tell whether it's white or red. And this is something to do with gender, as you say, it's the drag thing is an interesting issue. His torso is frontal, he's got his sort of clenched fist across his torso.

It's not a banana in his hand. It's probably he's leading a bull. Well, that's what he's supposed to be doing. God, them and the bulls, yet again. Back to the bulls. They're always back to the bulls. He's giving it a minotaur. Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, sorry.

That's very beautiful. Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. We got you, Rogers. Martin Freeman in his international Emmy award winning role. I can feel it, I'm going to crack. Stream the best of British crime drama on Britbox. You know this is why I want to be a detective. Watch with a free trial today. If you're hearing this you're probably already listening to BBC's award winning history podcast.

But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get podcasts like In Our Time, You're Dead to Me and History's Secret Heroes, plus other great BBC podcasts from news to comedy to true crime, all ad free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. Arthur Evans, you know, the dude in the peacock hat, he thought he was a priest king, we're not sure. He also said the Minoans were peaceful and did not have weapons.

What do we think to that? Unlikely. We'd like to believe that, but unlikely. The evidence that we've got for kings comes from the the later period from the Mycenaean period They have they have a word for that. He's called the one aka It's more likely that you've got groups of elites Yeah here who are perhaps in competition with each other particularly in the early periods So some kind of centralized authority probably so it's a hierarchical society

But we're not exactly sure how that functioned and who was in charge. Okay. Now the interesting thing I want to ask here, Josie, is seeing that we have maybe a priest king in his pomp there, in his lovely headdress, hearing that the elites are competing for power, how do you think the Minoan society treated women? I'm going to go on a real limb and say badly. I feel like the evidence for, and I would say the past and let's be real the present, you would err on the side of badly but I feel like now you're gonna be like surprise well.

I would say badly. Without wishing to be the mansplaining dude, well, actually, it's a good time. The position of women in Minoan society and their art particularly, certainly invites the idea that they might have been quite powerful and quite well accommodated and treated within society. They are very prominent in the art. Women everywhere in the art. Women everywhere in the art. We have wonderful frescoes showing initiation ceremonies and sort of all female events, to the point where some scholars have suggested that this society may have been a matriarchy. It's one of the things that we like to believe.

I think it's hard to make that idea stick, but I think the... The more I'm hearing about them, the more I like them. Yes. Whether the prominence of women in the arts and the ritual and the religion transfers to political and social power is another question of course and those categories might be ours as well they might not have had those same categories. But there's a fresco on acroteri which is one of them on the era isn't it? There is indeed. It sort of shows the phases of a young girl's life through to adulthood I think. Yeah very much so it's a really interesting piece there.

There's a sort of prepubescent girl there in wearing a kind of a veil. There's a girl with a bleeding foot, which is interesting. And then there's an adult woman and they're distinguished by their hairstyles as well here. And some people think this might be connected with initiation ceremonies to do with sort of first menstruation and that kind of thing.

So not a bleeding foot but perhaps blood on her foot. Yes and in these frescoes there's kind of blood everywhere. Right. So you know maybe some kind of ritual marking transition from one life stage to the next as they move through their lives. The interesting thing is that there seems to be some segregation in the art between men and women. So although women are very well represented, we don't see many mixed scenes. That's true. There are one or two mixed scenes but generally speaking they seem to be quite segregated in the way that they're portrayed.

There's an awful lot of art which is really lovely and that art can then also tell us about fashion. What haute couture outfits would you would be imagining for you know Cretan Vogue? I would have to guess a lot of weaving. A lot of things dyed for the dyed weft of course. Feathers, seabird feathers. That's what you're getting. You're getting things from the mountains and maybe you're getting kind of a papyrus style I mean you're really asking the wrong person I don't even know what's fashionable now I feel like it's a big leap but I'd be really excited I mean given this example I'd be hoping for a lot of flamboyance I'd be hoping for people really really okay going a bit a bit big going big

well let's show you some uh some art from the period showing you both men and women's fashion What can you see? Well, I will say yeah people really absolutely getting their boobs out The dresses are just people I suppose People thrilled to show their boobs to one another. The dress is going under the boob and do you know what, maybe they were happier society for it. I see people dressed in ways that you think, what this does suggest is it could be just one historian having a bit of a laugh. Or, yeah, genuinely. So these people are

wearing kind of corsets and the corsets go underneath their breasts and so their breasts are out But maybe it's that they also wore like a little undergarment that didn't keep it history If they were like a flimsy little cotton undergarment or something That might not last in the way that heavier clothes would. You might be right. Even in pictures, you know a lot of painting the tradition of painting is to paint nudes. So maybe the tradition here would have been to sort of spice it up a bit, but in real life people are like, oh, I can't, these will burn if I get them out. I was going to say the sun lotion hasn't been invented yet. But as you say, we've got some

topless dudes, we've got some topless ladies, but they're not topless as we might imagine because they are wearing this, this sort of flowing skirts that come up to the chest but then don't cover. And covered shoulders and arms. Covered shoulders and arms but it's quite sort of, in my head it's quite like bawdy wench in a Game of Thrones scene if you know what I mean. Yeah, barmaid vibes. Barmaid vibes, thank you, yeah. Okay, so we've talked about fashion taste, let's talk about actual taste.

What are the Minoans eating back in the Bronze Age? I mean actually I'll ask you, Josie, what's your guess? Well, I'd be surprised if there wasn't beef on the menu. I'd be surprised. Are you going to go honey? That's what I know about Greek islands. A lot of honey. Thyme. Thyme and rosemary on the hillside. Lovely.

Lovely. You'd have lambs. I hear loads about sheep in Greek myths. I mean, that's enough, isn't it? What else do you have in Greece if you go, oh, a lovely Greek salad. Fish olives. A bit of salad, a bit of feta. Tzatziki, I don't know. Good time flatbreads. Yes it sounds lovely, Steve. All of the above. Yeah. Amazing. Pretty much. No tomatoes. I mean tomatoes are from the Aztecs. There's been some fantastic science. Sorry Josie, tomatoes are from the Aztecs. Oh yeah of course because tomatillo.

So fantastic science where they've done analysis of the inside of cooking pots to find out what they've got. They use some cool stuff. They use diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectrometry, commonly known as drifts and other cool stuff like that. Other stuff we can't name. To find out the insides. But yeah, they're eating pulses and loads of veg,

as you say, olives, meat, fish. Not as much fish as you might imagine. So it seems from an island people, but they're growing grapes. And of course they're making wine. So you need to preserve your fintitude. So you make cheese, you can preserve your milk. so you make wine, you can preserve your grapes and they drink wine that's flavored with toasted oak so it's like oaky chardonnays and also they use pine resin. So it's retzina. The retzina

they drink on Crete now is a direct throwback to Minoan times. Fantastic. And medicinal? Yeah, medicinal stuff. They grow poppies as well for medicinal purposes and possibly for medicinal purposes. Yeah, and religious inverted commas. So opioids and wine. Sounds like the Minoans are party people. And they're having a great time! So opioids and wine is probably why they are playing some quite dangerous games with the local livestock. Josie, have you got any ideas what I'm talking about here? Is it like bullfighting? Is it like jumping on bulls? It literally is. Well done, absolutely. It's not, it's jumping over balls.

It's, it's bull leaping. And Steve, you can talk us through the bull leaping. Yeah, it's extraordinary. It seems to be a really popular kind of entertainment or perhaps again a ritual activity as a sort of initiation thing. So you maybe a seasonal thing, you know, with young men netting and subduing bulls and then performing feats of athleticism and jumping over them and possibly sacrificing and eating the bull when you've when you've done of course yeah, but but bull leaping is is is everywhere in their art on again on frescoes and in in ivories and bronzes and Whatever they love a bit of bull leaping and again in this fresco. We can see that the guy doing the leaping

He's sort of doing a backflip over the it's really impressive He's basically backwards upside down over a bull But he's got the the darker skin the kind of reddish he skin. The two guys either side of him, I'm assuming they're guys, I don't know, but they've got paler white skin. Are they women, as you said in the... They have, this is interesting.

White flesh would normally indicate femaleness, but they don't look female. They're not dressed as women, they're wearing sort of cod pieces. Their anatomy is't look female. They're not dressed as women, they're wearing sort of cod pieces. Their anatomy is clearly not female. So it may be that this is some kind of initiation, you don't become a proper man until you've jumped over a bull, if you like. Then you almost like you can become red.

It's a bull mitzvah. Yeah. Josie, what other coming-of-age ceremonies should we introduce that are maybe not as dangerous as ball leaping? I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to think what I'm going to do when my children are reaching kind of adulthood. I think it's all more about me, you know, I'll have a holiday. If you had to do something very gymnastic to be proclaimed an adult, that would be a

lot more fun. You know, you'd be like, well, I can't an adult, that would be a lot more fun. You know, you'd be like, well, I can't go to university, I failed my backflip. You'd be like, just please practice your backflips. I mean, in terms of jobs on this island then, Steve, I mean, we've heard about a kind of slightly rural economy, but a quite large urban centres. We must have some LinkedIn profiles for cattle farmers, bull wranglers and fresco painters. That much we know. Some weavers. What are the things we know about the economy or about crafts or you know what are they doing? Yes so the people are working, obviously they're farming and animal husbandry and that kind of thing. There is an urban population with artisans who are producing all

these ceramics and they trade. They're an island people. This is a Bronze Age society, is there any metal on the island? Not to speak of, they would need to import metal there to make their bronze. There's no tin for instance, there's no gold. So they're not rich in minerals but they're rich in agricultural material and what have you and as I say they're great seafarers. One of the things that, and they're in contact with these other societies within what's now the Greek islands, but also with Egypt and the Near East. And it may be that one of the things they're exporting is sort of perfume oil as well,

which seems to be exported to the Egyptians quite like a bit of perfume oil from the Keftu, and they're prepared to pay good money for that. Yeah. But, as I say, yeah, so they, but they've got to import their copper and their tin and their luxury goods. There's no gold to speak of, and they like a bit of gold, they like a bit of elephant ivory, they like a bit of hippopotamus ivory and That kind of thing and they're not isolated No far from it. This world is an incredibly interconnected world

I think much more interconnected than we naturally assume. Yeah, everybody's in touch with everybody else on a very regular basis That's where because the Mediterranean unifies Africa the the Middle East, and Europe, doesn't it? Very much so. It's a sea that everyone shares. Did people move? The Minoans colonised, for sure. The settlement on Kithira is a colony, for instance. So that's...

And great shipbuilders. They're wonderful shipbuilders. Again, the ships appear on the frescoes, beautifully constructed ships and and and now sort of, you know, some experimental archaeologists have made Minoan ships and they they sail them around the harbor at Chania. They could have been lying. They could have just been like, yeah, just do a really good shit.

Yeah, we did that. Yeah. That could have been aspirational for them. Like one day someone will jump on a bull famously archaeologists we're often finding trash and we're often finding dead people so what do we know about my knowing funerary practices do they cremate do they bury yeah they bury I mean they some of the the earlier burials are sort of circular stone Constructions they call what they call it a fallow surround building It's called a fallows and a fallow in plural and they build these

Circular stone follow that generally sort of face away from the settlements there. You don't want the dead coming back Not what we need I love the idea the dead come back when they don't know which way to look. Absolutely. They're like, oh, I guess I'll go back to being dead then. Yeah, just zombies wandering off. Yeah, just trying to find the town. That's right. So, and it looks like many of these chambers are used and reused. They get looted, of course, which is a problem for the archaeology.

So it's hard to reconstruct the practices exactly. But it seems like they would lay the dead on the floor with their possessions and some food. Perhaps after the body is decomposed then the bones could be transferred to a sort of like an ossuary. It may be that you're worshiping your ancestors. What evidence do we have to suggest that? Because that's quite a specific thing to claim. Good question. I suppose it's one of those things that people think, well, everybody else does it. So you would expect that. When you get to sort of ancient Greek and classical Greek times, then that's a really important aspect of their religion. There are offerings in the tombs of

cups and things that you would need for a beautiful life after you die. Fertility is important sometimes, they get all sort of moulded breasts in these offerings, you know, human figurines, animal figurines. No judgement, it's fine. I'm getting to know them. Yeah, so they're all those kind of, they're all a wide range of ritual activity, I think, often marking, you know, life stage transitions, so you know so birth puberty marriage parenthood death they've got their lustral basins as well basins for that there's also the double axe symbol that shows up a lot isn't it that's right

lots and lots and lots of these double axes it's called the labrus and like labyrinth yeah you find lots of them, tiny little gold ones, huge great bronze ones, far too big to use. It's kind of like symbol. Yeah, symbol and very often associated with the sort of Minoan priestesses as well. They look to the sky and they look to the earth. They have what they call peak sanctuaries on mountaintops, where they have clay figurines as offerings and tablets and jewellery and that kind of thing. And then they have cave sanctuaries as well. So you have up into the sky and then you have down into the earth where there may be sort of feasting and drinking rituals. What was their belief system? What do we know? Did they share that with the Greeks?

Because to my mind, obviously, because Crete is now part of Greece, it's tied in a bit with it. But was it always very separate? Like, how does it work? How much so? The one may have kind of evolved into the other, but there's a very prominent, if you like, female deity. You get a lot of these sort of epiphany scenes of a female

deity sort of coming down and perhaps being summoned down, who they think is perhaps the great goddess. And she repeatedly appears in the art. So she may be kind of a mother goddess or a mistress of the animals or a sort of guardian of the cities. Wow. That kind of thing. Whether she is one goddess or she has multiple aspects and there's a whole pantheon of these is difficult.

Evans wanted it to be one deity because he wanted them to be monotheistic. Did it have the same name, albeit one we can't read? Again it's it's tough there is some thought that there might be references to deities in in the script as part of that fertility. It definitely seems like there's evidence for it which is why some you know some people have made the matriarchy sort of theory. The one thing I do want to throw into slightly because at the moment the Minoans are coming across as very chill and fun and we all want to hang out Forget the beast under the floor, you know, yeah, so very much a metaphor, but actually I have to bring it up Steve There is evidence of human sacrifice. Yes, there is this is a controversial evidence. Yeah, it's always controversial

Which brings us back to the Minotaur, you know, the Athenians being fed to the beast There's a couple of sites in Crete. There's one where they found four human skeletons dating from the middle Minoan period, probably up on Mount Eukatars, which overlooks Knossos at a place called Animospilia. And three of these people were killed when part of a building collapsed, probably in the aftershock after an earthquake. There was an 18 year old or thereabouts male figure lying on his side in the middle of the room in a posture that looked like he'd

been tied up and with a huge bronze blade on top of him and it's been suggested that this was in the process of a sacrifice to ward off the earthquakes. There'd already been an earthquake and they were trying to ward it off but they actually got caught in an aftershock and that killed the people who were there. That's an interesting theory. That's an interesting theory. And then there's another building that's in Knossos that's marvelously called the Room of the Children's Bones. Oh no. Not ideal, not ideal.

Where this comes from the late Minoan period and what they found there was some cooking pots and the bones of four children that had cut marks, butchering marks on them. It was going so well. It was indicating that they were... They butcher marks on them. It was going so well. They really ruined the vibe. So it looked like the flesh had been removed and that they'd been possibly cooked along with, also there were some snails and a sheep in the pot.

Can I ask two questions quickly? Please do. Could it be that either of these, that the first one was like a punishment and that when people often think it's human sacrifice it might be like capital punishment and secondly could the second one be like medicinal in some way like oh these kids we had to amputate their limbs we always put the limbs in the same place because it's such a big deal. Yeah it's possible I mean these things are controversial. Because animal sacrifice is what is normal.

Yeah. Human sacrifice is hideously abnormal. And so on the one hand, these people in the cooking pot may have been killed and eaten as part of some kind of ritual, again, to ward off some impending disaster. But on the other hand, it has been suggested as well that they were being prepared for burial or sort of reburial or something like that so there's controversy about it. We need to talk about the end of the Minoans because they very often get folded into our previous episode Atlantis. They do. So often people are like, people on the internet love to tell me the Minoan civilization

was wiped out by the Atlantis flood. Yeah do we know? Yeah, they will like to tell you that, but it's much more nuanced than that, really. So roughly, I mean, we can bicker about dates, but roughly 1450 BC, you see at the end of the Neopalatial period, buildings being destroyed by fire and not being rebuilt, and cultural changes coming in on the island, what they call warrior burials and the introduction of this linear B script, which is a form of Greek and there's various possibilities, one of which could be this natural catastrophe. So the great eruption on Santorini, but the dates are problematical. That's probably around 1625 BC, so it's a long time before. It's like saying that the eruption of Krakatoa is causing something to happen now.

It may be that we have internal unrest, rebellion on the island against the central power, maybe to do with a natural disaster as well, but that's a possibility. And then there is a possibility of takeover, an invasion by Mycenaeans from the mainland. So those are the three theories and possibilities. Maybe you could combine all three, but what we do see is new culture. There's an evidence of a new Mycenaean if they're not Mycenaeans, they are Mycenaean Isaac. They have Mycenaean culture, a new elite that brings in a new culture and sort of displaces that distinctive Minoan culture

that we've been talking about. So that pretty much is what brings the Minoans to an end. It's more of a process than an instantaneous event. It's not an overnight tsunami, is it? Yeah, no, it's not. In your face, Atlanteans. Oh, sorry, yeah. They had a good run. They had a good run.

They did. Yeah, 1600 years. They had a good run, considering it's a relatively small island, you know? Absolutely. To build what they built and to sort of have such a distinctive unusual vibe yeah and to have two myths that persist yeah five thousand years later it's not bad as everyone knows who Icarus is The Nuance Window!

Okay it's time now for The Nuance Window This is the part of the show where Josie and I recline in our palace and sip our pine-flavoured ritzina for two minutes while Dr Steve takes to the floor to tell us something that we need to know about the Minoans. Dr Steve, take it away. There have been stories told about the people we call the Minoans as far back as we can trace. As Odysseus even says in the Odyssey, out in the wine-dark sea there lies a land called Crete, a rich and lovely land boasting 90 cities, one of which is called Knossos, where King Minos ruled. And when Arthur Evans made his startling

discoveries at Knossos, he bought into that narrative. He wanted the Minoan mythical tales to mirror his Minoan historical reality. The palace traditionally built for Minos has proved to be no baseless fabric of the imagination, he said. But imagination is everything here. And with those bronze age artifacts that he unearthed, he created another 20th century artifact of his own, and reconstituted it in reinforced concrete. It was a palace for, as he saw them, a happy, peace-loving people whose arts, freedom, humanism and dynamism showed that Crete was the cradle of a European civilization that was as ancient and sophisticated as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but also distinct from them.

Now archaeologists often create the past in their own image. All of those stones and those bones that they excavate can't really speak for themselves. You know, they need an archaeological interpreter. So as well as trying to uncover the truth about the past, there's always an element of creativity. But just like Evans, I think, we read and we understand and we reconstitute the past in our cultural present, which often tells us just as much about ourselves as it does about the Minoans. And that's why history and archaeology are so beautiful.

Thank you Steve. Josie, any follow-up thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it is very interesting thinking about the fact that we are telling on ourselves when we think we're talking about them, you know, we can't escape our own cultural context and we can't escape our own hopes and dreams for what we're looking at. And I love how mysterious it is, but I also can't bear how mysterious it is because I want to know the answers about these things, which are so hidden, you know? And what's exciting is I think, well, there's so many parts that haven't yet been excavated and there's so many places, particularly kind of in West Asia, that haven't been excavated and there's so many places particularly kind of in West Asia that haven't been excavated and more clues could just be sat waiting for us and what a thrill you know. So what do you know now?

But it's time now for the So What Do You Know Now? This is our quickfire quiz for Josie to see how much she has remembered. Oh god. Are you feeling good? I have two children. I'm very tired. But I also love a quiz. So we'll see which one. There's two wolves inside me. Let's see how you do. We've got ten questions for you. Here we go. Question one. Which legendary king inspired Sir Arthur Evans, his name for the Minoans?

Minos. Oh look, it goes straight in. Very good. Make them hard. Question two. Which Cretan archaeologist first excavated the palace at Knossos? It was Minos. We don't need to send him.

It's long. I still remember him. I haven't forgotten him. Caligarinos. It was. It was double Minos. Question three. What is the name of the small underground room possibly used for ritual purposes that is

a common feature of Minoan palaces? Is this the Lustrial Bath? Yeah, Lustrial Basin. Yeah, very good. Lustrial Bas bath? Yeah, lustrial basin. Yeah, very good. Lustrial basin, okay, that's good. Question four. What dangerous animal-based activity was a common form of Minoan entertainment?

Ball jumping, I've got it right in front of me, I'll never forget. Question five. Which deity seems to have been central to Minoan religion, as far as we can tell? Oh, was Zeus as part of it? But in terms of the arts? Oh, the mother god. Oh god, look how internalised the patriarchy is really. The mother goddess. Yeah, very good. Or many. Or many. Question

6. What is one piece of evidence suggesting that Minoans might have been into human sacrifice? Oh well, you had your bodies at the top that go with the big sword and you had the horrific room of children's bones. Yeah, sorry. Question seven. Name one of the three writing systems used on ancient Crete. Oh, Linea A, Linea B and hieroglyphs. Very good, very impressive. If only the exams were during the lesson, you'd really do well. Question eight. What was controversial about Arthur Evans's archaeological practices at

Knossos? Well, choosing to be like, don't worry guys, I know enough of this to rebuild it for you now, using modern concrete. Question 9. What have some feminist scholars argued about Minoan Crete's power structures? That it's matriarchal. Yeah, absolutely. This for 10 out of 10, which is, you know, a flawless run. Name two theories given for the possible downfall of Minoan civilization. Oh well, one of them, let's say we've all already discredited it, is to do with a flood from Atlantis. We know that's a bad theory. Then you also have invasion from the Greeks with their other name that I can't remember. Mycenaeans, yeah. Mycenaeans. Thank you Oh, I know you said I'll go a third

Unrest I mean I'm gonna give you an 11 out of 10 11 out of 10 Josie long well done if you'd have given me this test in three days I don't know whether we've done as well And thank you Steve as well for sharing your knowledge. Real fun there. I've had a lovely time. Thank you both. And thank you listener. If after today's episode you want more from Josie, listen to our episode on medieval science. It's a fun one. And if you want to know more about Greek myths with Dr. Steve, then obviously we have the Atlantis episode. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with friends, subscribe to your Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode, but all that's left for me to do is say a big thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had

the sensational Dr Steve Kershaw from Oxford University, thank you Steve. An absolute pleasure Greg, thank you very much for having me. Thank you and in Comedy Corner we had the lovely Josie Long, thank you Josie. Thank you so much for having me, it's been so informative. And to you lovely listener join me next time as we discover not invent another legendary historical civilization but for now I'm off to go and challenge Greg James to a ball leaping contest to see who is the greatest BBC Greg it's obviously him but I've got to try bye! This episode of Your Dead to Me was researched by Anna McCully Stewart it was written by

Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Nagoose and me, the audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Emma Nagoose and our executive editor was James Cook. Hello I'm Brian Cox. And I'm Robin Ince and we are back with a new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. Robin, in 15 seconds or less, can you sum up the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage? Yes, I can. Do you want to learn how to win at every single board game you ever play, including Monopoly and Cluedo?

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