Minoan religion

"Snake Goddess" or a priestess performing a ritual

Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete. Modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological remains rather than texts. Minoan religion is considered to have been closely related to Near Eastern prehistoric religions, and its central deity is generally agreed to have been a goddess. Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the bull and its horns of consecration, the labrys (double-headed axe), the serpent, and to some extent, the Ankh.

Cultic practiceEdit

Based on archaeological evidence of such as paintings, statuettes, and seal rings, it is clear that the dominant figure in Minoan religion was a goddess, with whom a younger male figure, perhaps a consort or son, is often associated, usually in contexts suggesting that the male figure is a worshiper. The Goddess was also often associated with animals, especially the snake, but also with bull, lion, and dove. She seems to have been served by priestesses, but there is no evidence that Minoan religious practice was centered around formal public temples.[1][2][3][4] Some scholars see in the Minoan Goddess a female divine solar figure.[5][6]

Károly Kerényi believed that the most important goddess was Ariadne, daughter of King Minos and mistress of the labyrinth who is identified in Linear B (Mycenean Greek) tablets in Knossos.

The bull leaper from Knossos (Heraklion Archaeological Museum)

Retrieval of metal and clay votive figures, double axes, miniature vessels, models of artifacts, animals, and human figures has identified sites of cult, such as numerous small shrines in Minoan Crete, and mountain peaks and very numerous sacred caves over 300 have been explored were the centers for some cult, but temples, as the Greeks developed them, were unknown.[7] Within the palace complex, no central rooms devoted to a cult have been recognized other than the center court, where youths of both sexes would practice the bull-leaping ritual. There are no Minoan frescoes that depict any deities.[citation needed]

One of the cultic figures of ancient Crete and later of the Mycenaeans is known as the Minoan Genius. This was a fantastic creature with similarities both to the lion and the hippopotamus, which implies a connection with ancient Egypt. This deity played a role as a protector of children, and also in various fertility rituals.

Bull-leaping ritualEdit

A major festive celebration was exemplified in the famous athletic Minoan bull dance, represented at large in the frescoes of Knossos[8] and inscribed in miniature seal stones.

There is significant debate among scholars as to whether the athletes actually vaulted over the bull. Sir Arthur Evans argued that the Bull-Leaping Fresco depicts acrobats literally seizing the bull by the horns and leaping over the creature's back.[9] Others have asserted that the fresco more likely shows young Minoan people attempting to ride the bull and that the act of catching a charging bull and vaulting over it is unrealistic.[10]

Human sacrificeEdit

Evidence pertaining to Minoans and the practice of human sacrifice has been found around three sites: (1) Anemospilia, in a MMII (1800-1700 BCE) building near Mount Juktas, interpreted as a temple, (2) an EMII (2900–2300 BCE) sanctuary complex at Fournou Korifi in south central Crete, and (3) Knossos, in an LMIB (1500–1450 BCE) building known as the "North House." (explanation of abbreviations)


The positions of the other three skeletons suggest that an earthquake caught them by surprise—the skeleton of a twenty-eight-year-old woman was spread-eagled on the ground in the same room as the sacrificed male. Next to the sacrificial platform was the skeleton of a man in his late thirties, with broken legs. His arms were raised, as if to protect himself from falling debris, which suggests that his legs were broken by the collapse of the building in the earthquake. In the front hall of the building was the fourth skeleton, too poorly preserved to allow determination of age or gender. Nearby 105 fragments of a clay vase were discovered, scattered in a pattern that suggests it had been dropped by the person in the front hall when he was struck by debris from the collapsing building. The jar appears to have contained bull's blood.

Unfortunately, the excavators of this site have not published an official excavation report; the site is mainly known through a 1981 article in National Geographic (Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellerakis 1981.)

Not all agree that this was human sacrifice. Nanno Marinatos says the man supposedly sacrificed died in the earthquake that hit at the time he died. She notes that this earthquake destroyed the building, and killed the two Minoans who supposedly sacrificed him. She also argues that the building was not a temple and that the evidence for sacrifice "is far from ... conclusive."[11] Dennis Hughes concurs and argues that the platform where the man lay was not necessarily an altar, and the blade was probably a spearhead that may not have been placed on the young man, but could have fallen during the earthquake from shelves or an upper floor.


Excavations at Knossos uncovered additional mass burials, revealing the practice of child sacrifice as well. The British School of Athens, led by Peter Warren, excavated a mass grave of sacrifices, particularly children. The findings also suggest they were victims of cannibalism.[13][14]

clear evidence that their flesh was carefully cut away, much in the manner of sacrificed animals. In fact the bones of slaughtered sheep were found with those of the children...Moreover, as far as the bones are concerned, the children appear to have been in good health. Startling as it may seem, the available evidence so far points to an argument that the children were slaughtered and their flesh cooked and possibly eaten in a sacrifice ritual made in the service of a nature deity to assure an annual renewal of fertility.[15][16]

Furthermore, Rodney Castleden, details the findings at a sanctuary near Knossos where the remains of a seventeen-year-old boy was sacrificed.

His ankles had evidently been tied and his legs folded up to make him fit on the table...He had been ritually murdered with the long bronze dagger engraved with a boar's head that laid besides him.[17]


The bones, found by Peter Warren, date to Late Minoan IB (1580–1490 BC), before the Myceneans arrived (in LM IIIA, c. 1320–1200 BC) according to Paul Rehak and John G. Younger.[19] Dennis Hughes and Rodney Castleden argue that these bones were deposited as a 'secondary burial'. Secondary burial is the not-uncommon practice of burying the dead twice: immediately following death, and then again after the flesh is gone from the skeleton. The main weakness of this argument is that it does not explain the type of cuts and knife marks upon the bones.[citation needed]

Burial and mortuary practiceEdit

Like much of the archaeology of the Bronze Age, burial remains constitute much of the material and archaeological evidence for the period. By the end of the Second Palace Period Minoan burial practice is dominated by two broad forms: beehive tombs or tholoi, located in southern Crete, and "house tombs" in the north and the east. Of course, there are many trends and patterns within Minoan mortuary practice that do not conform to this simple breakdown. Over all, burial was the most popular; cremation does not seem to have been a popular means of burial in Bronze Age Crete.[20] Throughout this period there is a trend towards individual burials, with some distinguished exceptions. These include the much-debated Chrysolakkos complex, Mallia, consisting of a number of buildings forming a complex. This is located in the centre of Mallia's burial area and may have been the focus for burial rituals, or the 'crypt' for a notable family.

These tombs often evidence group burial, where more than one body is deposited. These may represent the burial crypts for generations of a kin group, or of a particular settlement where the individuals are not closely related and shared in the construction of the tomb. The house tomb at Gournia is a typical example, where the construction consisted of a clay and reed roof, topping a mud-brick and stone base. At Ayia Photia, certain rock-cut chamber tombs may have been used solely for the burial of children, indicating complex burial patterns that differed from region to region. Mortuary furniture and grave goods varied widely, but could include storage jars, bronze articles such as tools and weapons, and beauty articles such as pendants. Little is known about mortuary rituals, or the stages through which the deceased passed before final burial, but it has been indicated that 'toasting rituals' may have formed a part of this, suggested by the prevalence of drinking vessels found at some tombs.[21]

In later periods (EM III) a trend towards singular burials, usually in clay pithoi (large storage vessels), is observed throughout Crete, replacing the practice of built tombs. Equally, the introduction of larnax burials emerges, where the body was deposited in a clay or wooden sarcophagus. These coffins were often richly decorated with motifs and scenes similar to those of the earlier fresco and vase painting tradition. However, rock-cut tombs and tholoi remained in use even by the LM III period, including the site of Phylaki.

The distribution of burial sites varies in time and space. Some functional demands may have influenced the decision to locate a cemetery: the Late Minoan rock-cut tombs at Armeni utilise the geography of the area for structural support, where chambers are dug deep into the rock. Generally, cemeteries tend to cluster in regions close to settled areas. The Mochlos cemetery, for example, would have served the inhabitants of that island who settled in the south of the area. The cemetery itself has been interpreted to indicate a visible hierarchy, perhaps indicating social differentiation within the local population; larger, monumental tombs for the 'èlite', and smaller tombs, including some early pithoi burials, for the larger part of the population.

The German geologist Hans Georg Wunderlich argued that the Palace of Knossos itself was a mortuary temple.[22] This interpretation is strongly rejected by mainstream archaeology.[23]

Legacy in Mycenaean and classical Greek traditionEdit

Walter Burkert warns, "To what extent one can and must differentiate between Minoan and Mycenaean religion is a question which has not yet found a conclusive answer".[24] Burkert suggests that useful parallels will be found in the relations between Etruscan and Archaic Greek culture and religion, or between Roman and Hellenistic culture. Minoan religion has not been transmitted in its own language, and the uses literate Greeks later made of surviving Cretan mythemes, after centuries of purely oral transmission, have transformed the meager sources: consider the Athenian point of view of the Theseus legend. A few Cretan names are preserved in Greek mythology, but there is no way to connect a name with an existing Minoan icon such as the familiar serpent-goddess.

However, Μ. Nilsson proposed that the origin of the Greek goddess Athena was the Minoan snake-goddess, citing that Athena was closely related with snakes.[25]

Plutarch (The Intelligence of Animals 983) mentions the horn altar (keraton) associated with Theseus, which survived on Delos: "I saw, the Altar of Horn, celebrated as one of the Seven Wonders of the World because it needs no glue or any other binding, but is joined and fastened together, made entirely of horns taken from the right side of the head."[26]

See alsoEdit


  1. ^ Bury, J. B.; Meiggs, Russell (1956). A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great (3 ed.). London: Macmillan. p. 18.
  2. ^ Burn, A. R. (1988). The Pelican history of Greece. Penguin. p. 38.
  3. ^ Hammond, N. G. L. (1967). A history of Greece to 322 B. C. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 30.
  4. ^ Hood, Sinclair (1967). The home of the heroes: The Aegean before the Greeks. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 90.
  5. ^ Evidence of Minoan Astronomy and Calendrical Practises
  6. ^ Marinatos, Nanno. Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess: A Near Eastern Koine (2013).
  7. ^ Kerenyi 1976, p. 18; Burkert 1985, p. 24ff.
  8. ^ In the small courtyard of the east wing of the palace of Knossos.
  9. ^ Callender, 1987, p. 81
  10. ^ Marinatos, 1993, p. 219
  11. ^ Marinatos 1993, p. 114.
  12. ^ Gessell 1983.
  13. ^ Rodney Castleden, Minoans. Life in Bronze Age Crete (illustrated by the author), London-New York, Routledge, pp 170-173.
  14. ^ Rodney Castleden (2002). Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. Routledge. p. 172. ISBN 978-1-134-88064-5.
  15. ^ Peter Warren, "Knossos: New Excavations and Discoveries," Archaeology (July /August 1984): p. 48-55.
  16. ^ Minoan Crete and Ecstatic Religion: Preliminary Observations on the 1979 Excavations at Knossos. Peter Warren. 1981
  17. ^ Castleden, Rodney. (2012). The Knossos labyrinth: A New View of the ‘Palace of Minos’ at Knossos, pp 121-122.
  18. ^ MacGillivray 2000, Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth" p.312-13
  19. ^ "Review of Aegean Prehistory VII: Neopalatial, Final Palatial, and Postpalatial Crete," American Journal of Archaeology 102 (1998), pp. 91-173.
  20. ^ Sinclair Hood (1971) "The Minoans; the story of Bronze Age Crete" pp. 140
  21. ^ Dickinson, O (1994) pg. 219
  22. ^ The Secret of Crete, 1974
  23. ^ Keith Branigan, review of The Secret of Crete, The Geographical Journal 144:3:502, November, 1978. at JSTOR
  24. ^ Burkert 1985, p. 21.
  25. ^ Nilsson, M. (1967). Die Geschichte der Griechischen Religion. München, DE: C.F. Beck Verlag.
  26. ^ "Plutarch – On the Intelligence of Animals (De sollertia animalium): 975C–985C".


  • Callender, Gae 1987, "Antiquity: The Minoans", Shakespeare Head Press, Sydney
  • Marinatos, Nanno 1993, "Minoan Religion", University of South Carolina, Columbia

Further readingEdit

  • Gulizio, Joann, and Dimitri Nakassis. "The Minoan Goddess(es): Textual Evidence for Minoan Religion." In KE-RA-ME-JA: Studies Presented to Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, edited by Gulizio Joann, Nakassis Dimitri, and James Sarah A., 115-28. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: INSTAP Academic Press, 2014. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1287gx6.18.
  • Tully, Caroline. 2018. The Cultic Life of Trees in the Prehistoric Aegean, Levant, Egypt and Cyprus. Series: Aegaeum (Annales d'archéologie égéenne de l'Université de Liège et UT-PASP), 42. Peeters, Leuven.

External linksEdit