Greek mythology mythology to the indigenous pre-Greek societies: Crete, Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes and Orchomenus. Historians of religion were fascinated by a number of apparently ancient configurations of myth connected with Crete (the god as bull, Zeus and Europa, Pasiphaë who yields to the bull and gives birth to the Minotaur, etc.). Martin P. Nilsson asserts, based on the representations and general function of the gods, that a lot of Minoan gods and religious conceptions were fused in the Mycenaean religion. and concluded that all great classical Greek myths were tied to Mycenaean centres and anchored in prehistoric times. Nevertheless, according to Burkert,
Crete B, through the words "ke-re-te" (*"Krētes"; later Greek: , plural of ), "ke-re-si-jo" (*"Krēsijos"; later Greek: ), "Cretan". In Ancient Greek, the name Crete () first appears in Homer's Odyssey. Its etymology is unknown. One proposal derives it from a hypothetical Luwian word, "*kursatta" (cf. "kursawar" "island", "kursattar" "cutting, sliver"). In Latin, it became "Creta". The original Arabic name of Crete was "Iqrīṭiš" ( < , but after the Emirate of Crete's establishment of its new capital at "Rabḍ al-Ḫandaq" (modern Iraklion), both the city and the island became known as ("Chandax") or ("Chandakas"), which gave Latin and Venetian "Candia",