Minoan civilization especially the sequence of ceramic styles, have been used by archaeologists to define the three phases of Minoan culture (EM, MM, LM). Since wood and textiles have decomposed, the best-preserved (and most instructive) surviving examples of Minoan art are its pottery, palace architecture (with frescos which include landscapes), stone carvings and intricately-carved seal stones. Frescoes were the primary art form of Minoan culture. They include many depictions of people, with sexes distinguished by color; the men's skin is reddish-brown, and the women's white. Several frescoes at Knossos and Santorini survive. In contrast to Egyptian frescoes, Crete had true frescoes. Probably
Minoan civilization the island. There are appear to be four major palaces on the island: Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Kato Zakros. The north is thought to have been governed from Knossos, the south from Phaistos, the central-eastern region from Malia, the eastern tip from Kato Zakros. Smaller palaces have been found elsewhere on the island. The Minoans were traders, and their cultural contacts reached Egypt's Old Kingdom, copper-containing Cyprus, Canaan and the Levantine coast and Anatolia. In late 2009 Minoan-style frescoes and other artifacts were discovered during excavations of the Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri, Israel, leading archaeologists to conclude that the