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 religion 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. 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." Minoan religion Minoan religion was the religion of