Minoan Genius Minoan Genius The Minoan Genius is a fantastic mythological creature that was common in ancient Crete. It is portrayed sometimes with the head of a lion, or of hippopotamus, or of other animals. It played a role in various religious ceremonies. It is often portrayed with water vessels, such as ewers, so it seems to play a role as libation bearer. The connections of this mythological beast seem to be with the griffin—a very widespread composite mythological beast—as well as with the Egyptian hippopotamus and crocodile goddess Taweret, from which it is believed to have derived. According to Judith Weingarten,
Indus Valley Civilisation the Indus Valley, where the first remains were found. The Indus Valley Civilisation was also named as the "Harappan civilisation" after Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in what was then the Punjab province of British India. The Indus Valley Civilisation has also been called by some the "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilisation", the "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" or the "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation", as the Ghaggar-Hakra river is identified by some with the mythological Sarasvati River, suggesting that the Indus Valley Civilisation was the Vedic civilisation as perceived by traditional Hindu beliefs. The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC)