Minoan art Crete. Early Minoan ceramics were characterized by patterns of spirals, triangles, curved lines, crosses, fish bones, and beak-spouts. During the Middle Minoan period, naturalistic designs (such as fish, squid, birds and lilies) were common. In the Late Minoan period, flowers and animals were still characteristic but more variety existed. One of the earliest styles was Pirgos ware. The style may have been imported, and perhaps mimics wood. In the first phase of Early Minoan, the Aghious Onouphrios ware is most common. Vasiliki ware is found in East Crete during the EM IIA period, but it is in the next period,
Minoan civilization the related Linear B script, which encodes the earliest known form of Greek. Several attempts to translate Linear A have been made, but consensus is lacking and Linear A is currently considered undeciphered. The language encoded by Linear A is tentatively dubbed "Minoan". When the values of the symbols in Linear B are used in Linear A, they produce unintelligible words, and would make Minoan unrelated to any other known language. There is a belief that the Minoans used their written language primarily as an accounting tool and that even if deciphered, may offer little insight other than detailed descriptions