Minoan women
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Very little is known about Minoan culture and society. The frequent depictions of women and goddesses make the Minoan civilization an inviting field for feminist archaeology, speculating about matrilinearity or matriarchy.
Minoan women are shown enjoying a freedom and dignity unknown elsewhere in the Ancient Near East or Classical Greece. The women of Minoan civilization, like the Amazons and the women of Sparta, stood in antithesis to Athenian women, who led secluded lives. Images of women occur more frequently than men in the Minoan archaeological record, both on Crete and in the more recent excavations on the island of Thera (Santorini).[1][2][3] Minoan men were mostly maritimers, spending a great deal of time away from home, at sea. Archaeological finds point that this may have encouraged their women to become independent and self-reliant, taking care of the political, military and religious aspects of their civilization. Women are often seen on frescos being saluted by people, and whereas there are many depictions which exist of men showing deference to women, not one shows women deferring to men. Minoan women trained in everything which Minoan males were trained in. They served as priestesses, as functionaries and administrators, and participated in all the physical activities and sports that Cretan males participated in. These were not backyard sports either - the most popular sports in Crete were incredibly violent, very physical and dangerous such as wrestling, boxing and bull-jumping. One of the most revealing images of the status of women in Minoan society is the famous "Toreador fresco" in which young women, shown with the conventional white skin, and darker-skinned men, engage in the dangerous sport that appears to involve somersaulting over the back of a charging bull.[4] In the Minoan culture young girls were initiated and trained in the same activities as boys.[5] Women also seem to have participated in every occupation and trade available to men. They were skilled craftswomen and entrepreneurs, the large top-heavy bureaucracy and priesthood seems to have been equally staffed with women. In fact, the priesthood was dominated by women.[6] Female figures in Minoan art seem to depict them over their male counterparts, painted twice the size of the Minoan males. Males appear small in scale, compared to the dominant female. Minoan period also seems to suggest that the men hardly ever engaged in wars. It was their female deities and women depicted on frescos and figures with swords and battle-axes. Not until the late Minoan period did a male deity appear. At first he was an agricultural god and later, he began to carry weapons, suggested that a male-dominated religion had already been enforced.
[edit] Minoan religion
In Greek art and stories there have been instances where it shows the Amazons carrying a particular double-axe, known as Labrys, such as the story of when Heracles slew the Amazon Aella ("Whirlwind") who was known for wielding a double-axe. According to archeological finds this double-axe was used specifically by Minoan priestesses for ceremonial uses giving rise to the theory of a connection between the Amazons and Minoan Warrior priestesses. To find such an axe in the hands of an Minoan woman would strongly suggest, like the Amazons, they held powerful positions within the Minoan culture. In the Near East, axes of this sort are often wielded by male divinities and appear to be symbols of the thunderbolt, but in Crete, unlike the Near East, this axe is never held by a male divinity, only by females[7]. A prime piece of evidence in support of the view that women dominated Minoan culture is the "Snake Goddess." It is theorized that Minoan religion centred on a dominant goddess of fertility whose young male consort's annual death and rebirth symbolised the decay and regrowth of vegetation. This theory is given additional creditability with the discovery in 1971 of evidence for human sacrifices at the Protopalatial Sanctuary at Anemospilia (Archanes). An 18-year-old male, the skeleton so tightly contracted that he is considered to have been trussed in a fashion comparable to that of the sacrificial bull on the Ayia Triadha sarcophagus, was found lying on his right side on a platform in the center of the room. Among his bones was a bronze dagger 0.40 m. long, on each side of which was incised the frontal head of a boar. Close beside the platform (or sacrificial altar) had stood a pillar with a trough around its base, the trough probably designed to catch the blood from animal (and human) sacrifices. The dead youth's bones were discolored in such a way (those on his upper/left side being white, those on his lower/right side being black) as to suggest to a visiting physical anthropologist that the youth, estimated to have been 5' 5" tall, had died from loss of blood. The skeleton remains of a young woman of 28 years of age was also found near by, who it is theorized was killed due to an earthquake while carrying the human sacrifice. Along with this discovery there also a find of 12 young skeleton remains of children who seem to have been brutally killed.[8] This suggest that the Minoans indulged in this "barbaric" form of blood sacrifices. Although the sex of the children could not be determined, such activities could have been the origins of late classical Greek story telling of the Amazons killing off all males within their society and the story of the women of Lemnos found in Jason and the Argonauts who murdered their fathers and husbands.[9][10]
[edit] Minoan Warrior Priestesses
As with the tales of the Amazons ruling over their societies with no male counterparts, frescos from Knossos show that Minoan civilization more than likely was ruled by Queen Goddesses. According to Jacquetta Hawkes (1968, p. 76.), the absence of manifestations of the all-powerful male ruler that were so widespread at this time and in this stage of cultural development as to be almost universal suggest Minoan thrones may have been queens. This is given credibility with archeological finds which suggest that unlike royal courts elsewhere, such as in Egypt and the Orient, where one would expect at the very least there to have been two thrones for a King and a Queen, instead in the sacred room at Knossos, and apparently also in the state apartment in the residential quarter, the throne stood single and alone for the Goddess Queen. According to Minoan culture, Minoan priestesses often accompanied their male counterparts into battle[citation needed]. These priestesses dramatized the Minoan goddesses' presence on the battlefield. In their warlike character the Minoan women, like that of the Amazons, are reflexes of the Woman Goddess whom they worshipped. Like the Warrior Goddess who carries an axe into battle, they too are depicted carrying the battle-axe and in this they are shown to be closely related to the religion of historic Cretan civilization, of which the weapon is the conspicuous symbol. Their other weapon, the bow, also seems to have origins in Cretan culture and attributed to the God Apollo whom the Cretans seem to have revered. Prior to the dominance of patriarchal society in ancient Greece itself, even in Laconia, women enjoyed unusual freedom, and there were stories of their having borne arms for their country. There were similar tales at Argos and in Arcadia, and at the olympian Heraeum were a footrace of maidens was conducted in honour of Hippodamia. Recent excavations on Crete show that female initiation rites were a common occurrence in their societies, to mark periods in the transition from one life-stage to another, such as the transition from childhood to adulthood.[11][12]
[edit] Minoan vs Mycenaeans
Current findings has some[citation needed] who theorize that the legend of the Amazons might have been formed by these Minoan women of Crete, at the time of Ariadne, a fertility goddess, who did not want to submit to male dominated Gods of which the like Theseus, King of Athens, was trying to establish. The Amazons of Greek mythology might have been created by early Archaic civilization to reflect the conflicts that existed between Minoans and Mycenaeans. This also calls into question the popular stereotypes of the so-called "peace-loving" Minoans and "warlike" Mycenaeans. Recent research has determined that the Minoans did, in fact, build walls which some theorize were for defensive purposes, and evidence for them has been found at Malia, Gournia, and at Petras. It is also more than likely that the Minoans were enemies of the mainland Mycenaeans, just as the Amazons were said to have been, and just as the Amazons of Greek mythology were the objects of armed conflicts with mainland Archaic, so were the Minoans. The theory this raises is that by turning Minoan priestesses into the Amazons of Greek mythology, the Archaics were fighting something, the powerful positions held by Minoan women, which they believed was a threat to their male dominated societies. This theory can further be given credit since the mainland Mycenaeans, who started to believe in a patriarchy system, would have strongly expressed their revulsion for Minoan women holding such authority within a culture which was predominantly matrilineal and Goddess worship; and by the way Amazons were depicated in classical literature. There are written records in where this has been proven where the Mycenaeans write unflatering stories about the warrior priestesses on battle grounds to where they try to intimidate the Minoans by humiliating their goddesses, such as the story of Pasiphaë. A theory which has arose from all this is the possibility that the Amazons were groups of rebel women in the ancient Greek world who revolted against the overthrow of their female dominated Goddesses. Since it has already been established that female dominated Goddesses as well as matrilineal societies were part of the early ancient Greek world that were suddenly replaced by patriarchical societies with male dominated gods, this theory might not be so far-fetched. Especially when taken into consideration that the axe represented a powerful symbol to Minoan priestesses and the Amazons are often depicted riding into battle with the ax elevated, more than likely as a physical weapon, but maybe another reason for this was its mystical sign against the unbeliever trying to overthrow their religion. The Mycenaeans may have displaced what was for the women of that time a golden age, since the age of The Goddess is described in this way in historical records. These women might have decided to fight for the worship of The Goddess simply because it was so favorable to women, a revolt by women against the male god patriarchy that was being imposed upon them by men, and in later times these stories of female warriors were transformed into the Amazons of Greek mythology. Given as to how ultimately the Mycenaeans defeated the Minoans, we have only the Mycenaean stories, and later on of classical Greek and Roman scholars to record such events. During Homer's time about a third of Crete's was populated with Minoans, many of whom had migrated into Asia Minor who some believe founded cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean, on the Black Sea region and Pontus, traditionally the homelands which classical Greeks and later scholars associate with the Amazons. One factor in this which might suggest[citation needed] that ancient historians believed the theory of a connection between the Amazons and a Minoan migration into Asia Minor and possible blending with local populations is Herodotus describtion of the Lycians: "The Lycians came originally from Crete, …in their manners they resemble in some ways the Cretans, in others the Carians…" ―Herodotus Lycians 1.173
