History of Scholarship

The bases of Minoan religion were set by the excavator of Knossos, Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941). Evans realized at once that he was unearthing a magnificent civilization that, although under the strong influence of Egypt, had never become enslaved to it and had thus managed to maintain its own cultural identity (see Map 6). It was a highly literate culture with two different hieroglyphic and two Linear scripts (Hieroglyphic A and B, Linear A and B). The fact that all but Linear B remain undeciphered is an accident of history due to the dearth of preserved materials. There may be little doubt, however, that Minoan culture had myths and ritual texts of which we are unfortunately ignorant due to the perishable nature of the material on which they were written. Such texts would have helped better to elucidate Minoan religion.

As a consequence of this lack of evidence, Evans had to create his own narrative about Minoan mythology based partly on intuition, partly on observance, partly on projection of Greek myth backward, and partly on his solid knowledge of Egypt and the Near East. His basic assumptions as regards Minoan religion were three: (1) Early Crete had aniconic cults. (2) The aniconic objects as well as trees were possessed by the spirits of the divinity. For this idea he was indebted to Edward B. Tylor’s theory of animism. (3) The principal goddess of the Minoans was a Great Mother, as he called her. He detected her on the images on seals and wall paintings. Next to her often stood a youthful god, which he sometimes called the goddess’s consort, but most times he identified him as her son. A most important observation of Evans is that Minoan religion may be elucidated through comparisons with Egypt and the Near East. The Minoan Goddess was similar to Hathor. She was the dominant deity in the pantheon, and thus Minoan religion was virtually monotheistic. Moreover it was a palatial religion; the Great Goddess was also the protectress of the king.