Facilitated by the volumes of the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel (Berlin 1960–2009), scholars studying Minoan and Mycenaean seal stones and sealings of the Aegean Bronze Age (ca. 2300–1300 BCE) have worked in two major areas: chronology and function. Chronology is now well understood through a process of creating a stylistic typology for seals that can be fixed in time through seals from stratigraphic excavations. Understanding the function of seals relies on a detailed typology of sealings and their role in administration as witnessed by documents written in the three major Aegean scripts, Cretan Pictographic and Linear A and B.

Religion and Cult Practice

In the modern world, Western societies tend to separate religion and ritual from other aspects of society in a way that ancient or “primitive” societies did not. In ancient cultures religion was an integral part of daily life, including the treatment of the deceased after death. For a heavily agrarian society, cult practice centered on daily and seasonal activities and on human involvement with a perceived supernatural world. Although it is difficult to reconstruct belief systems without documentary evidence (below, pp. 173-82), the archaeological record preserves much evidence for ritual equipment and activities. What makes Minoan society interesting, as well as difficult for us to understand, is the apparent overlap between religion, society, and politics. Some of these issues have been addressed in detail, but no consensus has emerged among scholars - an impossibility, perhaps, in any discussion of religion!

We assume that the foundations of Neopalatial religion were laid in the Protopalatial period, and probably much earlier, in the form of cults at caves (some at quite remote locations), at sanctuaries on mountain peaks throughout the island where offerings were made of terracotta human and animal figures, and at communal tombs, often deliberately situated to provide easy access from the homes of the living (Ch. 4, p. 93).

General Outline of the Period

The Neopalatial (or New Palace) period followed the fire destructions at the end of the Protopalatial period (MM II) and continued until the fire destructions at the end of LM IB, which destroyed almost all administrative sites in Crete (the central palace building at Knossos was spared) and changed Minoan culture. The period is conventionally divided into a short MM III period, which is difficult to characterize, and a long LM IA period and LM IB that together may have been the highpoint of the Minoan civilization.

Early in the Neopalatial period the Minoans extended their cultural and administrative influence beyond Crete. By LM IA we see their presence in the Cyclades (especially Thera, Keos, and Melos; Ch. 8, pp. 189-97), in other islands such as Kythera and the northern Aegean island Samothrace, and on the west coast of Anatolia (Miletos; Chs. 8, pp. 198-200; 9, p. 217). Besides being long and rich, LM IA also saw the eruption of the Thera volcano late in the period (Ch. 1, p. 6). Theran pumice has been found at many Cretan sites, where sometimes it had been carefully collected and stored, and several sites were wrecked by earthquake and either remodeled (Petras east of Siteia) or abandoned (the farm complex at Vathypetro). Other sites were simply abandoned, such as Galatas in the Pediada plain southeast of Knossos. More material dates to LM IB, simply because the fire destructions that closed the period were nearly total and apparently sudden; although no people were burned to death in the buildings, they left behind just about everything except their personal jewelry.