The Secret of Crete

by Hans-Georg Wunderlich

The secret of Crete is Wunderlich's attempt to resolve the paradoxes that have obsessed the archaeological world ever since Evan's spectacular find at the beginning of this century.

367 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1974

Reviews

[Trevor Kroger · Rating 4 out of 5]

So there's so very much to unpack from this book but this quotation from the intro chapter is a good overview:

Thus the myth of the Minotaur, with its theme of human sacrifice, remained banished to regions of the unconscious where the spirits of the past await their hour to walk abroad. Then they burst forth, seize upon those who have bottled them up and force them to bloody acts in the name of ideologies, races and religions, urge them to autos-da-fé, show trials and concentration camps. Let us not deceive ourselves. Even in the most enlightened of centuries the heritage of the Stone Age still dwells within men. And it does not help at all to drive this sinister legacy into the abysses of the human psyche.

One of the things about reading history is how it demonstrates both the continuity of the human condition and also just how alien past tribes were to our modern sensibilities. The author, Hans Georg Wunderlich, uses this as kind of a guiding and unifying principle - he recounts Evans's speculations on Minoan society and how they more reflected the Edwardian England Evans was familiar with, rather than the wider culture of the Mediterranean Bronze Age. Wunderlich then spends a great deal of time exploring the similarities and cultural exchanges between Crete and Egypt - I knew Cretans were secretly Egyptian! - even going so far as to propose the Nile Kingdoms learned mummification from the "Keftiu" people from across the sea. I don't know if I can agree with him completely but he makes a compelling case, exploring the actual medical science available to ancient Cretans thanks to their home island being a source of cedar oil.

The thrust of all this is that the "palace" of Knossos was really a grand crypt as well as a religious center for a primitive cult of the dead. Like what existed in Egypt. From here, explanations arise for all the various images of Cretan culture - women exposing their breasts was a common sign of mourning, the bull fighting "acrobats" were performing an elaborate funeral game (and probably were themselves the sacrifices to the Minotaur, more on that below), and even the snakes were a common site in Greek and Roman tombs for centuries afterwards, as they ate the mice and other vermin attracted to the food offerings for the dead. Even the architecture of the palace suggests it was not intended for the living - the labyrinthine layout reflects the styles of Egyptian necropoli, the twists and turns intended to befuddle wicked spirits, and the principle entry being on the west. Western gates, among Etruscans and later Romans were things of ill omen, the entrance for messengers bearing bad news and where the dead were carried out of the city. The Roman legions would only ever march out of the dawn-facing Eastern gate.

To make his case for a Minoan Death Cult, Wunderlich doesn't just look to the neighboring cultures of the era, but also highlights some very unprofessional acts by Evans. Evans proposed an isolate, benign culture of sexually liberated snake priestesses and bull-dancing acrobats based on the frescoes he uncovered. Frescoes he and a French painter touched up, more out of romantic notions than historical rigor. Further, while Evans maintained all his life that the Minoan language was of some pre-Greek, even Pre-Indo-European variety, an architect and amateur linguist later demonstrated it was consistent with Linear B.

The author is not a historian but a professor of geology, which makes him more investigatory and less prone to theorizing. This is all for the good as it leads him to two important and so-obvious-they-missed-it finds in the Knossos center. First, all that stonework is not made from marble but much less durable gypsum. Marble wasn't exactly a rare commodity in the Mediterranean so a logical conclusion is that this "palace" has not really intended for daily living. Second, Wunderlich directly asked modern Spanish bullfighters if the acrobatic feats in Minoan art are even possible. Their answers came down to "Sure, if you want to die." And tellingly there have been paintings uncovered of the Minoan bullfighters not leaping over the horns so much as on to them.

Like Schliemann using the Iliad as a road map to modern Turkey, Wunderlich uses the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur to understand ancient Crete. The sacrifices to the Minotaur here are represented in a religious celebration for the dead, sending youths to die on the horns of a sacred bull. Similar to the sacred bulls of Egypt and Mesopotamia, except here is where Crete diverges from the rest of the region. While Egypt builds grander graves for its tiny oligarchy, the Minoan-influenced Greeks come around to a hero cult form of religion rather than entombing their god-kings. This is presented as a logical progression from mummification and tomb building which created enticing targets for grave-robbers - who were in fact the heroes of legend, descending into the "underworld" of these graves to rest treasures from the dead, thus gaining wealth and a higher station in life. This grave-robbing made cremation a more attractive option, which broke with a continuity stretching back to the Stone Age.

Wundelrich presents this as the defining moment in ancient Greek history and the point at which it kicks off the rest of Western Civilization with its democratic and humanistic principles. While the illiterate masses of Egypt built bigger coffins for their kings, the Greeks enjoyed much greater debate and social mobility. Access to education, even in just the form of rhetoric, of free people expressing ideas, is the key to a fully developed culture while the tomb kings of Egypt and the anti-literate priesthood of the Celts continue a primeval religion of the dead. Wundelrich argues this greater agency among the masses lead directly to the civic principles of the early Greek polis and eventually to nations and international cooperation. An impressive achievement, when contrasted to the origins in human sacrifice and death worship.

Quite a lot for a book that took me less than a week.

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. It's an eye opener. For me it still holds. It makes you want to know more and demands an update of investigatiions.