Just faces? You arent going to start in with your tired old standard text book stuff? What about the "sky god" explanation? Have you ever looked up any of this Minoan architecture?

Just faces? You arent going to start in with your tired old standard text book stuff? What about the "sky god" explanation? Have you ever looked up any of this Minoan architecture?

We were actually discussing the legend of Atlantis in fact being Minoan Crete which was a very real civilization that perished during a volcanic eruption and resulting earthquake on the Island of Santorini.

Minoan Crete was thought to be a highly advanced civilization that was essentially unarmed (for all practical purposes) and held priestesses and women as egalitarian in societal structure and spirituality.

Sorry for any misinterpretation there, I meant to convey that what was said coincided with atlantis legends I had read about in the past, toinclude what you just abreviated. With the exception of naing minoan crete as atlantis, everything seems to coincide, to include the ladies and thepriestesses etc, and no war so to speak. Instead of wars, they had more coliseum and gladitorial(?) competitions, the ultimate being the fighting of the bull, where a team of I believe five, would challange a bull inthe arena. And the object was nto to harm the bull itself.

Yep! You are exactly right. I think you just heard about Minoan Crete but didnt make the connection. Some scientists believe that the Legend of Atlantis is actually based on this civilization. Its very possibly and in fact it is the most likely scenario unless Atlantis is totally something else or an ongoing mystical motif of a submerged underwater city.

Yes they did this strange activity where they would flip over the horns of bulls and even the women would participate and it was considered great sport. Men competed against women in fact. Do a search for "Minoan Crete" on images and you will see photos of it. There is a lot of their architecture left behind but very little else is understood about their language. So most of this is based on visual speculation of archeological excavations. They appeared to be very sophisticated, egalitarian, non interested in warfare, wealthy and spirituality focused on women.

I found this on a website if you are interested and also that Fresco of the "Bull Leaping" Its looks like kind of a ridiculously dangerous sport if you want my honest opinion. Im sure people died pretty routinely dong this.

There is plenty of archaeological evidence to indicate that women occupied an important if not dominant position within the practice of Minoan religion.

A principal goddess would appear to have been Potnia ("lady" or "mistress"). The name usually occurs, but not always, with some qualification such as Potnia of Grain, Potnia of Horses, or Potnia of the Labyrinth. Potnia may have been a female form of the male god Potidas or Poteidan, from which was later derived the name Poseidon (a Greek god closely associated with Crete in later times). A female form of Poseidon also occurs in the name Posidaija. Another goddess was apparently named Diktynna and another Britomartis ('Sweet Virgin').

Largely on the basis of what appears to be cult shrines and sanctuaries, the existence of other goddesses have been posited - a goddess of the caves, a tree goddess, a dove goddess, a snake goddess - but it remains unclear whether or not the Minoans worshiped them as individual, specialized divinities or as aspects of a single Great Goddess.

The predominance of goddesses (or of the Great Goddess) is attested to by the dominant role played by priestesses in religious ceremonies and the presence of women in ritual contexts. Women far outnumber priests and male attendants, for example, in the paintings on the four sides of the Aghia Triadha sarcophagus.

Moreover men are rarely seen in commanding positions, despite attempts to identify them in such positions. Even the life size male figure in the reconstructed frescoed stucco relief at Knossos which Evans identified as the "Priest-King" is now believed to be made up of fragments of several different figures. The only thing that seems relatively certain is that one or more of the figures was male.

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). At both sites women are seen depicted in frescoes either alone or in groups.


"Toreador Fresco"
from the East Wing of the Court of the Stone Spout, Knossos
c. 1400 BCE
Fresco (restored)
(Archaeological Museum, Herakleion)

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/snakegoddess/images/minoanbulljumping.jpg

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.

Although it is difficult to decipher exactly what these figures are doing, the context and their proximity to the raging bull clearly denotes a game or ritual that involves bravery, agility, and skill, qualities which in any other contemporary eastern Mediterranean culture would have been thought of as residing exclusively within the domain of men. That they are being demonstrated also by young women in the Minoan fresco strongly suggests that on ancient Crete women occupied a significant place in society.

Yeah, the Amazons were also relegated to the status of "legend" by plenty of male anthropologists and historians for a very long period of time but they actually existed also and the Greeks did battle with them.

Ya know honestly Ive never even read Plato's story. I find with many (if not all of these cultures) if you trace them back much further, there tends to be a clearly defined prevalence of Goddess imagery and worship. Even the Hebrews who we always associate with Monotheism later and being brutal and war-like. They were but not entirely and not always. There was a gradual shift that occurred towards the concept of a "skygod" which Mirror discusses and knows a lot about and women and female centered spirituality (birth, death, rebirth) became associated with the Earth and then was gradually stamped out entirely or a very strong move was made to dismiss it.

No. I was commenting on the Minoan culture.