Cretan hieroglyphics are the earliest known writing system of Minoan Crete, a script of pictorial signs engraved on seals and small clay documents during the Old Palace period at sites such as Knossos and Malia. The script remains undeciphered and its language is unknown. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. This script first … Read more
A Minoan tholos tomb is a circular, stone-built communal grave used by early Bronze Age communities on Crete, above all on the Messara plain in the south of the island. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. These round graves belong to the same Bronze Age world that produced the great palace complexes such … Read more
Minoan burial customs were the funerary practices of Bronze Age Crete, characterised by communal tombs that families and communities reused across many generations and by burials in painted clay coffins called larnakes. These customs reveal how the Minoans honoured the dead and imagined the afterlife. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. The same … Read more
The Dikteon Cave is a sacred cave on the Lasithi Plateau in eastern-central Crete, above the village of Psychro, traditionally linked with Mount Dikti and celebrated in Greek myth as a birthplace of Zeus. It draws visitors who want to stand inside one of the island’s most storied Minoan cult places. Plan tickets and tours … Read more
Kamares ware is a fine polychrome luxury pottery of the Old Palace period, the most accomplished Minoan palatial pottery of its time. It was painted in white, red and orange on a dark lustrous ground and prized across the Bronze Age Mediterranean. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. The palace workshops that produced … Read more
Minoan food was an early Mediterranean diet built on bread, olive oil, pulses, fruit, dairy and seafood, eaten by the Bronze Age people of Crete. This balanced, plant-led diet sustained a sophisticated palace society for centuries. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. The same surplus that fed daily meals also stocked the storerooms … Read more
Minoan agriculture was the farming system of Bronze Age Crete, built on cereals, olives and grapes alongside livestock, pulses and orchard crops that fed the island and fuelled its palace economy. This agricultural foundation made Crete one of the wealthiest societies of the ancient Aegean. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. The harvests … Read more
Minoan ships were the wooden oared and single-sail vessels of Bronze Age Crete, the vehicles of a civilisation whose entire power rested on the sea rather than on armies or walls. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. The same maritime wealth that built the unfortified Palace of Knossos flowed in along the keels … Read more
The collapse of Minoan civilisation was the gradual decline and end of Bronze Age Crete’s palace-based society, driven by a combination of natural disaster, internal weakening and eventual foreign takeover rather than any single event. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. This wider story centres on the great administrative seat at the Palace … Read more
Minoan frescoes are the vivid wall paintings produced by the Bronze Age civilisation of Crete, applied in true buon fresco onto wet lime plaster and finished with bright mineral pigments. They show bull-leaping, sea creatures, processions and elegant figures from a palace world. Plan tickets and tours through My Greece Tours. These paintings decorated the … Read more