Minoan Life in Bronze Age Crete [Paperback]

Rodney Castleden (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 041508833X | ISBN-13: 978-0415088336 | Publication Date: February 19, 1993 | Edition: Reprint

Thoroughly researched, Rodney Castleden's Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete here sues the results of recent research to produce a comprehensive new vision of the peoples of Minoan Crete.

Since Sir Arthur Evans rediscovered the Minoans in the early 1900s, we have defined a series of cultural traits that make the ‘Minoan personality’: elegant, graceful and sophisticated, these nature lovers lived in harmony with their neighbours, while their fleets ruled the seas around Crete. This, at least, is the popular view of the Minoans. But how far does the later work of archaeologists in Crete support this view?

Drawing on his experience of being actively involved in research on landscapes processes and prehistory for the last twenty years, Castleden writes clearly and accessibly to provide a text essential to the study of this fascinating subject.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this companion to The Knossos Labyrinth (Routledge, 1990), Castleden gives us an outline of the Minoan culture that, he alleges, is more consistent with recent archaeological evidence: that Knossos was a temple, not a palace, in which occurred not only athletic games and graceful rites, but also human sacrifice and other behaviors pointing to a previously unsuspected dark side to the Minoan personality; and that the Minoan world view and distinctive artistic vision were stimulated by the widespread eating of opium. His revision is not implausible. In early cultures the line between church and state tended to be hazy; so with its architecture. On the other hand, in his zeal to reexamine all traditional theories Castleden frequently proposes scenarios drawn more from psychosocial inference than evidence, yielding arguments less compelling than the originals. A nation of addicts could scarcely have had the energy to execute drug-induced creativity, much less to develop the commercial empire that was ancient Crete under the Minoans. Thought-provoking nonetheless.
-Jo-Ann D. Suleiman, Sanad Support Technologies, Rockville, Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Displaying sound scholarship, Castleden cites excavations and theories in detailed but accessible prose. . . . A more complex, even contradictory, image of the Minoans than appears in other works.
–Booklist

Strongly recommended for all ancient history collections.
–Choice

Well researched, well illustrated, and bang up to date as far as recent discoveries are concerned.
–Minerva

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; Reprint edition (February 19, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041508833X
• ISBN-13: 978-0415088336
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #923,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading, September 8, 2005

By 

Angela Hussein - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Minoan Life in Bronze Age Crete (Paperback)

The book has a nice bibliography and is useful for looking up sources for research. However, anyone reading this as an introduction to Minoan civilization will me mislead on several key points. 1. The author refers to the Minoan "palaces" throughout as "temples". This is confusing to the reader. Granted, Minoan "palaces" were much more complex buildings with many functions than this accepted scholarly term implies. But simply changing the term doesn't help anything.
2. The author discounts the well accepted idea that the Mycenaeans ever ruled at Knossos. The period of Mycenaean sovreignty is treated as a continuation of Minoan civilization with no break. Most people of Crete were the same and went on living as they had been in Minoan times. But the ruling class changed, as evidenced by the change in administration language at Knossos. The author makes no mention of the change and in fact uses the Linear B tablets from Knossos and even Pylos(!) as evidence for Minoan social institutions.
3. The author displays a real lack of understanding about Minoan religious life. Strange considering how many buildings he refers to as "temples". For those interested, see Nanno Marinatos' "Minoan Religion".
The book makes an interesting read as an overview or for light reading, but shouldn't be taken too seriously.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars thought provoking- but not every building is a temple!, February 23, 1999

By 

Scott J. Hieger (Dallas, Tx) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Minoan Life in Bronze Age Crete (Paperback)

I read this book with deep interest and found that most of his impressions were right on the mark. I agree that to survive in the rough world of the Bronze Age the Minoans were very skilled fighters and raiders rather than flower sniffing pacifists pictured by Evans and other discoverers. But not every building was a temple. Each "palace" I agree was a temple in part. The west side of every major "palace" has been shown to have cultic significance since the time of Sir Arthur Evans. However, the east side of the central courts resemble Minoan residental architecture from all over Crete and from Thera. Is it not possible that the rulers (be they kings, priest kings, or a ruling priestess)still needed places to live! I feel that many of the so called villas in Knossos that Castledon calls temples are just very large homes with a home altar or a sacred room.

Still an interesting book with a lot of ideas that I feel will change our views on the Minoan civilization. However, I feel he could have balanced out his views with some good sense. A ruler has to live somewhere? Has Castledon ever come across these sites yet? He makes the argument that just like Egypt and Assyria, monumental temples existed on Crete and these are the so-called "palaces" However, every other major civilization in the Bronze Age had monumental structures that housed the rulers of the state, and why should Minoan Crete be any different there either. Could it be that the palaces of Minoan Crete served both purposes? I would appreciate other readers views on this matter.

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, modern book, both scholarly and accessible., October 18, 1999

By 

N. Martin (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Minoan Life in Bronze Age Crete (Paperback)

Books about ancient cultures tend to be either slightly soft-focus and "fluffy" or dry and almost excessively scholarly; neither approach succeeds in bringing a culture to vivid life for the interested lay reader. This book, however, does just that. It has scholarly evidence in detail, but also fleshed-out conclusions, and unflinchingly looks even at evidence that doesn't "fit" our modern image of ancient peoples we want to like, in its quest to bring us a living, breathing image of the Minoans. (It also has illustrations in plenty; I feel a bit juvenile to admit this, but I very much appreciate illustrations, as no verbal description can quite convey the brushstrokes, the maze-like floor plans, the quality of line.)It's not a perfect book---I agree with another reviewer who complained that people probably had more houses and fewer temples than Mr. Castleden concludes ---but it is an excellent one, especially for an "armchair archaeologist".