Who Were the Minoans?
Minoan civilization confirmed European by 2013 DNA study
This Bible History Daily article was originally published in May 2013. It has been updated.—Ed.
Who were the Minoans? The Minoan civilization is remembered for its ornate frescoes, including this Prince of the Lillies from the palace at Knossos.
Who were the Minoans? Their civilization in Crete has long been considered Europe’s first great Bronze Age society. The floruit of the Minoan civilization, which spread across Crete in the third millennium B.C.E., occurred in the 18th–16th centuries B.C.E., in the late Middle Bronze Age and the start of the Late Bronze Age. The island is dotted with magnificent palaces, including labyrinthine Knossos, Phaistos and Mallia, and Minoan art and traditions have captivated and influenced the Mediterranean world for thousands of years.
Despite their celebrated legacy, the Minoan civilization remains shrouded in mystery. We do not know what language was spoken on Crete, and the scripts of the early Minoan civilization—Cretan Hieroglyphs and Linear A—have eluded translation attempts for over a century. Despite extensive archaeological research exploring the history of Crete, the Minoan civilization has always kept close ties to the world of mythology. Sir Arthur Evans, the first person to carry out extensive excavations in Crete, named the society after the mythological king Minos. Crete’s landscape serves as the setting for countless legends, including the birthplace of Zeus, the labyrinth where Theseus killed the Minotaur and the prison that Deadalus and Icarus fled with their ill-fated wings.
But who were the people that left us with such grand mysteries and ornate palaces?
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Sir Arthur Evans claimed that the ancestors of the Minoan civilization came from North Africa, but more recent scholars have suggested dozens of additional forefathers. On May 14, 2013, Nature Communications published the study “A European population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete,” analyzing mitochondrial DNA from Minoan osseous tissue found in caves at the Cretan Lassithi plateau. It suggests that the Minoan civilization was comprised of local Europeans rather than outsiders. The Greek and American research team writes that “Our data are compatible with the hypothesis of an autochthonous development of the Minoan civilization by the descendants of the Neolithic settlers of the island” and that “shared haplotypes, principal component and pairwise distance analyses refute the Evans North African hypothesis.”
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Who were the Minoans? Knossos’s Ladies in Blue are genetically related to modern Europeans, according to a recent DNA study. Archaeological Museum of Iraklion.
The researchers examined over 100 bone samples from the third and second millennia B.C.E. and found a combination of distinctly European and uniquely Minoan characteristics—with no trace of African descent. The DNA samples are consistent with that of Neolithic, Bronze Age and modern European populations, especially Crete’s modern population. The Minoan people may be related to groups that migrated from Anatolia millennia earlier; if true, this would allow researchers to use cues from known Indo-European languages to help decipher the still-unknown language of the Minoan civilization.
While mysteries about the seafaring Minoan civilization remain, we are one step closer to answering the question: Who were the Minoans? As University of Washington geneticist George Stamatoyannopoulos says, “We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European.”
Read “A European population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete” in Nature Communications.
Related reading in Bible History Daily:
Bronze Age Collapse: Pollen Study Highlights Late Bronze Age Drought
Early Bronze Age: Megiddo’s Great Temple and the Birth of Urban Culture in the Levant
What Does the Aegean World Have to Do with the Biblical World?
Read more about Minoan civilization in the BAS Library:
The Minoans of Crete: Europe’s Oldest Civilization: Excavating Minoan Sites
Past Perfect: In Pursuit of Minoan Crete
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Well, this is delightful news. Allow me to confirm the language thing. Paul Pezron was a brilliant monk and historian. He has history few ever passed down so that it is not even known beyond Pezron. Crete was named after Cres, for who the name of his descendants were Curetes or if you prefer, Cretes by taking the u out. Rome knew them as Quirites. Cres was of the family of the Titans, legendary spawners of the first overwhelming empire beyond memory, maybe 2000 BC. They are responsible for much of the myths of Greece, like the gods Acmon, Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, Mercury, etc. They were among the 1st to settle Greece, Crete, Italy, and Spain and they raised “hell” in the Mid east, too, and settled some in Phyrigia and around there.
Paul Pezron’s book, The Antiquity of Nations, available in print at amazon, has all this a far more. Many language explanations and small dictionaries, too. The Titans were “Celtick” tribes, yes of the north. I suspect Germanic tribes were mixed in as well.
I have the 1st 13 chapters of his book transcribed at
truth1.info/pezron.htm
I am slowly adding more chapters. You can view these for now or get the book. this history is mind blowing. Our language of USA English has a surprising number of ancient Celtic words in it as does some Greek and Latin. Not to be missed.
But were they able to take DNA samples of the Hyksos and the Phillistines, to see if the Sea Peoples were descendants of the Minoans? Because one claim, is that the Minoans fled Crete, because a massive volcanic eruption caused tidal waves to hit the island.
Re: Tim’s excellent suggestion, I don’t see the Hyksos as good candidates for Philistine forebears, or “Sea Peoples.” But why stop at DNA samples of the Philistines? Try also the Phoenicians (the classical Greeks claimed they were the builders of the ruined sites we regard as Minoan), the Phrygians, Hittites, and other Anatolians who might have been related to the forebears of the original Minoans.
The relationship of the Philistine to the Minoans (and Cypriots and Sicilians) should be checked.
The Hyksos are unlikely to be European, but rather Semitic and closely related to either west or south Semitic peoples.
How does this effect Rohl’s Hykos hypothesis. Hard to see his Hykos remaining 100% pure European after 200 years ruling Egypt and interbreeding with the Egyptians.
I almost thought you were on to something but you went astray . We’ve got to go with the DNA. The Minoans are of Neolithic decent . Most likely from Anatolia (present day Turkey) DNA from bones show they were the original settlers of Crete some 9,000 to 10,000 years ago ultimately creating there civilization approximately 5,000 to 6,000 years ago . By all accounts they were the first European civilization ( given this title because of it’s present day Southern European location .) The Minoan DNA shows that they share the least amount from Egyptians and Libyans, a little more from other northern Mediterranean areas , however most of Minoan DNA is shared with Northern Europeans and with the people of Anatolia (present day Turkey) The Minoans were perhaps the first to occupy Greece but they were not related to the Greeks that came later such as the Athenians or Spartans or Macedonians like Alexander the Great . The Minoans had only one other culture they shared almost identical DNA with and that was the Mycenaeans and they came from main land Greece appeared on the seen shortly after the Minoans . It was at the end of the Bronze Age when the volcano on the island of Thera ( about 70 miles north of Crete ) blew its top and sent tsunami‘s that destroyed most of their cities and Palaces which were inconveniently located along the northern coast of Crete . All of this was followed by earthquakes and lastly ash and fire balls burned and destroyed there crops and killed their livestock. Many that didn’t die right away succumbed to cannibalism . Over the next hundred years or so the Mycenaeans from the main land occupied Crete ( unsure if it was invaded or not ?) however the Mycenaeans has rebuilt many of the old Minoan sites and were known as the early Greeks of Homers Troy ( the Greek Mycenaeans of Crete ) that built the Trojan horse to sneak into the city of Troy . By the very end of the Bronze Age others had migrated into Greece where there was a period of chaotic unrest . It was at this time that ultimately the Mycenaeans also disappeared and the new Greek states began to appear . So it was the Minoans first followed by the Mycenaeans that gave the later Greeks there mythology which then tricked down to the Romans. Now I’ve looked into it quite a bit but it’s actually really hard to say which civilization came first , the Egyptians or the Minoans but I would have to say probably close to the same time , around 5,000 years ago . Both already had populations that you could probably call civilization before the time historians gave us dates of when the first civilizations began I’m sure . One last thing , both the Minoans and Mycenaeans were not Phoenicians , Egyptians , Canaanites or the Sea People ! By the way ,it is believed that the Sea People were from the western Mediterranean ? The Egyptians described them as a conglomerate of different people from different lands band together as barbaric pirates during a time of turmoil . I wouldn’t doubt that all the chaos happening all around the Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age was do to the eruption of the volcano on Thera which is believed to have been 4 or 5 times that of Krakatoa . That would make it the largest ever recorded eruption in human history . It most likely cooled the earth a few degrees and killed crops all over the known world . It may also be the origins of some of the great Biblical stories and myths from the Bible for example: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah . Two cities that burned ( probably burning lava projectiles ) another that fits perfectly would be Moses in Egypt calling on God which brings the plagues upon Pharaoh ! They all can be explained knowing how the eruption effected the entire region . I’ve already seen that geologist have taken core samples from all over the entire east Mediterranean and have found layers in the ground from right about the time of these events . But as far as what happened to the remaining Minoans , some scholars believe they split into different directions to escape the catastrophe and became assimilated into other cultures . I’ve heard before that possibly a portion of surviving Minoans had made it to the area between Turkey and Israel and mixed with the locals to later become the Philistines ? Hmm
How do we know that the ruling families of the Hyksos interbred with the Egyptians? The Ptolemaic dynasty never did; a couple even got the nickname Philadelphos, meaning “sister loving”, because they only married within their own clan. By the way, sorry to burst the bubbles of contemporary African-Americans, but Cleopatra was definitely 100 percent Greek; the genealogies prove it. Her son Caesarion, of course, was half Greek and half Roman. The confusion is caused by the fact that the Ptolemaic rulers adopted some Egyptian cultural and clothing customs, including worship of Egyptian gods, in order to make the general population see them as valid successors of the Pharaohs. It turns out that Hollywood DID get some things right, such as the Ptolemaic practice of the rituals of the natives and the skin color of the last queen of Egypt, played by Liz Taylor.
THIS HELPED SO MUCH….NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT
The Phoenician’s merged with the existing population of Crete and became the Minoans.
After the eruption of Thera and the invasion of the Mycenae, they returned to Phoenicia.
The Sea People were Anatolians that the Phoenician’s had traded and befriended and thats why their cities were left alone as they swept south and destroyed everything in their path around 1200 BC. Some of them settled and became the Phillistines.
The Minoans traded everything, their cities were city states that were all part of their Sea Trading Empire. They setup Trading Palaces all over the Eastern Mediterranean.
Rulers who respected their services allowed them to build Trading Houses in their cities because they would then have a supplier like Costco and Hermes of Paris rolled into one.
That is why Minoan frescoes have also been discovered in Egypt (Tell el-Dab’s), Turkey (Alalakh) and Syria (Qatna) which suggests an expansion of the Empire of the Minoan Civilization in the countries around the Mediterranean.
Take a look at this link :
http://phoenician.org/minoans_phoenicians_paper.htm
Read Phoenician Secrets by Sanford Holst
Read Phoenician Secrets by Sanford Holst
Minoans = Archaic Greeks = Indo-Europeans = White Indians = Brahmins = Sumerians.
Caucasin race lost their ancient histories/ cultures after the Great Flood (look at how many high mountains are in Europe compare to Asia) afterall 😉
There was certainly a stong bond between the peoples of the near east and minoans but as the dna research shows and also archeological evidence the minoans were part of the indigenous mix of people who occupied greece for centuries before the arrival of the “modern greeks” . Their genetical profile has little to do with the phoinicians who are semitic. the aegean sea had remarcable civilazation and it was a home to a culture that was frourishing. The minoans gained a great advandage from their proximity to near east and especialy egypt and they were greatly influenced especialy by egypt but that doesn t give a reason to wonder about who they were. they were people who were indigenous and , of course, after the “modern greeks ” came they just mixed with them. that s the reason we see the continouity in the genetic profile between them and the modern cretans. their languange is the true mystery.