BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Were the Greek Gods Actually Minoan?

Praying to Demeter and Dionysus on ancient Crete

Four drawings of the fragments of the Linear A inscription (known as IO Za 2) found on Crete. Credit: Image adapted from Michael Schümann, CC BY-4.0.

Long before the world of classical Greece, the island of Crete was home to the Minoans, one of the great civilizations of the Bronze Age Mediterranean. Flourishing especially during the second millennium BCE, the Minoans built impressive palace centers at places like Knossos and participated in extensive trade networks that linked Crete with the Aegean, Anatolian, Egyptian, and Levantine worlds.

One of the great mysteries of Minoan civilization is Linear A, a Bronze Age writing system used primarily on Crete in the second millennium. Unlike the later Linear B script, which has been deciphered and records an early form of Greek, Linear A remains undeciphered.

Among the most important leads for cracking Linear A are inscriptions that feature the “Minoan Libation Formula.” Texts with this kind of inscription appear on small stone offering tables and other ritual objects, and many have been discovered at sanctuaries. The inscriptions contain recurring groups of signs, suggesting they record some kind of standardized language. Scholars generally agree that these texts are connected with religious activity but are not sure how.

A study by Michael Schümann recently proposed an interpretation of one important Minoan Libation Formula text, called IO Za 2. This inscription was placed on a tiny stone offering table found at the open-air sanctuary on the summit of Mt. Juktas in north-central Crete. Its fragments were found on the step of the sanctuary’s altar.

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Schümann argues—based on comparison with Indo-European languages and recurring phrases in other Linear A inscriptions—that the text describes a ritual involving lamentation, tears, and the pouring of a libation. He proposes the following translation:

Father of the Bull-Contest of Dikte, weep the tears; may the libation offering flow in streams in the sanctuary of the god Tinu and Ida-Mate.

The end of the IO Za 2 inscription is damaged, and Schümann’s most striking claims concern the names of deities he reconstructs from its fragments. Schümann identifies Tinu (TI-NU) with an early form of Dionysus (the Greek god later associated with wine, fertility, and ecstatic worship) by comparing it with the Mycenaean Greek form di-wo-nu-so, used for this deity in Linear B. He also identifies Ida-Mate (I-DA-MA-TE) with a pre-Mycenaean form of Demeter (the Greek goddess associated with grain and fertility). In other words, Schümann’s proposal places possible early forms of two familiar Greek deities—Dionysus and Demeter—within the religious world of Bronze Age Crete.

Schümann notes that the IO Za 2 inscription “represents one of the most elaborate examples of the Minoan libation tradition presently known and provides important evidence for the religious vocabulary, ritual practices, and theological concepts preserved in the language of Linear A.” If his translation is correct, the inscription provides evidence for religious traditions later associated with Greek Dionysus and Demeter already existing in the Bronze Age Aegean world of the Minoans.

Lauren K. McCormick is an assistant editor at Biblical Archaeology Review and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions, visual culture, and the Bible. She holds degrees in religion from Syracuse University, Duke University, New York University, and Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship on religion and the public conversation at Princeton University.

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