156 - Antique Minoan hunting...

We are a hunting ancient Minoan in the prepalacial period, therefore, particularly old, as we go back about 5000 years ago. The introduction of copper and its use for tools and weapons marks the end of the Neolithic in Crete. The current theory is in favor of the fact that the entire Aegean region is at that time inhabited by a people referred to as pre-Hellenic or Aegean. Egypt seems too distant to exert a great influence at that time. On the contrary, the Anatolia which plays a convincing role in the initiation of Crete to the arts of metals. The spread of the use of bronze in the Aegean Sea is linked to large population movements from the coast of Asia Minor to Crete, the Cyclades and southern Greece. These regions are entering a phase of social and cultural development, marked mainly by the expansion of trade relations with Asia Minor and Cyprus. But civilization Neolithic remains, especially in the first part of the period. So, can we note, initially, more changes in terms of organization and improvement of living conditions and in terms of technology. For agriculture, it is known through the excavations that almost all known species of cereals and legumes are grown and all agricultural products still known today as oil, olives, wine grapes have already occurred at that time. It seems that the caves, as Miamou, Eileithyia, Arkalochori, and Trapeza and Platyvola in western Crete are still inhabited during the prepalacial. But the remains of dwellings of ancient Minoan Vassiliki discovered near Hierapetra show a significant improvement over the primitive huts of the Neolithic period. These houses had thick walls, plastered and regularly divided into separate rooms.
The 12 items on this painting, which appeared to me the stylization of unspeakable beauty, from each of a seal dating from the origins of prepalatial Minoan glyptic. Of course the monogram of the artist, you have certainly identified, was not part of discovery and I regret it! The use of seals in Crete is probably from Babylon or Egypt, for their convenience in identifying and securing documents, and also served as amulets. But the use of utility seals evolved into an art of cutting stone. The seal, representing essentially a sign, led to what can be considered a form of writing. Among the goods found in Minoan tombs, are often the seals, which shows the idea of personal identification attached to the seals. The first seals are well past the first palace, dating from the middle of the third millennium BC, during the second phase of prepalatial. They are made of soft materials like bone, ivory, serpentine or soapstone imported from Syria or Egypt, are large and have almost all been found in tombs from the plain of Mesara. The usual forms are rings, seals, stamps, seals, buttons, cones, prisms, and more rarely cylinders. Sometimes they have the shape of living creatures such as monkeys, lions, bulls, and birds. The flat surface can be incised with lines, crosses, stars or patterns in S or spiral, but with both representations of animals or humans as hunters. The hieroglyphic symbols found on the seals at the end of prepalacial period and later seem to prove that a form of writing was known. There are large varieties of flowers, animals, insects and occasionally human figures, opening the way to the naturalistic style of the next period. The subjects are inspired by nature: shellfish, fish, birds, branches, bulls, lions devouring bulls, goats. Look in detail the table starting from the signature, in the opposite direction of clockwise: We started an unidentified male animal that appears to be maintained by a female hunter? Then a dog, domesticated by hunter-gatherers from the Palaeolithic, well before all the other species present. Hunter-gatherers and wolves had several things in common: they belonged to species sociable, they shared the same habitat and they eat the same prey. Studies have shown that very young cubs captured and raised by men tame and socialize easily, especially since they depend on their masters for food. Adapting to life with men has transformed the once wild animals. The oldest domestic dog remains were found in the caves of Goyet and Belgium dating from 31,700 years before present. Return to our table: The following is an ostrich, than an unidentified plant, the monogram of Philhelm, a deer wounded by a lance attached to a liana or a rope? A new plant, like two large sheets, and sometimes found well represented in hieroglyph, a hunter with his bow, a male deer and a fish! In the center the sun. Crete is an island, the blue background symbolizes the sea, but you already know? This table looks either up or down without either, since it is attached to its center and its axis mounted on a ball bearing, allows manual rotation of course. I don’t want to end this text without citing the works of Sir Arthur Evans 1851-1941 to whom I owe most of my sources whose "Scripta Minoa," which lists no fewer than 135 hieroglyphs and primitive linear classes (Oxford 1909).