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Minoan Religion
Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete. In the absence of readable texts from most of the period, modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological evidence such as Minoan paintings, statuettes, vessels for rituals and Minoan seals, seals and rings. Minoan religion is considered to have been closely related to Religions of the ancient Near East, Near Eastern ancient religions, and its central deity is generally agreed to have been a goddess, although a number of deities are now generally thought to have been worshipped. Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the Bull (mythology), bull and the horns of consecration, the labrys double-headed axe, and possibly the serpent (mythology), serpent. The old view was that, in stark contrast to contemporary cultures in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Syria, Minoan religious practice was not centred around massive formal public temples. However, it is now thought the Minoan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. The first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos on the List of islands of Greece, Greek island of Crete began in 1877. They were led by Cretan Greek Minos Kalokairinos, a native of Heraklion. Three weeks later Ottoman authorities forced him to stop (at the time, Ottoman Crete, Crete was under Ottoman rule). Almost three decades later, Evans heard of Kalokairinos' discovery. With private funding, he bought the surrounding rural area including the palace land. Evans began his own excavations in 1900. Based on the structures and artefacts found there and throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Evans found that he needed to distinguish the Minoan civilisation from Mycenaean Greece. Evans was also the first to define the Cretan scripts Linear A and Linear B, as well as an earlier pictographic writing. Biographical background Fam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mycenean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first attested on Crete before the 14th century BC. Most inscriptions are on clay tablets found in Knossos, in central Crete, as well as in Pylos, in the southwest of the Peloponnese. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself, Tiryns and Thebes, Greece, Thebes and at Chania, in Western Crete. The language is named after Mycenae, one of the major centres of Mycenaean Greece. The tablets long remained undeciphered, and many languages were suggested for them, until Michael Ventris, building on the extensive work of Alice Kober, deciphered the script in 1952. The texts on the tablets are mostly lists and inventories. No prose narrative survives, much less myth or poetry. Still, much may be gleaned from these records about the people who produced them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examples dating to around 1450 BC. It is adapted from the earlier Linear A, an undeciphered script perhaps used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the Minoan palace, palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia, Pylos, Thebes, Greece, Thebes and Mycenae, disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing. Linear B was deciphered in 1952 by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris based on the research of American classicist Alice Kober. It is the only Bronze Age Aegean script to have been deciphered, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Minos
Main injector neutrino oscillation search (MINOS) was a particle physics experiment designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, first discovered by a Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) experiment in 1998. Neutrinos produced by the NuMI ("Neutrinos at Main Injector") beamline at Fermilab near Chicago are observed at two detectors, one very close to where the beam is produced (the ''near detector''), and another much larger detector 735 km away in northern Minnesota (the ''far detector''). The MINOS experiment started detecting neutrinos from the NuMI beam in February 2005. On 30 March 2006, the MINOS collaboration announced that the analysis of the initial data, collected in 2005, is consistent with neutrino oscillations, with the oscillation parameters which are consistent with Super-K measurements. MINOS received the last neutrinos from the NUMI beam line at midnight on 30 April 2012. It was upgraded to MINOS+ which started taking data in 2013. The experiment w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ariadne
In Greek mythology, Ariadne (; ; ) was a Cretan princess, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. There are variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helping Theseus escape from the Minotaur and being abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. There, Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping, fell in love with her, and later married her. Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne's jeweled crown into the sky to create a constellation, the Corona Borealis. Ariadne is associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of Theseus and the Minotaur. There are also festivals held in Cyprus and Naxos in Ariadne's honor. Etymology Greek lexicographers in the Hellenistic period claimed that ''Ariadne'' is derived from the ancient Cretan dialectical elements ''ari'' (ἀρι-) "most" (which is an intensive prefix) and ''adnós'' (ἀδνός) "holy". Conversely, Stylianos Alexiou has argued that despite the belief being that Ariadne's name is of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Károly Kerényi
Károly Kerényi (, ; 19 January 1897 – 14 April 1973), also known as Karl Kerényi, Carl Kerényi, Charles Kerényi and Carlo Kerényi (aliases under which his works were sometimes published, respectively in German, English, French and Italian), was a Hungarian scholar in classical philology and one of the founders of modern studies of Greek mythology. Life Hungary, 1897–1943 Kerényi was born in Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Timișoara, Romania), to Hungarian parents of partly German origin. His father's family was of Swabian peasant descent. His mother was Karolina Halász. Kerényi learnt German as a foreign language at school, and later chose it as his language for scientific work. He identified himself with the city of Arad, where he attended secondary school, because of its liberal spirits as the city of the 13 martyrs of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/49. He moved on to study classical philology at the University of Budapes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Diadem
A diadem is a Crown (headgear), crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by monarchs and others as a badge of Monarch, royalty. Overview The word derives from the Ancient Greek, Greek διάδημα ''diádēma'', "band" or "fillet", from διαδέω ''diadéō'', "I bind round", or "I fasten". The term originally referred to the embroidered white silk ribbon, ending in a knot and two fringed strips often draped over the shoulders, that surrounded the head of the monarch, king to denote his authority. Such ribbons were also used to crown victorious athletes in important sports games in antiquity. It was later applied to a metal crown (headgear), crown, generally in a circular or "fillet (clothing), fillet" shape. For example, the crown worn by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands was a diadem, as was that of a baron later (in some countries surmounted by three globes). The ancient Celts were believed to have used a thin, semioval gold plate called a ''mind'' (Old Irish) as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Terracotta
Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware objects of certain types, as set out below. Usage and definitions of the term vary, such as: *In art, pottery, applied art, and craft, "terracotta" is a term often used for red-coloured earthenware sculptures or functional articles such as flower pots, water and waste water pipes, and tableware. *In archaeology and art history, "terracotta" is often used to describe objects such as figurines and loom weights not made on a potter's wheel, with vessels and other objects made on a wheel from the same material referred to as earthenware; the choice of term depends on the type of object rather than the material or shaping technique. *Terracotta is also used to refer to the natural brownish-orange color of most terracotta. *In architecture, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Potnia Theron
The ''Potnia Theron'' (, ) or Mistress of Animals is a widespread motif in ancient art from the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East, showing a central human, or human-like, female figure who grasps two animals, one to each side. Although the connections between images and concepts in the various ancient cultures concerned remain very unclear, such images are often referred to by the Greek term ''Potnia Theron'' regardless of culture of origin. The term is first used once by Homer as a descriptor of Artemis and often used to describe female divinities associated with animals. The word '' Potnia'', meaning mistress or lady, was a Mycenaean Greek word inherited by Classical Greek, with the same meaning, cognate to Sanskrit ''.'' The oldest such depiction, the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük, is a clay sculpture from Çatalhöyük in modern Turkey, made c 6,000 BC. This motif is more common in later Near Eastern and Mesopotamian art with a male figure, called the Maste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of autocracy or oligarchy in which one or more deity, deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries, with executive and legislative power, who manage the government's daily affairs. Etymology The word theocracy originates from the () meaning "the rule of God". This, in turn, derives from :wikt:θεός, θεός (theos), meaning "god", and :wikt:κρατέω, κρατέω (''krateo''), meaning "to rule". Thus the meaning of the word in Greek was "rule by god(s)" or human incarnation(s) of god(s). The term was initially coined by Flavius Josephus in the first century AD to describe the characteristic government of the Jews. Josephus argued that while mankind had developed many forms of rule, most could be subsumed under the following three types: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. However, according to Josephus, the government of the Jews was unique. Josephus offered the term ''theocracy'' to descri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
