Knossos, Crete
The site was continuously inhabited from the Neolithic period.

Eileithyia was a goddess that protected childbirth and a cave
on Crete was the most important place of her worship, being
Continuously used from Neolithic until late Roman times.

The palace at Zakros is the fourth in terms of size, among the Minoan palaces. It was located at an advantageous strategic position, at a protected bay, and was the centre of commercial exchange with the countries of the East, as is indicated by the excavation finds (elephants' tusks, faience, copper etc.) It has two main building phases: the old palace was built in c. 1900 B.C., and the new one in c. 1600 B.C., but was destroyed in 1450 B.C. along with the other centres of Minoan Crete. (source)

Akrotiri of Thera
This is one of the most important prehistoric settlements of the Aegean. The first habitation at the site dates from the Late Neolithic times (at least the 4th millenium B.C.). During the Early Bronze Age (3rd millenium B.C.), a sizeable settlement was founded and in the Middle and early Late Bronze Age (ca. 20th-17th centuries B.C.) it was extended and gradually developed into one of the main urban centres and ports of the Aegean. The large extent of the settlement (ca. 20 hectares), the elaborate drainage system, the sophisticated multi-storeyed buildings with the magnificent wall-paintings, furniture and vessels, show its great development and prosperity. The various imported objects found in the buildings indicate the wide network of its external relations. Akrotiri was in contact with Crete but also communicated with the Greek Mainland, the Dodecanese, Cyprus, Syria and Egypt. The town's life came to an abrupt end in the last quarter of the 17th century B.C. when the inhabitants were obliged to abandon it as a result of severe earthquakes. The erruption followed. The volcanic materials covered the entire island and the town itself. These materials, however, have protected up to date the buildings and their contents, just like in Pompei. (source)

The exploitation of wild (as opposed to domesticated) food resources played a surprisingly
                   limited role in the Greek Neolithic. The economy may therefore be accurately described as
                   {agropastoral} [farming = agro-; stock-rearing and herding = pastoral], with no significant
                   emphasis on hunting, except for the copious evidence for fishing in the islands. During the
                   earlier phases of the Neolithic era, settlements were concentrated on the most fertile alluvial and
                   colluvial soils. Because these soils retained water well and could be easily enough turned over,
                   or tilled, by human labor, there was no need for draft animals or artificial irrigation to any
                   significant degree. Not surprisingly, therefore, the faunal record offers no evidence for the
                   presence of donkeys, horses, or oxen, nor does Neolithic architecture in Greece include any
                   large-scale irrigation works, although fairly wide and deep ditches around settlements are not
                   uncommon is some areas (e.g. Thessaly). Villages occupied throughout the year (as indicated
                   by the age at death of the pigs raised in them) and for long periods of time (as revealed by the
                   deep stratification at numerous mound sites in Macedonia [where they are known as
                   toumbas], Thessaly [where they are known as magoulas], and central Greece, as well as at
                   Knossos on Crete) are the norm for the Greek Neolithic; the latter phenomenon in quite rare in
                   the remainder of Europe at this time. Settlement density and settlement size are both
                   significantly higher in the northern parts of Greece than they are in the Peloponnese and the
                   islands (aside from Knossos on Crete). Right from the beginning of the Neolithic there is
                   evidence for widespread trade in utilitarian goods (mostly stone tools and the materials from
                   which these were produced) as well as in exotics (display items of shell and, in the later
                   phases, metal). Evidence for at least part-time craft specialization is reasonably copious
                   throughout, but compelling evidence for social stratification and organizational hierarchies is
                   rare. Monumental architecture, whether funerary or ritual in function, is conspicuously absent.  (source)

Archaeological site of Karthaia
Karthaia was one of the four ancient cities of Ceos, famous for its monumental architecture, its well built fortification. The literary sources and the excavation finds bear evidence for the cultural and artistic activity of the ancient city mainly after 600 BCE. (source)

Prehistoric Settlement of Aghia Eirene
 Located in the north section of the harbour of Aghios Nicolaos, the prehistoric settlement of Aghia Eirene was one of the most important cultural centres of the Aegean. The site was  first occupied in the Late Neolithic period  (3000 B.C.) and continued to be  inhabited until the 15th century B.C., when it was destroyed by a series of earthquakes

Located at the northwestern tip of the island of Keos, Kephala consists of both a settlement and a nearby extramural cemetery. The settlement was short-lived (estimated occupational duration of one century) and small (maximum population estimate of 50) and is one of several more or less contemporary sites on the island (which include Paoura, Sykamia, and Ayia Irini).

From the settlement comes evidence of metalworking on the site in the form of pieces of slag
                   and of burnt clay fragments of furnace-lining or of crucibles. Four fragmentary copper artifacts
                   from the site (the single piece analyzed was almost pure copper) were unfortunately surface
                   finds, but there is little reason not to accept them as representative of the sort of metal artifact in
                   use during the site's occupation. Most of the chipped stone on the site is obsidian which was
                   clearly locally worked and of which a far larger percentage consists of blades than at Saliagos.
                   Half-a-dozen tools of flint/chert are certainly imported. Eight terracotta figurines, all but one
                   found in the cemetery although not in the tombs themselves, are either small, crudely modelled
                   female figures (four examples), heads which resemble in their flat, backward-tilting faces and
                   prominent noses the later marble Early Cycladic figurines (three examples), or {ithyphallic}
                   [sexually aroused, as indicated by a prominent penile erection] males (one example). Among
                   the pottery, the most common shapes are bowls, jars, and scoops. Decoration, when it occurs,
                   may consist of incision, pattern-burnishing, or crusted decoration in red or white applied after
                   firing. Of considerable interest are the impressions of woven mats on seventeen potsherds and
                   of cloth on three more sherds.

The Kephala culture, assignable to the Final Neolithic period, has numerous connections with sites in Attica (Athens, Thorikos, Kitsos Cave) and the Saronic Gulf (Kolonna on Aegina).The extramural cemetery at Kephala is, after the appreciably earlier cemeteries of cremation burials from Souphli and Plateia Magoula Zarkou in Thessaly, the Aegean's first communal burial ground to be located outside of a cave. The tomb types, marble vessels, and some of the figurines anticipate those characteristic of the subsequent Grotta-Pelos culture, the earliest Bronze Age culture thus far identified in the islands. The evidence from Kephala for Neolithic metalwork corresponds in date with that from contemporary Knossos on Crete, Pefkakia in Thessaly, and Sitagroi in eastern Macedonia, but only at Kephala and Sitagroi do slags or crucibles attest to the actual practice of some kind of metallurgy. Roughly contemporary deposits of copper artifacts accompanied by gold and silver objects with undeniable parallels among the treasures found in the rich Neolithic burials at Varna in coastal Bulgaria have also been found in the Cave of Zas on Naxos and in the Alepotrypa Cave on the west coast of the Mani in southern Laconia. Such distant contacts are eloquent testimony to the impressive distances over which objects were being exchanged by sea in the Aegean during the later fourth millennium B.C. (http://devlab.cs.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/2.html)

A Final Neolithic Successor to the Saliagos Culture?
 Recent excavations at Grotta on Naxos have produced white-on-dark painted pottery
                   reminiscent of that of the Saliagos Culture but here associated with an obsidian chipped stone
                   industry consisting primarily of blades. The excavator has suggested that this assemblage,
                   rather than that described above as the Kephala Culture, may be typical of the central Aegean
                   islands at the end of the Neolithic and may have a better claim to being the direct ancestor of the
                   Grotta-Pelos Culture, the Cyclades' earliest Bronze Age assemblage. The Kephala culture may
                   thus be limited to Attica and islands in the adjacent waters of the Saronic Gulf and the
                   westernmost Aegean.

EARLY CYCLADIC I (ca.3100/3000-2650 B.C.) (source)

The dead are buried in cemeteries of cist graves which never consist of more than fifty tombs
                   and usually number twenty or less. These tomb groups presumably represent small kinship
                   groups, in most cases probably no more than the members of a single nuclear family over a
                   period of some two to six generations. Single inhumations are normal in the cists, although
                   multiple burial of from two to eight individuals in two-level graves is fairly common. Cists are
                   built of four upright slabs or sometimes of three slabs and a short stretch of dry rubble walling.
                   The floor of the tomb is usually bedrock or simply sterile soil, but sometimes it is covered by a
                   slab or slabs, occasionally by pebbles. The roof of the tomb iconsists of one or more slabs.
                   Bodies are deposited in a contracted position, usually lying on the right side. There are often no
                   grave goods at all. The lower level of two-level graves was evidently used as a receptacle for
                   former tomb occupants in tombs utilized for multiple burials.

Scattered and sporadic contacts with sites in northern Crete (Pyrgos Cave, Ayia Photia cemetery) and central Greece (Eutresis in Boeotia) are attested, but the links with the cemetery of cist graves at the site of Iasos on the western Anatolian coast seem closer and more extensive. The Grotta-Pelos culture is likely to be a local development from the Kephala culture.

The Pre palace period (2600-1900 BC)
  With the arrival of new racial elements in Crete, bronze was used for the first time in the fabrication of tools and weapons. The main forms of deity, and the most important cult symbols, had made their appearance in the sphere of religion, figurines of the Mother Goddess being typical. (source)

II (ca. 2700/2650-2150 B.C.) There is no question of an invasion of Crete by a foreign population.
Extensive contact with the Cyclades is documented by the marble figurines of folded-arm type, by incised stone vases produced in chlorite schist, by the overall similarity between the two areas in dagger and tweezer types of copper, and by imported Cycladic pottery in both settlement and funerary contexts. Contacts between Crete and the Greek Mainland are established by the discovery of Urfirnis sauceboat fragments in  Knossos and in  deposits at Platyvola in west Crete, as well as by the presence of a few  seals and amulets  and an occasional  vase in a Cycladic context. Minoan activity at the site of Kastri on Kythera is considered by some to mark the establishment of a Minoan colony,  by far the earliest Minoan settlement outside of Crete itself. Contact of some sort with the Levant is attested by the ivory used to make Minoan seals. Stone bowls of Egyptian manufacture may show  contact either with Egypt (direct) or with the Levant (indirect).

Middle Minoan
IA (ca. 2050/2000-2000/1950 B.C.) A very few pieces of Minoan pottery have been found from this period further east, on Samos and on Cyprus.
IB (ca. 2000/1950-1900/1850 B.C.[palace sites], 1750/1720 [non-palatial sites]) The first certain palaces are now constructed at Knossos and Phaistos. Close contacts are maintained with the eastern Peloponnese and now are extended for the first time on a similar scale to the central Aegean islands (Ayia Irini on Keos, Phylakopi on Melos, Paroikia on Paros, and probably Mikri Vigla on Naxos). The earliest Minoan pottery from the Dodecanese (the Serraglio on Kos, Ialysos/Trianda on Rhodes) and the coast of Western Anatolia (Iasos, Miletus, Knidos) is probably also of this period. Cretan sherds of MM IB-IIA  date have been found at Kahun and Harageh in Egypt in levels datable to the early 19th century B.C. Minoan objects are now also firmly attested at such Levantine sites as Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) and are more numerous on Cyprus.
Middle Minoan IIIA-B (ca. 1750/1720-1700/1675 B.C.) This period witnesses the rebuilding of the palaces at Knossos, Phaistos, and possibly Mallia (where the existence of a true palace in the Protopalatial period is not altogether certain at present), as well as the construction of the palace at Zakro.  During this phase, Minoan influence expands and intensifies throughout the southern Aegean. For the first time there is good evidence for Minoan contacts with the western Peloponnese, especially with Messenia. Minoan artists and craftsmen have been considered by some to be resident at some Mainland sites at this time (potters at Ayios Stephanos, smiths at Mycenae). The sites of Trianda (Rhodes), the Serraglio (Kos), Miletus, Iasos, and Knidos are thought by many to be firmly established Minoan colonies by this time  if indeed they had not been settlements of this kind earlier. In the Cyclades, Minoan influence  becomes so pervasive in this and the ensuing Late Cycladic (LC) I period that Cycladic culture in many ways is in danger of losing a distinct identity. It is against this backdrop of marked  Minoan cultural expansion in the early Neopalatial period that, in the opinion of most specialists, the later Greek traditions of a Minoan thalassocracy (or sea-empire) must be evaluated for their potential historicity.

WRITING At least three different systems of writing in Crete can be dated to the Middle Minoan period.

1) Pictographic or Hieroglyphic Script
This appears in MM IA and continues into the MM IIIB period, a "life history" of some 500-550 years. The signs are, as the name of the script implies, pictorial and the script has an overall "glyptic" character. The earliest examples occur on MM I seals with three or four sides. The number of surviving texts is small, examples coming only from Knossos, Phaistos, and Mallia. The texts themselves are very short. Aside from the numerals (a decimal system), the script is undeciphered and is likely to remain so. There is no uniformity in the direction in which the script is written.

2) Linear A
The discovery of early Linear A (so-called "Proto-Linear") texts in the ruins of the First Palace at Phaistos has pushed back the date of this script's first appearance to MM IIA or perhaps even to MM IB. It used to be thought that Linear A developed directly out of Pictographic (about one third of the signs in Linear A closely resemble Pictographic forms), but it now seems possible that Linear A and Pictographic are virtually contemporary in terms of their appearance. Linear A never appears on seals and has a general "graphic" character. Texts read uniformly from left to right and there is an extensive use of {ligature}s (combined or compound signs). There appear to be definite local variations in this script. It has a relatively wide distribution, having been found at some twenty different sites on a wide variety of different objects. Only three sites outside of Crete itself have so far produced examples of true texts (as opposed to an individual sign or two) in this script: Ayia Irini on Keos, Phylakopi on Melos, and Akrotiri on Thera. The language of Linear A is definitely different from the archaic form of Greek which is the language of the graphically related Linear B script. The Linear A script, like Linear B, is a syllabary and consists of some 85 distinct signs. Various decipherments of Linear A have been claimed but none have met with general approval. While it is possible that the language of   Linear A comes from a known language family (e.g. Semitic or Indo-European) and hence that closely allied languages still exist, it is just as likely that the language of the Minoans, like  modern Turkish or Basque, had no close linguistic relatives even in antiquity, in which case the chances of its ever being deciphered are exceedingly slim. (source)

At the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the later 4th millennium B.C., there is no evidence on Crete for the existence of powerful authorities operating out of dominating architectural complexes at a few sites of major importance ("central places"). A modern issue is the problem of how to account for the social, economic, and political developments which made Minoan "central places" necessary.

Van Andel and Runnels prefer to return to an alternative explanatory hypothesis championed by
                   Renfrew in 1972, one focussing attention on trade (whether commercial or based upon
                   gift-exchange of prestige items), craft specialization, and the resulting accumulation of wealth
                   by an élite. In their view, a modest network of trans-Aegean trade routes had gradually come
                   into existence between late Mesolithic and Final Neolithic times. Late in the 4th millennium
                   B.C., the introduction of animals exploited for traction in tandem with the ard (a primitive
                   plough) and the use of animal fertilizer opened up extensive areas of previously unused land to
                   rain-fed agriculture. In addition, increased emphasis on the secondary products generated by
                   animal husbandry (e.g. milk, cheese, wool/hair, hides) raised the demand for grazing land.
                   Thirdly, improved shipbuilding technology as evidenced by the advent of the longboat (at least
                   by the time of the Keros-Syros culture of EC IIA, if not earlier) and the sail (certainly by the
                   EM III period) made possible bulk transport of goods on a scale and across distances not
                   previously practicable.

                   The result of these changes was the colonization and exploitation of the Aegean islands and of
                   previously neglected areas of the Peloponnese, a process which still further promoted trade and
                   possibly at the same time increased the variety of the items exchanged. The broadly
                   contemporary development of lead, copper, gold, silver, and bronze technology and what one
                   imagines was a brisk exchange of both metallic raw materials and finished goods further
                   enhanced the development of trade networks. These would have been punctuated by exchange
                   centers (emporia) at fairly regular intervals, centers where wealth may have accumulated quite
                   rapidly in the hands of emerging élites. The seats of these élites eventually became the foci of
                   the first Aegean states. (source)

Any viable explanation for the rise of palatial
                   civilization on Crete must also account for why equally complex societies did not develop
                   elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe, especially in insular environments which are quite closely
                   comparable to that of Crete (e.g. Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Cyprus).

Since the Minoans were not militaristic, why not assume that some other power (Thera?) was dominate, destroyed (assisted by both natural volcanic activity and Greek pressure from the North), and left a power vacuum filled by the Minoans? There is conciderable evidence of Minoan dominance over the Cycladic culture when Minoan civilzation was at its peak, with Minoans free to trade with the mainland of Greece.

THE LATE BRONZE AGE ERUPTION OF THE SANTORINI VOLCANO

                   Early in the Late Bronze Age, the volcano at the center of the island of Santorini (or Thera)
                   erupted on a scale which may have had no parallel among eruptions over the past four or five
                   millennia by volcanoes located in or near densely populated areas of the globe. The caldera (or
                   crater) created by this eruption of the Theran volcano is said to have measured as much as 83
                   square kilometers in area. It presently extends down as much as 480 meters below sea level
                   inside of the wall of cliffs which ring it and which themselves rise up as much as 300 meters
                   above sea level. (source)

Not surprisingly, in view of the prevailing wind patterns in the Aegean, most of the pumice from the eruption is found to the southeast of Santorini. The Greek Mainland and western Crete would have been altogether unaffected by the ash fall, but eastern Crete would have been covered by a maximum of ten, and more probably by between one and five, centimeters of fine pumice. Archaeologists eager to establish a correlation between the Theran eruption and the collapse of Neopalatial Crete feel that such a quantity of ash would have had a disastrous effect on agriculture in eastern Crete. However, others point out that such a relatively thin layer of pumice would have been eroded away by wind and rain within a year or two and would in fact enhance rather than detract from the fertility of the soil. A layer of Theran ash was identified in the late 1980's in some lake sediments in western Anatolia, indicating that the windborne dispersal of this ash had a much more northern and eastern distribution than previously suspected.

Often associated with the eruptions of insular volcanoes are tsunamis or tidal waves. In the case of Thera, a tidal wave would have been created by the collapse of the magma chamber within the volcano and the creation of a large, deep crater or caldera into which the sea would have rushed. For many of those seeking to connect the Theran eruption with the sudden decline of Minoan Crete in the fifteenth century B.C., the major destructive aspect of the eruption has been not the ash fall but the associated tidal wave. In the middle of the debate in the mid-1970's over the nature of the Theran eruption and its effects, Doumas in fact claimed that the collapse of the magma chamber and hence the appearance of the tidal wave was an event whichpostdated the volcanic eruption itself by a decade or more, thus explaining how events on Santorini directly caused the collapse of Minoan civilization even though Akrotiri was buried in  late LM IA while the wave of destructions of sites throughout Crete which defines the end of the Neopalatial period cannot be dated earlier than LM IB. More recently, the vulcanologists have claimed that the Santorini caldera formed quite gradually and that a tidal wave, if indeed   there was one at all, would not have been on anything like the scale envisaged by Marinatos  and other proponents of the link between the Theran volcano and the sudden decline of Neopalatial Crete.

The simple facts are that the great earthquake which badly damaged Akrotiri is to be dated quite early in LM IA (either ca. 1650 or ca. 1560 B.C.?), that the entire town was buried in meters of volcanic ash still within the LM IA period (ca. 1625 or ca. 1550/1540 B.C.?), and that the wave of destructions (most of them including fires) which defines the end of the Neopalatial period on Crete and to which the palaces at Mallia, Phaistos, and Zakro all fell victim cannot be  dated earlier than LM IB (ca. 1480/1470 B.C.?). Thus no direct correlation can be established between the Santorini volcano and the collapse of Neopalatial Minoan civilization, which thrived after the eruption.

The Nature of Minoan Power in the Aegean during the Neopalatial Period

                   To what extent is Thucydides' report (I.4, 8) that Minos established a sea-empire
                   (thalassocracy) in the Aegean by virtue of the strength of his fleet an accurate reflection of some
                   Bronze Age historical reality? There is as yet no scholarly consensus on this issue although it
                   has been the subject of a good deal of recent scholarship (e.g. Hägg and Marinatos 1984).
                   Only a few of the large number of significant questions which arise in this connection are
                   briefly treated below:

1. If a Minoan thalassocracy like that described by Thucydides did exist, when did it flourish?

                   Minoan influence was felt strongly in much of the Aegean world throughout the palatial era
                   (i.e. from ca. 1930 to ca. 1500 B.C.) but in areas such as the coastal Peloponnese from as
                   early as ca. 2050/2000 B.C. Although it is just possible that Minoan political and/or military
                   power could have been dominant in the Aegean for as long as four or five centuries, indeed
                   even for seven, most authorities who believe in an historical Minoan thalassocracy would place
                   it either in the Neopalatial period (ca. 1750-1500 B.C.) or in the brief period when a
                   functioning palace existed only at Knossos under the domination of what most feel was a
                   Mainland Greek dynasty or overlordship (ca. 1500-1375 B.C.) or conceivably during both
                   periods.

                   2. Did the Minoans establish a network of colonies throughout the Aegean as one facet of
                   their control over the area?

                   Although such colonialism at first seems anachronistic in the Aegean of the second millennium
                   B.C., it cannot be denied that the city state of Athens developed a colonial policy of this sort in
                   the second half of the fifth century B.C. nor that the settlement at Kastri on Kythera, and
                   probably that at Trianda on Rhodes as well, seem to have been populated only by Minoans in
                   the earliest phases of the Late Bronze Age. Whether one can hope to recognize archaeologically
                   the presence of small ruling groups of Minoans in the midst of Cycladic or Mainland Greek
                   populations is questionable. Even in cases such as Ayia Irini, Phylakopi, and Akrotiri where
                   Minoan influence is strongest and where Linear A texts have been found, the evidence is
                   insufficient to document the presence of Minoans in ruling roles.

                   3. Did a navy such as that cited by Thucydides as the basis for Minos' control over the islands
                   exist in the Aegean of the second millennium B.C.?

                   The representations both of the fleet on the south wall of Room 5 in the West House at Akrotiri
                   and of a cluster of warships floating just offshore on the north wall of the same room are surely
                   evidence for the existence both of warships as a class of vessel and of the capacity to organize
                   such ships into militarily more potent entities like fleets. Of course, the fleet(s) illustrated in the
                   West House need not be Minoan nor need such a fleet have been permanently employed in
                   ridding the Aegean of pirates and establishing a Minoan hegemony. In fact, the ships in the
                   West House frescoes could well have been used at irregular intervals and for short periods of
                   time in piratical raids, whether against other islands in the Cyclades or against Crete itself. It
                   may have been just such a fleet that Homer's Agamemnon assembled at Aulis for the attack on
                   Troy two or three centuries later.

                   4. Can all Minoan influence which is detectable during the Neopalatial period throughout the
                   Aegean and beyond it, on Cyprus and in the Levant and Egypt, be explained purely in terms
                   of trade/exchange, together with the employment of Minoan artisans abroad (as, for example,
                   by the Shaft Grave princes)? In other words, can all indications of Minoan influence be
                   explained without attributing both military capabilities and a militaristic philosophy to the
                   Minoans?

                   Yes.

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