Resources

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Websites

Foundation of the Hellenic World Minoan pages
This site by the Foundation of the Hellenic World offers an introduction to many aspects of Minoan society, religion, arts and crafts, etc. There is also a picture gallery, a glossary, a bibliography of the Bronze Age in Crete and dozens of links to related sites.

Jeremy Rutter's History of the Bronze Age
This is a history of the Bronze Age in Greece and the Aegean. The relevant sections for Minoan Crete are Lectures 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, (17), 18, (28). Each chapter has a very extensive bibliography.

Academia.edu is a website where you can download lots of papers written by archaeologists about aspects of Minoan Crete. You need to register before you can download anything, but it's free. Some of the archaeologists I have found with papers on the website include Jan Driessen, Colin Macdonald, Judith Weingarten, Alexander MacGillivray, Ilse Schoep, Louise Hitchcock, Simona Todaro, Peter Tomkins, Borja Legarra Herrero, Luca Girella, Carl Knappett.

The Minoan Snake Goddess
An extensive look at the snake goddess statues discovered in the Temple Repositories at Knossos. The Snake Goddess is one of the best known images from Minoan Crete.

Excavation websites

The Zominthos Interactive Dig
Information about the ongoing excavations at the Zominthos archaeological site.

Mochlos
This website is a guide to the excavations on the island of Mochlos and on the north coast of Crete across from the island.

Gournia
This website is a guide to the excavations at Gournia. As well as plenty of photos and site plans there is a description of the early excavations as well as current activity and an extensive bibliography.

Kommos
This website is produced by the University of Toronto, whose archaeology department has been responsible for the extensive excavations at the Kommos archaeological site.

The Petras Excavations
This website reports on the work being conducted at the Petras archaeological site, Siteia, eastern Crete, led by Dr. Metaxia Tsipopoulou. The movable objects section has dozens of photographs of finds from the various sectors of the Petras excavations. For those who want to do serious further reading about this fascinating site, the bibliography section contains almost every article published on Petras between 1985 and 2011. Over 50 of these articles, which are normally only available in university libraries, are freely available for download in PDF form. Many are written in non-English languages, especially Greek, but there is no shortage of interesting material for English speakers.

The Apesokari Tholos Tomb B Study Project
The basis of the project is the study and publication of the finds from the original 1963 excavation. In the words of the leader of the project, Giorgos Vavouranakis, "Its various sections include information about the architecture, artifacts and other finds from the tomb. The website also presents reflexions upon the wider significance of this prehistoric monument, especially its connection to the socio-historical processes that led to the establishment of the first Minoan palaces on Crete."

Dental anthropology and bioarchaeology
Bioarchaeology refers to the archaeological study of human remains. Health, age, sex, and other identifiable factors can be analyzed from human remains. Bioarchaeology blends multiple disciplines: paleodemography, the demographic study of ancient populations, paleogenetics, the genetics of paleontology, and mortuary studies, the examination and study of deceased remains. The analyzing of teeth is a sub-field of bioarchaeology. Read more on this fascinating subject on this website.

Books and articles

The Minoans by J. Lesley Fitton. An excellent introduction to the subject published in 2002 by the British Museum. This book is now out of print but it is sometimes available on EBay in a Folio Society edition at the very reasonable price of $25. Click the link above to go to the results for a search of Minoans on EBay to see if it is there.

Architecture of Minoan Crete: Constructing Identity in the Aegean Bronze Age by John C. McEnroe, University of Texas Press. This is a rather pricey but excellent and very readable introduction to the architecture of all types of Minoan buildings from the Neolithic right through to the end of the Minoan period.

Aegean Seals an Introduction by O Krzyszkowska costs a prohibitive £75, but is an excellent introduction to the subject of seals and sealing techniques, written in a way that is accessible to anyone seriously interested in the subject. Separate chapters deal with each of the Minoan periods. Definitions related to seals and sealings used in the text of this website have made use of descriptions. Try getting it on an inter-library loan.

Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature Pocket-Book, 155) by Louise Hitchcock is an even more prohibitive £80 from Amazon sellers. Based on her doctoral thesis the book attempts to place the various features of Minoan architecture into the specific context of the structure where examples are found rather than treating them as general concepts. Try getting it on an inter-library loan.

Recent developments in the Archaeology of Minoan Crete is a personal view of developments in the first ten years of the new century by Jan Driessen. Apart from detailing the most important developments over this period he also provides a lengthy bibliography of publications which appeared between 2000 and 2010. The article can be found on the academia.edu website.

Aegeum is a periodic publication of the proceedings of workshops on the subject of the Aegean Bronze Age. Individual copies of their publications are prohibitively expensive for individuals but six of their publications have now sold out and the publishers have made these six editions freely available in pdf form on their website. Articles appear in a variety of languages on a variety of topics but it is well worth going through the contents for each of the six free editions to see if there is something that interests you. Let's hope they sell out of more editions soon!

Kommos: A Minoan harbour town and Greek Sanctuary in Southern Greece by Joseph Shaw is both an account of the Minoan and Greek remains at the harbour town of Kommos on the south coast of Crete and an account of the excavations themselves. The book is fully illustrated with photos, maps and plans and comes with suggestions for further reading and a bibliography for those who have access to academic journals. The book, however, is intended for a wider reading public and anyone interested in the Minoans and the work going on to uncover their past and increase our knowledge of them will enjoy reading this book.