The Fall of Crete

From the 30th to the 16th century BC, a great civilization developed on the Aegean island of Crete. With centers of culture and power in such palatial cities as Knossos, Mallia, and Phaistos, the ancient race was one of skilled seafarers and artisans, an oceangoing people that dominated the Mediterranean for centuries. Then, inexplicably, all of Crete's towns and palaces were destroyed, and the society collapsed, abandoning its former influence and turning away from the sea. Because archaeologists have found echoes of Greek myth in the artifacts and ruins left from that vanished world, they have called it Minoan, after Minos, the legendary Cretan king— and mortal son of the god Zeus—whose palace held the labyrinth and the half bull, half man called the Minotaur. Historians speculate that the Minoans first arrived in Crete about 7000 BC, presumably from Asia Minor. By 1700 BC, the island's population was an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people, one of the largest in the world at that time. Expert sea¬farers and boat builders, the Mi¬noans built sturdy keeled craft that could travel several hundred miles in a few days—this at a time when the Egyptians were using rudimentary troughlike vessels for simple river navigation. Its maritime supremacy so eclipsed that of other cultures that Crete was virtually immune from invasion; the secure Minoans did not even bother to fortify their palaces.
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