The Ancient Minoans Vs. Modern Americans

The Ancient Minoans vs. Modern Americans

The paper I had been writing on Minoan civilization was almost complete. It compared the myth of the Labyrinth by the Greeks to today's movie of the same name by Jim Henson. I was pretty proud of it, especially because of how creative I was being. Now it wasn't quite finished and I was having a hard time wrapping up such a unique paper. When a tempest arose, it had been gathering for a while but it hit fast and hard with no warning. The girlfriend decided it was time to destroy our relationship, with no hesitation she took the car and the computer, two things I need badly, the car to get to school and the computer to finish my paper. The main problem was my paper; it had vanished never to be seen again, much like the early inhabitants of Crete.

This however gave me a new point of view and a new albeit forced, start. The computer had become a crutch to help me through life, without it I couldn't pay bills, do school work or play games, but what had Minoan technology been like? How did it affect their art and civilization? Surely a culture almost 4000 years old didn't have much in the way of technology, I had a hard time imagining a people that old even being able to talk to each other without grunting and clubbing their partner. As I looked into it though the Minoans were remarkably complicated for the time frame they inhabited. Their similarities to modern America also shocked me. In the middle Minoan period they started building palaces, the biggest and most complicated of these was the palace at Knossos and was uncovered in March of 1900 by Arthur Evans. One of the truly remarkable aspects of the four story palace was the sewage system that was still in working order when uncovered by Mr. Evans (Caldwell, Gyles). They also had running water and special holes in the ceiling of each story that were called light wells. These light wells provided light to lower levels. That is just amazing, that means they had Sewage systems, running water and indoor lighting in 2000 b.c. Compare that with modern America and we have just about the same type of setup. Sure nowadays we have computers and television but those are just forms of entertainment. I'm sure ancient Minoans had some way of keeping themselves entertained. As I read into it I was again surprised by their ways of doing things. The ancient Minoans had a cult of the bulls and either as a form of worship or a game they would leap over an oncoming bull by grabbing onto its horns and vaulting the bull, land on its rear and bounce off (Wunderlich). That is something that I find hard to parallel in American society, although the Spaniards have the running of the bull and bullfighting. But still,

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