• Relating to or denoting a Bronze Age civilization centred on Crete (c.3000–1050 BC), its people, or its language.

  Example sentencesExamples

  • The large cresting form is structured in vertically rising bands that resemble segments of stained glass, topped by largo horizontal squiggles reminiscent of Minoan ornamentation.
  • All of these ideas were dismissed, with emphasis on removing the Minoan civilization on Theta as the likely origin of the Atlantis myth.
  • Nearby on the volcanic island of Thera, or Santorini, archaeologists dug up Minoan buildings, artifacts and a whole city, Akrotiri, buried under volcanic ash like Pompeii.
  • The island's Minoan population, they noted, was likely wiped out by a massive volcanic eruption circa 1450 B.C., a cataclysm that may have inspired Plato's tales of Atlantis being wiped out by floods.
  • While Mycenaean frescoes were derived from representations and conventions of Minoan and Cycladic painting, the Mycenaeans adapted these for their own purposes.
  • Greek mythology as we have it developed during the Greek Dark Ages, between the fall of the Minoan civilisation and the rise of classical Hellenism.
  • It would be sacrilege not to visit the famous Minoan palace at Knossos, which is within an easy drive of Fodele.
  • In the same year he proposed the idea that the collapse of Minoan civilization in the Aegean was caused by the eruption of Thera in c. 1500 bc.
  • Divided into two periods by a devastating earthquake that occurred c. 1700 BC, the Minoan civilization was noted particularly for its Linear A script and distinctive palatial art and architecture.
  • This picture of Minoan and Cycladic feasts does not permit us to determine their purpose, whether for creating alliances and fostering cooperation, for economic gain, or for sumptuary display.
  • Cypriots were influenced by traders from the Minoan civilization, who developed a script for Cypriot commerce.
  • The discovery early in the twentieth century of the Minoan civilization at Knossos in Crete revealed the sudden demise of an early Greek settlement of a highly civilized people.
  • In the Minoan world the same ideological strategy, aimed at strengthening solidarity and reducing members to anonymous, faceless participants, underlined the huge distance of the community from the center of power.
  • After mooching around the Minoan ruins at Knossos, we hitchhiked to the wildly beautiful lands in the west of the island.
  • By c. 1450 bc episodes of destruction in the Minoan palaces and the rise to prominence of the Mycenaeans in the Aegean seem to have resulted in Crete being drawn into the Mycenaean sphere of influence.
  • Researchers partially unearthed the ruins of a Minoan city and 30,000 persons engulfed by volcanic ash about 1500 B.C.
  • Olive oil, too, has ancient origins; Egyptian and Greek texts mention olive oil and its uses, and the Palace of Knossos from Minoan times contained a chamber called the Room of the Olive Press.
  • Borgna grapples with issues of social structure and organization in detail in her comparative study of Minoan and Mycenaean traditions of feasting.
  • The Minoan civilization on the island of Crete was named after the legendary King Minos.
  • I found another theory that held that the plundering and subsequent destruction of the palaces, such as Knossos, was the cause for the retreat of Minoan culture.

• 1An inhabitant of Minoan Crete or member of the Minoan people.

  Example sentencesExamples

  • An even older one, the Labyrinth game found on the island of Crete, dated back to the Minoans.
  • The tsunami, ash blanket and destruction of Thira greatly weakened the dominant Minoans.
  • She knew that, in the wake of the invading army, would be innocent, dead Minoans - her countrymen.
  • The emphasis is on fully experiencing the pleasures of the Cretan environment, on connecting physically with the places sacred to the ancient Minoans and on learning more about their culture.
  • The Minoans of Crete have long been a popular choice, though there are plenty of other suggestions, one of which, Troy, has been given fresh support by Zangger.
  • The Hittites, the Minoans, and other early civilizations left drawings of swimming and diving skills.
  • Given the links between Crete and Egypt in this period, the Minoans might be expected both to have learned viticulture from their neighbours and to have exported to supply the demand there and elsewhere in the Near East.
  • It greatly influenced the later Mycenacans, whose presence in Crete is attested from the 16th century BC and who succeeded the Minoans in control of the Aegean c. 1400 BC.
  • When Thera erupted, the Minoans would have been clobbered by tsunamis, overwater pyroclastic flows, and fires from oil lamps knocked over by the eruption's shockwave.
  • The Minoans produced gems of a different style, with designs of warriors, gods, and naturalistic animals.
  • The Minoans were not Greek and spoke the Cypriot language and so the established hypothesis was that there was some relation between Linear A and B and the Cypriot script.
  • In other ways they differed from the Minoans in being more warlike, having defended settlements, and a strong emphasis on weapons as grave goods.
  • It wasn't on the programme at the Ancient Greek Olympics, though the Minoans may have used poles to leap over the bulls during bull-dancing events.
  • The colour purple goes back to the Phoenicians, the Minoans and of course, the Romans who adopted purple as the royal colour.
  • An overriding theme throughout the book is the struggle of the Greeks to interact peaceably with the Persians, Romans, and Minoans and their capacity to adapt through the centuries.
  • You can still trip along mule paths, too, the very ones tramped by the ancient Minoans, into gorges bursting with wild flowers.
  • If they're stressed, the actors show no sign of it as they set to work, sorting the children out into Athenians, heroes and Minoans.
  • With an estimated population of 250,000 people (40,000 in Knossos alone), the Minoans traded with the people of the Fertile Crescent.
  • Now bull riding's been around since the Minoans were leaping over animals 3,000 years ago, but today's enthusiasts want to jump on, not jump over.
  • His recommendations were the Picts or the Minoans, because hardly anything was known about them and you could spend a happy lifetime of speculation.

• 2mass noun The language or scripts associated with the Minoans.

  Example sentencesExamples

  • Maman taught her not only the Latin and French that were the basis of her education, but Sanskrit and ancient Iberian, Aramaic and Minoan - whatever they came across in their readings.
  • This indicated that the language represented by Linear B was an ancient form of Greek, but he wasn't prepared to accept this, being convinced that Linear B was used to write Minoan.

The Minoan civilization had reached its zenith by the beginning of the late Bronze Age; impressive remains reveal the existence of large urban centres dominated by palaces. The civilization is also noted for its script (see Linear A) and distinctive art and architecture