Angela
Elite member
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This article claims certain tablets pinpoint the cause.
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology...-what-destroyed-minoan-civilization-1.7809371
Personally, this reads to me like a weakened civilization indeed taken over by invaders, even if they didn't exterminate all the men.
The mystery of what happened to the Minoan civilization has tormented archaeologists for over a century, and the tale has now taken a new twist. Nothing happened to them, say archaeologists who have been excavating the island of Crete for over thirty years.
This extraordinary people, who produced palatial architecture unparalleled in the Aegean region at the time, were not immolated by the volcanic eruption of Thera as once thought, crushed by earthquake, or squashed by Mycenaean Greece as more recently supposed. Rather, the Minoans, who had for centuries wielded influence throughout the Aegean, did experience earthquakes that rattled them, were indeed badly weakened by the volcanic blast from Thera on the nearby island of Santorini, and did experience the unamiable attentions of the mainland Greeks.
But although the two cultures appear to have struggled, over time the elite elements of both became virtually indistinguishable, after 1450 B.C.E., if not earlier. Minoan influence as such would recede and the by-then-Mycenaeanised islanders would soldier on until the great collapse of civilization around the Mediterranean Basin, around 1,200 B.C.E."
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology...-what-destroyed-minoan-civilization-1.7809371
Personally, this reads to me like a weakened civilization indeed taken over by invaders, even if they didn't exterminate all the men.
The mystery of what happened to the Minoan civilization has tormented archaeologists for over a century, and the tale has now taken a new twist. Nothing happened to them, say archaeologists who have been excavating the island of Crete for over thirty years.
This extraordinary people, who produced palatial architecture unparalleled in the Aegean region at the time, were not immolated by the volcanic eruption of Thera as once thought, crushed by earthquake, or squashed by Mycenaean Greece as more recently supposed. Rather, the Minoans, who had for centuries wielded influence throughout the Aegean, did experience earthquakes that rattled them, were indeed badly weakened by the volcanic blast from Thera on the nearby island of Santorini, and did experience the unamiable attentions of the mainland Greeks.
But although the two cultures appear to have struggled, over time the elite elements of both became virtually indistinguishable, after 1450 B.C.E., if not earlier. Minoan influence as such would recede and the by-then-Mycenaeanised islanders would soldier on until the great collapse of civilization around the Mediterranean Basin, around 1,200 B.C.E."