The Minoans: Europe’s First Great Civilization and the Connections Nobody Is Making
The Minoans built the first palatial civilization in Europe. At their height, roughly 2000 to 1450 BCE, they controlled a maritime network stretching from mainland Greece to the Levant, produced art of striking sophistication, and developed at least two writing systems one of which, Linear A, remains completely undeciphered. Then they declined, were absorbed by Mycenaean Greeks, and became a footnote in a history that largely belongs to the civilizations they influenced.
That footnote status is undeserved. The Minoans are one of the most consequential civilizations of the ancient world, and recent scholarship in genetics, volcanology, and Linear A research has opened up questions that, put together, suggest the standard narrative about who they were and what happened to them needs significant revision.
There is also the Atlantis problem, which most serious archaeologists want nothing to do with, and which is therefore worth examining seriously.