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Mystic Plants and Aegean Nature Goddesses
The history of ancient Greece is inseparable from the histories of the other Aegean
lands, including Crete and the roughly 100 smaller islands scattered throughout the Aegean
Sea and the Ionian coast of Asia Minor (Anatolia or modern day Turkey). The Minoans of
ancient Crete reached the height of their power and influence several hundred years ahead
of the inhabitants of the Greek mainland, the Mycenaeans, perhaps because of their early
trade relations with the older and more advanced civilization of Old Kingdom Egypt.^1
From about 2000 to 1600 bce, the Minoans were more unified, prosperous, and interna-
tionally connected than their Mycenaean neighbors on the mainland.^2 In addition, the Minoans
had developed an exceptionally graceful style of painting, as well as a symbolically rich religion
focused on a number of nature goddesses. Sacred trees and flowers, especially saffron lilies, were
central to Minoan rituals and iconography, along with an emphasis on female spirituality.
Minoan wealth was derived from extensive commerce throughout the eastern
Mediterranean, made possible by a mastery of the many- paddled Aegean longboat. They
also founded settlements along the coast of Asia Minor. Among the artifacts found in
Laconia on the southern edge of the Peloponnese was an abundance of Minoan- style pot-
tery, suggesting the presence of Minoan artisans on the Greek mainland during this period.^3
Minoan artists may also have been recruited to fashion some of the art objects found in the
Shaft Graves of Mycenae. Shaft graves, which are relatively rare on the Greek mainland,
consist of a vertical shaft leading to an enlarged stone- lined cist grave with a roof made of
timbers or reeds. At Mycenae, the presence of expensive grave goods and weaponry provides
evidence for a strongly stratified warrior society by 1600 bce.
Around 1525 bce, a new, more extravagant form of burial for the ruling elite was initi-
ated at mainland centers like Mycenae, which were possibly modeled on smaller versions
on Crete.^4 These were the large, domed tholos or beehive tombs, filled with costly burial
goods. Wealth of this magnitude could only have been accumulated through extensive