Flora Unveiled

Mystic Plants and Nature Goddesses j 177

177 177

13. Morgan, L. (1988), The Miniature Wall Paintings of Thera: A Study in Aegean Culture and
    Iconography. Cambridge University Press, p. 18.


14. About half of fig species are gynodioecious, comprised of some individuals that have
    enclosed inflorescences (syconia) with only long- styled pistillate flowers (females) and other
    plants with staminate flowers in addition to short- styled pistillate flowers (hermaphrodites).


15. The Minoans would have had some exposure to date palm cultivation from their extensive
    trade contacts with the Egyptians. Hood speculated that the Minoans imported date palms
    from Egypt and considered the tree sacred. R.  M. Dawkins proposed that the illustrations on
    a painted vase from Knossos represent three female date palm trees with their rachises begin-
    ning to emerge from the axils of their upper leaves. According to Dawkins, the small “branches”
    alongside the female trees are actually detached male rachises used for artificial pollination.
    However, the smaller detached branches do not look much like male date palm rachises, which
    are shaped like whisk- brooms. Perhaps they represent either basal shoots of the palm, as Morgan
    has suggested, or fern fronds. See Dawkins, R. M. (1945), The cultivation of date- palm in Minoan
    Crete. Man 45: 47; Morgan, L. (1988), The Miniature Wall Paintings of Thera: A Study in Aegean
    Culture and Iconography. Cambridge University Press.

Date (bce) Period Crete Mainland Greece

1200– 1100 End of Bronze

Age; Aegean

Postpalatial

Period.

Destruction of many important Mycenaean sites

on mainland (but apparently not Athens) and

other Bronze Age settlements throughout eastern

Mediterranean. Crete less affected. Linear B

disappears.

1200– 800 Greek “Dark

Ages”

Some population

movement to Cyprus

and Ionia (coast of Asia

M i nor).

1050– 700

Iron Age

900– 700 Geometric Period; Greek

alphabet developed;

expansion of trade and

colonization in Asia

Minor, southern Italy,

and Sicily.

750– 480 Archaic Period; Homeric

epics recorded; Greek

city- states evolve.

Continued expansion via

colonization throughout

Mediterranean as far west

as Spain.

480– 323 Classical Period

Table 6.1 Continued