Mythology of Crete

Question

Are there any mythological beings that are Cretan ,and not Greek .For example the minotaur is set in Crete but a Greek story .Are there any pure Cretan legends or Myths .

Answer 1

This is a good question, but because Minoan culture (ie. pre-Greek Cretan civilisation) has two main contemporary written sources: Linear A and Linear B script, and since Linear A is still as-yet not deciphered, and in Linear B there just isn't a lot of anything written very specifically about their religious worship. Arthur Evans is your main original source of info about the Minoans and he tends to lean towards this mother goddess exclusively (an unnamed mother goddess), though since Evans we've discovered how rich Minoan religion must have been. But with a lack of contemporary written sources actually describing the names of their deities and so on, we can only take guesses at it based on physical archaeological evidence of frescoes and pottery and so on. The bull has always been a significant motif in pre-Greek religious practices on Crete (you find it everywhere), plus evidence of "Isis knots" as they're called, unusual hairstyles (that may have been caste or age or religion-connected, or not), Double-Axes (that literally look like the one He-man wielded in MOTU cartoon of the 80's) but are impractical for actual use as a weapon, so it's concluded that they're ceremonial exclusively and the double-nature of the axe being connected to the 'horns' of the bull again, and so on and so on. It's very elaborate... but we don't have the details unfortunately. The Minotaur of course is a Greek myth, but the pre-Greek Minoan culture was so heavily centred around the motif of the bull that the Minotaur's creation by Greeks is an obvious homage to what they perceived as being typical indigenous Cretan religious iconography/motif and so on. Hope that helps.