Minoan Civilization
The Bronze Age Aegean producing society centered on Crete (c. 3000–1450 BCE) — Quigley's case study of a politically-instrumented civilization destroyed by Iron Age invasion before completing the cycle
Also known as: Minoan, Minoan Civilization, Cretan civilization, Aegean Bronze Age civilization
Minoan Civilization is the Bronze Age producing society centred on Crete from roughly 3000 to 1450 BCE, paired with Canaanite civilization as the eastern-Mediterranean Bronze Age complement to Mesopotamian parent civilization (EoC 148). Quigley treats it together with the Canaanite case in chapter 8 of Evolution of Civilizations. Its instrument of expansion was, probably, a political organisation — a state extracting surplus by taxation or tribute collection, similar to the Egyptian and Andean cases (EoC 138). It is the parent civilization of Classical, which arose on its peripheral northeastern shore after the Iron Age invasions destroyed the Minoan world.
Origin: A Peripheral Aegean Society
Minoan civilization, in Quigley's typology, arose on the periphery of Mesopotamian civilization along with Canaanite and Hittite civilizations (EoC 148). Its geographic core was Crete, with extensions across the southern Aegean islands and a later phase on the Greek mainland conventionally called Mycenaean. Quigley follows the archaeological consensus dating its emergence to roughly 3000 BCE — late enough to have inherited Mesopotamian metallurgical and architectural technique transmitted via the Levant and southern Anatolia, early enough to develop a distinctive Aegean character. Unlike the Egyptians and Greeks, who roofed large spaces by lintel-on-column, the Minoans (along with the Egyptians and Greeks) chose the simple block-stacking method rather than the Mesopotamian arch — a small technological diagnostic Quigley uses to mark cultural boundaries (EoC 223). Minoan naturalist art tradition, Quigley notes, resurfaces in seventh-century Greek geometric art — better understood, he suggests, as a reemergence of submerged Minoan tendencies than as an autonomous "Greek genius" (EoC 288).
Instrument of Expansion: A Political Organisation
Quigley assigns the instrument of expansion of Minoan civilization to a political organisation: "In Egyptian, Andean and, probably, Minoan civilizations it was a political organization, a state that created surpluses by a process of taxation or tribute collection" (EoC 138). The qualifier "probably" reflects both the incompleteness of decipherment (Linear A remains undeciphered; Linear B is Mycenaean Greek and post-dates pure Minoan) and Quigley's characteristic analytic caution. The political character of Minoan surplus accumulation is inferred from the architecture of the great palace complexes at Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia, and Kato Zakros — central administrative buildings with extensive storage magazines (the famous pithos rooms full of olive oil, grain, and wine), elaborate workshop areas, and ritual spaces — all of which suggest a tribute-collecting palace-state on the broad Egyptian-Mesopotamian model, but adapted to Aegean geography. The wanax (king) and his ministers, on this reading, accumulated surplus from the agricultural and craft production of a hinterland that supplied the palace in kind, and the palace redistributed back goods, ritual services, and external trade goods. This political-tributary instrument satisfies the three functional requirements of an instrument of expansion (incentive, accumulation of surplus, investment of surplus in new productive techniques): it had incentives to innovate (particularly in pottery technique, fresco-painting, bronze-working, and ship-building), it accumulated surplus through tribute, and it invested that surplus in the great palace complexes and in the extensive maritime trading network that reached from southern Crete to Egypt, the Levant, and the Cyclades. But this organisation, unlike the later Western commercial instruments, was structurally bound to the palace-centre. When the palace fell — as it eventually did, in catastrophic destructions associated with both seismic events and external incursion — the entire productive system collapsed with it. Minoan civilization, in Quigley's reading, was therefore especially vulnerable to a sharp invasion crisis: its instrument of expansion was concentrated in a small number of physically destructible centres.
The Seven Stages Applied
Quigley reads the Minoan case through the seven-stage model as follows. Mixture: late fourth and early third millennium BCE encounters of indigenous Aegean Neolithic populations with metallurgical and architectural technique radiating from the Mesopotamian-Anatolian world. Gestation: the Early Minoan period. Expansion: the Middle and early Late Minoan period, with the great palace civilizations. Age of Conflict: the Mycenaean conquest of Crete in the Late Minoan IB or II period, conventionally c. 1450 BCE, is interpretable as either an internal Aegean Age of Conflict or as the beginning of Invasion proper. Quigley does not allow the Minoan civilization a clear Universal Empire or Decay stage in its own right: it is one of his examples of a civilization destroyed by invaders before reaching the late stages of the cycle (EoC 163–164). Invasion: the Iron Age Dorian incursion of c. 1100 BCE definitively closes Minoan-Mycenaean civilization and clears the ground for the rise of Classical civilization on its peripheral northeastern shore (EoC 254).
Destruction Before Completion of the Cycle
The Minoan case is one of Quigley's principal examples of his rule about inter-civilizational collision: "In Stage 6, however, [a civilization] is in danger from any society, even a parasitic one, as is clear from the destruction of Cretan, Classical, Hittite, and Sinic civilizations by non-civilized invaders" (EoC 163–164). The general rule is that when two civilizations collide, the victory will go to the one closer to Stage 3 (Expansion), and neither will be destroyed unless it is in Stage 6 (Decay) (EoC 164). Minoan civilization, in Quigley's reading, had institutionalised its political instrument of expansion sufficiently by the late second millennium BCE that the Iron Age invasions found it unable to resist — even though the invaders were not themselves a civilization. This is the same general pattern, on a small scale, that produced the much later fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Parent Civilization of the Classical World
In Quigley's typology of cultural links, Minoan civilization is the parent of Classical civilization, which arose on the Aegean's eastern shore as a peripheral society of Minoan civilization in the wake of the Iron Age destructions (EoC 148). The Minoan contribution to the Classical mixture was very different from the Phoenician: where the Phoenicians supplied alphabet, money, and commercial technique, the Minoan substrate supplied — Quigley argues — the naturalist artistic tradition, certain elements of religious feeling that resurfaced in mystery religions, and a tradition of palace-bureaucratic administration that, although submerged, contributed to the polity-forms of the Greek tyrant courts and Hellenistic kingdoms. Homer's epic tradition itself, Quigley writes, was "a kind of post-mortem manifestation of the Mycenaean Age, looking back on it as a golden age" (EoC 282). The Aegean substrate is therefore the indispensable cultural matrix on which Classical civilization was built.
Significance: An Incomplete but Necessary Case
Minoan civilization is the smallest of Quigley's five primary case studies in Evolution of Civilizations, and the one that did not complete the cycle. But it is necessary to his argument for two reasons. First, it supplies the parent-civilization required by his theory for the rise of Classical civilization — without a Minoan peripheral society, the Aegean mixture has no centre. Second, it illustrates that civilizations can be destroyed mid-cycle by external invasion, complicating any picture in which the seven stages must run to completion. Chapter 8 of Evolution of Civilizations (pp. 239–268), shared with the Canaanite case, is where Quigley works this out.
Cited in
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 138 Quigley
In Egyptian, Andean and, probably, Minoan civilizations it was a political organization, a state that created surpluses by a process of taxation or tribute collection.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 148 Quigley
Canaanite, Hittite, and Minoan civilizations arose on the edges of Mesopotamian civilization. Classical civilization was born on the shores of the Aegean Sea, especially the eastern shore, on what was the periphery of Minoan civilization.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 163 Quigley
In Stage 6, however, [a civilization] is in danger from any society, even a parasitic one, as is clear from the destruction of Cretan, Classical, Hittite, and Sinic civilizations by non-civilized invaders.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 288 Quigley
The development of naturalism out of earlier geometric art about the seventh century is usually regarded as a manifestation of the 'Greek genius,' but might better be regarded as a reemergence of Minoan tendencies after their submergence by Iron Age invaders.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 282 Quigley
The oldest surviving Greek writer, Homer, was neither primitive nor unsophisticated… [he was] a kind of post-mortem manifestation of the Mycenaean Age, looking back on it as a golden age.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 223 Quigley
[Lintel-on-column] was the method that was used regularly by the Egyptians, Minoans, Greeks, and the civilized peoples of America.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 2 Quigley
Quigley tests these hypotheses by a detailed analysis of five major civilizations: the Mesopotamian, the Canaanite, the Minoan, the classical, and the Western.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 254 Quigley
The Iron Age invasions on both sides of the Aegean Sea established the basis on which the subsequent Classical civilization was to rise.