Wunderlich's book is worth reading and he has some very interesting (and amusing) comments to make about the "reconstructions" of the Palace of Knossos by Sir Arthur Evans. My favorite is the observation that 10 meters separate the King's bedroom from the stonemason's shop - apparently the King was not bothered by noise. However, he weakens his case by going beyond the evidence. For example, before I would be willing to concede that the Minoans regularly practiced mummification I would like the archaeologists to have found at least one mummy in Crete (over 400 years). This has not happened yet. The Linear B chapter could also be enlarged. A main problem with trying to translate the abbreviated syllabic remarks of scribes left 3000 years ago is that syllabaries are by nature ambiguous. There are always too may syllables (consonent-vowel) for the small number of signs (about 80) so different syllables have to share signs, hence the ambiguity. The scribes didn't have this problem because they knew the context (but we don't).

so much to think about, and convincing; and i read this while i was on crete and at the knossos ruins. very helpful.

History is not necessarily what we are told, the thesis seems in accordance with a society not denying death and after live ideologically and as an economic activity, the relation with Egypt and Etruria are instructive, the general development of the book is well documented and structured...

The truth about the "Palace" of Minos. This is possibly the most important work on Cretan prehistory ever written. Wunderlich, a trained geologist, looked at what the visitor to Knossos is told was the palace of King Minos and knew there was something seriously amiss. To begin with, the stone used in the structure, an easily-eroded gypsum, would have been quite unsuitable for a working palace filled with people. All the evidence, said Wunderlich, is that the "palace" was in fact a charnel-house, a necropolis that doubled as an arena for human sacrifice. For the so-called "bull-game" illustrated on the walls of the central court at Knossos, was anything but a game: it was a brutal form of human sacrifice in which young men and women were gored and trampled to death by a sacred bull. This, said Wunderlich, was the origin of the Minotaur legend (the word Minotaur simply means "bull of Minos). The author in fact consulted experienced Spanish matadors about the feasibility of vaulting over the horns of an onrushing bull. They laughed at the idea. No matter how agile the athlete was, the angular momentum of the rapidly approaching beast would simply impale the former on its horns. Since this book was published, evidence of human sacrifice has in fact been found in various parts of Crete, yet, as might be predicted, Wunderlich continues to be ignored by manistream academia. Surprise, surprise.

“Thus the myth of the Minotaur, with its theme of human sacrifice, remained banished to regions of the unconscious where the spirits of the past await their hour to walk abroad. Then they burst forth, seize upon those who have bottled them up and force them to bloody acts in the name of ideologies, races and religions, urge them to autos-da-fé, show trials and concentration camps. Let us not deceive ourselves. Even in the most enlightened of centuries the heritage of the Stone Age still dwells within men. And it does not help at all to drive this sinister legacy into the abysses of the human psyche.“ (from Introduction).

This is no dryasdust exposition but a passionately argued thesis that overflows its boundaries, as the excerpt above shows. Do we really look at the past blinkered by hidden fears and compulsions rather than calmly and dispassionately evaluate the evidence? Remember the lesson of Thucydides: we read history to deal with the present, not to escape to the past. Seeing the past is so much more helpful in this endeavor than inventing the past.

Wunderlich's book does what every scientific book should do: it looks at the evidence and strives to interpret it. In the case of historical evidence, to interpret it in terms of the period under observation.

It is obvious anthropology and archaeology are not history - the one studies bones, the other ruins. One cannot derive a history from fragmentary physical remains. Try doing so for a historical period and see - three people will come up with three different interpretations, and they will all be wrong. Yet every account of anthropology and archaeology attempts to create a history of mankind.

In the case of Crete, Wunderlich has pointed out that the preponderant one, Evans', falls into a primary error, anachronism: it imagines a coherent picture of the culture (which archaeology itself cannot provide, in Crete as elsewhere) which is derived from Evans' own culture. Wunderlich sets out to compare what is known about Crete with what is known about other Bronze Age cultures, and uses myth, epic, religion, social mores, economics and social history to try and flesh out the evidence of ruined sites.

His thesis is that the ruins of Knossos and elsewhere are of funerary temples. The layout and materials used are more in accord with this than is Evans' thesis of a summer palace. Wunderlich's thesis is also in accord with widespread Bronze Age religious practices, which accorded the cult of the dead a very great importance.

Wunderlich gives many details, and quotes from many sources, ancient and modern. Much of what he uses has been ignored by other historians. Although a geologist, he commands great learning.

The second part of his thesis concerns the place that Cretan culture played in the rise of modern European culture. The school of Evans sees it as a wonderful premonition of a 19th century western European civilisation snuffed out by barbarian invasion (a concept thought out just prior to WWI). Wunderlich maintains that cultures are never exterminated by invaders, often the reverse, the invaders have their culture absorbed. Natural disasters never totally wipe out an entire culture.

Evans' Crete is a gay, liberated place with dancing women, naked breasts and flush toilets.

Wunderlich's Crete is a Bronze Age culture similar to Egypt, with a strong necessity to sacrifice to the powerful dead (the women are wailing, with upheld arms and torn dresses). Although these are the physical remains, the cultural remains are the succession of religious practices which led to the flowering of 5th century Athens.

Wunderlich looks at the Greek myths as examples of an original Bronze Age cult of the dead, as in Egypt, gradually evolving into rites of cremation, dramatic events (plays) and 'games'. This was the contribution of the 'post-palatial' period in Crete, and led to Homer.

The book is easy to read, logical, learned, stimulating and convincing. It has a very lurid and misleading blurb on the back cover: “...each step brings him closer to the Minotaur's ultimate, bizarre, secret.“