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Dawn of the Gods
In this dramatic study of the beginnings of European history, Jacqueline Hawkes considers th eculture of Minoan Crete and Mycenean Greece, finding in their union the cource of Classical Greek culture
304 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1968
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123 people want to read
About the author
Jacquetta Hawkes
57 books13 followersJacquetta Hawkes OBE FBA (5 August 1910 – 18 March 1996) was an English archaeologist and writer. She was the first woman to study the Archaeology & Anthropology degree course at the University of Cambridge. A specialist in prehistoric archaeology, she excavated Neanderthal remains at the Palaeolithic site of Mount Carmel with Yusra and Dorothy Garrod. She was a representative for the UK at UNESCO, and was curator of the "People of Britain" pavilion at the Festival of Britain.
Her second husband was J.B. Priestley.
Her second husband was J.B. Priestley.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 15, 2025
I picked this up because it was referenced by a Youtuber whose musings I have enjoyed. I enjoyed it a great deal but I thought a lot of it was rather dated and I know some of it has been challenged by later scholarship.
The book is heavily focussed on Crete and the Minoans, so of course there are also discussions of the Egytians, the Lycians and the Mycenaeans, but don’t expect a study much broader than that: this work is deep but narrow. There is much discussion on the feminine and matriarchal nature of Minoan religion. It is curious and counter intuitive that the bull and the double axe should be so closely associated with such a feminised religious culture. Hawkes suggests the symbol of the double axe, originating in Lycia, was reminiscent of the female genitalia: not the first thought that comes to my mind, but then I possess neither of them.
There is an interesting discussion about the feminine traditions of Crete tempering the very macho traditions of Mycenae. I’m not sure about that. The gold death masks of the Mycenaeans make them look like the absolute thugs I’m sure they were, and Hawkes also says the Indo European traditions of the Dorians/Spartans were “unredeemed by Cretan feminism.” That I can believe. I also agree that the Greek Dark Age was perhaps neither as Dark nor as Deep as many have thought.
Hawkes assumes that Homer, writing in the 8th century BC, had a brilliant grasp of the Bronze Age setting he described even though he lived many centuries later. This of course is only true if you believe Homer was an individual living in the eighth century BC and not someone – or even a corpus of oral tradition - whose origins were much older than that. I am inclined to the latter view.
Finally – one insight that struck me as probably true and certainly thought provoking – in Egyptian art there are many depictions of activity we would call “work” – but it’s unlikely the Egyptians would have seen it that way, because all artistic scenes mingle the sacred. Not the ancient Egyptian equivalent of socialist realist paintings of heroic labour, but more like the impulse that later gave rise to icons and altarpieces.
The book is heavily focussed on Crete and the Minoans, so of course there are also discussions of the Egytians, the Lycians and the Mycenaeans, but don’t expect a study much broader than that: this work is deep but narrow. There is much discussion on the feminine and matriarchal nature of Minoan religion. It is curious and counter intuitive that the bull and the double axe should be so closely associated with such a feminised religious culture. Hawkes suggests the symbol of the double axe, originating in Lycia, was reminiscent of the female genitalia: not the first thought that comes to my mind, but then I possess neither of them.
There is an interesting discussion about the feminine traditions of Crete tempering the very macho traditions of Mycenae. I’m not sure about that. The gold death masks of the Mycenaeans make them look like the absolute thugs I’m sure they were, and Hawkes also says the Indo European traditions of the Dorians/Spartans were “unredeemed by Cretan feminism.” That I can believe. I also agree that the Greek Dark Age was perhaps neither as Dark nor as Deep as many have thought.
Hawkes assumes that Homer, writing in the 8th century BC, had a brilliant grasp of the Bronze Age setting he described even though he lived many centuries later. This of course is only true if you believe Homer was an individual living in the eighth century BC and not someone – or even a corpus of oral tradition - whose origins were much older than that. I am inclined to the latter view.
Finally – one insight that struck me as probably true and certainly thought provoking – in Egyptian art there are many depictions of activity we would call “work” – but it’s unlikely the Egyptians would have seen it that way, because all artistic scenes mingle the sacred. Not the ancient Egyptian equivalent of socialist realist paintings of heroic labour, but more like the impulse that later gave rise to icons and altarpieces.
June 3, 2016
Why read Jacquetta Hopkins Hawkes Dawn of the Gods published in 1968? Because she's an archaeologist who writes sentences like this " The Homeric epics send beams back into the darkened past to gild the centuries of the Greek heroic age."
Beautifully written by someone who clearly loves her subject, Dawn of the Gods, utilizes archaeological finds from Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece, along with the writing of Homer to illustrate her thesis that the civilization of Classical Greece did not spring whole cloth from the so-called Greek Dark Ages, but reflect an uninterrupted progression of conscious cultural development. Classical Greece's elevation of the goddess, love of athletics and distinctive art can all be traced directly back to the vibrant, lively culture of Minoan Crete. The Achaean's of Mycenae absorbed much from Crete and added to it a love of war and a palace culture that supported the arts and the oral literature of the bards which came down through hundreds of years to Homer in The Iliad and The Odyssey.
This is a sumptuously illustrated volume which illuminates the Bronze Age cultures from the Eastern Mediterranean which ultimately have profoundly influenced Western civilization to the present day.
Beautifully written by someone who clearly loves her subject, Dawn of the Gods, utilizes archaeological finds from Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece, along with the writing of Homer to illustrate her thesis that the civilization of Classical Greece did not spring whole cloth from the so-called Greek Dark Ages, but reflect an uninterrupted progression of conscious cultural development. Classical Greece's elevation of the goddess, love of athletics and distinctive art can all be traced directly back to the vibrant, lively culture of Minoan Crete. The Achaean's of Mycenae absorbed much from Crete and added to it a love of war and a palace culture that supported the arts and the oral literature of the bards which came down through hundreds of years to Homer in The Iliad and The Odyssey.
This is a sumptuously illustrated volume which illuminates the Bronze Age cultures from the Eastern Mediterranean which ultimately have profoundly influenced Western civilization to the present day.
May 1, 2017
This concise yet jam-packed book was a delight to read. Hawkes has mastered a trick that not all historians do - writing in a style that is engaging as well as informative.
Her account of Minoan Crete had me spellbound: gradually evolving during the third millennium BC, it reached its pinnacle sometime around 2000BC with the Minoan palace culture, with its emphasis on spacious buildings and frescoed courtyards, a liberal art movement that elegantly captured lightness of being while encouraging freedom of expression, and the feminine principle in both society and religion. This last is particularly interesting, as Hawkes posits that early Minoan culture was strongly influenced by matriarchal traditions centring on the Goddess that put it at odds with contemporary civilizations in the Near East (with their fixation on patriarchal hierarchies and kings acting as direct representatives of deities on earth).
The picture she paints from her research is certainly a pleasing one: it's astonishing to think that some four thousand years ago Cretans enjoyed a society that celebrated artists and craftsmen, avoided war, and put women on an equal footing with men (both sexes even cross-dressed). Wine was enjoyed in abundance, athletic but non-lethal bull-leaping a commonly practised sport by men and women, and sexuality appeared quite unrestrained (fashionable dress portrayed on surviving pottery and other artefacts suggests that some women even wore clothes that left their breasts exposed and, yes, size mattered to the ancient Cretans too...).
The second half of the book explores the knock-on effect Minoan civilization had on the mainlanders, when the Mycenanean culture flourished in Greece around the 16th century BC. This is no less fascinating, with the patriarchal Greeks sticking steadfastly to their cramped walled citadels whilst embracing Minoan art: a curious marriage of the masculine and feminine ideals. Surviving grave goods include a full set of bronze plate armour, suggesting that Homer was not being in the least bit anachronistic when he described his heroes gloriously kitted out for war in the Iliad.
The final chapter of the book explores how this blended culture must have survived the Greek Dark Age, which occured around the time of the fall of Troy in the 13th century and lasted five hundred years until Homer's time. It was that legendary bard who inherited the tradition of Ionian culture and passed it on to what would become the Classic Greeks (who gave us democracy, philosophy, science and the theatre among other things). Athens by this time was the sole surviving city state from Bronze Age Greece, having avoided the ravages of the Indo-European Dorians who poured down from the north during the dark age and laid waste to Mycenae and Pylos. Hawkes posits that the Athenian role at the forefront of the classical age is no coincidence - and that therefore this seminal epoch owes a debt to Mycenaean Greece and Minoan Crete.
This was a gripping read that was over too soon: my only misgiving is that the final section exploring the dark-age bridging link between Mycenean and classical Greece could have been more thoroughly explored - for instance I would have loved to read more about Pythagoras' feminist cult and how this was influenced by traditions harking back to the Minoan era, when women held high status in the eyes of the Goddess. But this is undoubtedly a great introduction to what must inevitably be a time-consuming study of the advent of high civilization in Europe.
Her account of Minoan Crete had me spellbound: gradually evolving during the third millennium BC, it reached its pinnacle sometime around 2000BC with the Minoan palace culture, with its emphasis on spacious buildings and frescoed courtyards, a liberal art movement that elegantly captured lightness of being while encouraging freedom of expression, and the feminine principle in both society and religion. This last is particularly interesting, as Hawkes posits that early Minoan culture was strongly influenced by matriarchal traditions centring on the Goddess that put it at odds with contemporary civilizations in the Near East (with their fixation on patriarchal hierarchies and kings acting as direct representatives of deities on earth).
The picture she paints from her research is certainly a pleasing one: it's astonishing to think that some four thousand years ago Cretans enjoyed a society that celebrated artists and craftsmen, avoided war, and put women on an equal footing with men (both sexes even cross-dressed). Wine was enjoyed in abundance, athletic but non-lethal bull-leaping a commonly practised sport by men and women, and sexuality appeared quite unrestrained (fashionable dress portrayed on surviving pottery and other artefacts suggests that some women even wore clothes that left their breasts exposed and, yes, size mattered to the ancient Cretans too...).
The second half of the book explores the knock-on effect Minoan civilization had on the mainlanders, when the Mycenanean culture flourished in Greece around the 16th century BC. This is no less fascinating, with the patriarchal Greeks sticking steadfastly to their cramped walled citadels whilst embracing Minoan art: a curious marriage of the masculine and feminine ideals. Surviving grave goods include a full set of bronze plate armour, suggesting that Homer was not being in the least bit anachronistic when he described his heroes gloriously kitted out for war in the Iliad.
The final chapter of the book explores how this blended culture must have survived the Greek Dark Age, which occured around the time of the fall of Troy in the 13th century and lasted five hundred years until Homer's time. It was that legendary bard who inherited the tradition of Ionian culture and passed it on to what would become the Classic Greeks (who gave us democracy, philosophy, science and the theatre among other things). Athens by this time was the sole surviving city state from Bronze Age Greece, having avoided the ravages of the Indo-European Dorians who poured down from the north during the dark age and laid waste to Mycenae and Pylos. Hawkes posits that the Athenian role at the forefront of the classical age is no coincidence - and that therefore this seminal epoch owes a debt to Mycenaean Greece and Minoan Crete.
This was a gripping read that was over too soon: my only misgiving is that the final section exploring the dark-age bridging link between Mycenean and classical Greece could have been more thoroughly explored - for instance I would have loved to read more about Pythagoras' feminist cult and how this was influenced by traditions harking back to the Minoan era, when women held high status in the eyes of the Goddess. But this is undoubtedly a great introduction to what must inevitably be a time-consuming study of the advent of high civilization in Europe.
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November 17, 2020An account of Minoan and Mycenaean civilisation – but also a work of history over fifty years old, which inevitably means one is reading for the writing as much as the information. Still, I imagine Hawkes' masterpiece, A Land, no longer represents the forefront of geological thinking either, and that doesn't give me any hesitation in raving about that one. Similarly, this gives such a compelling, evocative sweep of the Bronze Age that even if we'd now consider its account of events a demo version, the picture it paints of the age is probably worth the questionable details which creep in. The idea of Mediterranean myth as encoding a history of matriarchy subsumed by patriarchy is rather out of fashion nowadays, as indeed the idea of 'masculine' and 'feminine' civilisations in general. But if the modern reader winces at Hawkes' mention of "racial types", one doesn't need to buy into any wider implications to take her point that there is a qualitative difference between the movement and lightness of Minoan art, and the static grandeur and bloodshed celebrated in the art of other civilisations around the same time and region – not only those of Egypt and Assyria, either, but also the Mycenaeans, whose life, she convincingly argues, feels as if it was closer to the halls and warriors of Beowulf than to the breezy Minoans, despite the latter being far closer neighbours to them in both time and space.
This attempt at a high level view of whole cultures over the course of centuries, combined with the way that archaeology can sometimes be much better at giving a general tenor of life rather than telling us about particular celebrated individuals, feels at times like the bottom-up, social approach to history. Equally often, though, it reminded me of Olaf Stapledon's summaries of future history in terms of the spirits of eras and eons, and that's the level on which I was most impressed: whatever else it may be, this is a fabulous work of imaginative sympathy. When Hawkes rhapsodises about given Minoan artefacts, one can hardly doubt that even if her conclusions are way off, the artists and artisans who created them would be profoundly honoured at the thought of someone millennia hence responding to their work with such deep attention. Although when she talks about how the artists wanted women to look sexy, and men muscular, and if that meant anatomical impossibility then so be it, one has the chilling realisation that perhaps the rest of Western art history has all just been a fiddly detour from a straight line which stretches unbroken from Knossos to Rob Liefeld.
But if that particular example cannot have been intended, a recurring note here is the continuity between ages. While she admits this is not perfect – I don't think I'd realised before that even classical Greeks had no idea where Homer's mighty city of Pylos actually was – equally, she's fascinated to find that the Greek word for olive oil has been basically the same for more than 3,000 years. She argues convincingly that Homer (whoever he or they may have been, which in a sense doesn't matter) records much that accurately represented an earlier age, which was not the same as his own, and compares this to the chalk figures of southern England, the way they survived across centuries, changes of government and culture, and bred new examples along the way. That isn't the only time she makes a telling comparison with modern (well, 1960s) Britain, either. There's a wonderful note of exasperation when she talks about historians who while off-duty can intuitively understand that a monarch has more of the divine about them at a coronation than while watching the horses, or that a deity can be represented as an old man, young man or dove - but then completely lose that negative capability and insist on rigid dichotomies when approaching ancient civilisations.
Similarly, while in her time as ours Heinrich Schliemann, the unearther of Troy, seems to have been regarded largely as a showy joke, she emphasises that, while methodologically slipshod, he was nonetheless a driven man who moved heaven (figuratively) and earth (literally) to find fabulous things, after a period where belief in the Iliad as literally true had lapsed, but classicists weren't generally hands-on enough to excavate the origins, being content to handwave it all as unknowable. Though I did find it hideously suggestive that the gap between her date for the fall of Troy, and the Bronze Age collapse as we now place it, is about equal to the gap between the fall of Berlin and, well, now-ish. Similar resonances kept leaping out at me like atypically convincing ghost train frights, as when she talks about the old, unbroken lineage of dancing and communal celebration as a core part of the human experience, which only emphasises how monstrous it is to live in a time when they're gone until who knows when. The notion of 'true bards' as against 'hack reciters' reminded me of stand-up comedy lingo – and made me wonder if, just as live storytelling mainly gave way to the written version, so other art forms were now in the throes of a likewise fairly permanent transition to non-live versions. All of which made her conclusion very welcome, the one in which she argues for continuity and survival even through that collapse (which even before reading this, I've been seeing foreshadowed in current events for a while now). She talks about how the present in which she was writing felt like a corresponding time of things falling apart, which cheered me right up – a time when the Yeats line about things falling apart wasn't even hackneyed yet, cosy old 1968, and you thought you were doomed? Well, maybe we aren't either. As she says, "surely by now we ourselves have seen enough of such disasters to know that they are not final, that peoples recover and keep their inheritance?" So, you know, fingers crossed, eh?
Still, one can't help but look back with a certain longing to the Minoans, a society which – at least in Hawkes' reading, that she freely admits may well be wrong – was sexy, gossipy, and unlike many romantically idolised sections of the past, even had flushing loos. "War was not glorified, and peace and sunshine seemed secure" – only ten words to sell it so well!
(Though speaking of words – Dorian. People talk about the long, strange trajectory of 'gothic', but what about 'Dorian', which starts off as barbarous invaders, then gets applied to brutal, philistine Sparta, and is now arguably the most fey name in English? Well, rivalled maybe by Clovis, and look where that one started!)
*Mercifully, there is also a firm reference to "pernicious racialist myths of 'Aryan' superiority" to clarify that, even if Hawkes' terminology may be old-fashioned, her heart is roughly in the right place.
This attempt at a high level view of whole cultures over the course of centuries, combined with the way that archaeology can sometimes be much better at giving a general tenor of life rather than telling us about particular celebrated individuals, feels at times like the bottom-up, social approach to history. Equally often, though, it reminded me of Olaf Stapledon's summaries of future history in terms of the spirits of eras and eons, and that's the level on which I was most impressed: whatever else it may be, this is a fabulous work of imaginative sympathy. When Hawkes rhapsodises about given Minoan artefacts, one can hardly doubt that even if her conclusions are way off, the artists and artisans who created them would be profoundly honoured at the thought of someone millennia hence responding to their work with such deep attention. Although when she talks about how the artists wanted women to look sexy, and men muscular, and if that meant anatomical impossibility then so be it, one has the chilling realisation that perhaps the rest of Western art history has all just been a fiddly detour from a straight line which stretches unbroken from Knossos to Rob Liefeld.
But if that particular example cannot have been intended, a recurring note here is the continuity between ages. While she admits this is not perfect – I don't think I'd realised before that even classical Greeks had no idea where Homer's mighty city of Pylos actually was – equally, she's fascinated to find that the Greek word for olive oil has been basically the same for more than 3,000 years. She argues convincingly that Homer (whoever he or they may have been, which in a sense doesn't matter) records much that accurately represented an earlier age, which was not the same as his own, and compares this to the chalk figures of southern England, the way they survived across centuries, changes of government and culture, and bred new examples along the way. That isn't the only time she makes a telling comparison with modern (well, 1960s) Britain, either. There's a wonderful note of exasperation when she talks about historians who while off-duty can intuitively understand that a monarch has more of the divine about them at a coronation than while watching the horses, or that a deity can be represented as an old man, young man or dove - but then completely lose that negative capability and insist on rigid dichotomies when approaching ancient civilisations.
Similarly, while in her time as ours Heinrich Schliemann, the unearther of Troy, seems to have been regarded largely as a showy joke, she emphasises that, while methodologically slipshod, he was nonetheless a driven man who moved heaven (figuratively) and earth (literally) to find fabulous things, after a period where belief in the Iliad as literally true had lapsed, but classicists weren't generally hands-on enough to excavate the origins, being content to handwave it all as unknowable. Though I did find it hideously suggestive that the gap between her date for the fall of Troy, and the Bronze Age collapse as we now place it, is about equal to the gap between the fall of Berlin and, well, now-ish. Similar resonances kept leaping out at me like atypically convincing ghost train frights, as when she talks about the old, unbroken lineage of dancing and communal celebration as a core part of the human experience, which only emphasises how monstrous it is to live in a time when they're gone until who knows when. The notion of 'true bards' as against 'hack reciters' reminded me of stand-up comedy lingo – and made me wonder if, just as live storytelling mainly gave way to the written version, so other art forms were now in the throes of a likewise fairly permanent transition to non-live versions. All of which made her conclusion very welcome, the one in which she argues for continuity and survival even through that collapse (which even before reading this, I've been seeing foreshadowed in current events for a while now). She talks about how the present in which she was writing felt like a corresponding time of things falling apart, which cheered me right up – a time when the Yeats line about things falling apart wasn't even hackneyed yet, cosy old 1968, and you thought you were doomed? Well, maybe we aren't either. As she says, "surely by now we ourselves have seen enough of such disasters to know that they are not final, that peoples recover and keep their inheritance?" So, you know, fingers crossed, eh?
Still, one can't help but look back with a certain longing to the Minoans, a society which – at least in Hawkes' reading, that she freely admits may well be wrong – was sexy, gossipy, and unlike many romantically idolised sections of the past, even had flushing loos. "War was not glorified, and peace and sunshine seemed secure" – only ten words to sell it so well!
(Though speaking of words – Dorian. People talk about the long, strange trajectory of 'gothic', but what about 'Dorian', which starts off as barbarous invaders, then gets applied to brutal, philistine Sparta, and is now arguably the most fey name in English? Well, rivalled maybe by Clovis, and look where that one started!)
*Mercifully, there is also a firm reference to "pernicious racialist myths of 'Aryan' superiority" to clarify that, even if Hawkes' terminology may be old-fashioned, her heart is roughly in the right place.
December 17, 2020
Not what I was hoping for. The book I ordered was supposed to be an earlier version. The updated version did not have the information I was seeking. Seems it was edited out. I want to know why.
December 1, 2024
Don't pick it up unless you have some background in history and/or archeology.
April 22, 2019
Feminine and Masculine Culture(s)
This is a fabulous book that I first saw in the seventies, probably still in high school. Sometime in the past few years, I was reminded of its existence in a conversation of with my sister-in-law. She asked if I thought prehistorical society could have been (in some sense) matriarchal, à la Marija Gimbutas or Johann Jakob Bachofen. I replied no, everything great is a result. A gender egalitarianism was not a natural state; it was an achievement. I suggested Crete for its earliest (near) instantation. I was surprised by my reply, - where did this notion regarding Crete come from? She mentioned (if I remember correctly) Jackie Hawkes, I made a mental note to look into this matter.
Sometime after this conversation, I became interested in feminist theoretical understanding of anthropology and ancient history and started reading up on it. And recently, I found the Hawkes book at a very low price and bought it. In this reading I found the author's voice very familiar, delightfully so. ...Perhaps I may have seen it in the late seventies in Princeton, at one of the many bookstores there. I am sure I will never know, but the moderate tone, sweet style and sane argumentation seems very familiar. I definitely never owned it. In those days of limited book shelving I certainly never (ever!) bought thick oversized books!
Now, this book is really two books. -An oversized scholarly coffee table reference book filled with sumptuous pictures and, according to the contents, 45 color plates. On the other hand, it is a gently, at times wryly, and often lyrical feminist meditation on (and invocation of) the "feminine personality" of Cretan (Minoan) civilization contrasted with Mycenaean 'masculinist' culture that eventually destroyed it.. Our author writes very well, and with wit. After first mentioning this duality between the feminine and the masculine cultures in the Preface she sweetly writes "-I hope no one will be provoked"!
Of course, our author intends to be a bit provocative, and she gently succeeds. Unfortunately, regarding real History, I think it should be obvious that if any civilization or empire or state or people become too civilized and peaceful, they will eventually be destroyed by those less civilized and peaceful.
This is a fabulous book that I first saw in the seventies, probably still in high school. Sometime in the past few years, I was reminded of its existence in a conversation of with my sister-in-law. She asked if I thought prehistorical society could have been (in some sense) matriarchal, à la Marija Gimbutas or Johann Jakob Bachofen. I replied no, everything great is a result. A gender egalitarianism was not a natural state; it was an achievement. I suggested Crete for its earliest (near) instantation. I was surprised by my reply, - where did this notion regarding Crete come from? She mentioned (if I remember correctly) Jackie Hawkes, I made a mental note to look into this matter.
Sometime after this conversation, I became interested in feminist theoretical understanding of anthropology and ancient history and started reading up on it. And recently, I found the Hawkes book at a very low price and bought it. In this reading I found the author's voice very familiar, delightfully so. ...Perhaps I may have seen it in the late seventies in Princeton, at one of the many bookstores there. I am sure I will never know, but the moderate tone, sweet style and sane argumentation seems very familiar. I definitely never owned it. In those days of limited book shelving I certainly never (ever!) bought thick oversized books!
Now, this book is really two books. -An oversized scholarly coffee table reference book filled with sumptuous pictures and, according to the contents, 45 color plates. On the other hand, it is a gently, at times wryly, and often lyrical feminist meditation on (and invocation of) the "feminine personality" of Cretan (Minoan) civilization contrasted with Mycenaean 'masculinist' culture that eventually destroyed it.. Our author writes very well, and with wit. After first mentioning this duality between the feminine and the masculine cultures in the Preface she sweetly writes "-I hope no one will be provoked"!
Of course, our author intends to be a bit provocative, and she gently succeeds. Unfortunately, regarding real History, I think it should be obvious that if any civilization or empire or state or people become too civilized and peaceful, they will eventually be destroyed by those less civilized and peaceful.
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