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Secret of Crete
English, German (translation)
367 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 2, 2021
This book presents an alternative interpretation on the Minoan palaces and the life of the people of that culture. The author raises some interesting questions, and points out some controversies with the theory posited by Arthur Evans.
This text is considered an outsider's perspective though, by today's standards, and has been said to have been refuted. I haven't yet been able to get my hands on any text answering the questions raised by Wunderlich, so I haven't made up my mind one way or another. I do think critical thinking is crucial, and constructive questioning of established accepted facts important.
The work sorely needs accompanying material in images. Half the time you are not familiar with the objects the author makes a case of, and consequently it's very difficult to arrive at one's own interpretation and understanding. Wunderlich also should have annotated his text. Although he lists his sources at the end of the book, it's quite impossible to know where any one fact he cites is coming from, and thus also impossible to know how correct these facts are.
So, in sum, I don't know what to make of it all yet. It's interesting to consider this alternative interpretation, but on the other hand you are going to have to do a lot of research and fact-checking before you can arrive at an idea whether author's theory has any weight. He questions a great number of things, not just one or two. Until I have checked all the facts, this book remains an alternative interpretation, or just a ''what-if'' scenario.
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The work is in 3 books. The first book is pretty clearly written, but the second and third are confusing and messy.
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''We also cannot identify anything that might have been an adequate dining room. Evidently each of the numerous inhabitants of the palace must have boiled up his pot of soup on his own and consumed it in solitary splendor''.
This text is considered an outsider's perspective though, by today's standards, and has been said to have been refuted. I haven't yet been able to get my hands on any text answering the questions raised by Wunderlich, so I haven't made up my mind one way or another. I do think critical thinking is crucial, and constructive questioning of established accepted facts important.
The work sorely needs accompanying material in images. Half the time you are not familiar with the objects the author makes a case of, and consequently it's very difficult to arrive at one's own interpretation and understanding. Wunderlich also should have annotated his text. Although he lists his sources at the end of the book, it's quite impossible to know where any one fact he cites is coming from, and thus also impossible to know how correct these facts are.
So, in sum, I don't know what to make of it all yet. It's interesting to consider this alternative interpretation, but on the other hand you are going to have to do a lot of research and fact-checking before you can arrive at an idea whether author's theory has any weight. He questions a great number of things, not just one or two. Until I have checked all the facts, this book remains an alternative interpretation, or just a ''what-if'' scenario.
---
The work is in 3 books. The first book is pretty clearly written, but the second and third are confusing and messy.
---
''We also cannot identify anything that might have been an adequate dining room. Evidently each of the numerous inhabitants of the palace must have boiled up his pot of soup on his own and consumed it in solitary splendor''.
December 20, 2012
"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."
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."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews