Before the Cross

Before classical Athens and Sparta, Greece was home to a powerful Bronze Age civilization: the Mycenaeans.

In this episode of Before the Cross, we explore the fortified palaces, warrior aristocracy, and complex society of Mycenaean Greece.

Discover the mighty walls of Mycenae, the palace kingdoms of Pylos and Tiryns, and the remarkable Linear B tablets that preserve the earliest known written form of Greek.

We'll explore the lives of ordinary people, the influence of Minoan Crete, religious traditions, and the Mediterranean trade networks that connected Mycenaean Greece to a much wider world.

Then we'll confront one of ancient history's great mysteries: why did the Bronze Age palace system collapse around 1200 BC?

Through the story of a Mycenaean warrior, we'll witness a civilization at its height and consider what survived after its palaces fell.

Before the Cross: A History of the World That Made Christianity.

-Chadwick, John. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

-Cline, Eric H. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Revised and updated edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.

-Middleton, Guy D. Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

-Palaima, Thomas G. “The Nature of the Mycenaean Wanax: Non-Indo-European Origins and Priestly Functions.” In The Role of the Ruler in the Prehistoric Aegean, edited by Paul Rehak, 119–139. Liège: Université de Liège, 1995.

-Pulak, Cemal. “The Uluburun Shipwreck: An Overview.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 27, no. 3 (1998): 188–224.

-Shelmerdine, Cynthia W., ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

-Wright, James C., ed. The Mycenaean Feast. Hesperia 73, no. 2 (2004).

This episode draws on archaeological evidence, Linear B administrative records, and modern historical scholarship. The opening and closing warrior scenes are imaginative reconstructions, not accounts of a documented individual.

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Before Greece became Greece, the island of Crete was already home to one of the ancient Mediterranean's most remarkable civilizations. In the first episode of Before the Cross, we explore the Minoans—from the first farmers and the rise of the palaces to Knossos, trade, religion, writing, everyday life, the great disasters of the Bronze Age, and the civilization's eventual transformation. We also meet Arthur Evans, whose excavations helped bring the Minoans back into the modern world—and whose ideas shaped how we still imagine them today.

Episode 1 — The Minoans: Before Greece

Sources & Further Reading

· Bennet, John. “Minoan Civilization.” Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Originally published 2015; substantially revised May 22, 2024. This is an especially useful overview for the episode’s chronology, development of social complexity, palatial Crete, Knossos, Mediterranean connections, writing, the Thera-era disruptions, Linear B, and later political transformation.

· Betancourt, Philip P. “Minoan Trade.” In Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 209–229. Supports our treatment of Crete as a maritime society, its need for imported raw materials, overseas connections, and the importance of seafaring to Minoan life.

· Castleden, Rodney. Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. Routledge, 1990. A broad synthesis particularly useful for the episode’s attempt to move beyond the traditional romanticized image of Minoan civilization and discuss ordinary Minoan society and life.

· Cline, Eric H., ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford University Press, 2012. This is our strongest single reference work for the episode as reconstructed. It contains specialist treatments of Bronze Age Crete, Minoan architecture and religion, state and society, trade, seals and administration, Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A, Linear B, pottery, textiles, the eruption of Thera, Knossos, and Crete’s connections with surrounding regions.

· Ferrara, Silvia. “The Beginnings of Writing on Crete: Theory and Context.” Annual of the British School at Athens 110 (2015). Supports our discussion of the development, context, purposes, and interpretive difficulties surrounding the earliest writing systems of Bronze Age Crete.

· Lupack, Susan. “Minoan Religion.” In Eric H. Cline, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford University Press, pp. 251–262. Particularly useful for peak sanctuaries, caves, figurines and votive offerings, double axes, palace and town cult, and the archaeological evidence from which Minoan religious practice must be reconstructed.

· Schoep, Ilse. “Building the Labyrinth: Arthur Evans and the Construction of Minoan Civilization.” American Journal of Archaeology 122, no. 1 (January 2018): 5–32. This is particularly important for the episode's Arthur Evans framing. Schoep examines how Evans helped construct enduring ideas about the “Minoan” palace, priest-king, mother goddess, and European identity, and cautions against treating Evans's interpretations as straightforward products of the archaeological evidence.

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Before the Cross explores the ancient world that shaped the rise of Christianity. From the civilizations of Greece and Rome to the history of Israel and Judaism, we’ll follow the people, ideas, empires, religions, and everyday lives that created the world of Jesus and the early Church.

Along the way, we’ll walk through ancient cities, enter temples and marketplaces, examine archaeology and ancient sources, and even sit down for historically reconstructed meals.

This is not a story we want to invent. It is a story we want to uncover.

Join us for Before the Cross.

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