The Minoans were the inhabitants of Bronze Age Crete, and they dominated trade in the Mediterranean during the height of their power. Homer’s Odyssey, usually thought to be set in the Bronze Age, tells the story of Odysseus sailing through the Mediterranean while trying to return to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Given the setting of the Odyssey, some researchers believe that the Minoans appear in this legend. Can we identify the Minoans anywhere in the Odyssey?
Identifying the Minoans on Crete in the Odyssey
The easiest and simplest identification of the Minoans in the Odyssey comes from one of the passages that mention Crete. After all, this was the main territory of the Minoans. In one passage in the Odyssey, Homer describes the inhabitants of that island. He wrote:
“There is a certain land, Crete, in the middle of the wine-dark sea, a fine and rich land, sea-girt, in which are many men, countless men, and ninety cities, and one language is mixed with another. There are Achaeans in it, great-hearted Eteocretans in it, Cydonians in it, streaming-haired Dorians, and divine Pelasgians.”
According to this, the inhabitants of ancient Crete included the Eteocretans. Who were this nation? The etymology of their name means ‘true Cretans’. This suggests that the Greeks viewed the Eteocretans as the native, pre-Greek inhabitants of Crete.
This would logically identify them as the Minoans since they were indeed the pre-Greek inhabitants of that island. There is evidence of an Iron Age Minoan presence in Praisos on eastern Crete, and it is exactly in that area where archaeologists have found inscriptions in the Eteocretan language. Therefore, the Eteocretans of the Odyssey were almost certainly the Minoans.
The Phaeacians
Another theory connects the Minoans to the Phaeacians of Homer’s Odyssey. Who were the Phaeacians? They were the inhabitants of an island called Scheria. This is the last island that Odysseus visited before finally arriving back in Ithaca.
The Phaeacians were a rich, sea-faring civilization with excellent knowledge of the seas. They even had special ships which were able to propel and navigate themselves, and which moved incredibly fast through the water. They had beautiful palaces, gardens, and vast riches.
Their basic profile does seem to match that of the Minoans, in that they were both rich naval civilizations. One scholar also noted that the two nations appear to have had a particular penchant for dancing and music, and women were relatively elevated in both cultures.
Were the Minoans the Phaeacians of the Odyssey?
The idea that the Minoans were the Phaeacians in the Odyssey may seem like an attractive idea, but there are several significant problems. For one thing, we need to reconcile this theory with the ancient evidence that Scheria was the island of Corfu.
In line with this, some scholars have suggested that there was a Minoan colony on Corfu. One piece of evidence for this is that the ancient place name Minoa appears on that island. However, the obvious problem with this evidence is that the name “Minoans” was invented in modern times, inspired by the legendary King Minos.
It was not what the Minoans referred to themselves as. Hence, there is no reason whatsoever to expect that the ancient place name ‘Minoa’ would have anything to do with the Minoans.
Furthermore, there is no archaeological evidence of a Minoan colony on Corfu. While some Bronze Age settlements did exist there, there is no evidence of the rich and powerful civilization featured in the Odyssey.
The details in the Odyssey make it clear that it is set much closer to Homer’s time than the Bronze Age. Many scholars have highlighted this over the past few decades. In reality, then, the Phaeacians were almost certainly the Liburnians, the Iron Age inhabitants of Corfu, as many of their characteristics match those of the Phaeacians of legend.
Traces of the Minoans on Polyphemus’ island
Another theory connecting the Minoans to the Odyssey comes from Tim Severin’s The Ulysses Voyage. In this book, historian and explorer Tim Severin argued that the island of Polyphemus, the Cyclops, was Crete, not Sicily.
Severin noted that Minoan towns all across Crete were largely abandoned towards the end of the Bronze Age. He suggested that the inhabitants may have withdrawn to the caves and started practicing a much simpler lifestyle. And interestingly, the Odyssey contains the following description:
“Yet with no sowing and no ploughing, the crops all grow for them – wheat and barley and grapes that yield wine from ample clusters, swelled by the showers of Zeus.”
Severin suggested that this concept of untended fields growing crops could be a reference to the Minoans’ abandoned field systems.
Certainly, this is an intriguing idea. However, it primarily depends on the “Odyssey” being set towards the end of the Late Bronze Age. Yet, as we have observed, scholars today recognize that Homer’s poems do not reflect the world of the Bronze Age. The description of the inhabitants of Crete quoted earlier, which includes a reference to the Dorians, demonstrates this.
Therefore, it is unclear if the Cyclops of the Odyssey did have anything to do with the Minoans. The only appearance of the Minoans in the Odyssey that we can be reasonably sure about is the reference to the Eteocretans on Crete.
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