Cult scenes illustrated in miniature on administrative stone seals and metal signet rings from Late Bronze Age Minoan Crete are commonly interpreted as "Epiphany Scenes" and have been called "shamanic." "Universal shamanism" is a catch-all anthropological term coined to describe certain inferred ritual behaviours across widely dispersed cultures and through time. This study reexamines evidence for Minoan cultic practices in light of key tropes of "universal shamanism," including consumption of psychoactive drugs, adoption of special body postures, trance, spirit possession, communication with supernatural beings, metamorphosis and the journey to other-worlds. It is argued that while existing characterisations of Minoan cult as "shamanic" are based on partial, reductionist and primitivist assumptions informed by neoevolutionary comparative ethnologies, shamanism provides a dynamic framework for expanding understandings of Minoan cult.
During the Aegean Bronze Age, the island of Crete was home to Minoan civilisation (3100-1300 BCE). The Cretan landscape is characterised by prominent mountain ranges. During the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BCE) cult sites began to proliferate on mountain peaks in response to climatic changes. Peak sanctuaries were locations of popular religious expression focussed on human, animal and environmental health and fertility. In the Neopalatial Period (1750-1490 BCE) peak sanctuary cults were appropriated by palatial elites and the Minoan cosmological framework, oriented towards mountains, was institutionalised. Analysis of the Minoan landscape, palatial art, architecture and ritual performance demonstrates a close association between elite figures and real and symbolic mountains. The metaphysical terrain of Crete was politicised as mountain symbolism was used to naturalise Neopalatial elite status and identity. The mountain form signified and symbolised power relations functioning as an instrument of elite ideology.
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