Religion
Evidence that the Mycenaeans had a set polytheistic religion is plentiful throughout several architectural remains on Crete. Figurines have been found throughout the hundreds of cult based temples on the island. These figurines depict the Ancient Cretan Gods and weakly resemble the familiar gods depicted in Greek mythology. Like in the worship of Greek mythology, the practice of both supplication and sacrifice seem to be prevalent in the Mycenaean cults. Most temple remains contain altars and statues where both of these procedures could be performed.
Any actual mythological stories or true beliefs within the Cretan religion remain a mystery to most historians. This is due to the lack in archaeological remains which were so crucial to understanding both Greek and Roman mythology.
Read more about this topic: Ancient Crete
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Culture’s essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Is there any religion but this, to know, that, wherever in the wide desert of being, the holy sentiment we cherish has opened into a flower, it blooms for me? If none sees it, I see it; I am aware, if I alone, of the greatness of the fact. Whilst it blooms, I will keep sabbath or holy time, and suspend my gloom, and my folly and jokes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)