The Frescoes of Akrotiri

The Ancient city of Akrotiri on the Greek Island of Santorini (then known as Thera) can be likened to a much earlier version of Pompeii.  This Minoan city was buried in an enormous volcanic eruption that occurred on the island sometime between 1,800 and 1,500 BC.

There are a lot of unknowns about this Bronze Age civilization which was named Minoan by later historians after the mythical King Minos of Crete.  The largest Minoan settlement was found on Crete in the city of Knossos.  The earliest form of their language (known as Linear A) has not been deciphered and timelines of events are approximated.  We aren't certain what the Minoans actually called their own civilization or what their religious beliefs were.  Was there any truth to the myth of King Minos from Crete?  The later form of language (known as Linear B) has been deciphered but 99% of it was used in taking inventory of goods or for administrative purposes which doesn't tell historians much about the overall history of this fascinating civilization.


However Minoan art, including these frescoes from Akrotiri, helps to shed some light on this society that thrived in the Aegean four thousand years ago.

The Springtime Fresco, from Room Delta 2,Complex D
Akrotiri, c-1,500 BC

National Archeological Museum of Athens

The Springtime fresco is the earliest work which is entirely a landscape painting that has been found in the ancient world.  This fresco covered at least three walls in the room it was found in.  As we can see the imagery is stylized and abstracted rather than being a more naturalistic representation of hills and flowers.  The landscape is painted as colorful, bright and expressive with a playful inclusion of swooping birds.  It is not known what the room that this decorated was used for or why they chose to fill the walls with landscape painting.

Minoan painting can be differentiated from the arts found in other bronze age civilizations such as Egyptian and Mesopotamian due to the subject matter.  Most Minoan fresco subjects were scenes from daily life rather than paintings created to honor Pharaohs or gods. Also the Minoans used the true wet fresco technique of painting with pigment into plaster made with limestone to seal the painting to the wall, rather than the dry fresco technique used in Egypt.

However there were also some similarities, the two frescoes below show how the Minoans also used the same "twisted perspective" seen in figurative art through the centuries in ancient civilizations.  We can find examples of this in Mesopotamian relief carving as well as Egyptian fresco.  Twisted perspective refers to the fact that the feet and legs are shown in profile, but the torso is shown frontally.  The head is also in profile, while the eye is shown frontally.

Boxing Boys Fresco, Room B1, Building B
Akrotiri, c-2,000-1,800 BC

Young Fisherman Fresco, 
Room 5,                                                        

West House, Akrotiri, c-1,500 BC 

National Archeological Museum of Athens

The above two figurative frescos are also good depictions of daily activities that were common in Akrotiri.  Apparently Minoans shaved their head but for some long locks, the shaved head is shown as blue and the long locks as black. Another similarity to Egyptian art is how men were depicted as having darker tan skin and women were shown having pale skin.

As the Minoan civilization was centered on the Aegean islands there is a wealth of marine life imagery shown in their art, such as the fish in the Young Fisherman Fresco and the swimming dolphins shown below in the Flotilla Fresco.  Vases were painted with octopi and on the main island of Crete there were fish and dolphins painted in the Palace of Knossos. 

The Flotilla Fresco, from one wall in Room 5, West House,
Akrotiri, c-1,500 BC

National Archeological Museum of Athens

The enormous fresco known as The Flotilla Fresco from room 5 of the West House gives the modern viewer a more detailed look at daily life in this culture.  This fresco wrapped around three sides of a room, it is approximately 39 feet (12 m) long and yet only 17 inches high (43 cm) in a frieze like style.  

Ships are shown sailing from one island to the next while people wait for them in the towns, deer are chased in the hills and dolphins swim in the sea.  Is this too a panoramic scene of daily life?  Or instead the retelling of a historic even or mythic story?

Detail of The Flotilla Fresco, from Room 5,
West House, Akrotiri, c-1,500 BC

What seems apparent from this fresco, the ruins at Akrotiri and some small faience plaques found at the site is that the Minoans were building multilevel residential structures complete with exterior windows.  These dwellings were quite sophisticated and architecture such as this wasn't found elsewhere in the Bronze Age.

These are just a small sampling of the many remains of Minoan frescoes, due to the volcanic eruption at Akrotiri this site has kept a high concentration of these paintings intact.

Suggested reading for more information on the Minoan civilization

The Aegean Bronze Age. Oliver Dickinson. Camridge University Press: Cambridge, 1994.

The Arts in Prehistoric Greece. Sinclair Hood. Penguin Books: London, 1978.