Minoan (Cretan) culture, Late

Around 1450 BCE, Minoan culture experiences a turning point due to a natural catastrophe, possibly an earthquake.

Another eruption of the Thera volcano has been linked to this downfall, but its dating and implications remain controversial.

Several important palaces in locations such as Mallia, Tylissos, Phaistos, Hagia Triade as well as the living quarters of Knossos are destroyed.

The palace in Knossos seems to have remained largely intact.

This results in the Dynasty in Knossos being able to spread its influence over large parts of Crete, until it was overrun by Mycenaean Greeks.

The Minoan palace sites are occupied by the Myceneans around 1420 BCE (1375 BCE according to other sources),who adapt the Linear A Minoan script to the needs of their own Mycenaean language, a form of Greek, which is written in Linear B.

The first such archive anywhere is in the LMII-era "Room of the Chariot Tablets".

The Myceneans generally tend to adapt, rather than destroy, Minoan culture, religion and art, and they continue to operate the economic system and bureaucracy of the Minoans.

During LMIIIA:1, Amenhotep III at Kom el-Hatan takes note of k-f-t-w (Kaftor) as one of the "Secret Lands of the North of Asia".

Also mentioned are Cretan cities such as Amnisos,Phaistos, Kydonia and Knossos) and some toponyms reconstructed as belonging to the Cyclades or the Greek mainland.

If the values of these Egyptian names are accurate, then this Pharaoh did not privilege LMIII Knossos above the other states in the region.After about a century of partial recovery, most Cretan cities and palaces go into decline in the 13th century BCE (LHIIIB/LMIIIB).

The last Linear A archives date to LMIIIA (contemporary with LHIIIA).Knossos remains an administrative center until 1200 BCE; the last of the Minoan sites is the defensive mountain site of Karfi, a refuge site which displays vestiges of Minoan civilization almost into the Iron Age.

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