How did Minoans use the sea to become prosperous

Control of the sea routes was the basis of Cretan power and influence. Several pictures and lead and clay models have survived showing that Cretan ships were masted and of low freeboard. Cretan seamen brought tin from Spain to supply the island’s skilled metalworkers, and gold pearsl and ivory from northern Africa to be fashioned into jewellery. Cretan craftwork was much prized abroad, being superior to that of most neighboring peoples. Craft products were exported especially to mainland Greece and Egypt, espeically olive oil. Cretain sailors established colonies on other islands, especially one at rhodes dating from about 1600 BC.

Minos became King of Crete when, in answer to his prayer, the god Posiedon sent him a sacrifical bull from the sea. But the bull was so handsome that Minos did not sacrifice it. His wife, Pasiphae fell in love with the bull and the craftsman Daedalus built a hollow image of a cow so that she could hide inside it and the bull made love to her. She gave birth to a son with the head of a bull. Minos then commissioned Daedalus to build a maze and hide the bull-headed Minotaour at the centre of it.

Minos tried to conquer the city of Athens but failed, but as a result of his prayers it was infected with a terrible pestilence. King Aegus of Athens ahd to agree to send seven boys and seven girls every year to Crete to be fed to the Minotaur, to stop the plague.

One year Theseus, son of King Aegus, came to Crete, and killed the Minotaur with the help of King Minos’s daughter Ariadne, who showed him the way through the maze. Theseus fled from Crete with Ariadne, but left her behind on the island of Dia, some say because the god Dionysus fell in love with her.

The Greeks had been beseiging Troy for ten years when Odysseus had the idea of building a huge wooden horse and leaving it outside Troy, then most of the Greek army hid while some of the men were inside the horse. The Trojans found the horse and took it inside the city, and at night the men who were hiding inside got out and opened the gates and let the other Greeks in, and so the city was conquered by the Greeks.Source(s):The Coming of Civlisation by Ron Carter