At last! The weekend and time for stuff other than the drudgery of politics………decided to let my readers in on what I do other type my ass off……….
I am a member of the Psi Phi Society…..no it has nothing to do with science fiction….rather it is the
two Greek letters……………
It is a group of people that get together and discuss and debate different subjects….our last meeting we were joined by an archeologist and we decided to discuss the ancient Minoan civilization…..as usual the discussion turned into a debate and then an all out argument…….I will get you a synopsis of the topic.
I like archeology the study of civilizations long past and since I am by no means an expert in the field I approached the topic, Minoan civilization, from a History point of view…..I had the opportunity to take a couple of courses on ancient civilizations such as Babylon, Sumeria, Hittites and the Minoans………
Since those days I have formed a couple of opinions, theories if you will, pertaining to these civilizations……some of these civilizations built stuff using massive stones….some weighing over 50 tons…..I want some random archeologists to explain to me how they moved and set these stones if they did not have pulleys and such.
Sorry for the digression….back to my point…..What became of the Minoans?
The prevailing theory is that the Minoan civilization was destroyed when Mt. Thera erupted and the island was hit by a massive tsunami……that is one theory…but my acquaintance idea is the more prevailing of the day…..it seems that according to archeologists the Mycenaean Greeks came about 1450 BCE and slowly the Minoans were absorbed into that culture….let’s step back a bit……
The Minoans were a trading culture…they had extensive dealings with most areas of the Eastern Mediterranean…Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, ………now that I filled in that little piece of history…I will continue….
About 1425 BCE the culture started to decline and by 1100 BCE it was all but gone……now we come to my assertion……as the Minoans were in decline…the Phoenicians were gaining prominence……around 1200 BCE….and as we know from our word history…the Phoenicians were a strong naval power which reached as fr as the straight of Gibraltar and beyond (not commonly accepted) ….so far a historical perspective….as the Minoans were in decline on the island of Crete they just changed their “home base” and moved their operations to an established outpost in what is today’s Lebanon.
Well our back and forth went on for about 2 hours….and my friend decided that the day was about over and he was tired and said that he must retire for the day…of course I said that means”I won”…he replied….”Nope I am tired”…..I thought for a moment and said….”I win”!
After a few well chosen four letter words and he removed himself from the gathering……..
The moral of this story is……I WON!