Plato, the great greek philosopher, wrote an inspiring tale: The Atlantis. It is a story of lost civilization. The atlantean society was supposedly highly sophisticated and advanced, but they were destroyed by a major catastrophe. Like many other, I believe that Atlantis was a myth, drawn from real-life tragedy: the Minoan Civilization that existed around 1700 BC (Bronze Age).
It was evident from their ruins that they had palace architecture that were ahead of their time. They palaces are multi-storied, had paved road, and had irrigation system. For more pictorial information, click here. For video introduction about Minoan civilization, please visit youtube:
Part 1 of 5
For the remaining parts of the video, you can search them at youtube.
There are many resources in the internet about the Minoan civilization, and some of them offer possible explanations of why the Minoan empire, located in Greek island of Crete, was perished. This post is not going to compete with thousands of literatures and theories about the Minoan civilization. Instead, I will look at the Minoan society from a very different angle, that is from the perspective of Knowledge Management (KM).
From the resources that I find in the internet (tips: just google “Minoan civilization”), interestingly, they are supposedly very intelligent, complex, and possessed superior technology:
- Their territory spans Crete and Santorini islands, with Santorini as their main trading hub.
- Because their natural resources were limited, the Minoans ventured out to trade to built their wealth and to secure goods/materials. They even developed advanced navy fleet that the world, at that time, had never seen. This also partially explains the vast number of jars (about 400) found in one of their palace. The sheer quantity suggests that the jars were produced in industrial scale (which means capital-intensive, how do they finance the production if they only rely on the islands resources).
- As a result of intensive trade, the Egyptians were familiar with the Minoans, who even appear in Egyptian art. The minoans also trade with the mesopotamians, and their trading activity spans 3 continents.
- The Minoans is a flourishing seafaring society, which result in mixture of cultural elements that shape new way of life. Recent excavation finding suggest that there are a variety of race lived on their civilization.
- The Minoans live in relatively peaceful conditions: free from wars, and social equality among their citizens.
The Minoans superior culture and knowledge was lost:
- Some of the artifacts that the archeologists found contained glyphs that cannot be deciphered, i.e. their language is not known (it is called Eteocretan). The language appears to have belonged to a separate category of Mediterranian language. It transformed to a very early form of Greek (called Linear B script that successfully deciphered by a man named Bontis) after 1450BC, although the “true” Eteocretan (called Linear A script) were still spoken.
- They were the first who built plumbing system, a technology that was forgotten when they collapse.
Their downfall was caused by several series of unfortunate and hard to predict events:
- Earthquakes.
- Volcanic Eruption. Also called Thera eruption, which was equivalent to 600 to 700 tons of TNT. This Eruption evoked tsunamis that destroyed the Minoans ports and vessels (effectively eliminating the Minoans trade in one swoop). In addition, the eruption caused weather change that affect crops. It is suggested that such catastrophe shocked the population psychologically, and they no longer trust their king and priests. There was social upheaval appear throughout the land that made them susceptible to invasion. There was also evidence of cannibalism (probably due to the loss of their trading hub and poor harvest which brought famine throughout the land).
- Invasion from Myceneans, a Greek mainland civilization. The Myceneans assimilated some of the Minoans culture.
Fascinating as the story suggested, a Knowledge Management (KM) professional will be curious about:
Why the early Minoans language (Linear A script) did not influence Greek language or mediterranian language or Egyptian language? The “true” Eteocretans seems so different from any other language that no-one can deciphered it. The Minoans were avid trader that trade widely, how did they communicate with the Eqyptians? Most importantly, they were supposedly more sophisticated, so why didn’t their culture influence other culture, intead of their culture perished and assimilated into Greek culture. Contrast this with the English, who manage to spread their language around the world. And the Americans, who manage to spread their superior cultural beliefs and philosophies globally.
Let me re-phrase the above question into a Knowledge Management term (as suggested by Davenport and Prusak in their book ‘Working Knowledge‘)
Why did the knowledge transfer happens from seemingly more inferior culture (The Mycenenas or early Greek) to more superior culture (The Minoans)?…In my view the status as conqueror seems to play important role and it gave the Myceneans the status of Knowledge Seller, instead of Knowledge Buyer.
Why the Egyptians or the Mediterranians, who trade extensively with the Minoans, did not feel compelled to learn the Minoans culture or superior navy system?…
Why did the English language stick as the language of the world, or why did the Americans’ culture stick on the rest of the world?…But why the Minoans language did not stick?…What was the determining factors that made a knowledge desirable?…
Again in my view, a knowledge is valuable if there are many knowledge buyer who SEE the value. The knowledge buyers are the person who place value into knowledge. The English people conquered many nations, and their status as conqueror made them seems to possess superior knowledge, and there are many evidences that sometimes the English people ‘force’ their culture and ideological beliefs (such as Christianity) into the conquered nations. On the other hand, the Minoans limit themselves to trading not to control nations, therefore, they were seen as equal.
I think to certain extent, the americans also ‘force’ their culture and beliefs into other nations. The Americans extend their financial / technological knowledge transfer (help) only to those nations that willing to embrace their ideology (for example: Capitalism) rather than to ALL nations. In addition, thanks to globalization, the Americans achieve the status as “superpower”. On the other hand, despite its technological advances, the Minoans were not known as “superpower”, no media that broadcast their successes, and technological superiority (which explains why the Minoans plumbing system perished).
Conclusion: In Bronze age (the Minoans era), there are few Knowledge Evangelists that promotes or flaunts Minoans culture or knowledge. As a result, there was lack of awareness that the Minoans are sophisticated society. In addition, the Minoans trader posed as “peers” instead of “conquerors” to other nations, which suppressed the signals of knowledge sellers (Note: In modern age, the signals of Knowledge sellers typically from degrees, or position in an organization).
