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Rating: 
Summary: An excellent, modern book, both scholarly and accessible.
Review: Books about ancient cultures tend to be either slightly soft-focus and "fluffy" or dry and almost excessively scholarly; neither approach succeeds in bringing a culture to vivid life for the interested lay reader. This book, however, does just that. It has scholarly evidence in detail, but also fleshed-out conclusions, and unflinchingly looks even at evidence that doesn't "fit" our modern image of ancient peoples we want to like, in its quest to bring us a living, breathing image of the Minoans. (It also has illustrations in plenty; I feel a bit juvenile to admit this, but I very much appreciate illustrations, as no verbal description can quite convey the brushstrokes, the maze-like floor plans, the quality of line.)It's not a perfect book---I agree with another reviewer who complained that people probably had more houses and fewer temples than Mr. Castleden concludes ---but it is an excellent one, especially for an "armchair archaeologist".
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, modern book, both scholarly and accessible.
Review: Books about ancient cultures tend to be either slightly soft-focus and "fluffy" or dry and almost excessively scholarly; neither approach succeeds in bringing a culture to vivid life for the interested lay reader. This book, however, does just that. It has scholarly evidence in detail, but also fleshed-out conclusions, and unflinchingly looks even at evidence that doesn't "fit" our modern image of ancient peoples we want to like, in its quest to bring us a living, breathing image of the Minoans. (It also has illustrations in plenty; I feel a bit juvenile to admit this, but I very much appreciate illustrations, as no verbal description can quite convey the brushstrokes, the maze-like floor plans, the quality of line.)It's not a perfect book---I agree with another reviewer who complained that people probably had more houses and fewer temples than Mr. Castleden concludes ---but it is an excellent one, especially for an "armchair archaeologist".
Rating: 
Summary: thought provoking- but not every building is a temple!
Review: I read this book with deep interest and found that most of his impressions were right on the mark. I agree that to survive in the rough world of the Bronze Age the Minoans were very skilled fighters and raiders rather than flower sniffing pacifists pictured by Evans and other discoverers. But not every building was a temple. Each "palace" I agree was a temple in part. The west side of every major "palace" has been shown to have cultic significance since the time of Sir Arthur Evans. However, the east side of the central courts resemble Minoan residental architecture from all over Crete and from Thera. Is it not possible that the rulers (be they kings, priest kings, or a ruling priestess)still needed places to live! I feel that many of the so called villas in Knossos that Castledon calls temples are just very large homes with a home altar or a sacred room. Still an interesting book with a lot of ideas that I feel will change our views on the Minoan civilization. However, I feel he could have balanced out his views with some good sense. A ruler has to live somewhere? Has Castledon ever come across these sites yet? He makes the argument that just like Egypt and Assyria, monumental temples existed on Crete and these are the so-called "palaces" However, every other major civilization in the Bronze Age had monumental structures that housed the rulers of the state, and why should Minoan Crete be any different there either. Could it be that the palaces of Minoan Crete served both purposes? I would appreciate other readers views on this matter.
Rating:
Summary: thought provoking- but not every building is a temple!
Review: I read this book with deep interest and found that most of his impressions were right on the mark. I agree that to survive in the rough world of the Bronze Age the Minoans were very skilled fighters and raiders rather than flower sniffing pacifists pictured by Evans and other discoverers. But not every building was a temple. Each "palace" I agree was a temple in part. The west side of every major "palace" has been shown to have cultic significance since the time of Sir Arthur Evans. However, the east side of the central courts resemble Minoan residental architecture from all over Crete and from Thera. Is it not possible that the rulers (be they kings, priest kings, or a ruling priestess)still needed places to live! I feel that many of the so called villas in Knossos that Castledon calls temples are just very large homes with a home altar or a sacred room. Still an interesting book with a lot of ideas that I feel will change our views on the Minoan civilization. However, I feel he could have balanced out his views with some good sense. A ruler has to live somewhere? Has Castledon ever come across these sites yet? He makes the argument that just like Egypt and Assyria, monumental temples existed on Crete and these are the so-called "palaces" However, every other major civilization in the Bronze Age had monumental structures that housed the rulers of the state, and why should Minoan Crete be any different there either. Could it be that the palaces of Minoan Crete served both purposes? I would appreciate other readers views on this matter.
Rating:
Summary: very short
Review: Now one may say that we do not have much evidence for life in the Bronze age, but surely we have more than what Castledon is using. Written for a more mainstream audience, I would not use as a text for undergraduates. Instead, read it to see if it pushes you to think differently about any "fact" from that most ancient time.
Rating:
Summary: very short
Review: Now one may say that we do not have much evidence for life in the Bronze age, but surely we have more than what Castledon is using. Written for a more mainstream audience, I would not use as a text for undergraduates. Instead, read it to see if it pushes you to think differently about any "fact" from that most ancient time.
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