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Minoan Spirals

Minoan Spirals

February 28, 2012
Posted in: Totally Random | Reading Time: 1 minute

The first thing you notice about Cretan culture is the impact of spiral design on both ancient Minoan and modern-day art. 

They're everywhere including on the sarcophagus', on jewelry and pottery. You can even see the spiral on the Phaestos Disk.

Ok, technically, the design on the money above is a labyrinth but it's spirally enough for me to include it here.

Though the spiral was first attributed to Greek mathemetician Archimedes in 300 BC. However, scientists have wondered if Minoans had spirals all wrapped up 1000 years earlier. Mathematical features of Minoan paintings of the Late Bronze age (1650 BC) recently found on Santorini show much more advanced working knowledge of geometry than previously recognized.

Either way, spirals are kind of, well, mind-blowing. There are many types of two-dimensional spirals. My favorite is the Fibonacci. Because it's just freaky, man.

Check out one of my favorite You Tube Educators below on Doodling in Math:

Even the Cretan street cats pose themselves in spirals. We named this little guy Fibo. He obviously knew the power that Fibonacci spirals yielded for obtaining grilled meat from our plates.

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3 comments on “Minoan Spirals”

  1. We just love learning something completely new to us - a frequent occurrence on your blog. Must be why we love it so much. Thank you. That video even made math almost interesting, and that's a subject that usually makes mama's eyes glaze over. Kind of like tax law.

    Jed & Abby

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