And that is religion.
As an aside, I have some new aphorisms I've been working on when trying to understand history, or writing historical fiction:
"The past has a past." Bronze age empires of the near east had their own antiquarians. There were New Kingdom scholars who were working on restoration projects. The pyramids, after all, were older to Cleopatra than she is to us.
"It was never the past in the past." No person of any time thought of themselves of living in a quaint previous time. They all lived in the modern world, one that was highly advanced -- if not dangerously modern.
"People are complicated." No society was ever doing things simply, using simple language, thinking in simple ways. Anatomically modern humans go back way further than history, almost as far as archaeological artifacts, and they are always pushing the boundaries of what is possible. We may have massive computer-controlled looms these days, but send a modern back to pre spinning-wheel, pre treadle loom, and they are still going to find it a lifetime prospect to get really good at weaving.
Fortunately as a fiction writer I feel less constrained to find "the" way some historical element should have been. Instead I'm picking what works best dramatically. The problem I'm facing right now is not a lack of freedom, but too much of it. I need to be guided a little more about what is historically plausible in order to narrow down on all the directions I could be taking things in the narrative.
So we know only a little about Mycenaean religion, and half of that is assuming continuity into the later Greeks. We know even less about the Minoans. The fun thing about religion, from a writer's point of view, is that archaeology preserves outward forms but not inward meanings. We know there were places where people gathered and while they were there ate and drank from pottery that occurs no-where else. But we don't know if this was an offering to the gods or a tailgate party. Even when we have a shrine and what appears to be offerings, we don't know how they thought of the ritual, what they meant by it, what they gained from it.
There is one thing, though, one thing which is intriguing me although it also makes my plotting problems more difficult. The Greeks don't have a creator figure. The familiar Greek gods, Zeus on down, didn't create the world or humanity. They are merely another inhabitant. When you get closer to the original documents, the term "immortals" seems to come closer. They are a people like humans but better in every way; stronger, longer lived, better artists...heck, they are a bit like some depictions of the Fair Folk. They aren't our guardians or shepherds. At best, they are amused by us, as we are by the frolicking of wild animals, and vain enough so they can sometimes be cajoled into doing us favors (and also petty enough so when annoyed by us, they can wreak terrible vengeance.)
Everyone has creation myths. But looking around for a Creator, the Abrahamic religions start to look like the odd man out. It's probably an effect of packing all the roles and obligations into a single entity. And probably why Christianity in many of its flavors ends up with so many saints -- they're a lot easier to pray to.
The Egyptians come across similarly, as the creator figures in their pantheon are terrible and distant even to the other gods. Or the Norse gods, who similarly more-or-less inherited the world and in any case were more interested in their own affairs than those of mortals. I have to say I have a certain fondness for the Egyptian gods, who come across to me like working stiffs. They all have duties, often onerous and even dangerous jobs they have to do to keep the cosmos running. One almost feels bad tugging on their sleeve to get them to take some time away from their busy day to deal with your own petty little problems. Didn't seem to bother the ancient Egyptians, though, who were actively pestering them for favors.
In any case. Much as we don't know about the Minoan religion, there have been (basically unsupported and often fanciful) theories. Prime among them being a Mother Goddess cult. Which suggests to me a much more active role, both in creating the world and in caring about some of that creation. Apollo might help out if you bribed him enough (one suspects bribes, no matter how they are rationalized by the people making them, are the one truly cross-cultural constant of worship). A Mother would, you think, help because she wanted to.
On that note I'm not sure which religions have figures that have a duty towards humanity. The mesoamerican entities seemed to have a reciprocal working relationship; you keep us fed with blood, we'll be able to keep the world from collapsing. I feel like some of the First Nations had entities with more of a parental feel to them, though. I am hardly an authority on world mythologies!
Back to the Mycenae. Through into at least Roman times there were multiple local deities and private worship practices, most famously (!!) the Mystery Cults. There's some evidence of cultic practices in Mycenae and Minoan times; places of worship that seem to be local and private. And there is tons of evidence (well, within the context of how much we have overall) of specific gods -- or at least similarly-named ones -- getting carried through from one culture to another.
So it isn't the least bit contentious to say that on 12th-century BC Crete there would be a continuation of Minoan worship practices -- at least in remote areas, but possibly quite openly and alongside of whatever passes for mainstream religion (possibly state-sponsored...there are more often than not links between power and worship, with rulers being priests or at least having religious duties).
And, yeah, from the first moment I heard of them I wanted Kes to have originally come from one of the Peak Sanctuaries. More and more, I don't think she was an actual priestess, but it still leaves open the question of how much she learned, whether this was a carry-over Minoan practice, whether such carry-over practices are known and understood more widely, and what form they might have.
This could as I said go in a dozen directions. One of the things I'm playing with is about the past of the past. The evidence of the Etocretan language, some inscriptions, some names and of course a semi-continuity of artistic traditions (that blends into the later Mycenaean) is that a "Minoan" identity could still be filtered out of the mainstream culture. One of my conceits for the novel is that the people who chose for various reasons of identity (largely, class) to recognize themselves as distinct are having to reconstruct from scattered sources -- and they get it about as right as Sir Arthur Evans did.
Lately I've thought I want more than one reconstruction going on, and I think the Peak Sanctuaries (and other Mystery Cults) may play into this; that there are self-identified Etocretans who imagine themselves descendants of a powerful thallasocracy -- myth-making that verges on Atlantean here, with powerful fleets, rich kings, weapons of a finer metal than anything available today. And then there are others who disagree; these are a direct and obvious call-out to The Chalice and the Blade, being a peaceful mother-goddess harmony-of-nature bunch who were all but wiped out by those warlike Mycenaeans.
Which is why I'm deep into reading papers at JSTOR.
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