This civilization grew restlessly on the shores of the unpeaceful Mediterranean sea. Cretan craftsmen built multi-storey palaces, labyrinths; the girls of Crete on a par with the young men jumped on the back of rushing bulls at the festival of the Sun; brave sailors went for copper to distant shores embarking the most sophisticated ships of that time.

"Games with a bull" fresco from the Palace of Knossos.

At the dawn of civilization, the potters of Crete created a special technique of firing: there are playing and shimmering spots on the walls of the vessels.

Th first big style in Europe, Kamares, appeared on Crete. Such pottery was famous for its technical perfection. The walls of some vessels were so thin that they were compared to an egg shell. Cretan potters' glory spread far to the south and to the east of the Mediterranean. Elegantly painted Kamares vessels were valued even at the sophisticated royal court of Ancient Egypt.

At the left: the delegation of Crete. A painted tomb of some noble, Ancient Egypt.

At the right: boys with vases. Painting in the Palace of Knossos.

The vessels' form and the painting technique are an original feature of Kamares. What is more beautiful: an ideal sphere or an irregular, but real ripe apple? Cretan craftsmen were inspired not by a static ideal, but by wonderful, albeit imperfect life.

A twisted, asymmetrical, pulsing pattern vines on the vessel's walls. It looks like they are growing right in front of our eyes. The Cretan spiral consists of waves of the sea, stems of plants, and of continuous time, the eternal movement of life.

Looking at this vase one wants to take and examine it from all the sides. Here is a comical and frightening octopus. Here's an elegant shell, a fast fish, rocks and algae. One of the vessels looks like a fat boy which is proud of himself, standing with hands on hips, the other one looks like a strange beast... There is so much imagination and vitality in this ceramics.

A practical man would say: these vessels are not very useful. The handles are too small and there are too many of them. What are all of these outgrowths, spikes and curves? They are life itself, they do not obey the rules, they grow up, dance and laugh. Long before Homer glorified the city of Troy, some Cretan craftsman took clay and made a living miracle of it.