Debate
- Minoan Larnax
Crete is an island located in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. Due to Crete’s central location, there was a lot of trade with much of the Aegean, Cyprus, the Levant and Egypt. The contact between Crete and Egypt is also apparent in burial culture: typical Egyptian goods, such as scarabs, have been found in Minoan graves.
A wooden version preceded, and possibly co-existed with, the clay larnax. It has been noted that the Minoan larnax resembles an Egyptian linen chest made of wood, a popular piece of funerary furniture in Egypt. These Egyptian chests were originally not used as a coffin. For example, they have been found in the tomb of the famous pharaoh Tutankhamun, not as coffins but as storage chests. Due to the similarities between Egyptian linen chests and Minoan larnakes, it could be deduced that the Minoan larnax was modelled after an Egyptian example.
However, it is plausible that similar wooden chests were also in use by the Minoan elite in the Aegean, and not specifically in Egypt. It is therefore possible that the wooden predecessor was a Minoan invention, but these instances have mostly been lost. This is due to the fact that the Greek climate is not suited for preserving perishable materials, unlike the dry Egyptian climate.
As skeletons have been found in the remains of larnakes, we can conclude that bodies were stored inside and that they were not merely used as linen chests. Therefore, you wouldn’t want to store the larnax very close to home, as you can imagine the corpse would soon cause an unbearable smell! Larnakes were thus stored far away in rock-cut chamber tombs or buried in a cemetery.