Bull-Jumpers and Sailors

We’ve been learning about people who lived near rivers: the Egyptians, the people of the Indus Valley, the Chinese of the Yellow River Valley, and the Assyrians and Babylonians who lived near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Mesopotamia.

Crete is a long, skinny island in the Mediterranean Sea, a sea that is shaped a little bit like a duck flying. Long, long ago, a tribe called the Minoans settled down on the island of Crete.

The Minoans entertained themselves in an unusual way—by leaping over bulls.

Imagine that you’re standing on a hard dirt floor, in the middle of a huge arena. All around you, crowds are shouting your name and cheering. You glance around you and see two other people in the arena with you, a boy and a girl. None of you have any weapons. Your hands are empty, and all you’re wearing is a simple loose garment that allows your arms and legs to move freely.

Suddenly a wooden door swings open in the arena wall. A huge black bull charges out into the arena. The shouts of the crowd get louder and louder. The bull paws the earth and shakes his head back and forth. His horns are sharp and tipped with gold. He swings his head towards you and sees you. He snorts and charges straight at you.

But you don’t run away. You wait until he’s only inches away from you—and then you grab his horns and push yourself upwards. You somersault through the air, do a handstand on the bull’s back, and land on your feet behind him. The girl who’s in the arena with you is there to catch you. The crowd roars! You turn and see your other teammate vault onto the bull. As he lands on his feet, you grab his arm to help him stay standing. The bull comes to a halt, confused.

If you were a boy or girl in ancient Crete, you might find yourself part of a bull-jumping team! The Minoans, who lived on the island of Crete, trained athletic children to become bull-jumpers. The children learned the kind of gymnastics that children still learn today—somersaulting, balance exercises, tumbling, and vaulting. But instead of doing their vaulting over a piece of equipment, the students learned how to vault over the backs of small animals such as goats—and then finally were taught how to leap over the backs of bulls.

Bull-jumping festivals were held to honor the Minoan gods, who were thought to take the form of bulls. At the end of every bull-jumping festival, the bulls were sacrificed to the gods.

During festivals, people came from all over Crete to cheer for the bull-jumpers. Bull-jumpers were treated like royalty. They were given the best food and the nicest places to live. They were showered with presents of gold, jewelry, and beautiful clothes. But bull-jumping was a dangerous sport, because bull-jumpers were often killed by the bulls they were supposed to leap over. Few bull-jumpers lived past the age of twenty.

The Minoans were known both for bull-jumping and for ship-building. In ancient times, the Mediterranean Sea was full of pirates. No one ruled the sea; it was controlled by bandits who sailed their small boats near the shore. These bandits attacked and robbed anyone who ventured out onto the water. Kings of the ancient world had learned how to build strong armies that fought on land. But none of them knew how to build big ships to carry their soldiers out onto the water. So the pirates roamed free on the Mediterranean Sea.

But the king of the Minoans was different. He knew that the Minoans had to be able to sail safely across the Mediterranean Sea to land, so that they could trade with other countries. So he ordered his craftsmen to build great ships that he could use to wipe out pirates and patrol the Mediterranean Sea.

The Minoan craftsmen learned how to build the ships. They were the greatest ship-builders of the ancient world. And the king of the Minoans became the first king to have a navy—an army that knew how to fight on the water. This navy drove the pirates out of the Mediterranean Sea and carried Minoan traders to other ancient countries so that they could buy and sell goods. The Minoan navy became the strongest in the world. It was so strong that the greatest palace of Crete didn’t even have walls. No invaders could land on Crete’s shores, because the navy kept them away.