Crete stamp – The-Philatelist

A Greek island rebels against Turk rule, sounds like a job for a Danish, no excuse me Greek Prince? I don’t think so and neither did the Cretans, but the Great Powers thought they knew better. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This is a fake stamp. Issued at the time of the Theriso revolt, and of no postal value and does not have any catalog value. Being therefore a revenue raiser. I would have expected less ostentation and more revolutionary zeal.

Crete was a Christian/Greek island that was long a part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1897 the Cretans revolted against the Turks. At this point the Great Powers stepped in with troop deployments ending Turk rule, though a suzerainty to the Ottomans was still paid. This occupation was under a High Commissioner, Prince George, the second son of the King of Greece and also a Prince of Denmark. He was a lot more Danish than Greek and so many Cretans were less than satisfied with the arrangement. Prince George was quite imperious, immediately demanding the Cretans build him a palace. Where after all is a Royal to lay his weary head. He also proved unable to get the Great Powers to agree to union with Greece. The Cretans rebelled against Prince George and a civil war was on. This was not what the Great Powers signed up for and they ended up paying the Cretans for the right to leave and to take Prince George with them. Greece sent another high commissioner, this time an actual Greek and then the Cretans unilaterally declared union with Greece.

Prince George ended up settling in France where he married Marie Bonaparte. She was perhaps more famous than he was. She was chronically unsatisfied sexually despite 2 children with allegedly homosexual Prince George, and many affairs with Princes, Prime Ministers and stablemasters. She began a formal study of the then important psychological issue of female frigidity in conjunction with Sigmund Freud. She studied the sexual histories of several hundred women and the physical distance between their clitoris and vagina. She discovered the greater the distance the greater chance of frigidity. She published the findings under the pseudonym A. E. Narjani in a medical journal. If the distance between the organs was greater than 2.5 centimeters, orgasm was difficult to achieve. She thought herself having this condition, she twice attempted corrective surgery. Her frigidity remained.

Well my drink is empty and I am left shaking my head. I intended my articles on stamps to be wide ranging but I never thought I would get that far afield. I may need another drink. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

The ancient people on the island of Crete were from the same strand of ancients as those in Greece. Thus it is understandable the Greeks in modern times look to the practices of Minoans as part of their own heritage. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The image on this stamp is taken from an old fresco in a Minoan era palace on Crete. That combined with 1930s poor country printing makes it less than clear what is happening. An acrobat has grabbed an angry bull by the horns who then by reflex jerks his head up violently. Using that force as leverage, the acrobat summersaults over the bull. The bull is not hurt by this.

Todays stamp is issue A69, a five Lepta stamp issued by Greece on November 1st, 1937. It was a 13 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used.

We talk a lot here of trading posts with an international flavor to them. Using postage stamps as a jumping off point usually puts us in the colonial or post colonial era. Here we get to go back to the Minoan culture on Crete as it existed circa 2000 BC. The trading going on was with the different peoples throughout the eastern Mediterranean Sea including Egypt and the Levant. The trading and mixing influenced both sides and left the Minoans well off. Elaborate palaces have been uncovered by archeologists over the last 200 years.

The name Minoan comes from a mythic King Minos on Crete. He was a concoction of nineteenth century British archeologists. As presented by the archeologists, the Minoans raised vegetables and ate lots of seafood. This healthy diet resulted in much longer life spans and thus contributed to the elaborate bronze age art the island is known for.

Bronze bulls head Minoan rhyton found in Zakros. A rhyton is drank from.

It is believed that Minoan culture came to a sudden end after an eruption of the Thera volcano around 1450 BC. There were also a string of earthquakes. By the beginning of the iron age around 1200BC, there was nothing left of the old culture on Crete. The language of the Minoans has not yet been able to be translated, so we do not know what kind of government they had. The high number of stone palaces is thought to mean the society had a hierarchy.

The Minoans were believed the first to practice bull fighting. There’s of course was much less violent than the now more famous Spanish style. It was practiced on Crete by both males and females. There was a second way where the the performer dives over the horns and then bounces off the bulls back. It is thought that the sport wasn’t dangerous for bull or jumper but that probably depends how the jumper lands and how quickly the bull comes for him. In modern times, bull jumping is still sometimes performed in France except they now use cows.

An ivory bull leaper figure found in Knossos. The bull it is believed he was pinned to was never found.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Minoan bull leaper. Showing strength, bravery, and graceful movement, it must have been a crowd pleaser. It also showed respect for the bull, who was often revered in ancient cultures for his raw power. Come again on Monday when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.