After the destruction at the end of MM II the palaces were rebuilt, though yet another major earthquake in MMIII was a temporary setback.
The huge blocks hurled from the south (made at Knossos into Evans' 'House of the Fallen Blocks' are evidence of the strength of that upheaval 'to the duration of these new palaces belong most of the elaborate Minoan buildings whose remains are now visible including the large houses in the towns that surround the palaces and those found elsewhere in rural settings across the island sometimes referred to as villas on the Roman analogy.
Fresco paintings decorated the walls of major rooms: efficient plumbing and drainage systems were installed.
The extensive areas filled with huge storage jars bear witness both to the economic prosperity of the age and to the sophisticated redistribution system on which its economy was based.
Foreign contacts were wide-ranging.
Crete exercised a strong influence on the mainland of Greece and indelibly stamped its character on the Mycenaean culture.
Influence on the Cycladic Islands was even more profound: it is suggested that there were Minoan colonies on some of them, for instance Kea and Melos, and the clearest example yet excavated of a provincial Minoan town is the Akrotiri site on Them (Santorini).
Strong influence, if not actual settlement, has been noted on Rhodes and Kos, while sites in what is now Asiatic Turkey (e.
g.
Miletus and Troy) were well within the Minoan trading orbit.
Further "a field Minoan products reached west to the Lip art is lands off Sicily and east to Cyprus and Egypt.
At this point Crete commanded apparently unlimited supplies of copper and tin: copper ingots were found at Ayia Triada and Zakros, and palatial style hoards of bronze vessels at Knossos, Malia and Tylissos.
Scientific research suggests that much copper came from deposits in the Lavrion area in Attica (also an important source of silver) as well as from the better-known source in Cyprus.
The source of tin, a vital constituent of bronze, is less certain; Cornwall.
Bohemia and Sinai have all been suggested.
It is a mark of the prosperity of the times that decorated pottery was no longer the leading artistic medium (despite the excellence of the so-called Marine Style).
The innovative artists may have turned to fresco painting and craftsmen were working in stone (vasemakers, gem-cutters) or metal (weapons as well as vessels).
Pottery ornament and shape.
in many cases based on metalwork, became highly repetitive, in marked contrast to the great diversity of the earlier polychrome Kamares ware.
Technically, however, the best pottery of the New period is excellent.
The Minoans had developed a cursive syllabic script (Linear A) to write a language which, despite intensive study and some limited progress is not yet deciphered to general satisfaction.
Still the most useful analogy is with a picture-book without text.
A number of its signs are derived from the hieroglyphic script used from Early Minoan times and influenced by contemporary Near Eastern writing, but most of them are probably of local origin.
The development seems to have taken place within the Minoan culture (bough with a degree of external inspiration) and evidently to satisfy the new record-keeping needs of the emerging palace economy.
The script is found on sun-dried tablets interpreted as administrative records, but also on artefacts such as libation tables and ladles miniaturedouble axes, rings or pins in precious metals and pots including large clay pithoi as well as the potter's wheel.
A significant number of these artefacts come from sacred caves or peak sanctuaries and it seems probable that in those cases the inscriptions have a religious connotation.
Linear A writing has been recognised at more than a dozen sites, but by far the greatest number of finds so far come from Ayia Triada and Khania.
The decline of the Minoan civilisation is not as well understood as is its development.
The end of LMIB is marked by a horizon of major destruction by fire recognised at the palace sites and in other Minoan excavations right across Crete.
Many attempts have been made to link this destruction with the volcanic eruption which is known to have destroyed the island of Thera (Santorini) and its settlements.
However, the evidence from the Minoan town buried beneath layers of pumice at Akrotiri on Thera, and especially the study of its pottery, establishes beyond any doubt that the eruption occurred not at the end of LMIB but well before the end of the LMIA period.
Crete cannot have been unaware of this catastrophe only 150km to the north, but some other explanation must be sought for the widespread destruction on the island that took place perhaps as much as a century later.
Moreover the type of damage then is consistent with warlike activity rather than destruction by natural causes such as earthquake or tidal wave.
With the relative dating on an increasingly secure basis, there has been continuing refinement of absolute dates.
The original chronological outline of Evans and his contemporaries, placed the LMIB destruction and thus the beginning of the end of Minoan civilisation at around 1450 BC.
Under this conventional chronology the Thera catastrophe would have occurred only a few years before 7500 B.
C.
However, during the last twenty years a formidable body of interested scientists, from the disciplines of geology and seismology among others, has added a new dimension to the researches of Aegean and Egyptian archaeologists.
The new dating techniques make use of evidence from ice and lake-bed cores as well as dendro-chronology (tree-ring dating).
As a result of this research proposals for the date of the great volcanic eruption range from 1650 to 1628 BC, alongside suggested modifications to many of the conventionally accepted dates for mid-second millennium Minoan Crete which may place the LMIB destruction around 1500 BC.
Currently the two interpretations, the conventional and the revised chronology, coexist.
For reasons imperfectly understood Knossos was less affected by the LMIB destruction than other sites.
Its damage was soon repaired and its life continued for several generations, apparently under the direction of Mycenaean Greeks who were either responsible for or took advantage of the events that had brought low the rest of Crete.
The Minoan Linear A script had been supplanted by Linear B which in 1953 was deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick as Mycenaean Greek.
The Linear B archives show that at this period Knossos was the administrative centre of the island.
Sometime early in LMIA there is evidence of yet another major destruction, but even then parts of the palace continued to be used into LMIIIB (13C B.
C.
).
After the widespread destruction at the end of LMIB at least some of the sites were not reoccupied.
There were cases of reoccupation on a reduced scale during LMIII, where individual houses or rooms were cleared and re-used, but there were also substantial new buildings as at Ayia Triada and Tylissos.
Occasionally new settlements were established, for instance at Khondros near Viannos.
The town at Khania flourished and had become a main centre of power on the island.
Shrines from this Postpalatial period have been found; characteristic furnishings include tubes associated with the cult of the sacred snake and clay female figurines with raised arms and cylindrical skirts.
Examples noted in the text are at Knossos.
Gournia, Ayia Triada and Mitropolis near Gortyn.
A new and distinct method of burial was introduced, with rectangular clay chests (larnakes) placed in chamber tombs.