Minoan snub noses

[richsc]

Since I have never been to Crete, and it has been 3500 years since the fresco was painted, I may be missing something. But the Minoan fresco of the saffron gathering young woman in profile is not, I realized, what I come to expect of Mediterranean faces. The girl has a snub nose, something I associate with northern Europe or, Britain. Anyone familiar with the peoples of the time period? Or of Crete itself? though 3500 years is a long time, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this.

[Epictetus]

Is this the one you are speaking of?

[richsc]

Yes, that's the one I had in mind, but the author of the clothing studies says I have it backwards, and northern europeans have the big noses, not Minoans. Steffi Graf was her example. I've not been to Crete, and it has been 3500 years so things could have changed.

[PMBardunias]

There is a great deal of variation in Minoan profiles, see below, but some things to consider are that smaller noses may have been associated with youth (and Minoans loved youth). Also, they might stress smaller noses in art to differentiate themselves from Levantines.

The ladies below are surely on the larger size of the nose scale for modern Greeks, the first in particular.

[Gorgon]

Snub noses and big noses, pretty noses and ugly noses, and every kind of noses in-between exist everywhere in Europe. I would hardly use a single painting as evidence for anything of this nature. I'm portuguese but I live in Finland now, and I don't find any difference in "noses" between the two countries. I do have a big nose, though.

[richsc]

That's true, but generally speaking travel was a lot more trouble 3500 years ago than it is today. At least for most people, since traders even then probably had contacts across the continents.

[Gorgon]

I think there MAY be a tendency for snub noses to be more common in the northern countries, but I don't think finding a painting of a mediterranean girl with an apparentely snub nose should be in any way surprising. At the very most, as I said, it may be more common elsewhere but it's not by any means a "typical" feature of northern peoples to the extent that it should be surprising to be found elsewhere.

Even assuming no extensive traveling, snub noses should be expected to be present everywhere in Europe at that time (in my opinion), we don't need to assume extensive mixing between different peoples to explain what a snob nose is doing in the mediterranean. Basicaly, I don't understand why is that picture so surprising to you.

I don't know if I'm explaining myself well, but I think you get the picture

[Dan Howard]

None of the illustrations could be considered "photo realistic". I doubt that any of the artists attempted to get the shape of the nose exactly right. None of the illustrations could be used as any kind of evidence for a specific facial feature of any culture - not without supporting evidence from another discipline.

[caiusbeerquitius]

*signed*

[Dan Howard]

People read way, way too much into these kinds of illustrations.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Look at a photograph of a group of young girls from greece today, and you will see just as big a variation in nose shapes as in that group of photos. Or a group of scottish lassies, or Norwegian.....