The Minoans were a seafaring people, so it's no surprise that their art is full of marine life, exhibiting their deep connection with the sea goddess Posidaeja. Most people are familiar with the dolphins and octopuses that appear on so many Minoan marine ware vessels and frescoes. But there's another sea creature that shows up in Minoan art, mostly on ceramic containers, a creature that was so odd, it took us a while to figure out its identity.

Have a look at the marine ware jug at the top of this post. The critter painted on it looks like an octopus that's holed up in a nautilus shell, sticking its tentacles out and waving them.

But it's not a regular octopus. It's an argonaut, also called a paper nautilus. It's a unique kind of deep-sea octopus whose female secretes a papery egg sac that looks very much like a nautilus shell.

The Minoans would have seen these amazing creatures as they sailed around the Mediterranean. They apparently liked them a lot, because argonauts were one of the most popular types of marine life depicted on Minoan ceramics, along with dolphins and regular octopuses.

Here are a few examples of Minoan marine ware with argonauts on, for your enjoyment:

This lovely pitcher was made in Crete but found in Egypt - that gives you an idea of how popular Minoan marine ware was and how extensive the trade routes were in the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

This conical rhyton from Phaistos has argonauts and a lot of coral, plus some wavy fronds of seaweed:

CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

And this fragmentary vessel from Phylakopi (on the island of Melos) has argonauts beneath a wavy border:

CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

There is one Minoan artifact with argonauts on it that I find curious and a bit confusing. It's this larnax, now in the Archaeological Museum of Rethymno, Crete:

CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

You can see that the two front panels show an ibex and a goat eating some blooming papyrus. But what's odd is that it looks like there's a single argonaut under each animal. I have no idea what this means or why there would be argonauts flopping around on the ground underneath land animals. Maybe argonauts had significance for the family this larnax was made for.

Regardless, they were a popular motif on Minoan marine ware and a joyful part of our experience of Minoan art.

In the name of the bee,
And of the butterfly,
And of the breeze.