Around 1450 BC Knossos was partially burnt and all the other palaces completely destroyed. Why? Earlier theories blamed the cataclysmic eruption of Thera, but it now appears this occurred considerably earlier. Later, lesser, eruptions in the Aegean could have caused fires and ash fall on Crete.
Warfare was also likely: tensions developing within society found their expression in fighting between centres or between the elite and the peasantry. We do not know if the Mycenaeans were responsible for the destructions; they did seize Knossos shortly afterwards.
They gradually established control over the rest of the island, though they resided only in the Knossos area where richly furnished tombs contained their warrior burials. Elsewhere in the island wealthy burials were of local nobles.
Tablets written in the Linear B script show that the Mycenaeans adopted much of the Minoan administrative system. Objects from Knossos and other Cretan sites were now made in a mixed Minoan-Mycenaean style, as they were on the mainland where Minoan craftsmen were active.
Around 1400 BC the Minoan sites were again violently destroyed, Knossos falling last around 1375 (or later, according to some scholars). Crete subsequently experienced a long period of independent prosperity, particularly in the west around Kydonia (Khania).
