Minos Wealth
In 1877 Minos Kalokairinos, a local businessman, started archaeological excavations on a flower-covered hill in Crete. The island was under the control of the Ottoman Empire who soon stopped the digging. 23 years later a British scholar, Arthur Evans, having reported on the nationalist Greek revolt against the Ottomans as a journalist, put down his pen and picked up a trowel. He continued the digging started by Mr Kalokairinos.
(Sir) Arthur Evans had a knack for story-telling and there was a lot of raw material to put together at what is now known as the Palace at Knossos. The myth of the minotaur and the labyrinth is old. It is fantastical. Yet under the dirt Sir Arthur found eerily familiar evidence. There was the extremely complicated structure of the palace. There was also the obsession with bulls including pictures of people apparently leaping or dancing with them. The dig uncovered something profound; Bronze Age Crete had been a distinct civilisation with characteristics that marked it out as separate from the mainland Greeks. They had their own (still mysterious) alphabet, were at the centre of a wide trade network and at their height politically dominated the mainland Greek civilisations. He coined the term ‘Minoan’ to describe these people; a reference to the mythical king from whom we take our name.
In the 1950s a British author named Mary Renault wrote a book imagining Minoan civilisation as the basis for a retelling of the story of Theseus, the son of Aegeus, who slays the Minotaur. ‘The King Must Die’ takes out most of the magic and tries to imagine a world almost impossibly ancient to us - a thousand years before Alexander the Great. Renault was always interested in the classical world; while at Oxford she discovered Sir Arthur Evans’ work on the Minoans. This book informs much of the branding of our business.
The connection to a financial planning business might not be immediately clear. So let me explain:
The Bronze Age around the Mediterranean saw the first instance of international trade at scale. There was a kind of ‘globalisation’ across a group of successful empires that all traded with each other in a relationship of interdependence; it was the first time that such great wealth moved over such long distances. Yet there was no money. Coinage wasn’t invented until around 500 years after Minoan civilisation subsided. The Minoans were a flourishing society - their art is full of colour and vibrancy. It might be a little trite, but I like the Minoans as a historical exemplar: success and happiness must be about more than money if these ancient people achieved them prior to its existence.
Mary Renault herself is also an inspiration. She is a writer who is interested in the strangeness of other times and places. The world she paints of the Mycenaean Greeks and Bronze Age Crete isn’t fantastical, but Renault evokes an alien mental landscape that is sometimes strikingly odd. Yet she approaches the whole thing with a sympathy for the past and for different ways of thinking that I find very appealing.
Without being too grand about it, I draw a lesson about how I approach financial planning from this. We discuss quite intimate details of people’s lives or aspirations in our work. What one realises after a time is how different people can be from one another. Whether it is their concept of family, their ambition, their concerns – I am often surprised by how a person thinks about a particular issue. I see my role as trying to understand, but to avoid making judgements. Instead we try to deploy our accumulated expertise and experience to extend your principles and desires in to your financial life. If that means leaving your estate to the rather lewd cult of Dionysus on Naxos, then so be it.
If this strikes a chord with you and you would like a confidential conversation please get in touch.