PREHISTORIC MAN. 75 



art of an earlier Phoenician period known to Greek tradition, 

 but hitherto unrepresented either by monuments in Phoe- 

 nicia itself, or by undisputed identifications elsewhere ; for 

 the identification of the Keftiu of Egyptian monuments 

 with the Phoenicians is open to grave objections ; and even 

 if it be accepted, it still remains to find any trace of any- 

 thing but the latest Mykensean decadence on the Syrian 

 coast ; any proof, that is, that Mykenaean, not to mention 

 Cycladic, objects were ever manufactured by the Phoenicians 

 or their neighbours, or that the offerings of the Keftiu are 

 not themselves rare and valuable importations from the 

 y£gean art-centre. 



60. The argument, too, from the voluminous Hellenic 

 tradition of a Phoenician thalassocracy would itself fall to 

 the ground if the very probable hypothesis became de- 

 monstrable, that Hellenic anthropology also had laboured 

 under a Mirage orientate ; and that the un- Hellenic and 

 pre- Hellenic monuments and other objects which came to 

 light in Hellenic times were interpreted as products of an 

 immediately prehistoric stage of the commercial system 

 which historically prevailed until it was superseded by 

 Hellenic enterprise. Nothing is more striking, in fact, in 

 the speculations of Hellenes, from the sixth century on- 

 wards, on their own origins, than their inclination to refer 

 every advance in every department of their civilisation to 

 foreign initiative ; and it has to be remembered that, as 

 above stated, Phoenician trade may be admitted to have 

 been predominant in many parts of the Mediterranean in 

 the blank period which intervenes between the Mykenaean 

 and the Hellenic thalassocracies ; and that consequently it 

 was actually through Phoenician mediation largely that 

 the earlier Hellenic antiquaries obtained from Egypt and 

 Mesopotamia the material for comparison with their own 

 prehistoric monuments. 



61. Closely allied to the Phoenician theory is the Syrian 

 or Syro-Kappadokian theory of Dr. Beloch, which would 

 associate Mykenaean art with that style which it is still 

 convenient to label as Hittite. The points of similarity, 

 however, hardly justify the very wide inferences which have 



