74 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



archaeology and comparative mythology of the first half of 

 the present century found reason to extend the range of 

 Phoenician influences even beyond the very wide limits of 

 the Hellenic view. 



57. In spite of the almost complete absence of data for 

 the history of Phoenicia and Phoenician art before the 

 eighth century, B.C., which still confronts us ; of the almost 

 uniform divergence of the style of such objects as can be 

 identified as early Phoenician from that of their Mykenaean 

 counterparts, and of the growing mass of evidence that like 

 Karia, Phoenicia, and the whole Palestinian area, borrowed 

 more than it lent, from this, the only living school of culture 

 in the Mediterranean during the period in question, re- 

 peated attempts have been made to show that Mykenae, 

 Ialysos and Gnossos represent, not native ^Egean centres, 

 but trading- stations or colonial settlements of Semitic 

 adventurers and emigrants established amongst relatively 

 barbarous aborigines. 



58. The theory if fully developed would be in a position 

 to take into account the existence of earlier stages of de- 

 velopment within the yEgean itself, for Hellenic tradition 

 maintained that these and other islands received Phoenician 

 or " Kadmeian " colonies at a very early date. But it has 

 been most recently treated, by an authority high in another 

 department, in the light of a half knowledge which would 

 seem to ignore these earlier stages altogether, and to treat 

 fully developed Mykenaean art as a newly arrived importa- 

 tion, the earlier stages of which would still be to be sought 

 elsewhere than where they had actually been found ten 

 years previously. The same essay touches also the Etrus- 

 can question, and treats Mykenaean imports in the West 

 as further evidence of the oecumenical range of Phoenician 

 commerce. 



59. The argument that, as all known Phoenician objects 

 are subsequent to the probable date of the Mykenaean age, 

 they cannot well be the prototypes of Mykenaean art has 

 been ingeniously met by MM. Pottier and Helbig by 

 claiming Mykenaean art as being itself, either wholly, or at 

 least as regards its masterpieces, the long-lost " Sidonian '' 



