ANCIENT EGYPT,' ASIA MINOR, AND CRETE 
they were alike fond of jewelry, bracelets, and rings. 
Priestesses and priests wore skins, undoubtedly a survival 
from earlier days. 
The warriors protected their heads with conical helmets 
topped with plumes and sheltered themselves behind 
enormous leather shields which took the place of body 
armor. The latter, together with the small round buckler, 
was imported from Asia by way of Cyprus in the four- 
teenth century B. c., not very long after the introduction 
of the horse and chariot, apparently from the same quarter. 
For weapons the Cretan fighting man had the bronze 
sword and spear and the bow. The army, though small, 
was apparently well organized; but they placed their main 
reliance on the navy, which suppressed pirates and held 
invaders at bay. How secure the Cretans felt as long as 
their navy was kept up is shown by the fact that they 
stopped building substantial fortifications after the six- 
teenth century B. Cc. 
Although the Cretans seem to have traced their descent 
through their mothers and not their fathers, they came in 
time to be ruled over by priest- kings, who every nine years 
had to renew their “medicine” through secret and awful 
ceremonies. Earlier, perhaps, as among so many peoples, 
after ruling for a fixed period of years, possibly nine, they 
were put to death and replaced by a younger man whose 
magical force was as yet unexhausted. These priest-kings 
and their temple-palaces seem to have given rise to the 
legend of the famous labyrinth and its grizzly occupant, 
the Minotaur, part man and part bull, who devoured a 
yearly tribute of youths and maidens. 
As yet we are almost wholly dependent on archeological 
evidence for what we know about the wonderful Cretan 
civilization, whose very existence was almost unsuspected 
until a few years ago. Yet it has left an abundance of 
written records, mainly on clay tablets, if these could only 
be read. The way in which the old Babylonian, Egyptian, 
and Hittite records have been forced to yield up their 
Pep oe) 
