622 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



means synchronize in different Minoan centers, but when we come to 

 regard the remains themselves as stratified by the various catas- 

 trophes it becomes evident that they are the results of a gradual 

 evolution. There is no break. Alike in the architectural remains 

 and in the internal decorations, in every branch of art the develop- 

 ment is continuoils ; and though the division into distinct periods 

 stratigraphically delimited is useful for purposes of classification, 

 the style of one phase of Minoan culture shades off into that of 

 another by imperceptible gradations. The same is true of the 

 remains of the early Minoan periods that lie behind the age of 

 palaces, and the unity of the whole civilization is such as almost to 

 impose the conclusion that there was a continuity of race. If the 

 inhabitants of the latest palace structures are to be regarded as 

 "Achaeans," the Greek occupation of Crete must, on this showing, be 

 carried back to Neolithic times. A consequence of this conclusion — 

 improbable in itself — would be that these hypothetical Greeks ap- 

 proached their mainland seats from the south instead of the north. 



AVho would defend such a view? Much new light has recently 

 been thrown on the history of the mainland branch of the Minoan 

 culture at Mycenae by the supplementary researches made under the 

 auspices of the German Institute at Athens, at Tiryns, and Mycenae. 

 It is now clear that the beginnings of this mainland plantation 

 hardly go back beyond the beginning of the first late Minoan period — 

 in other words, long ages of civilized life in Minoan Crete had pre- 

 ceded the first appearances of this high early culture on the northern 

 shores of the Aegean. From the first there seems to have been a 

 tendency among the newcomers to adapt themselves to the somewhat 

 rougher climatic conditions, and, no doubt in this connection, to 

 adopt to a certain extent customs already prevalent among the in- 

 digenous population. Thus we see the halls erected w^ith a narrower 

 front and a fixed hearth, and there is a tendency to wear long-sleeved 

 tunics reaching almost to the knees. An invaluable record of the 

 characteristic fashions of this Mycenaean branch has been supplied 

 by the fresco fragments discovered at Tiryns from which, after long 

 and patient study, Dr. Rodenwaldt has succeeded in reconstructing 

 a series of designs.^ 



These fi-escoes are not only valuable as illustrations of Mycenaean 

 dress but they exhibit certain forms of sport of which as yet we 

 have no record in Minoan Crete, but which seem to have had a vogue 

 on the mainland side. The remains of an elaborate composition rep- 

 resenting a boar hunt is the most remarkable of these, and though 

 belonging to the later palace and to a date parallel with the third 

 late Minoan period shows extraordinary vigor and variety. Cer- 



1 In course of publication. 



