MINOAN AND MYCENAEAN ELEMENT — EVANS. 627 



heraldically posed. Everything else is secondary, and the scale of 

 the other jSgures is so small that at a moderate distance, all includ- 

 ing Zeus himself, disappear from view. The essentials of the 

 architectural design were fulfilled hj the traditional Minoan group. 

 The rest was a work of supererogation. 



The fragment of a sculptured lion found in front of the early sixth 

 century temple at Sparta was clearly part, of a pedimental scheme 

 of the same traditional class. 



The extent to which the Minoans and Mycenaeans, while still in a 

 dominant position, unpressed their ideas and arts on the primitive 

 Greek population itself argues a long juxtaposition of the two ele- 

 ments. The intensive absorption of Minoan religious practices by 

 the proto-Arcadians previous to their colonization of Cyprus, which 

 itself can hardly be later than the eleventh century B. C, is a crucial 

 instance of this, and tJie contact of the two elements thus involved 

 itself implies a certain linguistic conmiunion. When, reinforced by 

 fresh swarms of immigTants from the northwest, the Greeks began 

 to get the upper hand, the position was reversed, but the long previ- 

 ous inten'elation of the two races must have facilitated the work of 

 fusion. In the end, though the language was Greek, the physical 

 characteristics of the later Hellenes prove that the old Mediter- 

 ranean element showed the gi*eater vitality. But there is one aspect 

 of the fusion which has a special bearing on the present subject — an 

 aspect very familiar to those who, like myself, have had experience 

 of lands where nationalities overlap. A large part of its early popu- 

 lation must have passed through a bilingual stage. In the eastern 

 parts of Ci*ete indeed this condition long survived. As late as the 

 fourth centuiy before our era the inhabitants still clung to their 

 Eteocretan language, but we know from Herodotos that already 

 in his day they were able to converse in Greek and to hand on their 

 traditions in a translated form. It can not be doubted that at the 

 dawn of history the same was true of the Peloponnese and other 

 parts of Greece. This consideration does not seem to have been 

 sufficiently realized by classical students, but it may involve results 

 of a most far-reaching kind. 



The age when the Homeric poems took their characteristic shape is 

 the transitional epoch when the use of bronze was giving place to that 

 of iron. As Mr. Andrew Lang well pointed out, they belong to a 

 particular phase of this transition when bronze was still in use for 

 weapons and armor, but iron was already emj)loyed for tools and im- 

 plements. In other words the age of Homer is more recent than 

 the latest stage of anything that can be called Minoan or Mycenaean. 

 It is at most " sub-Mycenaean." It lies on the borders of the geo- 

 metrical period, and though the archeological stratum with which 

 it is associated contains elements that may be called " sub-Myce- 



