662 



NA TURE 



[November 3, 1923 



of the island, the Roman hurbour ha« been raised from 

 5 to 5*50 metres above sea-level. 



The direct maritime intercourse between IC^Vpt and 

 Crete had also its reaction Ijetimcs on Egyptian art. 

 The spiraliform and curvilinear system that Crete itself 

 seems to have received from the North ^gean, which 

 affects Cretan ornament by the third Early Minoan 

 Period — c. 2400-2100 B.C. — is taken on in Egypt at a 

 somewhat later date, alx)ut the be^nning of the Xllth 

 Dynasty. But the system tlius implanted in Egypt 

 had in its turn an almost immediate reaction in Crete, 

 and the spiraliform and other curvilinear patterns of 

 the Middle Minoan Age often betray, by their combina- 

 tions with sacred symbols and the lotus or papyrus, 

 direct indebtedness to the scarab and ceiling patterns 

 of Middle Kingdom Egypt. From Crete in turn these 

 Egypto-Minoan forms passed at Mycenae and else- 

 where to continental Greece. The most characteristic 

 patterns on the grave stelae of the Mycenae — often 

 cited as an evidence of northern influence — in fact, 

 belong to this Egypto-Minoan class. 



In spite of the very ancient underlying community 

 of Crete and Anatolia, it is clear that the earlier wave 

 of civilising influence came not from the East but from 

 the Nile Valley. Already in Early Minoan times this 

 influence manifests itself in a great variety of ways, and 

 nothing gives a better idea of the intimacy then sub- 

 sisting than the spread in the island at this early epoch 

 of the Egyptian game of draughts. By the beginning 

 of the Age of Palaces, about 2000 B.C., however, we 

 begin to have definite evidence of direct importation of 

 objects and concomitant influences from the Syrian 

 and Babylonian side. Two cylinders — one from near 

 Knossos— date from the Age of Hammurabi. Hittite 

 forms of signets also occur, and clay tablets of oriental 



^yp^- .... 



Two very interesting objects in the Roselle col- 

 lection at New York now make it possible to trace 

 a characteristic class of Minoan libation vessels to a 

 remote Sumerian source, ascribed by Dr. Hall to the 

 time of Ur-Nina, c. 3000 b.c. These are a small bull 

 and a bull's head of diorite hollowed out for the pouring 

 of liquids, much as the Cretan vessels of the same kind 

 that first appear about the beginning of the Middle 

 Minoan Age, a thousand years later. Even the inlaid 

 decoration of these shows a correspondence with that 

 of Cretan steatite examples. " Rhytons " of this class 

 occur also among Hittite remains, and a kindred lion- 

 headed type was known in Syria. It can scarcely be 

 doubted that intermediate links may ultimately be 

 established. 



The function of Crete as a stepping-stone is curiously 

 illustrated by the fact that perhaps the most artistic 

 object found in the Mycenae Shaft Graves was a silver 

 bull's-head rhyton of Minoan fabric, while part of 

 an alabaster example of the lion's -head t>T)e, a 

 replica of one from the Temple Treasury of the 

 Palace of Knossos, occurred at Delphi, confirming the 

 tradition that connects its earliest cult Avith this 

 Cretan site. 



Among the contents of the remarkable tomb recently 

 discovered on the site of Byblos, containing obsidian 

 ointment pots with the cartouche of Amenemhat III., 

 were not only a part of a silver bowl with spiraliform 

 repouss^ work of a Minoan kind, but also a spouted 



NO. 2818, VOL. I 12] 



teapot-like vase of the same material, which has also 

 been attributed to a " .Mycenaean " source. The nearest 

 parallel to this is a hitherto unpublished blue faience 

 vase from the treasury of the Central Sanctuary at 

 Knossos, but the indebtedness here is protiably the other 

 way, since similar forms in clay, as is shown from the 

 contents of Hittite tombs, were at home in North 

 Syria. 



Together with these oriental connexions t 

 ciprocal intercourse between Egypt and Crete con- 

 tinued to operate on either side, and a curious y>arallel 

 to the history of the animal rhytons Is p' >v 



another series to which an ostrich egg forms il; 



point. The Egyptian prototype is actually supplied 

 by a vessel found by Prof, GarsUing in an early Middle 

 Kingdom tomb at Abydos and now in the Brussels 

 Museum, where a mouthpiece of translucent blue 

 marble is fitted to an ostrich egg recipient. It is 

 scarcely necessary to mention here the dbcovery of 

 imported polychrome pottery in Xllth Dynast v 

 deposits in the Fayum and elsewhere, or of the diorit. 

 Egyptian monument — probably the offering of .1 

 resident Egyptian — and the alabastron lid with the 

 Hyksos King Khyan's name found at Knossos. It is 

 a pregnant symptom of the maritime enterprise of 

 Crete at the close of the Middle Minoan Age that ships 

 of more advanced type now appear on seals that have 

 been discovered. 



The early operation of Cretan influences in Malta has 

 recently received fresh illustration from the incised 

 designs on the pottery of Hal Tarxien and the painted 

 scrolls of the hypogaea of Hal Saflieni. At a somewhat 

 later date it seems possible to ascribe to Minoan or 

 Mycenaean agency — at least in its initial stages — the 

 diffusion of faience beads of the segmented and other 

 Egyptian types to the Iberic and Britannic West. So, 

 too, the amber-trade from the north by way of the 

 Adriatic coast to the Peloponnese and Crete, which 

 attained its apogee about the beginning of the Late 

 Minoan Age, may account for the sur\ival of Minoan 

 and Mycenaean forms among the relics found in Ill>Tic 

 cemeteries like that of Glasinatz in Bosnia, as well as 

 for certain elements in the affiliated Gaulish and Late 

 Celtic culture. 



Of the Minoan relations with inner .>.i.n<». either 

 through Egypt or by way of the Libyan ports of the 

 Tripoli region, some striking new evidence has been 

 brought to light by the recent excavations at Knossos. 

 In some of the newly discovered frescoes, apes of the 

 Cercopithecus genus, not found nearer than the Sudan, 

 are so vividly depicted that it is clear that the artist 

 had studied them from the life. Tame specimens 

 must, therefore, have existed in the great Palace, 

 probably introduced through Egyptian agency. Of 

 even greater interest is a frieze in which a Minoan 

 captain in a typical embroidered loin-cloth and wearing 

 a black goat's-skin cap is seen leading a negro troop 

 wearing a similar uniform. It seems more than prob- 

 able that such black mercenaries reached Crete through 

 some Minoan factory on the Libyan coast. The negro 

 element in Crete, which reached it from Tripoli and 

 Derna under Turkish rule, is still noticeable. The 

 employment by the Minoans of black mercenaries in 

 the days of their expansion on the European side 

 suggests the most modem parallels. 



