September 27, 1900] 



NA TURE 



527 



remains to be seen whether the Danish expedition now 

 organising will be able to overcome the hitherto insuper- 

 able obstacles to the thorough scientific exploration of 

 that region, but the fanatical spirit of the Senoussi is of 

 ill omen. 



What the results of these Cretan observations have 

 certainly ascertained is that whether directly from the 

 Nile Valley, or indirectly through Libyan intermediaries, 

 Egyptian elements were making their way into Crete at 

 a period which must carry back by over a thousand years 

 the materials for approximate chronology in the yEgean 

 world. The derivation, on steatite seals and vases of 

 Egyptian forms, of the Twelfth Dynasty spiral ornament 

 (only at the beginning of the Mycencean period taken 

 over upon metal work) is of extraordinary importance as 

 supplying the "missing link" in the origin and diffusion 

 of the spiral system in the early European Metal Ages. 

 By the Danube Valley and the course of the Elbe, the 

 old route of the amber traffic brought this spiraliform 

 system to the Bronze Age population of North Germany 

 and Scandinavia, and was by them in turn diffused, as 

 has been shown by Mr. Coffey, to Ireland, whose wealth 

 in gold made it the Rand of prehistoric Europe. On 

 the other side, survivals of the Mycenaean adaptations of 

 the primitive spiral ornament, which had lingered on 

 among»the Illyrian tribes of the North-West corner of the 

 Balkan peninsula, gained a new vitality in contact with 

 the artistic genius of the invading Celtic tribes. Assimi- 

 lated by these, and transported on the wave of Belgic 

 conquest to the North-West, the spiraliform system 

 of design re-entered the British Isles in another form ; 

 and in Ireland, where the elder spiral branch of the Bronze 

 Age had long since expired — lived on to supply designs 

 to St. Columba and his missionary fellow-workers. The 

 chains are long ones that connect the carvings of New 

 Grange on the one side and the illuminations of the 

 Book of Durrow on the other with the art of Twelfth 

 Dynasty Egypt ; but they run through prehistoric Crete. 



Of the intercourse between Crete and the Egypt of the 

 Middle Kingdom the Palace of Knossos has supplied a 

 new and striking piece of evidence in a diorite figure 

 with hieroglyphic inscriptions, which give the character 

 of the names it bears ; its good style and material have 

 been recognised by Egyptologists as a Twelfth, or at 

 most, early Thirteenth Dynasty work. In other words, 

 the latest date to which it can safely be referred hardly 

 comes down to 2000 B.C. We have here therefore a 

 valuable indication for the approximate chronology of 

 the earlier elements of the Palace of Knossos itself, 

 which in any case go back beyond the period to which 

 the remains of Mycenae have given a name. The high 

 level of civilisation, however, already attained in the 

 City and House of Minos at this remote date is shown, 

 not only by such an artistic importation from the land 

 of the Pharaohs as the diorite figure, but by fragments 

 of wall-painting in an already fully developed style — one 

 represents a boy placing crocus-like flowers in an orna- 

 mental vase— and by ceramic fabrics of great beauty. In 

 order not to confuse the evidence, I endeavoured in this 

 year's excavations within the Palace walls, as far as pos- 

 sible, to confine myself to the upper and purely Mycenaean 

 layer, and the relics found of this earlier period have 

 therefore been comparatively limited in number. But 

 beneath the floors of houses immediately below the Palace 

 and on the opposite hill, Mr. D. G. Hogarth, the Director 

 of the British School at Athens, found a whole series of 

 vases of this early painted class, many of them showing 

 naturalistic designs of lilies, tulips, and other flowers, 

 presenting shapes in some cases so graceful as never to 

 have been surpassed in any later age of Greece. This 

 style of Cretan pottery, which has received the name of 

 Kamdraes from the grotto where its first occurrence was 

 described by Mr. J. L. MyreSj has been found by Mr. 

 Petrie at Kahun in Egypt, again in a Twelfth Dynasty 



NO. 1613, VOL. 62] 



connection. The intercourse between Crete and the 

 Nile Valley in the third millennium before our era has 

 thus left its traces on both shores of the Libyan sea. 

 The approximate date thus ascertained for the earlier 

 part of the Palace at Knossos gives additional interest to 

 the fact that this in turn overlays a vast Neolithic settle- 

 ment, for which it supplies a chronological terminus h 

 quo. In the Central Court a trial shaft was excavated, 

 which went down 24 feet through continuous Stone Age 

 deposits containing incised, chalk-inlaid pottery, axes 

 and mace-heads of serpentine and other materials, 

 obsidian knives and cores, and primitive images of clay 

 and marble akin to those from the earliest settlement 

 of Troy. 



But the great bulk of the remains of the Palace of 

 Knossos as yet brought to light belong to the most 

 flourishing days of the better-known Mycenajan civil- 

 isation, and are contemporary with the Eighteenth and 

 Nineteenth Dynasties of Egypt. The building itself is 

 of vast extent — about two acres have already been 

 uncovered, and beside it the Palaces of Mycena; itself, 

 of Tiryns, and of all other such buildings on the mainland 

 of Greece shrink into comparative insignificance. We 

 have not here the same mighty bastions, though the 

 megalithic gypsum blocks of the lower part of the walls 

 are sufficiently imposing. What we see here is the island 

 capital of a great maritime power, the memory of which 

 survives in that of the traditional " thalassocracy " of 

 Minos, and which seems to have rather relied on its 

 " wooden walls." Here are vast paved courts, propylaea, 

 spacious corridors, and successions of magazines, and, 

 amidst a maze of lesser passages and rooms, the actual 

 council chamber of the prehistoric kings, with its 

 curiously carved gypsum throne in the centre. There 

 can be little doubt that this building was the prehistoric 

 original of the fabled " Labyrinth," the etymological 

 meaning of which is the house of the labrys or double- 

 axe, the emblem of the Cretan Zeus. This symbol is 

 carved on the principal blocks and corner-stones, and 

 repeated on every side of every slab of what appear to be 

 the sacred columns of two inner shrines. The legend- 

 ary fame of Diedalus, to whom both the building itself 

 and the works of art it contained were traditionally 

 ascribed, is fully borne out by the actual remains. Both 

 in painting and sculpture we see here a higher level than 

 was reached either at Mycenas or Tiryns. For monuments 

 of Mycenaean paintmg, indeed, the Palace of Knossos 

 stands almost alone. On many of the walls the frescoes 

 were still found adhering, almost as brilliant as when 

 they were executed, and we have here a new revelation 

 of ancient painting. Quite new in ancient art were 

 certain miniature groups of ladies in fashionably dressed 

 though somewhat decolletd attire, seated in animated 

 conversation apparently in the courts and balconies of 

 the Palace itself. In the decorative designs and the 

 fabulous animals, such as the griffins and sphinxes, the 

 influence of Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian models is 

 evident ; but these foreign elements are adapted in an 

 independent manner. Of more special interest are life- 

 size processions of youths bearing various vases, who 

 display a singular general resemblance to the procession 

 of the tribute-bearing Keft chieftains on the tomb of 

 Rekhmara at Thebes, which dates from the first half of 

 the fifteenth century B.C. It is known that the Kefts of 

 the Egyptian monuments represent the Mycenaean race 

 of the /Egean isles and coast-lands. On the Knossian 

 wall-painting, we see them in their home. 



The upper part of one of these Knossian figures, which 

 is well preserved, is of the highest ethnographic interest, 

 as presenting for the first time a careful naturalistic 

 pourtrayal of a Mycenaean man. The profile is of a pure 

 European character, almost classically Greek in its 

 regularity. The lips are somewhat full ; the eyes and hair 

 are dark — the latter somewhat curly. The head is of the 



