528 



NA TURE 



[September 27, 1900 



high brachycephalic type. The skin shows the reddish- 

 brown hue of Egyptian convention, just as the women 

 are in the Egyptian manner painted white. The type 

 of head delineated is essentially that of the race which, 

 through all the changes of Cretan history, still remains 

 predominant in the island. The finely-cut profile, the 

 dark hair, the high brachycephalic skull, are as charac- 

 teristic now as they were over three thousand years ago 

 when the painting was executed. It is interesting to note 

 that the physiognomy is distinct from the more hawk-like 

 Armenoid type which, as Von Luschan has shown, repre- 

 sents the underlying ethnic element of a large part of 

 Anatolia. It is equally non-Semitic. That this Cretan 

 type represents that of the pre- Hellenic occupants of 

 mainland Greece is highly probable. It still survives 

 intact in the Illyric part of the peninsula, and I have 

 myself been again and again struck in Cretan mountain 

 villages with resemblances to the highland population of 

 Albania. The Slav- speaking Montenegrins, like the 

 Herzegovinians, so far as race and physique go, largely 

 represent the same Illyrian element ; and it was curious 

 to notice among the Montenegrin gensdarmes recently 

 established by the Powers in Crete the striking points of 

 similarity to the natives of the island. Here and there, 

 in Crete and elsewhere, varieties of the predominant 

 " Mycenaean " type take a more aquiline cast, and show 

 points of transition to the Armenoid race of Anatolia. 

 The cranial type is essentially the same, and on the whole 

 the finely-cut European physiognomy, of which this 

 Mycenaean fresco supplies the first authentic record, may 

 be regarded as a Western differentiation of the more 

 Eastern form. 



This ethnographic result curiously corresponds with 

 the earliest philological evidence at our disposal. A 

 whole series of local names in Crete, Greece proper and 

 the Macedonian and Thoracian lands to the North, 

 represent allied but differentiated versions of names 

 common to Caria and a large tract of Asia Minor. Thus, 

 to take a conspicuous instance, the Western area supplies 

 a variety of names in -«///, like Korinthos, Erymanthos, 

 Perinthos, Labyrinthos, answering to others on the 

 Anatolian side having the -nd- sound, such as Kalandos, 

 Oromandos, Pyrindos, and Labrandos. In this, as in 

 its physical type and in other respects, Crete, it will be 

 seen, cleaves to the Greek and Thraco-Illyrian world. 



My own previous researches had been a good deal occu- 

 pied with a class of early Cretan seal-stones containing 

 signs both linear and pictographic in which I ventured to 

 detect the rudiments of a pre-Phoenician form of writing. 

 In regard to this matter the excavation of the Palace at 

 Knossos produced a real revelation. In chamber after 

 chamber whole deposits came to light of inscribed clay 

 tablets undoubtedly representing the Royal archives. 

 The character of the writing was of two altogether dis- 

 tinct classes^one hieroglyphic and one linear. The 

 hieroglyphic script answered to that of the groups of 

 characters that I had already noticed on a series of 

 seal-stones of Mycenaean fabric chiefly found in Eastern 

 Crete. The ruder prototypes of these with simple picto- 

 graphic designs go back on Cretan soil to a much more 

 remote period, and find, as already noticed, very 

 early analogies on the other side of the Libyan sea. 

 There can be no doubt that this script in its convention- 

 alised form is the property of the old indigenous race of 

 the island, the Eteocretes of the Odyssey. The linear 

 writing, on the Other hand, which forms the bulk of these 

 Knossian archives, is of a very much more developed 

 form. It is upright, of great elegance and curiously 

 European in aspect, a certain proportion of the signs — 

 some seventy of which were in common use — showing 

 correspondences with the syllabic characters of Cyprus 

 and also with the later Greek, 



The pictorial illustrations which not infrequently 

 accompany the linear inscriptions enable us in many 



NO. 16 I 3, VOL. 62] 



cases to learn the purport of these clay documents. They 

 thus are often seen to refer to the Royal stores and 

 arsenals, and show a decimal system of numbers akin to 

 the Egyptian. Others, "no doubt, are deeds and corre- 

 spondence like the contemporary cuneiform tablets of 

 Babylonia. Those relating to the Royal treasure show 

 ingots, vases and ox-heads of precious metal identical 

 with those borne by the Keft tributaries on the wall- 

 paintings of Rekhmara's tomb belonging to the early 

 part of the fifteenth century B.C., a valuable indication as 

 to date. The Palace of Knossos contains no element as 

 late as the latest prehistoric period represented at 

 Mycenae itself, and the date of its destruction can hardly 

 be brought down later than, at most, the twelfth century 

 BC. The most recent of the clay documents contained 

 within it lie at least behind that date. 



The result of these discoveries is therefore to carry 

 back the existence of written documents on Greek soil 

 some eight centuries beyond the earliest known monu- 

 ments of Greek writing, and five even beyond the earliest 

 dated Phoenician record, as seen on the Moabite stone. 

 The whole question of the origin of writing is thus placed 

 on a new basis. The hieroglyphic Cretan forms supply, 

 in fact, exact correspondence with what in virtue of their 

 names we must suppose to have been pictorial originals 

 of the Phoenician letters. Aleph, the ox's head ; Bctk, 

 the house ; Daleth, the door ; He^ the window ; Vaa^ 

 the peg — and indeed over two-thirds of the Phoenician 

 series find obvious prototypes among the Cretan forms. 

 The ingenious theory of De Rougd, which has so long 

 held the field, and by which the Phoenician letters were 

 derived by a selected process from early hieratic 

 Egyptian forms signifying quite different objects, becomes 

 henceforth untenable. The analogy supplied by the 

 Cretan hieroglyphs in favour of a simple and natural 

 derivation is at all events overwhelming. 



It does not necessarily follow that the Phoenician letters 

 were directly derived from the Cretan ; some signs, like 

 that of the camel's head, certainly point to the accretion 

 of Syrian elements. But the correspondences are still so 

 great as to point at any rate to some kind of collateral 

 relationship. Elsewhere I have ventured to suggest that 

 these points of community may be due to the great /Egean 

 settlement on the coast of Canaan, of which the Philis- 

 tines stand forth as the representatives, and which has 

 left its abiding record in the name of Palestine. The 

 Biblical traditions, as is known, give the name of 

 "Cherethim," or Cretans to a branch of the Philistine 

 race ; and Caphtor, the isles or coastlands from which the 

 Philistines traditionally came, has been plausibly identi- 

 fied with Kefto, the ^gean maritime realm of the Kefts, 

 who on Egyptian monuments appear as the representa- 

 tives of the Mycenaean civilisation. Of this special con- 

 nection with Crete, the finds at Knossos already referred 

 to afford convincing evidence. Other recent discoveries 

 afford a singular support to these conclusions. It 

 has been pointed out by Dr. Wilhelm Max Miiller that 

 in an Egyptian list of Keft names, going back to the 

 Eighteenth Dynasty, appears the most characteristic of all 

 Philistine name-forms, Achish ; and it thus appears that 

 the name was known in prehistoric Knossos earlier than 

 in Gath. Not less significant in its way is the discovery 

 made during the recent excavations of the Palestine 

 Exploration Fund on, or near, the site of Gath, of im- 

 ported Mycenaean pottery in the pre- Israelite stratum. 

 More and more it appears that the high early ^gean 

 civilisation, of which Crete is now seen to be the centre, 

 was exercising a far-reaching influence on the coasts of 

 Canaan before the rise of the Phoenician commercial 

 power. Cadmus had sat at the feet of Minos, and the 

 priceless gift which in darker days of her history he bore 

 to Hellas, was in some respects at least a restitution of 

 what Greece herself had given long before. 



Gaza, the chief Philistine emporium — the crossing 



