6o 



NA TURE 



[November 20, 1902 



exceed these in interest, and are of such great impor- 

 tance that the following short description of them, taken 

 from the A ' merican Journal of Archaeology for January- 

 March of this year, p. 71, is here quoted: — "A 

 Mycenaean acropolis was found, approached by two long 

 streets, about 5 feet wide, with terracotta gutters and 

 good stone pavements. These lead to the palace of the 

 Prince. Right and left are side streets and houses. The 

 steeper parts of the roads are built in steps. The houses 

 have rubble foundations, but the upper walls are of brick. 

 In some parts of the palace the upper walls are of ashlar. 

 Several houses have walls standing to the height of 6 

 or 8 feet. Plaster is used extensively for the facing of 

 ivalls and door jambs. There are many proofs of the 

 existence of a second story. Twelve houses have been 

 excavated, most of which have eight rooms or more. Of 

 the palace, fourteen rooms have been excavated, chiefly 

 magazines, like those at Cnossus. A terrace court, a 

 column base, and an aula, evidently belonging to a portal, 

 nave been uncovered. In the centre of the town is a 

 shrine. It is a small, rectangular building, near the top 

 of the hill. The most noteworthy of its contents are a 

 low terra-cotta table, with three legs, which possibly 

 served as an altar ; cultus vases with symbols of Mycenaean 

 worship ; the disk, 'consecrated horns of the altar' [see 

 Nature, November 14, igoi, Suppl. p. vii.], and the 

 •double-headed Axe ; and a terracotta idol of the ' Glau- 

 copis Athene' type, with snakes as attributes . . . " The 

 smaller objects found are of the usual Mycenaean type, 

 including stone and bronze utensils. Very significant is 

 the fact that the Double-Axe is found painted on vases, 

 and carved also on one of the stone blocks of the palace, 

 as at Knossos and at Phaistos. This marks the place as 

 Minoan at once Very possibly it was the frontier-town 

 of the Knossian dominion on the Eteokretan border. 

 It is " the most perfect example yet discovered of a small 

 Mycenaean town." In fact, a Minoan Pompeii on a small 

 scale ! 



Beyond the Aphendi Kavousi we are in the province of 

 Sitia. On the site of the ancient Eteokretan capital, 

 Praisos, excavations have been carried on by Prof. 

 Halbherr and bv Mr. R. C. Bosanquet, the present 

 director of the British School at Athens. Here a few 

 remains of Mycenaean culture were found by Mr. 

 Bosanquet, including a large "beehive" tomb. Another 

 inscription in the non-Hellenic tongue of the Eteo- 

 kretans 1 was discovered, of course, of a date long 

 posterior to the Mycenaean period ! 



Mr. Bosanquet has also excavated at Petras, a place 

 on the harbour of Sitia, and, during the present year, 

 at Palaiokastro, on the east coast, south of Cape 

 Sidero, where he has found some very curious Mycenaean 

 interments. Palaiokastro is, I am informed by Mr. 

 Bosanquet, bigger and more important, as a site, than 

 Gournia and Zakro, but more disturbed by cultivation. 

 As a Mycenaean settlement, it is quite as noticeable as 

 Zakro : a remarkable characteristic is the occurrence, 

 dotted all over the plain, of the foundations of Mycenaean 

 farmsteads, on which Mr. Bosanquet lays sires 1 , as a fresh 

 proof of tie peaceful security enjoyed by the Mycenaean 

 Cretans. Further south again, at Zakro (which Spratt 

 considered to be the site of Itanos, but probably 

 erroneously, since Erimopoli, north of Palaiokastro, 

 has a better claim to this honour), Mr. Hogarth 

 has discovered the remains of an important Mycenaean 

 port town, which, he thinks, was a Minoan outpost, a 



1 I musl here state that in " The Oldest Civilization of Greece," p. 87, 

 I had not the remotest intention of attributing to Mr. Arthur Evans the 

 opinion that the well-kn )Wn Inscription of Praisos was inscribed in a Semitic 

 idiom. I was fully aware that he held no such vitw. I merely referred to 

 his "Cretan Pictographs" as the latest authority on the subject generally 

 Unluckily, the small number pointing to the note below, containing this 

 reference, was misplaced in the text. It was printed after the word " Eteo- 

 kretans," but should have come after " Praisos" four lines above I regret 

 that this escaped my notice when reading the proofs of my book, and still 

 more that the nature of the mistake was not understood. 



NO. I725, VOL. 67] 



Knossian colony planted here to hold the most important 

 haven on the east coast, which is still used by the sponge- 

 fishers, who make it their rendezvous before starting for 

 the African coast. Mr. Hogarth's discoveries here have 

 been more fully referred to in the last volume of 

 Nature, p. 394, o.v. 



We thus see that the main result of the excavations on 

 Mycenaean sites in Crete which have been going on for 

 the past two or three years has been the proof of the 

 existence in the great Mediterranean island of a civilisa- 

 tion which was already ancient and highly developed at 

 least as early as 1700 B c, and was in connection with 

 Egypt at that date and probably earlier. The origin of 

 this culture is at present veiled from us ; but various 

 strange indications of a primeval connection with Egypt 

 seetn to point to Africa for its origin. More than this 

 cannot be conjectured at present. Its centre seems to 

 have been the central portion of Crete, the territory of 

 Knossos and Phaistos, which is inextricably bound up 

 with the famous legends of Minos and the Knossian 

 thalassocracy. Mr. Evans's discoveries have breathed 

 life into these legends, and though we may not believe in 

 Minos as a historical personage, at any rate we see that 

 he represents a dynasty and a power, and so we can 

 speak of the Minoan dominion in Crete and of the 

 Mycenaean civilisation of Crete, the chief monuments of 

 which are at Knossos and Phaistos, as " Minoan." 



The Knossian dominion extended in the east appar- 

 ently as far as the borders of the independent Eteokretan 

 country. One or two Knossian colonies seem to have 

 been established on its further coast, such as Palaiokastro 

 and Zakro. Similar Minoan colonies seem to have been 

 also established in other islands of the .Egean, as in 

 Melos, at Phylakopi. That we have here a confirmation 

 of the legend of the Minoan thalassocracy there can 

 be little doubt. 



How far the Knossian dominion extended westward is 

 as yet unknown. Axos, which lies at the upper end of 

 the Mylopotamo valley at no great distance from the 

 Knossian district, is now being excavated, but has as yet 

 yielded nothing Mycenaean. There can, however, be 

 little doubt that it was a Minoan city. I have elsewhere ' 

 suggested that the Uashasha, who invaded Egypt in 

 concert with other Mediterranean tribes in the reign of 

 Rameses II I., probably some three hundred years after 

 the most flourishing period of the Minoan age, were 

 Cretans from Axos, and have given my reasons for the 

 suggested identification. The objection that Axos is an 

 inland town and so would not have taken part in an 

 over-sea expedition is of no weight whatever ; like 

 Knossos, Lyttos, or Gortyna,each of which cities possessed 

 a dependant port on the coast, Axos no doubt possessed 

 its coast-haven, either in the neighbourhood of Bali Bay 

 or nearer the mouih of the Mylopotamo. Further, Axos is 

 actually connected in legend with Libya, and Herodotos 

 (iv. 154) mentions traditions which connect it, as well as 

 Itanos, with the Theraean colonisation of Cyrene. Other 

 central and western sites, such as Eleutherna, Hyrta- 

 kina, Phalasarna, &c, will no doubt yield Mycenaean re- 

 mains when excavated. In fact, the whole of Crete 

 seems to be covered with traces of Mycenaean culture ; 

 I have not mentioned numbers of unexcavated sites 

 from which inscribed seal-stones, &c, have been obtained. 



The Minoan culture was probably older than the 

 Mycenaean civilisation of continental Greece, and there 

 seems little doubt that the original inspiration of the latter 

 was derived from it. 



Eventually the highly civilised and apparently peaceful 

 Minoan dominion in Crete, weakened, perhaps, by luxury 

 and unused to war, was overthrown by foreign attack. 

 Who the conquerors were we do not know, but they 

 probably came from the north. We may, perhaps, asso- 

 ciate with their attack the convulsions among the 



1 " Oldest Civilization of Greece," p. 177. 



