H 



jVA rURE 



[May 2, 1 90 1 



conquerors gave Aryan languages to Italy, Greece and 

 Phrygia, but the modern speakers of Italian, of Greek, 

 and of Armenian much more closely resemble their non- 

 Aryan ancestors than their Aryan conquerors. 



The palace of Knossos was built of great gypsum and 

 limestone blocks, and when complete must have been a 

 most imposing building. One of the most curious facts 

 with regard to it is that it is really built round a small 

 open space, which Mr. Evans speaks of as " The Central 

 Clay Area.'' "This enclosure," says Mr. Evans (p. 17) 

 " turned out to be entirely devoid of foundations, and its 

 floor was composed of the pale clay already noticed as 

 being of artificial accumulation and as probably due to 

 the disintegration of the clay platforms and wattle-and- 

 daub huts of a very primitive settlement. It was found 

 to be full of Neolithic relics, and a shaft sunk near the 

 N.W. corner showed that the deposit was at this point 

 7'50 m. in thickness. On the south side this clay deposit 



End of Slone 



Bench in From of 



Tank. 



merges in a darker soil full of wood-ashes and bones, 

 possibly of a sacrificial nature. The e.xistence of this 

 early site, untouched in the middle of the later palace, 

 suggests curious speculations. We have here, perhaps, 

 the interior of a tcincnos preserved for religious reasons, 

 and the square base of an altar, already noticed, in the 

 eastern bay of the enclosure, confirms the idea of conse- 

 cration. It may be that the ' Palatine ' of Mycenaean 

 Knossos also had its ' Casa Romuli '--a sacral survival 

 of a prehistoric dwelling." 



.A chamber of great importance in the palace was the 

 Throne-room, of which Mr. Evans gives a description 

 (p. 35 ff.): " The chamber . . . was in many ways as perfect 

 as the room of a Pompeian house, though some fourteen 

 centuries earlier in date. On the south side opened an 

 impluvium and steps leading down to a fine stone tank. 

 .... Breasting this, and along two other sides of the 

 room, ran gypsum benches with pilasters. . . . .\t the 

 NO. 1644, \()L. 64] 



middle of the north wall was an interval between two of 

 these stone benches, the central post of which was 

 occupied by a gypsum throne. The throne rested on a 

 square base and displayed a high back of undulating 

 leaf-shaped outline ... Its total height is fo6 m., 

 and the level of the seat o'56, or 21 cm. above that of the 

 stone benches. . . . The lower face of the throne pre- 

 sented a curious architectural relief, consisting of a 

 double moulded arch springing from fiat, fluted pilasters, 

 e.xpanding upwards in the Mycenrean fashion. The upper 

 part of this arch was traversed by a moulded band 

 forming a counter-curve. But the most interesting 

 feature remains to be described. The lower part of the 

 mouldings of the arch on either side were, by a strange 

 anticipation of later Gothic, adorned with bud-like 

 crockets. The architectural features, indeed, revealed 

 by these reliefs are in almost every respect unique in 

 ancient art." 



A splendid idea of this 

 room and of the now famous 

 " Throne of Minos," can be 

 obtained from the photo- 

 graphs published in the 

 Annual, one of which is 

 shown in Fig. 4. In general 

 it may be said that the illus- 

 trations are extremely good 

 — the plans also. But for 

 finality in these latter we 

 must wait till Messrs. Evans 

 and Hogarth have brought 

 their excavations to an end. 

 Enough has now been said 

 to give the reader an idea 

 of the immense importance 

 of the discoveries at Knos- 

 sos, and it is a matter of 

 congratulation that their 

 discovery has fallen to the 

 lot of an Englishman. Our 

 knowledge of early Greek 

 civilisation in Crete now 

 rests on a much surer foun- 

 dation than it did when 

 Mr. Evans strove to draw 

 a connected story from the 

 evidence of the "Seal- 

 stones " alone. 



To one small point only 

 in Mr, Evans's discussion 

 of his discoveries must we 

 take exception. When 

 speaking of the inscribed 

 tablets he says (p. 57) : 

 " Some distant analogy 

 may be recognised with the 

 tablets of Babylonia, but the letters here are of free 

 upright ' European ' aspect, far more advanced in type 

 than the cuneiform characters. They are equally ahead of 

 Egyptian hieroglyphs, though here and there the pictorial 

 originalof some of these linear forms can still be detected." 

 This passage is very incomprehensible. In the first 

 place the whole idea of the Knossian tablets is obviously 

 of Babylonian origin : they are not merely " distantly 

 analogous " with the tablets of Babylonia. In the second 

 place, what does Mr. Evans mean by the Mycenaean 

 letters being "of free upright 'European' aspect".'* 

 What characters can be called free or unfiee ? Why is 

 the erect position specially " free " or " European " ? 

 The Egyptian hieroglyphs and their hieratic developments 

 stood bolt upright unless a crocodile or a snake were 

 pictured ; cuneiform was upright and spiky enough, in all 

 conscience. They are not European. With what European 

 script is he comparing the Mycensean writing ? Surely 



