10 NATURE 
monument of a. Middle Empire Egyptian was found 
in the palace court at Knossos. More surprising 
still are the cumulative proofs of the reaction of this 
early Cretan civilisation on Egypt itself, as seen not 
only in the introduction there of such beautiful Minoan 
fabrics as the elegant polychrome vases, but in the 
actual impress observable on Egyptian art even on its 
religious side. The Egyptian griffin is fitted with 
Minoan wings. So, too, on the other side, we see the 
symbols of Egyptian religion impressed into the ser- 
vice of the Cretan nature goddess, who in certain 
respects was partly assimilated with WHathor, the 
Egyptian cow-goddess of the underworld. 
My own most recent investigations have more and 
more brought home to me the all-pervading community 
between Minoan Crete and the land of the Pharaohs. 
When we realise the great indebtedness of the suc- 
ceeding classical culture of Greece to its Minoan pre- 
decessor the full significance of this conclusion will be 
understood. Ancient, Egypt itself can no longer be 
regarded as something apart from general human his- 
tory. Its influences are seen to lie about the very 
cradle of our own civilisation. 
The high early culture, the equal rival of that of 
Egypt and Babylonia, which thus began to take its rise 
in Crete in the fourth millennium before our era, 
flourished for some two thousand years, eventually 
dominating the AZgean and a large part of the Mediter- 
ranean basin. To the civilisation as a whole I ven- 
tured, from the name of the legendary King and law- 
giver of Crete, to apply the name of ‘‘ Minoan,"’ which 
has received general acceptance; and it has been pos- 
sible now to divide its course into three ages—Early, 
Middle, and Late, answering roughly to the successive 
Egyptian kingdoms, and each in turn with a triple 
subdivision. 
It is difficult indeed in a few words to do adequate 
justice to this earliest of European civilisations. Its 
achievements are too manifold. The many-storeyed 
palaces of the Minoan priest-kings in their great days, 
by their ingenious planning, their successful combina- 
tion of the useful with the beautiful and stately, and, 
last but not least, by their scientific sanitary arrange- 
ments, far outdid the similar works, on however vast 
a scale, of Egyptian or Babylonian builders. What is 
more, the same skilful and commodious construction 
recurs in a whole series of private mansions and 
smaller dwellings throughout the island. Outside 
‘‘broad Knossos”’ itself, flourishing towns sprang up 
far and wide on the country-sides. New and refined 
crafts were developed, some of them, like that of the 
inlaid metal-work, unsurpassed in any age or country. 
Artistic skill, of course, reached its acme in the great 
palaces themselves, the corridors, landings, and por- 
ticoes of which were decked with wall-paintings and 
high reliefs, showing in the treatment of animal life 
not only an extraordinary grasp of nature, but a 
grandiose power of composition such as the world had 
never seen before. Such were the great bull-grappling 
reliefs of the Sea Gate at Knossos and the agonistic 
scenes of the great palace hall. 
The modernness of much of the life here revealed 
to us is astonishing. The elaboration of the domestic 
arrangements, the staircases storey above storey, the 
front places given to the ladies at shows, their fashion- 
able flounced robes and jackets, the gloves sometimes 
seen on their hands or hanging from their folding 
chairs, their very mannerisms as seen on the frescoes, 
pointing their conversation with animated gestures— 
how strangely out of place would it all appear in.a 
classical design! Nowhere, not even at Pompeii, have 
more living pictures of ancient life been called up for 
us than in the Minoan palace of Knossos. The 
NO. 2445, VOL. 98] 
[SEPTEMBER 7, 1916 
touches supplied by its closing scene are singularly 
dramatic—the little bath-room opening out of the 
Queen’s parlour, with its painted clay bath, the royal. 
draught-board flung down in the court, the vessels for | 
anointing and the oil-jar for their- filling ready to ~ 
hand by the throne of the priest-kin$, with the benches 
of his consistory round and the sacral griffins on 
either side. Religion, indeed, entered in at every turn, 
The palaces were also temples, the tomb a shrine ~ 
of the Great Mother. It was perhaps owing to the 
religious control of art that among all the 
Minoan representations—now to be numbered by 
thousands—no single example of indecency has come 
to light. - 
A remarkable 
cannot be passed over. I remember that at the Liver- 
pool meeting of this association in 1896—just before 
the first results of the new discoveries in Crete were 
known—a distinguished archzologist took as the sub- 
ject of an evening lecture, ‘‘Man before Writing,” 
and, as a striking example of a high culture attained 
by ‘“Analfabeti,” singled out that of Mycenz—a late 
offshoot, as we know now, from Minoan Crete. To 
; such a conclusion, based on negative evidence, I con- 
fess I could never subscribe—for had not even the 
people of the Reindeer age attained to a considerable 
proficiency in expression by means of symbolic signs? 
To-day we are able to trace the gradual evolution on 
Cretan soil of a complete system of writing from its 
earliest pictographic shape, through a conventionalised 
hieroglyphic to a linear stage of great perfection. In 
addition to inscribed sealings and other records some 
two thousand clay tablets have now come to light, mostly 
inventories or contracts; for though the script itself is 
still undeciphered, the pictorial figures that often ap- 
pear on these documents supply a valuable clue to 
their contents. 
figures representing sums up to 10,000. The inscribed 
sealings, signed, counter-marked, and counter-signed 
by controlling officials, give a high idea of the elaborate 
machinery of government and administration under 
the Minoan rulers. 
The minutely organised legal conditions to which 
this points confirm the later traditions of Minos, the 
great law-giver of prehistoric Crete, who, like Ham- 
murabi and Moses, was said to have received the law 
from the God of the Sacred Mountain. The clay tab- 
lets themselves were certainly due to Oriental influ- 
ences, which make themselves perceptible. in Crete at 
the beginning of the Late Minoan age, and may have 
been partly resultant from the reflex action of Minoan 
colonisation in Cyprus. From this time onwards 
Eastern elements are more and more traceable in 
Cretan culture, and are evidenced by such phenomena 
as the introduction of chariots—themselves perhaps 
more remotely of Aryan-Iranian derivation—and by 
the occasional use of cylinder seals. ; 
Simultaneously with its Eastern expansion, which 
affected the coast of Phoenicia and Palestine as well 
as Cyprus, Minoan civilisation now took firm hold of 
mainland Greece, while traces of its direct influence 
are found in the West Mediterranean basin—in Sicily, 
the Balearic Islands, and Spain. At the time of the 
actual Conquest and during the immediately succeed- 
ing period the civilisation that appears at Mycenze and 
Tiryns, at Thebes and Orchomenos, and at other 
centres of mainland Greece, though it seems ‘to have 
brought with it some already assimilated Anatolian 
elements, is still in the broadest sense Minoan. It is 
only at a later stage that a more provincial offshoot 
came into being to which the name Mycenzan can be 
properly applied. But it is clear that some vanguard 
at least of the Arvan Greek immigrants came into con- 
feature of this Minoan civilisation: 
The numeration also is clear, with | 
int Rita to aes 
