AUGUST 21, 1902] 
NATURE 
393 
The store of Knossian inscribed tablets has been largely 
increased during the course of the excavations ; it is 
much to be regretted that the Cretan Assembly seems 
unable to see its way to allow any of these tablets to 
leave Crete for the purpose of study and_ possible 
interpretation. : 
Our knowledge of Mycenzean life has been increased 
in a rather startling way by the discovery of a fresco- 
painting depicting, side by side with the well-known 
“cowboys” of the common Mycenzean scenes of 
tavpoxaddyia, of female toreadors in the act of tackling 
infuriated bulls. Mr. Evans remarks (p. 95) :— 
“ The episode is sensational in the highest degree, but 
we have here nothing of the mere catching of bulls, wild 
or otherwise, as seen on the Vaphio Cups. The graceful 
forms and elegant attire of these female performers would 
be quite out of place in rock-set glens or woodland glades. 
They belong to the arena, and afford the clearest evidence 
that the lords of Mycenzean Knossos glutted their eyes 
with shows in which maidens as well as youths were 
trained to grapple with what was then regarded as the 
king of animals. The sports of the amphitheatre, which 
have never lost their hold on the Mediterranean world, 
may thus, in Crete at least, be traced back to prehistoric 
times. It may well be that, long before the days when 
enslaved barbarians were ‘ butchered to make a Roman 
holiday,’ captives, perhaps of gentle blood, shared the 
same fate within sight of the ‘ House of Minos,’ and that 
the legends of Athenian prisoners devoured by the 
Minotaur preserve a real tradition of these cruel sports.” 
The sinister impression which is given by this discovery 
is not dispelled by the sight of the deep walled pits, 
described by Mr. Evans on pp. 35, 36, which are, no 
doubt, as he says, the dungeons of the palace. 
“In these deep pits with their slippery cemented sides 
above, the captives would be as secure as those ‘ beneath 
the leads’ of Venice. The groans of these Minoan 
dungeons may well have found an echo in the tale of 
Theseus.” 
One is irresistibly reminded of Watts’s picture in the 
Tate Gallery of the horrible Minotaur leaning over the | 
high battlements of Knossos, looking out to sea, awaiting | 
the bringing of his prey. 
The civilisation of Knossos | 
was probably by no means Arcadian, even if it was | 
Pelasgic ! 
The artistic triumphs of this Minoan civilisation are 
further established by the discoveries of Igo: e.g. the 
splendid vase illustrated on p. 91 (Fig. 30), the high | 
reliefs in painted gesso duro (Figs. 6, 29, pp. 17, 89) which 
are so characteristic of Knossian art, the carved stone 
weight (Fig. 12, p. 42), &c.; an interesting hint of costume 
is given us in Fig. 17, a fresco-painting, presumably of a 
girl, whose coiffure is exactly parallel to that of the men | 
from Keftzu, who are depicted in the Eighteenth Dynasty 
tomb of Rekhmara at Thebes in Egypt; while the 
wonderful gaming-board of gold, ivory, crystal, and 
kyanos (Fig. 25, p. 79) tells us something of the minor 
amusements of the princes of Knossos. A curious 
find, ‘‘which strongly suggests a more seamy side 
of the high civilisation here represented,” is that of 
“a clay matrix formed by making a stamp from the im- 
pression of an actual seal, and which could thus be itself 
used as a signet for making counterfeit impressions of | 
the same kind. The original of this was evidently a 
large gold signet-ring of a kind resembling, both in its | 
form and the character of its subject, that found in the 
Akropolis Treasure of Mycenz. That this, like the other, 
was a royal signet is highly probable, and what adds to 
the interest of the matrix is that several clay impressions 
taken from the original ring were subsequently found in 
association with a very important deposit of inscribed 
clay tablets. ... . It would seem that the [counterfeit] 
clay matrix was actually used for forging the royal 
signature ” (p. 19). 
NO. 1712, vor. 66] 
A rather startling discovery was that of a quantity of 
small bone objects, perhaps for inlay, many of which are 
inscribed with signs, among which occur most of the 
letters of the later Greek alphabet, though “‘the Mycenaean 
date of these bone pieces is as well ascertained as any- 
thing found within the walls of the palace” (p. 119). 
Here is an enigma. 
It is a strange thing, this Cretan civilisation of perhaps 
the eighteenth to the fourteenth centuries B.c. Mycenze 
we know, but this is not Mycenee, though it is “ My- 
cenzan.” Knossos is older, and Knossos is more 
civilised. Knossos is no hill fort, ev puy@, “Apyeos, like 
Mycenz or Midea ; Tiryns is more like it. But Tiryns 
itself is strongly fortified with galleries and casements, 
which even now are wonderful] ; Knossos, however, seems 
open to the attack of any enemy. It seems a palace of 
secure peace, apparently undefended by walls, a palace 
of luxurious baths and polished dancing-floors, inhabited 
by princes who seem to have taken their pleasure in 
the leading of a life of luxurious ease, surrounded by a 
court of ladies in most amazingly modern low-necked 
dresses and coiffures like the triumphs of a Regent Street 
window, and men with hair as long as the women’s and 
almost as elaborately dressed, served by crowds of slaves 
and tribute bearers, and diverted by the witnessing of 
brutal sports of the arena, in which women figured as 
well as men, sports connected possibly with the worship 
of a cruel deity to whom human sacrifice was not un- 
known, for whom, perhaps, were incarcerated the victims 
in the oubliettes, like the holes of the trap-door spider, 
which exist within the palace walls. Knossos was the 
seat of the just and mighty Minos: it was also the 
Labyrinth of the Minotaur. 
This is conjecture, but it conveys the impression 
which Knossos, and also Phaistos and Gournia, give : 
an impression of an ancient culture, highly developed, 
peaceful, art-loving and luxurious, effeminate if you will ; 
but brutal withal and possessing sinister traits which 
oppress the mind. 
What overthrew it? What.overwhelmed the City of 
Live-at-Ease with a storm of long-forgotten war, and burnt 
its halls and towers with fire?, The conquering Aryan 
from the north, probably ; but we do not know. Who 
the Minoans themselves were we hardly know. Dark 
Pelasgians, of Sergi’s “ Stirpe Mediterranea,” speaking 
a language akin to that of the Lycians, most probably ; 
identical with the Ae/tiz of the Egyptian tombs, there is 
no doubt. To one who has not made himself fully 
acquainted with the details of the subject the thought 
may occur that these Keftiw and the famous Youth with 
the Vase, or Cupbearer, from Knossos perhaps belonged 
to some intermediate race (in Northern Palestine, per- 
haps), which sent tribute on the one side to the dynasts 
of Knossos, on the other to Pharaoh of Egypt. Such an 
opinion is easily refuted, as follows :—The Cupbearer 
is Mycenzean in costume: so are all the other male 
figures at Knossos; Mycenzeans like the men of the 
Vaphio Cups. And since Knossos was a “ Mycenzan” 
town inhabited by Mycenzans, the probability is that 
the representations of Mycenzans upon its walls are 
representations of Cretan Mycenzans. And since it is 
not “alleged,” but is a fact well known to all who have 
eyes to see, that the eighteenth dynasty representations of 
the Ke/ftiz at Thebes are practically identical, even down 
to minute details of costume, with the Knossian Cup- 
bearer, the natural conclusion is that these Ke/¢7z were 
Cretan Mycenzans. The date thus indicated for the 
coming of Cretan ambassadors to Egypt is ¢. 1550 B.C. 
That they may have come from Knossos or Phaistos 
is by no means impossible. 
The excavations of Mr. Hogarth in a Mycenzan town 
1 In ‘‘ The Oldest Civilization of Greece.” the present writer has expressed 
the view that these Ae/ftiz were more probably Cyprian than Cretan 
Mycenzans. The progress of discovery in Crete has, however, now con- 
vinced him that they were more probably Cretans. 
