534 



NA TURE 



[OcTOHER I, 1896 



liainteil with brown stripes on a pale rose ground, seems to me 

 to stand in a closer relation to the prototype of a well-kncnvn 

 Myceiui-an class than any known example. A small painted 

 image, with punctuated cross-bands over the breast, from a 

 sepulchral grotto at Villafrati, near Palermo, belongs to the same 

 carl^ family as the hucchero types of Butmir, in Bosnia. Un- 

 qufistionable parallels to the Mycensan class have been found 

 in early graves in Servia, of which an example copied by me 

 some years since in the museum at Belgrade was found near the 

 site of that later emporium of the Balkan trade, Viminacium, 

 together with a cup attesting the survival of the primitive .Egean 

 spirals. These extensive Italian and Illyrian comparisons, 

 which find, perhaps, their converging point in the North-Western 

 corner of the Balkan peninsula, show, at least approximately, 

 the ilirection from which this new European impulse reached 

 the .Egean shores. 



It is an alluring supposition that this North-Western infusion 

 may connect itself with the spread of the (Ireek race in the 

 /Egean islands and the Southern part of the Balkan peninsula. 

 There seems, at least, to be a reasonable presumption in favour 

 of this view. The Mycenosan tradition, which underlies so much 

 of the classical Greek art, is alone sufficient to show that a 

 Greek element was at least included in the Mycena;an area of 

 culture. Recent criticism has found in the Mycencean remains 

 the best parallel to much of the early arts and industries recorded 

 by the Homeric poems. The mcgayon of the palaces at Tiryns 

 and Wycenoe is the hall of Odysseus ; the inlaid metal work of 

 the shield of Achilles recalls the Egypto-Mycenoean intarsia of 

 the dagger blades ; the cup of Nestor with the feeding doves, 

 the subjects of the ornamental design — the siege-piece, the lion- 

 hunt, the hound with its quivering quarry— all find their parallels 

 in the works of the Mycenaean goldsmiths. The brilliant re- 

 searches of Dr. Reichel may be said to have resulted in the 

 definite identification of the Homeric body-.shield with the most 

 typical Mycenrean form, and have found in the same source the 

 true explanation of the greaves and other arms and accoutre- 

 ments of the epic heroes. 



That a Greek population shared in the civilisation of Mycense 

 cannot reasonably be denied, but that is far from saying that this 

 was necessarily the only element, or even the dominant element. 

 Archaeological comparisons, the evidence of geographical names 

 and consistent tradition, tend to show that a kindred race, repre- 

 sented later by the Phrygians on the Anatolian side, the race of 

 Pelops and Tantalos, the special votaries of Kybele, played a 

 leading part. In Crete a non-Hellenic element, the Eteocretes, 

 or " true Cretans," the race of Minos, whose name is bound 

 up with the earliest sea-empire of the .ICgean, and perhaps 

 identical with that of the Minyans of continental Greece, pre- 

 served their own language and nationality to the borders of the 

 classical period. The Labyrinth itself, the double-headed axe 

 as a symbol of the divinity called Zeus by the Greek settlers, 

 the common forms in the characters of the indigenous script, 

 local names and historical traditions, further connect these 

 Mycena;an aborigines of Crete with the primitive population, it, 

 too, of European extraction, in Caria and Pisidia, and with the 

 older elements in Lycia. 



It is difficult to exaggerate the part played in this widely 

 ramifying Mycena;an culture on later European arts from pre- 

 historic times onwards. Beyond the limits of its original seats, 

 primitive Greece and its islands, and the colonial plantations 

 thrown out by it to the west coast of Asia Minor to Cyprus, 

 and in all probability to Egypt and the Syrian coast, we can 

 trace the direct difTusion of Mycenaean products, notably the 

 ceramic wares, across the Danube to Transylvania and Moldavia. 

 In the early cemeteries of the Caucasus the fibulas and other 

 objects indicate a late Myceniean source, though they are here 

 blended with allied elements of a more Danubian character. 

 The Mycenaean impress is very strong in Southern Italy, and, to 

 take a single instance, the prevailing sword-type of that region 

 is of Mycenaean origin. Along the western Adriatic coast the 

 same influence is traceable to a very late date in the sepulchral 

 stelae of Pesaro and the tympanum relief of Bologna, and bronze 

 knives of the prehistoric Greek type find their way into the 

 later Terremare. At Orvieto and elsewhere have even been 

 discovered Mycenaean lentoid gems. In Sicily the remarkable 

 excavations of Prof. Orsi have brought to light a whole series of 

 Mycenaean relics in the beehive rock-tombs of the south-eastern 

 coast, associated with the later class of Sikel fabrics. 



Sardinia, whose name has with great probability been con- 

 nected with the Shardanas, who, with the Libyan and .ligean 



NO. 1405, VOL. 54] 



races, appear as the early invaders of Egypt, has already jiro- 

 duced a Mycen;ean gold ornament. An unregarded fact points 

 further to the jirobability that it formed an important outpost of 

 Mycenaean culture. In 1S53 General Lamarmora first printed a 

 MS. account of Sardinian antiquities, written in the later years 

 of the fifteenth century by a certain Gilj, and .accompanied by 

 drawings made in 1497 by Johan Virde, of Sassari. Amongst 

 the.sc latter (which include, it must be said, some gross falsi- 

 fications) is a capital and part of a shaft of a Mycenaean column 

 in a style approaching that of the fa9ade nf tlie " Treasury of 

 Atieus." It seems to have been found at a place near the Sar- 

 dinian Olbia, and Virde has attached to it the almost prophetic 

 description " lo/iimna Pclasgica." That it is not a fabrication 

 due to some traveller from Greece is shown by a curious detail. 

 Between the chevrons that adorn it are seen ruws of eight-rayed 

 stars, a detail unknown to the Mycenaean architectural decoration 

 till it occurred on the painted base of the hearth in the inegaron 

 of the palace at Mycenae excavated by the (_;ieek Archaeological 

 Society in 1S86. In this neglected record, then, we have an 

 indication of the former existence in Sardinia of Mycenaean 

 monuments, jierhaps of palaces and royal tombs comparable to 

 those of Mj'cenre itself. 



More isolated Mycenaean relics have been fnmd still further 

 afield, in Spain, and even the Auvergne, where Dr. Montelius 

 has recognised an evidence of an old trade coimection between 

 the Rhone valley and the Eastern Mediterranean, in the occur- 

 rence of two bronze double axes of .-Egean form. It is impossible 

 to do more than indicate the influence exercised iiy the Mycenaean 

 arts on those of the early Iron Age. Here it may be enough to 

 cite the late Mycenaean parallels afforded by the .l^gina Treasure 

 to the open-work groups of bird-holding figures and the pendant 

 ornaments of a whole series of characteristic ornaments of the 

 Italo-Hallstatt culture. 



In this connection, what may be called a sub-Mycentean sur- 

 vival in the North-Western corner of the Balkan peninsula has 

 a special interest for the Celtic West. Among tlie relics obtained 

 by the fruitful excavations conducted by the .\ustrian archaeo- 

 logists in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and notably in the great pre- 

 historic cemetery of Glasinatz, a whole series of Early Iron Age 

 types betray distinct Mycenaean affinities. The spiral motive 

 and its degeneration — the concentric circles grouped together 

 with or without tangential lines of connection — ajjpears on bronze 

 torques, on fibulee of Mycenaean descent, and the typical finger- 

 rings with the besil at right angles to the ring. On the plates 

 of other "spectacle fibulae" are seen triquetral scrolls singularly 

 recalling the gold plates of the Akropolis graves of Mycenae. 

 These, as well as other parallel survivals of the spiral system in 

 the Late Bronze Age of the neighbouring Hungarian region, I 

 have elsewhere ' ventured to claim as the true source from which 

 the Alpine Celts, together with many Italo-IUyric elements from 

 the old Venetian province at the head of the Adriatic, drew the 

 most salient features of their later style, known on the continent 

 as that of La Tene. These Mycenaean survivals and Illyrian 

 forms engrafted on the "Hallstatt" stock were ultimately 

 spread by the conquering Belgic tribes to our own islands, to 

 remain the root element of the Late Celtic style in Britain — 

 where the older spiral system had long since died a natural 

 death — and in Ireland to live on to supply the earliest decorative 

 motives of its Christian art. 



From a Twelfth Dynasty scarab to the book of Durrow or the 

 font of Deerhurst is a far cry. But, as it was said of old, 

 " Many things may happen in a long time." We have not to 

 deal with direct transmission per sal/um, but with gradual 

 propagation through intervening media. This brief survey of 

 "the Eastern {Question in .\nthropology " will not have been 

 made in vain, if it helps to call attention to the mighty part 

 played by the early .l^gean culture as the mediator between 

 primitive Europe and the older civilisations uf Eg)pt and 

 Babylonia, .\dequate recognition of the Eastern background 

 of the European origins is not the "Oriental Mirage." The 

 independent European element is not affected Ijy its power of 

 assimilation. In the great days of Mycenae we see it already as 

 the equal, in many ways the superior, of its teachers, victoriously 

 reacting on the older countries from which it had acquired so 

 much. I may perhaps be pardoned if in these remarks, availing 

 myself of personal investigations, I have laid some stress on 

 the part which Crete has played in this first emamipation of the 

 European genius. There far earlier than elsewhere we can trace 



1 Rhind Lectures, 1895, "On the Origins of Celtic .Art," summaries of 

 whicti appeared in the Siotsmaii. 



