444 KEPORT — 1901. 



nothing to pi'imitive settlers. The earliest remains lie a mile away in a 

 lateral valley near a spring. Here are several groups of megalithic walls, 

 the chief of which was shown by excavation to be a sub-Mycenean home- 

 stead. Its strictly rectangular plan, its massive thresholds, the spiral 

 ornamentation of large jars in its cellars, show that, whatever fate had 

 overtaken the cities on the coast, a certain standard of good workman- 

 ship had been their legacy to the people of the hills. Nearer the city two 

 tombs of the same period were discovered : the one, a square chamber 

 with adromos, yielded parts of two painted /'«r«a^es, thoroughly Mycenean 

 in design, a gold ring, a crystal sphere, parts of a silver vase, and a 

 quantity of iron swords. The other was a well built bee-hive tomb, 

 differing from the usual type in being entered through a vestibule : it 

 contained an enormous mass of geometric pottery, an openwork gold ring, 

 a bronze fibula, and other objects in gold, ivory, and Egyptian porcelain. 

 In the same neighbourhood a number of later tombs were opened, ranging 

 from the geometric period to the fourth century. Among the numerous 

 geometric vases there are several new types, in particular a vessel in the 

 form of a bird, and a slender jug painted with delicate white patterns on 

 a black ground. The later graves yielded jewellery in gold, silver, and 

 crystal. 



Prominent among the considerations which caused Praesos to be put 

 upon the programme of the Cretan Fund was the fact that an inscription 

 in an unknown tongue, presumably the Eteocretan, had come to light 

 there, and the hope that others might be found. It was dug up at the 

 foot of the Altar Hill, a limestone crag precipitous on three sides which 

 dominates the south end of the site, and had probably fallen from the 

 level summit, long known to the peasants as a hunting-ground for 

 'antikas.' More fortunate than Professor Hal bherr, who made a small 

 excavation here with the same object before the Cretan revolution, we 

 obtained a second and longer inscription of seventeen lines, and apparently 

 in the same non-Hellenic language, close to the entrance steps of a 

 tfmenos on the hill top. It must have been a frequented place of sacri- 

 fice, for the rock was covered several feet deep with a deposit of ashes, 

 burnt bones, and votive offerings of bronze and terra-cotta. The terra- 

 cottas, ranging from the sixth to the fourth century, are impoi'tant as 

 giving a glimpse of a local school of artists working in clay (for Crete has 

 no marble of her own, and Praesos, at any rate, imported none) and 

 possessed of an independent and vigorous style. The great prize is the 

 upper part of an archaic statue of a young god, half the size of life : the 

 head and shoulders are intact ; the remainder lias disappeared. An 

 equally well preserved head, with fragmentary body, of a couchant lion 

 is a further revelation of early Cretan sculpture. The bulky fragments 

 of another lion, life-sized, later and feebler in style, prove the persistence 

 of the local method. Among the bronzes there is a noteworthy series of 

 votive models of armour, helmet, cuirasses, and shields. The pottery 

 shows that the Altar-hill was frequented from the eighth century onwards. 



I5y this time Praesos had prolsably become the religious and political 

 centre of the district, a primacy for which it is admirably fitted by its 

 position at a meeting place of valleys midway between the two seas. The 

 Acropolis was fortified, the water of the distant spring brought to its 

 foot in earthenware pipes, and a small temple built on its summit. The 

 upper slopes of the Acropolis, though much denuded, yielded two archaic 

 bronzes. Trial-pits in the deeper terraces below revealed only Hellenic 



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