910 REPORT—1896. 
bronze dagger, may not the bronze dagger in its turn resolve itself into a flint 
knife P 
The truth is that the attempts to father on a common Aryan stock the 
beginnings of metallurgy argue an astonishing inability to realise the vast 
antiquity of languages and their groups. Yet we know that, as far back as we 
have any written records, the leading branches of the Aryan family of speech 
stood almost as far apart as they do to-day, and the example of the Egyptian and 
Semitic groups, which Maspero and others consider to have been originally con- 
nected, leads to still more striking results. From the earliest Egyptian stela to 
the latest Coptic liturgy we find the main outlines of what is substantially the 
same language preserved for a period of some six thousand years. The Semitic 
languages in their characteristic shape show a continuous history almost as ex- 
tensive. For the date of the diverging point of the two groups we must have 
recourse to a chronology more familiar to the geologist than the antiquary. 
As importer of exotic arts into primitive Europe the Phoenician has met the 
fate of the immigrants from the Central Asian ‘ Arya.’ The days are gone past 
when it could be seriously maintained that the Phcenician merchant landed on the 
coast of Cornwall, or built the dolmens of the North and West. A truer view of 
primitive trade as passing on by inter-tribal barter has superseded the idea of a 
direct commerce between remote localities. The science of prehistoric archzology, 
following the lead of the Scandinavian School, has established the existence in 
every province of local centres of early metallurgy, and it is no longer believed that 
the implements and utensils of the European Bronze Age were imported wholesale 
by Semites or ‘ Etruscans.’ 
It is, however, the less necessary for me to trace in detail the course of this re« 
action against the exaggerated claims of Eastern influence that the case for the 
independent position of primitive Europe has been recently summed up with fresh 
arguments, and in his usual brilliant and incisive style, by M. Salomon Reinach, in 
his ‘ Mirage Orientale”’ For many ancient prejudices as to the early relations of 
East and West it is the trumpet sound before the walls of Jericho. It may, indeed, 
be doubted whether, in the impetuousness of his attack, M. Reinach, though he has 
rapidly brought up his reserves inhis more recent work on primitive European 
sculpture, has not been tempted to oceupy outlying positions in the enemy’s country 
which will hardly be found tenable in the long run. I cannot myself, for instance, 
be brought to believe that the rude marble ‘ idols’ of the primitive AZgean popula- 
tion were copied on Chaldean cylinders, I may have occasion to point out that the 
oriental elements in the typical higher cultures of primitive Europe, such as those of 
Mycene, of Hallstatt, and La Téne, are more deeply rooted than M. Reinach will 
admit. But the very considerable extent to which the early European civilisation 
was of independent evolution has been nowhere so skilfully focussed into light as in 
these comprehensive essays of M. Reinach. It is always a great gain to have the 
extreme European claims so clearly formulated, but we must still remember that 
the ‘Sick Man’ is not dead. 
The proofs of a highly developed metallurgic industry of home growth accu- 
mulated by prehistoric students part passu over the greater part of Europe, and the 
considerable cultural equipment of its early population—illustrated, for example, 
in the Swiss Lake settlements—had already prepared the way for the more start- 
ling revelations as to the prehistoric civilisation of the AZgean world which have 
resulted from Dr. Schliemann’s diggings at Troy, Tiryns, and Mycenz, so admirably 
followed up by Dr. Tsountas, 
This later civilisation, to which the general name of ‘ Avgean’ has been given, 
shows several stages, marked in succession by typical groups of finds, such as those 
from the Second City of Troy, from the cist-graves of Amorgos, from beneath the 
volcanic stratum of Thera, from the shaft-graves of Mycenz, and again from the 
tombs of the lower town. Roughly, it falls into two divisions, for the earlier of 
which the culture illustrated by the remains of Amorgos may be taken as the 
sages point, while the later is inseparably connected with the name of 
ycene. 
The early ‘ Aigean’ culture rises in the midst of a vast province extending from’ 
