THE SEA-KINGS OF CRETE 
a totally different organization and cul- 
ture; and in the interval no one could 
say how many generations, concerning 
which and their conditions and develop- 
ments, there was nothing but blank ig- 
norance. So that it seemed as though 
the marvelous fabric of Greek civiliza- 
tion as we know it were indeed some- 
thing unexampled, rising almost at once 
•out of nothing to its height of splendor, 
as the walls of Illium were fabled to 
have risen beneath the hands of their 
divine builders. 
Indeed, a certain section of students 
seemed rather to glory in the fact of this 
seeming isolation of Greek culture, and 
to deem it little short of profanity to 
seek any pre-existing sources for it. "Al- 
lowing no causation more earthly than 
vague local influences of air and light, 
mountain and sea, they would have Hel- 
lenism born into the world by a miracle 
of generation, like its own Athens from 
the head of Zeus." 
But a great civilization can never be 
accounted for in this miraculous fash- 
ion. The origins of even Egyptian cul- 
ture have begun to yield themselves to 
patient research, and it is not permissible 
to believe that the Greek nation was 
born in a day into its great inheritance, 
or that it derived nothing from earlier 
ages and races. 
DR. EVANS DISCOVERS THE LABYRINTH OE 
THE LEGENDS AT KNOSSOS 
Most of these traditions clustered 
round Knossos, the famous capital of 
Minos, where once stood the Labyrinth, 
and near to which was Mount Juktas, 
the traditional burying-place of Zeus. 
Dr. A. J. Evans, the chief of Cretan ex- 
plorers, discovered the site of the Great 
Palace of Minos, at Knossos, near mod- 
ern Candia, and has uncovered it to the 
world. The palace is an enormous build- 
ing, rivaling in size and magnificence the 
greatest palaces of ancient days. 
"There can be little remaining doubt," 
says Dr. Evans, "that this vast edifice, 
which in a broad historic sense we are 
justified in calling the 'Palace of Minos,' 
is one and the same as the traditional 
'Labyrinth.' A great part of the ground- 
plan itself, with its long corridors and 
repeated successions of blind galleries, 
its tortuous passages and spacious under- 
ground conduits, its bewildering system 
of small chambers, does in fact present 
many of the characteristics of a maze." 
THE EARLIEST KNOWN SCRIPT DISCOVERED 
IN CRETE 
But the discovery which will doubt- 
less prove in the end to be of greater 
importance than any other, though as 
yet the main part of its value is latent, 
was that of large numbers of clay tablets 
incised with inscriptions in the unknown 
script of the Minoans. Over a thousand 
have been collected from various depos- 
its in the palace. Of these deposits, 
one contained tablets written in hiero- 
glyphic; but the rest were in the linear 
script, "a highly developed form, with 
regular divisions between the words and 
for elegance scarcely surpassed by any 
later form of writing." 
The tablets vary in shape and size, 
some being flat, elongated bars from two 
to seven and a half inches in length, 
while others are squarer, ranging up to 
small octavo. Some of them, along with 
the linear writing, supply illustrations of 
the objects to which the inscriptions re- 
fer. There are human figures, chariots 
and horses, cuirasses and axes, houses 
and barns, and ingots followed by a bal- 
ance, and accompanied by numerals 
which probably indicate their value in 
Minoan talents. It looks as though these 
were documents referring to the royal 
arsenals and treasuries. 
"Other documents, in which neither 
ciphers nor pictorial illustrations are to 
be found, may appeal even more deeply 
to the imagination. The analogy of the 
more or less contemporary tablets, writ- 
ten in cuneiform script, found in the 
Palace of Tell-el-Amarna, might lead us 
to expect among them the letters from 
distant governors or diplomatic corre- 
spondence. It is probable that some of 
them are contracts or public acts, which 
may give some actual formulae of 
Minoan legislation. 
"There is indeed an atmosphere of 
legal nicety, worthy of the House of 
Minos, in the way in which these records 
were secured. The knots of string 
