activity on the part of the islanders going back to the days of the
first Egyptian dynasties. In a deposit at Kahun, belonging to
the XIIth Dynasty, c. 2000 B.C., were already found
Early relations
with Egypt.
imported polychrome vases of “Middle Minoan”
fabric. In the same way the important part played by
Cretan enterprise in the days of the New Egyptian
empire is illustrated by repeated finds of Late Minoan pottery
on Egyptian sites. A series of monuments, moreover, belonging
to the early part of the XVIIIth Dynasty show the representatives
of the Kefts or peoples of “The Ring” and of the
“Lands to the West” in the fashionable costume of
The Kefts and Philistines.
the Cnossian court, bearing precious vessels and other
objects of typical Minoan forms. Farther to the east
the recent excavations on the old Philistine sites like Gezer have
brought to light swords and vases of Cretan manufacture in the
later palace style. The principal Philistine tribe is indeed known
in the biblical records as the Cherethims or Cretans, and the
Minoan name and the cult of the Cretan Zeus were preserved at
Gaza to the latest classical days. Similar evidence
Early relations
with Cyprus and
N. Aegean.
of Minoan contact, and indeed of wholesale colonization
from the Aegean side, recurs in Cyprus. The culture of
the more northerly Aegean islands, best revealed to us
by the excavations of the British School at Phylakopi
in Melos, also attest a growing influence from the
Cretan side, which, about the time of the later palace at
Cnossus, becomes finally predominant.
Turning to the mainland of Greece we see that the astonishing remains of a highly developed prehistoric civilization, which Schliemann first brought to light in 1876 at Mycenae, and which from those discoveries received the general name of “Mycenaean,” in the main represent a transmarine Minoan influence on mainland of Greece. offshoot from the Minoan stock. The earlier remains both at Mycenae and Tiryns, still imperfectly investigated, show that this Cretan influence goes back to the Middle Minoan age, with its characteristic style of polychrome vase decoration. The contents of the royal tombs, on the other hand, reveal a wholesale correspondence with the fabrics of the first, and, to a less degree, the second Late Minoan age, as illustrated by the relics belonging to the Middle Period of the later palace at Cnossus and by those of the royal villa at Hagia Triada. The chronological centre of the great beehive tombs seems to be slightly lower. The ceiling of that of Orchomenos, and the painted vases and gold cups from the Vaphio tomb by Sparta, with their marvellous reliefs showing scenes of bull-hunting, represent the late palace style at Cnossus in its final development.
The leading characteristics of this mainland civilization are thus indistinguishable from the Minoan. The funeral rites are similar, and the religious representations show an identical form of worship. At the same time the local traditions and conditions differentiate the continental from the insular branch. In Crete, in the later period, when the rulers could trust to the “wooden walls” of the Minoan navy, there is no parallel for the massive fortifications that we see at Tiryns or Mycenae. The colder winter climate of mainland Greece dictated the use of fixed hearths, whereas in the Cretan palaces these seem to have been of a portable kind, and the different usage in this respect again reacted on the respective forms of the principal hall or “Megaron.”
Minoan culture under its mainland aspect left its traces on the
Acropolis at Athens,—a corroboration of the tradition which
made the Athenians send their tribute children to
Minos. Similar traces extend through a large part of
northern Greece from Cephallenia and Leucadia to
Minoan influences
in N. Greece.
Thessaly, and are specially well marked at Iolcus (near
mod. Volo), the legendary embarking place of the Argonauts.
This circumstance deserves attention owing to the special connexion
traditionally existing between the Minyans of Iolcus and
those of Orchomenus, the point of all others on this side where
the early Cretan influence seems most to have taken root. The
Minoan remains at Orchomenus which are traceable to the latest
period go far to substantiate the philological comparison between
the name of Minyas, the traditional ancestor of this ancient race,
and that of Minos.
Still farther to the north-west a distinct Minoan influence is perceptible in the old Illyrian lands east of the Adriatic, and its traces reappear in the neighbourhood of Venice. It is well marked throughout southern Italy from Taranto to Naples. It was with Sicily, however, that the later Adriatic and Italian extension. history of Minos and his great craftsman Daedalus was in a special way connected by ancient tradition. Here, as in Crete, Daedalus executed great works like the temple of Eryx, and it was on Sicilian soil that Minos, engaged in a western campaign, was said to have met with a violent death at the hands of the native king Kokalos (Cocalus) and his daughters. His name is preserved in the Sicilian Minoa, and his tomb was pointed out in the neighbourhood of Agrigentum, with a shrine above dedicated to his native Aphrodite, the lady of the dove; and in this connexion it must be observed that the cult of Eryx perpetuates to much later times the characteristic features of the worship of the Cretan Nature goddess, as now revealed to us in the palace of Cnossus and elsewhere. These ancient indications of a Minoan connexion with Sicily have now received interesting confirmation in the numerous discoveries, principally due to the recent excavations of P. Orsi, of arms and painted vases of Late Minoan fabric in Bronze Age tombs of the provinces of Syracuse and Girgenti (Agrigentum) belonging to the late Bronze Age. Some of these objects, such as certain forms of swords and vases, seem to be of local fabric, but derived from originals going back to the beginning of the Late Minoan age.
The abiding tradition of the Cretan aborigines, as preserved
by Herodotus (vii. 171), ascribes the eventual settlement of the
Greeks in Crete to a widespread desolation that had
fallen on the central regions. It is certain that by
the beginning of the 14th century B.C., when the signs
Minoan crisis:
c. 1400 B.C.
of already decadent Minoan art are perceptible in the
imported pottery found in the palace of Akhenaton at Tell el-Amarna,
some heavy blows had fallen on the island power.
Shortly before this date the palaces both of Cnossus and Phaestus
had undergone a great destruction, and though during the ensuing
period both these royal residences were partially reoccupied
it was for the most part at any rate by poorer denizens, and their
great days as palaces were over for ever. Elsewhere at Cnossus,
in the smaller palace to the west, the royal villa and the town
houses, we find the evidence of a similar catastrophe followed
by an imperfect recovery, and the phenomenon meets us again
at Palaikastro and other early settlements in the east of Crete.
At the same time, to whatever cause this serious setback of
Minoan civilization was owing, it would be very unsafe to infer
as yet any large displacement of the original inhabitants by the
invading swarms from the mainland or elsewhere. The evidence
of a partial restoration of the domestic quarter of the palace of
Cnossus tends to show a certain measure of dynastic continuity.
There is evidence, moreover, that the script and with it the
indigenous language did not die out during this period, and that
therefore the days of Hellenic settlement at Cnossus were not
yet. The recent exploration of a cemetery belonging to the
close of the great palace period, and in a greater degree to the
age succeeding the catastrophe, has now conclusively shown
that there was no real break in the continuity of Minoan culture.
This third Late Minoan period—the beginning of which may be
fixed about 1400—is an age of stagnation and decline, but the
point of departure continued to be the models supplied by the
age that had preceded it. Art was still by no means extinct, and
its forms and decorative elements are simply later derivatives
of the great palace style. Not only the native form of writing,
but the household arrangements, sepulchral usages, and religious
rites remain substantially the same. The third Late Minoan age
corresponds generally with the Late Mycenaean stage in the
Aegean world (see Aegean Civilization). It is an age indeed
in which the culture as a whole, though following a lower level,
attains the greatest amount of uniformity. From Sicily and even
the Spanish coast to the Troad, southern Asia Minor, Cyprus and
Palestine,—from the Nile valley to the mouth of the Po, very
similar forms were now diffused. Here and there, as in Cyprus,
we watch the development of some local schools. How far Crete
