If the nine Minoan periods into which Sir Arthur Evans has divided
the Bronze Age in Crete are primarily a fanciful play upon the “nine
seasons” of King Minos’s reign in Knossos, the system of dating itself
is by no means fanciful. It rests on a solid basis. It has been made
possible mainly by the fact that the ancient Cretans were sea-farers.
Cretan products were exported to Egypt, and have been found there
alongside Egyptian deposits of more or less known date. Hence a system
of sequence-dating can be established. It is obvious that a Cretan
vase found side by side with an Egyptian vase of 2500 B.C. belongs
to an earlier period than one found with deposits of 1500 B.C. This
fixing of landmarks is the first step. The second is to assign to them
absolute dates in the terms of our own chronology. Owing to the fact
that Egyptian dates (within at least certain limits) are known in terms
of our own, and that Egyptian ware has been found in Crete as well as
Cretan in Egypt, equation is possible. The chief difficulty is that
Egyptian chronology is itself variously interpreted, and one particular
version has had to be fixed on for comparison. Three convenient and
easily-remembered landmarks have been established:
(_a_) Early Minoan II corresponds to Dynasty VI in the early Dynastic
Period of Egypt, circa 2500 B.C. As the evidence for this equation is
slight compared with that for the other two, it must be accepted with
reserve at present as a good working hypothesis.
(_b_) Middle Minoan II corresponds to Dynasties XII and XIII in the
Middle Kingdom of Egypt, circa 1900-1700 B.C.
(_c_) Late Minoan II corresponds to Dynasty XVIII in the New Empire of
Egypt, circa 1500 B.C.
It is pottery again that has been the basis of this chronological
reconstruction. The beautiful Cretan many-coloured ware of the Middle
Minoan period, exported to Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and found
with objects of the Twelfth Dynasty, forms the chief equating factor
between those two periods, and the other equations are based on similar
facts. Pottery can be made in some cases to fix approximate dates
without the help of equations. Buildings, for instance, cannot have
stood later than the date of the particular kind of pottery found in
their ruins. It may be remarked in passing that the Egyptian trade thus
indicated by the remains of Cretan pottery was responsible for a great
improvement in that pottery. Towards the end of the early Minoan period
the two great inventions of the firing furnace and the potter’s wheel
were brought to Crete from Egypt. Before that time the vases had been
roughly shaped by hand and hardened in the sun. They now were “thrown”
with such a mastery of technique as to attain egg-shell thinness.
Traces of commercial intercourse overseas can be found as far back as
the Neolithic Age. Among the deposits of stone implements in Crete are
great quantities of obsidian knives, and the only source of obsidian in
the Ægean was the island of Melos. Obsidian is a kind of volcanic glass
which flakes off into layers, giving a natural edge. Excavators, who
are as childish as most people, have shaved, and have had near shaves,
with obsidian knives.
It is probable that the Minoan Empire had a navy as well as a merchant
marine. Minos was commonly represented as “Ruler of the Waves,” and the
Greek historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, refer to him as a mythical
character celebrated as the first possessor of a fleet. The extent
of the Minoan Empire can be gauged by the survival of many trading
stations and naval outposts on all the shores of the Ægean, from Sicily
in the East to Gaza in the West, which bore the name “Minoa.” There
was a bad chapter, according to tradition, in the Empire’s history.
When the King’s son Androgeos went to Athens to compete in the games,
he won everything, and was killed in jealousy; and the powerful Minos
therefore decreed that seven Athenian boys and seven girls should be
sent every nine years (or as other versions of the story say, every
year) to be eaten by the Minotaur, a monster half man, half bull,
which lived in the maze called the Labyrinth. That happened twice;
but on the third occasion the hero Theseus volunteered to go as one
of the victims; and with the aid of Ariadne, the King’s daughter, who
fell in love with him, he killed the monster. She gave him a sword
and some string, which he fastened to the entrance of the maze as he
went inside. He was thus able to find his way out again. Theseus had
promised his father, the old King Ægeus, that if he returned alive,
his ship would show white sails in place of the usual black, so that
the news of his safety could be read in the distance. Whether in his
elation or in his hurry to leave Naxos, where (according to the
story) he had deserted Ariadne, Theseus forgot his promise, and Ægeus,
watching from the cliffs, and seeing that the sails were black, threw
himself in despair into the sea. Hence the “Ægean” Sea. The discovery
of Ariadne by the god Bacchus is the subject of a famous picture, now
in the National Gallery, by Rubens.
Minos meanwhile reaped what he sowed. Dædalus, the architect of the
Labyrinth, also fell a victim to the King’s displeasure, and, making
himself wings, fled to Sicily. His son Icarus, who went with him, flew
too near to the sun; the wax which fastened his wings melted, and he
fell into the sea. Minos pursued Dædalus to Sicily, and was killed by
treachery. His subjects went on a punitive expedition to the island,
but never returned, and Crete was overrun by strangers.
That is legend. It is a fact, however, that the Minoan Empire did
come to a sudden and violent end. Remnants of it--“the men from
Keftiu” (“the Back of Beyond”), as the Egyptians called them--landed
on the shores of Asia Minor, and finally settled in Palestine as
the Philistines of the Bible. The mists of legend are clearing. The
huge palace at Knossos is one of the solidest sights revealed. In
its bewildering corridors, staircases, and rooms one recognizes
the Labyrinth itself--a recognition which is confirmed by evidence
disclosed within the palace.
In further excavation carried out in the early part of this year (1922)
Sir Arthur Evans discovered what he describes as “the opening of an
artificial cave, with three roughly-cut steps leading down to what can
only be described as a lair adapted for some great beast.” Lest fact
should overleap itself into fable again, Sir Arthur adds:--“But here it
is better for imagination to draw rein.”
The stories of Minos and the Minotaur came to be regarded by classical
Greece with something like awe. A ship, supposed to have been the one
that took Theseus to Knossos, was preserved and was sent every year
with special sacrifices to Delos. During its absence Athens was in a
state of solemnity, and no acts were performed which were thought to
involve a public stain. The execution of Socrates, for instance, was
postponed thirty days till its return.