When Knossos fell, Crete ceased to be the pre-eminent power in the Near
East. The island itself was overrun by military or naval adventurers,
and the centre of Mediterranean life shifted over to the mainland of
Greece, whence, indeed, those adventurers came. The interesting thing,
however, was that Cretan culture went with it, and neither for the
last, nor probably for the first, time “the captive led captive her
savage conqueror,” as Horace wrote centuries afterwards. Crete stooped
to conquer Greece, just as Greece in her turn stooped to conquer Rome.
The Cretans as a race were quite distinct from the contemporary
inhabitants of Greece, physical types being sharply divided by the
shores of the mainland. It may be asked: Is it worth while speculating
about the physical characteristics of a people which flourished 4,000
years ago, whose very existence was obscured by the Dark Age that
comes before Greek history, and whose existence was not rediscovered
until the other day? Yet archæology works wonders. It is true that
in this particular field, in which archæology is chiefly dependent
upon portrait-paintings and bones, there is more controversy and less
certitude than in the others; and that craniology, or the study of
skulls, with their much-disputed classification into “brachycephalic”
or broad-headed, “dolichocephalic” or long-headed, and “mesocephalic,”
midway between the two, is a fruitful source of confusion; that
the “cephalic” index--that is, the breadth of the skull above the
ears expressed in a percentage which gives the proportion of this
breadth-measurement to the measurement of the length of the same skull
from the forehead to the occiput--is a poor index of anything at all.
Still, there is ground for assuming that from the later Stone Age
onwards the islands of the Ægean were mainly peopled by members of the
“Mediterranean” race, small of stature, with oval faces, with what
craniologists might call rather “long” heads, with small hands and
feet, a dark complexion, dark eyes and black curly hair.
According to Professor H. L. Myres in his _Dawn of History_, the
north-west quadrant of the Old World resolved itself racially into
three belts, which were determined by geographical conditions. (Pp.
30 _et seq._ Williams & Norgate, 1912.) In the north were the pure
white-skinned “Boreal” men of the Baltic basin; next came the sallow
“Alpine” type, then the red-skinned “Mediterranean” man. The third was
an intruder from the South, not from far enough south for him to be a
negro, but probably from the northern shores of Africa. His intrusion
“formed part of a much larger convergence of animals and plants from
the south and south-east into the colder, moister regions which have
been released since the Ice Age closed.” The limit of the movement
seems to have been fixed by the shores of the mainland, further north
than which the lungs and constitution of the people concerned forbade
them to go.
The establishment of the existence of the Mediterranean race has had,
among other results, that of making it no longer possible, as was
invariably the practice before Crete was excavated, of ascribing all
obscure factors in the beginnings of Greece to a Phœnician origin.
We now know, for instance, that the art of writing came from Crete,
Phœnicia being the medium; and that Phœnicia itself was merely a late
centre of the general Ægean civilization, and got its name merely
because it was the best-known branch of the “red-skinned” race; for
“Phœnikes” literally means “Red-skins,” and in Homer Phœnix himself is
a King of Crete and grandfather of Minos.
The Minoan people, then, formed part of the Mediterranean race. Their
dress was much simpler than that of the classical Greeks. The men wore
a short pair of drawers or a loin-cloth, the upper part of the body
being bare, as in the cupbearer picture, a style emanating, as did
the men themselves, from the warm lands south of the Mediterranean.
Egyptian fresco-paintings reveal an almost exact analogy of type in the
clothing and appearance of the Egyptians. Those who have a keen eye for
the persistence of type may compare some of the forms of loin-cloth, as
depicted on seal stones, with the “brakais,” or baggy breeches, still
worn in Crete. Elders and officials apparently wore flowing cloaks for
their greater dignity. High-topped boots--again suggestive of those
worn to-day--were in general use. Men wore their hair long as did the
women, plaited and coiled up on the top of the head, thereby forming
the only headdress that was used.
Minoan war-equipment was limited. Their only weapons were a long
sword and a dagger, the latter of which is shown by pictures of clay
figurines to have been carried inside the belt at the front. Their only
defensive armour was a big shield of leather and a leather conical
helmet. The shield was framed in a metal band, but had no handle or
central boss; it was big enough to cover the body from head to foot,
and it could be bent so as to protect both sides. It is represented
in certain pictures in a curious 8-shape, pinched-in in the middle.
The origin of this may have been that it was the practice to sling it
over the left shoulder suspended by a strap, and for this purpose the
figure-of-eight shape may have been convenient.
Horses were apparently used both for war and for hunting, although we
have no pictures of them being ridden. The available evidence shows
them only in the shafts of two-wheeled chariots. This accords well with
Professor Sir William Ridgeway’s observation (made far back in the
’eighties of last century) that in Homer the horse was driven only, and
was no bigger than our donkey. There is reason for thinking that the
horses were imported, and imaginative people have recognized evidence
of this in the fact that a seal stone has been found which shows a
horse on board ship. Whether intentionally or merely from crudity
of draughtsmanship, one is left in little doubt as to what mostly
occupied the artist’s mind when he fashioned this stone, for the horse
covers three-quarters of the ship’s length, and towers high above it,
while the crew stand as high as the horse’s knees. On the fascinating
subject of the history of the horse, the reader should consult Sir W.
Ridgeway’s _Origin of the Thoroughbred Horse_ (Cambridge University
Press, 1905).
The women are readily distinguishable from the men in Cretan pictures
by reason of their white skin, suggestive of a more secluded indoor
life. They wore large shady hats, close-fitting, puffed-sleeved
blouses, cut very low in front, and projecting upwards into a
sort of peak at the back of the neck. They wore wide-flounced,
richly-embroidered skirts like crinolines, and had belts like the
men’s. It was on first seeing some of the pictures of them that a
French scholar compared the women of Knossos with those of Paris.
Minoan women enjoyed a far more “advanced” status than did other
primitive women. In the art of their day they are represented as
appearing in public and unveiled; they took part in the bull-fighting
at Knossos, and their apartments in the palace were marked out by their
special luxury. The greatest glory for an Athenian woman of a later
age was to be “as little mentioned as possible among men.” Not so for
the women of Crete. There may be some special significance in the fact
that the Lycians of Asia Minor, who were colonists from Crete, made a
practice of calling children by the mother’s, not the father’s, name
(Herodotus, i. 73). If this was the case also in Minoan Crete itself,
it may afford a possible explanation of the freedom enjoyed by Cretan
women, for the practice of naming children after their mother instead
of after their father is connected with states of society which have
not yet evolved any definite ideas of marriage, and in which, as
Herbert Spencer says, “The connection between mother and child is
always certain, whereas the connection between father and child would
sometimes be only inferable.”