LETTERS AND RELIGION
Of all the discoveries yet made on Cretan soil, that which, in
the end, will doubtless prove to be of the greatest importance is
the discovery of the various systems of writing which the Minoans
successively devised and used. As yet knowledge with regard to these
systems has not advanced beyond the description of the materials
and their comparison with those furnished by other scripts, a task
which has so far been accomplished by Dr. Evans in the first volume
of his 'Scripta Minoa.' An immense amount of material has been
accumulated, and has been separated into various classes, which
have been shown to be characteristic of different periods of Minoan
history. It is possible to arrive at a general understanding of
the matters to which certain items of the material refer, but the
actual reading of the inscribed tablets has as yet proved to be
impossible. To all appearance, moreover, a considerable proportion
of the material appears to be not literary, in any true sense,
but to consist of inventories and accounts, perhaps also of legal
documents and other such records of purely business and practical
interest. Even so it would be a matter of no small importance could
it be found possible to decipher the records, let us say, of the
War Office or Admiralty of Knossos, or to survey the details of
royal house-keeping in those far-off days; and it may still be
hoped that, when the ardently desired bilingual inscription at
last turns up and makes decipherment possible, we may find that
documents of more genuinely literary interest are not altogether
lacking. One thing at least is abundantly clear--that, as Dr. Evans
put it in the summary of his first year's results, 'that great
early civilization was not dumb,' but, on the contrary, had means
of expression amply adequate to its needs.
In 1894 M. Perrot wrote:[*] 'As at present advised, we can continue
to affirm that for the whole of this period, nowhere, neither in
the Peloponnese nor in Greece proper, no more on the buildings
than on the thousand and one objects of luxury or domestic use
that have come out of the tombs, has there anything been discovered
which resembled any kind of writing.' The statement was perfectly
true to the facts as then known; but it was obviously unthinkable
that, while the Egyptians and Babylonians had their fully developed
scripts, and while ruder races, such as the Hittites, had their
systems of writing, the men who built the splendid walls and palaces
of Tiryns and Mycenæ, and wrought the diadems and decorations of the
Shaft-Graves, should have been so far back in one of the chiefest
essentials of human progress as to be unable to communicate with one
another by means of writing. We have already seen how the discoveries
of the first year's work at Knossos settled that question for ever,
and revealed the existence of more than one form of writing. Since
then the material has been rapidly accumulating, and at present the
number of objects--tablets, labels, and other articles-inscribed
with the various Cretan scripts can be counted by thousands.
[Footnote *: Perrot et Chipiez, 'La Grèce primitive: l'Art mycénien,'
p. 985.]
The earliest form of Minoan writing that can be traced consists of
rude pictographic symbols engraved upon bead-seals and gems. This
primitive pictographic writing is characteristic of the Early Minoan
period, and throughout the succeeding period of Middle Minoan it was
gradually developed into a hieroglyphic system which is believed
to present some analogies to the Hittite form of writing. But in
the latest phases of the Third Middle Minoan period there begins
to appear, at Knossos and elsewhere, a series of inscriptions in a
very different style. The characters are no longer hieroglyphic,
but have become definitely linear, and are arranged very much as
in ordinary writing. In general they are incised upon the clay
tablets of which so many hundreds have been found, but there are
several instances in which they have been written with ink, apparently
with a reed pen, as in the case of the two Middle Minoan III. cups
found at Knossos, which bear linear inscriptions executed before the
clay was fired. While in the case of the hieroglyphic inscriptions
the characters run indifferently from left to right, or from right
to left, in this linear script their fixed direction is the usual
one, from left to right. Suffixes were apparently used to indicate
gender, and pictorial signs indicating the contents of the document
are also in use, though more sparingly than they came to be in
the later form of script. Such signs as occur seem to show that
the documents in which they are found mainly related to matters
of business. The saffron-flower, various vessels, tripods, and
balances, probably for the weighing of precious metals, occur most
frequently among these determinatives.
At Knossos this form of linear writing, Dr. Evans's Class A, appears
to have had a comparatively short vogue. Documents belonging to it
are only found in the particular stratum which is connected with
Middle Minoan III., and are to be dated, according to Dr. Evans's
latest revision of the chronology, not later than 1600 B.C., the
period at which Middle Minoan III. closes. In the Late Minoan periods
which follow, the linear script of Class A is superseded at Knossos
by another form, Class B. In other parts of the island, however,
Class A seems to have survived as a general form of writing much
longer than at Knossos. At Hagia Triada the very large deposits of
linear writing--larger, indeed, than the representation of Class A at
Knossos--belong to the First Late Minoan period, and are contemporary
with the wonderful work of the steatite vases and the fresco of the
hunting-cat; while at Phæstos the final catastrophe of the palace
took place at a time when the linear writing of Class A was still in
full use. At Zakro, Palaikastro, Gournia, and elsewhere, examples
of this script have been found, showing that it was prevalent,
at all events, throughout Central and Eastern Crete; and in all
cases it is associated with remains which belong to the close of
Middle Minoan III. and the beginnings of the Late Minoan period.
But it would appear that this form of writing was not confined to
Crete, but was more widely diffused. Traces of it, or of a script
very closely allied with it, have been found at Thera, while at
Phylakopi in Melos evidence has come to light of a whole series of
marks closely corresponding to the Cretan Class A. This would seem
to suggest what in itself is entirely probable, that the language
used in Minoan Crete was predominant, or at all events was understood
and largely used, throughout the Ægean area. The inscription on
the libation table found by Dr. Evans at the Dictæan Cave belongs
to this class, and also that upon the similar object found by Mr.
Currelly at Palaikastro.
[Illustration XXX: LATE MINOAN VASE FROM MYCENÆ (_p_. 206)
Reproduced from _The Journal of Hellenic Studies_, by permission
of the Council of the Hellenic Society]
When, at the beginning of the Late Minoan period, the Palace of
Knossos was remodelled, another great change accompanied the
architectural one. This was the entire supersession of the linear
script, Class A, by another similar but independent form, which
has been named Class B. Somewhat remarkably, although the specimens
of the script discovered at the Palace of Knossos and its immediate
dependencies are far more numerous than those of Class A, the use
of Class B seems, so far as the evidence yet collected goes, to
have been entirely confined to Knossos. The beginning of the use
of this system may have been in the early part of the fifteenth
century B.C., and it was in full service at the great catastrophe of
Knossos, at the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the fourteenth
century B.C. Its use still continued after the fall of the Minoan
power, tablets inscribed with this form of writing being found
in the Late Minoan III. House of the Fetish Shrine at Knossos.
According to Dr. Evans, whose 'Scripta Minoa' sums up all that is
at present known of these enigmatic Cretan writings, Class B is
not a mere outgrowth of Class A. The scripts are certainly allied,
and there are indications that B is the more highly developed of the
two, having a smaller selection of characters and a less complicated
system of compound signs; but at the same time several of the signs
found in B do not occur in A at all, and some of those which belong
to both scripts are found in a more primitive form in B. The language
expressed in both scripts must, however, have been essentially
the same. It is suggested, therefore, that in the supersession
of Class A by Class B we have another indication of the dynastic
revolution which is supposed to have caused that ruin of the palace
which closed the Middle Minoan period.
The records of Class B give evidence of a very considerable advance
in the art of writing. 'The characters themselves have a European
aspect. They are of upright habit, and of a simple and definite
outline, which throws into sharp relief the cumbrous and obscure
cuneiform system of Babylonia. Although not so cursive in form
as the Hieratic or Demotic types of Egyptian writing, there is
here a much more limited selection of types. It would seem that
the characters stood for syllables or even letters, though they
could in most cases also be used as words.... The spaces and lines
between the words, the _espacement_ into distinct paragraphs, and
the variation in the size of the characters on the same tablet,
according to the relative importance of the text, show a striving
after clearness and method such as can by no means be said to be
a characteristic of Classical Greek inscriptions.'[*] A decimal
system of numbers was in use, the highest single amount referred
to being 19,000, and percentages were evidently well understood,
as a whole series of tablets is devoted to them.
[Footnote *: 'Scripta Minoa,' pp. 39, 40.]
The tablets themselves were originally of unburnt, but sun-dried,
clay, and their preservation, as we have seen, is probably due to
the excessive heat to which they were exposed during the great
fire which destroyed the palace. 'Fire itself, so fatal to other
libraries, has thus insured the preservation of the archives of
Minoan Knossos.' Great care was plainly bestowed upon the storage
of the tablets. They were stored in chests and coffers of various
materials, and were evidently carefully separated according to
the different departments to which their contents referred. In
one deposit near the northern entrance, which was the 'Sea-Gate'
of the palace, the largest of the seatings which had secured the
cases in which the tablets were stored bore a representation of a
ship, possibly an indication of the fact that these tablets belonged
to the Minoan Board of Admiralty. One set of tablets had been stored
in a room which presents all the appearance of having been an office,
and the frequent occurrence in this deposit of the figures of a
horse's head, a chariot, and a cuirass, suggests that the store
belonged to the Minoan War Office, and refers to the equipment
of the Chariot Brigade of the Knossian army.
Further evidence of the business-like methods of the Minoan officials
was given by the fact that many of the seals belonging to the various
stores were countermarked on the face, and had their backs countersigned
and endorsed, evidently by examining officials, while they appear to
have been regularly filed and docketed for reference. Indeed, the
Minoan methods have already borne the test of having been accepted
as evidence in a modern court of law. 'In 1901,' says Dr. Evans,
'I discovered that certain tablets had been abstracted from the
excavations, and had shortly afterwards been purchased by the museum
at Athens. It further appeared that one of our workmen--a certain
Aristides--had left the excavation about the same time for Greece, and
had been seen in Athens offering "antikas" for sale under suspicious
circumstances. On examining the inscriptions on the stolen tablets
I observed a formula that showed that some or all of the pieces
belonged to a deposit found in Magazine XV. A reference to our
daybooks brought out the fact that the same Aristides had taken
part in the excavation of this particular magazine a little before
the date of his hasty departure. On his return to Crete, some months
later, he was accordingly arrested, and the evidence supplied by the
Minoan formula was accepted by the Candia Tribunal as a crowning
proof of his guilt. Aristides--"the Unjust"--was thus condemned to
three months' imprisonment.' Few criminals attain to the dignity
of being convicted on evidence 3,500 years old.
Certain of the tablets contain lists of persons of both sexes,
apparently denoted by their personal names, the signs which appear
to stand for the name being followed in each case by an ideograph
which is the determinative of 'man,' or 'woman,' as the case may
be. It is, of course, impossible to say as yet to what rank or class
the people thus catalogued may have belonged; but the conjecture
may be hazarded that these lists may be the major-domo's records
of the male and female slaves of the household, or perhaps of the
artisans who appear to have dwelt within the precincts of the palace.
Another type of record is given by tablets such as that represented
in Plate XIV. The tablet contains eight lines of well-written
inscription, and consists apparently of twenty words, divided into
three paragraphs. In this case there are no determinatives and no
numerals; and it is possible that the document may be a contract,
or perhaps an official proclamation.
[Illustration XXXI: KAMARES VASES FROM PHÆSTOS AND HAGIA TRIADA
(_pp_. 120 & 197)
_G. Maraghiannis_]
That such tablets were not the only form in which the Minoans executed
the writing of their various documents is evident from the fact
already noticed, that inscriptions have been found executed with a
reed-pen, and, though those extant are written on clay vessels, it
is obvious that the reed-pen was not a very suitable instrument for
writing on such materials, and that its existence presupposes some
substance more adapted to the cursive writing of a pen--parchment,
possibly, or papyrus, which could be readily obtained from Egypt.
Unfortunately, such materials, on which, in all probability, the
real literary documents of the Minoans, if there were any such
documents, would be written, can scarcely have survived the fire
which destroyed the palace, or, if by any chance they escaped that,
the subsequent action of the climate; so that whatever genuinely
literary fragments may yet come to light must be looked for on the
larger tablets, and at the best can scarcely be more than brief
extracts. We cannot expect from Crete a wealth of papyri such as
Egypt has preserved for the archæologist.
Into quite a different category from any of the ordinary Minoan
tablets comes the disc found at Phæstos in 1908. Its general character
has been already described. The long inscription which covers both
of its faces is written in a form of hieroglyphics which, to some
extent, resembles the Minoan pictographic system, but is not the
same. The crested helmets which occur frequently as signs, the
round shields, the fashion of dress of both men and women, and the
style of architecture depicted in the hieroglyphic rendering of
a house or pagoda, are not Minoan; and, on the whole, the evidence
seems to point to the disc being the product of some allied culture,
perhaps Lycian, in which a language closely akin to that of Minoan
Crete was used. The inscription on the disc is carefully balanced
and arranged, and each side contains exactly the same number of
sign-groups, with one additional group on face A, which is separated
from the preceding part of the inscription by a dash. Certain sets
of sign-groups recur in the same order, as though they constituted
some kind of refrain. From these indications it has been suggested
that the whole inscription is a metrical composition, a short poem
or hymn--perhaps one leaf of an Anatolian Book of Psalms whose other
pages have perished. It is agreed that the language and religion of
the western coast of Asia Minor were closely allied to those of
Crete, and it is possible that when the Minoans developed their
own language on somewhat different lines from the mainlanders,
they maintained in parts of their religious service the old form
of the speech common to themselves and their Anatolian relatives,
as a kind of sacred language.[*]
[Footnote *: See Appendix, p. 264.]
Thus, it is abundantly evident that the civilization of Minoan
Crete, far from being dumb, had varied and perfectly adequate means
of expressing itself. The old Cretan tradition that the Phnicians
did not invent the letters of the alphabet, but only changed those
already existing, is amply justified; for this seems to have been
precisely what they did. The Phnician mind, if not original, was
at all events practical. The great stumbling-block in the way of
the ancient scripts was their complexity--a fault which the Minoan
users of the Linear Script, Class B, had evidently already begun to
recognize and endeavour to amend. What the Phnicians did was to
carry the process of simplification farther still, and to appropriate
for their own use out of the elements already existing around them a
conveniently short and simple system of signs. The position which
they came to occupy, after the Minoan empire of the sea had passed
away, as the great carriers and middlemen of the Mediterranean, gave
their system a spread and a utility possible to no other system
of writing; and so the Phnician alphabet gradually came to take
its place as the basis of all subsequent scripts. Unquestionably
it was a great and important service which was thus rendered by
them; but, all the same, the beginnings of European writing must
be traced not to them, but to their predecessors the Minoans, and
the clay tablets of Knossos, Phæstos, and Hagia Triada are the
lineal ancestors of all the written literature of Europe.
In attempting to deal with the Minoan religion we are met by the
fact that it is as yet quite impossible to present any connected
view of the subject. As in the case of their literature we have
the actual records but cannot read them, so in the case of their
religion a considerable mass of facts is apparent, but we have no
means of co-ordinating them so as to arrive at any definite idea
of a religious system. Some of the ritual we can see, and even
understand something of the Divinity to whom it was addressed,
but the theology is lacking. Accordingly, nothing more can be done
than to present the fragmentary facts which are apparent.
The Minoans, it seems fairly clear, were never, like their successors
the Greeks, the possessors of a well-peopled Pantheon; nor was the
chief object of their adoration a male deity like the Greek Zeus.
There are, indeed, traces of a male divinity, who was adopted by
the Greeks when they obtained predominance in the island, as the
representative of their own supreme deity, and who became the Cretan
Zeus. But in Minoan times this being occupied a very subordinate
place, and undoubtedly the chief object of worship was a goddess--a
Nature Goddess, a Great Mother--[Greek: potnia thaerou], the Lady
of the Wild Creatures--who was the source of all life, higher and
lower, its guardian during the period of its earthly existence,
and its ruler in the underworld.
The functions of this great deity, it has been aptly pointed out,
are substantially those claimed for herself by Artemis in Browning's
poem, 'Artemis Prologizes':
'Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in hell o'er my pale people peace;
On earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek,
And every feathered mother's callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness.'
She was a goddess alike of the air, the earth, and the underworld, and
representations of her have survived in which her various attributes
are expressed. As goddess of the air, she is represented by a female
figure crowned with doves; as goddess of the underworld, her emblems
are the snakes, which we see twined round the faïence figure at
Knossos, or the terra-cotta in the Gournia shrine. Her figure is
often seen upon seals and gems, standing on the top of the rock or
mountain, with guardian lions in attendance, one on either side,
and sometimes with a male votary in the background.
The earliest form of her worship, and one which proved very persistent,
was apparently aniconic. The divinity was not embodied in any graven
image, but was inherent in such objects as the rude natural concretions
found in the House of the Fetish Shrine, or was supposed to dwell
in sacred trees, on which sometimes perch the doves which indicate
that the goddess is present as ruler of the air, or which are twined
with serpents, showing her presence as goddess of the earth and
underworld. In the place of sacred trees we have often sacred pillars,
which seem to have been objects of worship down to Late Minoan
II. at least, since in the Royal Villa at Knossos, dating from
this period, there is a pillar-room similar to the much earlier
pillar-rooms of the Great Palace. The little group of three pillars
found at Knossos evidently represents the divinity in her aspect as
a heavenly goddess, for the pillars have doves perching upon their
capitals. Sometimes, as in the case of the Lion Gate at Mycenæ, and
other representations, we have the pillar with the two supporting
lions, an anticipation of the anthropomorphic figure of the goddess
on the rock. It is possible that in some cases the figures of the
Double Axes standing between horns of consecration were also looked
upon as embodiments of the divinity. A similar mode of representing
deity occurs in the earlier stages of many religions, and the sacred
pillar set up by Jacob at Bethel may be instanced as an example
of its presence in the beginnings of the Hebrew worship.
In general the Minoan Great Mother appears to have been looked
upon as a being of beneficence, and as the giver of 'every good
and perfect gift'; but her association with the lion and the snake
shows that there was also a more mysterious and awful side to her
character. When the later Greeks came into the island and found
this deity in possession, she became identified, in the various
aspects of her many-sided nature, with various goddesses of the
Hellenic Pantheon. Foremost and specially she became Rhea, the
mother of the gods, who had fled to Crete to bear her son Zeus.
Otherwise she was Hera, the sister and the spouse of Zeus, and
in this case the story of the marriage of the great goddess and
the supreme god probably represents the fusion of religious ideas
on the part of the two races, the conquerors taking over the deity
of the conquered race, and uniting her with the Sky God whom they
had brought with them from their Northern home. She also survived
as Aphrodite, as Demeter, and, in her capacity as Lady of the Wild
Beasts, as Artemis.
The suggestion of the association of Zeus with the Minoan goddess
may have been given to the Northern conquerors by a feature of the
Cretan religion which they found already in existence. On certain
seal impressions and engraved gems there are indications that the
great Nature Goddess was sometimes associated with a male divinity.
This being, however, seems to have occupied an obscure and inferior
position. In most of the scenes in which he is represented he, is
either in the background, or reverentially stands before the seated
female divinity. It would appear that the Achæans appropriated this
insignificant god as the representative of their own Zeus, attributed
to him birth from the Great Goddess in her own cave-sanctuary of
Dicte, and endowed him with many of the attributes which she had
formerly possessed, including the Double Axe emblem of sovereignty,
so that in Hellenic times the supreme deity of the island was always
the Cretan Zeus, Zeus of the Double Axe, though in reality he was
no Cretan god at all, or at best a secondary divinity, dressed
in borrowed plumes and with greatness thrust upon him.
As to the forms of worship with which the Great Mother of Crete was
served, comparatively little is known. The most striking feature
is the seemingly total absence of what we should call temples.
In this respect Crete presents a curious contrast to Egypt: in
Egypt we have an abundance of vast temples, but practically no
surviving palaces; in Crete the case is exactly reversed, and we
have huge palaces but no temples. The reason of this appears to
be, as Dr. Mackenzie has pointed out,[*] that the Minoan religion
was of an entirely domestic character. 'At Knossos all shrines
are either house-shrines or palace-shrines. The divinities are
household and dynastic divinities having an ancestral character
and an ancestral reputation to maintain.' To put it in a word,
worship in the Minoan religion was essentially Family Worship. No
doubt there were public ceremonials also, in which the King, who
seems to have been Priest as well as King (if, indeed, he was not
viewed as an incarnation of deity), performed the principal part; but
there can have been nothing like the habitual publicity of parts of
the worship of the god which was contemplated in the great peristyle
courts of the Egyptian temples and the processional arrangements
of part of their service. 'At Knossos,' says Dr. Mackenzie, 'we
found, as a matter of fact, that there was a tendency for each
house to have a room set apart for family worship. Of such shrines
the palace was found to have more than one. Those shrines were
found to be in a very private part of the house, and usually to
have no thoroughfare through them.'
[Footnote *: _Annual of the British School at Athens_, vol. xiv.,
p. 366.]
What these shrines were like we may to some extent judge from the
fragmentary fresco found at Knossos, representing one of the
pillar-shrines where the Great Goddess was worshipped in her emblems
of the sacred pillars. The structure consists of a taller central
chamber, with a lower wing on either side of it. The material of
which it is built is apparently wood, faced and decorated in certain
parts with chequer-work in black-and-white plaster. The whole building
rests upon large blocks of stone, immediately above which in the
central chamber comes a solid piece of building, adorned first
with the chequer-work, and then, above this, with two half-rosettes
bordered with _kuanos_. Over this rises the open chamber of the
shrine, which contains nothing but two pillars of the familiar
Minoan-Mycenæan type, tapering downwards from the capitals. These
rise from between the sacred horns, which occur in practically
every religious scene as emblems of consecration (_cf._ the 'horns
of the altar' in the Hebrew temple worship). The lower chambers
on either side contain each a single pillar, again rising from
between the horns of consecration. A Minoan lady, dressed in a gown
of bluish-green, sits with her back to the wall of the right-hand
lower chamber, and the scale of the shrine is given by the fact
that, her seat being on the same level as the floor of the chamber,
her head is in a line with the roof beam which rests on the capital
of the sacred pillar. The remains of an actual shrine discovered
in 1907 close to the Central Court at Knossos show that the fresco
does not exaggerate the smallness of the sacred buildings. The
Gournia shrine, situated in the centre of the town, is about twelve
feet square, and its discoverer believes that the walls of the
sacred enclosure may never have stood more than eighteen inches
high. Here, again, were the horns of consecration, the doves, and
the snakes twined round the image of the goddess.
Of what sort were the acts of worship in connection with the Minoan
Religion? Sacrifice was certainly prominent, and the bull was probably
the chief victim offered to the goddess. In one of the scenes on
the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, a bull is being sacrificed, and his
blood is dripping into a vessel placed beneath his head. Behind is
the figure of a woman, whose hands are stretched out, presumably
to hold the cords with which the victim is bound. Two kids crouch
on the ground below the bull, perhaps to be offered in their turn.
Libation also formed part of the ceremonial, and on the same sarcophagus
there are two scenes in which it occurs. In the one instance (Plate
XXVIII.), the vessel into which the offering is being poured stands
between two sacred Double Axes with birds perched upon them; in
the other the libation-vessel stands upon an altar with a Double
Axe behind it. The three receptacles of the Dictæan Libation Table
suggest a threefold offering like that of mingled milk and honey,
sweet wine, and water, which, in the Homeric period, was made to
the Shades of the Dead and to the Nymphs.
As was perhaps natural in the cult of a goddess, the chief part
in the ritual seems to have been taken by priestesses. Men share
in the ceremonies also, but not so frequently, and apparently in
subordinate rôles. Part of the ritual evidently consisted of dancing,
and music also had its place, as is evident from the figures of
the lyre and flute players on the sarcophagus of Hagia Triada.
The question of whether the Minoans had any worship of ancesters
or sacrifice to the dead is raised by several relics. Above the
Shaft-Graves at Mycenæ stood a circular altar, where offerings
must have been made either to the Shades of the Dead or on behalf
of them, and the scenes on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, resembling
so curiously those of the Egyptian ceremony of 'the Opening of
the Mouth,' suggest a belief in the continued existence of the
spirit, either as an object to be propitiated by sacrifice, or
as a being which needed to be sustained in its disembodied state
by offerings of meat and drink.
The relation of the Minoan King to the religion of his country
is a point of some interest, though the facts known are scarcely
sufficient to afford ground for more than surmise. The very structure
of the palace at Knossos gives evidence of the importance of the
part which he played in spiritual matters, and of the intimate
connection which existed in the Minoan, as in so many other ancient
faiths, between Royalty and Religion. There are not only several
shrines and altars in the palace, but it is probable, as Dr. Mackenzie
has pointed out,[*] that the so-called bathrooms at Knossos and
Phæstos are not bathrooms at all, but small chapels or oratories,
so that altogether religion bulks very largely in the arrangements
of the Royal dwelling. In fact, the Kings and Queens of Knossos
were Priest-Kings and Priest-Queens, the heads of the spiritual
as well as of the material life of their people; and it is not at
all unlikely, from what is known of the religious views of other
ancient peoples, that the Priest-King was looked upon as an incarnation
of divinity. If so, of what divinity? It is here that, in all
likelihood, we get near the heart of the Minotaur legend. 'The
characteristic mythical monster of Crete,' says Miss Jane Harrison,[**]
'was the bull-headed Minotaur. Behind the legend of Pasiphae, made
monstrous by the misunderstanding of immigrant conquerors, it can
scarcely be doubted that there lurks some sacred mystical ceremony
of ritual wedlock ([Greek: ieros gamos]) with a primitive bull-headed
divinity.... The bull-Dionysos of Thrace, when he came to Crete,
found a monstrous god, own cousin to himself.... Of the ritual of
the bull-god in Crete, we know that it consisted in part of the
tearing and eating of a bull, and behind is the dreadful suspicion
of human sacrifice.' The actual evidence found on Minoan sites for
the existence of such a bull-headed divinity is somewhat slight, the
clearest instance being a seal-impression from Knossos, representing
a monster who bears an animal head, possibly a bull's, upon a human
body, and who is evidently regarded as divine, since he is seated
and reverently approached by a human worshipper; but, taken in
connection with the universal currency of the Minotaur legend,
it is probably sufficient. What relation this monstrous divinity
held to the other objects of Minoan worship is not apparent.
[Footnote *: _Annual of the British School at Athens_, xiv., p.
366. The suggestion is also made by Mosso, 'The Palaces of Crete,'
pp. 64-66.]
[Footnote **: 'Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion,' pp.
482, 483.]
It may be, then, that this deity was the one of whom the King was
supposed to be the representative and incarnation, and in that
case the bull-grappling, which was so constant a feature of the
palace sports, had a deeper significance, and was in reality part of
the ceremonial associated with the worship of the Cretan bull-god.
In this connection Professor Murray has emphasized[*] certain facts
in connection with the legendary history of Minos, which would
seem to link the Cretan monarchy with a custom not infrequently
observed in connection with other ancient monarchies and faiths.
It will be remembered that the legend of Minos states variously
that he 'ruled for nine years, the gossip of Great Zeus,' and that
every nine years he went into the cave of Zeus or of the bull-god,
to converse with Zeus, to receive new commandments, and to give
account of his stewardship. The nine-year period recurs in the
account of the bloody tribute of seven youths and seven maidens
who were offered to the Minotaur every ninth year. May we not,
therefore, have in these statements a distorted recollection of
the fact that the Royal Incarnation of the Bull-God originally
held his office only for a term of nine years, and that at the
end of that period he went into the Dictæan Cave, the sanctuary
of his divinity, and was there slain in sacrifice, while from the
cave his successor came forth, and was hailed as the rejuvenated
incarnation of divinity, to reign in his turn, and then to perish
as his predecessor had done? In this case the seven youths and
seven maidens who were offered to the Minotaur at the end of the
nine-year period may have been slain with him to be his companions
and servants in the underworld, or, as is perhaps more likely,
they may, in a later stage of the custom, have been accepted as
his substitutes, so that the death of the King was merely a ritual
one.
[Footnote *: 'The Rise of the Greek Epic,' pp. 127, 128.]
Of course, this explanation of the Minos legend and the story of
the human tribute is in the meantime only a supposition, and not
susceptible of absolute proof; but the constant recurrence of the
nine-year period is, at least, very striking, and it is worth
remembering that a custom precisely similar to that suggested has
existed in connection with several ancient monarchies, and, indeed,
survives to the present day. In the ancient Ethiopian kingdom the
King was obliged to slay himself when commanded to do so by the
priests. A similar custom prevailed in Babylonia and among the
ancient Prussians, while several modern African tribes slay their
King when the first sign of age or infirmity begins to show itself
in him. Professor Flinders Petrie has shown[*] that the greatest of
the Egyptian feasts, the 'Sed' Festival, was a ceremonial survival
of a time when the Pharaoh, the Priest-King and representative of
God on earth, was slain at fixed intervals. The object in all such
cases is manifestly to secure that the incarnation of divinity shall
always be in the prime of his vigour, and shall never know decay.
It is impossible, no doubt, to say that such a feature belonged to
the Minoan religious polity; the evidence is not such as to admit
of certainty, yet it is not unlikely that in a custom similar to
this lies the interpretation of the main features of the Minotaur
legend.
[Footnote *: 'Researches in Sinai,' pp. 181-185.]
Such, then, was the Empire of the Minoan Sea-Kings as it has been
revealed to us by the excavations and researches of the last ten
years. Apart from the actual information gained of this great race,
which must henceforward be regarded as one of the originating sources
of Greek civilization and learning, and therefore, to a great extent,
of all European culture, perhaps the most striking and interesting
result that has been attained is the remarkable confirmation given to
the broad outlines of those traditions about Crete which have survived
in the legends and in the narratives of the Greek historians. The
fable of the Minotaur is now seen to be no mere wild and monstrous
imagining, but a reflection, vague and grotesque as seen through
the mist of centuries, of customs which did actually exist in the
palace life of Knossos, and were very probably parts of the religious
practice of the country. The slaying of the Minotaur by the Athenian
Theseus may well be an echo of the conquest of the Minoan Empire by
the mainland tribes. The story which makes Theseus bring up from
the Palace of Amphitrite the ring which Minos had thrown into the
sea, seems almost certainly to be a symbolic expression of the passing
over of the sea-power of the Ægean from the once-omnipotent Minoans
to the Achæans and the other restless tribes who for generations
after the fall of Knossos held the dominion of the ocean, and were
the terror of all peaceful nations, and a menace to the existence
of even so great a power as Egypt. No one now dreams of hesitating
to accept the statements of Herodotus and Thucydides as to the
great sea-empire of Crete. Whoever the Minos to whom they allude
may have been--whether he was actually a single great historical
monarch who brought the glory of the kingdom to its culmination,
or whether the name was the title of a race of Kings, is a matter
of small moment. In either case the sea-power of Minoan Crete was a
reality which endured, not for one reign, but for many reigns; and
it is practically certain that, during a long period of history,
the whole sea-borne trade of Europe, Asia, and Africa, was in the
hands of these, the earliest lords of the ocean.
[Illustration XXXII: GOLDSMITHS' WORK FROM BEEHIVE TOMBS, PHÆSTOS
(_p_. 216)
_G. Maraghiannis_]
The recollections of the fallen power that survived in the Greek
mind were chiefly those connected with the oppressive aspect of
the dominion which the Lord of Knossos exercised over the Ægean
area; but in Egypt there lingered for centuries a tradition which
did more justice to the glories of Minoan Crete. In the Timæus,
Plato tells a story of how Solon went to Egypt, and was told by
a priest at Sais that long ago there had been a great island in
the western sea, where a wonderful central power held sway, not
only over the whole of its own land, but also over other islands
and parts of the continent. In an attempt at universal conquest,
this island State made war upon Greece and Egypt, but was defeated
by the Athenians, and overwhelmed by the sea as a punishment for its
sins, leaving only a range of mud-banks, dangerous to navigation,
to mark the place where it had been. In the Timæus and Critias, Plato
describes with considerable detail the features of the island State,
and the details are such that he might almost have been describing
what the Egyptian priest who originally told the story was no doubt
endeavouring to describe--the actual port and Palace of Knossos,
with the life that went on there. 'The great harbour, for example,
with its shipping and its merchants coming from all parts, the
elaborate bathrooms, the stadium, and the solemn sacrifice of a bull,
are all thoroughly, though not exclusively, Minoan; but when we read
how the bull is hunted "in the temple of Poseidon without weapons
but with staves and nooses," we have an unmistakable description of
the bull-ring at Knossos, the very thing which struck foreigners
most, and which gave rise to the legend of the Minotaur.'[*]
[Footnote *: 'The Lost Continent,' _Times_, February 19, 1909. The
anonymous writer was the first to identify Crete with the 'Lost
Atlantis.']
The boundaries which Plato assigns to the Empire of the lost State
are practically identical with those over which Minoan influence
is now known to have spread, while the description of the island
itself is such as to make it almost certain that Crete was the
original from which it was drawn. 'The island was the way to other
islands, and from these islands you might pass to the whole of
the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean.' So Plato
describes Atlantis; and when you set beside his sentence a modern
description of Crete--'a half-way house between three continents,
flanked by the great Libyan promontory, and linked by smaller island
stepping-stones to the Peloponnese and the mainland of Anatolia'--there
can be little doubt that the two descriptions refer to the same
island.
The only difficulty in the way of accepting the identification is
that it is stated that the lost Atlantis lay beyond the Pillars
of Hercules; but doubtless this statement is due to Solon's
misinterpretation of what was said by his Egyptian informant, or to
the Saite priest's endeavour to accommodate his ancient tradition
to the wider geographical knowledge of his own time. The old Egyptian
conception of the universe held that the heavens were supported
on four pillars, which were actual mountains; and probably the
original story placed the lost island beyond these pillars as a
metaphorical way of stating that it was very far distant, as indeed
it was to voyagers in those early days. But by Solon's time the
limits of navigation were extended far beyond those of the early
seafarers. The Phnician trader had pushed at least as far west
as Spain; Necho's fleet had circumnavigated Africa; and so 'the
island farthest west,' which naturally meant Crete to the Egyptian
of the Eighteenth Dynasty who first recorded the catastrophe of the
Minoan Empire, had to be thrust out beyond the Straits of Gibraltar
to satisfy the wider ideas of the men of Solon's and Necho's time.
Almost certainly then, Plato's story gives the Saite version of the
actual Egyptian records of the greatness and the final disaster of
that great island state with which Egypt so long maintained intercourse.
Doubtless to the men of the latter part of the Eighteenth Dynasty the
sudden blotting out of Minoan trade and influence by the overthrow
of Knossos seemed as strange and mysterious as though Crete had
actually been swallowed up by the sea. The island never regained
its lost supremacy, and gradually sank into the insignificance
which is its characteristic throughout the Classical period. So,
though neither the priest of Sais nor his Greek auditor, and still
less Plato, dreamed of the fact, the wonderful island State of which
the Egyptian tradition preserved the memory, was indeed Minoan
Crete, and the men of the Lost Atlantis whose portraits Produs saw
in Egypt were none other than the Keftiu of the tombs of Sen-mut
and Rekh-ma-ra.
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY
Prior to 1580 B.C. the dates in the summary must be regarded as
merely provisional, and the margin of possible error is wide. The
tendency on the part of the Cretan explorers has been to accept
in the main the Berlin system of Egyptian dating in preference
to that advocated by Professor Flinders Petrie ('Researches in
Sinai,' pp. 163-185), on the ground that the development of the
Minoan culture can scarcely have required so long a period as that
given by the Sinai dating. It must be remembered, however, that
the question is still unsettled, and that the longer system of
Professor Petrie must be regarded as at least possible.
CRETE.
EGYPT (BERLIN).
EGYPT (PETRIE).
B.C.
10000-3000, Neolithic Age.
_c._ 3000-2600, Early Minoan I.
Dynasties I.-V., 3400-2625 B.C.
Dynasties I.-V., 5510-4206 B.C.
_c._ 2600-2400 " " II.
Dynasty VI., 2625-2475 "
Dynasty VI., 4206-4003 "
_c._ 2400-2200 " " III.
Dynasties VII.-X., 2475-2160 "
Dynasties VII.-X., 4003-3502 "
_c._ 2200-2000, Middle Minoan I.
(earlier palaces at Knossos and Phæstos).
Dynasty XI., 2160-2000 "
Dynasty XI., 3502-3459 "
_c._ 2000-1850, Middle Minoan II.
(pottery of Kamares Cave; at end
of period destruction of Knossos).
Dynasty XII., 2000-1788 "
Dynasty XII., 3459-3246 "
_c._ 1850-1600, Middle Minoan
III. (Later Palace Knossos;
first Villa Hagia Triada;
early in period, statuette of
Sebek-user; late, Alabastron
of Khyan).
Dynasties XIII.-XVII., 1788-1580 B.C.
Dynasties XIII.-XVII., 3246-1580 B.C.
(Period of confusion and of Hyksos domination.)
1600-1500, Late Minoan I.
(Later Palace Phæstos begun).
1500-1400, Late Minoan II.
(Later Palace Knossos completed;
_c._ 1400, fall of Knossos).
Dynasty XVIII., 1580-1350 B.C.
Dynasty XVIII., 1580-1322 B.C.
(Keftiu on walls of tombs of Sen-mut and Rekh-ma-ra.)
1400----, Late Minoan III.
(period of partial reoccupation and decline).
Dynasty XIX., 1350-1205 B.C.
Dynasty XIX., 1322-1202 B.C.
_c._ 1200 (?) Homeric Age.
Dynasty XX., 1200-1090 "
Dynasty XX., 1202-1102 "
(Cretan tribes mentioned and portrayed by Ramses
III., Medinet Habu.)
Dynasty XXI., 1090-945 B.C.
Dynasty XXI., 1102-952 B.C.
(Zakru pirates mentioned by Wen-Amon, Golenischeff
Papyrus.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In the following short list will be found the volumes on the Minoan
and Mycenæan civilizations which are most accessible to the ordinary
reader:
_Annual of the British School at Athens_, vols. vi.- . (Reports
of excavations by Evans, Hogarth, and others, and many articles
of interest on the results of discovery. Well illustrated.)
_Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vols. xx.- . (Articles by Evans,
Hall, Mackenzie, Rouse, and others. Admirable illustrations.)
BROWNE, H.: _Homeric Study_. (Relations of Homeric and Minoan
civilizations).
BURROWS, R. M.: _The Discoveries in Crete_. (An able discussion
of the results of excavations).
EVANS, A. J.: _Cretan Pictograms and Pre-Phnician Script._ (Dr.
Evans's earlier volume on the Minoan writing.) _Essai de Classification
des Époques de la Civilisation Minoenne._ (Short summary of the
Minoan periods.) _Mycnean Tree and Pillar Cult_. (Reprint from
_Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vol. xxi.) _Prehistoric Tombs of
Knossos_. (Isopata, etc.). _Scripta Minoa_. (Latest and fullest
discussion of Minoan script.) Articles in the _Times_ newspaper
and the _Monthly Review_.
HALL, E. H.: _The Decorative Art of Crete in the Bronze Age_.
HALL, H. R.: _Egypt and Western Asia_. (Relations of Crete and
Egypt.) _The Oldest Civilization of Greece_. (Deals with Mycenæan
discoveries up to 1901.) Various articles in the Proceedings of the
Society of Biblical Archæology, the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_,
etc.
HARRISON, J. E.: _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. The
Religion of Ancient Greece_.
HAWES, C. H. and H.: _Crete the Forerunner of Greece_. (Concise
and interesting manual.)
HAWES, H. B.: _Gournia, Vasiliki, and other Prehistoric Sites on
the Isthmus of Hierapetra, Crete_.
HOGARTH, D. G.: _Authority and Archology_; (Contains summary of
earlier Mycenæan discoveries.) _Ionia and the East_. (Relations
of Oriental and early Greek civilizations.) Articles in _Cornhill
Magazine_ and _Fortnightly Review_.
LANG, A.: _Homer and his Age_.
MOSSO, A.: _The Palaces of Crete and their Builders_. (Chiefly useful
for its numerous illustrations.)
MURRAY, G.: _The Rise of the Greek Epic_. (Exceedingly vivid and
suggestive.)
RIDGEWAY, W.: _The Early Age of Greece_.
SCHUCHHARDT, C.: _Schliemann's Excavations_. (Useful summary of
the work of Schliemann, translated by E. Sellers.)
SEAGER, R. B.: _Excavations on the Island of Pseira, Crete_.
Philadelphia, 1910. (Finely illustrated.)
TSOUNTAS AND MANATT: _The Mycenæan Age_.
For the chronology of Ancient Egypt see--
BREASTED, H.: _History of Egypt_. (1906. Abridged issue, 1908.)
PETRIE, W. M. F.: _History of Egypt_, vols. i.-iii. _Researches
in Sinai_.
For the topography of Crete, Pashley's _Travels in Crete_ and Spratt's
_Travels and Researches in Crete_ will still be found interesting
and useful, though published in 1837 and 1865 respectively. For
the history of the island in mediæval and modern times _A Short
Popular History of Crete_, by J. H. Freese, may be consulted.
_Antiquités Crétoises_, by G. Maraghiannis, Candia, Crete, gives
fifty excellent plates of Minoan relics, chiefly from Phæstos and
Hagia Triada, with a short introduction by Signor Pernier, of the
Italian Archæological Mission.
APPENDIX
TRANSLATIONS OF THE PHÆSTOS DISK
Two translations of the Phæstos disk have been put forward. The
first is by Professor George Hempl, of Stanford University, U.S.A.,
and appeared in _Harper's Magazine_ for January, 1911, under the
title, 'The Solving of an Ancient Riddle.' The second, by Miss F.
Melian Stawell, of Newnham College, appeared in the _Burlington
Magazine_ of April, 1911, under the title, 'An Interpretation of
the Phaistos Disk.'
Both are characterized by considerable ingenuity; but the trouble is
that they do not agree in the very least. Professor Hempl maintains
that the disk is the record of a dedication of oxen at a shrine in
Phæstos, in atonement of a robbery perpetrated by Cretan sea-rovers
on some shrine of the great goddess in Asia Minor. Miss Stawell, on
the other hand, believes that the disk is the matrix for casting
a pair of cymbals, and that the inscription is the invocation which
the worshippers had to chant to the goddess.
A comparison of portions of the two renderings will at least show
that certainty can scarcely be said to have been reached. Professor
Hempl thus renders the opening lines of Face A:
'Lo, Xipho the prophetess dedicates spoils from a spoiler of the
prophetess. Zeus, guard us. In silence put aside the most dainty
portions of the still unroasted animal. Athene Minerva, be gracious.
Silence! The victims have been put to death. Silence!'
Compare Miss Stawell's translation of the same lines:
'Lady, 0 hearken! Cunning one! Ah, Queen! I will sing, Lady, oh,
thou must deliver! Divine One, mighty Queen! Divine One, Giver of
Rain! Lady, Mistress, Come! Lady, be gracious! Goddess, be merciful!
Behold, Lady, I call on thee with the clash! Athena, behold, Warrior!
Help! Lady, come! Lady--keep silence, I sacrifice--Lady, come!'
INDEX
A
Aahmes, founder of Eighteenth Dynasty, 147
Abnub, 82, 155, 203
Abydos: First Dynasty graves at, 142, 191; Twelfth Dynasty
grave at, 150, 199
Achæans: position of, in Homeric poems, 23; manners of, 26; invasion of
Greece, 62; influence of, on Cretan customs, 178; conquest of Mycenæ,
182; modifications of Minoan religion by, 247
Achilles: arms of, 27; shield of, 27, 28, 58, 74
Ægean, 13
Ægeus, King of Athens, 10-13
Agamemnon, Tomb of, 37, 42, 43, 45, 46
Agriculture, Minoan, 226
Aigaios, Mount, 136
Aithra, mother of Theseus, 11
Akhenaten, 163, 173, 174, 185, 208
Alabastron of Khyan, 93
Alcinous, Palace of, 25, 26, 47, 49, 56
Altar: in Dictæan Cave, 137; at Shaft-Graves, 251
Amaltheia, 7, 111
Amenemhat III., 150; Labyrinth of, 150-155; pyramid of, 47; cylinders of, 199
Amenhotep, II., 174
Amenhotep III., 158, 162, 173, 174, 184, 185, 208
Amen-Ra, statuette of, in Dictæan Cave, 137
Amor, Amorites, 165
Amorgos, 193
Anatolia, 6; Minoan settlements in, 184
Androgeos, son of Minos, 10
Andromache, 24, 41
Aniconic worship, 245, 246
Aphrodite: aspect of Cretan goddess, 104, 122; identified with Minoan
goddess, 247
Aqayuasha invade Egypt, 164
Archon, the King, 108
Argives, 166
Argolid: place of, in Greek history, 22; conquest of, by Achæans, 182
Ariadne, 3, 179; flees with Theseus and deserted by him, 13; Choros of,
at Knossos, 103; title of Cretan goddess, 104, 122
Aristides, 'The Unjust,' 240
Armour: Homeric, 26-28, 61; Mycenæan, 61
Army, Minoan, 225, 226
Arrows, deposits of, at Knossos, 110, 225
Artemis Dictynna, aspect of Cretan goddess, 122, 247
Asia, community of religious conceptions between Crete and, 141
Athens: conquered by Minos, 10, 170; place in Homeric poems, 21
Atlantis, Plato's legend of, 257-259
Atreus, Treasury of, 43, 46-48
Axos, 166
B
Babylonia, relations with Crete, 139-142
Bacchylides, legend of Theseus and the ring of Minos, 13
Basilica, origin of, 108
Bathroom of Queen's Megaron, 95
Beak-jugs=schnabelkanne, _q.v._
Beehive chamber at Knossos, 113, 114
Beehive tombs: at Mycenæ, 46-48, 56; at Orchomenos, 48, 56; at Phæstos, 229
Bliss finds Minoan pottery at Telles-Safi, 167
Boghaz-Keui, treaty between Hittites and Egyptians discovered at, 162
Bosanquet, Mr.: Minoan purple, 133; marine decoration, 204
Boxer Vase, the, 124, 169, 172, 204
Boxing, Minoan, 103
Breasted, H., Egyptian chronology, 148
Britomartis, 122
Bronze, use of, for weapons, 27, 60, 228
Browne, H., 'Homeric Study,' 30-32, 62
Bucchero: deposit of, at Knossos, 66, 189, 191; at Abydos, 142, 143
Bügelkanne=stirrup-vases, _q.v._
Bull: fresco of, at Tiryns, 49, 90; at Knossos, 66; relief of, at
Knossos, 77, 78, 172; fresco, 88, 89
Bull-god, 105, 252, 253
Bull-grappling, 88-91, 257, 258
Bunarbashi, supposed site of Troy, 38
Burial, 58-60
Burrows, Professor: quoted, 88, 98, 99, 108, 109, 122, 174, 177;
Minoan art in Egypt, 185
Button seals, 143, 194
Byblos, Wen-Amon at, 186
C
Callimachus, character of Cretans, 8
Carians expelled by Minos, 9
Carpenter, tools of, 221, 222
Chariots, 225
Cherethites=Cretans, 168
Chieftain Vase, the, 125, 126, 172, 204, 213
Choros built by Dædalus at Knossos, 14
Chronology, Egyptian and Minoan, 147 _et seq._
Cilicia, 229
Circle-Graves=Shaft-Graves, 43-46, 172, 205; steles of, 182; altars at, 251
Cists in Temple Repositories, 105
Colonnades, Hall of, 85
Cooking utensils, 218
Copper: export of, 223; use of, in beaten work, 229
Corinth in Homeric poems, 21
Cornaro describes ruins at Knossos, 63
Court: Western, Knossos, 66, 83, 84; Central, Knossos, 68, 70, 85; of the
Olive Spout, 88
Cremation, 58-60
Critias, the, legend of Atlantis, 257-259
Cross in Snake Goddess shrine, 107
Cuirass. See Armour
Cuneiform, 81, 142
Cup-Bearer: Fresco of, 67, 68, 173, 206; dress of, 213, 214
Currelly, Mr., 124, 133, 236
Curtius on Treasury of Atreus, 48
Cyclades, 9; influence on Minoan art, 193
Cyprus, 51, 157; Minoan civilization in, 145, 185; export of copper, 223
D
Dædalus, 3; builds Labyrinth, 10, 14; flees to Sicily, 14, 15; makes Choros
at Knossos, 103
Daggers from Shaft-Graves, 57, 58
Dahshur, Egyptian jewellery from 229
Danaos, King of Argos and Rhodes 166
Danauna=Danaoi invade Egypt, 165, 166
Dancing, Minoan, 103
Dancing-girls, fresco of, 220
Danubian civilization, 181, 182
David, 167, 168
Dawkins, Mr., 126
Dead, disposal of, 58-60, 178
Decimal system, Minoan, 238
Deir-el-Bahri: Eleventh Dynasty temple at, 154; Hatshepsut's temple at,
160; tomb of Senmut, 160
Demeter identified with Minoan goddess, 247
Determinatives in Minoan writing, 235, 240
Diana, of Ephesus, 111
Dictæan Cave, 7, 8, 64, 70, 136, 137, 247, 254
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 136
Dionysos, 252
Disc, hieroglyphic, of Phæstos, 121, 241, 242
Dolphin Fresco, 224
Dor, 187
Dorian (Dorians): conquest, 2, 4, 33, 62; invasion of Crete, 178, 210
Dörpfeld, Professor, discovers Sixth City of Troy, 40, 41, 50, 51
Double Axe, 246; pillars of, at Knossos, 70; emblem of Divinity, 70; of
Zeus of Labraunda, 70; at Gournia, 130; in Dictæan Cave, 137; on
sarcophagus, 250; Hall of the, 86, 120; in shrines at Knossos, 100, 105
Drainage: at Knossos, 98, 99; at Hagia Triada, 129
Dress: of Minoan women, 73; of men, 74, 213-216
Dungeons of Knossos, 90, 91, 104
Dynasties, Egyptian: First, date of, 148; Third, 146; Fifth, 146; Sixth,
143, 149; Twelfth, 148, 150-155, 199; Thirteenth, 200; Seventeenth, 158,
200; Eighteenth, 158-163; Nineteenth, 163
E
Egypt: relations of, with Crete, 139; chronology of, 147 _et seq._
Electrum, 229
Enkomi, 51
Epeus, 103
Erman Egyptian chronology, 148
Ethiopia, King of, obliged to slay himself at command of priests, 254
Europa, mother of Minos, 7, 8, 136
Euryalus, 103
Evans, A. J., 1, 2; purchases hill of Kephala, 64, 65; discoveries at
Knossos, 65-116; derivation of Labyrinth, 71; on relief of bull's head,
77, 78; on tablets of Knossos, 79, 80; drains at Knossos, 99; bull's
head _rhyton_, 113; restoration of Queen's Megaron, 115; 'Scripta
Minoa' quoted, 121; excavations at Zafer Papoura, 134; at Isopata, 135;
Minoan chronology, 149; first destruction of Knossos, 171; date of sack
of Knossos, 174; growth of Cretan legends, 179, 180; classification of
Minoan periods, 190; origin of spiral, 194; decline of Minoan oil-trade,
222; Minoan writing, 232, 233, 235, 236, 237-238, 239, 240
F
Fetish shrine at Knossos, 111, 237, 245
Fibula, use of, in late Minoan III., 178
Fig-tree, 227
Figurines: ivory, at Knossos, 96; faïence, 105, 106, 156; banjo, 193
Flute on Hagia Triada sarcophagus, 127, 128
Fortifications: of Knossos, 74, 75, 76; of Tiryns and Mycenæ, 75, 138
Fresco (Frescoes): bull at Tiryns, 49; at Knossos, 66; Procession at
Knossos, 66; Cup-Bearer, 67, 68, 173, 206; of Throne Room, 71, 72; Blue
Boy, 73, 90, 172, 202; miniature, 73, 74, 172, 173, 206; toreador, 88,
89; bird, 95, 220; dancing-girls, 220; Dolphin, 224.
Frieze (Friezes): at Tiryns, 49, 56; at Knossos, 56
G
Gallery, the Long, 68-70
Gaming Board, the King's, Knossos, 87, 88, 204
Garstang, Professor, Kamares vase at Abydos, 150, 199
Gath=Tell-es-Safi, _q.v._
Gaza, 10
Gezer, Minoan pottery at, 140
Gilliéron, M., reconstruction of relief, 93
God, Minoan: insignificance of, 247; identified with Zeus, 247
Goddess: seal-impression of, 94; Dove Goddess, 100, 107, 245; Snake,
105-107, 130, 156, 245; Minoan supreme deity, 244; representations of,
245, 246; identified with Greek goddesses, 246, 247
Gold: abundance of, in Shaft-Graves, 44, 45 ; absence of, at Knossos, 77
Goldsmith's work at Mokhlos, 134
Gortyna, stele of, 182
Gournia: Minoan houses at, 97, 130, 131, 216; shrine at, 107, 130, 245;
Minoan town, 129-132; sack of, 131; stirrup-vases at, 205; furnace near,
228; linear script at, 236
Grote denies historicity of Greek legends, 3, 17
H
Haa-ab-ra, 169
Hagia Triada: Boxer _rhyton_, 103; villa at, 122; artistic work, 122, 203;
vases of, 123-126; sarcophagus, of, 127-129; sanitation of, 129; sack of,
175, 176; bee-hive tomb at, 192; dress on fresco from, 215; linear script
at, 235, 236
Hagios Onouphrios, deposita at, 192
Halbherr, Professor: work at Phæstos, 118; discovery of copper at Hagia
Triada, 223
Hall of Colonnades, Knossos, 85; of Double Axes, Knossos, 86
Hall, H. R., 155; origin of spiral, 48, 143, 193; sea-route to Egypt, 145;
on Labyrinth, 153; Keftiu in tomb of Rekh-ma-ra, 161; identification of
Uashasha, 166; Minoan influence on Egyptian art, 185
Hall, Miss, origin of spiral, 193
Harrison, Miss J., on the Minotaur legend, 252
Harvester Vase, the, 124, 125, 129, 172, 204, 213, 226
Hatshepsut, 158, 160, 208, 223
Hawara, Labyrinth at, 150-155
Hawes, Mrs.: carpenters' tools at Gournia, 222; discoveries at Gournia,
97, 107, 129, 130; sack of Knossos, 174
Hector, 41; slays Periphetes, 61; shield of, 61
Helmet. See Armour
Hephæstos makes arms of Achilles, 27, 28
Hera identified with Minoan goddess, 247
Herakleids, return of, 2
Her-hor, 186, 187
Herodotus: on sea-power of Minos, 9, 76, 256; Labyrinth at Hawara, 151,
152; Greek settlement in Crete, 180
Hesiod: legend of Kronos, 111, 136
Hieroglyphics: Minoan, 64, 78; Egyptian and Hittite, 64, 80, 81
Hilprecht, 141
Hissarlik, site of Troy, 37, 51
Hittites: Treaty with Egypt, 162; absorbed in advance of sea-peoples, 164
Hogarth, D. G.: quoted, 20; duration of Mycenæan civilization, 51, 52; on
bull's head _rhyton_, 113; excavations at Zakro, 133, 224; at Dictæan
Cave, 136, 137; Greek settlement in Crete, 180; geometric vases of Iron
Age, 183, 184; Minoan craftsmanship, 207
Homeric civilization, 21-33; houses, 25, 55; crafts in, 56-58; disposal
of dead, 58
Homeric poems, 20; geography of, 54; houses in, 25, 55; crafts in, 56-58
'Horns of consecration,' 94, 95, 100, 130, 246, 249, 250
Horse on seal-impression at Knossos, 112
Houses: Minoan, 97, 216-218; at Gournia, 130, 131; fabric of, 217
Hyksos, 93, 94, 155, 157, 200, 203
Hyria, foundation of, 15
I
Ialysos, Late Minoan III. work at, 209
Icarus, son of Dædalus, 14
Ida, Mount, 92; Kamares cave on, 197
Idæan Cave, 7; bronzes of, 183, 184
Idomeneus in Iliad, 22
Illahun, 97
Imadua, tomb of, 163
Incised ornament, 189, 192, 193
Iron: use of for weapons, 27, 60; in Late Minoan III., 178
Irus, 103
Isopata, royal tomb at, 135, 136, 156, 203
Ittai, Captain of David's bodyguard, 168
J
Jacob, sacred pillar of, at Bethel, 246
Jade, white, discovered at Troy, 140
Juktas, Mount: tomb of Zeus on, 7, 63; springs on, 110
K
Kahun: Twelfth Dynasty town at, 116; papyrus, 148; Kamares ware at, 150, 199
Kairatos River, 76, 176
Kalochærinos, excavations at Knossos, 64
Kamares ware, 92, 118, 120, 137, 150, 172, 197-199
Kamikos besieged by Minos, 15
Kaphtor=Crete and Kefti, 166
Karnak, 151
Kaselles at Knossos, 69
Keftiu, the, 158-163, 259
Kephala, site of Palace of Knossos, 64, 65
Kerkuon slain by Theseus, 11
Khyan: alabastron of, 93, 157, 203; lion of, 157
King, Minoan, relation to religion, 248, 251-255
Kokalos, King of Kamikos, 14
Klytemnestra, Treasury of, 48
Knossos, 5; in Iliad, 22; Palace of, 63-116; ruins at, 63, 64; Neolithic
remains at, 66; fortifications of, 74, 75; sack of, 86; Royal Villa,
107-109; Minoan road, 110; Little Palace, 110-113; beehive chamber, 113,
114; Queen's Megaron, 115, 116; sack of, 173-176; reoccupation of, 176,
177, 210; first sack of, 199
Kouphonisi. See Leuke
Kronos, 6, 7, 111
Kuanos, 25, 49, 56, 58
L
Labrys: name of Double Axe, 70; derivation of Labyrinth, 71, 100
Labyrinth, 3, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18; derivation of name, 71, 153; beehive
chamber, Knossos, 114; Minoan and Egyptian Labyrinths, 150-155
Lamp, stone, in Royal Villa, 108, 221
Lang, Mr. A., Minoan swords, 135
Layard, 140
Legends of Crete, 6-18
Leuke, deposit of purple shell at, 133
Libation table: of Dictæan Cave, 64, 236, 251; of Palaikastro, 236
Light-wells, 217, 220
Linear Script: Class A, 202, 204, 234-236; Class B, 205, 207, 236, 238
Lion Gate, 42-43, 94, 100, 246
Loin-cloth, 213
Loom-weights, 228; at Gournia, 131
Lotus, Minoan use of, 204
Lucian, 136
Lucretius, 136
Luqsor, 151
Lycian pirates, 184
Lyre on Hagia Triada sarcophagus, 127, 128
Lyttos, 136
M
Macalister finds Minoan pottery at Tell-es-Safi, 167
Mackenzie, Dr.: decay of Minoan art, 177; naturalism in Minoan art, 196,
201; character of Minoan religion, 248, 249; Minoan bathrooms, 252
Magazines at Knossos, 68, 69
Mahler, Egyptian chronology, 148
Manetho, history of, 147
Manolis, 68
Mecca, 111
Medinet Habu, reliefs at, 121, 164, 165, 181
Mediterranean race, 212
Megara conquered by Minos, 10, 170
Megaron: Queen's, 95, 115, 116, 220, 221; of Phæstos, 120
Melos, 51, 193
Menelaus, 15, 23; Palace of, 25
Mentuhotep Neb-hapet-Ra, Temple of, 78, 154
Merenptah, 164
Meriones in Iliad, 22
Messara Valley, 117
Metal-working: Homeric and Mycenæan, 56-58; at Knossos, 109
Meyer, Egyptian chronology, 148
Middle Kingdom of Egypt, 82, 93, 94, 150-155
Minoa, 10, 15
Minoan culture: date of beginning of, 147-149; periods of--Early Minoan
I., Middle Minoan II., 149, 150-155; Middle Minoan III., 155-157; Late
Minoan I., 158; Late Minoan III., pottery of, in Palestine, 167; Middle
Minoan II., catastrophe at close of, 170; Early Minoan I., 190, 191;
Early Minoan II., 191, 192; Early Minoan III., 192-194; Middle Minoan
I., 194-197; Middle Minoan II., 197-200; Middle Minoan III., 200-203;
Late Minoan I., 203-205; Late Minoan II., 205-208; Late Minoan III.,
208-210; wide diffusion of products of, 209
Minoans: physical characteristics, 211-213; dress, 213-216; houses of,
216-218
Minos: legends of, 3-18; birth of, 7; association with Zeus, 8, 253;
Sea-King, 9; conquers Megara and Athens, 10; pursues Dædalus, 14; death
of, 15; and Zeus, 105, 136; laws of, 136
Minotaur, 3, 10, 49, 258; relation of legend to Minoan religion, 256
Minyas, Treasury of, 48
Mitanni, 185
Mokhlos: excavations at, 40; necropolis at, 133, 134, 143; gold ring from, 223
Mortars, 227
Mosso, 112, 120; drainage at Hagia Triada, 129; Minoan democracy, 230;
Minoan bath rooms, 252
Mother: the Great, at Rome, 111; Anatolian, 122; Minoan, 244-247
Mouliana, tombs at, 59
Murex, 133, 222
Murray, Professor: name of Minos, 8; worship of bull-god in Crete, 253
Mycenæ, 1, 5; in Homeric poems, 22; Lion Gate of, 42, 43; Treasuries of,
42, 43, 46-48; Shaft-Graves, 43-46
Mycenæan civilization, 5, 6; extent of, 50, 51; duration of, 51, 52;
inspiration of, 52-54; relation to Homeric civilization, 54-62; crafts
of, 56-58; disposal of dead, 58-60
Myres, Mr. J. L.: discovery of Kamares ware, 92, 197; figurines at Petsofa,
132
N
Naturalism, development of, 196, 201
Nausicaa, 24, 26
Naville, excavations at Deir-el-Bahri, 78
Necho, fleet of, circumnavigates Africa, 259
Neolithic Period at Knossos, 188-190
Nestor, 22; cup of, 56
Niffur, 1; drainage at, 141
Nimrûd, carved ivories at, 140
O
Odysseus, 22; palace of, 25; versatility of, 26; brooch of, 56; defeats
Irus, 103
Olive-oil, export of, 222
Olive Press, Room of the, 222
Olive Spout, Court of the, 88
Olive-tree, 227
Olympiad, First, 2, 52
Opening the mouth, Egyptian funerary ceremony, 128, 251
Orchomenos, 5; in Homeric poems 22, Treasury of Minyas, 48
P
Palace, Homeric, 25, 55
Palace, the Little, 111
Palaikastro, 124; Minoan town at, 132; deposit of purple shell at, 133;
houses at, 216, 217; Linear Script at, 236
Papyrus: Turin, 148; Kahun, 148; Golenischeff, 186
Pashley describes ruins at Knossos, 63
Pasiphae, wife of Minos, 10, 18, 252
Paul, St., Epistle to Titus, 8
Pausanias, on Tomb of Agamemnon, 37, 42, 43
Pelasgi, 161, 167
Pelethites=Philistines, 168
Peloponnese, 6
Pen, the, used in Minoan writing, 241
Penelope, 24
Pepy, statue of, 113
Percentages on Minoan tablets, 238
Perdix slain by Dædalus, 14
Periphetes slain by Hector, 61
Pernier, Dr., stele at Gortyna, 182; work at Phrestos, 118
Perrot, M., Minoan writing, 233
Petrie, Professor: discovers Ægean remains in Egypt, 51; plan of Egyptian
town, 97; Egyptian Sed Festival, 255; identification of Zakkaru, 166;
Egyptian chronology, 194, 199; Minoan pottery at Abydos, 142, 191;
sea-route between Crete and Egypt, 144, 145; Egyptian chronology, 148;
Kamares ware at Kahun, 150
Petsofa: figurines, 126, 132, 195, 213, 215; votive offerings at, 168
Phæstos, 5; in Homeric poems, 117; discovery of Palace, 118; Theatral Area,
118, 119; destruction of palace, 119; staircase, 120; Megaron, 120;
Central Court, 120; hieroglyphic disc, 121, 122; lords of, destroy
Knossos, 171; sack of, 175, 176; earliest buildings at, 197; first sack
of Knossos, 200; beehive tombs at, 229; Linear Script at, 236
Philistines: on reliefs at Medinet Habu, 121; invade Egypt, 165, 166, 186;
settle in Palestine, 166-169
Phnicians: relation to Minoan culture, 53; invention of alphabet, 64;
writing, 81, 243; purple dye of, 132, 133; not the Keftiu, 159
Phylakopi, 51; Linear Script at, 236
Pictographs: beginnings of, 194; decline of, 202, 204; development of, 234
Pillars, sacred, 70, 246
Piracy in Homeric poems, 22
Pithoi, 64, 69, 202, 206
Pits. See Dungeons
Plato, legend of Atlantis, 257-259
Pliny, Labyrinth of Hawara, 152
Plutarch, story of Theseus, 103
Polychrome ware, 104, 132, 172; beginnings of, 194, 195; development of,
197-199
Polycrates, sea-power of, 9
Polyphemus, 22
Porcelain plaques on chest, 97
Portico: southern, Knossos, 68; western, 66, 83, 84
Potter's wheel, introduction of, 193
Præsians, account of Greek settlement in Crete, 180
Præsos, 15
Priam, Palace of, 25, 39; Treasure of, 38, 39, 40, 41
Priestesses (Priests) in Minoan religion, 251
Procession, Corridor of the, Knossos, 67
Proclus, portraits of men of Atlantis in Egypt, 259
Procrustes slain by Theseus, 11
Psamtek I., 152, 169
Psychro, 136
Pulosathu = Philistines, _q.v._
Punt, Egyptian voyages to, 146
Purple, 133, 222
Q
Querns, Minoan, 227
R
Rahotep, statue of, 113
Ramesseum, 151
Ramses II., Treaty with Hittites, 162
Ramses III.: reliefs of, 121, 181; victory over sea-peoples, 164-166
Rekh-ma-ra, tomb of, 160-162, 207, 208, 214, 223, 259
Religion, Minoan: supreme goddess in, 244, 245; representations of goddess,
245-246; identification of, with Greek goddesses, 246, 247; Minoan god
identified with Zeus, 247; absence of temples, 248; family worship, 248;
shrines 249, 250; sacrifice and ritual, 250, 251; place of King in,
251-255
Rhea, 6, 7, 111, 122, 136; identified with Minoan goddess, 247
Rhiphæan Mountains, 3
Rhodes, Late Minoan III. work in, 209
_Rhyton_: from Hagia Triada, 103; bull's head, from Knossos, 113
Ripple ornament, 190
Road, Minoan at Knossos, 110
Rosetta Stone, 80, 162
S
Sack of Knossos, 86
Sacrifice in Minoan worship, 250, 252
Sagalassians=Shakalsha (?), 166
Sahura, King of Fifth Dynasty, 146
Sais, legend of Atlantis at, 257-259
Salamis, late Mycenæan graves at, 59
Samson, 167
Sarcophagus, the, Hagia Triada, 127-129, 213, 250, 251
Sardinia relics of Minoan civilization, 51
Sardinians, 212
Sat-Hathor, 155
Scæan Gate, 39
Schliemann, 1, 2, 5; youth of, 34-36; excavates ancient Troy, 38-41, 227;
Mycenæ, 42-48; discovers Shaft-Graves, 43-46; excavates Treasury of
Atreus, 46-48; excavates at Orchomenos, 48; at Tiryns, 48, 49; considers
excavations at Knossos, 64
Schnabelkanne, 39, 192
Script, Minoan, 64, 78-81; Linear, at Gournia, 131
Sculptor's workshop, 86, 87
Scylla betrays Megara, 10
Seager, excavations at Mokhlos, 40, 133, 134, 143
Seal-impressions at Zakro, 133
Seals: Minoan, 143; button, 143
Sea-power: of Minos, 9, 76; of Knossos, 76, 77
Seats, Minoan, 102
Sebek-user, statuette of, 82, 93, 155, 156, 203
'Sed' Festival in Egypt, 255
Sen-mut, tomb of, 160-162, 207, 208, 259
Senusert (Usertsen), II., III., 150; III., 199
Shakalsha invade Egypt, 165, 166
Shield. See Armour
Ships: Minoan, 112, 223; Egyptian, 144
Shoes, Minoan, 213, 214
Shrines: at Gournia, 130, 131, 250; at Knossos, 249, 250, 252
Sicilians, 212
Sicily, 10; relics of Minoan civilization in, 51, 184
Sickles, 226
Sikels=Shakalsha (?), 166
Sinnis slain by Theseus, 11
Sistrum on Harvester Vase, 125
Sitia, 214
Snake Goddess, 105-107, 245, 250; dress of votaress of, 215
Sneferu, King of Third Dynasty, 146
Socrates, 17
Solon, legend of Atlantis, 257-259
Spain, relics of Minoan civilization in, 51, 184, 210
Sparta in Homeric poems, 21
Spratt describes ruins at Knossos 63
Spiral, origin of, 48, 143, 144, 193, 194
Staircase: at Knossos, 85, 86; at Phæstos, 120
Steles of Shaft-Graves, 43
Stillman, 64
Stirrup vases: at Knossos, 81, 108; at Zafer Papoura, 134; tomb of Ramses
III., 163; at Gournia and Hagia Triada, 205, 210; prevalence of, in Late
Minoan III., 210
'Stoa Basilike,' 108
Suffixes in Minoan Script, 235
Swords: in Shaft-Graves, 44; iron, 60; bronze, at Zafer Papoura, 134, 135;
iron, in Late Minoan III., 178; bronze, in Late Minoan I., 204; from
Zafer Papoura, 206
T
Tablets, clay, of Knossos, 78-81, 110, 238 _et seq._
Tahuti, 69
Tahutmes III., 158, 161, 208
Tahutmes IV., 174
Talent, Babylonian, at Knossos and Hagia Triada, 141
Tarentum, Late Minoan work at 209
Telemachus, 22, 23
Tell-el-Amarna: tablets of, 79; capital of Akhenaten, 163; Minoan pottery
at, 185
Tell-es-Safi, Minoan pottery at, 140, 167
Temple repositories, 104-107, 172, 200
Temples: Egyptian, 25; absence of, in Minoan religion, 248
Terpander, invention of lyre, 128
Teumman, 225
Theatral Area: Knossos, 100-104; Phæstos, 101, 197
Thera, Linear Script at, 236
Theseus, 3, 9; adventures of, 11; vanquishes Minotaur, 12, 13; marries and
deserts Ariadne, 13; brings up ring of Minos, 13, 256
Throne, palace of Knossos, 72
Throne Room: decorations of, 72; _impluvium_ in, 72; date of, 206
Thucydides on sea-power of Minos, 9, 76, 256
Timæus, the, legend of Atlantis, 257-259
Tiryns, 1, 5; in Homeric poems, 22; wall of, 49; frieze, 49; fresco of
bull, 49
Tomb paintings, Egyptian, 74
Tools, carpenters' and smiths', at Gournia, 131, 221, 222
Torcello, Late Minoan work at, 209
Toreadors, 88-91; figurines of, 96
Trees, sacred, 245
Trickle ornament, 202, 203
Troy, I; siege of, 22; site of, 37; First City, 38; Second City, 39, 40,
140; Sixth City, 40, 41, 51
Tsountas, 50
Tyi, Queen, 185
U
Uashasha invade Egypt, 165, 166
V
Vaphio cups, 51, 109, 123, 161, 229
Vases: stone, at Knossos, 81, 86, 143; stirrup, 81, 108, 134; Kamares, 92;
stone, at Mokhlos, 134, 143; at Isopata, 136
Vases à Étrier=stirrup vases, _q.v._
Vasiliki, mottled ware of, 192
Venetian occupation, 63
Villa, Royal, at Knossos, 107-109, 246
Vine, 227
Virgil, 136
W
Water-lily cup, 198
Weaving, 227, 228
Wen-Amon, adventures of, 186, 187
Windows, 217
Women, position of, in Homeric poems, 24
Writing: beginnings of, in Ægean area, 80, 81; Phnician, 81; Minoan, 234-243
Z
Zafer Papoura, swords from, 206
Zakkaru invade Egypt, 165, 166, 186, 187
Zakro: lotus vase from, 204; seals at, 133, 205, 224; houses at, 216;
Minoan town at, 133; pottery at, 133; Zakkaru from, 166, 187; Linear Script
at, 236
Zakru pirates, 187
Zeus: birth of, marriage of, to Europa, death and burial of, 7, 8;
association with Minos, 8, 105, 136; Double Axe emblem, 70; of Labraunda,
70; fetish idol of, 111; associations with Dictæan Cave, 136, 247;
identified with Minoan god, 247
THE END
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS.
KEY TO NUMBERS
1. Northern Entrance and Portico.
2. Bastion and Guard-House.
3. Northern Piazza.
4. Room of the Flower Gatherer.
5. Room with Stirrup Vases, Walled Pit beneath.
6. Ante room to Throne Room.
7, 7. Throne Room with Tank.
8. Temple Repositories.
9, 9. East and West Pillar-Rooms.
10. Court of the Altar.
11. South Propylæum.
12. Corridor of the Cup Bearer.
13. Corridor of the Procession.
14. West Portico.
15. Long Gallery with Magazines on West Side.
16. North-West House with Bronze Vessels.
17. Northern Bath.
18. Deposit of Pictographic Tablets.
19. North-Eastern Magazines.
20. Corridor of the Draught-Board.
21. Room of the Olive Press.
22. Great Staircase.
23, 23. Hall of the Colonnades, with Light-Well.
24, 24, 24. Hall of the Double Axes, with Light-Well.
25, 25, 25, 25. Queen's Megaron, with Light-Wells.
26. Deposit of Ivory Figurines.
27, 27. Built Drains.
28. Court of the Sanctuary.
29. South-East House with Pillar-Room.
30. Court of the Oil-Spout.
31. Magazines with large Pithoi.
32. East Bastion.
33. Early Buildings, partly in continuous use.
34. Sculptor's Workshop (on upper floor).
A. Altar-Base in Central Court.
B. Shrine of the Snake Goddess.
C, D. Altar-Bases in West Court.
E. Shrine of Dove Goddess and Double Axes.
F. Altar-Base in Court of the Sanctuary.
G. Altar Base in Court of the Altar.
PLAN ACCOMPANYING 'THE SEA-KINGS OF CRETE' BY THE REV. JAMES BAIKIE,
F.R.A.S. (A. AND C. BLACK, LONDON.)]