But the biggest find of all are the stones and clay tablets and seals with their hieroglyphic and script writing. For years Sir Arthur Evans has puzzled over them, tried to solve the mystery of this strange writing. The finest scholars of the world have racked their brains for the clue to the mystery writing. There is the writing, but we cannot read it. The key is lost.
Still the search for it goes on, and some day Sir Arthur Evans will surely achieve his crowning triumph and solve the riddle of the pictographs and script of Crete. What we may learn then about the origins of our own civilization, nobody can foretell. The inscribed stones and clay tablets of Crete have yet to yield up their secret.
For years Sir Arthur Evans has laboured in Crete, finding the money to move mountains of soil so that light may be thrown on the past. Discoveries of the highest importance have followed his excavations, for he has proved with pick and spade that here in this little island flourished a civilization almost undreamed of till the present century, a civilization maybe as old as that of Egypt and Mesopotamia, a civilization that flourished at least five thousand years ago, that endured for ages before the Phœnicians launched their galleys on the Mediterranean.
Perhaps in the years to come the researches of those who are working in the desert places will make the origin of these early civilizations clearer, and we may be able to assign to each its proper place in the Story of Mankind.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.