The Minoans - George Glasgow

Chapter 2: The Sea-Faring People of Crete

The primitive Ægean people played a great part in the activities of the Near East. They existed for several thousand years, and there are traces of their activity on every shore of the Eastern Mediterranean. Crete, as Homer says, was the land “in the midst of the wine-dark ocean, fair and rich, with the waters all around” (“Odyssey,” xix. 172). It was the natural centre towards which the mainlands of Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt converged, especially as its irregular coast afforded good harbours for the small ships of that time.

The first settlement of man in Crete took place at Knossos, in the later or “Neolithic” Stone Age. This fact is established by the nature of the relics found at the lowest level in the excavations, the level which represents the earliest period in time. Phæstos, on the south side of the island, received its first inhabitants at a later date, as is made clear by the pottery that has been discovered there. This is a typical instance of the value of pottery as archæological evidence. The earliest ware found at Knossos is unornamented; the next is improved by “incised lines”—that is, lines cut in the clay with a pointed instrument and often filled in, for greater effect, with a white substance. At Phæstos, on the other hand, the pottery found lowest down is already in this second stage in its artistic evolution, the inference being that the men who settled there took the art with them at the point to which it had been developed by the Knossians.

After the “Stone” Age came the “Bronze” Age. Men realized that not stone, but a mixture of copper and tin, provided the best material for instruments. A picturesque touch is added to this discovery by an Italian archæologist, Angelo Mosso, who in The Dawn of Civilization gives reason for believing that, even at so remote a period, the tin was brought to Crete from Cornwall. He goes so far as to point out the actual caravan route by which the tin was transported. It was during this Bronze Age, which lasted about 2,000 years, that Cretan civilization reached its highest level. Sir Arthur Evans has given to it the picturesque name “Minoan,” and has divided it into three stages—Early, Middle, Late—each with three subdivisions. Early Minoan I (E.M.I) begins about 2800 B.C., Late Minoan III (L.M. III) ends about 1100 B.C. (See The Discoveries in Crete, by Dr. Ronald M. Burrows, p. 98.) These nine periods are a happy play upon “the nine seasons” during which Homer speaks of King Minos as reigning in Knossos: “And in Crete is Knossos, a great city, and in it Minos ruled for nine seasons, the bosom friend of mighty Zeus.” (“Odyssey,” xix. 179). The term “Minoan” should be carefully distinguished from “Mycenæan.” After Schliemann’s discoveries at Mycenæ and Tiryns, the term “Mycenæan” was used in a general sense, to cover the whole prehistoric Ægean civilization; but now that Crete has put Mycenæ into its right perspective, the term “Minoan” is used to indicate the earlier and greater phase, while “Mycenæan” merely covers the latest phase; the whole being designated “Ægean.” There is, to complete the nomenclature, a further epithet, “Cycladic,” which is sometimes substituted for “Minoan” when one speaks exclusively of the island sites outside of Crete.

With the fall of Knossos, which took place shortly before 1400 B.C.—I adopt Dr. Burrows’s dating—the centre of influence in the Ægean passed over from Crete to the mainland of Greece, and the true “Mycenæan” period started. Thereafter followed the Dark Ages, which themselves immediately preceded “historical” Greece. Recorded Greek history begins about 800 B.C.

Chapter 3: Minos and the Minotaur

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.