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.
Chapter 4: Knossos
“And in Crete is Knossos, a great city, and in it Minos ruled for nine seasons, the bosom friend of mighty Zeus” (Homer, “Odyssey,” xix. 178-179). Those “nine seasons” were long periods of varied activity. Ancient Crete was the home of an artistic, commercial and imperial people—there was a Minoan Empire—and Knossos, the capital of Crete, held the palace of Minos.
The Palace at Knossos was built on the slope of a low hill—the hill now known as “tou tselebe he kephala” or the Gentleman’s Head—which overlooks a secluded valley, three and a half miles from the north coast of the island. It thus escaped the roving eye of passing pirates, and at the same time commanded a view, from a neighbouring hill, of the Minoan ships which lay beached in the harbour. That fleet was practically its only defence. Knossos had no wall of fortification. Like pre-war London she depended on her island security and on her command of the seas. She was not exposed, as were the mainland cities of Mycenæ and Tiryns, and as modern Paris, to the danger of invasion by land. The lack of fortification was one of the first points that struck the excavator. In his report of the first season’s work (1900), Sir Arthur Evans says: “The extent and character of the outer walls are not yet apparent, but it is clear that while the compact castles of the Argolid were built for defence, this Cretan palace with its spacious courts and broad corridors was designed mainly with an eye to comfort and luxury” (Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xx, p. 168).