Cretan Cup of Degenerate Style.
And what came of it all? Somewhere, it would seem, about 1400 B.C. Cnossos underwent its final catastrophe. The palace was sacked and burnt, the ateliers of its brilliant artists were destroyed, and the artists themselves slain or scattered. So the centre of illumination was darkened for the whole Ægean world. Elsewhere Ægean civilisation continued perhaps for two centuries more, and in Cnossos itself there is yet another period when the palace sites were partially reoccupied by a few stragglers of the old artistic race. But with the fall of his patron the inspiration of the craftsman vanishes, degeneration rapidly sets in. Even in the designs of the vases the bold, naturalistic drawing deteriorates into lazy formulæ, the brilliance of the glaze grows dull, the colours are flat and muddy. A good deal of Mycenæan art is of this decadent type, and a good deal more of it has been found in the neighbouring sites of Crete.
Among the relics of this period are objects which betray the cause of the downfall—weapons of iron. The Bronze Ages are passing away before the superior metal, as the Stone Ages had yielded to the Bronze.
The Makers of Ægean Art
It now becomes our duty to sum up this wonderful world of archæology and to consider its bearings on the history and art of later Greece. Unfortunately many problems arise at this point for which at present the archæologists cannot agree to offer a solution. Who were these Ægean folk? Were they of Indo-European stock and language? We have already agreed, I think, that they represent a primitive stratum of population which originally spread all over the south of Europe and the basin of the Mediterranean. The Cupbearer may indicate their physique, black curly hair, straight nose, long skull; and I, for one, decline to believe that this fine fellow is a Semite or Phœnician, as has been suggested. We know that these people were extraordinarily gifted, especially in the sense of form, and that they were capable of very rapid development. May we not believe that one and the same stock has lain at the base of the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean from prehistoric times until to-day, much as it has been crossed and conquered and oppressed? And was their language Greek? That is a question that we cannot answer for certain, since no one has yet been able to interpret their handwriting. I see no reason to dispute Professor Ridgeway’s argument that as the stock prevailed through several waves of conquest from the north, so the language survived without material change, just as Italian prevailed through the Lombard conquest of North Italy. Of course nationalities were more mixed in Crete and Cyprus than on the mainland of Greece. It can but be an opinion delivered in the consciousness of many counteracting arguments, but I believe that the people whose culture we have been describing were essentially the same as we know in historic times, and of course Indo-Europeans.
From the historian’s point of view it is important to observe that civilisation in Europe began, as in Asia, under the fostering care of autocracy in palace workshops. It was bound
Plate 9.—Vaphio Cups.