re-used. The coffins are of small size, contain corpses with the knees drawn up to the chin and are found in excavated chambers or pits. In the later period a peculiar “bee-hive” tomb became common, sometimes wholly or partly excavated, sometimes (as in the magnificent Mycenaean “Treasuries”) constructed dome-wise. The shaft-graves in the Mycenae circle are also a late type, paralleled in the later Cnossian cemetery. The latest type of tomb is a flatly vaulted chamber approached by a horizontal or slightly inclined way, whose sides converge above. At no period do the Aegean dead seem to have been burned. Weapons, food, water, unguents and various trinkets were laid with the corpse at all periods. In the Mycenae circle an altar seems to have been erected over the graves, and perhaps slaves were killed to bear the dead chiefs company. A painted sarcophagus, found at Hagia Triada, also possibly shows a hero-cult of the dead.
(6) Artistic Production.—Ceramic art reached a specially high standard in fabric, form and decoration by the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C. in Crete. The products of that period compare favourably with any potters’ work in the world. The same may be said of fresco-painting, and probably of metal work. Modelling in terra-cotta, sculpture in stone and ivory, engraving on gems, were following it closely by the beginning of the 2nd millennium. After 2000 B.C. all these arts revived, and sculpture, as evidenced by relief work, both on a large and on a small scale, carved stone vessels, metallurgy in gold, silver and bronze, advanced farther. This art and those of fresco- and vase-painting and of gem-engraving stood higher about the 15th century B.C. than at any subsequent period before the 6th century. The manufacture, modelling and painting of faience objects, and the making of inlays in many materials were also familiar to Aegean craftsmen, who show in all their best work a strong sense of natural form and an appreciation of ideal balance and decorative effect, such as are seen in the best products of later Hellenic art. Architectural ornament was also highly developed. The richness of the Aegean capitals and columns may be judged by those from the “Treasury of Atreus” now set up in the British Museum; and of the friezes we have examples in Mycenaean and Cnossian fragments, and Cnossian paintings. The magnificent gold work of the later period, preserved to us at Mycenae and Vaphio, needs only to be mentioned. It should be compared with stone work in Crete, especially the steatite vases with reliefs found at Hagia Triada. On the whole, Aegean art, at its two great periods, in the middle of the 3rd and 2nd millennia respectively, will bear comparison with any contemporary arts.
IV. Origin, Nature and History of Aegean Civilization.—The evidence, summarized above, though very various and voluminous, is not yet sufficient to answer all the questions which may be asked as to the origin, nature and history of this civilization, or to answer any but a few questions with absolute certainty. We shall try to indicate the extent to which it can legitimately be applied.
A. Distinctive Features.—The fact that Aegean civilization is distinguished from all others, prior or contemporary, not only by its geographical area, but by leading organic characteristics, has never been in doubt, since its remains came to be studied seriously and impartially. The truth was indeed obscured for a time by persistent prejudices in favour of certain alien Mediterranean races long known to have been in relation with the Aegean area in prehistoric times, e.g. the Egyptians and especially the Phoenicians. But their claims to be the principal authors of the Aegean remains grew fainter with every fresh Aegean discovery, and every new light thrown on their own proper products; with the Cretan revelations they ceased altogether to be considered except by a few Homeric enthusiasts. Briefly, we now know that the Aegean civilization developed these distinctive features. (1) An indigenous script expressed in characters of which only a very small percentage are identical, or even obviously connected, with those of any other script. This is equally true both of the pictographic and the linear Aegean systems. Its nearest affinities are with the “Asianic” scripts, preserved to us by Hittite, Cypriote and south-west Anatolian (Pamphylian, Lycian and Carian) inscriptions. But neither are these affinities close enough to be of any practical aid in deciphering Aegean characters, nor is it by any means certain that there is parentage. The Aegean script may be, and probably is, prior in origin to the “Asianic”; and it may equally well be owed to a remote common ancestor, or (the small number of common characters being considered) be an entirely independent evolution from representations of natural objects (see Crete). (2) An Art, whose products cannot be confounded with those of any other known art by a trained eye. Its obligations to other contemporary arts are many and obvious, especially in its later stages; but every borrowed form and motive undergoes an essential modification at the hands of the Aegean craftsman, and the product is stamped with a new character. The secret of this character lies evidently in a constant attempt to express an ideal in forms more and more closely approaching to realities. We detect the dawn of that spirit which afterwards animated Hellenic art. The fresco-paintings, ceramic motives, reliefs, free sculpture and toreutic handiwork of Crete have supplied the clearest proof of it, confirming the impression already created by the goldsmiths’ and painters’ work of the Greek mainland (Mycenae, Vaphio, Tiryns). (3) Architectural plans and decoration. The arrangement of Aegean palaces is of two main types. First (and perhaps earliest in time), the chambers are grouped round a central court, being engaged one with the other in a labyrinthine complexity, and the greater oblongs are entered from a long side and divided longitudinally by pillars. Second, the main chamber is of what is known as the megaron type, i.e. it stands free, isolated from the rest of the plan by corridors, is entered from a vestibule on a short side, and has a central hearth, surrounded by pillars and perhaps hypaethral; there is no central court, and other apartments form distinct blocks. For possible geographical reasons for this duality of type see Crete. In spite of many comparisons made with Egyptian, Babylonian and “Hittite” plans, both these arrangements remain incongruous with any remains of prior or contemporary structures elsewhere. Whether either plan suits the “Homeric palace” does not affect the present question. (4) A type of tomb, the dome or “bee-hive,” of which the grandest examples known are at Mycenae. The Cretan “larnax” coffins, also, have no parallels outside the Aegean. There are other infinite singularities of detail; but the above are more than sufficient to establish the point.
B. Origin and Continuity.—With the immense expansion of the evidence, due to the Cretan excavations, a question has arisen how far the Aegean civilization, whose total duration covers at least three thousand years, can be regarded as one and continuous. Thanks to the exploration of Cnossus, we now know that Aegean civilization had its roots in a primitive Neolithic period, of uncertain but very long duration, represented by a stratum which (on that site in particular) is in places nearly 20 ft. thick, and contains stone implements and sherds of handmade and hand-polished vessels, showing a progressive development in technique from bottom to top. This Cnossian stratum seems to be throughout earlier than the lowest layer at Hissarlik. It closes with the introduction of incised, white-filled decoration on pottery, whose motives are presently found reproduced in monochrome pigment. We are now in the beginning of the Bronze Age, and the first of Evans’s “Minoan” periods (see Crete). Thereafter, by exact observation of stratification, eight more periods have been distinguished by the explorer of Cnossus, each marked by some important development in the universal and necessary products of the potter’s art, the least destructible and therefore most generally used archaeological criterion. These periods fill the whole Bronze Age, with whose close, by the introduction of the superior metal, iron, the Aegean Age is conventionally held to end. Iron came into general Aegean use about 1000 B.C., and possibly was the means by which a body of northern invaders established their power on the ruins of the earlier dominion. The important point is this, that throughout the nine Cnossian periods, following the Neolithic Age (named by Evans, “Minoan I. 1, 2, 3; II. 1, 2, 3; III. 1,
