a small palace. Among the more interesting relics found were ivory
figures of Egyptian or strongly Egyptianizing fabric. On an adjacent
hill were the remains of what seems to have been in later times
a temple of the Dictaean Zeus, and from the occurrence of rich
deposits of Minoan vases and sacrificial remains at a lower level, the
religious tradition represented by the later temple seems to go back
to prehistoric times. On the neighbouring height of Petsofà, by a
rock-shelter, remains of another interesting shrine were brought to
light dating from the Middle Minoan period, and containing interesting
votive offerings of terra-cotta, many of them apparently relating
to cures or to the warding off of diseases (R. C. Bosanquet, British
School Annual, viii. 286 sqq., ix. 274 sqq.; R. M. Dawkins, ibid.
ix. 290 sqq., x.; J. L. Myres, ibid. ix. 356 sqq.).
Gournia.—Near this hamlet on the coast of the Gulf of Mirabello in east Crete, the American archaeologist Miss Harriet Boyd has excavated a great part of another Minoan town. It covers the sides of a long hill, its main avenue being a winding roadway leading to a small palace. It contained a shrine of the Cretan snake goddess, and was rich in minor relics, chiefly in the shape of bronze implements and pottery for household use. The bulk of the remains belong here, as at Hagia Triada, to the beginning of the Late Minoan period, but there are signs of reoccupation in the decadent Minoan age. The remains supply detailed information as to the everyday life of a Cretan country town about the middle of the second millennium B.C. (H. Boyd, Excavations at Gournia).
Zakro.—Near the lower hamlet of that name on the S.E. coast important remains of a settlement contemporary with that of Gournia were explored by D. G. Hogarth, consisting of houses and pits containing painted pottery of exceptional beauty and a great variety of seal impressions. The deep bay in which Zakro lies is a well-known port of call for the fishing fleets on their way to the sponge grounds of the Libyan coast, and doubtless stood in the same stead to the Minoan shipping (D. G. Hogarth, Annual of the British School, vii. 121 sqq., and Journ. of Hellenic Studies, xxii. 76 sqq. and 333 sqq.).
Dictaean Cave.—Near the village of Psychro on the Lassithi range, answering to the western Dicte, opens a large cave, identified with the legendary birthplace of the Cretan Zeus. This cavern also shared with that of Ida the claim to have been that in which Minos, Moses-like, received the law from Zeus. The exploration begun by the Italian Mission under Halbherr and continued by Evans, who found here the inscribed libation table (see above), was completed by Hogarth in 1900. Besides the great entrance hall of the cavern, which served as the upper shrine, were descending vaults forming a lower sanctuary going down deep into the bowels of the earth. Great quantities of votive figures and objects of cult, such as the fetish double axes and stone tables of offering, were found both above and below. In the lower sanctuary the natural pillars of stalagmite had been used as objects of worship, and bronze votive objects thrust into their crevices (Halbherr, Museo di antichità classica, ii. pp. 906-910; Evans, Further Discoveries, &c., p. 350 sqq., Myc. Tree and Pillar Cult, p. 14 sqq.; Hogarth, “The Dictaean Cave,” Annual of British School at Athens, vi. 94 sqq.).
Pseira and Mochlos.—On these two islets on the northern coast of E. Crete, R. Seager, an American explorer, has found striking remains of flourishing Minoan settlements. The contents of a series of tombs at Mochlos throw an entirely new light on the civilization of the Early Minoan age.
The above summary gives, indeed, a very imperfect idea of the extent to which the remains of the great Minoan civilization are spread throughout the island. The “hundred cities” ascribed to Crete by Homer are in a fair way of becoming an ascertained reality. The great days Third Late Minoan period. of Crete lie thus beyond the historic period. The period of decline referred to above (Late Minoan III.), which begins about the beginning of the 14th century before our era, must, from the abundance of its remains, have been of considerable duration. As to the character of the invading elements that hastened its close, and the date of their incursions, contemporary Egyptian monuments afford the best clue. The Keftiu who represented Minoan culture in Egypt in the concluding period of the Cnossian palace (Late Minoan II.) cease to appear on Egyptian monuments towards the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty (c. 1350 B.C.), and their place is taken by the “Peoples of the Sea.” The Achaeans, under the name Akaiusha, already appear among the piratical invaders of Egypt in the time of Rameses III. (c. 1200 B.C.) of the XXth Dynasty (see H. R. Hall, “Keftiu and the Peoples of the Sea,” Annual of British School at Athens, viii. 157 sqq.).
About the same time the evidences of imports of
Late Minoan or “Mycenaean” fabrics in Egypt
definitely cease. In the Odyssey we already find the
Achaeans together with Dorians settled in central
Crete. In the extreme east and west of the island the aboriginal
Greek settlements
in Crete.
“Eteocretan” element, however, as represented respectively
by the Praesians or Cydonians, still held its own, and inscriptions
written in Greek characters show that the old language survived
to the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era.
The mainland invasions which produced these great ethnic changes in Crete are marked archaeologically by signs of widespread destruction and by a considerable break in the continuity of the insular civilization. New burial customs, notably the rite of cremation in place of the The dark ages. older corpse-burial, are introduced, and in many cases the earlier tombs were pillaged and re-used by new comers. The use of iron for arms and implements now finally triumphed over bronze. Northern forms of swords and safety-pins are now found in general use. A new geometrical style of decoration like that of contemporary Greece largely supplants the Minoan models. The civic foundations which belong to this period, and which include the greater part of the massive ruins of Goulas and Anavlachos in the province of Mirabello and of Hyrtakina in the west, affect more or less precipitous sites and show a greater tendency to fortification. The old system of writing now dies out, and it is not till some three centuries later that the new alphabetic forms are introduced from a Semitic source. The whole course of the older Cretan civilization is awhile interrupted, and is separated from the new by the true dark ages of Greece.
It is nevertheless certain that some of the old traditions were preserved by the remnants of the old population now reduced to a subject condition, and that these finally leavened the whole lump, so that once more—this time under a Hellenic guise—Crete was enabled to anticipate mainland Greece in nascent civilization. Already in 1883 A. Milchhöfer (Anfänge der Kunst) had called attention to certain remarkable examples of archaic Greek bronze-work, and the subsequent discovery of the votive bronzes in the cave of Zeus on Mount Ida, and notably the shields with their fine embossed designs, shows that by the 8th century B.C. Cretan technique in metal not only held its own beside imported Cypro-Phoenician work, but was distinctly ahead of that of the rest of Greece (Halbherr, Bronzi del antro di Zeus Ideo). The recent excavations by the British School on the site of the Dictaean temple at Palaikastro bear out this conclusion, and an archaic marble head of Apollo found at Eleutherna shows that classical tradition was not at fault in recording the existence of a very early school of Greek sculpture in the island, illustrated by the names of Dipoenos and Scyllis.
The Dorian dynasts in Crete seem in some sort to have claimed descent from Minos, and the Dorian legislators sought their sanction in the laws which Minos was said to have received from the hands of the Cretan Zeus. The great monument of Gortyna discovered by Halbherr and Fabricius (Monumenti antichi, iii.) is the most important monument of early law hitherto brought to light in any part of the Greek world.
Among other Greek remains in the island may be mentioned, besides the great inscription, the archaic temple of the Pythian Apollo at Gortyna, a plain square building with a pronaos added in later times, excavated by Halbherr, 1885 and 1887 (Mon. Ant. iii. 2 seqq.), the Hellenic Greek remains. bridge and the vast rock-cut reservoirs of Eleutherna, the city walls of Itanos, Aptera and Polyrrhenia, and at Phalasarna, the rock-cut throne of a divinity, the port, and the remains of a temple. The most interesting record, however, that has been preserved of later Hellenic civilization in the island is the coinage of the Cretan cities (J. N. Svoronos, Numismatique de la Crete ancienne; W. Wroth, B. M. Coin Catalogue, Crete, &c.; P. Gardner, The Types of Greek Coins), which during the good period display a peculiarly picturesque artistic style distinct from that of the rest of the Greek world, and sometimes indicative of a revival of Minoan types. But in every case these artistic efforts were followed at short intervals by gross relapses into barbarism which reflect the anarchy of the political conditions.
Under the Pax Romana, the Cretan cities again enjoyed a large measure of prosperity, illustrated by numerous edifices still existing at the time of the Venetian occupation. A good
