Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/88

50 General History of Europe soon learned to make bronze, and thus the Bronze Age began in Crete. While the great pyramids of Egypt were being built the Cretan craftsmen were learning from their Egyptian neighbors the use of the potter's wheel, the closed oven for baking pottery, The earlier vases from Egypt (on the left) compared with those of Crete (on the right) show that the Cretan craftsmen copied the Egyptian forms in the latter part of the Pyramid Age (about 2700-2600 B.C.) and many other important things. A system of writing was in- vented, but scholars have not yet learned how to read the Cretan inscriptions. By 2000 B.C. the Cretans had become a highly civilized people. Cnossus (see map, p. 50) became the capital of their kingdom, which may have included a large part of the island. They rapidly learned the art of navigation from the Egyptians. Their ships, the earliest sailed by Europeans, were so numerous that their rulers are often called the "sea kings of Crete." Ruins of their earliest palace are still standing at Cnossus.