DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.812#0004
PREFACE
By SIR ARTHUR EVANS
It has been fairly claimed for it that The Palace of Minos, in addition to its local
aspects regarding the excavations at Knossos, is in a certain degree an Encyclopaedia
of the whole range of Minoan culture so far brought within our knowledge.
But such an extensive publication itself entailed a lapse of time during which—as
the result of active researches in many directions—new facts were continually accumu-
lating. One inevitable consequence of such conditions has been that full information
regarding various subjects has to be sought through successive volumes, making
reference to collective results a difficult matter. It is clear therefore that for the
present work a general Index was a real condition of completeness. On the other
hand, when account is taken of this vastness and complexity of the material—much
of it here for the first time set forth, extending through four large volumes, two with
separate parts, and amounting to over 3,000 pages—the arduousness of the work
required for indexing the whole can be well understood.
This hard task was nevertheless undertaken by my sister, Dr. Joan Evans, the whole
being carried out by her with competent method to an advanced stage. But, though
the numerous questions that thus arose were constantly referred to myself, it became
more and more evident that the ordered presentment of certain subjects, such as
could only be supplied by long years of research and of personal experience on the
spot, must fall on my own shoulders more directly than I had at first contemplated.
It was clear indeed that certain important subjects involving elaborate analysis
and classification, with the approximate chronological succession, must be dealt with
by myself in considerable detail. Moreover, in taking over thus a series of headings
it was necessary to a great extent to set aside the received canons of index-making,
where the alphabetic order is fatal to connected statement.
Among the subjects (marked 'A.E.') thus treated, as being of special importance as
bases of archaeological study, are 'frescoes' and 'painted reliefs', the Minoan 'Genii'
and Religion, 'Knossos', the 'pottery', 'seal-stones and signet-rings'—both these
latter covering a space of some two thousand years—and to these must be added the
Minoan 'Script' in its successive stages. In each case a kind of catalogue raisonne has
been prepared of the illustrative examples scattered through the whole work.
' Religion' required a detailed analysis of the exceptionally interesting stage presented
by that of the Minoan World, and in which the primitive baetylic cult of trees and
natural stones as well as of artificial pillars is combined with artistic representations
of the divinities themselves. Supplementary to this, under the heading 'Genii',
references are given to the collective evidences of the rise (initially under Egyptian
suggestion) of a peculiar class of Minoan daemons acting as beneficent divine agents.
As the logical and often minutely descriptive arrangement here adopted under
important headings is accompanied in each case with full references to the pages of
By SIR ARTHUR EVANS
It has been fairly claimed for it that The Palace of Minos, in addition to its local
aspects regarding the excavations at Knossos, is in a certain degree an Encyclopaedia
of the whole range of Minoan culture so far brought within our knowledge.
But such an extensive publication itself entailed a lapse of time during which—as
the result of active researches in many directions—new facts were continually accumu-
lating. One inevitable consequence of such conditions has been that full information
regarding various subjects has to be sought through successive volumes, making
reference to collective results a difficult matter. It is clear therefore that for the
present work a general Index was a real condition of completeness. On the other
hand, when account is taken of this vastness and complexity of the material—much
of it here for the first time set forth, extending through four large volumes, two with
separate parts, and amounting to over 3,000 pages—the arduousness of the work
required for indexing the whole can be well understood.
This hard task was nevertheless undertaken by my sister, Dr. Joan Evans, the whole
being carried out by her with competent method to an advanced stage. But, though
the numerous questions that thus arose were constantly referred to myself, it became
more and more evident that the ordered presentment of certain subjects, such as
could only be supplied by long years of research and of personal experience on the
spot, must fall on my own shoulders more directly than I had at first contemplated.
It was clear indeed that certain important subjects involving elaborate analysis
and classification, with the approximate chronological succession, must be dealt with
by myself in considerable detail. Moreover, in taking over thus a series of headings
it was necessary to a great extent to set aside the received canons of index-making,
where the alphabetic order is fatal to connected statement.
Among the subjects (marked 'A.E.') thus treated, as being of special importance as
bases of archaeological study, are 'frescoes' and 'painted reliefs', the Minoan 'Genii'
and Religion, 'Knossos', the 'pottery', 'seal-stones and signet-rings'—both these
latter covering a space of some two thousand years—and to these must be added the
Minoan 'Script' in its successive stages. In each case a kind of catalogue raisonne has
been prepared of the illustrative examples scattered through the whole work.
' Religion' required a detailed analysis of the exceptionally interesting stage presented
by that of the Minoan World, and in which the primitive baetylic cult of trees and
natural stones as well as of artificial pillars is combined with artistic representations
of the divinities themselves. Supplementary to this, under the heading 'Genii',
references are given to the collective evidences of the rise (initially under Egyptian
suggestion) of a peculiar class of Minoan daemons acting as beneficent divine agents.
As the logical and often minutely descriptive arrangement here adopted under
important headings is accompanied in each case with full references to the pages of