DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15680#0281
THE SUCCESSIVE SETTLEMENTS AT PHYLAKOPT.
26J
neither in bhese houses nor in any others where floor-depositö could be
assigned to the same advanced period diel any fine polychrome Cretan wäre
occur.
The intimate character of the intercourse between Melos and Grete at
this period is amply vouchedfor by the occurrence in the earlier rioor-
deposits of the Second City of the polychrome Cretan wäre to which
reference has been made. This intercourse, however, is only an index of the
scale of Cretan trade-relations with the Aegean as a whole. It was not
different at this time with wider fields of enterprise across the Libyan >Sea as
far as the African coasts and Egypt. It is thus we have to aecount for the
polychrome wäre from Crete found in Egypt and assigned by Flinders
Petrie in yiew of all the evidence to about 2500 B.Ö. To this provisional
dato we have accordingly to refer the prime of the Second City, and
the earlier history of this settlement from the time of its foundation
as a fortified town to the period for which we have the earliest evidence
from floor-deposits must have taken up the greater part of the period
3000-2500 B.c.
3. The non-occurrence of Cretan polychrome wäre in the Hoor-deposits
of the last' era of the Second City, to which reference has already been
made, is in aecordance with other indications that the pillar-houses of
Phvlakopi represent an advanced 'stage in the architectural histoiy of the
Second City.
For comparative data we have to go once more to Crete. Several
examples of pillar-rooms like the Melian ones have been discovered at
Cnossos both in the eifcy and in the palace.1 In Fast Crete again houses
with pillar-rooms were excavated b}- Mr. Hogarth at Zakro in 1Ü01,2 and by
Mr. Bosanquet at Palaikastro in 1902.:i
All the Cnossian pillar-rooms belong in construetion to the first great
period of the palace : and the occurrence of such pillars on other Cretan
sites goes to show that by this time they had become a regulär fashion based
probably upon a long previous history. The cfimulative evidence from Crete
is sufticient Warrant for assigning the Melian pillar-houses to the same general
era and to the same Aegean style of architecturc. Other data are in aecord-
ance with this evidence. First of all the fresco with Aying fish which
apparently decorated the east pillar-room at Phylakopi is in a style so
Minoan that it can at once be regarded as belonging to one general period
with the grand fresco-design with fishes discovered at Cnossos in 1902.4 The
Melian fresco may indeed be the creation of a Cnossian artist working in
Melos, if the panel was not actually imported from Crete, as suggested
by Mr. Evans. To judge, however, from the occasional fragments of
coloured stueco found in stray deposit of this and the sueeeeding era, there
is sufficient evidence that, thanks to an inipulse originally derived from Crete,
decorative polychrome fresco-painting had already corae to be practised as a
1 See B.Ü.A. vi. PI. v., PI. vi. i, 3, 4, viii. - Jb. vü. 131.
PI. i. B. 13, and the Melian ones, ib. 5 and (i; 3 See ib. viii, 316, PI. XX, roQm ■>{).,
PI. xiii. G 4 -5 : ]>. 33, Fig. (i. 1 See ]>. To and B.S.A. viii. 58 9.
26J
neither in bhese houses nor in any others where floor-depositö could be
assigned to the same advanced period diel any fine polychrome Cretan wäre
occur.
The intimate character of the intercourse between Melos and Grete at
this period is amply vouchedfor by the occurrence in the earlier rioor-
deposits of the Second City of the polychrome Cretan wäre to which
reference has been made. This intercourse, however, is only an index of the
scale of Cretan trade-relations with the Aegean as a whole. It was not
different at this time with wider fields of enterprise across the Libyan >Sea as
far as the African coasts and Egypt. It is thus we have to aecount for the
polychrome wäre from Crete found in Egypt and assigned by Flinders
Petrie in yiew of all the evidence to about 2500 B.Ö. To this provisional
dato we have accordingly to refer the prime of the Second City, and
the earlier history of this settlement from the time of its foundation
as a fortified town to the period for which we have the earliest evidence
from floor-deposits must have taken up the greater part of the period
3000-2500 B.c.
3. The non-occurrence of Cretan polychrome wäre in the Hoor-deposits
of the last' era of the Second City, to which reference has already been
made, is in aecordance with other indications that the pillar-houses of
Phvlakopi represent an advanced 'stage in the architectural histoiy of the
Second City.
For comparative data we have to go once more to Crete. Several
examples of pillar-rooms like the Melian ones have been discovered at
Cnossos both in the eifcy and in the palace.1 In Fast Crete again houses
with pillar-rooms were excavated b}- Mr. Hogarth at Zakro in 1Ü01,2 and by
Mr. Bosanquet at Palaikastro in 1902.:i
All the Cnossian pillar-rooms belong in construetion to the first great
period of the palace : and the occurrence of such pillars on other Cretan
sites goes to show that by this time they had become a regulär fashion based
probably upon a long previous history. The cfimulative evidence from Crete
is sufticient Warrant for assigning the Melian pillar-houses to the same general
era and to the same Aegean style of architecturc. Other data are in aecord-
ance with this evidence. First of all the fresco with Aying fish which
apparently decorated the east pillar-room at Phylakopi is in a style so
Minoan that it can at once be regarded as belonging to one general period
with the grand fresco-design with fishes discovered at Cnossos in 1902.4 The
Melian fresco may indeed be the creation of a Cnossian artist working in
Melos, if the panel was not actually imported from Crete, as suggested
by Mr. Evans. To judge, however, from the occasional fragments of
coloured stueco found in stray deposit of this and the sueeeeding era, there
is sufficient evidence that, thanks to an inipulse originally derived from Crete,
decorative polychrome fresco-painting had already corae to be practised as a
1 See B.Ü.A. vi. PI. v., PI. vi. i, 3, 4, viii. - Jb. vü. 131.
PI. i. B. 13, and the Melian ones, ib. 5 and (i; 3 See ib. viii, 316, PI. XX, roQm ■>{).,
PI. xiii. G 4 -5 : ]>. 33, Fig. (i. 1 See ]>. To and B.S.A. viii. 58 9.