DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15680#0292
272
THE SUCCESSIVE SETTLEMENTS AT PHYLAKOPI.
All the evidence then encourages us to conceive the Minoan Sea-power
as a sorfc of Aegean League, that in the earlier phases of its history may have
grown by successive acts of forced absorption into the sphere of influence of
the League, but was ultimately established, as was iuevitable in the case of
island societies, through the sanction of voluntary incorporation, on friendly
lines of mütual advantage based on internal autonomy. Of this Aegean
League the finds now indicate that Melos must have been one of the most
important members outside of Crete.
We have also seen that the Aegean civilization, after a long course of
development, reached its prime in Crete in the great days of the palaces at
Cnossos and at Phaestos, and in Melos in the period of the late Second
and early and middle Third Cities at Phylakopi. Thus, if we can take
Melos as typical of the probable course of development in other islands, the
trend of that civilization was towards one great period of prosperity which in
greater or less degree was a uniform phcnomenon all over the Aegean region.
But the tendency towards decadence rcsted lipon inner causes which equally
had thcir operative effect upon the civilization as a whole. Besides these,
however, as we have seen reason to conjecture, there werc external causes
contributory to the general process of decline which are not to be sought in
any one part of the Aegean itself at all, but on the mainland of Greece.
The final catastrophe when it came was one which submergcd the Minoan
civilization of Crete equally with that of Melos, and the final dissolution ol
the Aegean League and of the hegemony of Minoan Crete was one event
wibh the break-up of the Aegean civilization as a whole.
DüNGAN MACKENZIE.
THE SUCCESSIVE SETTLEMENTS AT PHYLAKOPI.
All the evidence then encourages us to conceive the Minoan Sea-power
as a sorfc of Aegean League, that in the earlier phases of its history may have
grown by successive acts of forced absorption into the sphere of influence of
the League, but was ultimately established, as was iuevitable in the case of
island societies, through the sanction of voluntary incorporation, on friendly
lines of mütual advantage based on internal autonomy. Of this Aegean
League the finds now indicate that Melos must have been one of the most
important members outside of Crete.
We have also seen that the Aegean civilization, after a long course of
development, reached its prime in Crete in the great days of the palaces at
Cnossos and at Phaestos, and in Melos in the period of the late Second
and early and middle Third Cities at Phylakopi. Thus, if we can take
Melos as typical of the probable course of development in other islands, the
trend of that civilization was towards one great period of prosperity which in
greater or less degree was a uniform phcnomenon all over the Aegean region.
But the tendency towards decadence rcsted lipon inner causes which equally
had thcir operative effect upon the civilization as a whole. Besides these,
however, as we have seen reason to conjecture, there werc external causes
contributory to the general process of decline which are not to be sought in
any one part of the Aegean itself at all, but on the mainland of Greece.
The final catastrophe when it came was one which submergcd the Minoan
civilization of Crete equally with that of Melos, and the final dissolution ol
the Aegean League and of the hegemony of Minoan Crete was one event
wibh the break-up of the Aegean civilization as a whole.
DüNGAN MACKENZIE.