DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0178
152 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS
then in their days of decay have founded a new city in
the interior of Crete. The evidence from Knossos and
Phaestos is rather that they maintained their old centres,
though on a humbler scale.1
If, then, the Eteo-Cretans are not identical with the
Minoans, what is the relation between the two ? It
may perhaps be argued that they represent a native
population that reasserted itself after the fall of the
Minoans. The Minoan settlements in Eastern Crete
were close to the coast, at Gournia, Palaikastro, Zakro,
and this may be taken as pointing to the fact that the
original inhabitants were driven into the interior, as
the Greeks and Phoenicians in Sicily drove into the
highlands the Sicans and the Sicels. We should, on
this view, however, expect to find at Prsesos traces of
continuous occupation, whether or no it presented
different features from the neighbouring Minoan civilisa-
tion. For such occupation there is no archaeological
evidence. Except for a Neolithic Cave burial,8 there is
practically nothing, even in the Tholos tombs, that is
certainly earlier than the Geometric Age.3 Considering
the mass of pre-Hellenic remains on most Cretan sites,
their absence here is significant. If the Eteo-Cretans were
the natives of Crete, we must imagine that the centre at
which they gathered, when the Minoan domination was
over, was a spot that had never been previously occupied
either by themselves or their masters. It is more probable
that Praesos was founded by a new intrusive people, with
no special aptitude for the sea, who established themselves
in the interior of Eastern Crete in Late Minoan III.,
before the coming of the Greeks. If Professor Conway
* See pp. 49, 89, 100.
- Bosanquet in B.S.A. viii. p. 235.
3 A few Kamares fragments in the above Skalais cave (ibid.
p. 235). See pp. 234, 238, 242, 245, 248, 252. A gem, fig. 25,
is not enough to prove the date of a tomb. See Hogarth's
remarks in J.H.S. xxii. p. 90 ; also Hopkinson, B.S.A. x. p. 148.
then in their days of decay have founded a new city in
the interior of Crete. The evidence from Knossos and
Phaestos is rather that they maintained their old centres,
though on a humbler scale.1
If, then, the Eteo-Cretans are not identical with the
Minoans, what is the relation between the two ? It
may perhaps be argued that they represent a native
population that reasserted itself after the fall of the
Minoans. The Minoan settlements in Eastern Crete
were close to the coast, at Gournia, Palaikastro, Zakro,
and this may be taken as pointing to the fact that the
original inhabitants were driven into the interior, as
the Greeks and Phoenicians in Sicily drove into the
highlands the Sicans and the Sicels. We should, on
this view, however, expect to find at Prsesos traces of
continuous occupation, whether or no it presented
different features from the neighbouring Minoan civilisa-
tion. For such occupation there is no archaeological
evidence. Except for a Neolithic Cave burial,8 there is
practically nothing, even in the Tholos tombs, that is
certainly earlier than the Geometric Age.3 Considering
the mass of pre-Hellenic remains on most Cretan sites,
their absence here is significant. If the Eteo-Cretans were
the natives of Crete, we must imagine that the centre at
which they gathered, when the Minoan domination was
over, was a spot that had never been previously occupied
either by themselves or their masters. It is more probable
that Praesos was founded by a new intrusive people, with
no special aptitude for the sea, who established themselves
in the interior of Eastern Crete in Late Minoan III.,
before the coming of the Greeks. If Professor Conway
* See pp. 49, 89, 100.
- Bosanquet in B.S.A. viii. p. 235.
3 A few Kamares fragments in the above Skalais cave (ibid.
p. 235). See pp. 234, 238, 242, 245, 248, 252. A gem, fig. 25,
is not enough to prove the date of a tomb. See Hogarth's
remarks in J.H.S. xxii. p. 90 ; also Hopkinson, B.S.A. x. p. 148.