DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0185
MINOAN AFTER THE SACK OF KNOSSOS 159
" Horns of Consecration " occupy a prominent, or even,
in Mr. Evans's opinion, a central position, was used if
not constructed in Late Minoan III.1 The chief new fact
to be noticed, during the course of this period itself, is
the apparent recrudescence of a more primitive form
of the same cult—grotesque fetish figures, which are
merely natural concretions of stalagmite, replacing the
beautiful porcelains of earlier times.8
That the wandering of peoples which made the /Fgcan
the Greek world we know was not over till towards the
end of Late Minoan III., is clear from several converging
lines of evidence. We need not imagine that the end
came suddenly, or that it came upon all parts of the
^Egean at the same moment. The vague echoes which
reach us from the XXth Dynasty Egypt of Rameses III.
show us that at about the year 1200 B.C. " the isles
were restless," 5 and that the shpck of migration was
felt in every quarter of the iEgean. For a long time
past we may be sure that the Northerners had been
coming, here in smaller bodies, there in larger, here
peacefully assimilating the culture of the older people,
there sacking and destroying ; in some places driving
those among whom they came to win new homes in their
turn by conquest of their kinsmen over-seas. The end
of Late Minoan III. only marks the time when the old
civilisation had been dinted with so many repeated
blows that it had at last lost its shape and cohesion ;
when the traditions of the great art of the royal houses,
long growing fainter and fainter, had finally died away ;
when the Egyptian records no longer hint to us of trouble
in the ^Egean, but, from at least the tenth century
XXIInd Dynasty to the seventh-century XXVIth,
totally ignore both its commerce and its peoples.'
1 U.S.A. viii. fig. 55, p. 97.
3 Ibid. xi. fig. 4, p. 10. ■ H. R. Hall, B.S.A. viii. p. 183.
4 As already stated (p. 98), we cannot yet determine exactly
how far down into the XXIst Dynasty (1100-960) Late
" Horns of Consecration " occupy a prominent, or even,
in Mr. Evans's opinion, a central position, was used if
not constructed in Late Minoan III.1 The chief new fact
to be noticed, during the course of this period itself, is
the apparent recrudescence of a more primitive form
of the same cult—grotesque fetish figures, which are
merely natural concretions of stalagmite, replacing the
beautiful porcelains of earlier times.8
That the wandering of peoples which made the /Fgcan
the Greek world we know was not over till towards the
end of Late Minoan III., is clear from several converging
lines of evidence. We need not imagine that the end
came suddenly, or that it came upon all parts of the
^Egean at the same moment. The vague echoes which
reach us from the XXth Dynasty Egypt of Rameses III.
show us that at about the year 1200 B.C. " the isles
were restless," 5 and that the shpck of migration was
felt in every quarter of the iEgean. For a long time
past we may be sure that the Northerners had been
coming, here in smaller bodies, there in larger, here
peacefully assimilating the culture of the older people,
there sacking and destroying ; in some places driving
those among whom they came to win new homes in their
turn by conquest of their kinsmen over-seas. The end
of Late Minoan III. only marks the time when the old
civilisation had been dinted with so many repeated
blows that it had at last lost its shape and cohesion ;
when the traditions of the great art of the royal houses,
long growing fainter and fainter, had finally died away ;
when the Egyptian records no longer hint to us of trouble
in the ^Egean, but, from at least the tenth century
XXIInd Dynasty to the seventh-century XXVIth,
totally ignore both its commerce and its peoples.'
1 U.S.A. viii. fig. 55, p. 97.
3 Ibid. xi. fig. 4, p. 10. ■ H. R. Hall, B.S.A. viii. p. 183.
4 As already stated (p. 98), we cannot yet determine exactly
how far down into the XXIst Dynasty (1100-960) Late