DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0222
196 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA
out the idea of the spiral independently; the view
that all artistic motives must be derived from a common
centre is not founded on fact. An eminent authority
like Dr. Hoernes believes that the idea of the spiral
must be familiar to primitive peoples, before they
reach the stage of pottery at all, from the reeds or
other vegetable substances of which they make their
first baskets. He even believes that in the earliest
art rectilinear ornament may be regarded as an advance
on curvilinear.1 In that case curves may have tempor-
arily disappeared from the ^Egean scheme of decoration
for the very reason that its people had lost sight of
organic nature, and had their attention concentrated on
conquering the inorganic world with their metal tools.
This theory, too, accounts for the strange pottery marks
at Tordos in Transylvania. Such marks, as we have
seen,8 were the common property of the Mediterranean
race. It is difficult to see how Dr. Schmidt accounts
for their presence on his theory. He cannot maintain
that Egypt and Libya obtained their mass of signs from
an original centre of diffusion in mid-Europe. I have
not noticed any allusion to these Tordos marks in Dr.
Schmidt's later writings, although it was he who pub-
lished them in 1903,' before he crystallised his theory.
Whether or no, then, Indo-Europeans entered the
^Egean world early in Minoan history, they were not the
men who created the mid-European culture. They were
rather the men who destroyed it.4 That they did not
come to Crete early enough to vitally affect Minoan
civilisation has already been shown. How early they
came to the Troad or the mainland of Greece is another
matter, on which opinions will differ, according to the
weight attached to the various points discussed in the
last chapter.
1 Op. ext. pp. 12, note 1, and 125. 3 Pp. 148-9.
3 Z. /. Ethnol. 1903, pp. 457-8.
- Hoernes, op. cit. pp. 124-6.
out the idea of the spiral independently; the view
that all artistic motives must be derived from a common
centre is not founded on fact. An eminent authority
like Dr. Hoernes believes that the idea of the spiral
must be familiar to primitive peoples, before they
reach the stage of pottery at all, from the reeds or
other vegetable substances of which they make their
first baskets. He even believes that in the earliest
art rectilinear ornament may be regarded as an advance
on curvilinear.1 In that case curves may have tempor-
arily disappeared from the ^Egean scheme of decoration
for the very reason that its people had lost sight of
organic nature, and had their attention concentrated on
conquering the inorganic world with their metal tools.
This theory, too, accounts for the strange pottery marks
at Tordos in Transylvania. Such marks, as we have
seen,8 were the common property of the Mediterranean
race. It is difficult to see how Dr. Schmidt accounts
for their presence on his theory. He cannot maintain
that Egypt and Libya obtained their mass of signs from
an original centre of diffusion in mid-Europe. I have
not noticed any allusion to these Tordos marks in Dr.
Schmidt's later writings, although it was he who pub-
lished them in 1903,' before he crystallised his theory.
Whether or no, then, Indo-Europeans entered the
^Egean world early in Minoan history, they were not the
men who created the mid-European culture. They were
rather the men who destroyed it.4 That they did not
come to Crete early enough to vitally affect Minoan
civilisation has already been shown. How early they
came to the Troad or the mainland of Greece is another
matter, on which opinions will differ, according to the
weight attached to the various points discussed in the
last chapter.
1 Op. ext. pp. 12, note 1, and 125. 3 Pp. 148-9.
3 Z. /. Ethnol. 1903, pp. 457-8.
- Hoernes, op. cit. pp. 124-6.