Evans, Arthur J.: Cretan pictographs and prae-Phoenician script with an account of a sepulchral deposit at Hagios Onuphrios near Phaestos in its relation to primitive Cretan (London, 1895)

PRIMITIVE CRETAN AND AEGEAN CULTURE.

134

occurrence namely of two perforated seals (Figs. 86, 87), one of grey steatite,
the other of ivory, which reproduce both the round and the square cruciform
ornaments of the Selendj mould.

It thus appears that during the period covered by the remains of the
Second City of Troy, to which in part at least the Phaestos deposit can be
shown on other evidence to go back,34 Chaldaean influences were making
themselves felt on the Aegean shores, a fact also attested by the early
occurence both at Troy and in contemporary island deposits of native
imitations of Babylonian cylinders.

The possibility of Chaldaean influence on the more advanced of the
marble figures from the Phaestos deposit, as of those from the contemporary

Fig. 137.—Lead Figures said to be snou Candia. (Nat. Size.)

cist-graves of Amorgos, cannot therefore be altogether excluded, and the
question resolves itself simply into one of degree. If the parallels cited above
lead us to infer the existence of a primitive class of indigenous figures
throughout a wide European area which may indeed have been the common
property of old Chaldaea, we have on the other hand evidence of a return

34 See above, p. 57 (326) seqq.