Evans, Arthur J.: Scripta minoa: the written documents of minoan Crete with special reference to the archives of Knossos (Band 1): The hieroglyphic and primitive linear classes (Oxford, 1909)

I. § 3. THE HIEROGLYPHIC ARCHIVES OF KNOSSOS

Although the later Palace on the hill of Knossos, itself again and again remodelled,
has largely obscured the earlier fabric, there is evidence, especially on the eastern slope,
of a great building having existed here in what I have elsewhere ventured to call the
First Middle Minoan Period. This period, from a variety of evidence, can be shown
to be roughly contemporary with the beginnings of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt,
and it represents the time during which the first and simpler phase of the polychrome
ceramic decoration was produced that was to attain such a splendid development in
the succeeding age. It is also to this period that we must ascribe the earliest traces
of a developed form of script found on the Palace site. These consisted of two clay
sealings with signet impressions, in each case
showing a group of hieroglyphic or conven-
tionalized pictographic characters of somewhat
archaic aspect, and belonging to what is described
below as Class A of that series. They were
found on the floor of a basement chamber, the
South-East Pillar Room, in a stratum of pottery
characteristic of the First Middle Minoan Age.1
Evidence will be given in a succeeding Section
which tends to show that this period roughly
corresponds with the Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt.
A more important find of clay archives and sealings in the most fully developed
hieroglyphic style took place already during the first year's excavations in the West
Wing of the Palace. This part of the building, though it cannot be reckoned among
the earliest of the architectural remains, seems in its original plan to belong to the
beginning of the Second Middle Minoan Age, the period when ceramic polychromy
reaches its acme. The synchronism of this period with the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty,
of which many indications had already appeared, has been now fully established by
the discovery3 of. the remains of a polychrome vessel illustrating the latest stage of
the Second Middle Minoan style in an untouched tomb at Abydos containing, together
with other rich Egyptian relics, glazed steatite cylinders with the names of Sesostris
(Senusert) III and Amenemhat III.

The earliest contents of the West Wing of the Palace, as far as they are known,
belong, however, to a period—the 'Third Middle Minoan'—when the fine polychrome
style was already in a state of decadence, and must therefore be referred to a somewhat
later date than that of these Egyptian kings.

Fig. 9-s Clay Sealing from South-East
Pillar Room ($).

1 For the South-East Pillar Room see' Knossos,' Report,
1902.
! Repeated in Pt. II, § 6.
a By Prof. J. Garstang. The Cretan vase and cylinders

are now at Oxford (see A. J. E., Ashmolean Museum
Report, 1907). The decorative features of the vase are
also very closely allied to those of the early part of the
succeeding Third Middle Minoan Period.

Early

' Middle
Minoan'
Palace at

Evidences
in it of

hierogly-
phic
writing.

Seal im-
pressions
illustrating
its earliest
type (A).

Important
deposit
of clay
archives
in West
Wing,

advanced
hierogly-
phic style
(type B).

Chrono-
logical
indications.

Wing
mainly
' Middle
Minoan
III.'