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)

CRETAN PHILISTINES AND THE PHOENICIAN ALPHABET 79

phase successfully invading a region in which Mesopotamian and Egyptian influences
had hitherto alternately predominated.1 It is clear that the Philistines settled on Philistines
the coast of Canaan, though they could never have been very strong numerically, m Pa.naan
dominated their subjects and neighbours by means of their higher civilization. Aegean
In their arms and armour and chariots of war they were superior to those of eIement>
Israel. But the Philistines also excelled in the arts of peace. The Hebrews were
reduced to come to the smiths of the ' uncircumcized' for their ploughshares and
agricultural implements.2 The golden mice and tumours wrought by the Philistine
artificers as a guilt-offering for the Ark of the Lord,3 moreover, throw an incidental
light on their skill in the plastic arts, and at the same time recall the votive images
of animals and diseased human members placed in the old Cretan sanctuaries like
that of Petsofa,* The special mention of the culture of the olive6 among the
Philistines further reminds us that this was probably the principal source of wealth
to the Minoan lords. So too we see the Cherethim of David's body-guard main-
taining the old Cretan tradition as skilful bowmen,9.and attention has already been
called to the actual occurrence of a sword of Late Minoan derivation. The imported
vases from the Aegean show that their taste in ceramic fabrics remained the same.
There are good a priori grounds, then, for supposing that they had not wholly Did they
forgotten their insular script. fifa"**

But the relation of the Theban temple-official, Wen Amon, as preserved in Minoan
the Golenischeff Papyrus/ contains some indications of a still more direct nature. scnp '
The Egyptian envoy, in his quest for cedar-wood, tarried about 1100 b.c. at Dor, Mission of
then in the possession of the Philistine tribe of the Takkaras, and had occasion for t0 ^0T mon
prolonged negotiations with its ruler, by name Badira. This personal narration c. hoob.c.
is remarkable in many ways. It reveals to us a community, the earliest known
among those of European stock, in which the Prince's action was limited by the voice
of a popular assembly.8 It evidences a form of religion like that depicted on Minoan
seals and signet-rings, in which the God, brought down by offerings, takes possession
of his votary, who dances round in an ecstatic state and voices divine commands.9

But what more immediately concerns our present subject, the Takkaras are Literary
depicted as altogether versed in the ways of bureaucratic scribes and acquainted with among"3
all the different uses to which writing could be turned. Their Prince requires written Takkaras.
credentials from the Egyptian official.10 In another place he is made to promise Wen
Amon that, should he die at Dor, he shall have a monument put up to him, and

1 1 Sam. xiii. i9seqq. On the culture of the Philistines W. Max Mtiller, 'Der Papyrus Golenischeff' (MillA. d.

see especially Stark, Gaza, pp. 318 seqq. vorderasiat. Ges., 1900, pp. 26 seqq.: the references here

! Cf., too, 1 Sam. sxxi. 3. are to this), and by Ermann, ' Eine Reise nach PhOni-

* 1 Sam. vi. 4seqq. zien im iiten Jahrhundert v. Chr.' {Zeilschrift fur dg.

* For the votive deposit of Petsofa, which included Sprache, xxxviii (1900), pp. 1-14).
figures of noxious animals and pathological represeuta- * W. Max Moller, Pap. Golenischeff, p. 25.

tions, see J. L. Myres, B. S. Annual, ix. pp. 336 seqq. 9 Ibid., p. 17. A ' Head Page' of the Prince of Dor is

s Judges xv. 5. thus ' possessed'; the orgiastic condition being indicated

e Cf., too, 1 Sam. xxxi. 3. by the determinative of' dancing'.

' Published by Golenischeff with a French translation, l0 Ibid., p. 18.

Recueil de Travaux, xxi. 74 seqq. German translation by