DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0044
THE MINOAN AGE
gious
Con-
nexions.
this does not affect the main phenomenon with which we have to do. This is
the highly important historic fact, brought more clearly into relief with every
fresh discovery, that for some two thousand years the Minoan civilization
of Crete was in practically uninterrupted relations with that of Egypt.
The material evidence of interpenetration with Egyptian elements General
cannot of course always give a clue to the more intangible influences that may ness^^
have been brought to bear in the domain of ideas—in Cretan religion to Egypt
T -i f . of Minoan
for instance, m law and government, or even m literary tradition. That Culture.
the elaborate systems of Minoan writing were of independent evolution
is certain, but there are good reasons, for instance, to suspect the stimulus
of Egyptian suggestion in the rise of the Cretan hieroglyphic signary, and
a few individual signs seem to have been actually borrowed.1 The wearing
of amulets of Egyptian form, such as the leg-shaped pendants, shows
a certain community in popular superstition. The use of the Egyptian
sistrum for the ritual dance of the Hagia Triada vase is a very suggestive
symptom, and the adoption of a type of double-spouted libation vessel Reli
associated, as it appears, with a primitive cult of Set and Horus,2 may
point to a very ancient religious connexion. In Late Minoan times the
evidences of a real religious syncretism accumulate—witness the constant
recurrence of sphinxes and griffins and the adoption of the Egyptian waz and
ankh symbols, or of Hathoric emblems like the cow suckling her calf.
Ta-urt, the Hippopotamus Goddess, becomes the prototype of Minoan Genii.
When it is realized how many elements drawn Irom the Minoan world
lived on in that of Hellas 3 the full import of this very ancient indebtedness
to Egypt at once becomes apparent. Egyptian influences, hitherto reckoned
as rather a secondary incident among late classical experiences, are now seen
to lie about the very cradle of our civilization.
But the essential character of this influence must not be misunderstood. Advan-
As regards Egypt, Minoan Crete did not find itself in the position in which J^sular
Palestine and Phoenicia, having only land frontiers, stood towards the great Position
border Powers of the Nile and of the Euphrates. With the sea between,
it could always keep the foreign civilization at arm's length. Its enterprising
inhabitants continually absorbed and assimilated Egyptian forms and ideas,
developing them on independent lines. They took what they wanted, nothing
more, and were neither artistically nor politically enslaved.
Something has already been said of the old underlying connexion
1 See Scripta. Minoa, i, pp. 197-8. 3 See my Address on 'The Minoan and
2 See below, p. 80. Mycenaean elements in Hellenic \Afe\J.II. S.,
xxxii (1912), p. 277 seqq.
C 2
gious
Con-
nexions.
this does not affect the main phenomenon with which we have to do. This is
the highly important historic fact, brought more clearly into relief with every
fresh discovery, that for some two thousand years the Minoan civilization
of Crete was in practically uninterrupted relations with that of Egypt.
The material evidence of interpenetration with Egyptian elements General
cannot of course always give a clue to the more intangible influences that may ness^^
have been brought to bear in the domain of ideas—in Cretan religion to Egypt
T -i f . of Minoan
for instance, m law and government, or even m literary tradition. That Culture.
the elaborate systems of Minoan writing were of independent evolution
is certain, but there are good reasons, for instance, to suspect the stimulus
of Egyptian suggestion in the rise of the Cretan hieroglyphic signary, and
a few individual signs seem to have been actually borrowed.1 The wearing
of amulets of Egyptian form, such as the leg-shaped pendants, shows
a certain community in popular superstition. The use of the Egyptian
sistrum for the ritual dance of the Hagia Triada vase is a very suggestive
symptom, and the adoption of a type of double-spouted libation vessel Reli
associated, as it appears, with a primitive cult of Set and Horus,2 may
point to a very ancient religious connexion. In Late Minoan times the
evidences of a real religious syncretism accumulate—witness the constant
recurrence of sphinxes and griffins and the adoption of the Egyptian waz and
ankh symbols, or of Hathoric emblems like the cow suckling her calf.
Ta-urt, the Hippopotamus Goddess, becomes the prototype of Minoan Genii.
When it is realized how many elements drawn Irom the Minoan world
lived on in that of Hellas 3 the full import of this very ancient indebtedness
to Egypt at once becomes apparent. Egyptian influences, hitherto reckoned
as rather a secondary incident among late classical experiences, are now seen
to lie about the very cradle of our civilization.
But the essential character of this influence must not be misunderstood. Advan-
As regards Egypt, Minoan Crete did not find itself in the position in which J^sular
Palestine and Phoenicia, having only land frontiers, stood towards the great Position
border Powers of the Nile and of the Euphrates. With the sea between,
it could always keep the foreign civilization at arm's length. Its enterprising
inhabitants continually absorbed and assimilated Egyptian forms and ideas,
developing them on independent lines. They took what they wanted, nothing
more, and were neither artistically nor politically enslaved.
Something has already been said of the old underlying connexion
1 See Scripta. Minoa, i, pp. 197-8. 3 See my Address on 'The Minoan and
2 See below, p. 80. Mycenaean elements in Hellenic \Afe\J.II. S.,
xxxii (1912), p. 277 seqq.
C 2