DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0050
THE MINOAN AGE
25
drew from its geographical conditions. Kprjrr] ns yaV eari, /xeacp hi qlvottl itovrcp ; 1 Central
the central position of Crete in the East Mediterranean basin at once strikes the ^e!'011
eve.2 A half-way house between three continents, pointing East and West and Mediter-
. 1 . 0 , „ . tanean.
barring both the Aegean and the Libyan Seas, this 1 mid-sea land had sufficient
territorial extension to permit the growth of a distinct and independent
national life. Insular, but not isolated, it was thus able to develop a civiliza-
tion of its own on native lines and to accept suggestions from the Egyptian
or the Asiatic side without itself being dominated by foreign conventionalism.
Primitive navigation, first reared perhaps in the land-locked harbours of the
smaller Aegean islands, was early enlisted in the Minoan service. Long ages
before the birth of Venice, Crete had ' espoused the everlasting sea ', and the
first naval dominion in Mediterranean waters was wielded by Minoan Knossos.
The Egyptian relations, as above indicated, supply a certain measure Egyptian
for the duration of the Minoan civilization. It has been already suggested
that the very pronounced Pre-dynastic element in Early Minoan culture may Guides,
connect itself with some actual exodus of part of the older race of Nile-
dwellers, due to the pressure of Menes' conquest. Taking the accession of
the First Dynasty as a rough chronological guide to the beginning of the
Minoan Age, and accepting provisionally Meyer's upper dating, we arrive
at 3400 b. c. by a century or more.3 The lowest term ot anything that can be
called pure Minoan culture can hardly be brought down much below 1 200 b. c.
For this considerable space of time, extending over some two thousand
two hundred years, the division here adopted into three main Sections, Triple
the ' Early ', 1 Middle ', and 1 Late ' Minoan, each in turn with three Periods ^ca°n
of its own, will not be thought too minute. It allows, in tact, for each Period
an average duration of nearly two centuries and a halt, the earlier Periods
being naturally the longer. This triple division, indeed, whether we regard
the course of the Minoan civilization as a whole or its threefold stages, is
in its very essence logical and scientific. In every characteristic phase of
culture we note in fact the period of rise, maturity, and decay. Even
within the limits of many of these Periods, moreover, the process of evolu-
tion visible has established such distinct ceramic phases that it has been
found convenient to divide them into two sections—a and h.
The three main phases of Minoan history roughly correspond with those Corre-
of the Earl\-, the Middle, and the earlier part of the New Kingdom in Egypt, dence
with
1 Homer, Odyssey, xix. 172. the pure E. M. I style could hardly have been ^?XP!-lan
o -> -r- i v , . , Divisions.
- bee rolding Plate facing p. 1. reached much before the close of the Fourth
3 A transitional 'Sub-Neolithic' stage has Millennium B.C. Seep. 70, below.
however to be allowed for and the evolution of
25
drew from its geographical conditions. Kprjrr] ns yaV eari, /xeacp hi qlvottl itovrcp ; 1 Central
the central position of Crete in the East Mediterranean basin at once strikes the ^e!'011
eve.2 A half-way house between three continents, pointing East and West and Mediter-
. 1 . 0 , „ . tanean.
barring both the Aegean and the Libyan Seas, this 1 mid-sea land had sufficient
territorial extension to permit the growth of a distinct and independent
national life. Insular, but not isolated, it was thus able to develop a civiliza-
tion of its own on native lines and to accept suggestions from the Egyptian
or the Asiatic side without itself being dominated by foreign conventionalism.
Primitive navigation, first reared perhaps in the land-locked harbours of the
smaller Aegean islands, was early enlisted in the Minoan service. Long ages
before the birth of Venice, Crete had ' espoused the everlasting sea ', and the
first naval dominion in Mediterranean waters was wielded by Minoan Knossos.
The Egyptian relations, as above indicated, supply a certain measure Egyptian
for the duration of the Minoan civilization. It has been already suggested
that the very pronounced Pre-dynastic element in Early Minoan culture may Guides,
connect itself with some actual exodus of part of the older race of Nile-
dwellers, due to the pressure of Menes' conquest. Taking the accession of
the First Dynasty as a rough chronological guide to the beginning of the
Minoan Age, and accepting provisionally Meyer's upper dating, we arrive
at 3400 b. c. by a century or more.3 The lowest term ot anything that can be
called pure Minoan culture can hardly be brought down much below 1 200 b. c.
For this considerable space of time, extending over some two thousand
two hundred years, the division here adopted into three main Sections, Triple
the ' Early ', 1 Middle ', and 1 Late ' Minoan, each in turn with three Periods ^ca°n
of its own, will not be thought too minute. It allows, in tact, for each Period
an average duration of nearly two centuries and a halt, the earlier Periods
being naturally the longer. This triple division, indeed, whether we regard
the course of the Minoan civilization as a whole or its threefold stages, is
in its very essence logical and scientific. In every characteristic phase of
culture we note in fact the period of rise, maturity, and decay. Even
within the limits of many of these Periods, moreover, the process of evolu-
tion visible has established such distinct ceramic phases that it has been
found convenient to divide them into two sections—a and h.
The three main phases of Minoan history roughly correspond with those Corre-
of the Earl\-, the Middle, and the earlier part of the New Kingdom in Egypt, dence
with
1 Homer, Odyssey, xix. 172. the pure E. M. I style could hardly have been ^?XP!-lan
o -> -r- i v , . , Divisions.
- bee rolding Plate facing p. 1. reached much before the close of the Fourth
3 A transitional 'Sub-Neolithic' stage has Millennium B.C. Seep. 70, below.
however to be allowed for and the evolution of