DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0055
30
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
Arbitrary
Element
in Strati-
graphical
Divisions.
Transi-
tion with-
out real
break.
strata of this kind may be reasonably regarded as so many landmarks of
successive historic stages.
When, again, a stratum containing ceramic or other remains of the same
epoch is found to be of widespread occurrence on two or more important sites
it may be taken as an indication of some general catastrophe, affecting,
probably, the whole of Minoan Crete. The most striking instance of this is
the evidence supplied by a well-marked deposit at Knossos and Phaestos
characterized by an abundance of M. M. II pottery in the same advanced
stage and pointing to a more or less contemporary destruction.
All such stratigraphical demarcations are of their nature somewhat
arbitrary and any idea of Minoan civilization as divided into so many distinct
compartments must be dismissed from the minds of students. All is, in fact,
transition. What has been said above must again be repeated. From the
earliest Minoan stage to the latest there is no real break such as might be
naturally explained by conquest from abroad. Crude foreign elements,
indeed, appear at intervals, but they are rapidly absorbed and assimilated.
There are checks, it is true, and intervals of comparative stagnation,but though
its pace occasionally varies, the course of evolution is still continuous
One form merges into another by imperceptible gradations and where, as
is the case with a large part of the material, an object is derived from
an unstratified deposit it is at times difficult, in default of direct evidence, to
decide on which side of a more or less artificial dividing line it should be
placed. On such individual questions opinions must constantly differ. But the
classification of the Minoan Age into its Early, Middle, and Late stages, and
the corresponding division-of each into three Periods, finds its justification
both in logic and utility.
THE EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGICAL SYSTEM ADOPTED
IN THIS WORK
Meyer's With regard to Egyptian chronology I have thought it best to take that of
logy Dr. Eduard Meyer (AegyptiscJic C/ironologie, 1904 ; Nachtrdgc, 1908) as at least
adopted a provisional standard. I am well aware of the objections of many Egyptologists against
sfonaT™" bringing down the date of the Twelfth Dynasty so low as 2000-1788 B. C. which
Standard, follows from the acceptance of 1876-1872 B.C. as the Sothic dating for the seventh
year of Senusert III (Borchardt, Aegypt. Zeitsehrift, xxxvii, p. 99 seqq.). Dr. H. R
Hall in his recently published Ancient History of the Near East observes (p. 23) that
' it seems impossible to force all the kings of the Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties
into so small a space as 250 years, cut down their reigns as we may '.
Meyer's system, nevertheless, has received a powerful corroboration from the
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
Arbitrary
Element
in Strati-
graphical
Divisions.
Transi-
tion with-
out real
break.
strata of this kind may be reasonably regarded as so many landmarks of
successive historic stages.
When, again, a stratum containing ceramic or other remains of the same
epoch is found to be of widespread occurrence on two or more important sites
it may be taken as an indication of some general catastrophe, affecting,
probably, the whole of Minoan Crete. The most striking instance of this is
the evidence supplied by a well-marked deposit at Knossos and Phaestos
characterized by an abundance of M. M. II pottery in the same advanced
stage and pointing to a more or less contemporary destruction.
All such stratigraphical demarcations are of their nature somewhat
arbitrary and any idea of Minoan civilization as divided into so many distinct
compartments must be dismissed from the minds of students. All is, in fact,
transition. What has been said above must again be repeated. From the
earliest Minoan stage to the latest there is no real break such as might be
naturally explained by conquest from abroad. Crude foreign elements,
indeed, appear at intervals, but they are rapidly absorbed and assimilated.
There are checks, it is true, and intervals of comparative stagnation,but though
its pace occasionally varies, the course of evolution is still continuous
One form merges into another by imperceptible gradations and where, as
is the case with a large part of the material, an object is derived from
an unstratified deposit it is at times difficult, in default of direct evidence, to
decide on which side of a more or less artificial dividing line it should be
placed. On such individual questions opinions must constantly differ. But the
classification of the Minoan Age into its Early, Middle, and Late stages, and
the corresponding division-of each into three Periods, finds its justification
both in logic and utility.
THE EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGICAL SYSTEM ADOPTED
IN THIS WORK
Meyer's With regard to Egyptian chronology I have thought it best to take that of
logy Dr. Eduard Meyer (AegyptiscJic C/ironologie, 1904 ; Nachtrdgc, 1908) as at least
adopted a provisional standard. I am well aware of the objections of many Egyptologists against
sfonaT™" bringing down the date of the Twelfth Dynasty so low as 2000-1788 B. C. which
Standard, follows from the acceptance of 1876-1872 B.C. as the Sothic dating for the seventh
year of Senusert III (Borchardt, Aegypt. Zeitsehrift, xxxvii, p. 99 seqq.). Dr. H. R
Hall in his recently published Ancient History of the Near East observes (p. 23) that
' it seems impossible to force all the kings of the Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties
into so small a space as 250 years, cut down their reigns as we may '.
Meyer's system, nevertheless, has received a powerful corroboration from the