DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0205
i8o
TRANSIT ROAD IN RELATION TO N. AND W.
Was
there a
direct
Iberic
route via
Malta?
Minoan
traces in
Maltese
Mega-
lithic
Monu-
ments.
Malta on
Medi-
terranean
highway.
date approaching the higher level is not therefore excluded. This observa-
tion may be borne in mind in considering the fine specimens of stone beads of
this form from the Aveyron dolmens where we may trace the influence of the
North-Western line of this commerce, on the way to the Lower Gironde.
While considering this evidence of the overland course of early com-
merce towards the North-West, the more direct lines across the sea that brought
the Eastern coasts of Spain into connexion with Sicily and the Maltese
Islands, and the Tyrrhene and Ionian coasts of Italy, must not be left out
of account. As already observed, it is a mistake to suppose that primitive
navigation—much as it seems to have avoided iron-bound headlands—shrank
from considerable sea-passages. It may indeed be inferred that the direct
oversea intercourse between Crete and the Nile Valley that existed from a
remote prehistoric epoch had had a Western extension. Not only do im-
ported beads and their copies such as are recorded from the cemeteries of the
rich silver-mining region of South-Eastern Spain! afford a strong presump-
tion of this, but the primitive stone images found in the same context may be
certainly held to stand in a dependent relation with regard to an Aegean class
belonging to a cultural phase equivalent to the last Early Minoan Period.
The traces of Minoan influence on the curvilinear decoration of the
Maltese monuments, suggested by me long since, have been confirmed by
a very detailed parallel supplied by a characteristic M. M. II vase pattern,
to which attention has been called in the first volume of this work.2 Further
correspondences in more than one direction, which it is impossible to pass over,
are given below. That the Maltese islanders, whose ancient pillar worship
shows so many parallels with that of the Minoans, received more than one
cultural impulse from the early Cretans can hardly be doubted in view of
recent discoveries, though the manifestation of this often takes an independent
and divergent shape.
Malta itself, forming a kind of half-way house between the Eastern and
Western Mediterranean basin, was well adapted to become a maritime staple
of Minoan commerce with the Iberic World. It lies indeed almost in mid
channel, facing the strait that separates Sicily from Cape Bon on the
African side, and must have derived, in the most ancient as well as modern
times, an importance with regard to maritime traffic quite disproportionate
to its size.
plating is to be seen in the pre-dynastic series archaischen Ishtar-Tempel in Assur, p. 82,
at University College, London. Segmented Fig. 61, c.
beads in glazed frit were found at Ashur in the ! P. of M., i, p. 492, note 3.
G. stratum {c. 3000 B.C.); A. W. Andrae, Die 2 lb., pp. 261-3, F'gs- 19*> k, 195.
TRANSIT ROAD IN RELATION TO N. AND W.
Was
there a
direct
Iberic
route via
Malta?
Minoan
traces in
Maltese
Mega-
lithic
Monu-
ments.
Malta on
Medi-
terranean
highway.
date approaching the higher level is not therefore excluded. This observa-
tion may be borne in mind in considering the fine specimens of stone beads of
this form from the Aveyron dolmens where we may trace the influence of the
North-Western line of this commerce, on the way to the Lower Gironde.
While considering this evidence of the overland course of early com-
merce towards the North-West, the more direct lines across the sea that brought
the Eastern coasts of Spain into connexion with Sicily and the Maltese
Islands, and the Tyrrhene and Ionian coasts of Italy, must not be left out
of account. As already observed, it is a mistake to suppose that primitive
navigation—much as it seems to have avoided iron-bound headlands—shrank
from considerable sea-passages. It may indeed be inferred that the direct
oversea intercourse between Crete and the Nile Valley that existed from a
remote prehistoric epoch had had a Western extension. Not only do im-
ported beads and their copies such as are recorded from the cemeteries of the
rich silver-mining region of South-Eastern Spain! afford a strong presump-
tion of this, but the primitive stone images found in the same context may be
certainly held to stand in a dependent relation with regard to an Aegean class
belonging to a cultural phase equivalent to the last Early Minoan Period.
The traces of Minoan influence on the curvilinear decoration of the
Maltese monuments, suggested by me long since, have been confirmed by
a very detailed parallel supplied by a characteristic M. M. II vase pattern,
to which attention has been called in the first volume of this work.2 Further
correspondences in more than one direction, which it is impossible to pass over,
are given below. That the Maltese islanders, whose ancient pillar worship
shows so many parallels with that of the Minoans, received more than one
cultural impulse from the early Cretans can hardly be doubted in view of
recent discoveries, though the manifestation of this often takes an independent
and divergent shape.
Malta itself, forming a kind of half-way house between the Eastern and
Western Mediterranean basin, was well adapted to become a maritime staple
of Minoan commerce with the Iberic World. It lies indeed almost in mid
channel, facing the strait that separates Sicily from Cape Bon on the
African side, and must have derived, in the most ancient as well as modern
times, an importance with regard to maritime traffic quite disproportionate
to its size.
plating is to be seen in the pre-dynastic series archaischen Ishtar-Tempel in Assur, p. 82,
at University College, London. Segmented Fig. 61, c.
beads in glazed frit were found at Ashur in the ! P. of M., i, p. 492, note 3.
G. stratum {c. 3000 B.C.); A. W. Andrae, Die 2 lb., pp. 261-3, F'gs- 19*> k, 195.