Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 2,1): Fresh lights on origins and external relations (London, 1928)

346

WERE THE BULLETS ACHAEAN?

Greek
settle-
ment.

Period
of sea
raids.

Shrine—and the ' proto-geometrical' period that belongs already to the early
days of actual conquest. But on the Palace site itself relics of this inter-
mediate class are conspicuous by their absence.1 From the close of the
' Reoccupation' period onwards the site as a whole remained derelict for
long ages to come, a desolation only partly broken at a much later date by
the planting there of the small Greek sanctuary near the Upper Propylaeum.2
That this sudden desertion of the site was the result of a raid from over-
seas is a highly probable conclusion. As in the case of the later Vikings
who ravaged our own shores, it is reasonable to suppose that here too
a period of piratic descents preceded that of actual conquest. The Egyptian
records of Rameses III at Medinet Habu give us, indeed, a vivid picture of
such sea raids in which the Akaiwasha took part.3

1 Some vessels of this class were found at 2 See above, p. 6.

a higher level on the South-East borders of the s See P. o/M., i, pp. 664, 665, and Fig. 489.

site in the early days of the excavation.

Fig. 198. Fetishes in Form of Natural Concretions from Reoccupation Shrine,

Little Palace, Knossos.