Hawes, Charles H.; Hawes, Harriet B.: Crete, the forerunner of Greece (London, 1909)

PREFACE

THE recent discoveries in Crete have added a
new horizon to European civilization. A
new standpoint has been at the same time obtained
for surveying not only the Ancient Classical World
of Greece and Rome, but the modern world in
which we live. This revelation of the past has
thus more than an archaeological interest. It
concerns all history and must affect the mental
attitude of our own and future generations in
many departments of knowledge.

At the same time, the complexity of the details
. and the multiplicity of the recent explorations,
and the fact that many of the results are as yet
imperfectly published, must make it extremely
difficult for the ordinary intelligent reader to gain
a comprehensive idea of this " Greece beyond
Greece," brought to light on Cretan soil. For
more advanced archaeological students, indeed,
Mr. Ronald Burrows' work on The Recent Dis-
coveries in Crete has supplied a useful summary.
But for the general reading public a simpler state-
ment was required, and it seems to me that this
service has been successfully rendered by Mr. and
Mrs. Hawes in the present book.