DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1066#0027
SURVEY OF THE PREHISTORIC PERIODS
OF CRETE
WE have in brief fashion resumed the way by
which was made the great discovery of a
remote civilization existing in the iEgean area and
originating in Crete. It is not our purpose to write
an archaeological treatise dealing minutely and in
technical language with Cretan excavations. Yet
without a previous outline of their results even a
general description would be unintelligible to the
lay reader, so great and varied is the material. A
book of this kind must reverse the order of the
spade. For whereas the excavator begins at the
surface and reads history downward, one who
writes on the subject must ' begin at the begin-
ning,' that is, with what the excavator has learned
at the bottom of his pit. And whereas the ex-
cavator, from a mass of careful observations,
forms his picture of the past, the writer must first
sketch the broad outlines of the picture, and then
fill in the details. For scaffolding he will use the
structure that has cost the excavator years of
effort, namely, his system of chronology.
The Golden Age of Crete, when did it begin and
how long endure ? If we use the phrase in its
narrower sense, we must limit the time to q, 1500-
13
OF CRETE
WE have in brief fashion resumed the way by
which was made the great discovery of a
remote civilization existing in the iEgean area and
originating in Crete. It is not our purpose to write
an archaeological treatise dealing minutely and in
technical language with Cretan excavations. Yet
without a previous outline of their results even a
general description would be unintelligible to the
lay reader, so great and varied is the material. A
book of this kind must reverse the order of the
spade. For whereas the excavator begins at the
surface and reads history downward, one who
writes on the subject must ' begin at the begin-
ning,' that is, with what the excavator has learned
at the bottom of his pit. And whereas the ex-
cavator, from a mass of careful observations,
forms his picture of the past, the writer must first
sketch the broad outlines of the picture, and then
fill in the details. For scaffolding he will use the
structure that has cost the excavator years of
effort, namely, his system of chronology.
The Golden Age of Crete, when did it begin and
how long endure ? If we use the phrase in its
narrower sense, we must limit the time to q, 1500-
13