DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7519#0051
16 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CRETE
there was a site there, to give the earliest date of that site. In
Neolithic times we find the inhabitants of Crete dwelling in
caves. Ellenospilo at Potisteria North of Gonia Monastery
on Cape Spadha with its settlement 70 metres into the hill-
side, Ellenais, Amnisos, Trapeza in Lasithi (PI. V, 1), Magasa,
Skallais and Zakros in the East all show the fear, perhaps of
wild beasts, in which Neolithic man went. On the other
hand, the largest settlement, at Knossos, occupies the site of
the later Palace.
In Minoan times life was evidently as peaceful as to-day.
Unfortified towns were built on low knolls, often near the sea.
(PI. V, 2, 3, 4). Then, after the break up of the Bronze Age
civilization we find the castles of the robber barons on the
rocky eyries of Karphi, Kavousi, Vrokastro and the Zakros
Gorge. No consideration of a water supply is shown. The
one concern is inaccessibility (PI. VI, 1 and 2). In Archaic
times the uncertainty of communal rather than personal safety,
inseparable from the petty city politics of Greece, caused the
sites chosen to be high flat-topped hills, surrounded if possible
by ravines. Such typical sites are seen at Eleutherna,
Polyrrhenia, Prinias, Hyrtakina, Lato, Dreros, and many other
places (PI. VII and VIII, 1). In Hellenic times and later
these sites naturally continued to be occupied, but from the
beginning of the fifth century there is a tendency to come down
from the city of refuge until in Roman times we see a number
of sites occupied which had not been inhabited since Minoan
days (PI. VIII, 2, 3, 4).
C. AUTHORITIES
A word must be said about those who followed the ancient
geographers. They can be easily divided into two classes,
the pre- and post-Pashley.
The earliest is the Florentine traveller Buondelmonte in
1422. His work is included in Cornelius, Creta Sacra (1755).
Many of the remains which he saw, such as the walls of Kisamos,
have now disappeared.
That quaint writer Tournefort makes few excursions into
archaeology in his Voyage au Levant (Paris, 1717, of journeys
in 1700). Next comes Johann Meursius, who collects all the
references from classical authors in his Creta (Amsterdam,
1675). Pococke in the second volume of his Description of the
East (London, 1745) and Cramer in the third volume of his
Description of Ancient Greece give a wealth of inaccurate informa-
there was a site there, to give the earliest date of that site. In
Neolithic times we find the inhabitants of Crete dwelling in
caves. Ellenospilo at Potisteria North of Gonia Monastery
on Cape Spadha with its settlement 70 metres into the hill-
side, Ellenais, Amnisos, Trapeza in Lasithi (PI. V, 1), Magasa,
Skallais and Zakros in the East all show the fear, perhaps of
wild beasts, in which Neolithic man went. On the other
hand, the largest settlement, at Knossos, occupies the site of
the later Palace.
In Minoan times life was evidently as peaceful as to-day.
Unfortified towns were built on low knolls, often near the sea.
(PI. V, 2, 3, 4). Then, after the break up of the Bronze Age
civilization we find the castles of the robber barons on the
rocky eyries of Karphi, Kavousi, Vrokastro and the Zakros
Gorge. No consideration of a water supply is shown. The
one concern is inaccessibility (PI. VI, 1 and 2). In Archaic
times the uncertainty of communal rather than personal safety,
inseparable from the petty city politics of Greece, caused the
sites chosen to be high flat-topped hills, surrounded if possible
by ravines. Such typical sites are seen at Eleutherna,
Polyrrhenia, Prinias, Hyrtakina, Lato, Dreros, and many other
places (PI. VII and VIII, 1). In Hellenic times and later
these sites naturally continued to be occupied, but from the
beginning of the fifth century there is a tendency to come down
from the city of refuge until in Roman times we see a number
of sites occupied which had not been inhabited since Minoan
days (PI. VIII, 2, 3, 4).
C. AUTHORITIES
A word must be said about those who followed the ancient
geographers. They can be easily divided into two classes,
the pre- and post-Pashley.
The earliest is the Florentine traveller Buondelmonte in
1422. His work is included in Cornelius, Creta Sacra (1755).
Many of the remains which he saw, such as the walls of Kisamos,
have now disappeared.
That quaint writer Tournefort makes few excursions into
archaeology in his Voyage au Levant (Paris, 1717, of journeys
in 1700). Next comes Johann Meursius, who collects all the
references from classical authors in his Creta (Amsterdam,
1675). Pococke in the second volume of his Description of the
East (London, 1745) and Cramer in the third volume of his
Description of Ancient Greece give a wealth of inaccurate informa-