DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7519#0338
Chapter VI
POST-MINOAN CRETE
i. the sub-minoan and protogeometric periods
(See Map iy)
WE HAVE traced the course of Cretan civilization down to
the end of the Bronze Age, at some time late in the twelfth
century. The new period is characterized by the appearance
°f iron and the increasing absorption of the island both racially
and culturally into the general civilization of the Aegean.1
The breaking up of the Mycenaean or Achaean empire, of
which Crete for a short time formed a part, no doubt began
some time before the actual destruction of Mycenae.2 The
dark ages of which history has nothing and legend little to tell
us, had begun. Crete suffered a tremendous loss of population,
as she was to do again after the Venetian and Turkish conquests
and after the revolt of 1821.3 The map shows an extraordinary
change after L.M.iii. Most of the coastal sites, particularly to
the South, have been abandoned. Few of the inland towns
have survived. Their inhabitants have fled to mountain
eyries, such as those of Karphi, Vrokastro, and Kavousi
(PI. VI). We seem to be back in the Neolithic Period with its
life of terror, the only difference being that some building skill
had survived and robber castles take the place of caves. It
will be noticed that the West of Crete seems to have been com-
pletely abandoned except for Eleutherna, which may have
offered a refuge where the surviving inhabitants of the newly
founded towns collected. It is possible that other such cities
1 See for all this early period, Mackenzie, B.S.A., XIII, 428 ff.
2 B.S.A., XXV, 125, 245.
3 Pashley, II, 326, suggests 500,000 as the population when the
Venetians first landed, reduced to half by the sixteenth century and
to less than 80,000 a few years after the Turkish conquest. It rose
to about 260,000 by 1821, but had fallen to half that number in 1834.
In 1881 it was 280,000. To-day it is half a million.
303
POST-MINOAN CRETE
i. the sub-minoan and protogeometric periods
(See Map iy)
WE HAVE traced the course of Cretan civilization down to
the end of the Bronze Age, at some time late in the twelfth
century. The new period is characterized by the appearance
°f iron and the increasing absorption of the island both racially
and culturally into the general civilization of the Aegean.1
The breaking up of the Mycenaean or Achaean empire, of
which Crete for a short time formed a part, no doubt began
some time before the actual destruction of Mycenae.2 The
dark ages of which history has nothing and legend little to tell
us, had begun. Crete suffered a tremendous loss of population,
as she was to do again after the Venetian and Turkish conquests
and after the revolt of 1821.3 The map shows an extraordinary
change after L.M.iii. Most of the coastal sites, particularly to
the South, have been abandoned. Few of the inland towns
have survived. Their inhabitants have fled to mountain
eyries, such as those of Karphi, Vrokastro, and Kavousi
(PI. VI). We seem to be back in the Neolithic Period with its
life of terror, the only difference being that some building skill
had survived and robber castles take the place of caves. It
will be noticed that the West of Crete seems to have been com-
pletely abandoned except for Eleutherna, which may have
offered a refuge where the surviving inhabitants of the newly
founded towns collected. It is possible that other such cities
1 See for all this early period, Mackenzie, B.S.A., XIII, 428 ff.
2 B.S.A., XXV, 125, 245.
3 Pashley, II, 326, suggests 500,000 as the population when the
Venetians first landed, reduced to half by the sixteenth century and
to less than 80,000 a few years after the Turkish conquest. It rose
to about 260,000 by 1821, but had fallen to half that number in 1834.
In 1881 it was 280,000. To-day it is half a million.
303