DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0310
258 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
the Pelasgians the whole of European Greece.1 Whether
we are to regard these as distinct races or not, it is clear
that, before they had been swept out of the Aegean or sub-
jugated by the Cretan . sea-king Minos, they had wrought
out a civilization which shows many points of contact with
that of primitive Troy on the one hand and of primitive
Cyprus on the other. Thus it presents itself to us as a
peculiar phase or variety of the primeval civilization of
Asia Minor, one of whose earliest and most important cen-
tres was Troy.2
But the Carians and Leleges, with their outlook on the
East, were not alone in the occupation and civilization of
Mycenaean *ne Archipelago. They must have been joined at
contingent an ear]y ^ay by people of the Mycenaean stock ■—
certainly so on Thera, probably also on Melos and other
islands. Aside from its intrinsic probability, this is attested
by the close correspondence between Theraean and Myce-
naean culture — a correspondence which can hardly be ac-
counted for without assuming kindred blood. But, not to
insist upon this or upon other criteria less positive, — for ex-
ample, the absence from Theraean remains of the statuettes
characteristic of the Carian graves, — we have important
evidence in the two stone models already mentioned. One
{Iliad, x. 428 f.). Diimmler has undertaken to reconcile the two views by
assuming that the Carians in their westward progress reduce the Leleges to
serfdom, though the latter still outnumber them on the islands (thus accounting
for the Cretan tradition); but on the Dorian-Ionian colonization of the Aegean
the Carian masters with their Lelegian helots are flung back on the Asiatic
coasts, where they are scarcely to be distinguished apart. Thus Diimmler would
ascribe the primitive island-culture to the Leleges and the more advanced My-
cenaean culture to the Carians (Ath. Mitth. xi. 37 ff.). But, as Percy Gardner
has conclusively shown, the Carian theory of Mycenaean civilization is discred-
ited by the facts {New Chapters of Greek History, p. 86).
1 Aristotle, frag. 127, quoted by Strabo, vii. 321.
2 Ferd. Diimmler (1. c), to whom we owe the most careful study yet made
of the Island civilization as related to the earliest culture of Cyprus and Troy.
the Pelasgians the whole of European Greece.1 Whether
we are to regard these as distinct races or not, it is clear
that, before they had been swept out of the Aegean or sub-
jugated by the Cretan . sea-king Minos, they had wrought
out a civilization which shows many points of contact with
that of primitive Troy on the one hand and of primitive
Cyprus on the other. Thus it presents itself to us as a
peculiar phase or variety of the primeval civilization of
Asia Minor, one of whose earliest and most important cen-
tres was Troy.2
But the Carians and Leleges, with their outlook on the
East, were not alone in the occupation and civilization of
Mycenaean *ne Archipelago. They must have been joined at
contingent an ear]y ^ay by people of the Mycenaean stock ■—
certainly so on Thera, probably also on Melos and other
islands. Aside from its intrinsic probability, this is attested
by the close correspondence between Theraean and Myce-
naean culture — a correspondence which can hardly be ac-
counted for without assuming kindred blood. But, not to
insist upon this or upon other criteria less positive, — for ex-
ample, the absence from Theraean remains of the statuettes
characteristic of the Carian graves, — we have important
evidence in the two stone models already mentioned. One
{Iliad, x. 428 f.). Diimmler has undertaken to reconcile the two views by
assuming that the Carians in their westward progress reduce the Leleges to
serfdom, though the latter still outnumber them on the islands (thus accounting
for the Cretan tradition); but on the Dorian-Ionian colonization of the Aegean
the Carian masters with their Lelegian helots are flung back on the Asiatic
coasts, where they are scarcely to be distinguished apart. Thus Diimmler would
ascribe the primitive island-culture to the Leleges and the more advanced My-
cenaean culture to the Carians (Ath. Mitth. xi. 37 ff.). But, as Percy Gardner
has conclusively shown, the Carian theory of Mycenaean civilization is discred-
ited by the facts {New Chapters of Greek History, p. 86).
1 Aristotle, frag. 127, quoted by Strabo, vii. 321.
2 Ferd. Diimmler (1. c), to whom we owe the most careful study yet made
of the Island civilization as related to the earliest culture of Cyprus and Troy.