DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0404
350 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
Thus, while metals are not entirely wanting in these earlier
strata, we seem to be brought into the presence of a civili-
zation but little removed from the Stone Age; and it is a
fair inference that when the first contingent of the My-
cenaean stock came down into Greece — say, in the third
millennium b. c. — they had very little knowledge and made
very little use of metals. The first metals known to them
were copper and gold, while silver emerges later, as it con-
tinues to be much the rarer of the two precious metals. From
the not infrequent occurrence of silver objects in the Island
graves where gold is comparatively rare, we may conjecture
that it was through the Islanders the white metal came to
the knowledge of the Continental Greeks, who were already
more or less familiar with bronze and gold. For all three
metals they looked to the East for their supply.
From the East, too, came other gifts no less important
in the advancement of culture and the amelioration of life.
Domestica- Chief among these were domesticated plants and
plants and animals, whose introduction undoubtedly began
in the earlier Mycenaean epoch. This seems
to be true of the tree which has ever since afforded the
staple food of the Greeks, and of the animal whose domes-
tication (as Schrader observes) gives an entirely new and
special character to a primitive people. We refer,
and the of course, to the olive and the horse. While the
olive is native to Greece, it was domesticated
earlier in Syria, and the Mycenaeans appear to have learned
its cultivation from the Semites. So the domestication of
the horse may be regarded as a gift from the same quarter.
The noble animal was doubtless known to the Mycenaeans
before the Phoenicians began to frequent their shores, but
it is quite improbable that he had been subdued to the ser-
vice of man. True, as early as the epoch of the sculptured
Thus, while metals are not entirely wanting in these earlier
strata, we seem to be brought into the presence of a civili-
zation but little removed from the Stone Age; and it is a
fair inference that when the first contingent of the My-
cenaean stock came down into Greece — say, in the third
millennium b. c. — they had very little knowledge and made
very little use of metals. The first metals known to them
were copper and gold, while silver emerges later, as it con-
tinues to be much the rarer of the two precious metals. From
the not infrequent occurrence of silver objects in the Island
graves where gold is comparatively rare, we may conjecture
that it was through the Islanders the white metal came to
the knowledge of the Continental Greeks, who were already
more or less familiar with bronze and gold. For all three
metals they looked to the East for their supply.
From the East, too, came other gifts no less important
in the advancement of culture and the amelioration of life.
Domestica- Chief among these were domesticated plants and
plants and animals, whose introduction undoubtedly began
in the earlier Mycenaean epoch. This seems
to be true of the tree which has ever since afforded the
staple food of the Greeks, and of the animal whose domes-
tication (as Schrader observes) gives an entirely new and
special character to a primitive people. We refer,
and the of course, to the olive and the horse. While the
olive is native to Greece, it was domesticated
earlier in Syria, and the Mycenaeans appear to have learned
its cultivation from the Semites. So the domestication of
the horse may be regarded as a gift from the same quarter.
The noble animal was doubtless known to the Mycenaeans
before the Phoenicians began to frequent their shores, but
it is quite improbable that he had been subdued to the ser-
vice of man. True, as early as the epoch of the sculptured