DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12762#0019
PREFACE
xiii
of wigwam with posts round it existed in Minoan Crete, but the traces of circular
stone houses are hitherto entirely wanting. On the contrary, all the earliest
evidence, including that of the Late Neolithic, points to habitations of rect-
angular form. From what quarter, then, came the prototypes of these domed
sepulchral chambers ?
The small walled enclosures at the entrance of these tholos tombs happily
differentiate them in such a way as to enable us to go beyond mere general
comparisons. As I hope to show in more detail elsewhere,1 the class of bee-
hive tomb entered by a kind of square ' chapel' may be traced in various
kindred shapes over a large area on the farther shores of the Libyan Sea.
There indeed they were at home, since the circular type of dwelling out of
which they grew—so conspicuous by its absence in early Crete—has the
widest distribution on the North African side. It answers, indeed, to the
classical ' mapalia' or round huts of the historic Libyans, the ' oven-like ' form
of which struck Roman observers.
The reappearance of this particular form of ossuary vault in the southern-
most Cretan region, containing, as we have seen, so many elements derived from
the same quarter, may be taken as cogent evidence that about the beginning of
the Early Minoan age actual settlers belonging to the old Libyan stock, driven
forth perhaps by the conquest of the Delta by the historic Egyptians under
Mena, made good their footing in this southernmost Cretan district.
ARTHUR EVANS.
1 Palace, II, § 34.
xiii
of wigwam with posts round it existed in Minoan Crete, but the traces of circular
stone houses are hitherto entirely wanting. On the contrary, all the earliest
evidence, including that of the Late Neolithic, points to habitations of rect-
angular form. From what quarter, then, came the prototypes of these domed
sepulchral chambers ?
The small walled enclosures at the entrance of these tholos tombs happily
differentiate them in such a way as to enable us to go beyond mere general
comparisons. As I hope to show in more detail elsewhere,1 the class of bee-
hive tomb entered by a kind of square ' chapel' may be traced in various
kindred shapes over a large area on the farther shores of the Libyan Sea.
There indeed they were at home, since the circular type of dwelling out of
which they grew—so conspicuous by its absence in early Crete—has the
widest distribution on the North African side. It answers, indeed, to the
classical ' mapalia' or round huts of the historic Libyans, the ' oven-like ' form
of which struck Roman observers.
The reappearance of this particular form of ossuary vault in the southern-
most Cretan region, containing, as we have seen, so many elements derived from
the same quarter, may be taken as cogent evidence that about the beginning of
the Early Minoan age actual settlers belonging to the old Libyan stock, driven
forth perhaps by the conquest of the Delta by the historic Egyptians under
Mena, made good their footing in this southernmost Cretan district.
ARTHUR EVANS.
1 Palace, II, § 34.