itself continued to preserve the hegemony which may reasonably be ascribed to it at an earlier age must remain doubtful. It is certain that towards the close of this third and concluding Late Minoan period in the island certain mainland types of swords and safety-pins make their appearance, which are symptomatic of the great invasion from that side that was now impending or had already begun.

Principal Minoan Sites.

It will be convenient here to give a general view of the more important Minoan remains recently excavated on various Cretan sites.

Cnossus. The palace of Cnossus is on the hill of Kephala about 4 m. inland from Candia. As a scene of human settlement this site is of immense antiquity. The successive Minoan " strata, which go well back into the fourth millennium B.C., reach down to a depth of about 17 ft. But below this again is a human deposit, from 20 to 26 ft. in thickness, representing a long and gradual course of Neolithic or Later Stone-Age development. Assuming that the lower strata were formed at approximately the same rate as the upper, we have an antiquity of from 12,000 to 14,000 years indicated for the first Neolithic settlement on this spot. The hill itself, like a Tell of Babylonia, is mainly formed of the debris of human settlements. The palace was approached from the west by a paved Minoan Way communicating with a considerable building on the opposite hill. This road was flanked by magazines, some belonging to the royal armoury, and abutted on a paved area with stepped seats on two sides (theatral area). The palace itself approximately formed a square with a large paved court in the centre. It had a N.S. orientation. The principal entrance was to the north, but what appears to have been the royal entrance opened on a paved court on the west side. This entrance communicated with a corridor showing frescoes of a processional character. The west side of the palace contained a series of 18 magazines with great store jars and cists and large hoards of clay documents. A remarkable feature of this quarter is a small council chamber with a gypsum throne of curiously Gothic | aspect and lower stone benches round. The walls of the throne room show frescoes with sacred griffins confronting each other in a Nile landscape, and a small bath chamber-perhaps of ritual use is attached. This quarter of the palace shows the double axe sign constantly repeated on its walls and pillars, and remains of miniature wall-paintings showing pillar shrines, in some cases with double axes stuck into the wooden columns. Here too were found the repositories of an early shrine containing exquisite faience figures and reliefs, including a snake goddess-another aspect of the native divinity -and her votaries. The central object of cult in this shrine was apparently a marble cross. Near the north-west angle of the palace was a larger bath chamber, and by the N. entrance were remains of great reliefs of bull-hunting scenes in painted gesso duro. South of the central court were found parts of a relief in the same material, showing a personage with a fleur-de-lis crown and collar. The east wing of the palace was the really residential part. Here was what seems to have been the basement of a very large hall or Megaron," approached directly from the central court, and near this were found further reliefs, fresco representations of scenes of the bull-ring with female as well as male toreadors, and remains of a magnificent gaming-board of gold-plated ivory with intarsia work of crystal plaques set on silver plates and blue enamel (cyanus). The true domestic quarter lay to the south of the great hall, and was approached from the central court by a descending staircase, of which three flights and traces of a fourth are preserved. This gives access to a whole series of halls and private rooms (halls" of the Colonnades," of the Double Axes,' 'Queen's Megaron" with bath-room attached and remains of the fish fresco, "Treasury "with ivory figures and other objects of art), together with extensive remains of an upper storey. The drainage system here, including a water-closet, is of the most complete and modern kind. Near this domestic quarter was found a small shrine of the Double Axes, with cult objects and offertory vessels in their places. The traces of an earlier Middle Minoan" palace beneath the later floor-levels are most visible on the east side, with splendid ceramic remains. Here also are early magazines with huge store jars. At the foot of the slope on this side, forming the eastern boundary of the palace, are massive supporting walls and a bastion with descending flights of steps, and a waterchannel devised with extraordinary hydraulic science (Evans, "Palace of Knossos," Reports of Excavations 1900-1905," in Annual of British School at Athens, vi. sqq.; Journ. R.I.B.A. (1902), pt. iv. For the palace pottery see D. Mackenzie, Journ. of Hellenic Studies, xxiii.). The palace site occupies nearly six acres. To the N.E. of it came to light a "royal villa "with staircase, and a basilica-like hall (Evans, B.S. Annual, ix. 130 seq.). To the N.W. was a dependency containing an important hoard of bronze vessels (ib. p. 112 sqq.). The building on the hill to the W. approached by the Minoan paved way has the appearance of a smaller palace (B.S. Annual, xii., 1906). Many remains of private houses belonging to the prehistoric town have also come to light (Hogarth, B.S.A. vi. [1900], p. 70 sqq.). A little N. of the town, at a spot called Zafer

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Papoura, an extensive Late Minoan cemetery was excavated in 1904 (Evans, The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossus, 1906), and on a height about 2 m. N. of this, a royal tomb consisting of a square chamber, which originally had a pointed vault of " Cyclopaean structure approached by a forehall or rock-cut passage. This monumental work seems to date from the close of the Middle Minoan age, but has been re-used for interments at successive periods (Evans, Archaeologia, 1906, p. 136 sqq.). It is possibly the traditional tomb of Idomeneus. (For later discoveries see further CNOSSUS.)

Phaestus.-The acropolis of this historic city looks on the Libyan Sea and commands the extensive plain of Messara. On the eastern hill of the acropolis, excavations initiated by F. Halbherr on behalf of the Italian Archaeological Mission and subsequently carried out by L. Pernier have brought to light another Minoan palace, much resembling on a somewhat smaller scale that of Cnossus. The plan here too was roughly quadrangular with a central court, but owing to the erosion of the hillside a good deal of the eastern quarter has disappeared. The Phaestian palace belongs to two distinct periods, and the earlier or "Middle Minoan" part is better preserved than at Cnossus. The west court and entrance belonging to the earlier building show many analogies with those of Cnossus, and the court was commanded to the north by tiers of stone benches like those of the "theatral area at Cnossus on a larger scale. Magazines with fine painted store jars came to light beneath the floor of the later propylaeum." The most imposing block of the later building is formed by a group of structures rising from the terrace formed by the old west wall. A fine paved corridor running east from this gives access to a line of the later magazines, and through a columnar hall to the central court beyond, while to the left of this a broad and stately flight of steps leads up to a kind of entrance hall on an upper terrace. North of the central court is a domestic quarter presenting analogies with that of Cnossus, but throughout the later building there was a great dearth of the frescoes and other remains such as invest the Cnossian palace with so much interest. There are also few remaining traces here of upper storeys. It is evident that in this case also the palace was overtaken by a great catastrophe, followed by a partial reoccupation towards the close of the Late Minoan age (L. Pernier, Scavi della missione italiana a Phaestos; Monumenti antichi, xii. and xiv.).

About a kilometre distant from the palace of Phaestus near the village of Kalyvia a Late Minoan cemetery was brought to light in 1901, belonging to the same period as that of Cnossus (Savignoni, Necropoli di Phaestos, 1905).

Hagia Triada.-On a low hill crowned by a small church of the above name, about 3 m. nearer the Libyan Sea than Phaestus, a small palace or royal villa was discovered by Halbherr and excavated by the Italian Mission. In its structure and general arrangements it bears a general resemblance to the palace of Phaestus and Cnossus on a smaller scale. The buildings themselves, with the usual halls, bath-rooms and magazines, together with a shrine of the Mother Goddess, occupy two sides of a rectangle, enclosing a court at a higher level approached by flights of stairs. Repositories also came to light containing treasure in the shape of bronze ingots. In contrast to the palace of Phaestus, the contents of the royal villa proved exceptionally rich, and derive a special interest from the fact that the catastrophe which overwhelmed the building belongs to a somewhat earlier part of the Late Minoan age than that which overwhelmed Cnossus and Phaestus. Clay tablets were here found belonging to the earlier type of the linear script (Class A), together with a great number of clay sealings with religious and other devices and incised countermarks. Both the signet types and the other objects of art here discovered display the fresh naturalism that characterizes in a special way the first Late Minoan period. A remarkable wall-painting depicts a cat creeping over ivy-covered rocks and about to spring on a pheasant. The steatite vases with reliefs are of great importance. One of these shows a ritual procession, apparently of reapers singing and dancing to the sound of a sistrum. On another a Minoan warrior prince appears before his retainers. A tall funnel-shaped vase of this class, of which a considerable part has been preserved, is divided into zones showing bull-hunting scenes, wrestlers and pugilists in gladiatorial costume, the whole executed in a most masterly manner. The small palace was reconstructed at a later period, and at a somewhat higher level. To a period contemporary with the concluding age of the Cnossian palace must be referred a remarkable sarcophagus belonging to a neighbouring cemetery. The chest is of limestone coated with stucco, adorned with life-like paintings of offertory scenes in connexion with the sacred Double Axes of Minoan cult. There have also come to light remains of a great domed mortuary chamber of primitive construction containing relics of the Early Minoan period (Halbherr, Monumenti Antichi, xiii. (1903), p. 6 sqq., and Memorie del instituto lombardo, 1905; Paribeni, Lavori eseguiti della missione italiana nel Palazzo e nella necropoli di Haghia Triada; Rendiconti, &c., xi. and xii.; Savignoni, Il Vaso di Haghia Triada).

Palaikastro. Near this village, lying on the easternmost coast of Crete, the British School at Athens has excavated a section of a considerable Minoan town. The buildings here show a stratification analogous to that of the palace of Cnossus. The town was traversed by a well-paved street with a stone sewer, and contained several important private houses and a larger one which seems to have been

a small palace. Among the more interesting relics found were ivory figures of Egyptian or strongly Egyptianizing fabric. On an adjacent hill were the remains of what seems to have been in later times a temple of the Dictaean Zeus, and from the occurrence of rich deposits of Minoan vases and sacrificial remains at a lower level, the religious tradition represented by the later temple seems to go back to prehistoric times. On the neighbouring height of Petsofà, by a rock-shelter, remains of another interesting shrine were brought to light dating from the Middle Minoan period, and containing interesting votive offerings of terra-cotta, many of them apparently relating to cures or to the warding off of diseases (R. C. Bosanquet, British School Annual, viii. 286 sqq., ix. 274 sqq.; R. M. Dawkins, ibid. ix. 290 sqq., x.; J. L. Myres, ibid. ix. 356 sqq.).

Gournia-Near this hamlet on the coast of the Gulf of Mirabello in east Crete,the American archaeologist Miss Harriet Boyd hasexcavated a great part of another Minoan town. It covers the sides of a long hill, its main avenue being a winding roadway leading to a small palace. It contained a shrine of the Cretan snake goddess, and was rich in minor relics, chiefly in the shape of bronze implements and pottery for household use. The bulk of the remains belong here, as at Hagia Triada, to the beginning of the Late Minoan period, but there are signs of reoccupation in the decadent Minoan age. The remains supply detailed information as to the everyday life of a Cretan country town about the middle of the second millennium B.C. (H. Boyd, Excavations at Gournia).

Zakro.-Near the lower hamlet of that name on the S.E. coast important remains of a settlement contemporary with that of Gournia were explored by D. G. Hogarth, consisting of houses and pits containing painted pottery of exceptional beauty and a great variety of seal impressions. The deep bay in which Zakro lies is a well-known port of call for the fishing fleets on their way to the sponge grounds of the Libyan coast, and doubtless stood in the same stead to the Minoan shipping (D.G.Hogarth, Annual of the British School, vii. 121 sqq., and Journ. of Hellenic Studies, xxii. 76 sqq. and 333 sqq.). Dictaean Cave.-Near the village of Psychro on the Lassithi range, answering to the western Dicte, opens a large cave, identified with the legendary birthplace of the Cretan Zeus. This cavern also shared with that of Ida the claim to have been that in which Minos, Moseslike, received the law from Zeus. The exploration begun by the Italian Mission under Halbherr and continued by Evans, who found here the inscribed libation table (see above), was completed by Hogarth in 1900. Besides the great entrance hall of the cavern, which served as the upper shrine, were descending vaults forming a lower sanctuary going down deep into the bowels of the earth. Great quantities of votive figures and objects of cult, such as the fetish double axes and stone tables of offering, were found both above and below. In the lower sanctuary the natural pillars of stalagmite had been used as objects of worship, and bronze votive objects thrust into their crevices (Halbherr, Museo di antichità classica, ii. pp. 906-910; Evans, Further Discoveries, &c., p. 350 sqq., Myc. Tree and Pillar Cult, p. 14 sqq.; Hogarth, "The Dictaean Cave," Annual of British School at Athens, vi. 94 sqq.).

Pseira and Mochlos.-On these two islets on the northern coast

of E. Crete, R. Seager, an American explorer, has found striking remains of flourishing Minoan settlements. The contents of a series of tombs at Mochlos throw an entirely new light on the civilization of the Early Minoan age.

The above summary gives, indeed, a very imperfect idea of the extent to which the remains of the great Minoan civilization are spread throughout the island. The "hundred Third Late cities" ascribed to Crete by Homer are in a fair way Minoan period. of becoming an ascertained reality. The great days of Crete lie thus beyond the historic period. The period of decline referred to above (Late Minoan III.), which begins about the beginning of the 14th century before our era, must, from the abundance of its remains, have been of considerable duration. As to the character of the invading elements that hastened its close, and the date of their incursions, contemporary Egyptian monuments afford the best clue. The Keftiu who represented Minoan culture in Egypt in the concluding period of the Cnossian palace (Late Minoan II.) cease to appear on Egyptian monuments towards the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty (c. 1350 B.C.), and their place is taken by the "Peoples of the Sea." The Achaeans, under the name Akaiusha, already appear among the piratical invaders of Egypt in the time of Rameses III. (c. 1200 B.C.) of the XXth Dynasty (see H. R. Hall, "Keftiu and the Peoples of the Sea," Annual of British School at Athens, viii. 157 sqq.).

About the same time the evidences of imports of Late Minoan or "Mycenaean" fabrics in Egypt definitely cease. In the Odyssey we already find the Achaeans together with Dorians settled in central Crete. In the extreme east and west of the island the aboriginal

"Eteocretan" element, however, as represented respectively by the Praesians or Cydonians, still held its own, and inscriptions written in Greek characters show that the old language survived to the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era.

The mainland invasions which produced these great ethnic changes in Crete are marked archaeologically by signs of wide-; spread destruction and by a considerable break in The dark

ages.

the continuity of the insular civilization. New burial customs, notably the rite of cremation in place of the older corpse-burial, are introduced, and in many cases the earlier tombs were pillaged and re-used by new comers. The use of iron for arms and implements now finally triumphed over bronze. Northern forms of swords and safety-pins are now found in general use. A new geometrical style of decoration. like that of contemporary Greece largely supplants the Minoan models. The civic foundations which belong to this period, and which include the greater part of the massive ruins of Goulas and Anavlachos in the province of Mirabello and of Hyrtakina in the west, affect more or less precipitous sites and show a greater tendency to fortification. The old system of writing now dies out, and it is not till some three centuries: later that the new alphabetic forms are introduced from a Semitic source. The whole course of the older Cretan civilization is awhile interrupted, and is separated from the new by the true' dark ages of Greece.

It is nevertheless certain that some of the old traditions were

preserved by the remnants of the old population now reduced to a subject condition, and that these finally leavened the whole lump, so that once more this time under a Hellenic guiseCrete was enabled to anticipate mainland Greece in nascent civilization. Already in 1883 A. Milchhöfer (Anfänge der Kunst) had called attention to certain remarkable examples of archaic Greek bronze-work, and the subsequent discovery, of the votive bronzes in the cave of Zeus on Mount Ida, and notably the shields with their fine embossed designs, shows that by the 8th century B.C. Cretan technique in metal not only held its own beside imported Cypro-Phoenician work, but was distinctly ahead of that of the rest of Greece (Halbherr, Bronzi del antro di Zeus Ideo). The recent excavations by the British. School on the site of the Dictaean temple at Palaikastro bear out this conclusion, and an archaic marble head of Apollo found at Eleutherna shows that classical tradition was not at fault in recording the existence of a very early school of Greek sculpture in the island, illustrated by the names of Dipoenos and Scyllis.

The Dorian dynasts in Crete seem in some sort to have claimed descent from Minos, and the Dorian legislators sought their sanction in the laws which Minos was said to have received from the hands of the Cretan Zeus. The great monument of Gortyna discovered by Halbherr and Fabricius (Monumenti antichi, iii.) is the most important monument of early law hitherto brought to light in any part of the Greek world.

Among other Greek remains in the island may be mentioned, besides the great inscription, the archaic temple of the Pythian Apollo at Gortyna, a plain square building with a Greek pronaos added in later times, excavated by Halbherr, remains. 1885 and 1887 (Mon. Ant. iii. 2 seqq.), the Hellenic bridge and the vast rock-cut reservoirs of Eleutherna, the city' walls of Itanos, Aptera and Polyrrhenia, and at Phalasarna, the rock-cut throne of a divinity, the port, and the remains of a temple. The most interesting record, however, that has been preserved of later Hellenic civilization in the island is the coinage of the Cretan cities (J. N. Svoronos, Numismatique de la Crete ancienne; W. Wroth, B. M. Coin Catalogue, Crete, &c.; P. Gardner, The Types of Greek Coins), which during the good period display a peculiarly picturesque artistic style distinct from that of the rest of the Greek world, and sometimes indicative of a revival of Minoan types. But in every case these artistic efforts were followed at short intervals by gross relapses into barbarism which reflect the anarchy of the political conditions.

Under the Pax Romana the Cretan cities again enjoyed a large measure of prosperity, illustrated by numerous edifices still existing at the time of the Venetian occupation. A good

VII. 14 a

Roman remains.

LITERATURE. See the authorities already quoted, for further details. Previous to the extensive excavations referred to above, Crete had been carefully examined and explored by Tournefort, Pococke, Olivier and other travellers, e.g. Pashley (Travels in Crete, 2 vols., London, 1837) and Captain Spratt (Travels and Researches in Crete, 2 vols., London, 1865). A survey sufficiently accurate as regards the maritime parts was also executed, under the orders of the British admiralty, by Captain Graves and Captain (afterwards Admiral) Spratt. Most that can be gathered from ancient authors concerning the mythology and early history of the island is brought together by Meursius (Creta, &c., in the 3rd vol. of his works) and Hoeck (Kreta, 3 vols., Göttingen, 1823-1829), but the latter work was published before the researches which have thrown so much light on the topography and antiquities of the island. Much new material, especially as to the western provinces of Crete, has been recently collected by members of the Italian Archaeological Mission (Monumenti Antichi, vol. vi. 154 seqq., ix. 286, 1899; xi. 286 seqq.). (A. J. E.) History.

Ancient.-Lying midway between three continents, Crete was from the earliest period a natural stepping-stone for the passage of early culture from Egypt and the East to mainland Greece. On all this the recent archaeological discoveries (see the section on Archaeology) have thrown great light, but the earliest written history of Crete, like that of most parts of continental Greece, is mixed up with mythology and fable to so great an extent as to render it difficult to arrive at any clear conclusions concerning it. The Cretans themselves claimed for their island to be the birthplace of Zeus, as well as the parent of all the other divinities usually worshipped in Greece as the Olympian deities. But passing from this region of pure mythology to the semi-mythic or heroic age, we find almost all the early legends and traditions of the island grouped around the name of Minos. According to the received tradition, Minos was a king of Cnossus in Crete; he was a son of Zeus, and enjoyed through life the privilege of habitual intercourse with his divine father. It was from this source that he derived the wisdom which enabled him to give to the Cretans the excellent system of laws and governments that earned for him the reputation of being the greatest legislator of antiquity. At the same time he was reported to have been the first monarch who established a naval power, and acquired what was termed by the Greeks the Thalassocracy, or dominion of the sea.

This last tradition, which was received as an undoubted fact both by Thucydides and Aristotle, has during the last few years received striking confirmation. The remarkable remains recently brought to light on Cretan soil tend to show that already some 2000 years before the Dorian conquest the island was exercising a dominant influence in the Aegean world. The great palaces now excavated at Cnossus and Phaestus, as well as the royal villa of Hagia Triada, exhibit the successive phases of a brilliant primitive civilization which had already attained mature development by the date of the XIIth Egyptian dynasty. To this civilization as a whole it is convenient to give the name "Minoan," and the name of Minos itself may be reasonably thought to cover a dynastic even more than a personal significance in much the same way as such historic terms as "Pharaoh" or "Caesar." The archaeological evidence outside Crete points to the actual existence of Minoan plantations as far afield on one side as Sicily and on the other as the coast of Canaan. The historic

of the Philistine confederation, and places the tomb of Minos himself in western Sicily, thus receives remarkable confirmation. Industrial relations with Egypt are also marked by the occurrence of a series of finds of pottery and other objects of Minoan fabric among the remains of the XVIIIth, XIIth and even earlier dynasties, while the same seafaring enterprise brought Egyptian fabrics to Crete from the times of the first Pharaohs. Even in the Homeric poems, which belong to an age when the great Minoan civilization was already decadent, the Cretans appear as the only Greek people who attempted to compete with the Phoenicians as bold and adventurous navigators. In the Homeric age the population of Crete was of a very mixed character, and we are told in the Odyssey (xix. 175) that besides the Eteocretes, who, as their name imports, must have been the original inhabitants, the island contained Achaeans, Pelasgians and Dorians. Subsequently the Dorian element became greatly strengthened by fresh immigrations from the Peloponnesus, and during the historical period all the principal cities of the island were either Dorian colonies, or had adopted the Dorian dialect and institutions. It is certain that at a very early period the Cretan cities were celebrated for their laws and system of government, and the most extensive monument of early Greek law is the great Gortyna inscription, discovered in 1884. The origin of the Cretan laws was of course attributed to Minos, but they had much in common with those of the other Dorian states, as well as with those of Lycurgus at Sparta, which were, indeed, according to one tradition, copied in great measure from those already existing in Crete.1

It is certain that whatever merits the Cretan laws may have possessed for the internal regulation of the different cities, they had the one glaring defect, that they made no provision for any federal bond or union among them, or for the government of the island as a whole. It was owing to the want of this that the Cretans scarcely figure in Greek history as a people, though the island, as observed by Aristotle, would seem from its natural position calculated to exercise a preponderating influence over Greek affairs. Thus they took no part either in the Persian or in the Peloponnesian War, or in any of the subsequent civil contests in which so many of the cities and islands of Greece were engaged. At the same time they were so far from enjoying tranquillity on this account that the few notices we find of them in history always represent them as engaged in local wars among one another; and Polybius tells us that the history of Crete was one continued series of civil wars, which were carried on with a bitter animosity exceeding all that was known in the rest of Greece.

In these domestic contests the three cities that generally took the lead, and claimed to exercise a kind of hegemony or supremacy over the whole island, were Cnossus, Gortyna and Cydonia. But besides these three, there were many other independent cities, which, though they generally followed the lead of one or other of these more powerful rivals, enjoyed complete autonomy, and were able to shift at will from one alliance to another. Among the most important of these were-Lyttus or Lyctus, in the interior, south-east of Cnossus; Rhaucus, between Cnossus and Gortyna; Phaestus, in the plain of Messara, between Gortyna and the sea; Polyrrhenia, near the north-west angle of the island; Aptera, a few miles inland from the Bay of Suda; Eleutherna and Axus, on the northern slopes of Mount Ida; and Lappa, between the White Mountains and the sea. Phalasarna on the west coast, and Chersonesus on the north, seem to have been dependencies, and served as the ports of Polyrrhenia and Lyttus. Elyrus stood at the foot of the White Mountains, just 1 Among the features common to the two were the syssitia, or public tables, at which all the citizens dined in common. Indeed, the Cretan system, like that of Sparta, appears to have aimed at training up the young, and controlling them, as well as the citizens of more mature age, in all their habits and relations of life. The supreme governing authority was vested in magistrates called Cosmi, answering in some measure to the Spartan Ephori, but there was nothing corresponding to the two kings at Sparta. These Cretan institutions were much extolled by some writers of antiquity, but receive only qualified praise from the judicious criticisms of Aristotle (Polit. ii. 10).'