CIVILIZATION The evidence, summarized above, though very various and voluminous, is not yet sufficient to answer all the questions which may be asked as to the origin, nature and history of this civiliza tion, or to answer any but a few questions with absolute certainty.
The fact that Aegean civilization is distinguished from all others, prior or contemporary, not only by its geographical area, but by leading organic characteristics, has never been in doubt since its remains came to be studied seriously and impartially. The truth was indeed obscured for a time by persistent prejudices in favour of certain alien Mediterranean races long known to have been in relation with the Aegean area in prehistoric times ; e.g., the Egyptians and especially the Phoeni cians. Others put forward "Achaeans" from the north as its authors. But such claims to the authorship of the Aegean remains grew fainter with every fresh Aegean discovery and every new light thrown on their own proper products ; with the Cretan revelations they ceased altogether to be considered except by a few Homeric enthusiasts. Briefly, we now know that the Aegean civilization de veloped these distinctive features : (I) An indigenous script ex pressed in characters of which only a very small percentage are identical, or even obviously connected, with those of any other scripts. This is equally true both of the pictographic and the linear Aegean systems. Its nearest affinities are with the "Asianic" scripts, preserved to us by Hittite, Cypriote and south-west Anatolian (Pamphylian, Lycian and Carian) inscriptions. But neither are these affinities close enough to be of any practical aid in deciphering Aegean characters, nor is it by any means certain that there is parentage. The Aegean script may be, and probably is, prior in origin to the "Asianic"; and it may equally well be owed to a remote common ancestor, or (the small number of common characters being considered) be an entirely independent evolution from representations of natural objects (see CRETE). (2) An Art, whose products cannot be confounded with those of any other known art by a trained eye. Its obligations to other contemporary arts are many and obvious, especially in its later stages; but every borrowed form and motive undergoes an es sential modification at the hands of the Aegean craftsman, and the product is stamped with a new character. The secret of this character lies evidently in a constant attempt to express an ideal in forms more and more closely approaching to realities. We detect the dawn of that spirit which afterwards animated Hellenic art. The fresco-paintings, ceramic motives, reliefs, free sculpture and toreutic handiwork of Crete have supplied the clearest proof of it, confirming the impression already created by the goldsmiths' and painters' work of the Greek mainland (Mycenae, Thebes, Vaphio, Dendra, Tiryns). (3) Architectural plans and decoration. The arrangement of Aegean palaces is of two main types. First (and perhaps earliest in time), the chambers are grouped round a central court, being engaged one with the other in a labyrinthine complexity, and the greater oblongs are entered from a long side and divided longitudinally by pillars. Second, the main chamber is of what is known as the megaron type; i.e., it stands free, isolated from the rest of the plan by corridors, is entered from a vestibule on a short side, and has a central hearth, surrounded by pillars and perhaps hypaethral; there is no central court, and other apartments form distinct blocks. In spite of many com parisons made with Egyptian, Babylonian and "Hittite" plans, both these arrangements remain incongruous with any remains of prior or contemporary structures elsewhere. Whether either plan suits the "Homeric" palace does not affect the present ques tion. (4) A type of tomb, the dome or "beehive," of which the grandest examples known are at Mycenae. The Cretan "larnax" coffins, also, have no parallels outside the Aegean. There are other infinite singularities of detail ; but the above are more than suffi cient to establish the point.
With the immense expansion of the evidence, due to the Cretan excavations, a question arises how far the Aegean civilization, whose total duration covers at least 3,00o years, can be regarded as one and continuous. The explora tion of Cnossus shows that Aegean civilization had its roots in a primitive Neolithic period, of uncertain but very long duration, represented by a stratum which (on that site in particular) is in places nearly 2oft. thick, and contains stone implements and sherds of hand-made and hand-polished vessels, showing a pro gressive development in technique from bottom to top. This Cnossian stratum seems to be throughout earlier than the lowest layer at Hissarlik. It closes with the introduction of incised, white-filled decoration on pottery, whose motives are presently found reproduced in monochrome pigment. We are now in the beginning of the bronze age, and the first of Evans's "Minoan" periods. Thereafter, by exact observation of stratification, eight more periods have been distinguished at Cnossus, each marked by some important development in the universal and necessary products of the potter's art, the least destructible and therefore most generally used archaeological criterion. These periods fill the whole bronze age, with whose close, by the introduction of the superior metal, iron, the Aegean age is conventionally held to end. Iron came into general Aegean use about i000 B.C., and possibly was the means by which a body of northern invaders established their power on the ruins of the earlier dominion. The important point is this, that throughout the nine Cnossian periods, following the Neolithic age (named by Evans, "Minoan I. I, 2, 3; II. 1, 2, 3 ; III. 1, 2, 3"; see CRETE), there is evidence of a perfectly orderly and continuous evolution in, at any rate, ceramic art. From one stage to another, fabrics, forms and motives of decoration develop gradually; so that, at the close of a span of more than 2,000 years, at the least, influences of the beginning can still be clearly seen and no trace of violent artistic intrusion can be detected. This fact, by itself, would go far to prove that the civilization continued fundamentally and essentially the same throughout. It is, moreover, supported by less abundant remains of other arts. That of painting in fresco, for instance, shows the same orderly development from at any rate Period II. 2 to the end. About institutions we have less certain knowledge, there being but little evidence for the earlier periods; but in the docu ments relating to religion, the most significant of all, there is no trace of sharp change. We see evidence of a uniform nature worship passing through all the normal stages down to theoan thropism in the latest period. There is no appearance of intrusive deities or cult-ideas. We may take it then (and the fact is not disputed even by those who believe in one thorough racial change, at least, during the bronze age) that the Aegean civilization was indigenous, firmly rooted and strong enough to remain dominant in its own geographical area throughout the bronze age.
This conclusion does not necessarily lead to the corollary that the mass of those who possessed this civilization remained for the most part racially the same throughout the bronze age. This indeed may be true for Crete, but as already indicated there are grave reasons for believing that on the mainland matters were not so simple, and herein lies the crux of Greek ethnology. A solution which would satisfy the archaeological and anthropological prob lems to be indicated would go far to solving the vexed questions of Hellenic origins, especially as regards Achaeans and Dorians (see DORIANS, ACHAEANS and IONIANS), and the first appearance of Aryans in the peninsula. In the neolithic age the general characteristics of the culture of the mainland and of Crete are quite distinct. On the mainland at the end of the neolithic age a bronze-using culture appears which is undoubtedly akin to that of the islands and Crete. In the middle period, however, about 2000 B.C., a new element comes into the mainland typified for archaeologists by a well marked class of pottery called "Minyan Ware." This occurs as an import into Melos and was even imitated there, but though contemporary Melian wares are recog nized in Crete, as in the temple repositories at Cnossus, hardly a sherd of Minyan ware has been found in Crete. Suddenly, just before the beginning of the last period, Cretan influence and culture came in full force to the mainland. Some hold that this betokens a complete conquest of the mainland by Crete, wholesale displacements of population and the institution of Cretan dynasts at Mycenae and elsewhere. Others maintain that this indicates a rapid absorption by a vigorous and progressive folk of a de veloped culture which they adapted to their own purposes. For the latter view we can urge :— (I ) Distinct differences are observed between the products of the mainland and those of Crete and both, for instance, appear as imports in Melos side by side; (2) the oldest royal grave at Mycenae contains mostly mainland pottery, and throughout the succeeding period, though the superficial culture is Cretan, there are clear signs that its basis is the old element which produced Minyan ware; (3) there is a variation in burial customs between Crete and the mainland pointing to a divergence in belief as regards the dead; (4) the fortified castles of the mainland like Mycenae, Tiryns and Midea are in strong contrast to the un defended palaces of Crete; (5) in the earlier periods Cretan pottery, except in a few cases, has not been found outside, but the adoption of the Cretan phase of Aegean culture by the main land just precedes the spread of the last phase of that culture far and wide in the Levant, and it is notorious that the remains from Rhodes, Cyprus and Philistia depend on the mainland and not on Crete.
All this suggests that about 1600 B.C. when the last period began some powerful folk (that which introduced Minyan pottery) arose on the mainland and quickly absorbed the mature Aegean culture of Crete, and soon after, when Crete collapsed, about 1400 B.c., the mainlanders became the dominant force and spread their version of Aegean culture abroad. The recent discoveries that the walls and palaces of Tiryns and Mycenae belong to the last phase after 1400 B.c. support this view, as also the other conclusion which places the greatest achievements of Aegean architecture, like the treasury of Atreus, in this the culminating phase of the Aegean culture, which closed perhaps with the great armada led against Troy.
A good deal of anthropometric investigation has been devoted to human remains of the Aegean epoch, especially to skulls and bones found in Crete in tombs of Period II. The result of this, however, has established the fact that the Aegean races, as a whole, belonged to the dark, long-headed Homo Mediterraneus—a fact only valuable in the present connection in so far as it tends to discredit an Asiatic source for Aegean civilization, though there was clearly much affinity between Crete and south-western Asia Minor. From the skull-forms studied, it would appear, that the Aegean race was by no means pure even in the earlier Minoan periods. On the mainland indeed the skulls from Asine show that both the long and the short types were present in the middle period together with one or two examples of an "Armenoid" character. This is by no means in disagreement with archaeology. There is some ground for supposing that the language spoken in Crete before the later Doric was non-Hellenic, though perhaps Indo-European. This inference rests on three inscriptions in Greek characters but non-Greek language found in eastern Crete. The language has some apparent affinities with Phrygian. The inscrip tions are post-Aegean by many centuries, but they occur in the part of the island known to Homer as that inhabited by the Eteo Cretans, or aborigines. Their language may prove to be that of the Linear tablets.
