GENERAL FEATURES OF AEGEAN CIVILIZATION The leading features of Aegean civilization, as deduced from the evidence must be stated very briefly.
) Political Organization.—The great Cretan palaces and the fortified citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns and Hissarlik, each containing little more than one great residence, and dominating lower towns of meaner houses, point to monarchy at all periods. Independent local developments of art before the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. suggest the early existence of independent units in various parts, of which the strongest was the Cnossian. After that date the evidence goes strongly to show that one political dominion was spread for a brief period, or for two brief periods, over almost all the area (see later). The great number of tribute tallies found at Cnossus perhaps indicates that the centre of power was there for some time.
The fact that shrines have so far been found within palaces and not certainly anywhere else indicates that the kings kept religious power in their own hands; perhaps they were themselves high-priests. Religion in the area seems to have been essentially the same everywhere from the earliest period; viz., the cult of divine principles, resident in dominant features of nature (sun, stars, mountains, trees, etc.) and controlling fertility. This cult passed through an aniconic stage, from which fetishes sur vived to the last, these being rocks or pillars, trees, weapons (e.g., bipennis, or double war-axe, shield), etc. When the iconic stage was reached, about 2000 B.C., we find one divine spirit represented as a goddess with a subordinate young god, as in many other east ern Mediterranean lands. The god was probably son and mate of the goddess, and the divine pair represented the genius of reproductive fertility in its relations with humanity. The goddess at times appears, with doves, as uranic, at others with snakes, as chthonic. In the ritual fetishes, often of miniature form, played a great part : all sorts of plants and animals were sacred; sacrifice (not burnt, and human very doubtful), dedication of all sorts of offerings and simulacra invocation, etc., were practised. The dead were objects of a sort of hero-worship especially on the mainland. This early nature-cult, explains many anomalous features of Hellenic religion, especially in the cults of Artemis and Aphrodite (see CRETE).
There is a possibility that features of a primeval matriarchate long survived ; but there is no certain evidence. Of the organization of the people under the monarch we are ignorant. There are so few representations of armed men that it seems doubtful if there can have been any professional military class. Theatral structures found at Cnossus and Phaestus, within the precincts of the palaces, were perhaps used for shows or for sittings of a royal assize, rather than for popular assemblies. The Cnossian remains contain evidence of an elaborate system of registration, account-keeping and other secretarial work, which perhaps indicates a considerable body of law. 'The life of the ruling class was comfortable and even luxurious from early times. Fine stone palaces, richly decorated, with separate sleeping apart ments, large halls, ingenious devices for admitting light and air, sanitary conveniences and marvellously modern arrangements, for supply of water and for drainage, attest this fact. Even the smaller houses, of ter the Neolithic period, seem also to have been of stone, plastered within. After i600 B.C. the palaces in Crete had more than one storey, fine stairways, bath-chambers, windows, folding and sliding doors, etc. In this later period, the distinc tions of blocks of apartments in some palaces has been held to indicate the seclusion of women in harems, at least among the ruling caste. Cnossian frescoes show women grouped apart, and they appear alone on gems. Flesh and fish and many kinds of vegetables were evidently eaten, and wine and beer were drunk. Vessels for culinary, table and luxurious uses show an infinite variety of form and purpose. Artificers' implements of many kinds were in use, bronze succeeding obsidian and other hard stones as the material. Seats are found carefully shaped to the human person. There was evidently olive- and vine-culture on a large scale. Chariots were in use in the later period, as is proved by the pictures of them on Cretan tablets and at Mycenae, Tiryns and Vaphio, and therefore the horse was known. Main ways were paved. Sports, probably more or less religious, are often represented; e.g., bull-fighting, dancing, boxing and armed combats.
was practised to some extent in very early times, as is proved by the distribution of Melian obsidian over most of the Aegean area and by the Nilotic influence on early Minoan art. We find Cretan vessels exported to Melos, Egypt and the Greek mainland. Melian vases came in their turn to Crete. After i600 B.C. there is very close intercourse with Egypt, and Aegean things find their way to all coasts of the Mediterranean (see below). No traces of currency have come to light, unless certain axe-heads too slight for practical use, had that character; but standard weights have been found, and representations of ingots. The Aegean written documents have not yet proved (by being found outside the area) epistolary correspondence with other lands. Representations of ships are not common, but several have been observed on Aegean gems, gem-sealings and vases. There are also leaden and clay models of boats. They are vessels of low free-board, with masts. Familiarity with the sea is proved by the free use of marine motives in decoration.
The dead in the earlier period were laid (so far as we know at present) within cists constructed of upright stones. These were sometimes inside caves and oc casionally clay coffins were used. After the burial the cist was covered in with earth. A little later, in Crete, bone pits seem to have come into use, containing the remains of many burials. Possibly the flesh was boiled off the bones at once ("scarifi cation"), or left to rot in separate cists awhile; afterwards the skeletons were collected and the cists re-used. The royal shaft graves at Mycenae are an elaboration of the simple cist grave and the circle surrounding them finds a parallel in the grave rings at Leucas. Chamber tombs built in the early period occur in Crete and rock-cut tombs of the same general type ap proached by a horizontal or slightly inclined way with the sides converging above are very common on the mainland and in Rhodes in the last period, and are often found in Crete where small clay coffins containing skeletons in a crouching posture are usual. Circular ossuaries which some believe to have been roofed with vaults, occur in Crete in the early period and last into the beginning of the middle period ; but the great beehive tombs of Mycenae and the mainland belong to the last period (from about 1500 B.C. onwards) and the finest, such as the treasury of Atreus, to the concluding phase of the bronze age after the fall of Crete about 1400 B.c. Sometimes in Crete at the end of the middle period the dead were trussed up and thrust head foremost into large jars for burial. On the mainland at a slightly earlier date children are found buried in jars, and sometimes in place of stone cists the dead were surrounded by walls of crude brick or covered with fragments of large store jars. At no period do the Aegean dead seem to have been burned. Weapons, food, water, un guents and various trinkets were laid with the corpse at all periods. In the Mycenae circle an altar seems to have been erected over the graves, and on the mainland at least there are definite traces of the worship of the dead. A painted sarcophagus, found at Hagia Triada, also possibly shows a hero-cult of the dead.
Ceramic art reached a specially high standard in fabric, form and decoration by the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C. in Crete. The products of that period compare favourably with any potters' work in the world. The same may be said of fresco-painting, and probably of metal work. Modelling in terra-cotta, sculpture in stone and ivory, engraving on gems, were following it closely by the beginning of the 2nd millennium. After 2000 B.C. all these arts revived, and sculpture, as evidenced by relief work, both on a large and on a small scale, carved stone vessels, metallurgy in gold, silver and bronze, ad vanced farther. This art and those of fresco- and vase-painting and of gem engraving stood higher about the r 5th century B.C. than at any subsequent period before the 6th century. The manufacture, modelling and painting of faience objects, and the making of inlays in many materials were also familiar to Aegean craftsmen, who show in all their best work a strong sense of natural form and an appreciation of ideal balance and decorative effect, such as are seen in the best products of later Hellenic art. Architectural ornament was also highly developed. The richness of the Aegean capitals and columns may be judged by those from the "Treasury of Atreus" now set up in the British Museum ; and of the friezes we have examples in Mycenaean and Cnossian f rag ments, and Cnossian paintings. The magnificent gold work of the later period, preserved to us at Mycenae, Dendra and Vaphio, needs only to be mentioned. It should be compared with stone work in Crete, especially the steatite vases with reliefs f ound at Hagia Triada. On the whole, Aegean art, at its two great periods, in the middle of the 3rd and 2nd millennia respectively, will bear comparison with any contemporary arts.
