THE MINOAN AND MYCENAEAN AGES When does Greek history begin? Whatever may be the answer that is given to this question, it will be widely different from any that could have been proposed half a century ago. Then the question was, How late does Greek history begin? To-day the question is, How early does it begin? Grote suggested that the first Olympiad (7 76 B.c.) should be taken as the starting-point of the history of Greece, in the proper sense of the term "history." At the present moment the tendency would seem to be to go back as far as the 3rd or 4th millennium B.C. in order to reach a start ing-point. The results of archaeological research during the last 5o years have produced this startling change in the attitude of historical science towards the problem. When Grote published the first volumes of his History of Greece (1846) archaeology was in its infancy. Its results, so far as they affected the earlier periods of Greek history, were scanty, and its methods were unscientific. The methods have been gradually perfected by numerous workers in the field ; but the results, which have so profoundly modified our conceptions of the early history of the Aegean area, are prin cipally due to the discoveries of two men, Heinrich Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans. A full account of these discoveries will be found elsewhere (see AEGEAN CIVILIZATION and CRETE) . Schlie mann's labours began with the excavations on the site of Troy in the years 187o-73. He passed on to the excavations at Mycenae in 1876 and to those at Tiryns in 1884. The discoveries of these years revealed to us the Mycenaean age, and carried back the history to the middle of the 2nd millennium. The discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans in the island of Crete belong to a later period. The work of excavation was begun in 1900, and was carried on in subsequent years. It has revealed to us the Minoan age, and enabled us to trace back the development and origins of the civilization for a further period of i,000 or 1,5oo years.
If, then, by "Greek history" is to be understood the history of the lands occupied in later times by the Greek race (i.e., the Greek peninsula and the Aegean basin), the beginnings of the history must be carried back some 2,000 years before Grote's proposed starting-point. If, however, "Greek history" is taken to mean the history of the Greek people, the de termination of the starting-point is far from easy. For archaeology does not as yet supply any certain answer to the question of race. Were the creators of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilization Greeks or were they not? In some degree the Minoan evidence has modified the answer suggested by the Mycenaean. The two chief difficulties in the way of attributing either the Minoan or the My cenaean civilization to an Hellenic people are connected respec tively with the script and the religion. The excavations at Cnossus have yielded thousands of tablets written in the linear script. There is also evidence that a script, although a different script, was in use among the Mycenaeans as well. If Greek was the language spoken at Cnossus and Mycenae, how is it that all attempts to de cipher the scripts have hitherto failed? The Cretan excavations, again, have taught us a great deal as to the religion of the Minoan age ; they have, at the same time, thrown a new light upon the evidence supplied by Mycenaean sites. It is no longer possible to ignore the contrast between the cults of the Minoan and My cenaean ages, and the religious conceptions which they imply, and the cults and religious conceptions prevalent in the historical period. On the other hand, the argument derived from Mycenaean art, in which we seem to trace a freedom of treatment which is akin to the spirit of later Greek art, and is in complete contrast to the spirit of Oriental art, has received striking confirmation from the remains of Minoan art. The decipherment of the scripts would at once solve the problem. We should at least know whether the dominant race in Crete in the Minoan age, or on the mainland of Greece in the Mycenaean age, spoke an Hellenic or a non-Hellenic dialect. In the meanwhile, possibly until the tablets are read, at any rate until further evidence is forthcoming, any answer that can be given to the question must necessarily be tentative and provisional. (See AEGEAN CIVILIZATION.) It has already been implied that this period of the history of Greece may be subdivided into a Minoan and a Mycenaean age. In the Mycenaean age itself, two periods must be distinguished; the earlier, to which belong the objects found in the shaft-graves, and the later, to which belong the beehive-tombs and the remains of the palaces. To this latter period belong also the palace at Tiryns, and the beehive-tombs discovered elsewhere on the main land of Greece, and one of the cities on the site of Troy. The pottery of this period is as characteristic of it, both in its forms (e.g., the "stirrup" or "false-necked" form of vase) and in its peculiar glaze, as is the architecture of the palaces and the bee hive-tombs. Although the chief remains have been found on the mainland of Greece itself, the art of this latter period is found to have extended as far north as Troy and as far east as Cy prus. On the other hand, hardly any traces of it have been discovered on the west coast of Asia Minor, south of the Troad. The earlier period of the Mycenaean age may be regarded as ex tending from 1600 to 140o B.C., and the later period as extending from 1400 to 1200 B.C., or even later. The Minoan age is of far wider extent. Its latest period corresponds to the earlier period of the Mycenaean age. This is the period called by Sir Arthur Evans "Late Minoan." To it belong the Great Palace at Cnossus and the linear system of writing. The "Middle Minoan" period, to which the earlier palace belongs, is characterized b; the pic tographic system of writing and by polychrome pottery of a peculiarly beautiful kind. Sir Arthur Evans proposes to carry back this period as far as 2 50o B.C. Even behind it there are traces of a still earlier civilization. Thus the Minoan age, even if limited to the middle and later periods, will cover at least a thousand years. More recent discoveries have proved that an art, hardly inferior in its way to the art of the classical period, and a civilization which implies the command of great material resources, were flourishing in the Aegean perhaps a thousand years before the siege of Troy.
the question, "What is the origin of this civilization? Is it of foreign derivation or of native growth?" it is not possible to give a direct answer. On the one hand, it was developed from a culture which was common to the whole Aegean basin and extended as far to the west as Sicily. On the other hand, foreign influences contributed largely to the process of de velopment. Egyptian influences, in particular, can be traced throughout the "Minoan" and "Mycenaean" periods. The devel oped art, however, both in Crete and on the mainland, displays characteristics which are the very opposite of those which are commonly associated with the term "oriental." Egyptian work, even of the best period, is stiff and conventional; in the best Cretan work, and, in a less degree, in Mycenaean work, we find an originality and a freedom of treatment which remind one of the spirit of the Greek artists. The civilization is, in many re spects, of an advanced type. The Cretan architects could design on a grand scale, and could carry out their designs with no small degree of mechanical skill. At Cnossus we find a system of drainage in use, which is far in advance of anything known in the modern world before the 1 gth century. The art of the Minoan age is hardly inferior to that of the age of Peisistratus. It is a civilization, too, which has long been familiar with the art of writing. But it belongs entirely to the Bronze Age. Iron is not found until the very end of the Mycenaean period, and then only in small quantities. Nor is this the only point of contrast between the culture of the earliest age and that of the historical period in Greece. The so-called Phoenician alphabet, in use among the later Greeks, is unknown in the earliest age. Its sys tems of writing, both the earlier and the later, are syllabic in character, and analogous to those in vogue in Asia Minor and Cyprus. In the art of war, the chariot is of more importance than the foot-soldier, and the latter, unlike the Greek hoplite, is lightly clad, and trusts to a shield large enough to cover the whole body, rather than to the metal helmet, breastplate and greaves of later times (see ARMS AND ARMOUR) . The political system appears to have been a despotic monarchy, and the realm of the monarch to have extended to far wider limits than those of the "city-states" of historical Greece. It is, perhaps, in the re ligious practices of the age, and in the ideas implied in them, that the contrast is most apparent. Neither in Crete nor on the mainland is there any trace of the worship of the "Olympian" deities. The cults in vogue remind us rather of Asia than of Greece. The worship of pillars and of trees carries us back to Canaan, while the double-headed axe, so prominent in the ritual of Cnossus, survives in later times as the symbol of the national deity of the Carians. The beehive-tombs, found on many sites on the mainland besides Mycenae, are evidence both of a method of sepulture and of ideas of the future state, which are alien to the practice and the thought of the Greeks of history.
