The object aimed at in the following pages has been to offer to the general reader a plain account of the wonderful investigations which have revolutionized all ideas as to the antiquity and the level of the earliest European culture, and to endeavour to make intelligible the bearing and significance of the results of these investigations. In the hope that the extraordinary resurrection of the first European civilization may appeal to a more extended constituency than that of professed students

THE LEGENDS The resurrection of the prehistoric age of Greece, and the disclosure of the astonishing standard of civilization which had been attained on the mainland and in the isles of the Ægean at a period at least 2,000 years earlier than that at which Greek history, as hitherto understood, begins, may be reckoned as among the most interesting results of modern research into the relics of the life of past ages. The present generation has witnessed remarkable discoveries in Mesopotamia and in

THE HOMERIC CIVILIZATION Between the Greece of such legends as those which we have been considering and the Greece of the earliest historic period there has always been a great gulf of darkness. On the one side a land of seemingly fabulous Kings and heroes and monsters, of fabulous palaces and cities; on the other side. Greece as we know it in the infant stages of its development, with a totally different state of society, a totally different organization and culture; and in the interval no one

SCHLIEMANN AND HIS WORK The man whose labours were to give a new impetus to the study of Greek origins, and to be the beginning of the revelation of an unknown world of ancient days, was born on January 6, 1822, at Neu Buckow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He was the son of a clergyman who himself had a deep love for the great tales of antiquity, for his son has told how his father used often vividly to narrate the stories of the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and of the Trojan War. When Schl

THE PALACE OF 'BROAD KNOSSOS' In the revival of interest in the origins of Greek civilization it was manifest that Crete could not long be left out of account, for the traditions of Minos and his laws, and of the wonderful works of Dædalus, pointed clearly to the fact that the great island must have been an early seat of learning and art. Most of these traditions clustered round Knossos, the famous capital of Minos, where once stood the Labyrinth, and near to which was Mount Juktas, the traditio

THE PALACE OF 'BROAD KNOSSOS' ( continued ) The discoveries of 1900, important as they were, were evidently far from having exhausted the hidden treasures of the House of Minos; but even the explorer himself, who spoke of his task as being 'barely half completed' by the first year's work, had no conception of the magnitude of the task which yet lay before him, or of the richness of the results which it was destined to produce. The early work in the second year led to a further disclosure of the

PHÆSTOS, HAGIA TRIADA, AND EASTERN CRETE We have followed the fortunes of the excavations at Knossos in considerable detail, not only as being the most important, but as illustrating also in the fullest manner the legendary and religious history of Crete. But they are very far from being the only important investigations which have been carried on in the island, and it may even be said that, had Knossos never been excavated, it would still have been possible, from the results of the excavations

CRETE AND EGYPT The question of the relationship between the Minoan civilization and the other great civilizations of the ancient world, particularly those of Babylonia and Egypt, is not only of great intrinsic interest, but also of very considerable importance to the attempt at a reconstruction of the outlines of Minoan history and chronology. For it is only by means of synchronisms with the more or less satisfactorily, established chronology of one or other of these kingdoms that even the most

THE DESTROYERS The Empire of the Sea-Kings had not been immune from disaster and defeat any more than any other great Empire of the ancient world. The times of conquest and triumph, when Knossos exacted its human tribute from the vanquished states, Megara or Athens, or from its own far-spread dependencies, had occasionally been broken by periods when victory left its banners, and when the indignities it had inflicted on other states were retaliated on itself. Once at least in the long history of

THE PERIODS OF MINOAN CULTURE We must now endeavour to form some idea of the various periods into which the long enduring culture of the Minoan Empire more or less naturally falls, and to note some of the characteristic features of each period. The chief aid in the formation of such an idea is given by the remains of the pottery which have survived from each period, and it is largely from the classification of the pottery at Knossos and other sites that the scheme adopted by Dr. Evans and other

LIFE UNDER THE SEA-KINGS What manner of men were the people who developed the Bronze Age civilization of Crete? Can we form any idea of their physical characteristics, of their homes and social conditions, of the general aspect of their daily life, and of the occupations in which they were engaged? Such questions can only be answered more or less generally in the absence of written material, or, rather, in our lack of understanding of the written material that exists; but, still, a considerable

LETTERS AND RELIGION Of all the discoveries yet made on Cretan soil, that which, in the end, will doubtless prove to be of the greatest importance is the discovery of the various systems of writing which the Minoans successively devised and used. As yet knowledge with regard to these systems has not advanced beyond the description of the materials and their comparison with those furnished by other scripts, a task which has so far been accomplished by Dr. Evans in the first volume of his 'Scripta

Prior to 1580 B.C. the dates in the summary must be regarded as merely provisional, and the margin of possible error is wide. The tendency on the part of the Cretan explorers has been to accept in the main the Berlin system of Egyptian dating in preference to that advocated by Professor Flinders Petrie ('Researches in Sinai,' pp. 163-185), on the ground that the development of the Minoan culture can scarcely have required so long a period as that given by the Sinai dating. It must be remembered,

In the following short list will be found the volumes on the Minoan and Mycenæan civilizations which are most accessible to the ordinary reader: Annual of the British School at Athens , vols. vi.- . (Reports of excavations by Evans, Hogarth, and others, and many articles of interest on the results of discovery. Well illustrated.) Journal of Hellenic Studies , vols. xx.- . (Articles by Evans, Hall, Mackenzie, Rouse, and others. Admirable illustrations.) BROWNE, H.: Homeric Study . (Relations of H

TRANSLATIONS OF THE PHÆSTOS DISK Two translations of the Phæstos disk have been put forward. The first is by Professor George Hempl, of Stanford University, U.S.A., and appeared in Harper's Magazine for January, 1911, under the title, 'The Solving of an Ancient Riddle.' The second, by Miss F. Melian Stawell, of Newnham College, appeared in the Burlington Magazine of April, 1911, under the title, 'An Interpretation of the Phaistos Disk.' Both are characterized by considerable ingenuity; but the t