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 islands, Antiparos, Ios, Amorgos, Syros and Siphnos, were all found to be singularly rich in evidence of the middle-Aegean period. The series of Syran built graves, containing crouching corpses, is the best and most representative that is known in the Aegean. Melos, long marked as a source of early objects, but not systematically excavated until taken in hand by the British School at Athens in 1896, yielded at Phylakope remains of all the Aegean periods, except the Neolithic. A map of Cyprus in the later Bronze Age (such as is given by J. L. Myres and M. O. Richter in Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum) shows more than five-and-twenty settlements in and about the Mesaoréa district alone, of which one, that at Enkomi, near the site of Salamis, has yielded the richest Aegean treasure in precious metal found outside Mycenae. E. Chantre in 1894 picked up lustreless ware, like that of Hissarlik, in central Phrygia and at (q.v.), and the English archaeological expeditions, sent subsequently into north-western Anatolia, have never failed to bring back ceramic specimens of Aegean appearance from the valleys of the Rhyndacus, Sangarius and Halys. In Egypt in 1887 W. M. F. Petrie found painted sherds of Cretan style at Kahun in the Fayum, and farther up the Nile, at Tell el-Amarna, chanced on bits of no fewer than 800 Aegean vases in 1889. There have now been recognized in the collections at Cairo, Florence, London, Paris and Bologna several Egyptian imitations of the Aegean style which can be set off against the many debts which the centres of Aegean culture owed to Egypt. Two Aegean vases were found at Sidon in 1885, and many fragments of Aegean and especially Cypriote pottery have been turned up during recent excavations of sites in Philistia by the Palestine Fund. South-eastern Sicily, ever since P. Orsi excavated the Sicel cemetery near Lentini in 1877, has proved a mine of early remains, among which appear in regular succession Aegean fabrics and motives of decoration from the period of the second stratum at Hissarlik. Sardinia has Aegean sites, e.g. at Abini near Teti; and Spain has yielded objects recognized as Aegean from tombs near Cadiz and from Saragossa. One land, however, has eclipsed all others in the Aegean by the wealth of its remains of all the prehistoric ages, viz. Crete, so much so that, for the present, we must regard it as the fountain-head of Aegean civilization, and probably for long its political and social centre. The island first attracted the notice of archaeologists by the remarkable archaic Greek bronzes found in a cave on Mount Ida in 1885, as well as by epigraphic monuments such as the famous law of Gortyna; but the first undoubted Aegean remains reported from it were a few objects extracted from Cnossus by Minos Kalokhairinos of Candia in 1878. These were followed by certain discoveries made in the S. plain (Messará) by F. Halbherr. W. J. Stillman and H. Schliemann both made unsuccessful attempts at Cnossus, and A. J. Evans, coming on the scene in 1893, travelled in succeeding years about the island picking up trifles of unconsidered evidence, which gradually convinced him that greater things would eventually be found. He obtained enough to enable him to forecast the discovery of written characters, till then not suspected in Aegean civilization. The revolution of 1897–98 opened the door to wider knowledge, and much exploration has ensued, for which see. Thus the “Aegean Area” has now come to mean the Archipelago with Crete and Cyprus, the Hellenic peninsula with the Ionian isles, and Western Anatolia. Evidence is still wanting for the Macedonian and Thracian coasts. Offshoots are found in the W. Mediterranean, in Sicily, Italy, Sardinia and Spain, and in the E. in Syria and Egypt. About the Cyrenaica we are still insufficiently informed.

II. General Nature of the Evidence.—For details of monumental evidence the articles on, , , , , &c., must be consulted. The most representative site explored up to now is Cnossus (see, sect. Archaeology), which has yielded not only the most various but the most continuous evidence from the Neolithic age to the twilight of classical civilization. Next in importance come Hissarlik, Mycenae, Phaestus, Hagia, Triada, Tiryns, Phylakope, Palaikastro and Gournia.

A. The internal evidence at present available comprises—

(1) Structures.—Ruins of palaces, palatial villas, houses, built dome- or cist-graves and fortifications (Aegean isles, Greek mainland and N.W. Anatolia), but not distinct temples; small shrines, however, and temenê (religious enclosures, remains of one of which were probably found at Petsofa near Palaikastro by J. L. Myres in 1904) are represented on intaglios and frescoes. From the sources and from inlay-work we have also representations of palaces and houses.

(2) Structural Decoration.—Architectural features, such as columns, friezes and various mouldings; mural decoration, such as fresco-paintings, coloured reliefs and mosaic inlay.

(3) Furniture.—(a) Domestic, such as vessels of all sorts and in many materials, from huge store-jars down to tiny unguent-pots; culinary and other implements; thrones, seats, tables, &c., these all in stone or plastered terra-cotta. (b) Sacred, such as models or actual examples of ritual objects; of these we have also numerous pictorial representations. (c) Funerary, e.g. coffins in painted terra-cotta.

(4) Artistic fabrics, e.g. plastic objects, carved in stone or ivory, cast or beaten in metals (gold, silver, copper and bronze), or modelled in clay, faience, paste, &c. Very little trace has yet been found of large free sculpture, but many examples exist of sculptors' smaller work. Vases of all kinds, carved in marble or other stones, cast or beaten in metals or fashioned in clay, the latter in enormous number and variety, richly ornamented with coloured schemes, and sometimes bearing moulded decoration. Examples of painting on stone, opaque and transparent. Engraved objects in great number, e.g. ring-bezels and gems; and an immense quantity of clay impressions, taken from these.

(5) Weapons, tools and implements, in stone, clay and bronze, and at the last iron, sometimes richly ornamented or inlaid. Numerous representations also of the same. No actual body-armour, except such as was ceremonial and buried with the dead, like the gold breastplates in the circle-graves at Mycenae.

(6) Articles of personal use, e.g. brooches (fibulae), pins, razors, tweezers, &c., often found as dedications to a deity, e.g. in the Dictaean Cavern of Crete. No textiles have survived.

(7) Written documents, e.g. clay tablets and discs (so far in Crete only), but nothing of more perishable nature, such as skin, papyrus, &c.; engraved gems and gem impressions; legends written with pigment on pottery (rare); characters incised on stone or pottery. These show two main systems of script (see ).

(8) Excavated tombs, of either the pit or the grotto kind, in which the dead were laid, together with various objects of use and luxury, without cremation, and in either coffins or loculi or simple wrappings.

(9) Public works, such as paved and stepped roadways, bridges, systems of drainage, &c.

B. There is also a certain amount of external evidence to be gathered from—

(1) Monuments and records of other contemporary civilizations, e.g. representations of alien peoples in Egyptian frescoes; imitation of Aegean fabrics and style in non-Aegean lands; allusions to Mediterranean peoples in Egyptian, Semitic or Babylonian records.

(2) Literary traditions of subsequent civilizations, especially the Hellenic; such as, e.g., those embodied in the Homeric poems, the legends concerning Crete, Mycenae, &c.; statements as to the origin of gods, cults and so forth, transmitted to us by Hellenic antiquarians such as Strabo, Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, &c.

(3) Traces of customs, creeds, rituals, &c., in the Aegean area at a later time, discordant with the civilization in which they were practised and indicating survival from earlier systems. There are also possible linguistic and even physical survivals to be considered.

III. General Features of Aegean Civilization.—The leading features of Aegean civilization, as deduced from the evidence, must be stated very briefly.