Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/38

 2 6 Presidential Address.

that the spiral decoration at New Grange reproduces fornns of ornament prevailing in the.Minoan, Mycenaean, and pre- dynastic period of Egypt. The first influences from the Mediterranean area, having penetrated into the north of Europe by the Atlantic sea-route, probably reached the Baltic, and passed thence through Scandinavia to Ireland at the end of the neolithic period and in the beginning of the Bronze Age.^^

Hut, while transmission of culture may be established by many other instances of the same kind, we are, I venture to think, at present unable to formulate a general law which will account for all the facts. There are cases where such transmission, though antecedently probable, seems not to have occurred.

The Minoan Empire, through its control of the sea- power of the eastern Mediterranean, must have been in close contact with Egypt. But, though it assimilated some material culture and imported pottery and other works of art, the hints and ideas which it received were recast in its own mould, and in relation to the implements of the Bronze Age it was quite independent. In the sphere of religion Crete seems to have been untouched by Egyptian influences. ^^ The great Minoan Mother goddess, with her doves and snakes, the shrines with tree, pillar, and axe worship, pre- sent little or no analogy to the complex polytheism of Egypt. Again, there is no trace of connection between the megalithic builders in Malta and the civilisation of the Aegean.^^ The case of the Phoenicians, mere huckstering traders, who followed sea ways long before opened by others, is similar. They exercised as little influence on the religious as on the artistic side of Greek culture.^''

"^"^ New Graiii^e ( Bni^li iia Boinne ) and other huistd Tumuli in Ireland, pp. 68-9.

^* D. G. Hogarth, Ionia and the East, pp. 92 et seq.
 * ^C. H. and II. B. Hawes, Crete the Forerunner of Greece, pp. '})% et seq.
 * ^ T. E. Peet, Rough Stone Monttvien's and their Builders, p. 131.