Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/469

 442 pRLMiTiVE Grekce : Mycenian Art. bring to mind the pithoi from Troy and Tiryns (Fig. 171). Their sole evidence, however, would be insufficient to date the building with which they are associated, for they belong to a class of wares whose shape and decoration were repeated with hardly a change from age to age. More certain data is supplied by vases of smaller dimensions, whose potting and decoration, however, have been better attended to ; not a few are entire, others in a fragmental condition ; but all are instinct with the characteristics peculiar to genuine Mycenian pottery. Nor is this all. M. Stillmann was the first to notice and copy scratchings on several stones still in position (Fig. 172). Many of these are undoubtedly trade-marks ; but two at least bear a striking resemblance to signs of the Cypriote alphabet, and those that have come from the burnt city of Troy.^ Our indications relating to these signs daily increase, and tend to prove that this system was current over ffi-E*XB Fig. 172. — Cnosus. Trade-marks. , every coast-line of the i^i^gean, ere it was superseded — except in Cyprus, where it was retained — by the Phoenician script.- Should the resemblance between the two sets of signs turn out to be something more than purely accidental, it would furnish additional evidence as to the correspondence which forms the subject- matter of our discussion. If we have dealt at some length with the excavation made at Cnosus, it is because it has cleared a building of great size, and to all appearance contemporary with the Cretan Thalassocracy. Since the timid spade of a dilettante has achieved so much, what might not be done by a well- organized and exhaustive exploration of the soil ? Meanwhile, we had hoped that the French School at Athens would have assumed the responsibility of an undertaking that promises so well ;^ for with scarcely any expenditure of labour, the island has ^ History of Art, - The place where these incised lines occur is indicated by the letter a in Fig. 170. ^ M. Homolle, in 189 1-1892, sent M. Joubin, a member of the School, on an exploration journey in Crete; but the exorbitant demands of the landowners