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 Anavlochus, Erganos), Cyprus, Egypt, Sicily, Italy.

Of Mycenaean pottery we distinguish two main types: the older dull type, ornamented with linear decorations—e. g., spirals, parallels, circles, curved and straight lines—painted in dark red, violet, brown, but sometimes white; the later lustrous type, adorned with geometric patterns, bands, spirals, but more generally with scenes from marine life—e. g., the starfish, the cuttlefish, seaweed, etc.—sometimes with birds, and later with animals and men, brilliantly glazed in red, brown, and less frequently in white.

The discoveries now being made in Crete seem to point to that island as the home of the Mycenaean cultus. The prestige of Mycenae may have followed the decline of Cretan supremacy. At any rate, 2000 B.C. is not too early a date at which to place the most flourishing period of this civilization in Crete, for Mycenaean remains have been found in Thera buried under volcanic débris of an eruption of about 1800 B.C. Legends of a vast Cretan empire are probably reminiscences of that mighty maritime nation, once supreme on Mediterranean waters.