Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/157

Rh bills and business documents written in cuneiform (wedge-writing), on clay tablets (Fig. 37). They therefore began to write the Babylonian cuneiform also. Their capital in central Asia Minor (Fig. 59), recently excavated, has furnished great numbers of such clay tablets, but they cannot yet be read. When they have been deciphered we shall learn many of the secrets of this great world of Asia Minor, which links the Ægean with the Asiatic Orient.

As Asia Minor was the link between the Ægean on the west and the Euphrates world on the east, so Crete was the link between Egypt on the South and the Ægean Sea on the north. This large island lies so far out in the Mediterranean that one is almost in doubt whether it belongs to Europe or Africa. Even in ancient ships the mariners issuing from the mouths of the Nile and steering northwestward would sight the Cretan mountains in a few days. Excavations in this island since 1900 have uncovered the ruins of palace after palace and revealed a new chapter in the story of the ancient world.

For a thousand years after Crete had received copper her people showed but little sign of progress. While the great pyramids of Egypt were being built (p. 29), the Cretan craftsman