THE MINOANS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18885, 6 December 1924, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MINOANS.

A FORGOTTEN CIVILISATION.

BY MONA GOEDON.

No. I.

How often in our childhood have wo sighed. "If only fairy tales came true," and they never did; but here in the 20th century fairy tales are coming true every day. And perhaps the most wonderful of all are brought about, not by tho wizard and his wand, but by the archaeologist and his spade.

) Only a few years ago we smiled at I legends of the terrible Minotaur and of - King Minos, " the bosom friend of mighty i Zeus," who kept him in the gloomy i depths of the labyrinth. We smiled when we read how Theseus slew the monster . and rid Athens of her tribute of youths . and maidens, the destined prey of the hull r of Crete. We smiled at many other » things, not to mention Daedalus and his , wings. t - But now within the last 20 years or so . the magician, in the person of Sir Arthur Evans, has made those "impossible" <- fairy legends come true by finding a solid 1 historical basis for their existence behind 1 the veil of nearly 4000 years. Trailing I their broken wings those* mythical tales , came down to us through all those ages, and at last wo recognise in the Minoan ' civilisation of Crete— oldest in Europe I —a fact more wonderful than any which ; fancy has woven. Four Thousand Years Ago. 1 Imagine a great palace gleaming white . in the Sunshine, with broad stairways, courtyards, and labyrinthine passages, and ' most wonderful of all, perhaps, an underground system of drainage as perfect as any construction of modern engineers ! It is the great palace of Knossos, which was > budt and burnt and rebuilt all before , 1400 8.C., because at about that date Knossos was raided and sacked by the Achaeans, tho ancestors of those same 1 Achaeans whose doings at Troy Homer im- > mortalised in the Iliad. > It is almost impossible to realise a , European civilisation which carries us . back so far, at least 4000 years, for we, who have been accustomed "to regard the ; siege of Troy and the Mycenaean Age as . „he beginning of things, have now to cast . our minds back into a hitherto undreamed . of; time, when men wrote and thought , and built, and women wore shady hats ( and crinolines ere ever Helen of Troy fled , from Sparta! It is an amazing, an almost incredible, field of wonder and , beauty which the discovery of this so- ( called "Minoan" civilisation has opened , up, and in this and a further article I shall endeavour to paint a picture of the life and art of these very modern ancients, the Minoans. ; __ Legend made Crete the birthplace of ; Zeus, and King Minos was said to have received a code of laws from his divine father on the top of Mount Dicte, exactly like Moses received the Ten Commandments on Sinai. Legends wove round the ' name of Minos the wonderful Minotaur story and connected him with a great palace and with his artificer, Daedalus, ' whom he is said to have pursued to Sicily after the latter's famous flight. It presupposed; the existence of a great Cretan empire, with command of the sea, and a capital at Knossos, which was overrun by "strangers" after the departure of Minos for Sicily, from which he never returned. Out of this tangled skein of fancy tho recent excavations have unravelled many elements of truth, and woven together its broken strands into at least an historical, though imperfect, reconstruction of a civilisation which hitherto only existed in tho fabled world of myth. The Palace of Knossos. In the first place "Minos" is proved to have been a dynastic name, as "Pharoah" was in Egypt; and from this and also from the fact that "Minoa" was a favourite pJace-name for , Cretan trading ports in the Mediterranean (it was formerly a name for the Philistine Gath) the whole civilisation of the Cretan Bronze Age 'was named "Minoan," Its two chief centres were at Knossos and Phaestos, where excavations of the two great Minoan palaces have been made, the latter by the Italians and the former by our own keen archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, owing to whose tireless energy wo owe the rescue from oblivion of the greater glories of ancient Crete. In the palace of Knossos .he recognised the labyrinth of legend, connecting the world with j "labrys, the double axe," a cult object in Cretan religion, from the great Hall of the Double Axes. Others more reasonably connect it with " laura," a passage; and if ever there was "a place of passages" it is Knossos. .Built against the side of a hill' inhabited from the earliest age of man, with its great courtyard and many bewildering passages, corridors and stairways, it is no wonder that the excavators are assured .that they are working on the site of the labyrinth itself. Two years ago. "the opening of an artificial cave" was discovered, "with three roughly-cut steps leading down to what can only bo described as a lair adapted for somo great beast. But here it is better for imagination to draw rein," though we are now nearer to the Minotaur than any preceding age. For it is an established fact that the ancient Cretans were a seafaring people, that they possessed a fleet, and were no doubt the most powerful nation in the JEge&n. Athens would most likely owe tribute to such a highly-civilised and powerful peoplo, and the tribute, the .seven Athenian youths and maidens of the Theseus legend, might be used as victims in the Minoan bullring, for bull-baiting has been revealed in many frescoes as the favourite national sport. Ruins Uncovered. But to return to the palace itself. Modern research has revealed that here are the ruins of three palaces, the earliest of which dates back to about 2000 8.C., and the latest must have been destroyed somewhere about 1400 B.C. The exterior was of stone covered with white plaster, and within we have the remnants of such wonderful art and architecture as make us blush for our own achievements over 3000 years afterwards. Built round a wide central court, with the greater number of rooms and corridors massed in the east and west wings, and in some place's extending to throo storeys, wo can imagine what tho task of reconstruction and restoration must be on a site over which barbarian hordes, earthquake and firo onco poured their wreck and ruin, and the slow accumulations of centuries have woven their silent spell. But tho tireless excavator is undaunted by a' chaos of crumbling debris here, a broken wall there, a congested mass of two and three storeys flung regardlessly together, or a heap of broken pottery from whose fragile shells he tries to piece togethor tho delicate cup or lovely vase which once delighted Minoan eyes. Yet, in tho face of such things. Sir Arthur has persevered, and brought to light such treasures as the Cupbearor fresco, the Throne of Minos, the Hall of the Double Axes, the Queen's Mogaion with its luxurious decorations and realistic wall-paintings, besides numerous clay tablets covered with Minoan script, and priceless works of art in pottery, ivory and seal stones. Not far from the palace was the Little Palace, a smaller building, connected with the former by "the oldest paved road in Europe," and near this road the ruins of a small theatre, consisting of a platform surrounded by its tiers of seats. But perhaps the most amazing fact about N Knossos was the construction of its water supply and drainage system, de- ; scribed as "absolutely modern." In those ancient. Minoan terracotta pipes, their sides coated with cement, some of them 1 working in rainy weather as perfectly as they did nearly 4000 years sgo, we realise, porhaps, that the world us it grows older 1 but rcdiscovors its wisdom. i