Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-07-28
FURTHER DISCOVERIES AT cNossrs.
King MinOs' Palace Full of Archaeo-
logical Treasures.
From the Atiienaeum.

! From the Atienaeum.
The last week of excavation in the Palace
of Cnossus has produced a discovery equal
| to that of the Mycenaean archives. The in
| scriptions above referred to, of which more
| than thousand have Now come to light,
are written in linear and highly developed
script. with only occasional resort to more
pictorial forms. But as a previous study
of the seal stones of eastern Crete had al
ready made clear to me. there existed in the
island from very remote period another
form of writing. of Photographic kind.
and in its general aspect recalling Egyptian
heroglyphics. Hitherto these characters
had been only known to from seals,
mostly Of prsm-like form of three or four
sides. and the evidence was naturally linn
tied though the methodcal recurrence of
| groups of signs in the same colocation SUI
fciently showed that one had here to do
! with a kind of writing and not with mere
aimless parody of Egyptian or Hittite
forms. But if any doubt still exists on the
subject it must be set at rest forever by
the evidence supplied from 1.-THE Palace
| of Minos.''
AT the northern end of long corridor
of the building. giving access to a sugses-
ton of magazines. themselves of extraordi-
| nary interest was opened a narrow oblong
chamber, which contained deposit of clay
tablets of altogether different forms from
| those exhibiting the linear script. and in
/
identical with that of the prism seals. The
| tablets themselves in this case take a va
| r1ety OF shapes. Some are short four-sided
bars of clay, perforated at one end. in one
case three-sided example of the same
| type occurred. Others take form recalling
that of scallop shell with hole bored
through at the point answering to the valve
Others. again, of crescent shape
roughly triangular in section. so that they
present three surfaces, and perforated
along their major axis. This last class is OF
special interest from the fact that in most
cases they also contain on one side two or
more seal impressions. generally made by
prism seals of the kind already referred to-
and engraved with groups Of Photographic
signs belonging to the same system as the
! inscriptions on the tablets themselves.
Although the word Photographic or
hieroglyphic" may be used to distinguish
! these tablets from the linear class it must
| be understood that they also contain a pro-
| portion of signs as purely linear as any of
| the other category. 1t is also a noteworthy
fact that the written forms assume in many
cases much more alphabetic character
than their glyptic equivalents as seen on the
seal stones. We see, in fact, before us a
distinct step in the evolution of writing out
OF mere pictorial signs. As in the linear
class. the presence of numerals is clearly
marked.
Very interesting questions suggest them
selves as to the exact relation of this Gre
tan hieroglyphic script to the linear class
| TO which the great mass of the inscriptions
found in the Cnossian palace belong Here
at least, the tablets of hieroglyphic type APP
pear as purely isolated phenomenon and
are practically confined to a single deposit.
On the other hand, the Photographic seals
with which this latter form of script is
connected are. as far as my own experience
goes. almost wholly confined to the eastern
or Dictaean provinces of Crete and are
| most abundant in the easternmost region of
all-that Of Steis, the center of which was
| the great Eteocretan stronghold of Praesos
1t therefore looks as if the particular cham
Der of the palace in which this new class of
| tablets was discovered contained records of
tribute or other matters relating to the
| Mycenaean cities of eastern Crete which
| very probably stood in a subject relation TO
| the city of Minos. The men who inscribed
| these records We're the ancestors of the true
Eteocretan stock of that region who as is
| known from the Praesian Inscription, pre-
| served their language TO at least the end of
| the sixth century b. C. The prism seals
| themselves are of types that go back on
! Cretan soil to a period long antecedent to
| that of the, Mycenaean civilization and as
| l have elsewhere shown from evidence at
| that time, far less complete than ii is now
the conventionalized Photographed or HER
| oglyphic script of Crete largely de-
| veloped out of earlier forms traceable on
| the more primitive seal stones of the island
| Everything, in short tends TO show that
| this form of script that in use among
| the ancient Indigenous stock of Crete-the
true Eteocretans of the Odyssey.
The coeXiStence. then. among the archives
| of the Palace of Cnossus of this autoch-
thonous system with another of independ-
emit character must he regarded as a strong
piece of evidence that the dominant My
cenaean race in Cnossus belonged to an
other stock than the Eteocretan The lin
| ear system of the true ''MinOan'' archives
has indeed certain points of correspondence
with the East-Cretan. and certain proper
ton of signs are practically Identical But
1t stands on a far higher level of develop
ment and is probably .'Mycenaean'' in a
| far wider sense than the other.
| There are indications that the deposit of
ia hn ind tyara
| glyphic class dates from the latest DAYS of
the palace and the close of the Mycenaean
| period. which at Cnossus was marked by an
| overwhelming catastrophe and a subsequent
| complete abandonment of the palace site
| Some of the Impressions of seals of nom
| Photographic character found with these
tablets show curious and hitherto unknown
| developments of Mycenaean style. also IL
| Illustrated by some of the frescoes, of which
! an unparalleled series has now come to
| light. The style is less bold. somewhat de-
| cadent. but in many respects curiously mod
| ern. Among the seal impressions found I'm
the chamber of the Photographic tablets
some present for the first time male heads
| apparently intended for portrats-an en-
| tirely new departure in Mycenaean art
| The last part of my this seasons work in
| the Palace of CnoSSuS has been also signal
| lied by the discovery of the largest deposit
| of tablets OF the ordinary linear type vet
| brought to light. They appear to have been
contained in gypsum chest, and near to
the fragments of this were found the re-
| painted gesso duro. The head is perfect
| and is unquestionably the finest plastic
work of Mycenaean age that has come down
| to our times The clay seals found with
! this deposit of tablets also point to the best
| period of art. One represents a shin an
| other two walking oxen on an intaglio
| larger than any known example. which may
| well have been royal signet. The seal i'm
pressions. like those found with the Golfers
| containing the former deposits of tablets.
are, for the most part, signed and counter
| signed with incised characters in the Ny
cenaean script. Several of the tablets here
| found are Of a larger size than any vet
brought to light and may be described as
small octave. Nothing strikes one in some
of these so much as the elegance of the let
ter forms, which has hardly been excelled
by any form of later writing